Nikos could be deceptive and manipulative, but I always thought I could see through him. Watching him, listening to him, I was unable to detect any dissembling. But is the damage to our friendship irreparable?” I’d thought so, but suddenly I was unsure. Everything about him seemed sober and firm. If he’d been drinking recently, I couldn’t tell. “No more?” “I don’t think so, Nikos.” He stopped, turned, and looked at me, his expression steady. “We’ve been friends a lot of years, Bartolomeo.” “Were friends,” I corrected him. My body could remain undiscovered for decades. I’d already lost my orientation, and when I looked around, I found I could not locate the entrance I’d used I was struck by the irrational fear that I might never be able to find my way out of there. “Walk with me a while, Bartolomeo.” We walked together across the hot sand, an arm’s length apart. “Nikos stared out across the bleached sand, the scattered cacti and rock. “For we can also love and comfort one another, we can choose good over evil, we can relish and appreciate life, we can revel in all the small, wonderful pleasures of being alive, we can love and be loved, and those things are all the greater because they are freely chosen. Can you imagine His own pain and grief, knowing that He could intercede, could change our lives and ease our suffering, but knowing also that to do so would be to take back the wonderful gift He has bestowed? “Can you imagine the sacrifice God has made to provide us with this gift? He knows we will not always make good choices, He knows we will cause ourselves and others terrible pain and grief. That is the price we pay for free will.”įather Veronica sighed heavily, and when she resumed there was an ache in her voice. We have to face those consequences ourselves. There is no real free will if God intercedes to protect us or save us from the consequences of our own or other people’s actions and choices.
If He had created us in such a way that we could only do good, if we were incapable of acting badly, selfishly, causing pain or harm, then the notion of free will would be meaningless, would it not? Not only that, true free will precludes God’s intervention in our lives. And second, true free will to act upon that capacity. First, the capacity to do anything, good or evil, wise or unwise, loving or hateful. Two gifts, really, but so interconnected they are like one. “When God created human beings, He bestowed upon us the greatest gift besides His love.
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