Mankind’s Blessed Ingenuity
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Free will. It’s a great concept. We have control over our actions and thus we must take responsibility for our choices. But how does the concept of God relate? So many (irregardless of type of religion) believe that things happen due solely to God’s will. God created the world and everything in it with purpose. It then becomes difficult to pursue progress that may seem to go against the already established natural order (or God’s designs). But is this true or is it just fallacy?
If there is a God or Gods or any type of superior being that created the world we currently live upon, and he/she/it/they created free will, then it’s likely that he/she/it/they also created the tools for us to use to establish a better society. Mankind has been blessed with ingenuity. We have made such amazing strides throughout history because we find solutions to the problems facing us. We developed the ability to control fire, created tools for hunting and for agriculture, we developed the wheel, created writing, and made all sorts of machines. If nothing else, the history of man proves that we are not creatures that have been set upon the Earth to live static, unchanging lives. Imagine with the knowledge you currently possess, would you be happy to return to a nomad way of life? A life completely free from technology, from modern comforts (like running water, toilets, fridges, phones, cars, etc)? A life where from the moment of birth, you must consistently struggle for food, shelter, and warmth? A life where a simple broken leg could in fact mean a death sentence? For if there is a God, the man that he/she/it created all those years ago was this type of man.
Yet, even ultra-religious people, people fully devoted to the concept that there is an omnipresent God that has full control over everything and that man should not change the world that God created, do not in fact argue that we must give up all of our modern comforts and return to nomad lifestyles. But why? Where is the line that gets drawn regarding what is ok with God, and what is not ok? Indoor plumbing? There aren’t many anti-toilet groups out there. What about fridges or other appliances? There aren’t ongoing protests at home supply stores. Yet, all of these things are things that did not exist naturally upon the Earth. God did not create them. Man created them. And why did man create them? Because we saw a need, an obstacle, a problem, and we used our ingenuity and found a solution. And these solutions have made our lives easier, safer, better. So we keep them and we move forward. We progress.
But there is still fear. Many are afraid of vaccines, a fairly recent medical miracle. Why? Vaccines have aided in a drastic decline of childhood mortality in a very short space of time. Yet, there are arguments that God created our bodies to fight off infections naturally and vaccines aren’t natural. That is true. Vaccines aren’t natural. They have been developed by man as a solution, a fix to horrible diseases that could easily kill or disable us. And it is also true that our bodies do have immune systems that have developed to fight for our survival against viruses. But not all immune systems are equal. Some will be able to fight the virus easily, others will not. Is this something you’d like to leave to chance? Maybe God designed your body to escape the horrors of that specific disease, but what about the next one? Is it really only in God’s hands?
If there is a God or Gods, and he/she/it/they created man, and he/she/it/they blessed man with ingenuity, then it just makes sense that God has made it the duty of man to find the solutions to the problems facing us. Are vaccines really any different to other inventions? Why would God provide us with our intelligence and also the tools that can be used to develop vaccines, unless that was in line with the rest of our progress as a species. Does God really want us to experience pain and agony and to die in despair to things within our control to fix? No. We have been given the sacred ability to fix our own problems and to develop our own path. This does not go against God, or the natural order, it is in fact the actual design.
We were given free will in order to make choices. Our choices can be good or they can be bad, yet in the end they are our own. We can use the abilities we have been blessed with to make our lives better, to progress our society, to build a better future. Progress is what we were designed for whether through God or evolution. Yet, free will also gives us the option to stagnant. We can fall down a hole and trap ourselves in despair. Believing that the horrors we may face are beyond our control. That we must suffer because that is what God has decided. But this is wrong. God has given us the tools to fix our problems, to relieve our suffering, to overcome our burdens, it is only our ignorance that holds us back.