Oh, I dunno, I think there’s versions of Christianity that operating under real free will, and then there’s the Calvinists which seem to operate with it as merely an appearance. Surely Christians aren’t the only ones who argue that even if free will doesn’t exist, we need to approach morality as though it did? I believe in free will, myself of course, so it doesn’t really impact me.
There is a thread on the subject PHARMAKIA which refutes what Reverend Dale Robbins is saying. The Greek word PHARMAKIA, as it is used in the New Testament, most likely means “poisoning”, as in political assassination . It would not mean the use of hashish for recreation or opium as medicine.
Hope this helps. Good luck on your essay for school.
Well, I guess so. Lots of things have their roots in Christian spirituality, since, depending on who you ask, it may be the fulfillment of the ancient jewish religion, which predates all other known religions, both modern and archaic.
Human free will is a lot more limited than people like to think. They may make choices in the short term that effect how they get along with others, and how well they perform on the job, and how well they do at their chosen hobbies, but humans also have natural tendencies, and those tendencies often lead them along a certain path, or else will make their lives miserable if they try to chose another.
Likewise, modern human society has made the very concept of ‘free will’ a moot point, since no matter what you are free to do, you have to live by the rules of the society you exist in, rather than being able to choose another path. Otherwise, your freedom is eroded even more.
Unfortunately, many of the Christians I’ve encountered are either unwilling to consider such things or else have their heads in the clouds, thinking only about the attaining of some ‘heaven,’ and therefore feeling free to not consider what goes on in the world to be important, but the fact of the matter is that when you apply real life, and in a broader sense, any form of logic to a religious context, it quickly becomes obvious that individual people are not free, nor have they ever been. This says very little about drugs. It’s still obvious that getting drunk decreases your chances of being able to drive home properly without getting into a car crash. However, freedom is still quite limited. As much as the religious may wish to deny it, being intelligent doesn’t mean that you’re not still an animal, and as animals, we already have strong tendencies within ourselves that lead us to do things that may harm us in the long run. Being on drugs only increases the number of those pre-existing tendencies. Therefore, drugs don’t create the problems, they only increase ones that are already there, on a mathmatical level.
You may be interested in reading Martin Luther’s “The Bondage of The Will” which was an argument against the free will theology of Erasmus. It could make for a very insightful read, although the specific question of the relationship of drug use to the Christian conception of free will would have to be extrapolated by you.