Why Blame Me?

In Norman Geisler’s book Chosen but Free he assesses the predestination and free will controversy. He entitles his fourth chapter “why blame me?” This is a question I am sure many people have asked before. In our culture and society it seems that no one wants to take responsibility for their actions, and most of the time they do not have to. Geisler poses the question, “…if God is in control of all events, then how can I be responsible for anything that happens even my evil actions?” The answer is free will. Geisler brings up a great point that God did not make the devil, but rather he made the angel Lucifer. Lucifer became the devil by his own free choice; he chose to sin. God did not make sin, he made the possibility of it when he gave us free will. He gave us the choice. So when we do something wrong we cannot blame God or the devil, the only person we can blame is ourselves.
Furthermore it is important to remember that with freedom comes responsibility. A good example Geisler presents is the freedom to drive, a freedom that many of us abuse when we speed or drive recklessly. It would be like saying well the government is the one who gave me this license, so they are the ones responsible for any wrong I do while I am driving. I think we all know that at the heart of the matter this is not true. But we are constantly looking for someone else to blame so that we will not have to take responsibility. As Geisler states, “God made the fact of freedom; we are responsible for our acts of freedom.” God gave us free will but its our choice what we do with it. And this is where evil comes in. Just like we have the power to chose good, we also have the power to reject it and chose evil. As humans we are inclined to do the latter. And again it is ourselves we have to blame for this. God does not give us a desire to sin, but gives us free will to chose. And all events have a cause, our own actions included. So it follows that the cause of our actions is ourselves.
Finally many may wonder if were such evil creatures inclined to sin by our own free will, how can we chose good? The answer is there is a difference between desire and decision. We can have a strong desire to do something yet chose to do something else. We all have plenty of experience with this. Even now being in finals week in college I am confronted with these decisions everyday, I know what I should do is study, but I have the desire to do anything but. This is where free will and choice comes in because I can chose to do the right thing or to not. And if I chose the latter I will have no one to blame but myself for the grade that results. We are confronted with these decisions everyday and God has given us the choice to chose, that is why we are to blame for our actions.