Over the course of the past few months I have been
greatly interested in the question of freedom.
As I began pondering the question of human freedom, I was particularly
struck by the way that people in our society view this identifying human reality. As an American, I live in a country full of
many freedoms. After all, we are the “land
of the free.” But how many Americans take this freedom seriously? And furthermore, what is meant by
freedom? It seems to me that we just
throw this word around loosely and don’t actually know what we’re saying when
we say we live in a free country. I
guess at the heart of the matter, this question encompasses what we’re talking
about: what does it mean to say that human beings are creatures of free will?
If
we take an honest look around at the world we live in, we can say that perhaps
there are two brands of freedom. On the
one hand, there is a brand of freedom that lives by the so called “YOLO”
mentality; a freedom that gives an individual the option to do whatever you
want, simply because you want to do so.
On the other hand, there is a freedom that liberates the individual by
way of attending to a higher ideal or moral, such as truth or justice.
I
asked a friend of mine, who is not of a religious background at all, what
freedom meant to him, and if he thought that he had free will. He maintained that we are beings with the illusion
of free will; we do the things we think we want to do, but ultimately things
play out the way that they’re supposed to and our choices have little to do
with the “bigger picture.” I was not startled
by his response, nor was I surprised, but I was definitely having a mixture of
feelings about the phrase “illusion of free will.” Our discussion led to different topics about
human freedom, and decision making but in the end, neither of us was satisfied
with the result. So I took the time to
consider his views, and decided to sit down and do a bit of thinking.
If
we are beings that have the illusion of free will, then we must step back and
define what is meant by free will. What separates
us from animals and other beings is that we have the ability to reason, in Aristotelian
terms: we have a rational soul. For my friend,
it was not good enough for him to decide between one thing or another because
he said that all of his decisions are informed by whatever ideas happen to be
influencing him at a given time. For
instance, he could not truly make a “free decision” because he has been
corrupted by different systems of thought.
For him, Christians make decisions because their religion tells them to
do so. By the same token, others make
decisions based on their upbringing, others because of political ideologies or philosophical
schools of thought. Ultimately all of
our choices are enslaved to some system of thought, so free will has become an
illusion.
I
was troubled by this last line. But I was
not overcome. If we truly are free beings,
then we have the ability to freely make a decision. Our decisions must be
informed by our experience, that’s the whole point! If they are not, then our experiences have no
meaning or value to us and we will blindly stumble through life without ever confronting
reality. Here we must take the
initiative to evaluate and verify our experiences; we must put in the work ourselves,
this is not something that we can simply learn from someone else. Freedom is lived only out of the conviction
of reality that surrounds us.
If
my free will is informed by my experience, wouldn’t that still qualify as an “illusion
of freedom?” No. You see, freedom traditionally has an aim at
a higher good. For the Greeks, freedom
was aimed toward “the Good.” For the
Christian freedom is found in Christ.
But it does not have to be that broad to grasp the concept. Let me use the example of music. As a musician I am fascinated by the many
possibilities that exist to create something beautiful. With that aside, music comes with a structure
of rules. One must follow a tempo,
maintain a certain volume, and most importantly, play the correct notes of the
given key. One of my favorite musical
endeavors is improvisation—this is where freedom reaches its musical height,
and yet the possibilities are endless.
Yet, when I do not follow the rules, and I play a note that does not
follow the given blues scale or chord progression, I will sound off (and it is
very noticeable (especially to the trained ear)). I am given a choice: I can follow the rules
of improvisation and create wonderful music, or I can choose not to and sound
terrible.
This
same analogy can be applied to the freedom of human beings, in our decision
making and more pertinently, in our free will. We have the freedom to act in
accordance to a higher moral, which liberates one beyond the pressures of
society, and focuses more on our destination instead of the fleeting present moment. I have done the work in my own life, and I am
convicted that our freedom must be guided by, and aimed at, something greater
than us. I notice in my own life that
when I lose this inner sense of morality, justice, truth, beauty, love, and so
on, I begin to sound “off” as if I am not playing the appropriate notes of the
key that I am living. Free will, then,
is not merely choosing something instead of another, rather it involves making
some sort of informed decision.
Again,
no one can do this work for you, it takes an effort of self evaluation to truly
discover freedom. But I assure you that
it is definitely worth it. If free will
is an illusion, then life itself is at risk of losing all meaning.