In college, I recall discussing “human free will” as a sort of a given, an endowment that we are born with, like our bones and muscles.
The mystics and behavioral economists, though, show us that this is hardly the case. The freedom of our will is only a potential within us and something that, with grace and intentional work, we can slowly actualize.
That is, so much of what I think are “my actions” are only reflexive reactions, based on my mental and physical makeup, my past conditioning, my environment. I have been programmed, by nature and by nurture, to do certain things. The path to freedom, then, consists in accepting the (occasionally brutal) grace of seeing the particulars of this reality, and accepting this “learning to see” as a daily process and discipline.
Then, when we are able to love in ways that do not compute, we can know that we are on the path of freedom.
Paul's Blog 