As I look further into the meaning of determinism and free will, I think it would be beneficial to see what the Bible has to say about it. Therefore, it would only make sense for me to go to the Holy Book for insight, which was written so we may have a glimpse of God in people’s life and essentially in my own life as well.
Specifically I want to analyze the passage in the book of Jonah. The passage is in Jonah 1-2. For those that do not know about this story, basically God calls a man named Jonah to go to an evil city called Nineveh to preach against its immorality and the doom that is lurking towards its future. Apparently this plan did not sit well with Jonah, so he runs away from God, but God manipulates events to the point where Jonah is desperate for God. It takes Jonah being in the belly of a large fish to break down and decide that he needs God more than God needs him. Some might think automatically that since God is manipulating these events, he is in charge and therefore, determinism is the theory one must believe in. This may make sense because in Jonah 1:4 it says that, “Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up..”. In Jonah 1:17 it says that, “But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah..”. Lastly, in Jonah 2:17, it says that, “...the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” I italicized the verbs in those verses because I want you to notice the direct connection between God and these verbs. I find it interesting that these verbs, “sent”, “provided”, and “commanded” are all things that God did with Jonah as well as with the natural environment. God wanted to send him on a journey, He provided a fish to save his life from the waves, and He also commanded that Jonah go to the city of Nineveh. All these actions were because God did them. He created these events to put Jonah where He wanted him. This seems a lot like determinism is at play in this passage.
At the same time, I find it interesting that even though God has the power to do it, God did not specifically force Jonah to do what he wanted. Instead he used natural things, such as a storm and a big fish, to get his attention. Jonah, a mere human against an all powerful God, couldn’t be forced to do something because he had something that argues against the laws of determinism; that is free will. Hence, that’s why Jonah ran away in the first place. He had the choice to run away from God’s will. The interesting thing to me is that the reason why we have free will in the first place is because God gave it to us. So, if God has given us a freedom of choice, does that mean that since He created it, He should have a say with what we do with it?
No comments:
Post a Comment