All posts tagged free will
I'm not always wearing my full habit...
Any really outrageous human action tests to the limit our careful theological principles about God’s refusal to interfere with created freedom.
—Rowan Williams, Writing in the Dust (via beingblog)
No matter how good or bad the Most Reverend Rowan Williams has been in his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, his scholarship is always excellent.
The key part to this little quotation is that it’s our idea that God does not interfere with freedom. And God may not. We won’t know — we can’t know — until we cross the veil. Free will vs. God acting in Creation is on my list of Top 10 questions for God, maybe even in the top three.
(Source: invisibleforeigner, via beingblog)
There is in many parents a striving to control their children, and to make of them, if not precisely automata, yet beings as fully subordinate to the will of their procreator as the characters of a novelist are to their creator. On the other hand, there is in the human creator [God] a parallel desire to create something that shall have as much free will as the offspring of procreation.
Dorothy Sayers, in Mind of the Maker
This comes in a chapter that contrasts free will with miracle, through the metaphor of an author or playwright. Although I did not get all of her references to literary works, it was thought-provoking and worth the time to read.
“So according to Ronnie’s logic… If we don’t accept the grace of god into our lives, we’ll eventually become psycho redneck racists.”
So that’s why we need God. I see.
(Thanks http://bretthatkameras.tumblr.com/)
Undercover Nun is a believer, and this is every bit as disgusting and offensive to Christians as it is to atheists, agnostics, and believers in other traditions.
Yes, I will pray for this man, as part of praying for those in prison, for those who commit acts of hate, for those who are my enemies. I pray that he will find forgiveness from God, because it’s going to be pretty hard for him to find forgiveness here. God’s grace — which is unearned and undeserved, because it is unearnable and undeservable — is what makes both this vile man and me eligible for forgiveness, but it has no bearing whatsoever on our actions.
One element of God’s grace is that each one of us has the freedom to choose our actions; God knows we are capable of treating each other abominably, whether we believe in God or not. God does not force Godself on us; God does not force any manner of behavior on us, even though this means tacitly allowing us to treat each other abominably.
It’s not that God’s grace prevents us from vile behavior. Rather, it is that God’s grace promises that no matter how vilely we behave in this world, we are still eligible for forgiveness and love in the next.
(via asdfjlaskjdflksjdflk)
тијана: Militant atheism
The terms militant atheism and militant atheist are designations applied to atheists who are, or are perceived to be, hostile towards religion. The term has been used going back to at least 1894 and it has been applied to people from Thomas Hobbes onwards. It had a specific application within the materialism of Marxism–Leninism, and in the early years of the Soviet Union, and more recently the term has been used, frequently pejoratively, to describe atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.
Julian Baggini defines militant atheism as “Atheism which is actively hostile to religion”, which “requires more than strong disagreement with religion — it requires something verging on hatred and is characterised by a desire to wipe out all forms of religious belief. Militant atheists tend to make one or both of two claims that moderate atheists do not. The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.i wouldn’t ever go as far as to say that i am at all actively hostile towards religion, nor do i have any desire to eliminate religion (though i do believe that would improve things exponentially). but the last sentence is resonating with me.
The first is that religion is demonstrably false or nonsense and the second is that it is usually or always harmful.
i think it’s quite rude of me to express openly that i think religion is false/nonsense (even though i certainly do), but i wholeheartedly agree that it is usually or always harmful. globally, it’s by far one of the biggest incentives for violence, ignorance and hate. duh.
Undercover Nun always saddened when I hear it said that religion is usually or always harmful, and the source of most or all wars. In fact, religion has brought many great goods into the world, but we humans do tend to weigh tremendous evil more heavily than tremendous good.
It is not religion itself that is harmful. It is people who have a pathology, who have deep-seated fears, control issues, feelings of powerlessness (etc.) that lead them to abuse others. Religion is used by these people as a tool, just as abusers and bullies use politics, laws, rules, and even social customs as tools to put others down and to keep them down.
But this is a perversion of religion. Religion is our experience of the sublime, of the divine, of that which is beyond us. It goes by many names, with many stories and legends and myths, with strong or weak doctrine. Religion itself does not harm people, but religion in the hands of a bully is used to harm others.
I grieve for everyone who has been harmed by religion, especially by my beloved Christianity, and I’ve long felt a specific call to those who have been damaged by the church and/or who are hostile toward the church. I want to gather them in my arms, hold them while they cry out their pain, and whisper to them, This was not of God. What was done to you was abuse, and it was done by a bully who is very sick on the inside. And for every loud, obnoxious bully in the church, there are a dozen faithful and loving Christians who go quietly about living their faith, never showing up on television or in the news because they don’t think it’s anything special — it’s just what they do, who they are. I promise you, this is not God’s church. I love you, and I will hold you in the Light.
Fundamentally, I believe all bullying and abuse to be expressions of fear. And fear is the opposite of faith — the rejection of faith. Faith is a choice, made continually every day. Faith is work, it is the conscious turning toward the Divine whenever we notice we’re facing another way. But fear — fear is a choice, too. Fear is the conscious turning away from the Holy One, turning our backs and squinting our eyes tightly shut and sticking our fingers in our ears to sing the “La la la, I can’t hear you!” song.
So truly, religion is not the root of bullying, abuse, terrorism, war, genocide. No, the root of these is fear, which is actually a rejection of religion, even when one appears to be embracing religion to promote these harms and insults to the world. Were there no religions for fearful people to wield against us, they would find other weapons.
Of course God knows what will happen if we use our freedom the wrong way. Apparently He thinks it’s worth the risk.
C. S. Lewis, quoted by @CSLewisDaily
This is what I was talking about a couple days ago, when I said that faith is our deliberate choice. God gives us the freedom to choose, knowing that we can — and often do — make bad choices. But God trusts in us. God chooses to believe in us; God chooses to have faith in us, because God loves us. God lives in relationship with us, knowing from the outset that we will disappoint God. And yet, God pours out God’s perfect love, filling us to overflowing, so that we need never feel alone or apart from God.
We have the freedom and ability to choose not-God. God knows this, and gives us this freedom anyway. Faith in God (or gods or a different god or no god) is a choice, has always been a choice, and will always be a choice.
What faith do you choose?
Faith is a choice
In response to my post about faith as an intentional choice, I got this question:
I’m pretty sure I understand what you’re saying here. But, don’t Christians believe, and doesn’t the Bible say that faith is itself a gift from God, granted to his children? (I think your point is all the acts and decisions that come afterward…)
I find only one place in the New Testament that talks about faith as a gift from God, and this is in the list of spiritual gifts that is found in 1 Corinthians. However — as is true for any scriptural passage — it is important to read this statement in its context. The first letter to the Christians in Corinth is a pastoral letter to a fractious, divided community where some claim precedence over others because they have gifts that they consider to be more important than others. Paul gives a brief list of some (not all) spiritual gifts, where the gift of faith is best interpreted as a particular type and depth of faith that is required to work a miracle.
Clearly, this is a gift that is active in a very small minority of persons of any faith tradition. For the majority of us, we stumble day by day into and through our faith. We do our best, especially here in the United States, to remember for 24 hours that we believe in God. It’s even harder to remember what a profoundly counter-cultural, upside-down, difficult faith Christianity is to practice, and few of us manage to truly practice Christianity two days in a row.
My former rector has the core of a sermon that he uses for most weddings. Part of this core wedding sermon is a reminder that after the ceremony, after the honeymoon, after all the gifts are unwrapped and the thank-you notes written, each person in the couple wakes up in the morning, day after day. He tells the couple and the congregation that each morning they should wake up and think — before anything else — “I’m married!” This is because marriage is a intentional relationship, and we choose every day (every hour, every minute) to be married to our partner. The truth of the matter is, we can choose not to be married to our partner, and a separation or divorce usually happens years after this choice gets made.
Our relationship with God is similar. And this priest uses the same language when he prepares new Christians (or the parents or godparents of brand new little persons) for baptism: each morning, you should wake up and think, before anything else, “I’m a Christian!” I’m a Christian! Today I am in relationship with God! Yesterday may have been different, and tomorrow may be different, but today, I choose to be a Christian! He is right. Just as we choose every day to be married to our partner (or not), we choose every day to be in relationship with God (or not).
Relationship is the key to the entire story of God and God’s people. From Genesis to Revelation, from the first century to the twenty-first, all of Judaism and Christianity is about relationship. The story goes like this: God chooses to be in relationship with each one of us. Because God makes this choice, lavishing us with God’s perfect love, we are able to choose relationship with God. When we choose to be in relationship with God, to accept that overflowing love, we are able to live in relationship with each other, to pour out God’s love onto other persons. The entirety of Hebrew and Christian scripture points to this truth.
Christianity is not a religion of right belief or right behavior; Christianity is a religion of right relationship. And God has given us the ability, through free will, to choose who we will live in relationship with (including God) and what kind of relationship that will be. We can choose to hate God, we can choose to love God, we can choose to ignore God. We can even choose to refuse to recognize the very possibility that any god can exist. Free will is a gift from God, and this is the gift that allows us to choose whether to have faith or not.
So no, my point is not that we are able to choose the things that come after the gift of faith. Instead, my point is that because we are given the gift of free will, we are able to choose where to place our faith (with ourselves, with God, with Allah, with Zeus, with Nature, with money, with the government, with humanity, or with nothing at all) and what kind of faith that will be. And not only are we able to choose, but we must choose. We are not born having faith in anything. We learn about faith, we learn how to have faith. We have faith in our parents not because this is inborn and intrinsic, but because they take care of us. An infant separated from other humans will not develop this faith, will not learn it.
Of course President Obama chose to be a Christian. That’s how Christians come to be, by deliberate and intentional choice. If you did not choose to be a Christian, then how did you become one? Truly, every person has the ability and the opportunity to choose Christianity — or something else — on a moment-by-moment basis. Tomorrow you could wake up and say, “I want to be a Muslim!” And you could set about learning how to become a Muslim, because of that choice.
All because God has graced each person with freedom of will. God gives us the ability to choose relationship with God or to reject it. God never forces. God offers. God pleads. God even weeps. But God always gives us the freedom and ability to choose.
Thanks be to God!
“I’m a Christian by choice.”
President Obama spoke these words a few days ago, and I even quoted them here on my tumblr. He made a great statement on his faith, and I encourage you to read it.
These five words, though, really sang out to me, and I knew as soon as I pasted the quotation into the dashboard that I was going to need to say something more about them. The thing is, faith is always a choice. If you’re a Christian, then you are a Christian by choice. Christians are not born; Christians are made. This is why a sacramental rebirth becomes so important, so that we have a way to say, “Here! Here and now, I choose to be a Christian! Today, in this place! I choose Christ!”
Many people think of faith in the same way they think of happiness or sadness, that it’s a vague feeling that just sort of happens to us. We’re either given great faith or not, but we really don’t have any control over it. These people are wrong.
Faith is a verb. Faith is a deliberate, intentional choice. Faith is using your mind and your heart and your body and your soul, integrating the knowledge that you’ve gained from every part of your self, and choosing what to believe. We don’t need faith for ideas like The earth revolves around the sun or Water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom or even There is actual cheese in Cheez-Whiz. These ideas can be demonstrated to be correct or incorrect. No, what we need faith for is ideas like God created the universe for a purpose or A place or state of being exists that is free from all suffering or I am a member of God’s chosen people or There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed (PBUH) is his prophet.
Faith is informed by questioning, by doubting, by engaging in the process of working out ideas. Faith actually requires some doubt! If there is no doubt or question about an idea, then it is a fact and not a statement of faith. Questions help us work out tough concepts.
For example, the bodily resurrection of Jesus strikes me as improbable, unlikely, and quite frankly, absurd. [Let me get this straight. God took on the body of a human being, who grew up in what’s now called the Holy Land. Then he traveled to Jerusalem, the most sacred place in Judaism, where his own spiritual leaders had him arrested, interrogated, tortured, and killed. And he decided to come back?!? WTF!] My mind just can’t understand this. It doesn’t make any sense. But the thing is, that’s okay. I choose, intentionally and deliberately, to believe that it is true. My brain questions and doubts the literal, physical facts, so my heart accepts the beautiful mystery of the resurrection of Christ. This is faith. This is my choice.
If you are a Christian (or a Jewish person, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an atheist, an agnostic, or anything else), and you did not choose this faith, then you have some work to do. What do you question? What do you choose to believe? Why do you make these choices? Does this really fit the definition of your faith? Does it need to? How do you live out your faith choices?
If you did not choose your faith, then your faith is weak and immature. Just as Socrates tells us that the unexamined life is not worth living, so is the unexamined faith not worth holding.
So when you say that you are a Christian, recognize that you choose to be a Christian. Know that you wrestle with the improbable and absurd — resurrections, feedings of thousands, healings, wheels of fire in the sky, great floods, and other miracles — and that you still make this choice. Know that you choose God, choose Jesus, choose the crazy upside-down-ness of God’s kingdom.
Be an intentional Christian.
Be a Christian by choice.
earlyfrost: (via fuckyeahgirlcrush, justmycupofteaa)
Dear Bishop Benedict:
Every person picks and chooses the values he or she lives by. One choice could be, “I will accept all moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.” But even most Roman Catholics disagree with some teachings, so they choose to give those moral teachings less weight.
God created us, and the breath of the Holy Spirit brought both life and free will. Free will is what allows each one of us to make our own choices, even on moral teachings. God gave us brains to think and hearts to feel, and God expects us to use those in inform our choices.
So yes, atheists pick and choose their morals. So do Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians and Anglicans and Methodists and Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Wiccans. So did Peter and James and John. So did Mary and Joseph and Jesus. So did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So did Rahab and Deborah and Ruth.
Undercover Nun fails to see the problem here.
In Christ’s love,
Undercover Nun
P.S. I’m with @mwyarbrough, frowning on child abuse and smiling on faithful, committed, adult couples of whatever configuration.
(Source: jasmined, via lipsbetweenthehips)
