This blog entry is delayed.

But anyway, i was at church that day, and the priest was talking about Jesus' birth i.e. how the angel came down upon Mary and told her that she, a virgin, was to conceive a child - the saviour of the world.

The priest told us that Mary's decision to accept, was in exercise of her free will - while God planned for her to be the mother of our saviour, she could have said "no" if she wanted to.

But how can that be? What if she did in fact say "no"? Surely God knew she would definitely say "yes" - surely he planned for her to say "yes"?

And so that got me thinking, "is there such a thing as free will?"

If we believe in "God's will"/ fate, then the decisions we make don't matter - because at the end of the day, do what we like, what's meant to be will be. So unless the idea of "free will" is the mere exercise of freedom to make a decision; we do not have free will in the true sense, insofar as the end has already been decided/ imposed on us.

A possible counter argument could be that there are different paths we may choose to take - God has a different "end" planned for us, depending on which choice we make. In that way, our choice does have a bearing on the outcome (i.e. if I choose A, God's planned outcome for me is X; but if I choose B, God's planned outcome for me would be XX etc.)

But then that doesn't work so well either. Because given that God is God (i.e. all powerful and ever knowing); he would already know the decision we will make. So even if there are a million different possible decisions with corresponding outcomes; in making a decision, there is again no free will in the true sense, because the outcome is already known.

Therefore, I don't think we have "free will" in the true sense of the term. We have "free will" insofar as we can make decisions freely. But beyond the decision-making process, we do not have the power to will any particular outcome.

What's your idea of "free will"?