MORTAL: And therefore, O God, I pray thee,
if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having
to have free will!
GOD: You reject the greatest gifts I have
given thee?
MORTAL: How can you call that which was
forced on me a gift? I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely
chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not!
GOD: Why would you wish not to have free
will?
MORTAL: Because free will means moral
responsibility, and moral responsibility is more than I can bear!
GOD: Why do you find moral responsibility
so unbearable?
MORTAL: Why? I honestly can't analyze why;
all I know is that I do.
GOD: All right, in that case suppose I
absolve you from all moral responsibility but leave you still with free will. Will this be
satisfactory?
MORTAL (after a pause): No, I am
afraid not.
GOD: Ah, just as I thought! So moral
responsibility is not the only aspect of free will to which you object. What else about
free will is bothering you?
MORTAL: With free will I am capable of
sinning, and I don't want to sin!
GOD: If you don't want to sin, then why do
you?
MORTAL: Good God! I don't know why I sin,
I just do! Evil temptations come along, and try as I can, I cannot resist them.
GOD: If it is really true that you cannot
resist them, then you are not sinning of your own free will and hence (at least according
to me) not sinning at all.
MORTAL: No, no! I keep feeling that if
only I tried harder I could avoid sinning. I understand that the will is infinite. If one
wholeheartedly wills not to sin, then one won't.
GOD: Well now, you should know. Do you try
as hard as you can to avoid sinning or don't you?
MORTAL: I honestly don't know! At the
time, I feel I am trying as hard as I can, but in retrospect, I am worried that maybe I
didn't!
GOD: So in other words, you don't really
know whether or not you have been sinning. So the possibility is open that you haven't
been sinning at all!
MORTAL: Of course this possibility is
open, but maybe I have been sinning, and this thought is what so frightens me!
GOD: Why does the thought of your sinning
frighten you?
MORTAL: I don't know why! For one thing,
you do have a reputation for meting out rather gruesome punishments in the afterlife!
GOD: Oh, that's what's bothering you! Why
didn't you say so in the first place instead of all this peripheral talk about free will
and responsibility? Why didn't you simply request me not to punish you for any of your
sins?
MORTAL: I think I am realistic enough to
know that you would hardly grant such a request!
GOD: You don't say! You have a
realistic knowledge of what requests I will grant, eh? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going
to do! I will grant you a very, very special dispensation to sin as much as you like, and
I give you my divine word of honor that I will never punish you for it in the least.
Agreed?
MORTAL (in great terror): No, no,
don't do that!
GOD: Why not? Don't you trust my divine
word?
MORTAL: Of course I do! But don't you see,
I don't want to sin! I have an utter abhorrence of sinning, quite apart from any
punishments it may entail.
GOD: In that case, I'll go you one better.
I'll remove your abhorrence of sinning. Here is a magic pill! Just swallow it, and you
will lose all abhorrence of sinning. You will joyfully and merrily sin away, you
will have no regrets, no abhorrence and I still promise you will never be punished by me,
or yourself, or by any source whatever. You will be blissful for all eternity. So here is
the pill!
MORTAL: No, no!
GOD: Are you not being irrational? I am
even removing your abhorrence of sin, which is your last obstacle.
MORTAL: I still won't take it!
GOD: Why not?
MORTAL: I believe that the pill will
indeed remove my future abhorrence for sin, but my present abhorrence is enough to prevent
me from being willing to take it.
GOD: I command you to take it! '
MORTAL: I refuse!
GOD: What, you refuse of your own free
will?
MORTAL: Yes!
GOD: So it seems that your free will comes
in pretty handy, doesn't it?
MORTAL: I don't understand!
GOD: Are you not glad now that you have
the free will to refuse such a ghastly offer? How would you like it if I forced you to
take this pill, whether you wanted it or not?
MORTAL: No, no! Please don't!
GOD: Of course I won't; I'm just trying to
illustrate a point. All right, let me put it this way. Instead of forcing you to take the
pill, suppose I grant your original prayer of removing your free will--but with the
understanding that the moment you are no longer free, then you will take the pill.
MORTAL: Once my will is gone, how could I
possibly choose to take the pill?
GOD: I did not say you would choose it; I
merely said you would take it. You would act, let us say, according to purely
deterministic laws which are such that you would as a matter of fact take it.
MORTAL: I still refuse.
GOD: So you refuse my offer to remove your
free will. This is rather different from your original prayer, isn't it?
MORTAL: Now I see what you are up to. Your
argument is ingenious, but I'm not sure it is really correct. There are some points we
will have to go over again.
GOD: Certainly.
MORTAL: There are two things you said
which seem contradictory to me. First you said that one cannot sin unless one does so of
one's own free will. But then you said you would give me a pill which would deprive me of
my own free will, and then I could sin as much as I liked. But if I no longer had free
will, then, according to your first statement, how could I be capable of sinning?
GOD: You are confusing two separate parts
of our conversation. I never said the pill would deprive you of your free will, but only
that it would remove your abhorrence of sinning.
MORTAL: I'm afraid I'm a bit confused.
GOD: All right, then let us make a fresh
start. Suppose I agree to remove your free will, but with the understanding that you will
then commit an enormous number of acts which you now regard as sinful. Technically
speaking, you will not then be sinning since you will not be doing these acts of your own
free will. And these acts will carry no moral responsibility, nor moral culpability, nor
any punishment whatsoever. Nevertheless, these acts will all be of the type which you
presently regard as sinful; they will all have this quality which you presently feel as
abhorrent, but your abhorrence will disappear; so you will not then feel abhorrence
toward the acts.
MORTAL: No, but I have present abhorrence
toward the acts, and this present abhorrence is sufficient to prevent me from accepting
your proposal.
GOD: Hm! So let me get this absolutely
straight. I take it you no longer wish me to remove your free will.
MORTAL (reluctantly): No, I guess
not.
GOD: All right, I agree not to. But I am
still not exactly clear as to why you now no longer wish to be rid of your free will.
Please tell me again.
MORTAL: Because, as you have told me,
without free will I would sin even more than I do now.
GOD: But I have already told you that
without free will you cannot sin.
MORTAL: But if I choose now to be rid of
free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the
present moment in which I choose not to have free will.
GOD: Sounds like you are pretty badly
trapped, doesn't it?
MORTAL: Of course I am trapped! You have
placed me in a hideous double bind! Now whatever I do is wrong. If I retain free will, I
will continue to sin, and if I abandon free will (with your help, of course) I will now be
sinning in so doing.
GOD: But by the same token, you place me
in a double bind. I am willing to leave you free will or remove it as you choose, but
neither alternative satisfies you. I wish to help you, but it seems I cannot.
MORTAL: True!
GOD: But since it is not my fault, why are
you still angry with me?
MORTAL: For having placed me in such a
horrible predicament in first place!
GOD: But, according to you, there is
nothing satisfactory I could have done.
MORTAL: You mean there is nothing
satisfactory you can now do, that does not mean that there is nothing you could have done.
GOD: Why? What could I have done?
MORTAL: Obviously you should never have
given me free will in the first place. Now that you have given it to me, it is too
late--anything I do will be bad. But you should never have given it to me in the first
place.
GOD: Oh, that's it! Why would it have been
better had I never given it to you?
MORTAL: Because then I never would have
been capable of sinning at all.
GOD: Well, I'm always glad to learn from
my mistakes.
MORTAL: What!
GOD: I know, that sounds sort of
self-blasphemous, doesn't it? It almost involves a logical paradox! On the one hand, as
you have been taught, it is morally wrong for any sentient being to claim that I am
capable of making mistakes. On the other hand, I have the right to do anything. But I am
also a sentient being. So the question is, Do, I or do I not have the right to claim that
I am capable of making mistakes?
MORTAL: That is a bad joke! One of your
premises is simply false. I have not been taught that it is wrong for any sentient being
to doubt your omniscience, but only for a mortal to doubt it. But since you are not
mortal, then you are obviously free from this injunction.
GOD: Good, so you realize this on a
rational level. Nevertheless, you did appear shocked when I said, "I am always glad
to learn from my mistakes."
MORTAL: Of course I was shocked. I was
shocked not by your self-blasphemy (as you jokingly called it), not by the fact that you
had no right to say it, but just by the fact that you did say it, since I have been taught
that as a matter of fact you don't make mistakes. So I was amazed that you claimed that it
is possible for you to make mistakes.
GOD: I have not claimed that it is
possible. All I am saying is that if I make mistakes, I will be happy to learn from
them. But this says nothing about whether the if has or ever can be realized.
MORTAL: Let's please stop quibbling about
this point. Do you or do you not admit it was a mistake to have given me free will?
GOD: Well now, this is precisely what I
propose we should investigate. Let me review your present predicament. You don't want to
have free will because with free will you can sin, and you don't want to sin. (Though I
still find this puzzling; in a way you must want to sin, or else you wouldn't. But let
this pass for now.) On the other hand, if you agreed to give up free will, then you would
now be responsible for the acts of the future. Ergo, I should never have given you free
will in the first place.
MORTAL: Exactly!
GOD: I understand exactly how you feel.
Many mortals--even some theologians--have complained that I have been unfair in that it
was I, not they, who decided that they should have free will, and then I hold them
responsible for their actions. In other words, they feel that they are expected to live up
to a contract with me which they never agreed to in the first place.
MORTAL: Exactly!
GOD: As I said, I understand the feeling
perfectly. And I can appreciate the justice of the complaint. But the complaint arises
only from an unrealistic understanding of the true issues involved. I am about to
enlighten you as to what these are, and I think the results will surprise you! But instead
of telling you outright, I shall continue to use the Socratic method.
To repeat, you regret that I ever gave you
free will. I claim that when you see the true ramifications you will no longer have this
regret. To prove my point, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am about to create a new
universe--a new space-time continuum. In this new universe will be born a mortal just like
you--for all practical purposes, we might say that you will be reborn. Now, I can give
this new mortal--this new you--free will or not. What would you like me to do?
MORTAL (in great relief): Oh,
please! Spare him from having to have free will!
GOD: All right, I'll do as you say. But
you do realize that this new you without free will, will commit all sorts of
horrible acts.
MORTAL: But they will not be sins since he
will have no free will.
GOD: Whether you call them sins or not,
the fact remains that they will be horrible acts in the sense that they will cause great
pain to many sentient beings.
MORTAL (after a pause): Good God,
you have trapped me again! Always the same game! If I now give you the go-ahead to create
this new creature with no free will who will nevertheless commit atrocious acts, then true
enough he will not be sinning, but I again will be the sinner to sanction this.
GOD: In that case, I'll go you one better!
Here, I have already decided whether to create this new you with free will or not. Now, I
am writing my decision on this piece of paper and I won't show it to you until later. But
my decision is now made and is absolutely irrevocable. There is nothing you can possibly
do to alter it; you have no responsibility in the matter. Now, what I wish to know is
this: Which way do you hope I have decided? Remember now, the responsibility for the
decision falls entirely on my shoulders, not yours. So you can tell me perfectly honestly
and without any fear, which way do you hope I have decided?
MORTAL (after a very long pause): I
hope you have decided to give him free will.
GOD: Most interesting! I have removed your
last obstacle! If I do not give him free will, then no sin is to be imputed to anybody. So
why do you hope I will give him free will?
MORTAL: Because sin or no sin, the
important point is that if you do not give him free will, then (at least according to what
you have said) he will go around hurting people, and I don't want to see people hurt.
GOD (with an infinite sigh of relief):
At last! At last you see the real point!
MORTAL: What point is that?
GOD: That sinning is not the real issue!
The important thing is that people as well as other sentient beings don't get hurt!
MORTAL: You sound like a utilitarian!
GOD: I am a utilitarian!
MORTAL: What!
GOD: Whats or no whats, I am a
utilitarian. Not a unitarian, mind you, but a utilitarian.
MORTAL: I just can't believe it!
GOD: Yes, I know, your religious training
has taught you otherwise. You have probably thought of me more like a Kantian than a
utilitarian, but your training was simply wrong.
MORTAL: You leave me speechless!
GOD: I leave you speechless, do I! Well,
that is perhaps not too bad a thing--you have a tendency to speak too much as it is.
Seriously, though, why do you think I ever did give you free will in the first place?
MORTAL: Why did you? I never have thought
much about why you did; all I have been arguing for is that you shouldn't have! But why
did you? I guess all I can think of is the standard religious explanation: Without free
will, one is not capable of meriting either salvation or damnation. So without free will,
we could not earn the right to eternal life.
GOD: Most interesting! I have
eternal life; do you think I have ever done anything to merit it?
MORTAL: Of course not! With you it is
different. You are already so good and perfect (at least allegedly) that it is not
necessary for you to merit eternal life.
GOD: Really now? That puts me in a rather
enviable position, doesn't it?
MORTAL: I don't think I understand you.
GOD: Here I am eternally blissful without
ever having to suffer or make sacrifices or struggle against evil temptations or anything
like that. Without any of that type of "merit", I enjoy blissful eternal
existence. By contrast, you poor mortals have to sweat and suffer and have all sorts of
horrible conflicts about morality, and all for what? You don't even know whether I really
exist or not, or if there really is any afterlife, or if there is, where you come into the
picture. No matter how much you try to placate me by being "good," you never
have any real assurance that your "best" is good enough for me, and hence you
have no real security in obtaining salvation. Just think of it! I already have the
equivalent of "salvation"--and have never had to go through this infinitely
lugubrious process of earning it. Don't you ever envy me for this?
MORTAL: But it is blasphemous to envy you!
GOD: Oh come off it! You're not now
talking to your Sunday school teacher, you are talking to me. Blasphemous or not,
the important question is not whether you have the right to be envious of me but whether
you are. Are you?
MORTAL: Of course I am!
GOD: Good! Under your present world view,
you sure should be most envious of me. But I think with a more realistic world view, you
no longer will be. So you really have swallowed the idea which has been taught you that
your life on earth is like an examination period and that the purpose of providing you
with free will is to test you, to see if you merit blissful eternal life. But what puzzles
me is this: If you really believe I am as good and benevolent as I am cracked up to be,
why should I require people to merit things like happiness and eternal life? Why should I
not grant such things to everyone regardless of whether or not he deserves them?
MORTAL: But I have been taught that your
sense of morality--your sense of justice--demands that goodness be rewarded with happiness
and evil be punished with pain.
GOD: Then you have been taught wrong.
MORTAL: But the religious literature is so
full of this idea! Take for example Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an
Angry God." How he describes you as holding your enemies like loathsome scorpions
over the flaming pit of hell, preventing them from falling into the fate that they deserve
only by dint of your mercy.
GOD: Fortunately, I have not been exposed
to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more
misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own
tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in
terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.
MORTAL: By that do you mean that there are
no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?
GOD: I meant the former although the
latter also happens to be true.
MORTAL: Oh come now, I know people who
have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!
GOD: You mean you have hated your image of
me. That is not the same thing as hating me as I really am.
MORTAL: Are you trying to say that it is
not wrong to hate a false conception of you, but that it is wrong to hate you as you
really are?
GOD: No, I am not saying that at all; I am
saying something far more drastic! What I am saying has absolutely nothing to do with
right or wrong. What I am saying is that one who knows me for what I really am would
simply find it psychologically impossible to hate me.
MORTAL: Tell me, since we mortals seem to
have such erroneous views about your real nature, why don't you enlighten us? Why don't
you guide us the right way?
GOD: What makes you think I'm not?
MORTAL: I mean, why don't you appear to
our very senses and simply tell us that we are wrong?
GOD; Are you really so naive as to believe
that I am the sort of being which can appear to your senses? It would be more
correct to say that I am your senses.
MORTAL (astonished): You are my
senses?
GOD: Not quite, I am more than that. But
it comes closer to the truth than the idea that I am perceivable by the senses. I am not
an object; like you, I am a subject, and a subject can perceive, but cannot be perceived.
You can no more see me than you can see your own thoughts. You can see an apple, but the
event of your seeing an apple is itself not seeable. And I am far more like the seeing of
an apple than the apple itself.
MORTAL: If I can't see you, how do I know
you exist?
GOD: Good question! How in fact do you
know I exist?
MORTAL: Well, I am talking to you, am I
not?
GOD: How do you know you are talking to
me? Suppose you told psychiatrist, "Yesterday I talked to God." What do you
think he would say?
MORTAL: That might depend on the
psychiatrist. Since most of them are atheistic, I guess most would tell me I had simply
been talking to myself.
GOD: And they would be right!
MORTAL: What? You mean you don't exist?
GOD: You have the strangest faculty of
drawing false conclusions! Just because you are talking to yourself, it follows that I
don't exist?
MORTAL: Well, if I think I am talking to
you, but I am really talking to myself, in what sense do you exist?
GOD: Your question is based on two
fallacies plus a confusion. The question of whether or not you are now talking to me and
the question of whether or not I exist are totally separate. Even if you were not now
talking to me (which obviously you are), it still would not mean that I don't exist.
MORTAL: Well, all right, of course! So
instead of saying "if I am talking to myself, then you don't exist," I should
rather have said, "if I am talking to myself, then I obviously am not talking to
you."
GOD: A very different statement indeed,
but still false.
MORTAL: Oh, come now, if I am only talking
to myself, then how can I be talking to you?
GOD: Your use of the word "only"
is quite misleading! I can suggest several logical possibilities under which your talking
to yourself does not imply that you are not talking to me.
MORTAL: Suggest just one!
GOD: Well, obviously one such possibility
is that you and I are identical.
MORTAL: Such a blasphemous thought--at
least had I uttered it!
GOD: According to some religions, yes.
According to others, it is the plain, simple, immediately perceived truth.
MORTAL: So the only way out of my dilemma
is to believe that you and I are identical?
GOD: Not at all! This is only one way out.
There are several others. For example, it may be that you are part of me, in which case
you may be talking to that part of me which is you. Or I may be part of you, in which case
you may be talking to that part of you which is me. Or again, you and I might partially
overlap, in which case you may be talking to the intersection and hence talking both to
you and to me. The only way your talking to yourself might seem to imply that you are not
talking to me is if you and I were totally disjoint--and even then, you could conceivably
be talking to both of us.
MORTAL: So you claim you do exist.
GOD: Not at all. Again you draw false
conclusions! The question of my existence has not even come up. All I have said is that
from the fact that you are talking to yourself one cannot possibly infer my nonexistence,
let alone the weaker fact that you are not talking to me.
MORTAL: All right, I'll grant your point!
But what I really want to know is do you exist?
GOD: What a strange question!
MORTAL: Why? Men have been asking it for
countless millennia.
GOD: I know that! The question itself is
not strange; what I mean is that it is a most strange question to ask of me!
MORTAL: Why?
GOD: Because I am the very one whose
existence you doubt! I perfectly well understand your anxiety. You are worried that your
present experience with me is a mere hallucination. But how can you possibly expect to
obtain reliable information from a being about his very existence when you suspect the
nonexistence of the very same being?
MORTAL: So you won't tell me whether or
not you exist?
GOD: I am not being willful! I merely wish
to point out that no answer I could give could possibly satisfy you. All right, suppose I
said, "No, I don't exist." What would that prove? Absolutely nothing! Or if I
said, "Yes, I exist." Would that convince you? Of course not!
MORTAL: Well, if you can't tell me whether
or not you exist, then who possibly can?
GOD: That is something which no one can
tell you. It is something which only you can find out for yourself.
MORTAL: How do I go about finding this out
for myself?
GOD: That also no one can tell you. This
is another thing you will have to find out for yourself.
MORTAL: So there is no way you can help
me?
GOD: I didn't say that. I said there is no
way I can tell you. But that doesn't mean there is no way I can help you.
MORTAL: In what manner then can you help
me?
GOD: I suggest you leave that to me! We
have gotten sidetracked as it is, and I would like to return to the question of what you
believed my purpose to be in giving you free will. Your first idea of my giving you free
will in order to test whether you merit salvation or not may appeal to many moralists, but
the idea is quite hideous to me. You cannot think of any nicer reason--any more humane
reason--why I gave you free will?
MORTAL: Well now, I once asked this
question of an Orthodox rabbi. He told me that the way we are constituted, it is simply
not possible for us to enjoy salvation unless we feel we have earned it. And to earn it,
we of course need free will.
GOD: That explanation is indeed much nicer
than your former but still is far from correct. According to Orthodox Judaism, I created
angels, and they have no free will. They are in actual sight of me and are so completely
attracted by goodness that they never have even the slightest temptation toward evil. They
really have no choice in the matter. Yet they are eternally happy even though they have
never earned it. So if your rabbi's explanation were correct, why wouldn't I have simply
created only angels rather than mortals?
MORTAL: Beats me! Why didn't you?
GOD: Because the explanation is simply not
correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient
beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just
as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are
simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the
so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the
latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most
important fact of the universe--evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the
moralists--all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts--simply
pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.
No, my dear friend, I am not a moralist. I
am wholly a utilitarian. That I should have been conceived in the role of a moralist is
one of the great tragedies of the human race. My role in the scheme of things (if one can
use this misleading expression) is neither to punish nor reward, but to aid the process by
which all sentient beings achieve ultimate perfection.
MORTAL: Why did you say your expression is
misleading?
GOD: What I said was misleading in two
respects. First of all it is inaccurate to speak of my role in the scheme of things. I am
the scheme of things. Secondly, it is equally misleading to speak of my aiding the process
of sentient beings attaining enlightenment. I am the process. The ancient Taoists
were quite close when they said of me (whom they called "Tao") that I do not do
things, yet through me all things get done. In more modem terms, I am not the cause of
Cosmic Process, I am Cosmic Process itself. I think the most accurate and fruitful
definition of me which man can frame--at least in his present state of evolution--is that
I am the very process of enlightenment. Those who wish to think of the devil (although I
wish they wouldn't!) might analogously define him as the unfortunate length of time the
process takes. In this sense, the devil is necessary; the process simply does take an
enormous length of time, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. But, I assure
you, once the process is more correctly understood, the painful length of time will no
longer be regarded as an essential limitation or an evil. It will be seen to be the very
essence of the process itself. I know this is not completely consoling to you who are now
in the finite sea of suffering, but the amazing thing is that once you grasp this
fundamental attitude, your very finite suffering will begin to diminish--ultimately to the
vanishing point.
MORTAL: I have been told this, and I tend
to believe it. But suppose I personally succeed in seeing things through your eternal
eyes. Then I will be happier, but don't I have a duty to others?
GOD (laughing): You remind me of
the Mahayana Buddhists! Each one says, "I will not enter Nirvana until I first see
that all other sentient beings do so." So each one waits for the other fellow to go
first. No wonder it takes them so long! The Hinayana Buddhist errs in a different
direction. He believes that no one can be of the slightest help to others in obtaining
salvation; each one has to do it entirely by himself. And so each tries only for his own
salvation. But this very detached attitude makes salvation impossible. The truth of the
matter is that salvation is partly an individual and partly a social process. But it is a
grave mistake to believe--as do many Mahayana Buddhists --that the attaining of
enlightenment puts one out of commission, so to speak, for helping others. The best way of
helping others is by first seeing the light oneself.
MORTAL: There is one thing about your
self-description which is somewhat disturbing. You describe yourself essentially as a
process. This puts you in such an impersonal light, and so many people have a need for a
personal God.
GOD: So because they need a personal God,
it follows that I am one?
MORTAL: Of course not. But to be
acceptable to a mortal a religion must satisfy his needs.
GOD: I realize that. But the so-called
"personality" of a being is really more in the eyes of the beholder than in the
being itself. The controversies which have raged, about whether I am a personal or an
impersonal being are rather silly because neither side is right or wrong. From one point
of view, I am personal, from another, I am not. It is the same with a human being. A
creature from another planet may look at him purely impersonally as a mere collection of
atomic particles behaving according to strictly prescribed physical laws. He may have no
more feeling for the personality of a human than the average human has for an ant. Yet an
ant has just as much individual personality as a human to beings like myself who really
know the ant. To look at something impersonally is no more correct or incorrect than to
look at it personally, but in general, the better you get to know something, the more
personal it becomes. To illustrate my point, do you think of me as a personal or
impersonal being?
MORTAL: Well, I'm talking to you, am I
not?
GOD: Exactly! From that point of view,
your attitude toward me might be described as a personal one. And yet, from another point
of view --no less valid--I can also be looked at impersonally.
MORTAL: But if you are really such an
abstract thing as a process, I don't see what sense it can make my talking to a mere
"process."
GOD: I love the way you say
"mere." You might just as well say that you are living in a "mere
universe." Also, why must everything one does make sense? Does it make sense to talk
to a tree?
MORTAL: Of course not!
GOD: And yet, many children and primitives
do just that.
MORTAL: But I am neither a child nor a
primitive.
GOD: I realize that, unfortunately.
MORTAL: Why unfortunately?
GOD: Because many children and primitives
have a primal intuition which the likes of you have lost. Frankly, I think it would do you
a lot of good to talk to a tree once in a while, even more good than talking to me! But we
seem always to be getting sidetracked! For the last time, I would like us to try to come
to an understanding about why I gave you free will.
MORTAL: I have been thinking about this
all the while.
GOD: You mean you haven't been paying
attention to our conversation?
MORTAL: Of course I have. But all the
while, on another level, I have been thinking about it.
GOD: And have you come to any conclusion?
MORTAL: Well, you say the reason is not to
test our worthiness. And you disclaimed the reason that we need to feel that we must merit
things in order to enjoy them. And you claim to be a utilitarian. Most significant of all,
you appeared so delighted when I came to the sudden realization that it is not sinning in
itself which is bad but only the suffering which it causes.
GOD: Well of course! What else could
conceivably be bad about sinning?
MORTAL: All right, you know that, and now
I know that. But all my life I unfortunately have been under the influence of those
moralists who hold sinning to be bad in itself. Anyway, putting all these pieces together,
it occurs to me that the only reason you gave free will is because of your belief that
with free will, people will tend to hurt each other--and themselves--less than without
free will.
GOD: Bravo! That is by far the best reason
you have yet given! I can assure you that had I chosen to give free will, that
would have been my very reason for so choosing.
MORTAL: What! You mean to say you did not
choose to give us free will?
GOD: My dear fellow, I could no more
choose to give you free will than I could choose to make an equilateral triangle
equiangular. I could choose to make or not to make an equilateral triangle in the first
place, but having chosen to make one, I would then have no choice but to make it
equiangular.
MORTAL: I thought you could do anything!
GOD: Only things which are logically
possible. As St. Thomas said, "It is a sin to regard the fact that God cannot do the
impossible, as a limitation on His powers." I agree, except that in place of his
using the word sin I would use the term error.
MORTAL: Anyhow, I am still puzzled by your
implication that you did not choose to give me free will.
GOD: Well, it is high time I inform you
that the entire discussion--from the very beginning--has been based on one monstrous
fallacy! We have been talking purely on a moral level--you originally complained that I
gave you free will, and raised the whole question as to whether I should have. It never
once occurred to you that I had absolutely no choice in the matter.
MORTAL: I am still in the dark!
GOD: Absolutely! Because you are only able
to look at it through the eyes of a moralist. The more fundamental metaphysical
aspects of the question you never even considered.
MORTAL: I still do not see what you are
driving at.
GOD: Before you requested me to remove
your free will, shouldn't your first question have been whether as a matter of fact you do
have free will?
MORTAL: That I simply took for granted.
GOD: But why should you?
MORTAL: I don't know. Do I have free will?
GOD: Yes.
MORTAL: Then why did you say I shouldn't
have taken it for granted?
GOD: Because you shouldn't. Just because
something happens to be true, it does not follow that it should be taken for granted.
MORTAL: Anyway, it is reassuring to know
that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried
that determinists are correct.
GOD: They are correct.
MORTAL: Wait a minute now, do I have free
will or don't I?
GOD: I already told you you do. But that
does not mean that determinism is incorrect.
MORTAL: Well, are my acts determined by
the laws of nature or aren't they?
GOD: The word determined here is
subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free
will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws
of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally
misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with
the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could
"determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible
for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and
the same.
MORTAL: What do you mean that I cannot
conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not
to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn even you
could not stop me!
GOD: You are absolutely right! I
certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you,
because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, "In trying
to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of
nature!" Don't you see that the so-called "laws of nature" are nothing more
than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a
description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or
force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into
account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.
MORTAL: So you really claim that I am
incapable of determining to act against natural law?
GOD: It is interesting that you have twice
now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act."
This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to
do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very
psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer
than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says
that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears
to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the
confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and
the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the
universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you
can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous
whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are
controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus
determinism will vanish. If I may use a crude analogy, imagine two bodies moving toward
each other by virtue of gravitational attraction. Each body, if sentient, might wonder
whether it is he or the other fellow who is exerting the "force." In a way it is
both, in a way it is neither. It is best to say that it is the configuration of the two
which is crucial.
MORTAL: You said a short while ago that
our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what
this fallacy is.
GOD: Why, the idea that I could possibly
have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and
wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without
free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational
attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical
object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you
honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like?
I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I
gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an
afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some
sort of "paint brush" with which I daub some creatures with free will and not
others. No, free will is not an "extra"; it is part and parcel of the very
essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical
absurdity.
MORTAL: Then why did you play along with
me all this while discussing what I thought was a moral problem, when, as you say, my
basic confusion was metaphysical?
GOD: Because I thought it would be good
therapy for you to get some of this moral poison out of your system. Much of your
metaphysical confusion was due to faulty moral notions, and so the latter had to be dealt
with first.
And now we must part--at least until you
need me again. I think our present union will do much to sustain you for a long while. But
do remember what I told you about trees. Of course, you don't have to literally talk to
them if doing so makes you feel silly. But there is so much you can learn from them, as
well as from the rocks and streams and other aspects of nature. There is nothing like a
naturalistic orientation to dispel all these morbid thoughts of "sin" and
"free will" and "moral responsibility." At one stage of history, such
notions were actually useful. I refer to the days when tyrants had unlimited power and
nothing short of fears of hell could possibly restrain them. But mankind has grown up
since then, and this gruesome way of thinking is no longer necessary.
It might be helpful to you to recall what
I once said through the writings of the great Zen poet Seng-Ts'an:
If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.