Choices

I have been thinking about choices recently. Every day we take a myriad of decisions. It is what makes us human. We classify the animal kingdom in terms of choices: the higher the quality of choices that a creature makes, the higher we rate that animal. Our pets are all animals that make choices, and the greater any animal's capacity for choices, the more likely we are to consider it suitable to be a pet. It is more 'human', more like us, more suitable as a companion, on this basis alone.

We believe in moral responsibility, accountability, because we believe the choices we make are real. If we were just automata, marionettes on the ends of strings, mere puppets, we could not believe in 'judgment', to use a theological term, because the puppet-master alone could be judged.

We believe in judgment because we believe that our actions are free choices we make, but we must not take this idea too far.

First, our choices are limited by what is available. We in the West live in a society rich in choices. We choose food, we choose activities, careers, partners, hobbies, from a vast range of possible options. But there are other societies, where such a range of choices is out of the question. In some societies there is virtually no choice of what to eat, what to do, whether to marry or not, whether to have children or not, how to bring up one's offspring. The range of options is pitifully small, circumscribed by climate, culture, and other immovable obstacles to choice.

Second, our choices are limited by factors we are not responsible for. Very often the most significant of these are things others did to us, or for us, when we were young and dependent on them. Their choices have left me a different person from what I might have been had they acted otherwise. Different, for better or for worse. A good teacher is one who looks for the 'better', while an abuser cares not what effect their actions may have on their victims. And each of us in adult life is the person we are, to a certain extent, because of what others have done, or not done, over which we had no control.

You remember the account (it is in John's Gospel, chapter 8, verses 1 to 11) of how the religious leaders brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, and demanded he approve that the official punishment of stoning to death be carried out. Jesus was at first silent, and began writing words on the ground in the sand. When they insisted on an answer, he said, 'Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone,' and resumed his writing. Then each, from the eldest to the youngest, slunk away, leaving only the woman and Jesus. 'Has no-one condemned you?' Jesus asked. 'No-one, sir,' she replied. 'Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.'

Was this woman the local prostitute? Had all the accusers been at some point her clients? What choices did the woman have, in a society where a woman needed the protection of either a father or a husband? We shall never know. But what really interests me are the final words Jesus said to her: 'Go, and sin no more.' Was this more than a pious instruction? Was it an empowering? Was Jesus giving to her the ability to sin no more?

I think this has to be what we must all hope for. If God's forgiveness of my sins is to make any real difference in my life, it has to be that I am strengthened to 'sin no more', for surely He will not command what I am unable to perform. And when I ask His forgiveness, it is something less than real unless I am also asking for His empowering command. And in this prayer I am asking for the widening of my choices, for the power to make the right choices, and so become more truly human.