Updated: 3/20/08
For the sake of exploration into the concept of free
will and then prophecy, I am going to assume that there is a super being which
by some stretch of imagination we could call God. This is not to say that there
is a God or that there is not a God. It is rather to define the minimum
attributes, which a God must possess, so we can honestly and
logically examine the concept of free will.
We must first ask the
question, does this God have free will? To say that any super being does not
have personal free will is unthinkable. The title “God” implies free will. To
be a super being, one must have room and freedom to navigate through the
dimensional, physical, mental and physic universe. To be a super being, one
must have super intelligence and super knowledge. Super knowledge and super
intelligence assures the super being (or God) of having super power. Super
power does not necessarily mean infinite power. It does mean the super being
can do and know things naturally and physically, which to us lesser beings,
appear as miracles.
So at the very least, we
grant free will, super power, super knowledge and super intelligence to our
super being. This is a minimal requirement. One cannot arrive at
super-being-hood without traveling there. Knowledge is an evolution. Knowledge
and Intelligence are the end result of the wise and proper utilization of free
will. It is the result of trial and error. You cannot know what is true unless
it has been tested against what is false.
Even if a super being were
born, created or just happened, he would still need to have experience in order
to develop that intelligence, and to discover that knowledge. That super being
would still have to authenticate his intelligence and test his knowledge. This
means the super being would have to experiment with nature and maybe do that
which later may be found to not be in keeping with his later super knowledge.
He must do this in order to discover and prove that his super knowledge is
true. In other words, the super being would have to experiment with life and science. He
would have to make mistakes. It would be like learning to play chess. First,
you must learn the rules (or make them up). Then wrong moves teach you the
right moves.
To conclude that any being
could be born (or come into being) with all super knowledge is again
unthinkable. Knowledge is a product of development. It must be found out and
acquired. It is the product of experimentation and honest thinking. Knowledge
is the result of experiments. It is the consequence of living, seeing,
analyzing and doing. Knowledge is the reward of errors and mistakes. Knowledge
is the derivative of failure and then of success. Once this knowledge is
gathered, it can be passed on to others. But even the others must test the new knowledge.
As I said before, some
people try to describe God as though he were the greatest baseball pitcher in
the universe. Yet, they do not allow him either a catcher or batter (much less
do they allow him a team). Now be sensible. No super being could develop in a
vacuum. We must grant development to our super being. Such a grant demands that
there be other beings with which to interact. So, we are forced to accept that
there is not just one super being, but there must be at least a family of them.
However, we are only talking
about the super, super being, the old man if you will, the head honcho. We will
call this super being, God.
Alfred Whitehead's
"Process Theology" demonstrates that God (our super being) cannot
actually see the future. The reason is that man also has free will (as does all
intelligence) and thus, even God could only guess what decisions man will make
when faced with any given situation.
In order to understand free
will better, we need to divide the concept of prophecy into its component
parts. There are two different concepts, both of which we call prophecy.
Sorry, it is just one of the failures of our English language.
First, there is the concept
of calculation, which some insist on calling prophecy. If a fuse burns
at one foot every thirty seconds and we have sixty feet of fuse, we can
prophesy when the blast will occur, (unless there is a wet spot under the
fuse). That is calculation. IF we have super intelligence, super
knowledge and super instrumentation, we can calculate about when the San Andrea
Fault will rupture. If we have super knowledge and super instrumentation, we
can calculate (prophesy) when the next asteroid will hit the earth. In other
words, there are many events, which a super intelligence could divulge to man,
and man would call that prophecy. But, in fact, that is calculation. That is
seeing the future only from the standpoint of what is known now and projecting
that curve of knowledge into the future. It is not SEEING the future. That is
CALCULATING the future.
Look at the San Andrea
Fault. There must be thousands of things that must be taken into consideration.
The rain, the snow, the temperature, the highs and lows of the atmosphere, the
ocean swells, the pull of the sun, moon and other bodies, the electric and plasma
interaction of heavenly bodies, the building or releasing of pressure in the
near by faults, removal of underground oil and water, underground explosions,
motion of the continental plates, magnetic fluctuations, movement of the deep
magma, strength of the rocks, the build up of heat in the deep earth, and
hundreds of other affecters must be considered. And let us not forget man's
ever grinding bulldozers and his use of ELF broadcasts.
The point here is, even a
super being could only be general about when the trouble will come. Why?
Because even nature seems to have some interconnected toss of the dice, which
speeds events up or slows them down. Or, maybe some unknown or unforeseen
events can even cause a failure in the fulfillment of the calculation. Sometimes
a wet spot puts out the fuse.
The second concept of
prophecy is that of actually SEEING the future. By seeing, I mean
actually seeing some event before it happens, not by calculation, but by some
super being, or some super process, introducing the vision or the seeing. Now
if man does have free will, no one, not even a super being or God, can SEE the
future. He can calculate the future and most likely be right, but he cannot SEE
the future.
If any super being, or God, can SEE the future, then man does NOT have
free will.
Now read that again!
SEEING the future means the
future is already determined. It cannot be changed. Suppose there was no free
will for mankind and you were a seer one thousand years ago. Your super
intelligent hobby was just to sit and actually watch the future. Could you
applaud the good characters and boo the bad characters like Hitler? No indeed.
It would be like watching a stage play. You would applaud the villains as
loudly as the heroes, especially if they played their part in superb fashion.
The players on earth's stage would simply be actors following the script
written for them. That is what it means to SEE the future. Whitehead does not
agree with that belief, nor do I.
As habit driven as man is,
he still does not always follow his own set patterns of activity. Sometimes
there are wet spots in men's lives. Sometimes, there are wet spots in the
responses of society to difficulties, to trouble and even to their religious
beliefs. This book may be your wet spot.
So, either man has free will
and no one can SEE the future, or someone CAN see the future, and therefore,
man does NOT have free will. Is the future determined by what should happen
(what is calculated)? Or, is the future determined in advance and man is just
an actor on earth's stage? Maybe the future is merely determined by events if
and only when those events actually DO happen. Maybe there is more than one
future possible for us.
Finally, we have set our
stage so we can intelligently discuss free will and prophecy. What are some of
the elements we must consider when we think about the Claims of
prophecy? We must think of super beings, Gods, aliens, brain tumors, insanity,
past and present knowledge, science, belief, subconscious, hypnotism,
delusions, prevarications, illusions of grandeur, profits, hoaxes, and with all
of this we must even include onions and hot peppers for supper. Then we must
add fevers, traumas, tragedies and leaving out many others, we must also
include religion and belief.
Surely, you didn't think
this was going to be simple.
It has rightly been said
that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But, you cannot eat prophecy.
Most prophecy cannot be understood until after it happens - or does not
happen. Almost all specific prophecies never happen, unless of course, it is
based on calculations and it does not hit a wet spot.
Here is a prophecy for you,
which you can deposit in the bank. And you can quote me on this because there
is no way it can be false. It was revealed to me by an ancient, crossed wired
Greek. I take absolutely no credit for it.
"The Republicans, the
Democrats shall defeat."
Now that is a prophecy that
will make the Republicans very happy. It is a prophecy, which will also make the
Democrats very happy. Why? Because each will read it to suit their own ideas,
their own ambitions and their own beliefs.
Why is prophecy so hard to
understand, so confusing and so hard to arrive and agree on a solution
as to what the prophecy really says? I will answer that for you. It is because
prophecy is so hard to understand, so confusing and so hard to arrive and agree
on a solution as to what the prophecy really says. Now do you understand? Did I
clear that up?
Don't laugh! You have just
been exposed to the concept of prophecy as it is used by religious believers,
spiritualist believers and believers in man's lack of free will. Religious
believers long ago found out that the only prophecies that were of value
to them were those, which could be bent, contorted and reshaped to suit their
preconceived ideas of what the prophecy Should say.
I am becoming more and more
amazed at what the geneticists are finding out about the control that our genes
and DNA have over our health, our life span, our intellect, our likes and
dislikes, our strength, our organs of the body, our coordination, our
development, our ability to digest certain foods and to reject others, our
sexual drives, and on and on they go. New evidence is found every day that
seems to take away a little bit more of our free will. Are we really just
actors on the stage of life? Are our decisions preprogrammed into us?
But, as I look at these
things more closely, I find in them knowledge, which can make man more
free. This knowledge can be used, and IS being used, to make man Less dependent
on his genes and DNA, more in charge of his own future, and more able to change
the calculations (prophecies) of his future.
Have you ever tried to
analyze why you chose the blue car instead of the red one? Have you wondered
why you bought this brand of peas instead of that one? Have you ever figured
why you put your money in this bank instead of that one? Have you ever
questioned why you chose to read this book and not a different one? Have you
ever wondered why you chose to believe one religion and not another? Have you
ever speculated why some people are Atheists and some are Baptists? Have you
ever conjectured if you were born in Africa what your religion would be? And
what prophecies you would hear? Have you ever wondered why some people are
professors and some people are clerks? Of course not (most likely).
What I am saying here is,
some people do NOT use their free will to make intelligent and useful
decisions. While other people DO use their free will to make wise and
intelligent decisions for their own advantage (and for the advantage of
mankind). Wise use of free will is not automatic. It is a mental CHOICE, and
you must make it. You get stopped by the police. He asks if you have a driver's
license. You say you do. He asks to see your license. You say it is at home. My
friend, you DO NOT have a license as far as the law and that policeman is
concerned. And it is the same with free will. Use it all the time or lose it!
To the person who uses his
free will wisely and to his advantage, all of life is a wet spot. To a person
who does not use his free will wisely, the fuse burns on. Free will is only the
property of those who have learned to think, to honestly doubt the molds, which
others say we should pack ourselves into. Wise free will use is hard work. Wise
free will demands that we learn to evaluate the claims fostered daily upon us
by government, religion, business and a host of others. The wise use of free
will is like swimming up stream. The wise use of free will can change outcomes
and make any prophecy into a falsehood, calculated or not. But, FREE
WILL IS NOT FREE. It is hard adult work!
Wise use of free will is a
hard job, an occupation. Wise use of free will needs hard won knowledge.
Knowledge takes hard honest studying. Science is wise free will at work. Cancer
cures take wise free will to discover. Wise use of free will takes hard honest
thinking and beyond all that, it takes COURAGE. The wise use of free will is
one of the most unpopular concepts known to the average man. It puts a person
in a most unpopular minority. It brings ridicule and hostility from those who
believe a God can SEE the future. It also brings fear to those who do not yet
understand, who do not wisely use their own free will, who have not yet
learned to separate fact from fiction, truth from tall tales - who believe
instead of thinking.
The wise use of free will
makes a person different. He does not follow the popular and the easy. He does
not listen to, "It can't be done." He does not follow unbelievable
claims. The wise exercise of free will makes a person, or a nation, carve out
their own destiny. He follows the true, the honest and the right way - the way
of knowledge. Wise free will pays attention to the calculated, but it pays NO
attention to those who claim to SEE the future. Why? Because he wisely uses his
free will. He can separate fact from fiction, the true from the false. He has
become a true man, as (hopefully) will be the future of all mankind.
Now, a carefully calculated
true prophecy may apply to those who do not develop wise use of free will in
their lives. But, even if the prophecy comes from a super being and may apply
to those who do not wisely exercise their free will, it does not have to apply
to you. If you are worried about the prophecy (calculation) of the San Andrea
Fault rupturing, then move. Use your free will. Use your head. Think! After
all, that is what free will is. It is learning to think honestly and clearly
about all the various claims made by prophets, religions, governments, business
and such. Then it is having the Courage to act upon that honest
thinking. That is, one should make some wise free will decisions to skirt known
traps, dangers and unbelievable (or believable) claims.
Wise free will is the
activation of honest thought and honest action in our lives. Wise free will
demands knowledge, and knowledge demands honest studying and experimentation to
find it. The wise use of free will demands that we find out the truth about
those proclamations, promises and prophecies that daily bombard us. Wise free
will limits believability. In other words, the more you know, the less you can
believe. And after all, is prophecy not just a Claim that someone says happened
in their heads. Is it not just a claim that one can only believe or doubt? And
is it not the wise use of honest doubt that protects us from con artist, liars,
politicians, prophets and preachers?
SEEING the future is a
falsehood. Because of free will, SEEING the future cannot happen. Calculating
the future can be true. But, the wise use of free will can turn true
calculations into a tool that we can use to better determine our own destiny
(and our national destiny).
It may be a fine time, right
now, to realize that we need some wise use of our own free will. We need to
bring crime, drugs, world tensions, religious beliefs, hostility, government
excesses, false education, awesome weapons and a host of other evils under the
control of our WISE FREE WILL. These evils do have calculated results, and the
results are gruesome to contemplate. If we wish to carve out a better national
destiny, we better get started - and soon!
Prophecy is a terror only to
those people and nations who left their free will, and their honest
knowledgeable doubt - at home.
Copyright 1999 Thomas E.
Blaylock, Jr.