A common argument against the existence of free will is the idea that everything a person does can be explained by some cause or causes external to that person. If I eat, it is because I am hungry. If I drive cautiously, it is because I have learned through my past experiences to do so. Therefore, some assert, all human actions were bound to happen as they did, as a result of the external forces that led to those behaviors (an idea known as determinism). Explicability (the ability of something to be explained), they claim, negates agency.
The school of psychological thought known as behaviorism, popularized in the early 1900’s, has been used as a basis for making these assertions. The influential behaviorist psychologist B. F. Skinner asserted that free will was a myth, and an idea that should be discarded.
Scripture, on the other hand, is replete with passages emphasizing the reality and importance of free will. The Old Testament prophet Joshua adjured the Israelites to “choose you this day whom ye will serve.”1 Jesus spoke of how Mary had “chosen that good part.”2 Later He chastened those who were indecisive in following Him: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”3
But perhaps the greatest exposition on the subject of human agency in Latter-Day Saint scripture is the second chapter of 2 Nephi, in the Book of Mormon. In it, the prophet Lehi teaches his son Jacob about why the Fall of Adam and the Atonement of Jesus Christ were both necessary parts of God’s plan.
As I reread this chapter recently, I noticed that verse 16 suggests that explicability doesn’t eliminate agency. Instead, Lehi says that explicability is a necessary part of agency:
16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
People don’t do things that don’t have explanations. And yet, at the same time, there may be multiple explicable decisions in a given situation. For example, when I feel hurt by another person, I can either respond with hurtfulness in kind, or I can choose to acknowledge my hurt without retaliating. Either of those choices is explicable—after making either choice, I could point to something in my past that led to that choice. But that does not eliminate my ability and responsibility to choose.
I’m reminded of a quote by Victor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Each potential response is still capable of being explained by the given stimulus, but we choose our response nonetheless.
This connects to several other things I’ve been considering lately as well; I will write my thoughts about those things in future posts.
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