An Alternative To Free Will

“Free Will”, by definition, demands that we able to choose independently of all influences. It does not mean we must choose independently, only that we have the ability to do so. But if we can choose independently of influence, then what determines our choice? If you say, “our character”, or “our nature”, then what determines those? If you say, “our choices”, then you have made the age old logical error of circular reference, the same kind of logical error that kept people thinking that the world was flat for so long despite overwhelming evidence that it couldn't possibly be flat. It seemed flat, so arguments were invented (many of them circular) to explain away the evidence.
Of course, ultimately the evidence won out and now we take gravity for granted. And, we don't even bat an eye at the idea of men standing upside down some 8.000 miles below us.
Someday too, we will not question the concept of dependent choice. “Free will” will seem as silly as the idea of a flat earth. But before that day comes we are going to have to collectively let go of certain absolutes that keep us from grasping beyond what our minds can directly perceive. Just as we let go of the concepts of “absolute up” and “absolute down”, we will need to learn that there is no “absolute right” or “absolute wrong”. Once we accept this then the idea of dependent choice will seem obvious.
And, if you think that our “character”, which ultimately determines our choices, is itself determined by nature, or “God”, or “the Universe”, then you have already admitted that we have no free will.
Because if our choices are determined by our character, and our character is determined by something other than ourselves, then our choices are not free, they are determined by whoever (or whatever) determined our character. And that is what “dependent choice” is all about.
Dependent choice does not imply pre-destiny. In fact, the concept of dependent choice has nothing to say about our “destiny” at all. Whether or not our choices are predetermined becomes a mute question when the idea of dependent choice is fully explored and understood. It is like asking, “what holds the earth up?”, after gravity is understood. The question itself no longer makes any sense, since gravity allows for a whole new way of looking at “up” and “down”.
And so, dependent choice provides a whole new way of looking at “right” and “wrong”. Suddenly, anyone claiming to be “the most right” about their view of the universe is exposed as a fraud. They will appear as foolish to us as a man who climbs a mountain in order to be “the closest to heaven”. Most religions of the world will become empty shells of impossible “righteousness”. Ironically, most religions of the world were based on the teachings of men who seemed to understand that there is no absolute rights or wrongs. When you re-read the teachings of Jesus, for example, in the light of dependent choice, suddenly what he is saying makes real sense, and no longer requires faith in imagined ideas, like absolute rightness (a.k.a. “righteousness”) and absolute wrongness (a.k.a. “evil”). The “miracles” that Christ performed are seen as very good metaphores for concepts that dependent choice supports.
Just for example, Jesus healed many “lepers”. Leprosy is a “skin disease” that eats the external flesh of the body while leaving the internal organs intact. Because of the way lepers were outcast and blamed for their own disease, leprosy is an excellent metaphor for how “sin” (i.e. deception) will eat away at the external “skin” of a person's “character” while leaving the internal “organs” of a person's “character” intact. Such a person's behavior (external skin) becomes more and more hideous as the disease progresses, and society soon casts them out (e.g. sends them to prison) and blames them for their sickness (behavior).
But dependent choice tells us that these “lepers” do have a disease, and, just as Jesus tried to teach us, it can be cured. Not miraculously in the “magical” sense of miracles that religion has imagined. But, in the very real “miraculous” sense of the mysterious force of “devine (unconditional) love”. Just as gravity (a miraculous and mysterious force itself) allows men to orbit the earth, seeming to set them free from the very gravity that holds them there, so devine love will some day set men free from “leprosy” (i.e. deception based behavior). Some day we truly will perform “miracles” even greater than those performed by Christ (as Christ himself promised we would). But, they will not be “magic” or “supernatural”. They will be achieved by mere understanding.
Faith in understanding is devine love. It is what Jesus and St. Paul really means by “righteousness”. Fear and ignorance is the cause of all suffering (i.e. deception based experience). It is what Jesus and St. Paul really meant by “evil”.