Wednesday 17 June 2009

The Problem of Free Will

In his book Chosen by God, I found RC Sproul's analysis of free will very helpful, arguing that indeed no one is indeed as free we think. He uses the analogy of Alice in Wonderland to demonstrate his point:

Consider Alice's dilemma. Actually she had four options from which to choose. She could have taken the left fork or the right fork. She also could have chosen to retutn the way she had come. Or she could have stood fixed at the spot of indecision until she died there. For her to take a step in any direction, she would need some motivation or inclination to do so. Without any motivation, any prior inclination, her only real option would be to stand there and perish.

Indeed if we were to argue Alice had equal inclination, namely she had equal will to walk in whichever direction she chose, again she would have stayed on the same spot and perished. We must therefore reject the equal-will theory as not only illogical, but as wholly unbiblical.

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