Updated: 04/15/08
CHAPTER 34
FREE WILL
For
the sake of exploration into the concept of free will and then prophecy, we are
forced 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, or that there
is not a God. It is rather to identify the minimum attributes that a super
being or God must possess in order to be classified as a God. Only then can we
honestly examine the concept of free will.
We
must first ask the question, does this God have free will? We must answer,
"Yes," in order to classify our super being as a God. To say that any
super being does not have free will, is contrary to the definition of a God and
is inconceivable and unthinkable. Let me explain. To get to be a super being,
one must have room and freedom to navigate through the physical, mental and
physic universe. Also, In order 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 that to us lesser beings appear as miracles and
foreknowledge.
So
at the very least, we must 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, the product 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 knowledge and
intelligence, especially in his early stages of development. This means, the
super being would have to do that which later may be found not in keeping with
his (new) super knowledge. He must do this in order to discover and prove to
himself 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 super intelligence could come into being, or be born, with
all super knowledge is again incomprehensible. 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.
As
I said before, some people try to describe God as though he were the greatest
baseball pitcher in the universe. But 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.
Now,
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, that 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 that 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 that 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 with our calculations. 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 magnetic and electrical relationship with other
space 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.
The
point here is that 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 that 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 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, could see the future, then man does not have
free will. Seeing the future means that, the future is already determined. It
cannot be changed. Suppose you were a seer one thousand years ago and 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 villain
as loudly as the hero, especially if he played his part in superb fashion. The
players on the stage of earth would simply be actors following the script
written for them. That is what it means to see the future. Neither Whitehead,
nor I, agree with that.
As
habit driven as man is, he still does not always follow his own set patterns of
activity and response. 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 actually 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 the stage of earth? Maybe the
future is merely determined by events, if and only when those events do happen.
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, along with brain
tumors, insanity, past and present knowledge, subconscious, science, belief,
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 deprivations of food or water, fevers, traumas, tragedies and
leaving out many others, we must also include religion.
Surely,
you didn't think this was going to be simple.
It
has rightly been said, “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, they are based on calculations, and they do not hit a wet
spot.
Here
is a prophecy for you that you can deposit in the bank. 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
that 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 that 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, the organs of our body, our coordination,
our development, our ability to digest certain foods and to reject others, our
sexual drives and desires 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 that can and
does 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 of his future. We can even inject new DNA
and genes to change man’s future condition.
Have
you ever tried to analyze why you chose the blue car instead of the red one?
Or, bought this brand of peas instead of that one? Have you ever figured why
you put your money in this bank instead of that stock? Have you ever wondered
why you bought this stock instead of that one? Have you ever wondered 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 wondered why some
people are Atheists and some are Baptists? Have you ever wondered 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? Most likely - not.
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 hard work, a mental
Choice and you must work to 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 driver's license as far as 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.
Wise use of free will is only the property of those who have learned to think,
to honestly doubt the molds that others say we should pack ourselves into. The
wise use of free will is hard work. Wise free will demands that we learn to
evaluate the claims imposed daily upon us by government, religion, business and
a host of others. Wise use of free will is the ability to separate the true
from the false, the good from the bad, the moral from the immoral. 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 in not free. It is hard, honest, sweaty, mature and sometimes
disconcerting work!
Wise
use of free will is a hard job; it is 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 common
man. It puts an honest, wise man in a most unpopular minority. It brings
ridicule and hostility from those who say, "It cannot be done." “We
don’t do it that way.” “Are you some kind of nut?” “That is not what the Bible
says.” “It is immoral.” “It is evil to think and do it like that.” The wise use
of free will brings ridicule and hostility from those who believe a God can see
the future.
The
wise use of free will is a threat and 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, the moral from the immoral - who believe what
their authorities tell them. This fear of prophecy in the Believers produces
Hostility toward those with the courage to dispute prophecy and who use their
honest Free Will wisely.
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. We don’t do it
like that" He does not follow unbelievable claims. The wise exercise of
free will makes a person (or a nation) carve out his 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 men.
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, science 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. 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 use of 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?
IT IS THE FREE AND WISE USE OF HONEST DOUBT,
WHICH PROTECTS US
FROM CON ARTIST, LIARS, POLITICIANS 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
is a fine time, right now, to realize that we need some wise use of our own
free will. We need to bring crime, drug wars, terror wars, world tensions,
government excesses, religious beliefs, hostility, war, education and a host of
other present 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 wise free will and
their honest knowledgeable doubt - at home.
Now let us look at prophecy with Free Will in mind!
Thomas E. Blaylock
Copyright: 1989
Updated: 04.15/08
