Of Free Will and Anarchy

Judges 17:6
In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

I will do.

I will go.

I am free.

It is my life and I will do what I want with it.

Libertarian free will and its philosophical offspring libertarianism will by necessity lead to anarchy.

According to Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary

lib-er-tar-i-an, n. 1. a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct.... advocating liberty or conforming to principles of liberty.

We, especially as Americans, love our liberties, our pursuit of happiness, and the American Dream with little or no hindrance to what I want and when I want it.  We have been taught to varying degrees that we are free and have the ability to freely choose whatever we want.
 

Libertarian free will means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God.

Each man doing what was right in his own eyes....The people had forgotten the ways of the Lord and denied His Kingship and therefore were exercising their libertarian attitude with regards to their own lives. Were they entirely free to determine their own fates?  How does one act contrary to one's nature and outside the omniscience of God?

Whenever man has left the clear commands of God and struck out on his own, Americanism and much of the American Church, the end results have always been death and bondage.  Adam thought that the fruit and the  curse were worth the transgression of the only command God had given him-to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent but they willfully, and by doing so were morally culpable, disobeyed their Creator and separated themselves and subsequently all of their progeny from perfect fellowship with God. This separation from God leads inevitably to corruption, bondage, and death as can be seen by the following:

Romans 5:14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

Death reigned.  Sin had and has consequences. 

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death....

We are dead in Adam-born into sin and slaves to our natures.

John 8:34
Jesus responded, " I assure you: Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

Romans 6:20
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from allegiance to righteousness

Jesus said everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.  Everyone.  The unregenerate who are dead in their sins ( Ephesians 2:1-3 ), those who are helpless  ( Romans 5:6 ), those who have not been quickened ( Colossians 2:13 ) they are the ones who are slaves to sin. They, as we all were at one time ( Ephesians 2 ), by nature are children of wrath and are blinded by the god of this world ( 2 Corinthians 4:4 ).  What kind of Godly decision can a dead, helpless, and spiritually blind man make?

The answer is quite simple: None.  Sinful man is incapable of commending himself to or appeasing a Holy God.  Every decison that is made is bound by the state that they find themselves in and sinful man will make sinful decisions. Man cannot climb the ladder to Heaven and pull God down to himself and He cannot make righteous decisions while on this earth apart from the Grace of God.

They did what was right in their own eyes...Their blinded eyes.  Their depraved, corrupt, and ungodly eyes.  How can a society exist and flourish when the prevailing attitude is a mishmash of humanistic dogma and feel good egalitarianism?  Any system that you can name from communism to democratic republics to self-styled despotisms or oligarchies will, at their core, depend upon man to make the right decisions for himself and others.  Libertarianism is predicated upon man being able to make those decisions by his libertarian free will- which man throughout his history has proven incapable and unwilling to do.

Man, without the restraining hand of God's Grace and the divinely instituted governments given for our benefit ( not all are equal and the claim was never made they were ) will seek his own.  How do can we know this.  Look throughout history.  Even the most seemingly altruistic ( if there is such a thing ) goals and ambitions fall prey to the corrupt nature of man.  Set up a charity and someone will steal from it.  Donate to help the needy and the proceeds will be abused.  Try help the poor and many become dependent upon the handout.  Give breaks to the rich in the hopes of spurring economic growth and many lord it over those who don't have.

All men are not equally evil from a temporal standpoint- I just wanted to make that clear.  Hitler, Saddam, Pol Pot, Dahmer, and many other infamous names are always held up by some to say, " see I am not so bad, I am much better than they, " and they most likely are.  However, we are not compared to others neither can we base what we " ought " to do in comparison of their actions.  God said:

Romans 1:21
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Genesis 6:5
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Romans 3
⁹What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
 ¹⁰As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

I for one do not want to live in a society where everyone does what is right in there own eyes.  I do not want to be free from societal norms and Godly mores.  We have not now nor will we ever develope past our need for our Creator.  Man is not able apart from God to heal himself.  We are broken and we need to be repaired...no we need to be made new.

Think about where your freedom has lead you and is now leading our society and our world.  We wanted freedom and I believe we are going to reap the consequences.