None of us has the ontological option to refuse to make free choices and be held responsible by the good deities, by nature, and by society legally and socially for our choices, though each of these four sources of sanctioning bodies may have conflicting standards (I will address this issues of conflicting standards expected of human agents by different sanctioning bodies another day.) as to how they reward or punish us for the isolated and pattern of choices we make.
I believe that we have rudimentary free will, each of us from birth, in some compatibilist balance somewhere (a moving target per individual) between strict hard determinism and pure incompatibilist liberty of will, or radical self-determinism, as an existentialist might insist upon.
The average adult, a working, functioning, sane, decent, normal, group-oriented, nonindividuating, mildly individualistic person, does have elementary free will to choose each moral act, and is responsible for each moral act, because her rudimentary free will seems to be operating and functional even in her sleeping, unconscious, preconscious, dreaming state, and while awake, she is but semi-conscious and semi-educated.
To be but semi-conscious and semi-educated is to live as a nonindiviudator, as a potential great soul not learned enough, self-aware enough, now wise enough, nor knowing enough about the self, about society and reality to make a fully informed moral choice, because she then fully knows the ramification for her immortal soul, and for the community, and for the extending of God’s kingdom, of each moral decision that she makes, many times per day throughout her life.
Once she is educated and grows into full or fuller consciousness as a great soul, her will is free, really, profoundly free now that she is a living angel, so her free choice will normally be-90% of the time—to do what is morally good and spiritually good, as far as she understands what she is doing and electing to do.
Her will, now educated, conscious and highly developed and wise, will lead her to choose goodness over evil most of the time, though she is still free to choose to sin now and again, or all the time if she wanted to, but she does not want to and will not sin very much or often. She will choose morally and wisely because she knows better, knows what to do, how to act, and how to stay out of trouble with the Spirits. And she will because she enjoys doing what is right and enjoys choosing to do what is right.
When she was young and dumb, nonindividuating, semi-educated and semi-conscious (Most people reared under system of altruist-collectivist ethics do not evolve morally or spiritually much beyond this low level of moral awareness and moral existing, but it is not their fault, because their inherited value system kept them from knowing how to live and how to make wise choices.) her basically evil nature of selfless self-loathing has kept her ignorant of how to choose wisely; and her basically evil nature has never been fully transformed by parents (She still has to choose to accept their moral guidance when they offer it; if she wills to be a bad person then good parents cannot save her, and if she will to be good when raised by evil parents, their cruel expectations for her are what she will rebel against.) so more than not she will make evil rather than good ethical choices; her innate bad will colors and often overwhelms her free choosing, and this is not her fault, to the degree that she is free and responsible for her choices and actions, and only God could judge such fine, elusive moral distinctions for assigning praise and blame to each individual.
* * * * * *
I had another thought about what free will means for the human agent. What if the Divine Couple, Jesus and other good deities made humans and their free will properties, to be grounded and created consistent with the divine law and natural of moderation is most things, that is what is good and loving action in the universe, and instantiated in human thinking, choice and behavior, is that which is both/and more than either/or?
This both/and nature of the world, as moderately manifested would be containing a blend, a motley of properties from opposite tendencies to exist in the universe, but that moderation ordinarily is more one side than the other (slightly) rather than an exact 50-50 split between opposing, blended tendencies, and properties.
As the good creators made the human soul, they would want us to have free will, but, paradoxically, they stacked the deck in a sense, and that stacking qualifier would make human existence a blessing or a curse. As a moderate I would argue that this rigged process is a blessing more than a curse.
As I conceptualize it, here is the tough moral hurdle for humans to overcome, but, if each person, can get over this ontological barrier, her free will is powerful, and truly significant.
The good creators, I think, made humans postlapsarian, basically evil, so that their moral choosing would face a real but tough test. Humans are provided by the good deities with rudimentary free will, though it is but crudely, minimally operative from birth, always and for everyone from moment of birth—thus each soul would face a real challenge.
If the good deities made us innately, morally neutral or basically good, once we went from nonindividuating, semi-conscious, semi-educated state of personal consciousness to full great-souled, personal existence as an individuated, enlightened, fully conscious maverizers, we would be so easily wise and our will so naturally benevolent and self-centered, that choosing to do good would still be a free choice, but we would choose good or evil choices 98% of the time. There is not much merit when we know in advance how to choose.
The good creators stacked the deck against us, so to speak, unfair though it may seem, so that we would have a real personal obstacle to overcome, and, if we could choose and act to get over that barrier, then our praise and reward would be much greater, and victory then would be much sweeter and much more enjoyable.
As most people were reared in altruistic-collectivist ethos, and subsequently do not choose very wisely, I have to think the good creators show great and much mercy to those whose deck was stacked against them, and, that the good creators cut them some deserved slack, that they can go to something like Purgatory for 800 years, and then they could start to ascend to successive layers of heaven as they spiritually and morally progress in physical death, in the afterlife.
There would be a certain amount of humans that still would burn in hell for centuries or maybe forever, but I do not know what the entails exactly.
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