Shack 1: Human Freedom

So the first time I really had to think about this was when I was in college in the thick of figuring out the differences between Calvinism, Arminianism and Open Theism. Naturally the question of human freedom comes to the forefront. I didn't quite understand what my reformed was asking or rather replying, but now I know his intent was to remind me how much more complicated human freedom is than just the principle of alternative possibilities or compatiblism.

As we listen to the sciences and other arenas of thought we discover more and more constraint. I don't think this means that we are automatrons nor does it mean that we enjoy the kind of omnipotence in ability that God does. We are constrained by hundreds perhaps even millions of factors every time we make a choice. Somewhere in the middle of all of this is human freedom.

this is my first a of a number of posts on William P. Young's The Shack. the following is an important paragraph that succinctly sheds light on this thought in a way I have not read elsewhere.

Mack is in a conversation about God and they stumble across this conversation. This is what God says about freedom.

"She paused only briefly and then turned back to her task, talking to him over her shoulder. 'Or, if you want to go just a we bit deeper, we could talk about the nature of freedom itself. Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul's sickness that inhabits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there's advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that consluence of multifaceted inhibitors,' she sighed, 'what is freedom really?'" (94-95)