BluePhantom
Educator (of liberals)
Well first let's hit this "10 Commandments" thing. The Bible doesn't exactly present them as such. I mean it's not like the Bible says "and God gave us the following commandments" and then listed them. They are not referred to that way. It wasn't until the Geneva Bible was published in 1560 that they were written as and we started thinking of them as "commandments from God".(1) Probably a more accurate way to look at them is to call them "some really good suggestions" since there were more than ten actually and it's hard to imagine an all powerful God who "commands" something and it doesn't happen. So in reality they are more like: "if you do these things your life will be a lot better and you will be on the path to God" as opposed to "do these things or suffer my wrath".
As far as the original question...no being commanded doesn't negate free will as you always have the power to say "no". You may suffer the consequences of refusal but everyone has the choice to obey or disobey, except in some rather radical, extreme situations where actual physical force is involved.
1)Ten Commandments - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As far as the original question...no being commanded doesn't negate free will as you always have the power to say "no". You may suffer the consequences of refusal but everyone has the choice to obey or disobey, except in some rather radical, extreme situations where actual physical force is involved.
1)Ten Commandments - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia