To What Extent Are Human Beings Genuinely Free?

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To What Extent Are Human Beings Genuinely Free?

    To be able to answer this question successfully we must first understand what is meant by the term ‘genuinely free.’ By this do we mean to have limitless freedom where each choice is our own or rather freedom within certain boundaries? There are of course many different views which consider the extent of our freedom and what being free really means, ranging from ultimate, unlimited freedom to us having absolutely no freedom.

    If we are to believe that human beings are completely free we are likely to accept the Libertarian view:

    By liberty, then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may

(David Hume)

    Libertarianism suggests that we are entirely free to make a morally responsible decision. Libertarianism does consider the fact that some aspects of life are causally determined; however these determined aspects are only affected by the inner self of the moral agent which in itself is uncaused. As Spaemann explained we use a reflective component which takes into consideration these objective and subjective facts and then makes a free choice. It is this, our moral self, which is free to choose, yet factors such as the moral agent’s character or values which or not.

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    Waddan’s religiously supported view states that the Ten Commandments are only understandable if we are free to choose whether to obey them or not:

    If God had been a libertarian, we’d have gotten the Ten Suggestions

(James P. Hogan)

    If we are not free to do so then there is no point to their existence as sin is a concept outside our control. The teachings of Jesus are based upon the fact that we can freely choose. For example, if we are asked to repent then we must obviously be free to ...

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