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The Price of Free Will


Isn’t humanity wonderful—beings capable of complex emotions, ideas, and thought, with the remarkable ability to feel and to live—to experience the world and all its wonders, to create, to dream? And yet, how did we end up in a place so full of hatred? How did we look at the universe, vast and luminous, and choose to be led astray into darkness? How did we gaze upon a world teeming with life and wonder, only to fall into anguish? You could argue that the fight between good and evil exists to keep the world from growing insipid—but that cannot justify or explain away the horrendous aspects of the world.

If God is an all-holy entity who deserves our devotion, why does He subject His creations to cruelty? Why does a world made with such precision, beauty, and care allow so much pain to exist within it?

Hypothetically speaking, if God does exist—someone whose sole purpose is to care for the well-being of His creations—then perhaps reincarnation could exist alongside it. A far-fetched thought, perhaps, but what if we were originally granted free will, and our misuse of it led to penance in the form of suffering in our next lives? It would suggest that suffering is not random, but a repercussion for which we are responsible.


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