The Pilate Quandry

07 Apr 2009 • Thoughts

Within Christianity it is believed that amongst the many gifts given by God is the gift of free will. The ability and the right of mankind to choose their own actions and dictate their own destiny. We can be whatever we wish to be, do whatever we dream to do. At times this allows humanity to show it’s darkest side, capable of great evils. The flip-side is that we have been able to expand ourselves to a point where we can achieve miracles, tinker with the very building blocks of creation and, at times, believe that we are ourselves Gods. We are not of course.

Free will is both our greatest blessing and our most unfortunate curse.

Free will forms a small part of the subject about which I wish to write. It’s a subject that has confounded greater minds than mine and yet it is still a matter with which I feel the need to wrestle on more occasions than I’d like. In many ways it seems simple but then I start to look at history and that’s where it becomes anything but.

I’d like to consider Pontius Pilate. A man central to the story of Christ. A man who, it seems, held the fate of the world in his hands. That may sound like an overstatement, perhaps it is, but like I said it’s complicated. You see, Pilate is a great example of the contradiction of free will.

Jesus was God incarnate. God made man and given to walk the Earth as a human. Human emotions, human strengths and human weaknesses. It’s a point on which every branch of the Christian Church agrees. Perhaps more importantly Jesus Christ was crucified in order that human transgressions could be forgiven. Atonement. It is in itself a complex subject, but is again fundamental to Christian faith and belief. No crucifixion, no resurrection, no Christianity. All clear? Well, let’s go over that again. God sent Jesus to Earth in order that he might die and rise again to cleanse sin and conquer death. Simple.

Of course not, otherwise why would I be writing what you are now reading? Remember Pilate? He stood in front of the people and offered them an exit. Offered them a chance to turn Jesus free and save him from death. They declined. Pilate could see no wrong in Jesus, so as the man in charge for Rome he could have simply set him free. He looked, he thought, he chose. Crucifixion. No crucifixion, no resurrection, no Christianity.

So what if Pilate had chosen differently? What if Jesus had been freed? If we are to believe that our will is free and our destiny not yet fixed then we must accept that Pilate had this option. But God sent his son to die for our sins, did he not? So Pilate had no choice, God’s plan foiled by a mere mortal? I imagine not. This is the fundamental conflict inherent in the free will debate. Did God really know that Jesus would die? Or did he just turn the actions of man into an opportunity to save us?

I have no idea as to the answer, I can only barely get to grips with the question. A common answer in this debate is that God doesn’t fix the future but does see the future. That’s unclear. The suggestion is that God is non-contemporaneous, he exists is outside of time. Time is, after all, a human construction. This theory suggests that God did not make Pilate (and others) choose the path they did, nor did he see some fixed point ahead. He simply “understood” what would happen, intuited it perhaps? I don’t know. If anyone does, let me know. You’ll really be helping me out.