Free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive. One
would want to define what freedom means and obviously what determinism means.
Quantum uncertainty is interesting to consider in regard t
will. I believe the paradigm that is most useful is that being in the
four-dimension continuum is phenomenal. Some say it is emergent and contingent
being- a secondary phenomenon of the Higgs field and massless 2-dimensional particle-waves
of an unknown field.
Freedom of motion means degrees of free motion. In zero
gravity one has more degrees of freedom of motion than on the surface of a
planet with gravity. Free will may be comparable. One has freedom to think
within the criterion of having a brain, body and mind that work together in a
particular way in a very definite environment that is limited. Freedom is to
think is delimited by the circumstance in which the mind is found to occur and
within a particular temporal order.
Adam and Eve probably were not on Earth. That is the Garden
of Eden was exempt from space-time temporality and thermodynamics. I would
think they were spirits in spiritual bodies. Created and tested they were found
to be lacking direct obedience to the will of God. That is they weren’t infallibly
obedient. Instead having the capacity to choose to think for themselves- what
did Kant say? Oh yeah- Sapere aude! Not much has changed in that regard.
So God created beings that could think for themselves,
tested them. It was a learning experience, and demonstrating to them that they
weren’t perfect like God, cast them into thermodynamics of the Universe where
they began to age, had to work, had child bearing and developed short
life-spans. Relativity and gravity slowed them down. Massless particles have no
age and just two dimensions until slowed down in the Higgs Field and pick up a
third dimension. Something like that happened to Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve had free will and choose to abuse it. The
Universe was a temporal containment facility so those spiritual beings would
not eat of the tree of life or the tree of knowledge further. They had run
amuck and would have become eternal, willful malevolent spirits if given a
mortal body.
Once in the temporal Universe humanity was destined to die
and to be judged eventually. Because of original sin containment was necessary
and most people choose not to accept the salvation offered through the atoning
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. People are pre-destined to eternal death
unless they are saved.
Free will in the Universe will not bring eternal life. There
is comparably, no way for an odd number to become an even number or a prime
number if it isn’t. God’s grace draws those who He wills to salvation. One must
heed the call although none are deserve a pardon from original sin. Why God
chooses to save some rather than others is known to the omnipotent one rather
than to mankind.
If there were an infinite Multiverse and human minds merely
switched between the right Universe that conforms to the way they think at each
new thought, God would know what choices would lead away from Him and which
toward Him, even of the Spirit of God were needed to help people make the right
choices or thoughts as He wills.
If there is just this Universe (of however great a size) and
no other, it is still a containment facility for those with original sin and
the likelihood of being entirely will-full and running amuck-worthy given
eternal life and infinite knowledge. Why should God enable such problems as the
Devil to develop for created beings routinely? I would think it’s not in his
divine economy. It is possible that with omnipotence and omniscience God has
created (in his mind) every possible Universe and form of it a priori. The salient
question, as Plotinus might have asked is; why bother to actualize anything
like Universes and people then?
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