“I
have listened to you,” I said, “and agree that it is as you say. But in this
close sequence of causes, is there any freedom for our judgment or does this
chain of fate bind the very feelings of our minds too?”
“There
is free will,” she answered. “Nor could there be any reasoning nature without
freedom of judgment. For any being that can use its reason by nature, has a power
of judgment by which it can without further aid decide each point, and so distinguish
between objects to be desired and objects to be shunned.
“Each
therefore seeks what it deems desirable, and flies from what it considers
should be shunned. Wherefore all who have reason have also freedom of desiring
and refusing in themselves.”
—from
Book 5, Prose 2
Being confronted
with the vast cosmic scale of things, I may easily feel intimidated. If
everything is truly subject to a grand design, with all the bits and pieces meant
to be precisely where they are, I will begin to wonder if I can actually matter,
if my own choices really make any difference. Perhaps I don’t even have any
choices to begin with; perhaps I am just a puppet on a string?
If nothing
is ever random, can anything ever move of its own accord? Under the firm hand
of Providence, what becomes of my own freedom?
At first,
I wish to laugh a little bit, remembering that Boethius originally thought the
Universe ran far too loosely, and yet now he worries that it is wound far too
tightly. Then, however, I begin to take his dilemma more seriously, when I
remember how often I have swung from one extreme to another in my own life.
Here,
once again, I may be tempted to think that there are hidden forces at work,
such that the decisions I think of as my own are not my own at all. Yes, I seem
to be doing the picking and choosing, but could that all be an illusion? Might
there be unseen causes, quite beyond my power, lurking behind the causes I
think I can see?
There
are indeed many things I don’t know, and as I get older, I realize that I know ever
less and less. But let me not be overwhelmed by what is beyond me, or swept
away by a panic about my own significance. Let me begin with what I do know,
with what is most immediate and self-evident within my own experience.
I
observe many different things, acting in many different ways, and moving along
many different paths. Behind all of it, I am conscious of their presence, and I
reflect upon their identity. Who am I, then, in contrast to all of this? I have unwittingly
answered my own question, just by asking it: I am a creature of understanding,
driven by reason.
It is my
own judgment, the power to distinguish between what I consider true or false, right
or wrong, that determines how I will perceive my world, and in turn determines
how I will act.
Yes, things
will act upon me, and produce a vast variety of impressions within me, and they
may push me this way or pull me that way, bit I will ultimately be the one who
decides what is worthy or unworthy, desirable or undesirable, and so I will
have the final say in how I act in the face of them. Their meaning is uncovered
by my own awareness, and their value is revealed through my own estimation.
I will pursue
what I judge as being good, and I will avoid what I judge as being bad. The world
will be what it will be, but how I respond to it will be up to me.
“But how
do I really know the choice is from me, and not from something else?”
A moment
of calm is called for here. Am I saying that it will be my judgment that I have
no judgments? However contradictory that is, it has still determined how I will
act. My internal disposition remains my own.
“But
maybe I can decide all I want, and it just doesn’t make any difference with how
other things behave, or with what happens to me?”
That may
well be the case, and my decision may not determine what those things do, but
my decision still determines my own attitude. That may not seem like much at
first, but it is the fullness of who I am. The rest is about externals.
To the
degree that a creature possesses reason, it also possesses the freedom to shape
its own thoughts. Where there is consciousness, there is also choice, not as
something added to it, but as inherent in its very identity.
In the
simplest of terms, my own judgment is the very measure by which I choose.
Before
considering how that might possibly fit in with an all-knowing and all-powerful
Providence, I need to start with just that. One step at a time!
Written in 1/2016
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