Genotypes and Phenotypes
Life Experience
Genes and Religion
Limits of Free Will
Living with God’s Will
Sanskara Genes
Several studies to suggest that between 40% and 60% of all of the decisions and actions you make are determined because of some genetically based characteristic. Also, 40% to 60% of all decisions and actions are determined by experience. Because a human being is so complex it is hard to determine how many decisions or actions that you might make are controlled by free will. The scientific community agrees that genes have a big role in behavior, there is no way to know how much of a role and precisely which behaviors a particular person exhibits are gene related or more from some other influence.
The question arises that if DNA and subtle environmental factors greatly influence our decisions and actions, do we actually have as much free will as we might believe. Free will traditionally has been defined as our ability to make choices voluntarily without external influence. Spiritually, free will is the ability to choose between our natural or primal animal instincts and what is moral and ethically right. What these studies suggest is that each of us has a unique mix of natural or genetic predispositions that have extraordinary impact on the characteristics that make us individuals.
A person’s actions are likely going to be different if they were born the opposite sex. Having a birth defect, inherited disease or a genetically influenced condition like allergies and asthma can change one’s outlook on life. If someone’s parents are alcoholics, promiscuous, intellectuals or athletes it is likely that the child will be the same -- even if they are raised without ever knowing them. At the same time everything I just mentioned can also be determined by experience. The combination of genetic predispositions and environmental factors can produce behaviors that are extremely difficult to overcome. Often it is only when the environment changes that people find themselves able to use their will to affect change.
Genotypes and Phenotypes
Your genes contain the instructions for potential or genotype characteristics. However, genes only work if the right chemicals are present. This is most obvious when we are developing in the womb. In the womb even sex is determined by many events at many stages of development that are as much a product of genetics as it is by a very complex hormonal and chemical balance produced by the mother. If the mother does things like drink alcohol, smoke, eat an improper diet, experience lots of stress and takes certain medications, the potential found in the genotype will be suppressed in various ways, or normally suppressed genotypes will be manifested to cause defects or deficits in development. These kinds of environmental factors result in a phenotype, that is the characteristics we have that are influenced by some aspect of the environment allow for optimal or deficient development based on the potential indicated by the genotype. When we are in the womb we don’t have the capacity for free will, yet all kinds of genetic and environmental factors are at work to determine who we are.
Life Experience
As we grow older, the genetic potential in our bodies is still sensitive to what we are subjected to in our environment. What we eat, the chemicals we are exposed to, the amount of stress or the quality of exercise all have an impact on weather the DNA in our cells is going to function in a way that expresses the potential genotype. A genetic disposition to be a criminal, alcoholic, intellectual or athlete only means we have the potential to be those things. Environmental influences, mental and physical, must be present to determine what ends up happening. Yet, just as we may have no choice about coming down with disease we inherit, there may be some behavior conditions that are so strong that they are almost impossible to counteract without strong environmental reinforcement. Over time life experience provides conditioning that allows us to do what is socially acceptable instead of acting on our most basic impulses.
The most obvious way experience affects us is by what we have learned during our life. Our ethics and morals are all based on culture, although our predisposition to certain action might be a genetic characteristic. Ethically it is wrong to kill, but different people will be more aggressive than others. To some, killing is simply so against their nature that laws and ethics are unnecessary in checking their behavior. For others, without the spiritual and social constraints, murder would be an option in many situations.
Our ability to make plans and change the world may be no more than an illusion at some level. Yet, in day-to-day living this is an irrelevant thing. What matters is that as human beings we are faced with the perception of free will. We sometimes have to choose between what we want to do and what we should do. All those genes and experiences pull at us in various directions so that even basic decisions become complicated by thought. We sometimes have to gather determination and focus to be active in shaping the world the way we want. Certainly our society demands that we take responsibility for ourselves and rewards us for maximizing our own potential.
Genes and Religion
Just as genotype is the potential for the phenotype, genetic and environmental influences of the past establish a potential that is realized by our free will. Those that are religious can attribute genetic and environmental factors that limit or benefit us as a facet of the will of God. We can go on to say that free will is independent of God, or we can determine free will to be a perception and conclude that all events of the universe at some level are the will of God.
The raw essence of will comes down to having a purpose or a meaning. Life has a purpose; to continue. Genes are in all life and provide the design and management of all life organization, systems and action. There is most certainly a “will” of sorts that is there, in the genes. Whatever it is that we consider free will is an extension of the very most basic function of life itself. It is reasonable to imagine that any free will we have is fundamentally an aspect of the essential will expressed by life. In the entire universe, nothing except life has the same fervor or devotion of purpose as life in its effort to perpetuate.
Limits of Free Will
With free will there is an aspect of humanity that transcends all other life and the rest of the physical universe. We have a choice about our destiny. However, our free will is channeled by genetics and environment so that there are limited opportunities and limited ranges of influence over which free will has any affect. To some degree, God has provided a limited potential to each of us. If free will is no more than an aspect of the will of God, then we are not subject to ultimate damnation or the like. If God is in control, we are more like students in a classroom, given various tests through our personal characteristics. To fail the tests in life is not to become lost for eternity; it is that we are sent on to some other place for further education and testing.
DNA, as part of God’s mechanism of the universe, can provide great hope that God knows what is going on or that we are in some way an extension of God rather than completely separate in the way each of our fingers are separate and individual, yet still part of us. In worldly matters we must be responsible and accountable, just as each finger must act independently for the hand to function. When we are confronted with difficult decisions, it is not a matter of an ultimate test of our will and faith, but rather the necessary opportunity to progress into the future God intends for each of us as part of his grand plan.
Living with God’s Will
When we live in the world, but devote our lives to God so that we are not of the world, then we have two wills. In the world, we have our own free will, but that will is then an extension of our spiritual lives, where we have completely surrendered to the will of God. Even if we cannot understand God’s will, we persevere with our devotion and love. Through this we overcome the limitations of our own ego - and free will.
Genotypes, phenotypes and experience have special implications for those who believe in reincarnation. The classic western idea that each baby born is equally innocent and the child’s destiny is primarily a matter of will now appears to be obsolete. We are not all born equal and through genetics we are product of history that goes back billions of years.
Sanskara Genes
If we acquire characteristics because of experience prior to this life, then these influences can offer a physical explanation of how predispositions work. Whether it is Sanskaras or Karma, it is possible to imagine that we reap what is sown before we are born into this life. Just as genetics does not prove God, there is no proof of reincarnation of individual souls. Yet, for the first time, there is science that confirms an aspect of reincarnation.
We are just beginning to understand the effect of genetics in our lives. It is reasonable to think that new information about the nature of life and human beings is going to eventually change religious doctrine. Our beliefs must align with our understanding of the world if they are to have practical meaning. DNA and free will are a growing part of the discussion of faith and will continue to be as each passing month uncovers new secrets of our existence.
Other New Humanity Times
Articles About Genes and Free Will
The Studies Linking DNA and Behavior
Discussion of the studies and conclusions
Is Genetic Modification Natural?
Is it unnatural to be changing the genes that are the program of life?
Understanding Complex Systems
Individual genes are interrelated in a matrix. The theory behind complex systems is key to understand how gentics and evolution work
