Why did God give us free will when he knew we could misuse it?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question is why did God give us free will if we knew that we could misuse it to act in evil ways? There are two different points over here. One is God’s giving, second is our choosing. The two cannot be conflated, the two cannot be mixed together.
In the Vedanta Sutra, Ramacharya in his commentary, Sri Bhashyam, analyzes this point and he says that the free will that the absolute truth has given, as he uses the word, Prabhupada uses the word, Ramacharya would often use the word, Ananta Guna Sampanna Sri Narayan. So Ananta Guna Sampanna, Prabhupada says Krishna has six opulences, so Narayan. Ramacharya says Ananta Guna Sampanna, unlimited qualities.
So Narayan has given qualities, has given free will out of his love. How is it out of love? Because without free will, we would just become like rogues. We would become like rogues.
So, now if you look at even the ordinary life, parents want the good of their children and the parents would tell their children, do this, don’t do this, so that the children will make healthy choices. The parents will be happy if the children obey them. But ask any parent, no matter how troublesome or disobedient the children become, would any parent want to replace a child with a robo? You know, I don’t want children because they are disobedient.
A robo will always obey. No, with a robo there will be no love. So, now if this applies even to our normal parent-child relationship, what about God? It applies all the more.
So the purpose that God has given us free will is for the reciprocation of love. Now, God provides us facilities as a teacher and as the voice of conscience within so that we can make right choices. But then it’s up to us whether we make wrong choices.
Now the expertise of God is that our wrong choices, we get consequences for them. And through the consequences, gradually we learn. Now it’s important to understand that karma is not primarily a system of punishment.
Karma is primarily a system of education. The punishment that is there is primarily for elevating and prompting us to elevate our consciences. So, Krishna has provided systems by which we can learn and we can make right choices.
And yes, if somebody makes a wrong choice, say there’s a terrorist who blows up some big building. But that person, the terrorist is using free will in a very grievous way. Now we may say that, okay, that person is using free will in a bad way, but what about all those who get victimized by that? Now that is Krishna’s expertise.
That those people are also getting reactions to their specific karma that they may have done at that time. Now that does not mean that we become unsympathetic and think that all sinful people are suffering in that. No, we are meant to deal with people based on how they act and how they act in this life.
That’s the whole system of the king is to maintain justice. So we don’t become hard-hearted. But the point is that Krishna’s expertise is such that even when a soul misuses the free will, that soul learns through that misuse.
And secondly, others don’t get unjustified suffering. They may get some suffering, but that is a reaction for their own past karma. And in that way, Krishna firstly by giving free will provides a facility for make sure that we have the opportunity to learn.
And secondly, by creating a system by which we can learn from the misuse of free will, Krishna helps us to gradually come back to the right path. That’s why as I said, Vyasa Sutra commentators explained that the free will that Brahman has given to the Anubrahman, that is actually a mercy of the Absolute Truth.