While it may be debatable how much autonomy (free will) any of us have, there is sufficient evidence to establish free will exists.
Having and making choices is one of our responsibilities as an adult. Even children make choices but their options are necessarily limited by their parent(s) or guardian(s). Sometimes our choices are less evident and sometimes we even forget we have a choice.
As a believer and a philosopher, I believe there is a strong case for the importance of free will to our Creator. To demonstrate this, I ask you to consider soulful, romantic love.
Love that is forced upon us, that is imposed on us against our will, may be many things (including rape) but it isn’t true love. This has always been the case, even if historically many marriages were for reasons other than love. Even in arranged marriages, there wasn’t any pretense that it was for anything other than class, and material concerns.
The tradition of marriage, from time immemorial, has always included (in some for) consent by means of a question, and vows as declaration of will. Even arranged marriages were between people who chose to accept the arrangement.
Consent, or permission, is a part of free will. The best form of consent is informed consent, in which there is transparency about what is being accepted. This is the reason the traditional vows have that peculiar directive: “If anyone knows any reason why these two shouldn’t be joined together in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”
In scripture we learn that God is love. It is His nature. Furthermore, we read about the account of creation, where a loving God created man. Quintessential in the creation story is the instruction God gave Adam (and Eve): “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
In being given this commandment, Adam and Eve were presented with a choice: to eat or not to eat. God expressed His desire that they not eat. They chose to eat, an act of free will, and that choice resulted in death. God could have created man without any free will, in which case they never would have disobeyed God. Somehow, and I believe this to be very important, it was by the express will and design of God that man should have free will.
We also learn in scripture that God has and exercise His will. We don’t know about all the heavenly hosts, but we do know angels and archangels also have free will. When Lucifer fell, if we accept this account, he chose to rebel against God and many angels who joined him were cast out.
Let’s stop here and consider the implications of free will as applied to love and worship. I believe this is evidence given to us to know that God is good and loving. God doesn’t just tell us He is loving. He shows us by loving us enough to allow us to make choices. Because of how much Adam’s choice cost the human race, and because of how much God loves us, God himself chose to live as human and die in our place, thus making the ultimate sacrifice and paying for us the cost of our redemption, or salvation.
While the politics of man pale in comparison to the authority of the Kingdom of God, I believe we have been given knowledge useful in making intelligent choices when it comes to the government of man on earth.
While no perfect form of earthly government exists, we have plenty of data to give informed consent where the choice is available to us. By and large, we are limited to those choices provided to us. For some, there is no choice. To rebel against the status quo could mean imprisonment or death. Do you remember the Soviet Gulag Archipelago? Do you remember reading about life under the control of the Third Reich? Under Stalin?
Because God has placed so much importance on free will, I propose that the form of government that provides the most liberty, even if those choices lead to less than perfect circumstances, is the lesser of evils, being compared to other governments, where there is such a level of control, that its subjects are not free, and are deprived of liberty.
I’ll even go one step further and submit that throughout history, it is the forms of government we describe as tyrannical, where liberty is deprived from its subjects, that life and the pursuit of happiness is also up the whim of those in control. Life given or taken was determined by the upward or downward gesture of a thumb.
Think of the forms of government we see around the world today and I believe there is but one that is a shining city on a hill. Even though it is not purely in the same form as when it was born, it was unique experiment in the governance of man. Namely, the United States of America. Not a pure democracy, and definitely not a monarchy, socialist, or communist state, but a constitutional Republic with democratic elements. Whether or not it is supreme, that is not my argument. I’ll leave you to decide. But, it is definitely unique, even considering there are some governments that have a similar form.
In conclusion, I’ll put it this way: No form of government on earth is without its flaws. There is no perfect government where it depends on men, who are not angels, but sinners. Yet, the liberty enshrined the USA, as blueprinted by our Constitution, allows us a remedy should tyranny ever raise its ugly head. Such a remedy is out of reach in other governments where liberty has been denied. Just look at how many are trying to immigrate here compared to those trying to leave communist countries.