Humans and Free Will

 Written October 2005

Throughout my entire life, I have heard about the mystery between humans and God or gods.  If there is an all knowing God, that knows our every move, choice, and action before we do it, do we really have free will?  This discussion is very intriguing to me, because it makes me think about life.  Is life already pre-planned, our every decision already made in fact for us, and all of our thoughts previously given to us.  It seems like we are computers, with different programs in each of us, which has already been made and put into us in the form of our brains.  In the Iliad some things were acts of human will, but the majority of the time they did what the gods wanted or supported.  It seems as though we have do have the choice that determines which path our lives will follow.  Because we can think, we can act, and everything else on our own, we can choose the life we want.  The topic of free will is a very hard one to discuss, because we really don’t know the deal.  To think that our fate as humans is already known is mind blowing.  Even though we do not know what is going to happen to us, other “powers” do. 

In Homer’s Iliad, the gods affected most of the humans’ choices and actions.  They were influenced, threatened, or persuaded by magic to do the will of the gods.  An example of this is when Zeus decides that he will aid the Achaian army.  He sends a phony dream to Agamemnon, making him confident that he and his army can defeat the Trojans.  This is proof that this type of “divine intervention” happens.  If Zeus did not interfere with Agamemnon in any form, he might not have had the courage or confidence to battle the Trojans.  This could mean that all courage, confidence, and any other qualities man possesses could be false hope.  It could have been instilled in us by a supernatural power to make is believe we can do whatever endeavor it is that we face at that time.  Even in the movie Henry V, he believed that is was God’s will that he would rule France also.  So he and his army battled because of what he and his people believed was his divine right.  Religious aspects influenced his Henry’s judgment; he made his choice based on the “Salic Law”, what his religion deemed right.  He did have a choice in this matter; he could have ignored this law and continued as the King of England.  But the religious influence was very strong so therefore he followed what he believed.  This example proves that he was influenced by a force that he thought was more powerful than him.

Throughout the books that I have read this school year, I find evidence that supports the claim that humans only have free will to a certain point.  Every action causes a reaction and most deeds are influenced by an outside force in the readings.  It is very hard to say that humans really have free will.  It seems that our lives have already been planned and our fate is inevitable, even though we do not know what is going to happen.  It is like we are living lives, that have been mapped out already, but we don’t know what direction we are heading in.  This is a very tough thing for me to understand.  If we have free will, why is there a God or gods, who already know or can heavily influence our every action?  So basically I believe that it only seems that we have free will, because there can’t be free will if the higher powers already know what is going to occur. 

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