Christianity 002: On the freedom of the will

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest— whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer." - Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” 1942

Recently, I came across an idea that sparked my curiosity. Many - if not most - people, when standing at an edge of a drop-off of a considerable height - such as, a cliff, for example - will experience a peculiar kind of fear of a distinctly visceral quality. Those who experience this fear most acutely, will profess to having a so-called fear of heights. And yet, it is not exactly the height that they seem to fear, for in the very moment of this trepidation they are, rather obviously, quite safe: they are securely standing or sitting on a firm well-engineered platform or on a natural rock.

Perhaps, what frightens the man is not the small probability of a hidden flaw in the design of the platform or the even-smaller probability of the rock face plummeting into the abyss at the very moment the man is standing on it (after all, it might - and indeed it will - plummet, one of these millennia). Rather, the man is terrified by the unbridled and complete freedom that he possesses, or perhaps, that suddenly possesses him.

He is violently torn from the deterministic world of predictable alarm clocks, predictable work schedules, predictable meaningless conversations, and predictable reactions to predictable stimuli, and overwhelmed by the sudden realization that right here, in this place and in this moment, he is completely and finally free, that the next step is not determined by anything outside himself, and that he is the only determining agent. He is free to jump. In fact, he must actively will not to jump, despite the seductive beckoning of the abyss. This freedom is so immediate, so obvious, so complete and final that it grips the man by his very entrails, punches him in the gut, cuts off his breath, leaving him nauseated and dizzy. (I do not have the fear of heights, but I think this is how others describe it.)