essence, the perspective presented in this book holds that the phenomenological world is an insane illusion and that regardless of how things play themselves out in the world, in the end all perception will be returned to its sane state, knowing that it's mind abides in the mind of God and cannot, in anything except delusion or hallucination, be recreated in a manner that is different from and/or separate from that of its Cause which is the mind of God.
Other metaphysicians and theologians would argue that action or behavior is not the "realm" in which free will abides; but rather the "realm" governed by free will is that of decision (Adam, 1996). In other words, we are always free to decide between any situation which contains alternatives or options. Commonly, these notions of free will generally pair will with reason as one of two complementary activities of the mind (White, 1993). The will is considered the faculty of choice and decision, whereas the reason is that of deliberation and argument (White, 1993). Thus a rational act would be an exercise of the will performed after due deliberation.
What needs to be noted here is that, in essence, the foregoing notion of free will proposes that determinism is generally true of all events except volition which is derived from a mental states (Rychlak, 1979). As might be expected, this notion of free will makes the doctrine most important when applied to ethics; this because a system of ethics must imply free will, as the denial of the ability to choose a course of action seems to negate the possibility of moral judgment (Gerald, 1987). A person without moral judgment is not responsible for his or her actions.
In an attempt to resolve this problem, ethical philosophers have taken a great variety of positions, ranging from absolute determinism to absolute libertarianism (Gerald, 1987). Prevailing philosophical opinion claims that partial self-determination exists so that a cor...