When did God give man Free Will?

[MineralMan]

74. Absolutely. And probably has.

A lot of religionists truly think that humans are the only sentient creature. It's a function of thinking of humans as some sort of special case of living things. We're not. Not at all.

Sentience is on a scale. Generally, mammals have more of it than reptiles. Primates have more of it than dogs. But, sentience is out there in many species, to some degree or another, as anyone who keeps pets learns on a daily basis.

For example, my dog knows that drinking more water makes him pee more. He also knows at what time of day we take our dogs out for a walk. About half an hour before that time, he goes to the water bowl and drinks lots of water, the better to mark his usual spots by peeing on more of them. Right now, our walks are shorter, because it's cold outside, so he drinks less water before his walks. Occasionally, we take the dogs out at random times. This puts Dude, the water drinker, in an awkward position. As soon as he becomes aware that a walk is in the offing, he rushes to the water bowl to drink. He will not go for a walk until he does that. He knows that drinking water helps him have urine for marking. But, he doesn't recognize that drinking it just before an unscheduled walk will not work. So, after coming home from an impromptu walk, he has to go out to pee a short time later. His sentience is limited in that way.

Mammals are more sentient that reptiles, which are somewhat more sentient than invertebrates, which have very little sentience at all. Even a cursory examination of brains in those groups reveals where sentience is located in the brain.

Human sentience and intelligence probably got its start from a random mutation in some early primate species or branch of proto-primates. It helped the creatures with that factor survive better, so it was passed along, allowing room for additional development down the road. We probably can't locate the specific mutation, although I'm sure there are scientists looking for it though comparisons of genomes. We can do that now, so we'll be learning more about that.