Q&A: Does God Have Free Will?
Does God Have Free Will?
Question
Since God is perfect and is the absolute good, it would seem that He must always do what is best, since He lacks nothing. Doesn’t that mean that He has no free will? And what would the theological implications be if He indeed has no free will?
Answer
You are conflating two different planes. A person can have free will, and yet if he has no evil inclination he will always do the good. That does not mean he has no choice, only that there is no actual realization of that choice because there is no dilemma. That is apparently God’s situation.
Discussion on Answer
Obviously. I wrote that. The evil in the world is not there to enable choice, but to enable its actual manifestation.
And what is the point of that?
Why is there a need for it to be realized in practice?
That’s worth asking Him. But it clearly seems that this is what He wanted. Apparently, in His view, only actions done out of a decision when there is another practical option have value. Otherwise we are talking about robots. See my columns on work as a higher need, and on perfection and self-perfection.
Does choice have any meaning if I have no real possibility of choosing? In addition—if free will can exist without evil, and God is indeed good, then there is no reason for Him to allow evil in our world in order to enable free will, since it can be attained even without evil..