I have found no reference that states anything about free will after death. Is it possible that free will is only for the living and the dead have no choice?
Yes, I think so.
Now that isn't necessarily troubling. We're not much in favour of marriage in our days, it seems (at least not the permanent kind), but there is a useful analogy there. When a couple pledges themselves to one another in marriage, presumably they both understand that they are saying they are at least
hoping to have found the last person they're going to need to be with. In fact, with dewy-eyed idealism they often swear that they will love no other, ever, and be faithful always, and so on.
I have not noticed that in making such a commitment couples are so much worried about their loss of freedom than perhaps about their ability to see the thing through. In any case, though, there are a lot of brave words about "forever" in a wedding ceremony.
So presumably one could choose to be with someone permanently, but instead of feeling imprisoned thereby, could feel love, security and belonging instead...and really not mind so much that the freedom to run away from one's parter or to play the field would thereby be lost. It seems that people expect that the marriage relationship ought to be somehow freeing rather than merely binding -- something that fulfills rather than deprives.
If that's right, there wouldn't seem to be anything necessarily unpleasant or unfair if choice were a temporary option, and the ensuing relationship permanent.
In some religions the soul is joined with God in death, so there is no individual to make a choice and free will is a meaningless concept.
Right. Take Buddhism, for example. In it, one achieve Nirvana, which amounts to soul-extinction and the total dissolution of one's individual identity forever. Free choice would clearly not even be a category available in that equation. I think free choice can probably only be made by someone who has a personal identity, don't you?
