Happy Easter Everyone!
Dear Friends,
It seems to me that it is the clear desire of God that Mankind have free will. It is obvious that free will is a quality that God has endowed upon Mankind and is supported by not only scripture but nature and the phenomenon of civilization. As something endowed by God it must have a purpose.
Even in the Garden Adam and Eve were given free will to eat or not to eat of the fruit. God must have known they would eat of the fruit, and so it was his will that they eat of it, against his “say so” and of their own free will.
The State of Nature, as stated by philosophers for ages, is nothing but a state of unfettered free will. This absolute state of free will is also called chaos or anarchy. In a total state of free will it has been argued that this is analogous to a state of total warfare man against man.
But it is from this state of anarchy and chaos that emerges the phenomenon of civilization. Even though there is a Law of the universe (Chemistry), that states, “The universe tends towards entropy.” This means things tend to become less uniform over time not more. Civilization flies in the face of this fundamental law… As does Life.
From a state of chaos emerges civilization by a feedback loop that is inherent in free will. If a person seeks his or her own good, and that person has eaten of the tree of knowledge, then they have foresight and foreknowledge of causality. With this foreknowledge and knowledge of causality a rational self maximizer must acknowledge that civilization is preferable to anarchy.
It is when the feed back from action to consequences is broken does free will becomes problematic. Just as when government regulation seeks to eliminate the feed backs for prices through price controls and rent controls is the market distorted, when government mitigates, or especially when government eliminates, the negative consequences for negative behaviors does rational self maximization run afoul.
To say, for example, the “haves” should “help” the “havenots” is sophistry, because it is the job of the “havenots” to start businesses or get jobs and become the “haves,” In a free capitalist society. To make the “haves” support the “havenots” takes away both or their free wills. The “haves” free will is violated by taking their property and the “havenots” free will is violated by indefinitely prolonging their state of poverty through dependency.
In a total state of nature, before civilization emerges, individuals have as a primary example that the most corrupt get the best results. To lie when lying is acceptable is in one’s best interest. In a total state of nature the man or woman who is willing to be the most despicable gets a decided advantage. It is when self interested people realize this principle and band together freely, to suppress these qualities in all, that creates the conditions for civilization to emerge.
In a state of civilization however, when a legal system, ethos, moral norm, etc… is set up, or more likely evolves into such a system, one where the despicable have the upper hand, then chaos emerges from civilization. Societies that allow civil servants to take bribes or allow powerful politicians to lie under oath motivate people, freely, to become less civilized and left unchecked by self interested individuals, can lead to the emergence of anarchy from civilization.
Adam Smith said that people prefer to command another to do something rather than persuade a free man to acquiesce of his free will. This is more a problem of the Elite than of the people. It is a driving motivator to become one of the Elite. That is, to control people by coercion, instead of freely persuading them.
Anarchy however can be looked at like the melting of a metal. That is always the first step to forming something totally different from the metal. If a faction wanted to eliminate free will the furnace of chaos would be the first step to truly reorganize and fundamentally change our civilization. Too bad free will is a dog hair in the Elite’s mashed potatoes. But to the rest of use it is a gift from God to be cherished, protected and used for the betterment of all Mankind.
