Nothing! Freewill is awesome. I am all about the freedom. Christ Himself came to set the captives free!

However, things start to get a little wonky when we become absolutists and insist everything is just a matter of making good choices, exercising our own freewill. Why? Because it completely cuts everyone out of the equation who makes all the right choices and still gets slammed by all the things in life outside of their control.

Job, for instance. In fact Job is one of my favorite books in the Bible for that very reason, it challenges so many of our preconceived notions about the nature of freewill. Job is pretty much just minding his own business and according to God Himself, doing a pretty good job of it. “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.“

Job’s friends, who sought to “help” Job reaffirm his freewill in a manner of speaking, are not praised by God, they are not the “good guys” in the story.

I guess it makes sense that freewill would be a much more popular subject than say, surrender or acceptance. Freewill is really all about control, our own, and that’s much needed in the world. We weren’t designed to simply be the hapless victims of circumstances, events, and other people’s behavior.

Somebody smart once said, “we can’t control what happens to us but we can control how we respond.” I really like that quote and I believe it is true, for the most part. I mean, even our ability to respond is not always a simple matter of freewill. If someone has a financial need for example, and you have no finances, you don’t really have the freewill to respond. Or, when someone is going through a major health challenge, we can be a good friend, we can pray, but our ability to respond is somewhat limited.

In my world I have to spend a lot of time meditating on these issues, for the sake of others. I’m telling you, some people, neigh, many people, just deserve a good punch in the nose. To control how I respond, I really have to try to sort it out as much as possible in my own head. Are they stupid? Evil? Blind as to the nature of their own behavior? Completely lacking self awareness? Were they raised by wolves? Born in a barn?

Are they exercising their own freewill and choosing to be this stupid or are there circumstances beyond their control influencing their behavior? All in good humor here, but by the time I decide to condemn you to the status of village idiot I’ve probably already conducted 3 trials and paid for your entire defense.

Something that’s really popular in Christian circles is this notion of unconditional mercy and grace, one that totally forgoes any concept of justice. I’m telling you, living here repeatedly on the backend of perpetual injustice, has given me a new appreciation for the entire notion of justice as an aspect of God’s character and why it is an ideal we ought to uphold.

Adam Smith, 1700’s, who wrote “The Wealth of Nations” once said, “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” Some people dispute who coined that notion, but regardless, I think it’s a really valid point.