Freedom and Nature
It is ironic that science, by expanding our understanding of natural laws, actually increases our freedom, yet it is science that denies the existence of freewill. It is part of their Flatland mentality. Even a cursory study of nature shows how all life forms are designed for their maximum freedom. Study the hawk and see how it spreads its confident wings in the azure sky and soars on the wild winds. With its broad back to the bright sun, its telescopic eyes scan the spinning world below looking for prey.
Now study the slow myopic turtle that crawls creepily over the earth, carrying his heavy home on his back.
The turtle does not need the eye of a hawk, and the hawk does not need the shell of a turtle. All of God’s creatures are designed for maximum freedom to ensure their survival and to expand their potential in their own environment. Each of itself experiences its own joy and freedom. If evolution furnished those things, it is through law not luck or accident. The hawk and turtle were designed in the evening before their morning of creation. Laws were appointed to carry out those designs.
Science understands the power of instinct. The higher the order the greater capacity for instinct. Instinct is most pronounced in humans. We have different names for instinct among humans: inspiration, intuition, inclination, prompting, impulse, proclivity, presentiment, percipience, flair, gift, feel, talent, propensity, penchant, intuitive, discernment, perspicacity, clairvoyance, extrasensory perception, imagination,
In addition to instinct, all conscious creatures have some intelligence or they wouldn’t have consciousness. Anyone who watches animals solve problems instinctively know that more than instinct is involved.
I once watched a documentary in which scientists were testing the problem-solving capacity of a bear. They put a large hunk of raw meat on a rope to lure the bear. The meat however was attached to a battery that gave a strong electrical charge. The first time the bear came, the shock sent him scuttling into the forest. The same bear returned hours later. Again, the shock sent him skedaddling. The third time he came however, he was extremely cautious. He ignored the meat. Suddenly and inexplicably, he destroyed the electrical apparatus with a viciousness. The apparatus had no visible connection to the meat. To discern the connection between the black box and the meat required more than intuition or inherited knowledge for his tribe. The bear then took the meat with confidence and safely disappeared happily into the forest with his quarry and didn’t return.
Those of you like me who have had long battles with squirrels stealing bird seed know how ingenious squirrels are at solving problems. With me it became a game of wits and I lost time and time again. By all perceptions squirrels appear to study the problem and they will try a multitude of solutions until they find one that works.
Anything that has intelligence also has the capacity for joy. Dogs, chimpanzees, dolphins, and thousands of other animals can be trained to high degrees, even understanding language. The elephant, for example, is sometimes human-like in its behavior.
However, only men and women, as children of God, with high intelligence, have freewill like the gods to know good from evil, to organize laws, to study the stars, to fly to the moon, to classify the elements, the flora and fauna of the earth, to keep a genealogy, to build libraries, to learn multiple languages, to contemplate death, to dive to the bottom of the sea, to rule the earth, or to contemplate God.
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