The Paradox of Heaven

I've heard an idea some time ago when I was arguing that humans don't have free will, and that free will might not even exist—since our decisions can only be either random or deterministic, and both fall outside our typical definition of freedom. The idea I heard was that freedom can only exist within a deterministic system, with clear rules and boundaries. I was intrigued by that, but my mental energy at the time was consumed by determinism, so I didn’t have the space to reflect on it further.

That idea came back to me today when I saw someone on TikTok presenting the thought that "captivity does not dream of flight, but of softer cages." I had a flashback. Freedom is essential to my identity as a human being, but this idea felt true at a very deep level. Why? We certainly value freedom—but we need it in moderation. It's like a strong essence added to water: too much of it and it's undrinkable. Imagine a scenario where you have absolute power in this universe. It might be interesting for a while, but sooner or later, this total freedom would become the ugliest and most terrifying cage imaginable. The value of things would dissolve before your eyes, and everything meaningful would turn into still dust. That is not freedom.

Freedom is not actually a strong essence, as I mentioned above, but more of a cocktail—one that only exists when the right ingredients are present in the right quantities. If we increase our freedom slightly by expanding the number of options we must choose between, it can quickly become paralyzing. We may find ourselves unable to decide and endlessly postponing the choice.

I couldn't help but think how similar this is to the duality of good and evil—the idea that they are two sides of the same coin, inseparable. This duality exists because there are limits, because there are obstacles, and those create the friction we experience as good versus evil. These same limits are the flip side of freedom. Freedom exists because there are bars to break. We imagine heaven as a place where evil doesn’t exist and where we have unbounded freedom—without realizing that such a place might actually be hell.