will

 “A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain. … The food will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking about his tissues. … Let us, then, be careful about the small things, such as a scratch or a slight illness, or anything that can be managed with care. But in the name of all sanity, let us be careless about the important things, such as marriage, or the fountain of our very life will fail.” (G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, pg. 30)

Were I merely an elegant machine, a product of determined processes, I should tell myself what to eat, when to exercise, who to marry, what to buy, how much to save, all according to the most rigorous scientific counsel, and, crucial, be successful at doing so. But it turns out that I, knowing in large part what is good for me, have mixed success in these and other disciplines. I believe it’s not difficult to show that this is true in the general case as well. It seems obvious that I am not moved like a digital machine- by dull command. And neither does it seem that I am motivated like a natural machine- by individual or communal welfare. Rather, I seem to be driven by a mix of desire, duty, love, hunger, and lust, among other things, which, to varying amounts, constitute my will. For example, I want a healthy body, but I also want a Reese’s peanut butter cup, and I do not want to go running. Or I want to be a loving faithful husband, but I also want the option to indulge lust from time to time. 

In the above quote, Chesterton is building an argument for H.G. Wells who, in Utopia, starts with disbelief in sin, and proceeds to outline a perfect society, achieved through the triumph of reason, apart from any Creator or faith. This fanciful, positivist, Enlightenment-influenced philosophy was common and popular before the atrocities of World War II, and Chesterton has no difficulty in politely ripping it to shreds. But my thought is concerned only with the will. Though I may deny God’s existence, yet I cannot, rationally, deny my own existence, or more appropriately, that of my unreliable will. And for human will, in all its varied subtlety, there seems to exist no natural explanation. Therefore a source beyond nature seems wanting. Not only does the Christian worldview provide the Source, it also provides cogent explanatory evidence for the sometimes divine, sometimes capricious, and sometimes diabolical, nature of the will.

“15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. …  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. … 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! … .” (Romans 7:15-25, ESV)

Going back to the examples above, some fad diets try to get the dieter to trick themselves into believing they are a machine, that is, only eating when and what is appropriate. Behave according to specifications (eat well) and receive a reward (health). But a person must first want to eat right else any program to motivate them otherwise will fail. Of course, I can start not wanting a thing and over time begin to want it, but the kernel is that I eventually and truly do want it. Similarly, some people think of Christians as participating in something like history’s longest-running (and therefore most deceptive) fad diet. That is, like machines, believers induce themselves to behave according to specs (biblical morality) in return for earning a reward (eternity). Input instruction: do not display anger. Output behavior: “Well Gladys, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.” But the truth is that if one’s will does not line up, at least sometimes, with their behavior, then their religion is vain at best and demonic at worst. That is, if Christians believe that God’s will is good and perfect, then the realization of His will, individually, corporately, and globally, provides the singular path to peace, joy, sustainability, etc- i.e., H.G. Wells’ Utopia. Far from the frequently referenced image of the religious hypocrite critiquing the moral decay of society, while secretly engaging in illicit behavior, a Christian has a heart, broken, yet healed, and somehow filled with desire for whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely  (Philippians 4:8, ESV). And this new heart, rooted in the love of God, produces behavioral fruit organically. That followers of Christ engage in a morality diet is too shallow. Christians may be deluded, but they do believe they are partakers of a joyous feast and inheritors of wealth beyond imagination, all to no one’s credit save their Benefactor. That people can be forced, manipulated, or somehow incentivized to behave according to socially profitable and scientifically ordained strictures is naïve. The existence of human will (free, determined, predestined, or some mixture) is a thorn in the religion of naturalists and an incorrigible mystery for anyone who tries to subject it to reason. So, outshining positivism and determinism, and shattering caricatures of religious types, the Christian worldview provides a Source, an explanation, and a restoration of human will.