Free Will

One tenet of Christianity is that sin ("original sin") is intrinsic to the human condition; another is that Jesus sacrificed himself to save mankind from sin and death. An essential requirement of this theology is that human beings have free will. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God--an animal eating the forbidden fruit is not making a moral choice---and Christians must choose to follow Christ.

Western culture no longer much believes in the notion of free will. Life outcomes are predetermined by genes that make us smarter, prettier, and taller; we fail because of genetic predispositions toward impulsiveness, substance abuse, and obesity, to name a few.

The environment in which we are raised fills in the rest of the story. If we are born into a rich white family success, the thinking goes, is preordained. Our life choices range from pretty good to spectacular; we are the beneficiaries of "white privilege".

If we come from a single-parent black family in Chicago, it would be an accomplishment just to live to adulthood, and a magnificent achievement to do so without an arrest record.

A survey from 10 years ago showed that societies, including the United States, that believed in free will held people to be morally responsible for their actions.

How much we believe in free will also influences our judgments about how others behave: The more that people believe humans can choose what they do, the more they advocate harsh punishment for criminals...For countries with high degrees of governmental transparency and minimal corruption, such as Japan, Scandinavia, and the U.S., a greater belief in free will predicted harsher condemnation of milder unethical behaviors.

Such a survey, if held today, would likely yield a different result.