But God Gave Us Free Will!

 "God gives us free will to choose him." This lovely little one-liner shows up over and over again in conversations with Christians, on occasions too numerous to mention. The typical explanation of this claim (at least as it was taught to me when I was younger) is that Yahweh is abundant in love for his creation, and also desires that we should love him back. As such, he gave us free will so that we might choose him voluntarily (after all it's not love if it's by force). Taken by itself, this is a fairly benign (and I might even be tempted to say "benevolent") teaching, which probably explains why there is absolutely no biblical justification for it, whatsoever. In fact, the Bible tells us quite the opposite.

The first problem with the idea that Yahweh gives us free will is the doctrine that Yahweh will condemn anyone who doesn't worship him to death and destruction (Many Christians say they go to Hell, but the Biblical justification for the existence of Hell is also pretty sparse. To be generous to Yahweh, I will treat "utter destruction" rather than "unending torture" to be the correct fate of non-believers).

Many Christians will try to defend Yahweh's right to destroy those who don't worship them (or to send them to Hell) by appeals to "divine justice" or by saying that "just because you have a choice doesn't mean there are no consequences for your choices".

Now, there is such a thing as a dangerous decision. I can tell someone not to drink poison all day long, but if they disobey, my love for them will not stop them from becoming sick or dying. However, it should also be noted that I don't have control over the effects of poison. I have no power to make something not poisonous, or to alter their body so they do not become sick. I do not cause the effects of the poison - and short of trying to get them to a hospital - I cannot alleviate those effects.

That said, Yahweh's destroying (or sending to Hell) of non-believers is not the same sort of decision. According to the Bible, Yahweh is the judge who establishes if people go to heaven or are destroyed. He is also the legislator who established the rule that people must worship him in order to get to heaven. This is makes the idea of Yahweh condemning people incompatible with the idea of Yahweh giving people a choice. By this same logic, a mugger who puts a gun to your head and says "your money or your life" has just offered you a choice. Clearly the mugger loves you so much that he wants you to give him your money, voluntarily. Of course, if you refuse, he's not a murderer. After all, it wasn't his fault that he shot you, it was just that those were the consequences of your choice to not give him your money. So clearly the whole "consequences for actions" idea doesn't hold up. Of course, there are numerous ways of doing the mental gymnastics necessary to make it sound like Yahweh isn't responsible for sending people to hell, each one of them as biblically unsound as the last. As such I'll forgo the problems that condemning people to destruction (or Hell) provides for the claim that Yahweh gives humanity free will, and move on.

The second (and much more substantial) problem with the idea that Yahweh gives us free will, is that the Bible constantly and consistently tells us otherwise.

"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." ~ Acts 13:48

"For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." ~ Romans 8:29

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will" ~ Ephesians 1:4-5

"But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth," ~  2 Thessalonians 2:13

As you can see, the Bible clearly, and consistently tells us that being a Christian is not a matter of choice. If Yahweh has preordained that you will be a Christian then you will be. So what does the Bible say about those who aren't Christians?

"But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him. This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted: 'Lord, who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?' But the people couldn’t believe, for as Isaiah also said, 'The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts— so that their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and have me heal them.'” ~  John 12:37-40

"For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation..." ~ Jude 4

"And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,  that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." ~  2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

So not only does Yahweh preordain whom he will save from destruction, he even declares that if you're not a Christian, it's because Yahweh doesn't think that you are worth saving, and actively prevents you from believing in him, by specifically sending you a "delusion".

All of these verses make it very clear that Yahweh doesn't give people free will, but instead chooses in advance who is going to go to heaven, and who is going to go to be destroyed, and nothing you can do can ever change that. In fact there is one passage that goes even farther than that!

"For God said to Moses, 'I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.' So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it. For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.” So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.

"Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?” No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction. He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory." ~ Romans 9:15-23

Not only do verses 15-18 (the first paragraph) reinforce the claim that Yahweh creates some people specifically so they will worship him and be admitted to heaven, and creates others so that he can uses as instruments of his wrath; but verses 19-23 (the second paragraph) go on to defend Yahweh's right to hold you guilty of a capital offense for doing what Yahweh supposedly created you - and forced you - to do!

This passage single-handedly destroys any claim that Yahweh does not wish anyone to be destroyed, but is compelled to destroy some people because of his "divine justice". Clearly Yahweh has no conception of justice, if he is willing to create people with a preordained task, that they cannot help but carry out, to commit a capital offense against him, which Yahweh may then use to justify his condemning them to death and destruction (which is what he had planned for them from the beginning of time). There is no justice to be found in such a system. This is not freedom. This is the very definition of entrapment.

And why does Yhwh choose to condemn so many to destruction? Why this elaborate system of entrapment? So that his "glory" will "shine even brighter on those... who were prepared in advance for glory". According to the Bible, Yahweh created billions of people for the sole purpose of destroying them, so that the "blessed" whom he chooses to allow into Heaven will be able to watch the destruction of friends and family and say "At least I'm not down there", as they praise Yahweh for his "mercy" in allowing the blessed to worship him eternally, instead of destroying them.

What then shall we say of a deity who apparently understands so little about humanity, that he cannot even create an afterlife that they would find enjoyable, without compelling them to watch others be destroyed, to make an eternity with Yhwh seem "not so bad"?  What could we hope to say in defense of a deity who supposedly created the vast majority of humankind, for the sole purpose of subjecting them to destroy them, and who specifically intervenes to prevent them from avoiding this fate? Certainly not that he is a loving deity, and certainly not that he has any interest in giving humans free will.

Perhaps the kindest and most generous assessment that we could give to such a being is that he is a sadist who needs others to validate him through unrelenting praise. He delights in torture to such an extent that he forces people to disobey him so that he can punish them for their failings. The only thing he enjoys more than torture is the constant groveling of his hand-picked worshippers. For these worshippers he has a special place set aside - a "paradise" in his presence - in which his worshippers may constantly bear witness to the destruction of the damned and praise him for his "mercy" in not subjecting them to the same fate.

Even if such a being could be shown to exist, this is not a being who is deserving of worship. To my mind, it would be better to be destroyed (or even to spend eternity being tortured by him), than it would be to spend even a single moment giving this being even a single word of praise for the way in which he delights in the torture of others. If I may close with a quote, from the late Christopher Hitchens:

"And that brings me to the final objection [to theism]... which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true."

[End Note: There are several other verses, such as John 15:16, and 2 Timothy 1:9 among others that continue to reinforce this deterministic outlook and show that the Bible tells us that Yahweh does not give humanity free will. By contrast only two passages have ever been able to be presented to try to claim that Yahweh gives humans free will: Deuteronomy 30:15-20, and Joshua 24:14-16. In the latter passage Joshua essentially asks the Israelites if they would rather worship Yahweh or go back to Egypt (where they supposedly just left their enslavement) and worship those gods. Under the circumstances I feel safe in saying that that was probably rhetorical and not an actual choice (the Israelites' emphatic cry that they would never abandon Yahweh seems to confirm this). Meanwhile in Deuteronomy, Yahweh offers the Israelites a choice between life and death, and says that they choose life by doing everything he says. Unless someone can explain how this is different from a mugger who puts a gun to your head and say "your money or your life", I don't consider this an actual choice.]