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The metaphysical reality of free will is the basis of human identity, responsibility, and rationality. It is foundational to our spiritual nature and endowments. Rationality itself is an extension of our free will. We have the potential ability to adjudicate beliefs, thoughts, and actions formulated on thinking which is consistent and rational. We also can base our decisions on irrational forces such as emotions or fallacious thinking.

Rationality is based on several criteria. One of which is the idea of causation. The idea of causality is found in every science from math and science to the study of history. The idea of causality is assumed in Newton’s laws of motion to geometric and algebraic computation. Rationality is understanding the basis of causality in different arenas of thought. Medical doctors will observe and treat symptoms which imply causes sometimes even unseen in the human body whether it be organ failure or a bacterium. Our empirical testing has come a long way to where we can detect many illnesses, but diagnosis generally is a conclusion or inference based on evidence. So, rationality includes the idea of necessary and sufficient reasons for a result.

Many philosophers have concluded that rationality is a hallmark of a transcendent Creator. If the mind is not the primary dynamic of the universe, what would be the foundation for the intelligibility of the universe? And even beyond this, why would there be any rationality at all? The laws of thought are immaterial and universal. They were not created by mankind but discovered and articulated over time. The laws of thought dramatically argue with atheistic materialism which postulates a reality only observed and measured through scientific means.

A great pioneer of rationality was Aristotle, who was able to convey the principles of thought called the laws of identity, contradiction (non-contradiction), and excluded middle. He also introduced the ideas of induction which were later refined by Francis Bacon to become what is commonly called the scientific method.

Another framework for rationality is cohesion or consistency. Rationality is holding ideas and conclusions which are non-contradictory. A man cannot be a bachelor and married at the same time. These two contradictions cannot simultaneously exist in the same subject. Some have argued that the idea of God is somehow illogical. The strongest of such assertions is generally connected with the existence of evil or suffering in the world. However, this is not a logical contradiction within the same subject but two distinct identities. There is no logical contradiction in the Christian conception of God which is, God as supreme good and power, which would be the case, for a being, which is being itself. God is unconditioned.

Rationality can be compromised through fallacious reasoning. In other words, believing things because of faulty thinking processes. Consider the logical fallacy of begging the question, which asserts a premise without proper rationales. Or a circular argument which essentially repeats the premise in different words. People often attack a person instead of their intellectual position. All these and more are not rationally valid processes for beliefs.

God endowed humanity with rationality, and this reflects the nature of His being. His wisdom transcends our own. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Corinthians 1:25).

“For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable” (Isaiah 40:8).

We also see in Scripture that Jesus uses rationality to communicate the message of God. Jesus reasons with the people when accused of miracles through Beelzebub by constructing an argument based on the principle that divided kingdoms fall (Matthew 12: 22-29). If He (Jesus) is casting out demons by the power of demons, then He is “dividing the kingdom” and thus undermining Himself.

Jesus also reasoned about the afterlife by recalling Moses and the burning bush. God revealed Abraham still had a covenant relationship despite being physically dead and is thus still living. This subtle argument was based on the tense of a verb! ‘Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken” (Mark 12:24-27).

Early evangelists would reason with their audiences in the proclamation of the Gospel. Stephen’s preaching was persuasive through wisdom, “Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen.  And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke” (Acts 6: 9, 10). It is said of the Apostle Paul, “Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2).

God has endowed humanity with rationality through free will and knowledge of thought itself. We are all trying to make sense of life and the Scriptures.

Rationality is the signature of God on the soul of man.

We can make decisions based on truth, reasoning, and consequence. This has ennobled man to accomplish amazing things spiritually and scientifically. This substantial characteristic is reflective of the image of God and enabled our dominion of the earth as primevally promised in Genesis.

The Psalmist of old contemplated humanity’s place in the universe by writing, “What is man that You are mindful of him?” Humanity is constituted of two unified natures, body and soul. The body is created out of matter and physical while the soul is immaterial and categorized as the mind. One of the most significant features of our image bearing is the endowment of freedom which is a hallmark of our distinctive spiritual nature.

The transcendent trait of free will is a building block to other spiritual faculties and integral to the essence of humans.

When we look at the universe and other lifeforms, we see that plants and animals behave differently than humans and for good reasons. Either they act entirely in accordance with physical law or upon instincts. Whereas humans have the potential to function based on other mental frameworks, priorities, conceptional and even ethical hierarchies. Simply put, mature humans have the ability to choose actions.

The fact of human freedom, while seemingly self-evident, intuitive, and how we understand ourselves and others is shockingly controversial among some scientists and philosophers.

In recent years, atheistic thinkers have been doomed to this radical deduction because of their unwavering commitment and faith to atheistic materialism. The idea that all of reality consists of what we can detect empirically or by scientific methods. Yet, this epistemological modus operandi is plainly self-defeating and beyond its own criterion for knowledge.

In the worldview of atheistic materialism, there is simply no room for free will because it cannot be defined by material terms or measures. The assumption is that humans are entirely physical, and all our behaviors are determined by mindless chemistry. So, you are left eventually with the absurdity that a 747 plane was designed by merely deterministic chemicals in the brain with only illusory choices in the process! Rationality itself is destroyed in the wake of materialistic determinism.

Also, understanding that the universe was born in the infinite freedom and agency of God. Freedom is unconditioned except for being itself which would be adequately explained by God as pure being. All other alternative origins are ultimately, as the adage goes, “turtles all the way down” (infinite regress) or being from non-being which have major philosophical problems. Almighty God in his unconditioned freedom is a rational and sufficient explanation of the created universe and our own image bearing nature.

The Bible clearly portrays humanity as responsible agents. God said of humanity in the beginning, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat” (Genesis 2: 16). To the people of Israel, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30: 19).

The great leader Joshua challenged the people, “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:14, 15).

Jesus speaks in Revelation, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” (Revelation 3:20,21).

Our free will is limited, finite, and fallen. Our choices are impacted and influenced undoubtedly by our genetics, environment, and selfishness. However, we still have personal volition, intentionality, and responsibility for our actions.

The great Anselm summarized brilliantly, “Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.”

God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” The image of God distinguishes humanity from other living entities and gives human life an increased moral status and dignity. (Genesis 9:6) “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God, He made man.” The basis of all human rights, justice, and redemption emerges from the transcendent value intrinsic to humanity’s nature through God’s special creation and image bearing.

We can understand the “image of God” through a few exercises, such as the differences between us and animals, characteristics of human beings, and what the Bible reveals about our nature and aptitudes. Our image bearing doesn’t make us divine in the same sense as God because we are finite and limited in our being, whereas God is being itself. God has characteristics and attributes which are exclusive and distinctive as that “which no greater can be conceived.”

Humanity is composed of a spiritual nature called a soul or mind. Many philosophers have come to this conclusion rationally from Socrates to Descartes concerning the mind or soul/body duality. Philosophers of the mind and neuroscientists continue to dialog and debate the mysteries of consciousness which is commonly called the “hard problem” of science.

Mental entities such as thoughts and feelings are not located in any particular space or have physical qualities like material objects or events. Philosophers J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig detail several characteristics for the mind as mental entities are self-presenting, have private accessibility, incorrigible or individually factual, and capable of intentionality, none of these activities are possible in a material sense. This means that the inter-relationship of the mind and brain can be causal and connected but not identical. (Craig 2003)

We see the existence of a soul more importantly because of the Bible. The current physical body is temporal and only a part of the whole constitution of a human being. Verses in the Old Testament indicate the soul and body dichotomy (Genesis 35:18, I Kings 17:21, Isaiah 53:12). The book of Ecclesiastes gives this description, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

The New Testament makes mention of the soul leaving the body in death. (Luke 12:20, John 19:30, Acts 7:59).

(James 2:26) “For as the body without the spirit is dead.” Jesus also warned, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The soul is indicated to survive after the body’s death which is characterized as a tent.

(II Corinthians 5:1-8) “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.  Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

Some verses even indicate that humanity is composed of trichotomy: body, soul, and spirit. Some debate whether these verses are redundant in the spiritual portrayal or elucidating something different like an animating soul in the likeness to animal life. (Hebrews 4:12) “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (I Thessalonians 5: 23) “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

No matter the interpretation of these verses, man is a physical and spiritual composition.

The great writer and poet William Faulkner summarized in his Nobel Prize speech, “I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”