Human Freedom

Thesis: It is possible for the human will to reject God forever

Any course is open to a will that is truly free. True freedom can choose to suffer, to despise the holy and love evil. True freedom can choose to be deceived and hide itself from the truth. If human beings truly have the freedom to accept God’s grace, they must equally be able to reject it forever. If the agency of human beings is limited only to a temporary denial of God,

then its freedom is an illusion. To say that God has created the conditions under which human beings can love him freely is also to affirm that he has created the possibility of rejection. Humans possess an infinite capacity to blind themselves to goodness. The moral identity of human beings is not neutral, prone equally either to goodness or evil. Rather, it is formed gradually by chosen values and patterns of behaviour which, over time, have the potential to create a consistency of moral character. Just as repeated acts of charity, mercy and kindness conditions the moral sensibility to a consistent preference for good, so does pride and cruelty cultivate an evil nature.

We observe in human nature that this preference for evil may be expressed even in full and certain knowledge of the destructive consequences which will arise from it. For instance, as the Red Army closed on Berlin, Adolf Hitler adamantly refused to surrender, despite the convinced knowledge that his cause was lost and persistence would invite only more death and destruction upon Germany. This kind of behaviour, which reflects an intentional, settled, authentic embrace of evil, is characteristic of those in Hell. Whether motivated by stubborn pride, narcissism, a misplaced sense of autonomy, wilful ignorance, or any other self- justifying form of sin, the damned express a sincere rejection of God. There is no reason to think that this rejection should necessarily waver over time. Indeed, it is likely to become ever more resilient as the moral nature of the damned continues to solidify.

Nor should we supposed that it is more difficult to deny God in the next life than it is in this one. While God bestows upon us every grace that he can, he must to some extent withhold himself from us so that our freedom can be exercised without constraint. Similarly, while the consequences of separation from God must involve some manner of self-imposed suffering, he must ensure that our freedom is not suppressed by anguish. God does not want the consequences of our decision to press upon us like a medieval weight, forcing us to accept reconciliation with him solely to escape the oppressive duress of separation from him. God makes Hell tolerable in order that the possibility of eternal separation might be truly open to us.

It is therefore plausible that the human will can freely and knowledgeably reject God, and that some will do so forever.

Anti-Thesis: It is not possible for the human will to reject God forever.

Proof: Even if it is granted that salvation is exclusively relational, it remains inconceivable that a human being could reject God forever. The human soul has been created with a natural tendency to God. Given infinite time, and the ceaseless appeal of the God’s love, all will eventually accept his grace and participate in the saving relationship that is offered to them. There is no imaginable motive which could sustain an eternal human rejection of God. Certainly, human nature has a profound vulnerability to the allure of sin. There are those whose lives seem dedicated to the worship of the self, the torment of others, and hostility to the holy and the good. No one, however, is invulnerable to moral conversion. No illusion can persist forever, and evil is ultimately self-defeating. The more we seek fulfilment and

satisfaction apart from God, the more those sources of pleasure will be exposed as hollow and meaningless.

We observe in human nature that moral conversion often follows, even unwillingly, from the depths of despair and suffering. Evil is able to be sustained indefinitely in this life only because evil-doers derive pleasure and satisfaction from the exploitation of complacent goods that God has embedded in the world, such as fellowship with others, sexual pleasure, wealth and power. In the next life, however, the damned will be confronted by the sheer horror and meaninglessness that follows from total separation from God. It is not that they will be forced to submit to God, but that that they will lack any possible motive to reject him.

Indeed, an enduring preference for evil in these circumstances would be indicative of a will which was not free at all. Such an irrational, insane rejection of God would be a sign that the will was so thoroughly corrupted that it was so no longer functioning freely, and the proper response of loving goodness would be to heal such a person, and restore their will to its natural state, so that it is once again able to operate properly.

Nor does free autonomy require God to shield us from true knowledge of him, or from the consequences of our decisions, even if they should force us inevitably to accept him. Imagine that a doctor has a drug-addicted son. The doctor wishes his son to be rehabilitated, but only by his own choice. Therefore, in order to ensure that his son has the ability to reform himself freely rather than by duress, he replaces the money that his son spends on his addiction, he hires actors to befriend his son so that his harmful behaviour does not socially isolate him,

and supplies his son with medication to dull the psychological and physical harm that his addiction would otherwise cause him. Imagine that, if the doctor had not acted in this way, the son would have suffered sufficient degradation, squalor, pain and despair which would have driven him to break his addiction and seek rehabilitation. In this case we would say that the doctor is helping to perpetuate his son’s addiction by suppressing influences which would motivate him to change his life. That the son is driven by pain to change his life does not mean that he is unfree, but is merely the outcome of his free will interacting rationally with his circumstances. In the same way, God does no injury to our autonomy by allowing us to suffer the full force of the consequences of our separation from him. Given enough time, these consequences will inevitably prompt a free moral conversion.