LESSON 5: Free Will
Prime Directive #2: Will as determining factor
Without a free will, the creation would be but a vast operating field of robots incapable of reaching anything more than that already achieved up to the moment, since an automatic machine cannot strive for more than it has been programmed to perform.
Today we have similar machines that perform monotonous, even though top precision, operations in industry, and they cannot choose some other operating function, for they are not designed for the other functions and cannot change the functions of their operation by themselves.
This example helps to develop a better understanding as to what it means to abolish free will. Even though these automatic machines do not have that living energy and they are but machines from the standpoint of their functioning, yet it would also be very similar with mortals if we had no free will any more.
Therefore, it is only a free will that can provide such an inner environment to a free will creature, that the creature is capable of making a decision on how and what he must do. And having done it and having seen the consequences of the actions, he can even change his decision to encounter another sort of outcome. And he can change his decisions just because he enjoys a free will bestowed upon him by the Father.
Most of us do not think about a free will in our life at all, and we believe that we make use of it very little. But it is just the other way round. Every decision you make, is made on the basis of a free will. Even though it might seem to you that you arrive at your decisions just automatically, without pondering much, still they are free will decisions. Even the ones that have already been formed into your habits and that have turned into an inherent part of your own manifestation.
No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute. Urantia Book 5:6.8
No personal creature can be coerced into the eternal adventure; the portal of eternity opens only in response to the freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will. Urantia Book 5:6.12
As the two quotes above indicate, free will, while absolute, does nonetheless operate within the limits of certain parameters such as: the realm of choice, and eternal destiny of the personality. Sovereignty and free will are not unlimited and infinite. For something to be absolute does not make it infinite or without limites. We must always remember that our individual rights end where another's rights begin. And that makes mortal free will relative to external factors. That sets us a boundary which limits our realm of free will choice to decisions about ourselves, and the same applies to our fellow man, and that boundary makes it all relative. When we trespass across this boundary, problems are always the result.
This relative free will which characterizes the self-consciousness of human personality is involved in:
- Moral decision, highest wisdom.
- Spiritual choice, truth discernment.
- Unselfish love, brotherhood service.
- Purposeful co-operation, group loyalty.
- Cosmic insight, the grasp of universe meanings.
- Personality dedication, wholehearted devotion to doing the Father's will.
- Worship, the sincere pursuit of divine values and the wholehearted love of the divine Value-Giver.
Man does not have unfettered and infinite free will; there are limits to our range of choice, but within the radius of this choice our will is relatively sovereign.
