Free will
“Free Will” is the term for our capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Philosophers have debated this question for over two millenia, and just about every major Christian religion has had something to say about it. Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. But, according to most Christian theologians, "Free-Will" is not the same thing as free choice.
Many Christians have come to believe that God has given each individual the power of Free-Will, the ability of Will to freely make a choice unaffected any internal or external conditions.
This doctrine of Free-Will violates the laws of Cause and Effect. It says that a choice can be made that is not effected by any other thoughts or ideas. We must distinguish freedom of action from freedom of will because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control.
Furthermore, there are always external constraints on what options we can meaningfully try to undertake. As the presence or absence of these conditions and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices, or “willings.”
The main arguments against the existence of freedom of will are various determining factors: physical/causal, psychological, biological, and theological.
PHYSICAL/CAUSAL: the brain is a physical organism ruled by the physical laws of cause and effect. Any thought we have is produced by external stimuli or by previous thoughts. Any decision we make is a thought and is determined by the same rules. Free-will would require that a thought could come into existence without any prior stimulus.
PSYCHOLOGICAL: Almost the same argument as above. We will have to admit that a psychotic or neurotic individual has little or no Free-Will because he cannot make decisions contrary to his condition.
BIOLOGICAL: Te same as Physical, adding the concept that various drugs, from within the body or from outside it, can affect our ability to make clear decisions.
THEOLOGICAL: God created man and woman as perfect beings. A perfect being would not make a faulty decision (Free-Will or not), therefore Adam and Eve either did not exercise Free-Will or their decision to eat the apple (which most Christian regard as the first sin) was correct and not contrary to God's will.
Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." So how could a perfect being, the angel Lucifer - and or Adam and Eve - commit sin and fall from grace?
This was a tough question for Christian theologians to answer. From the second or third century onward most Christians believed that not only has God always known what choices individuals will make, but he has actually determined those choices - the doctrine of predestination. While this doctrine explains everything and places God's will as supreme, it leaves the individual feeling lost without any understanding of God and what he is doing.
Christians believe that eating the apple was a sin and that Adam and Eve made the choice knowingly and freely -- otherwise their punishment would have been unjust. Therefore the early theologians had to come up with an explanation that would allow Adam and Eve to be perfect and also to sin. Ta-da, the invention of the concept of Free-Will. Therefore most Christians can abandon the idea of predestination in favor of the doctrine of Free Will. This makes individuals responsible for the consequences of their choices, all choices are made consciously and freely - contrary to common sense.
Under the doctrine of Free-Will Adam and Eve's sin becomes profound. They ate the fruit, knowing it was contrary to God's will and they did it willfully with their eyes wide open.
In truth: whether or not everything is predetermined by God, the majority of our choices are conditioned by our programming and our biology.. This why God does not punish us but lets us work out our own problems.