Men can't fly. For some of you this news comes with a bit of unsavory repetition as from a college professor trying to re-illustrate another thing you “can't” do. For others it comes as a challenge, to stand up to that old-witted, somewhat balding professor and contradict his beliefs that mere words will eternally align your actions to his will. But I believe one idea never darted past your sight, an idea that may have slipped your rationality: “If men can't fly, then men can't do anything else.”
In the eternally polemical discourse on Christian Theology, free-will and predestination has come full tilt again. And it is here, in predestination's artifices to weaken the resolve of the free-will position, that the argument, “since man cannot fly, it only follows that man does not have complete free-will” has been fashioned. And it is here that I believe any systematic approach to test this claim will falter at the presuppositional level.
As with all claims, they are packaged with presuppositions and I believe it is necessary to expand on this point. If I claim, “Bob is at Save-Mart” I am presupposing that “Bob is not at Bel-Air” or, in fact, Bob is at no other place but Save-Mart because man is limited to one place at one time. We could further modify the statement to be more specific, “Bob is at the Save-Mart off of 1234 Main Street and 0987 Central Avenue.” With only one Save-Mart being on the corner of Main St. and Central Ave, we know exactly where Bob is and know exactly where Bob is not (ie. At anywhere else in general or at any other Save-Mart in particular). When predestination claims, “If men can't fly, then it follows that men can't have complete free-will,” we have to do the same - Ask what the claim's presupposes and test if the answer follows.
So, what is the presuppositions to the claim, “If men can't fly, then it follows that men can't have complete free-will?” Theoretically, there are limitless presuppositions to any claim, however, there is one that I would have us concern our attention with. The presupposition of this claim is “Man cannot do something contrary to his nature.” In other words, this predestination claim is an inferential statement that draws from the intrinsic limitations of mankind through their “created nature.” Meaning, mankind, by nature, could never will himself to fly. This is a clear example of mankind's physical limitations, but does this statement concern itself with the nonphysical virtue we call will? Does this statement create a dispute about how free man's will is, or does it simply verify a well known fact, “that man can't fly?”
The only exception I know to this presupposition – that the limits of nature creates limits of free-will – is God Himself. So the answer to this dilemma inextricably resides in another question. Do all things that are limited in their nature have limited-Freewill? Depending on your theological and philosophical stand-point, most agree that God cannot act against the laws of logic (ie. Creating a square triangle) or act against His own nature of perfections and virtues (i.e. He cannot be an unjust judge). Thus the case is made that there is a contradiction in predestination's claim. If God has free-will yet is constrained by His nature, then how is it that mankind has limited free-will because he is constrained by his nature?
To address this contradiction, we are left with two horns. The first horn would say, “it follows that mankind, just as God, has limited free-will because both are limited by their nature” This horn nullifies the entire argument of free-will because it simply denies the existence of free-will at all levels. If accepted, this claim would confer a “limited free-will” upon God through inference, “that all things which are limited in their nature must have limited-Freewill.”
But I believe another idea exists. Perhaps, it would be best to acknowledge the theory that all things have limits and restrictions because of definition. That infinity could not be anything else than what it is, that perhaps God always was, always is, and always will be because God was never not, and perhaps when God said, “I am who I am” that it meant a bit more than a mystically veiled quote. The other horn is complete free-will in our decisions, and restrictions are no more inherent in mankind than they are in God. That man is supplied in creation, through the rationality of the mind and conviction of the soul, the ability to accept God for who He is and the sacrifice of His son, or to reject those claims and confer the consequences of one's own actions. To me, “it follows that mankind, created in the image or likeness of God, would have the same category of free-will. A free-will limited by their nature, but complete in their ability to choose between a moral good and a moral evil.”
Any claim can be tested, but not all claims endure the suffering. Predestination and the claim “all men cannot fly, thus man has only limited free-will,” are one of those statements that cannot endure. The first refutation is to take the claim to its utmost ramification – that all things limited have limited free-will. This cannot be the answer because it creates a God that is subjected, or lower than, His own being, creating a variation of euthyphro's dilemma. Thus it is in the latter that the answer is found. That God, creating man in His own image, created mankind with the same responsibility of action. For he who does, is he who receives.
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