Quote: "Bondage of the Will"
This is why I don't believe a person's will is ever really "free". Whenever a person tells me something about their 'free will' I want to ask: What is your will free from? All outside influence? Surely not. So in what sense can it be free? Certainly it's yours to exercise. But I don't think it's ever free.
I think Robert Short gets it right in this quote.
The heart's slavish and dogged devotion to its idol is
what fathers of the Church have called 'the bondage of the
will.' This bondage becomes most painfully apparent in our
lives when we earnestly feel the need of changing but cannot;
when we are attracted to another value that for one reason or
another conflicts with the desires of our true god--that value
nearest and dearest to us. But our true god lies so deeply
inside us that often we are not even consciously aware of its
presence or of what it actually is.
... Robert L. Short (b.1932), The Parables of Peanuts
[1968]"
1 comment:
A nice explanation came from an elderly Canadian Muslim (whose father was a priest), who asked three questions:
1 - Did you come into this world by your own will?
2 - Will you leave this world by your own will?
3 - If neither of the first two were by your own will, then how can you try and pass the intervening period that way?
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