The Free Will Paradox - Part II: The Apple

Note: Before reading this, please read The Free Will Paradox - Part I: The Paradox

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-The Apple-

    Did God truly give man free will? Why would he want man to have free will? We can assume that it is the purpose He created us. Of all creatures He has or could create, He chose to create one with free will. One reason is so we may choose between good and bad. But if God is the Creator of all things He is the creator of bad as well as good. Who is to say what is good or what is bad? It is man. Man reasons that this is good or bad as a collective group deciding laws or as an individual with morals. Did God put us here to determine what is good or evil to us? We can safely assume He did not. Instead the ability to have free will is the only trait that would matter to a being where there is such a word as ‘faith’. God would only need to bestow something as radical as free will on a creature that He would want to have the ultimate choice. That is, the choice of God. If man is freely allowed to choose God or reject God, what will he do? 

    God, of course, could easily force all mankind to choose him. He could rain miracles on each man, flood the earth with angels or whatever it would take to convince each man that He is real. The reason He does not do these things must be because He wants us to have the choice; the choice of God. While it is important to think of this in the most open sense possible and not follow the words of man on the ultimate being of God, we can find an interesting scenario in the Abrahamic religions that show the fall of man due to his own choice. Exploring this can certainly help us to find out more about the choices of man, or lack there of. Be this story true, apocryphal, or simply a metaphor, it does not matter. What matters is the basic fact that man willingly (or not?) disobeyed God.

    God placed Adam and Eve in paradise. There was no want, no need, no sin, no evil. The one rule God gave was not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This, however, is exactly what happened. When Eve came to the tree she found the serpent who offered her the fruit asking, ‘why should you not eat it’? The serpent is often assumed to be Satan, but there is no general consensus to place this as fact. Instead it makes much more sense to see the serpent, if we must look at it in a metaphorical sense, as being man’s free will. Adam and Eve look at the tree of knowledge and their free will asks them, “Why can’t we eat this fruit? Why shouldn’t I have knowledge of good or evil, surely it will not kill me. I choose to eat this fruit. I choose to disobey God". As the story goes, man discovers what he assumes to be good and evil or right from wrong and is expelled from paradise and God’s grace for disobeying Him.

    Was this truly their decision? If Adam and Eve had not eaten the fruit they would have remained in paradise with God. Now, because of their choice, mankind is not with God or in paradise and we are able to decide for ourselves whether we accept God or not. It is interesting that once man has eaten the fruit he discovers something that was not there before: Evil. It is not something new that comes to them, but has been there all along even though they were ignorant of it.

    There are only two possible scenarios for man to have eaten the fruit. Either man, of his own free will (unbeknownst to God), chose to eat the fruit, or, as God knew, man had no other option but to eat the fruit. In order for man to have free will he would have to fall from grace. He would have to be separated from God in order to truly be able to choose God. We are presented two conundrums here, assuming God wants man to freely choose him and divine grace. Firstly, if God knew man would eat the fruit then, as previously argued, this would negate his free will. If, however, God did not know if man would choose to eat the fruit then there is a possibility that man would never have chosen the fruit, therefore never been separated from God and paradise, therefore never need to have free will to choose God.

If it is true that Adam and Eve had to eat the apple to have free will, then the paradox would be thus: There would be no option except for man to choose to eat the fruit. This would have to happen to facilitate God’s greater “plan” of free will. If this had to happen, if there was no other way, then this was never really a choice.