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Articles

Making Decisions

Robin Attfield on how theory can enhance practice.

When I was younger, almost the only decisions in which the various religious groups took an interest were decisions of religious self-commitment, happening once in a lifetime. But there are many more decisions than ones like that. Indeed if it is as important as theologians often claim that human beings have freedom of choice, then the frequent exercise of this faculty must also be important, at least in the development of character and lifestyle of each individual. Most of the decisions involved are, apparently, completely secular ones, some important, like choices of career and of life-partners, some trivial, such as selecting which film to see or what clothes to wear. Yet in making them we discover ourselves.

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