Last evening, I spent much of the evening with Shannon Mruzik.
We went out to Bandana's Barbeque to eat, and caught up on what was going on with each other. Then, as often happens, our conversation got into a debate on politics.
Among the topics for debate were things such as the advertisement of prescription drugs (which, of course, treads on Shannon's future field of advertising), leadership within the political parties, viability of future candidates, "selling points" of liberalism vs. conservativism, government's responsibility to address views in a socialistic manner - especially in terms of things like welfare, and make-up and restrictions on the armed forces. Shannon and I both call ourselves conservatives, and while I consider myself extremely conservative, Shannon is FAR more so.
We also talked about music, as well.
However, the most interesting question, which Shannon raised, and I wanted some time to think about, was this potential debate:
"Does God's gift of free will to man also constitute an obligation to vigorously defend it against anything that endangers it? Would the refusal to take on that obligation represent an offense to God?"
Understand that I've always questioned whether free will is all that it's cracked up to be. Is there a great benefit in allowing man to choose to be evil? I don't see it. Obedience to a benevolent, omniscient God offers no drawbacks, as I see it, and allowing man to be willfully disobedient seems to offer no benefit to either God or man. So I've always considered free will overrated.
But Shannon's question challenges that belief at a very basic level. Given that God is all-knowing, and given that he gave man free will, is there more benefit to the ability to rebel against God than I see? Did God give us that ability for our benefit? Is this simply God's kindness acting, or his wisdom and knowledge at a level beyond that we can understand? In other words, is not defending free will actually an offense against God, since he granted it to us in the first place?
That should make a great topic for debate with Rick.