Thought for the Week: Free will
Gerald Drewett reflects on free will and the nature of the universe
Hurricane Patricia, in October, was the most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Fortunately, Patricia didn’t materialise as a killer. The most deadly hurricane was Bhola, in 1970, which hit Bangladesh and India and caused an estimated half million deaths.
Why does God allow hurricanes, earthquakes and floods, which kill people? This is a very human-centred question and one that will always be asked. So, what is the answer? We know there is a spiritual power, which we call love. It is so powerful that if we open ourselves to it, it will change our lives. When we meet people who are similarly deeply affected the depth of relationship we experience is ‘out of this world’. It is by far the highest quality we can ever experience, so we distinguish it by calling it ‘divine love’. This, we say, must be the nature of God. ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’ as Charles Wesley’s hymn says.
We also ascribe to God the power of creation. God’s nature created all that exists and permeates all that exists. But how can the human being hold together absolute love and absolute power? Early Hebraic society thought in terms of the Garden of Eden (love), which became lost to society through human rebellion (power). Today, with our understanding of evolution, we see the Garden of Eden not as the beginning of the world but as its end, something called the Kingdom of Heaven to be achieved. But for the Kingdom of Heaven to evolve, every step along the way must be freely taken. God does not have the power to force decisions, because his own nature of love cannot do this.
From the initial ‘big bang’, everything that happens is both purposeful (evolutionary) and yet subject to unpredictable variations (Chaos Theory). This is because everything that exists (animal, vegetable and mineral) is subject to continuing creation and has to make its own decisions according to its own nature and the degree of consciousness to which it may have evolved. This free will, which may produce purposeful evolution or chaos, is essential to the development of love. From our human-centred point of view, the hurricane might be understood as a diversion from God’s evolutionary purpose to which we, as the standard bearers of consciousness, have to find an answer. Free will is written into the nature of the universe and it applies to the hurricane and the tsetse fly just as much as to the human being. The nature of things cannot be arbitrarily changed, and purposeful evolution will always embrace seemingly innumerable diversions from which it has to find the appropriate way forward.
It is because humankind’s share of evolving consciousness is so great that the human being is able to ask the question: ‘why?’ Our concept of God, which is designed to give stability to our living in society, struggles to embrace the fullness of both life and death. And because we are not yet fully evolved, we find it difficult to understand why the world is as it is, and yet we know that the Kingdom is present now as well as still to come. Love struggles to assert itself through love. We have to accept in faith that a love which embraces free will is the only way that creation can ultimately take on God’s nature.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.