And that is who we are.
We are the phrase we constantly discuss in our church meetings: free agency. It's what was fought over in the War in Heaven. It is us. The War in Heaven was not fought over allegiances or alliances. It was fought over our very existence. If Lucifer was able to control our agency so we could not choose, we would cease to exist. Everything, everything, except for the ability to choose has been given to us. Our ability to choose is the only thing inherent to us. It is, what makes us us. It has been us from the beginning and we will never loose our ability to choose. This is why it was so important. This is why we are "given" our free agency, because if it were taken away we wouldn't be what makes us fundamentally us. I wouldn't be what makes me me. I would not exist.
And that leads to who you are. Agency. Free Will. The Ability to Choose.
Which answers the other question: When was I created?
The answer: Never.
And in a long round about way if finally answers the original question we had: Does Free Will Exist?
I hope you see that it does exist. Because we were never created. We have always existed. There was never a moment that we didn't choose. We have always been in control of our existence. There has never been a Great Causor or Effector on us. There is nothing that controlled us being. There is nothing that caused us to be. We simply are, and always will be. And as such nothing dictates us. Nothing control us, and the myriad of variables that seem to affect our lives on a daily basis are things that we take into consideration, but do not remove our ability to make choices.
We are that we are.
Let's See If Anyone Still Checks Here...
11 years ago
2 comments:
Just thought I'd point something out (and no doubt have it refuted with some genius reply):
you defined choice as the ability to choose, independent of action.
You then linked choice and free agency. The incongruency lies in the excerpt about the War in Heaven. If choice cannot be taken from you, then what do you mean about Lucifer taking it? As eternal beings independent of creation, our ability to choose should fall into the category of "things you don't mess with". So, regardless of whether Lucifer won or not, our ability to act, not choose, would have been affected. Am I making sense? I probably just misinterpreted you didn't I?
I don't believe that Lucifer meant to "take away our ability to choose and force us to be good". How would that make sense? Lucifer has never cared about whether or not what we did was good, and he entices us to evil.
I prefer this explanation: John Bytheway has described agency as a stick; on one end you have the ability to choose/the choices you make and on the other end you have consequence. You can't pick up one of the agency stick without picking up the other end. Otherwise you're not actually picking up agency, but a counterfeit. It makes a lot more sense to me to say that he meant to take away our agency by taking away the consequences (e.g. "Do whatever you want, no big deal. Doesn't mean anything anyway!") than by forcing us to be good.
All in all, we've had this conversation before and I love it. I still think it is an absolutely beautiful concept. I think there are a few aspects of it that I would change (the concept of relationships is a very weighty one for me)...but I really think that this concept is so beautiful, and even poetic.
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