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If this is your first time reading this article, you might want to read up the other parts first. You can follow this links to Part-1
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To many people, FREE WILL cannot exist together with PREDESTINATION. Now if that is absolutely true then there will not be any free will for man because many places in the Holy Bible do record that man’s life is predestinated (Job 14:5).
In order to share my idea that Free Will does exist in Predestination, I rely on my programming knowledge as an IT worker. Hopefully, the following analogy that I take from a Multi-player Role Playing computer Game (MMORPGs) will illustrate my point of view.
Below is a brief description of the characteristic of such games:
1) A virtual landscape or environment is created to host all the role-play characters.
2) These characters are predetermined with individual strength and weakness and each can learn new skill as well as improving its own strength or reduces its own weakness.
3) The landscape or environment can exercise certain influence to each characters differently (temporary).
4) Players assume one of the many characters available in the game and role-play that character, as he will.
5) Usually, there is a general mission for all players.
The outcome of each character is in the hands of the player according to his skill and will.
If you were to take a step back and look at the game in a different aspect, you’ll realize that man is now “GOD” of the virtual world where the role-playing players are interacting in!!
Everything that happens inside that virtual world are pre-programmed (predetermined) by man but yet the players have the free will to move the characters in anyway he wills. The main aim is to complete the mission that is set forth in the game.
If you have not seen or played any of these MMORPGs, go find one and play. There are many of such games out there and some of the popular names are Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars, Maple Story, etc..
The above analogy serves only to highlight the possibility of free will in a pre-programmed environment. We’re all living in a world created and predestinated by God, much like point(1) above. In actual fact, what is described in the analogy is but a small and simplified example of what God had created and anything more complicated than this analogy will be beyond our understanding. (Isa 55:8-9)
While it is true that man’s life is predestinated, God instructed Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge and that is distinctively a freedom of choice given to man.
In short, MAN DO HAVE FREE WILL – although life is predestinated by God.
For more reading material on predestination and free will, try http://www.wikipedia/.
The following are taken from Wikipedia. It is found that there are different schools of thought in Western Philosophy regarding Free Will and Predestination. In summary, there are:
1. Determinism
2. Compatibilism
3. Incompatibilism
4. Libertarianism
There are bulks of philosophical contents on each of the above topic, which is just too much for me to take in, and I didn’t even read them until I decided to write this article. A choice that I made just to determine if there is any idea out there that may be similar to what I’ve concluded.
Guess what – after a quick scan on the above philosophies, the closest to my idea is “Compatibilism”, which also advocates that Free Will is compatible to “Determinism”. Does the “Compatibilism” philosophy expound the same understanding as mine or not? I don’t know and don’t care.
If you have the time to read them all – you may want to share with me, whether “Compatibilism” is what I’ve concluded.
Look out for my next article where I’ll explain in more detail technically how does Free Will works in Predestination. Stay tuned.
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You can continue reading this article by following this link to Part-2, Part-3, Part-4, Part-5 and Part-6
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