Is free will an illusion?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The concept of predestination is often expressed in the form of having a zero option – where, if you were crossing the streets with your eyes closed, and were fatally hit by a car, no disease or other form of misfortune could have taken you out, is the claim.

You were basically programmed to be killed by that very car and at that very moment in time. Others express the similar idea by saying “What is fi yu cannot be unfi yu”. So, if someone were preordained to be your spouse or mate, say, there is really nothing you can do positively or negatively to alter that outcome. This inflexible state of being has been popularised mainly by theologians over the years. For instance, they are of the view that Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit was inevitable.

This obviously removes the privilege of free will and moral choices from humans. Yet, even the lion, it seems it can you walk free or hunt you for dinner if he chooses to. The command by God’ in Genesis 2:17 has free will marked all over it, with a dignity that rejects the fate of humans as that of mere puppets. Choosing to eat is a choice as not to obey – an exercise of the freedom of independence.

If free will were just an abstract concept, having no practical application, why did Jesus at the last hour say to the criminal dying alongside Him, “You will be with me in paradise”? ( Luke 23:43) What did the criminal choose? To be in paradise with Jesus – which desire Jesus thus acquiesced to.

The belief that there is no such thing as unfettered option may also give criminals a pass to commit horrendous crimes, since it’s arguably that some immutable laws set things that way. Why charge the wrongdoer when he’s just a pawn in the grand chess game of life? Is a thief really a thief or a murderer a murderer without the facility of self-determination? This fated posture easily allows for excuses of every conceivable wrongdoing, and may reflect the general state of affairs where to ‘succeed’, we have to be divested of moral and personal responsibility.

We seem to think that our actions operate in an orbit set in motion by God. Yet, how do you reconcile an end result, like the Russian invading Ukraine, with the denial of free will?

HOMER SYLVESTER

Mount Vernon, New York