My husband and I were just talking about free will and how it is a common theme in Science Fiction for a group of explorers to come across a perfectly peaceful, happy, well-ordered society where there was no free will. The explorers want to "liberate" the poor people, and, in the process of introducing free will, totally ruin the society. He then asked me if I would like to love in a society with no free will.
I replied that heaven will pretty much be the ultimate utopia of a people who have completely surrendered their wills and, as C.S. Lewis put it, "Are no longer capable of wanting wrong things." A song song by Chris Rice states, "Freedom from myself will be the sweetest rest I've ever known." So, yes, not only would I want to live in a society with no free will, I am looking forward to it!
The biggest difference here from a world where there never was free will is that Heaven will be a place of people who had free will and surrendered it to the Love of Jesus, letting His Spirit take control in greater and greater measure until the day when they passed through the veil of earthly struggles and found the heavenly bliss of total surrender of all their own self will.
God gave us free will because He wanted our wills returned freely as a gift. He wanted "glad vassals" who are slaves of love, walking in the freedom of surrender, rather than slaves who never knew the freedom of giving over what they thought was rightfully theirs. God's gift of free will as allowed us to make a hell for ourselves, but we need to live in the dank slave dungeon of self-will to understand the free and spacious paradise of surrendering to God's will.
Comments