Framing the Question of Free will

Assuming Jacob principally embodies free will, let's contrast him with Ben, who is the best example of his adversary, Dark that we know on LOST.

BEN

1. Ben does not appeal to your sense of virtue; he parcels out information in such a way that you have no choice but to agree with him, or act for him. To him, information is power. Have you ever had a boss like that? Don't you feel used when you're not told all the facts? Why?
2. Ben's preferred modus operandi is blackmail or coercion, extortion, kidnapping, and if all else fails, murder. These methods all have the same construct; they take away one's freedom to choose.
3. For 5 years, secrecy, one of the basic constructs of LOST, seemed manufactured to me in order to keep the story alive. It greatly frustrated me until the S5 finale. Now I finally see that this is who Ben is. It is not in Ben's nature to approach the survivors, and aid them. He would never openly share any situation with anyone, and rely on them to act in accordance with his wishes. Example: if they were saving Claire and her baby, why not tell them that, instead of kidnapping them? The answer is simple; because Ben never gives people choices if he can help it. He method is always to manipulate and control, which is anti-free will.
   

JACOB

1. Jacob represents free will. For that reason, unlike his manipulating nemesis Dark, he can not interfere with any actions on the island, including convincing Ben not to kill him.
2. All Jacob can do is set the stage for the acts to play out on the island stage. He does this by choosing and touching the people he brings there. Beyond that, he can not interfere at all, or he immediately becomes a manipulator himself. He must rely on people's free will to end the cycle of violence and corruption and do the 'right thing.'
   

Incidentally, it is anything but an age old coincidence that Satan appears able to work actively in the world, while other than the gift of free will to his people, God appears to act not at all. I mean no disrespect to those folks who believe that God does act. I am merely stating that this construct, (the god Odin is a good example), that humans have one unique characteristic; consciousness (free will) and nothing else, to separate us from from animals / savagery and make what we can of the world, is perhaps the most prevalent idea of all religion and philosophy. For example, this was a basic tenet of Luther (who advocates baptism by free will), and Spinoza made it an even more central theme in his great philosophical treatise.

Spinoza is of particular interest as it pertains to LOST. In his epic work Ethics, he uses a mathematically styled treatise to redefine the concept of God's will, saying amongst other crucial stipulations that if God acted in the world as others say He does, he would be robbing the world and man of the very free will He gave us. Rather, God sets the stage of the Universe (LOST'S island) according to such laws of physics and nature, and allows history to unfold within the constructs therein. To this extent, this is God's will. To imply that he interferes in any other way is to imply that he has another will, which would either make him not God, or duplicitous.

In the same way, Jacob as a believer in human's ability to overcome and rise above the violence and corruption of the island, can not be an actor in the daily events there, or he would be underscoring or admitting the very construct he supports.

The good news is that we are watching the story of the survivors of O815. We can be fairly assured their story was not picked at random. Who of the survivors shall overcome their life story and gain finally end the generational cycle of corrupted power? Season 6 awaits.