I have always liked the rock group Rush. I have most of their albums on vinyl in my collection from the late 1970s to early 1980s. Neil Peart, the drummer of the 3-man band, wrote a song on the Permanent Waves album of 1980 called Freewill. The chorus is, “You can choose a ready guide, in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears, and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose freewill.” There’s nothing like Geddy Lee’s voice singing songs.
The philosophical point of the lyrics is that people are always making decisions about life. You can delude yourself into thinking you won’t decide, but even that is still making a choice. The clear path is chosen by your own volition.
Volition means the power of choosing or determining. The word comes from the Latin volitio, a form of Latin verb velle, to wish or to will. When you do something of your own volition, you do it voluntarily. Both volition and voluntary come from the Latin velle. English speakers borrowed volition from French in the 17th century. At first it meant an act of choosing. Herman Melville wrote in Moby-Dick (1851): “Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of un-graduated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea.” Volition developed an additional meaning, the power to choose, which is now more common.
Freewill, in philosophy and science, is the supposed power or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe. In theology, the existence of freewill must deal with God’s omniscience, His all-knowing mind. The conundrum is that if God knows all things in the past, present, and future, do humans being really have any freewill at all. Because God knows how things will turn out, is there any decision that people make that is not determined beforehand.
The underlying questions are whether we have control over our actions, and if so, what sort of control, and to what extent. These questions puzzled the early Greek stoics in the 3rd century BC. Modern philosophers lament the lack of progress over all these centuries in trying to solve the issue. On one hand, humans have a strong sense of freedom, which leads them to believe that they have freewill. On the other hand, an intuitive feeling of freewill could be mistaken. Can you really make any decision of your own volition or is everything predetermined by the mind of God?
“Dr. Murray surrendered to the Winnipeg police services on his own volition.” He alone made the choice to turn himself in. But did he really have a choice?
Our granddaughters are coming soon for a week-long visit. It is common that young children put small objects into their mouths of their own volition. We need to be careful what we leave lying around. Have they really made a choice or is it reflex?
We would like to think that we make our shopping purchases of our own volition. However, how much of our will is determined by marketing strategies of which we are unaware? It seems that sometimes when we go buying things the decision has been made without conscious thought.
Theology indicates that our minds, our understanding, our hearts, our will and volition are all corrupted from the perfection of creation. Is anything really done by our own volition?
Are the freedoms we think we have really free? Is volition a reality or a fantasy? Can one truly choose freewill, as Neil Peart craves? Some deep things to ponder.
John would like to know if anyone has a sincere interest in a relevant word that he could possibly research for an upcoming column. If so, please send your requests to wordwisdom2021@gmail.com . Words will be selected according to relevance and research criteria. We cannot confirm that all words will be used.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
