"Freedom? Oh Really?"

Exercise great care in your choices--in particular your choices of the prejudices you choose to embrace.
 
Choices have consequences which at times are subtle and unnoticed and at other times claim almost all of one's life and living.  

How often a person can claim freedom only to be hemmed in by biases, claim insight only to be bound by partiality, claim autonomy only to be trapped in self imposed limits, claim independence from faith and yet be trapped in prejudices against faith, and the list goes on and on?

It is as if one is caught in a vortex of understanding and then while being carried about in that vortex claims all reality outside of that vortex does not exist. That is the freedom some loudly proclaim.  However, the reality is that such freedom is not freedom at all but bondage. 

Any sincere seeker of truth and thus freedom takes down all preconceived notions and follows the trail of truth to wherever it may lead. If one cannot in all honesty say that they do so then such seeking is not legitimate.  

Most often when that trail leads into the arena of faith and in particular Christian faith, one's preconceived prejudices against Christian faith will block one's way. Such a person can be carried along by the trends and current of their prejudices without even knowing it. 

When such is the case they are by choice, blind to all that lies outside of their reality and rather than making a sincere effort as a seeker of truth they loudly make proclamations of special truth, superior insights, experience, and science. 

In doing so such a person purposefully turns a blind eye to that which is not in in one's your knowledge-comfort zone--even going on the attack. Such is not freedom but an enslavement to one's own limited understanding. These are the choices one has the freedom to make however one has no control over the outcomes of those choices.

Chose carefully as there are eternal consequences for how one decides.

“Absolute Power and Choice”

“Absolute Power and Choice”

Someone asked C. S. Lewis, “How can anything happen contrary to a being with absolute power?”

C. S. Lewis responded that a thing can be in accordance with one’s will in one way but not in another.  His example is that of a parent who can express his/her will as to the behavior of a child.  As well that same parent can also will that the child have the choice as to whether to obey or not.  In other words the child has been vested with the power of choice and thus it becomes a matter of his will and thus personal responsibility in his choices.

So too God has expressed His will that man behave in some specific ways.  However, there is another expression of God’s will and that was and is His choice to vest man with volitional choice.  Now man can choose whether or not he will conform his behavior to the first will mentioned.  

Here is the problem.  It is the assumption that God's possession of all power and all knowledge, in some way negates man's volition and thus He controls man in some autonomic fashion.  For such to be so Lewis points out that it makes man, “Hardly worth creating.”  The second point is that it would divest man of responsibility for his actions, which makes it most attractive to some.

However, man was well worth creating because God invested His trust in man and thus He trusted him with the ability to choose.  As well He vested Him with the opportunities afforded by personal responsibility.  The results then is that man can and would make right choices.  The opposite result is also true, man can and would make wrong choices.  It may be plausibly argues that one cannot have good choices without there being at least the possibility of bad choices. 

 

For example if one removes the possibility of there being bad and base choices such as is found in the case of Cain killing his brother Abel, then it seems that one tempts the possibility of removing good and noble choices such as in the case of the Good Samaritan.

In other words, to remove freedom of choice is to indirectly if not directly remove the possibility of the good.  Where would man be without the good of such things as love, charitable behavior, etc.  Certainly God knew the possibilities of man making wrong choices.  As Lewis points out, “Apparently He thought it worth the risk.”  The reality is this.  Risk or not, with such choice man has chosen very often to do that which is of benefit and blessing to those near and those far. 

Were it possible, imagine a world devoid of choice, that there was no possibility of man making poor or wrong choices.  Lewis, with his considerable intellect, points out that he cannot fathom of such a place.  If such a place did exist it would provide no measure of good and thus man's perception would be of a world devoid of good.  It follows then that the only reason that one can be aware of good is that there is evil.

Hear complete answer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2DEOxvaWk