The idea that man has free will has been around and talked about for thousands of years. The bible and many other historical texts reference the ideas of free will and attempt to explain the meaning and implications that result from such a free will. But what is free will? What does free will mean to the laymen? What does this mean to the scholar? The purpose of this paper is to understand the idea of free will and what has history shown us with regard to the inherent good or evil of man. This paper will explore the idea of free will, not through a Christian perspective, but rather a Buddhist scope of understanding. This paper will examine literature from some of the top Buddhist scholars.
Keywords: Buddhism, Free Will
Man, Freewill and Buddhism
The topic of free will has been raised by scientists, theologians and philosophers. Not only has the issue been raised, but
…show more content…
Determinism and indeterminism.One such theory of determinism claims that everything that happens in the present is due to our past actions from prior lifetimes. Some believed that everything was due to the will of god. Humans also say “it’s in the stars” or “it’s just going to happen” so, these hypotheses exist both in the east and the west. In the east, the Buddha rejected the interpretations of determinism. The eastern perspective says that if we were to embrace determinism, we would lose our incentive to transform ourselves, and to seek more happiness in our lives.
If it were clear that determination were true, humans would have to resign themselves to saying “ok, it’s true!” which would then suggest that apathy is in accordance with reality (Wallace, 2008) Indeterminism, on the other hand says that all things are just random, or bad luck or that life is simply chaotic. Buddha rejected indeterminism as well, saying that since we do not know if it is true, we should not adopt such an idea, and doing so would take away any incentive for moral