PortalsGate

By Isaiah-Phillips Akintola

The subject of humanity’s free will stands today among the most profound existential questions of our time, becoming the epicenter of philosophical and theological discourse as mankind enters an era of unprecedented knowledge-based intelligence and innovation. In this age of artificial intelligence and technological advancement, humanity increasingly feels invincible, seemingly beyond the reach of divine laws and moral constraints.

The ethics surrounding a will that lacks understanding, exercising free choice without the moral compass to guide how such intelligence is used, especially in the field of deepfake technology, presents a profound existential threat in the making.

In a situation where AI can replicate any image and create videos that appear almost indistinguishable from reality, the concept of such power must be examined within the constraints of human free will, because these fabricated realities are programmed by human input, not by the machines themselves.

The technology merely amplifies and executes the moral choices of its human creators. Yet the fundamental question persists: Did Jehovah grant humanity free will, and if so, why can’t we simply choose our own path and do as we please?

The answer emerges as both beautifully simple and deeply complex: Yes, God has endowed every human being with free will, yet this precious gift comes wrapped in profound responsibility and limitations that reveal the very nature of our fallen human condition and the inherent design of creation itself.

The Wisdom of Solomon: Understanding Our Limitations
Throughout history, people of great wisdom and philosophers have grappled with the nature of free will. In the book of Proverbs, King Solomon, granted divine wisdom beyond any earthly ruler, made a declaration that crystallize the heart of human weakness and limitation even at the highest level of intelligence: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12).

This verse serves as a cornerstone for understanding the paradox of free will. Solomon’s insight penetrates to the core issue; humanity possesses the capacity to choose but lacks the complete understanding necessary to exercise that choice perfectly. A person who cannot see into the future, who cannot fully comprehend the intricate web of cause and effect, cannot categorically claim to understand the true power and responsibility of free will.

The Hebrew word for “way” (derek) in this passage encompasses not merely a path or direction, but an entire manner of living; a comprehensive approach to life’s choices and decisions. When something “seems right” (yashar) to a person, it appears straight, correct, and proper from their limited vantage point. Yet Solomon warns that this apparent righteousness, divorced from divine wisdom, leads ultimately to “death” (maveth), not merely physical death, but spiritual, relational, and existential destruction.
This divine observation reveals a fundamental truth; human perception, no matter how sincere or well-intentioned, remains inherently limited and susceptible to deception when operating independently of God’s wisdom.

Defining the Will: Beyond Simple Choice
What, then, is the will? At its most basic level, the will represents the ability to make choices. However, this simple definition barely scratches the surface of the profound complexity involved in the faculty God has granted us.

True choice-making requires far more than mere selection between options. Authentic decision-making demands:

• Clarity of desired outcomes: Understanding not just what we want, but why we want it and what it will ultimately produce
• Comprehensive insight: Possessing sufficient information about the nature of our choices and their consequences
• Emotional intelligence: The ability to understand and manage our emotional responses in decision-making
• Spiritual intelligence: Recognition of the spiritual dimensions and eternal implications of our choices
• Temporal perspective: Understanding how present choices will affect future circumstances
• Moral discernment: The capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil.

The tragic reality is that fallen humanity rarely possesses all these elements simultaneously. Our choices emerge from a position of spiritual and intellectual limitation, filtered through a nature that has been fundamentally corrupted by sin. This is what Scripture refers to as the “natural man” (1 Corinthians 2:14), the person who operates outside the counsel of God, whose understanding has been darkened by the fall in the Garden of Eden.

From a psychological perspective, the human decision-making process operates through multiple layers of consciousness and unconsciousness. Modern neuroscience reveals that many of our “free” choices are influenced by factors beyond our immediate awareness; past trauma, cultural conditioning, genetic predispositions, and deeply embedded thought patterns.

The fallen nature affects these psychological processes profoundly. What feels like freedom may actually be bondage to patterns of thinking and choosing that lead consistently away from flourishing and toward destruction. This aligns perfectly with Solomon’s warning in Proverbs 14:12; our internal compass, while still functional, no longer points to true north.

The apostle Paul captures this psychological struggle beautifully in Romans 7:15: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This isn’t merely moral failure; it’s the description of a will that has been compromised at its foundation.

To understand free will properly, we must return to Eden, where the blueprint of human choice was first established. When God placed Adam in the garden, He bestowed upon him remarkable authority that extended far beyond simple gardening responsibilities.

This represented genuine dominion, a divine delegation of power to rule, guide, and steward creation itself. Adam possessed authentic free will to exercise leadership and make decisions, but crucially, this freedom operated within the magnificent framework God had established. The garden itself represented boundaries, not restrictive limitations, but protective parameters that enabled true flourishing.

The critical moment arrived when the serpent entered paradise with his deceptive proposition. Notice what God chose not to do: He did not intervene to silence the tempter or shield Adam from this pivotal choice. This divine restraint reveals something profound about God’s character and His unwavering commitment to genuine human freedom. God honored the very gift He had bestowed, even when that gift could potentially be used against His desires. This divine restraint wasn’t negligence; it was respect for the image of God within humanity, the capacity for moral choice that distinguishes us from all other creatures.

The Corruption of Choice
Here the narrative takes its tragic turn. The free will that God created as pure and uncontaminated became polluted through humanity’s rebellion. What was once crystal clear became murky; what was once naturally aligned with divine wisdom became twisted by fallen nature. Our capacity to choose didn’t disappear in the fall, but it became like a compass that no longer points true north, still functional, but fundamentally unreliable when operating independently.

This corruption affects every aspect of human choice-making:

• Cognitive distortion: Our thinking processes become prone to self-deception and rationalization
• Emotional dysfunction: Our feelings, rather than informing wise choices, often drive us toward destructive decisions
• Spiritual blindness: We lose the ability to perceive spiritual realities clearly
• Temporal myopia: We become focused on immediate gratification at the expense of long-term consequences
• Relational brokenness: Our choices increasingly serve self-interest rather than love for God and others. This is why our experience of free will feels so conflicted. We retain the capacity to choose, but our choosing mechanism itself bears the deep scars of the fall. Every decision we make must pass through a lens that has been fundamentally cracked and distorted.

The Wisdom of Surrender
Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth about free will emerges here; its highest expression comes not in asserting our independence, but in choosing dependence upon God. As one theologian observed, “God gave us free will so we could freely give it back to Him.” This profound truth represents wisdom at its highest order. When we align our will with God’s will, something remarkable occurs.

Our choices don’t become restricted; they become empowered and clarified. Consider the analogy of a river finding its proper banks. The banks don’t limit the river’s power; they channel it, allowing the water to flow with tremendous purpose and strength rather than spreading uselessly across the landscape, accomplishing nothing.

Had Adam chosen to submit his will to God’s wisdom in that crucial moment, he would have possessed both the insight and authority to recognize the enemy’s deception and reject it completely. This reveals a fundamental principle: you cannot truly exercise authentic free will without the truth being well-seated in your heart. True free will is liberty regulated by truth, specifically, the truth that sets free.

Authentic freedom isn’t the absence of all restraint; it’s the presence of truth as the governing principle of choice. Free will operating outside of the Spirit of Christ, who is the Truth himself (John 14:6), isn’t genuine freedom at all; it’s a sophisticated form of bondage masquerading as liberty.

When truth anchors the heart, choice becomes empowered rather than enslaved. When truth is absent or rejected, what appears to be freedom becomes chains we cannot see. This principle applies today. When we surrender our will to God’s wisdom, we don’t lose our freedom; we discover what freedom actually means.

The Ongoing Choice
Even after the fall, even outside Eden’s perfection, humanity retains the fundamental capacity to choose God. This reality makes the gospel message so beautiful and hope so possible. Salvation remains a choice, redemption a decision we must actively make. God refuses to override our will even for our own ultimate good, respecting the image of Himself that He placed within us. Instead of coercion, God creates a redemptive avenue and opportunities for our return. He opens pathways, removes barriers, and provides light for our darkened understanding, but the choice to walk through those opportunities remains ours.

The cross of Christ represents God’s ultimate provision for our free will to function properly again. Through Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection, the path home becomes clear, the legal barriers are removed, and our corrupted choosing capacity can be renewed and restored. Like the prodigal son who declared, “I will arise and go to my father” (Luke 15:18), we retain the power to choose our direction, even from the depths of spiritual poverty and degradation.

The Illusion of Unlimited Freedom
But here lies a crucial truth we must understand; free will exercised outside of God’s will isn’t truly free at all. It’s like claiming freedom while wearing invisible chains, celebrating Morden cultural autonomy while being enslaved to forces we cannot see or control.
When we operate outside God’s intentions for human flourishing,

we inevitably subject ourselves to:

• Deceptive influences beyond our recognition
• Spiritual forces that manipulate our choices
• Consequences we never intended or anticipated
• Patterns of bondage that masquerade as freedom
  Life apart from God’s will isn’t merely difficult or challenging; it becomes a form of hell even in this present world. The supposed freedom to choose our own path leads inexorably to bondage, pain, and destruction, exactly as Solomon warned in Proverbs 14:12.

This reality should illuminate the true nature of our choice; our will is only as free as our alignment with the One who created it. True liberty isn’t found in the absence of boundaries, but in choosing the right boundaries, those established by perfect love and infinite wisdom.

Any freedom that remains under Satan’s influence or manipulation isn’t freedom at all; it’s sophisticated slavery. True liberty comes only when our will operates within the protective boundaries of God’s love and wisdom, much like a train experiences true freedom only when it runs on the tracks designed for it.

This is why the most important and powerful use of our free will is to cry out to God for help, to seek His mercy with genuine humility, and to pursue His truth with passionate love and determination. The beautiful promise of Scripture remains eternally valid: “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). This calling requires the exercise of our free will, but it leads to a freedom far greater and more satisfying than anything we could achieve through independent effort.

Ultimately, free will isn’t about proving our independence from God; it’s about entering into the partnership for which we were originally created. When we choose to align our will with His, we don’t lose our freedom, we discover what it was always meant to be. We don’t become puppets or robots; we become sons and daughters operating in our designed purpose, expressing the image of God through choices that reflect His character and accomplish His purposes.

This partnership doesn’t diminish human dignity; it establishes and confirms it. We become co-laborers with the Creator of the universe, our choices carrying eternal weight and significance because they’re aligned with eternal purposes.

The Eternal Question
The question, therefore, isn’t whether we possess free will; the evidence of our daily experience confirms that we do. The crucial question is what we will do with this awesome gift and responsibility.

Will we use our free will to assert our autonomy and discover its painful limitations, as Solomon warned? Or will we use it to surrender to God’s wisdom and discover its true power and purpose? The choice, remarkably and sometimes terrifyingly, remains ours. And in that choice lies both the dignity of human nature and our desperate need for divine grace.

As we stand at the crossroads of every decision, Proverbs 14:12 echoes through time: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Yet alongside this warning comes the gospel promise; there is also a way that leads to life, and that way is found in aligning our will with the will of our Creator-Christ Jesus. The paradox of free will finds its resolution not in philosophical argument, but in personal surrender to the One who gave us the gift in the first place.