Understanding Free Will and Human Freedom: The Problem of Love Part 4
At the creation story when God made man, God placed the tree of good and evil in the midst of the garden where mankind was subject to temptation and eventual sin. We have since had a longing for the garden again, the paradise with God, and this longing throughout history has manifested in both good things (e.g., marriage) and evils (e.g., war). There is great human suffering in the world because man does not choose God (Adam and Eve ate the fruit).
The Fall and God’s Greatest Good
We see God’s greatest good by making the Fall possible. We are able to know the goodness of God by the contrast of our corrupted nature, and the grace and love of God is tasted in a way not even the angels could know.
Philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a prolific atheist of the early 20th century and contemporary of C.S. Lewis, did not believe that religion, much less God, was the answer to evil. Evil, he held, was more or less a social construct and people are deterred from doing evil because of the social consequence if caught. In the modern society of Russell’s day, he suggests, had less to do with the concern with God’s punishment.[8] But he conflates earthly justice with God’s justice, and wholly misunderstand the latter. Interestingly, Russell posits that the doctrine of free will for the Christian is silly on its face when religious people would believe in a God that would punish choices that ultimately are neutral in the eyes of evolutionary existence. Common sense, he says, is what makes man behave well or not, or in the case of little children will grow out of their bad habits.[9] This is utter foolishness. For how does Russell or atheistic philosophers like him attribute any good to anything? What is good? For Russell, “good” is what gives us pleasure, and he scoffs at the idea of the Christian God as “a Being who shares our tastes and prejudices.”[10] Indeed, there is some truth here, for God is holy and we are not. And this is the point.
We see God’s greatest good by making the Fall possible. We are able to know the goodness of God by the contrast of our corrupted nature, and the grace and love of God is tasted in a way not even the angels could know.
In not wanting automata to worship Him by default, like any Father, God would rather that His children choose to love Him, and in allowing for choice came the great danger of sin entering the world. Much like Augustine’s theodicy, Lewis similarly reflects on the perfection of creation, yet its corruptible nature by way of human will. Lewis likens a mother to will a child to clean his room, but if he does not, it is against her will—it is her will that allowed the children to disobey: “That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.”[11] Lewis reasons that without free will, there would be no possibility for evil, true. But there would be no possibility for love, joy, or goodness in the world. He says, “A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating.”[12] Lewis is saying that the world was created good, but when mankind sought to be his own master, veering away from the design of God, that was the evil that entered the world while we wanted to be the center. Lewis says, “That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race.”[13] We have thrown the telos out of whack because we didn’t let God be God. We wanted to be God.
God Wanted Genuine Love
In not wanting automata to worship Him by default, like any Father, God would rather that His children choose to love Him, and in allowing for choice came the great danger of sin entering the world. Much like Augustine’s theodicy, Lewis similarly reflects on the perfection of creation, yet its corruptible nature by way of human will.
And could God have stopped this? Yes. But there is no real love in machines. Scripture tells us that God is love (1 Jo. 4:8, 16). Love does not insist on its own way (1 Cor. 13: 5), and yet God insists that we are holy (1 Pet. 1:16). How is this to be reconciled? Truly God wants us to be holy over happy, since the latter is the greater good that is, the greatest good, to be like Him. And yet to be holy is to be happy in the Lord, to find ourselves in heaven would be the greatest happiness, to see His very face. He is perfection and we are called to be like Him (1 Pet. 2:21) and put off our old self (Eph. 4:22). We are not to be coerced, but disciplined if we are His children (Heb 12:4-11). It is God’s mercy that we feel discomfort in this life, or else we forget Him (Pro. 30:9). Too easily we do forget Him because we think we can find happiness without Him—this is foolishness because He is our Creator, Designer, Father, Image Forebear. Lewis points to the “money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man” that results in an attempt to ignore God.[14] It is the longing for Eden again we struggle without the map that is God. Lewis asserts, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”[15] There is no happiness without real love, that is, without God.
At the risk of evil, pain, and suffering would we still choose love? Any teenager would say yes. Next time we conclude this series on The Problem of Love.
[8] Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not A Christian and other essays on religion and related subjects, (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc, 1957), 195.
[9] Ibid., 39-40.
[10] Ibid. 42.
[11] Lewis, Mere Christianity, 47.
[12] Ibid., 48.
[13] Ibid., 49.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid., 50.