Book Title: HUMANS AND FREE WILL AUTHOR AND WRITER: PAUL BAISIE A.K.A THE SAINT OF THE MOST HOLY BACHELOR OF DIVINITY CHRISTIAN LEADERS INSTITUTE DEDICATION In the name of God the father, the son and the holy spirit that I Paul Baisie humbly dedicate this work into the hands of all christian believers. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV Translation 11. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. As believers we are to build ourselves up and I see it needful to address this issue of free will that is paramounting and parading christians at demographic and geographics which are awful to dwell. I believe by addressing this as to who we stand for, us believers will do us much good to know where we are to possess our possessions. By the power of the blood of our lord and of his resurrection, in the mighty hands of our most high God I put this book in your hands that you should define and refine your faith and excel in every good thing our God has given unto you to possess. My beloved brethren and sisters I admonish you to take hold of this and seek further, and believe then hope that your faith will grow and you will never be left out in Jesus Christ our lord's name, Amen. CONTENT 1.Introduction 2.History of the word free will 3.Some controversies of free will 4.Scholars agreed definition of free will still in view 5.Humankind (Mankind ) creation ( The Adam and Woman creation ) 6.Himanbeings and their accounts of history 7.The analysis and analogy of the fall of Humankind( Mankind ) 8.The overview of the picture or image of God 9.The agency(ies ) created by God 10.The interlink of Man or Human in God's image INTRODUCTION The word free will had been debated on by many scholars and schools of studies for a very long time. This matter under discussion had been mirrored for ages yet has not concluded on its final verdict, whether free will , human free will or free will in general is false or true. The premise that there is free will is agreed and accepted by some scholars and another premise that there is no free will is also valid by some scholars, these premises are of the view of different scholars across the global world. This is my premise, humans have a free will because God created Man or human in his own image and likeness. ● First premise, God has a free will ● Second premise, human or man was or is created in the image and likeness of God ● Third premise, therefore human or man has a free will. Now whether this is true or false will depend on the truth of the premise that we are indeed created in the image and likeness of God. But if I may ask, who is God? How is He, that we are created in his image? How then do he exercise his free will? In what sense does he exercise his free will? And if we are created in his image and likeness, what is the logic that we are in his image and likeness? There are many things that come together to prove the human freewill yet as a believer and an apologia of the faith I have no doubt to my premise and conclusion that human free will is true. Genesis chapter 1:26 - 27 ERV Translation 26. Then God said, Now let's make humans who will be like us. They will rule over all the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. They will rule over all the large animals and all the little things that crawl on the earth. 27. So God created humans in his own image. He created them to be like himself. He created them male and female. According to the above verses and the translation it is put that God said let us make man who will be like us. The underpin phrasal word is who will be like us. So what is the word who? Who according to grammar is a relative pronoun - we use it to talk about people. And the next word in consideration is, like us."Like us" means people who are similar to us or the same as us.The word "like" is actually two different very old words that ended up spelled the same. 1. LIKE = similar to - the adjective / preposition This is the oldest sense. Root: Old English gelic - meaning "having the same form as" It breaks down into two parts: • ge- = together / with (a prefix meaning "same") • -lic = body, form, shape So literally: "having the same body / same shape as" Deeper root: From Proto-Germanic *galika- - same origin as: • German gleich = same / equal • Dutch gelijk = same • Swedish lik = like / corpse (old sense of body) And that -lic goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European *lig- meaning "shape, form, like." This is also where we get the suffix -ly. For example: • man + lic = manlic -> manly (having the form of a man) • friend + lic = friendly So when you say "it looks like rain" or "a man like you" you are using the original meaning: "having the same form as." 2. LIKE = to enjoy / to want - the verb This is a completely different root. Root: Old English lician - meaning "to please, to be pleasing to, to be suitable for" Example: "That food licath me" literally meant "That food pleases me" - not "I like that food." The subject and object flipped over time. Deeper root: From Proto-Germanic *likon and PIE *lig- meaning "to be pleasing." This is related to: • German gefallen (to please) • The word likeable Over centuries, "it likes me" (it pleases me) became "I like it" (I enjoy it). How it evolved into modern uses: 1. Adjective/Preposition (Oldest): "Like" = similar. He is like his father. 2. Verb (Old English): "To like" = to find pleasing. I like music. 3. Conjunction (14th century): It feels like it's going to rain. 4. Noun: The likes of us = people of similar kind. And likes and dislikes. 5. Discourse particle / filler (20th century): I was like, really tired. This is the modern quotative and hesitation use. It comes from the "similar to" sense - "I was approximately saying..." So at its core, LIKE always meant "same form". Whether you say "I like this" (it has a form pleasing to me) or "it looks like this" (it has the same form as this), you're saying two things match in form. The word us as you use it everyday is one of the oldest words in English. 1. What it means us is the objective form - dative and accusative - of we. The word 'us' is a first-person plural pronoun used to refer to the speaker and one or more other people considered together. In modern grammar: • we = subject: We are going • us = object: He saw us / He gave it to us / It's with us It is a suppletive pronoun, meaning we and us come from different roots but belong to the same paradigm. That's why they don't look alike, like I / me. 2. Where it comes from - the root It has never been borrowed. It comes straight down from Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European > Proto-Germanic > Old English > Modern English PIE n ̥ s- / *nes- / *nos - the first-person plural oblique root meaning "us". This is the same root that gives Sanskrit *nas, Latin nos "we/us". derived from the Proto-Germanic pronoun "*uns," which in turn traces back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*n ̥ s-." Proto-Germanic uns - accusative/dative of *wez (we). Cognates: Gothic *uns, Old High German uns, Old Norse oss. **Old English ūs*** - spelled *ūs or ūsic. In Old English the paradigm was already suppletive: • nominative: wē = we • accusative/dative: ūs = us So Old English speakers would have said ūre (our), ūs (us). **Middle English to Modern English *us*** The vowel shortened from long ū to short u, but the spelling stayed. From about the 14th century onward it's just us.[oo][uh] That's why in related Germanic languages it's almost identical: Dutch ons, German uns, Swedish oss - all from the same *uns. 3. Two other "us" that are not the same 1. The -us ending in Latin as in fungus, status, Marcus. That's not a word, it's the Latin masculine nominative singular ending from PIE -os. English borrowed thousands of Latin words with it intact. 2. US / U.S. - capital letters. Abbreviation for United States, first recorded as "U.S." in 1790s-1800s. Completely unrelated to the pronoun. In short: when you say "us", you are using a sound that humans have been using to mean "me and others" for at least 5,000-6,000 years, all the way back to Proto-Indo-European. This is a vivid research work, which is the meaning of the word like us. In summary the word of God reads that he created Man as He is. If He created Man as He is, then what God has, Man has it also. Meaning we have God's personality and attribute or express his being on earth.And this confirms the truth of my premise under this matter of free will debate. That is God himself not just having free will but he is the body of the free will itself. He controls and governs all things. Colossians 1:16-17 KJV Translation 16. For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. This meaning God or Christ as a body of God is the framework of free will, without him you can't judge or make a choice nor choose between alternative options. Disclaimer: A man having the life of free will, is a one without sin or with sin free life. He lives without sin because what propels or causes him to live is the power of purity, holiness or righteousness, which is without sin being free will. And that is of God and not mortal man. A mortal man makes decisions by the physical factors that surround him. His choice of want or desire arises as his eye is driven by stimulus propensity and if his responding power by the measure of his available resources meet the potential demand (stimulus arousal). So therefore the propensity of his stimulus arousal by its cause and as to its satisfaction is not by him but by physical circumstances. Scripture view: Leviticus 19:2; 11:44-45 and 1 Peter 1:16-17KJV Translation 2. Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God [am] holy. 44. For I [am] the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I [am] holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 45. For I [am] the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I [am] holy. 15. But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16. Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 1John 3:2-10 ESV 2. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 4.Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5.You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. HISTORY OF THE WORD FREE WILL "Free will" did not start in English. English borrowed it. It's a calque — a word-for-word translation — of a Latin philosophical invention. 1. How it entered English Latin root: liberum arbitrium • liberum = free, unrestricted • arbitrium = judgment, decision, arbitration, choice. From arbiter = a judge, witness, someone who decides. That's where we get English "arbitrary" and "arbiter." Literally: "free judgment" not "free wishing." The Romans had voluntas for wish/will, but they needed a new term for the power to judge between options. Greek philosophy had no precise term for it as Latin did. Who coined it: Christian philosophy in the 4th century CE. Augustine of Hippo popularized liberum arbitrium to argue against Manichean determinism and later against Pelagius. For Augustine, voluntas and liberum were the same — the will itself was free. How it entered English literary language: 1. Old English had the idea, not the phrase. They said freo willa occasionally, but not as a technical term. 2. Middle English c. 1200-1380 - theological import. Through Latin scholasticism. You see it in early Middle English homilies, then massively in the 14th century with Wycliffe's Bible (1382), Chaucer, and Langland's Piers Plowman. Langland actually uses Liberum Arbitrium as a character — and scholars note he meant it as 'free choice' rather than 'free will'. 3. OED record: The Latin form liberum arbitrium as a foreign term in English is attested from mid 1600s, but the English translation free will is 300 years older in manuscripts. The meaning given in Oxford Reference is still the original: "Full power to decide; freedom of action". So the pathway is: Greek problem -> Latin invention -> Middle English literary theology -> Modern English everyday phrase. 2. What is its ground meaning? What does it truly stand for? Forget the modern pop definition of "I can do whatever I want." The original technical meaning was much more precise: "the will is free" meant "the will does not have to be such as it is" That is, lack of necessity in the human will. You are not forced by prior causes, by fate, by God, by your passions, to will one thing. Three layers built into the phrase: a) Philosophical ground: Free will is generally understood as the capacity to (a) choose between different possible courses of action, (b) exercise control over your actions in a way that is necessary for moral responsibility, or (c) be the ultimate source or originator of your actions. b) The arbitrium part matters: It's not freedom of desire — you can't help desiring food when hungry. It's freedom of judgment. Aquinas said liberum arbitrium in the Summa is translated as "free will" but sometimes the English doesn't correspond exactly to the Latin. For him, it's the reason's ability to judge that "I could do A or not-A, and I endorse one." Early theologians made a distinction Augustine's successors kept: • liberum arbitrium = the neutral power to do good or evil • libertas = the good use of that power. God is free but cannot do wrong c) Why it was invented at all: To ground praise and blame. Free will is closely linked to moral responsibility, praise, culpability — judgments that can logically apply only to actions that are freely chosen. No free judgment = no guilt, no merit. 3. Short history of the debate Antiquity: Aristotle talks about eph' hemin — "up to us" — and prohairesis (deliberate choice). Stoics like Chrysippus argue fate vs. what is up to us. Alexander of Aphrodisias (3rd c. CE) first articulates incompatibilist free will: "we are causally undetermined in our decision and thus can freely decide between doing/choosing or not doing/choosing them". 400s - Augustine: Introduces liberum arbitrium against determinism. We have it, but weakened by original sin. 1200s - Scholastics: Aquinas: will and free choice are one power. Intellect presents options, will chooses freely. 1520s - Reformation: The great fight. Erasmus defends De libero arbitrio, Luther answers with De servo arbitrio — "On the Bondage of the Will" — man has no free will before God. 1600s-1700s - Enlightenment: The meaning shifts. For Hobbes, Locke, Hume, freedom becomes "freedom of action": if nothing hinders us from doing or choosing something, we have control. Classical compatibilism is born. Today: Three camps remain: 1. Libertarians - determinism is false, we really are ultimate causes (causa sui) 2. Hard determinists / hard incompatibilists - determinism is true, free will is an illusion 3. Compatibilists - free will is compatible with determinism if defined as rational, reason-responsive control For literary skills: When you use "free will" in writing, use the old weight. Don't write "he exercised his free will to have coffee." Write "he exercised his liberum arbitrium — his free judgment — to choose otherwise when he could have done otherwise." It signals moral responsibility, not just preference. If you want, I can trace how specific English authors — Chaucer, Milton in Paradise Lost, or C.S. Lewis — used it differently. SOME CONTROVERSIES OF FREEWILL The determinism problem: If every event has a cause, how can you be the cause? ● Physical Determinism: Every state of the universe, including the firing of neurons in your brain, is caused by the prior state plus laws of nature. If that's true , your decision to read this sentence was fixed at the Big Bang. You couldn't have done otherwise. ● Logical Contradictions: Free Will is usually defined as “ could have done otherwise “ Determinism says “ could not have done otherwise”. Both can't be true. This creates three major camps that have been arguing for 2000+ years. ● POSITION - Hard Determinism What it claims - Determinism is true, so free will does not exist. Cost - We have to give up moral responsibility as we understand. ● POSITION - Libertarianism What it claims - Free will is real, so determinism must be false. Cost - You have to explain how a choice can be uncaused but not random. ● POSITION - Compatibilism What it claims - Free will and Determinism can both be true. Cost - You have to redefine free will to mean something weaker, like “acting according to your desires” even if those desires were determined. Modern compatibilists like Daniel Dennett argue compatibilism is all the freedom worth wanting. Critics say it's just wordplay — calling a puppet free because it loves its strings. 2. The Science Contradiction Neuroscience seems to show the brain decides before you do. • In the 1980s, Benjamin Libet found that the readiness potential in the brain spikes about 350ms before you consciously decide to move your finger. Your brain started the action before "you" did. • Modern fMRI studies can predict a simple left/right choice up to 7-10 seconds before subjects say they decided. Controversy: Does this prove consciousness is just a spectator? Or are these lab experiments too trivial to tell us about real, deliberative decisions like quitting a job or getting married? Genetics and environment: Robert Sapolsky's recent argument: every choice is the product of biology you didn't choose, raised in an environment you didn't choose, shaped by hormones you didn't control seconds before the choice. Where is the free agent in that chain? If that's true, what do we do with punishment, praise, and effort? 3. The Randomness Problem Many people try to escape determinism with quantum mechanics: maybe the brain is indeterminate, so not determined. But that creates a second contradiction: If your choice is not determined, then it is random. Random is not free either. A dice roll is not freedom. You wouldn't want your decisions to be caused by a quantum coin flip in your neurons. So libertarian free will needs to be something stranger than both determinism and randomness — an uncaused cause that is still you. No one has good physics for that. 4. The Theological Contradiction This is the oldest version: • If God is omniscient and omnipotent and created everything, including you, then God knew and ordained all your actions. How can you be free and held responsible? • In Christianity this is predestination vs free will. In Islam, qadar vs human accountability. In Calvinism, it's explicit: God predestines, yet humans sin. If God knows tomorrow you will do X, can you do not-X? If you can, God was wrong. If you can't, you're not free. 5. The Moral Responsibility Contradiction This is where the debate gets practical. We hold people responsible because we assume they could have acted differently. Our whole legal and moral system assumes free will. But if free will is an illusion: • Is punishment for retribution justified, or only for prevention/rehabilitation? • Can someone truly deserve credit for success, if their talent, work ethic, and opportunities were given to them? • Does admitting no free will make people more compassionate or more fatalistic? Experiments show mixed results — some people behave worse when told free will is an illusion, some behave better. This is why philosophers like Saul Smilansky argue for illusionism: even if free will is false, we should keep the illusion because society would collapse without it. 6. The Definition Contradiction We can't even agree on what we're arguing about. • Is free will the ability to have done otherwise in the exact same universe? • Or is it just acting without external coercion? • Is it a feeling, a capacity, or a social status we grant each other? If you define it the first way, it seems impossible. If you define it the second way, it seems trivial and a robot with no one holding a gun to its head would count as free. That definitional slipperiness is why the debate never ends. People talk past each other using the same words for different things. The most honest position today for many thinkers is this: we have a powerful, persistent experience of authorship, we live as if we are free because we must, and we have no coherent model that fully explains how that experience could be true in a lawful physical universe. SCHOLARS AGREED DEFINITION OF FREE WILL AND IT VIEW Free will is the capacity to be the author of your own actions — to pause between impulse and response, consider alternatives, and choose one for reasons that are yours. That simple definition hides a very deep problem, which is why philosophers have argued about it for 2,500 years. What it actually is In practice, free will has three parts: 1. Alternative possibilities: When you face a choice, more than one future is genuinely open to you. You could do A or B. 2. Deliberation: You have an internal space where you can weigh those alternatives. Memories, values, imagined consequences, emotions all get to have a say. 3. Ownership: The choice comes from you, not just through you. You can say "I did this because..." and the explanation points to your own reasons, not just pressure, habit, or someone else's command. If any of those three are missing, we feel less free. A reflex has no alternatives. An addiction has alternatives in theory, but deliberation is hijacked. An action done at gunpoint has deliberation, but no ownership. The three big ways people think about it You don't have to pick one, but it helps to know the landscape: 1. Determinism: Every choice is the product of prior causes — genes, upbringing, brain chemistry, environment. In this view, free will is an illusion. It feels like we choose, but we couldn't have done otherwise. 2. Libertarianism (in philosophy, not politics): Some part of human choice is truly undetermined. At the moment of decision, consciousness can break the chain of cause and effect and originate something new. 3. Compatibilism: This is where most modern philosophers land. Even if the universe is largely determined, free will still matters because freedom isn't about escaping physics. It's about what kind of causes are driving you. Are you acting from your own informed desires and values, or from compulsion, manipulation, or ignorance? A compatibilist would say a person who stays late to finish a project they believe in is free, even though their work ethic has causes. A person with a gambling compulsion is not. Neuroscience is a compatibilist. Experiments like Libet's showed that brain activity ramps up a fraction of a second before you consciously feel you've decided to move. But later research shows consciousness acts more like a veto and an editor — you may not originate every impulse, but you can approve, reject, or shape it. How it works in daily life We don't experience free will as some grand metaphysical power. We experience it as a muscle we use in small, constant loops: 1. The pause. This is the core mechanism. Between stimulus and response, you create a gap. Someone insults you. The impulse is to snap back. Free will lives in that 2-second gap where you notice the impulse without immediately obeying it. 2. The simulation. In that gap, your brain runs quick simulations: "If I say this, what happens? How will I feel about this tonight? Does this fit who I want to be?" Daily life is thousands of these micro-simulations — choosing what to eat, whether to scroll, whether to tell the truth when a lie is easier. 3. The hierarchy of desires. You have first-order desires: "I want cake, I want to sleep in, I want to avoid this difficult conversation." You also have second-order desires: "I don't want cake all the time. I want to be someone who does hard things." Free will is strongest when second-order desires govern first-order ones. That's what we call self-control, discipline, or integrity. You see it everywhere: • Morning: Alarm goes off. Your body wants to sleep. You get up anyway because you have committed to something larger than comfort. • Work: You could do the minimum and no one would notice. You choose to do it well because you value craftsmanship or reputation. • Relationships: You feel jealousy or anger, but you choose how to express it, or whether to express it at all. You don't suppress the feeling, you decide the action. • Habits: This is where freedom compounds. Each free choice, repeated, becomes a habit that makes future choices easier or harder. You use freedom now to design less need for willpower later. Why it feels both real and limited Free will is not absolute. You didn't choose your parents, your brain, your country, or most of your initial beliefs. Your options at any moment are heavily constrained by biology, culture, economics, and past choices. But within those constraints, the range of choice is enormous. Think of it like chess. The rules are fixed and you didn't choose your starting position, but the number of possible games from that position is still practically infinite. When people say they feel like they've lost free will, it's usually because one of three things is narrowed: • Awareness is narrowed — you're on autopilot, stressed, tired, or never learned there were other options. • Alternatives are narrowed — poverty, oppression, or lack of skills literally removes choices. • Ownership is narrowed — trauma, addiction, or constant external control makes you feel your actions aren't yours. So exercising free will isn't just a mental trick. It's also practical: getting sleep, learning new skills, exposing yourself to different perspectives, putting yourself in environments where better choices are easier, and building relationships where you are allowed to choose. In the end, whether free will is ultimately metaphysically free may be unanswerable. But functionally, treating yourself as an agent who can reflect, veto, and commit — and treating others the same way — is what makes responsibility, growth, regret, pride, and change possible. Without that assumption, daily life collapses into "it just happened." With it, you get to ask the most human question every day: given what I have and where I am, what will I do next? HUMANKIND(MANKIND) CREATION(THE ADAM AND WOMAN(E CREATION) As an apologia of the faith of christianity, the bible is my backbone of defense mechanism to every matter. It is my tool that I have and must stand on to extract every and any supportive evidence to any argument or question. Any conflicting view underneath the faith must be taken care of with this defense mechanism. And under this issue or matter of free will it can't be left out. Under this matter being looked at and with my premise under consideration as to defend with this defense mechanism, how mankind or humankind were created by God( the Adam and the woman creation) is what we are coming to look at. Herein is my premise; humans or mankind have a free will because God created Man or human in his own image and likeness. Now here arises a question against my defense. If I say Humans have a free will because God created us in his own image and likeness, how then did God create(composed) man? And by what means can Man or human exercise his freewill by his state or form of body, iconing God on earth? Let first and foremost look at the first question. How did God create(Composed) man? Before this question is answered there is much need for us to know what kind and sort of humans we are? If I say so, what do I mean? I mean whose seed are we? Are we of the seed of Adam and Eve who are of God or of a different creature? Scripture will answer this. 1 Corinthians 15:22 NIV Translation 22. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. So if it was possible for one man's death to affect all of us, then we are of his seed by blood. That is why his DNA or gene death issue or factor had an effect on us. So if we are to redefine our identity and self, then we have no choice then to look at Adam and Eve. Before we look at them, let's picture something, we will later talk about this in detail. Genesis chapter 1:26 - 27 NIV Translation 26. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. I want you to take heart and take your time as you read this. Take a good sound look at this man and let then look at the second view, don't get confused, I want you to see your real self, so you can know what exact place and who exactly can help you in your walk of salvation in this life of trauma and disparity. The second look or view; Genesis chapter 1:24 and 2: 5 - 9 ESV Translation Genesis 1:24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so.. Genesis 2:5.When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6. and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground– 7. then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8.