Have you ever wondered why you have an inbuilt rebellion towards doing the right things?
If we look at the human experience outside of the existence of God, we begin to throw around concepts such as autonomy, self-determinism, and agency.
It is not to say that those theories are wrong, but, in truth, those theories can only exist in the realm of choice. WHY? If atheism is true (it isn’t) then life has no choices but is a soup of inevitable occurance that we have no jurisdiction over.
In order to have power to make decisions and judgements it means that there must be choices to choose from. Therefore, atheism is not plausible because we do have choice. We choose daily to do the right or wrong thing.
Having said that, because we have choice, which points is to the fact that God gives humans free will, hence choice, autonomy, self-determinism, and agency must be considered within the framework of God.
And, if God, what is the difference between a human understanding of autonomy versus God’s Perspective of autonomy.
Let’s look at those definitions, before jumping into what Paul draws our attention to The Holy Book of Ephesians.
AUTONOMY:
Notice something important in the definition of autonomy – SELF directing freedom and moral independence. In of itself, autonomy cannot exist in atheism, as explained, and because ALL HUMANS have this gravitational pull to do bad things to various degrees, we cannot be the deciding factor of what morality is because we have inbuilt bias based on our conditioned learning through socialisation. Because, we have unavoidable bias, we do not have a concept of freedom which is proven by the fact that we, undeniably, experience consequences. So too, because we do not know absolutely everything there is to possibly know, we cannot with certainty claim that our understanding is even accurate.
SELF-DETERMINISM:
Although, self-determinism revolves around revolves around what motivates our personality, again, without the context of AN ULTIMATE MORAL BEING that sets the stage for human possibility, self-determinism is exploitable due to us all having bias. This means that what feels like a legitimate motivation for one person may not factor into the motivation for another based on their bias. For example: money- to one money is a god and the means to acquire it can come at the cost of other lives because the more “god” they have the more important they feel. They self-determined that their “god” is more important than life. To another, money is just paper that allows them to do things that help others. This person self-determined that life was more important than money. Whose determinism of self-existence is right? ONLY AN EXTERNAL MORAL BEING CAN ANSWER THAT FOR US, BECAUSE WE DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING TO CLAIM OURSELVES AS ACCURATE.
AGENCY:
Looking at agency, it is impossible for agency to be valid in atheistic theory. But, the words ‘sense of control’ are very telling. We can be so caught up in our perception of control that we make ourselves a ‘god of OUR understanding’, which considering that we all have been socialized we aren’t even sure we are credible witnesses of ourselves. We just need to be honest about how our emotions can mix up how we want to be versus how we react sometimes, to know that our agency is not exactly a stable thing in of itself.
Why do babies and little animals evoke us to be fascinated?
Who made us have wonder at the sunset?
Why does personality even exist if we are are matter going to die?
Summing up autonomy, self-determinism, and agency, some delightful wording taken from the fall of Adam and Eve, should paint the foundation for us to examine what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 1.
Is it possible that the theories of autonomy, self-determinism, and agency, are mere fabrications to deceive us into thinking we are in control, therefore justifying our god-complex and inbuilt rebellion to self govern on our biased interpretation of what freedom and morality mean?
Paul, as do I seem to think so. In fact the ENTIRE Holy Bible tells us so. The existence of Jesus proves it so.
Let’s take a look…..
As we can see from Ephesians 1 vs 8-12 there is a plan unfolding according to God’s Design, God’s Purpose, God’s Wisdom, which pre-existed before us. When we look at autonomy, self-determinism, and agency within the TRUTH of God’s Existence, our selves are limited to personal choice that is submitted under, fully under, God. In a nutshell, our socialisation which informs our understanding is limited to God’s Sovereign Power.
SO WHAT IS OUR CHOICE THEN?
Multiple Bible verses help us to understand the framework in which autonomy, self-determinism, and agency operate.
CONCLUSION:
Our autonomy is not a free-for-all hall pass, skip the traffic light, get out of jail free card.
Our autonomy is preset within the confines that we can choose freedom but that freedom has a name to believe in and follow- Messiah King Jesus.
Our morality does not exist outside of of the existence of God, rather we have morality BECAUSE of the existence of God, thereby morality is given not determined by ourselves.
Our agency is limited to the boundaries of human existence which is fully under God’s Control, and at best our agency to control only controls our response to be for God or against God.
Now before you say something silly, like, “I don’t believe that,” here is a question about belief, “How can matter that we supposedly evolved from, that has no consciousness, or morality, create belief, if belief means that in order to have belief there must be something to believe in and measure it against, if matter is inanimate?”
#Hayibo 