This humdinger comes from Jim McNeely:
I recently listened to episode 93 of the Partially Examined Life podcast (you can listen to it or read about it here). It is a fascinating listen; these are not rabid militant “New Atheism” people, just fun and thoughtful agnostic/atheists who love philosophy. I have found that it is where I go to get the current conversation “on the street” about important philosophical issues. In this particular episode they grapple with a problem that we have been looking at from a theological perspective for millennia — free will vs. predestination (in some ways similar to what they would call “determinism”). What stuck out in my mind after listening to this is that there is a real question, given a naturalist materialist perspective, as to whether free choices are even possible. They are using three texts, mainly from P.F. Strawson and his son Galen Strawson, but this is a much wider discussion these days.
Interestingly, when you hear the words “free will” in philosophical circles it ends up meaning “moral choice.” This is because if there is no possibility of moral free will then there is no possibility of responsibility. This is no small or obscure problem. A purely secular society needs to establish the possibility of responsibility while maintaining a purely naturalist (physical or non-supernatural) perspective, because this has enormous implications for justice, law, society, interpersonal relationships, and a whole bevy of other things. It seems preposterous to think that even the most basic levels of human choice are under dispute, but look at these quotes from neuroscientists working in the field:
“It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do… It is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion.” – Daniel Wegner
“You seem to be an agent acting of your own free will. The problem, however, is that this point of view cannot be reconciled with what we know about the human brain.” – Sam Harris
(via XKCD)
Why is the possibility of free will a question at all? It would seem that the hallmark of atheism is that there is no God to tell you what you must or mustn’t do. We see this in an ad campaign in Great Britain, endorsed by Richard Dawkins, which says, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The chief benefit of atheism then is the freedom (!) to throw off antiquated moral restraints and enjoy life. Of course most atheists would say that they are atheists because science indicates that atheism is true. However, there is tremendous controversy swirling around this notion now, more and more. The fine-tuned universe, the big bang, the information-rich nature of even the first appearance of life, the non-gradualistic explosion of life in the Cambrian period, and the sudden meteoric appearance of intelligence and moral sense all point emphatically to a different answer. Their apologetic and resistance to the preponderance of empirical evidence indicate that the emotional value of freedom from restraint is far more important than empirical science as the foundation of their position. I think this is the correct reason to hold their views; it is not a criticism.
The reason for the question of the possibility of free will is that the naturalistic perspective suggests that there is a non-metaphysical, material cause for all that we experience. If we love someone, it is because some convergent sequence of physical phenomena from the big bang until now have emerged to cause us to love them. Human history, culture, genetics, mutation, adaptive survival instincts and other things came together to cause all that you are: your aesthetic opinions, your attractions, your moral proclivities, your career, everything. There is no real “you”; you may think you are making certain choices and decisions, but you are not. This is called “determinism”.
If you are a “compatibilist”, it means that you think that determinism and free will are compatible. It is quite difficult to understand how one might make these two seemingly mutually exclusive ideas compatible, but there are various ideas that are being proffered. The question of the possibility of compatibilism is a hot-button topic of contemporary philosophy, for obvious reasons. Consider this quote from Eddy Nahmias in his New York Times article from 2011:
Many philosophers, including me, understand free will as a set of capacities for imagining future courses of action, deliberating about one’s reasons for choosing them, planning one’s actions in light of this deliberation and controlling actions in the face of competing desires. We act of our own free will to the extent that we have the opportunity to exercise these capacities, without unreasonable external or internal pressure. We are responsible for our actions roughly to the extent that we possess these capacities and we have opportunities to exercise them.
This seems to me to be a very weak and specious argument. The naturalist neuroscientist is bound to come back to say that there is no such thing as the exercise of our decisive capacities apart from external or internal pressure. Internal and external pressures are the only things that exist. For the naturalist, random events and non-teleological emergence remain existentially foundational. The presence or absence of an outside force in the equation which could be identified as a “self” is a question that could not be resolved empirically.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose we have a robot arm, attached by wires to a control glove. If a person puts the control glove on, then however they move their fingers and hand and arm, the robot arm imitates it. Suppose an inquisitive person comes along and tries stimulating the arm without inserting their hand. They apply sensors to the wires to analyze the signals going back and forth to the robot while someone is controlling it, and then they apply charges in a similar sequence to the wires attached to the robot arm, and it moves as if someone’s hand were animating the robot. Have they discovered some kind of truth about the working of the robot arm? Yes, of course; they have uncovered the physical means by which the robot arm is animated. Have they explained why the robot arm works as it does? No; the arm is no more than a puppet, even if moved by artificial means. So even though we have discovered some of the physical clues to the workings of our neuro-chemical construct, it does not mean that we have answered the question as to what is truly animating these constructs. It remains a metaphysical question, if compatibilism is true. Naturalism, which claims to be held on a purely empirical basis, itself still necessitates metaphysical assumptions.
I think we are created in the image of God as free will rational beings. The forbidden tree in the garden was all about allowing choice – interestingly, moral choice. However, whether in atheist or theist circles, the question of determinism and responsibility is no small issue. We find this passage in Romans:
What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
Romans 9:14-22
Let me paraphrase that: “If God has made men deterministic, then how is there any possibility of moral responsibility?” It is a question that should sound very familiar to philosophers wrestling with determinism and moral responsibility; the only difference is the source of the determinism. Of course, the source of the determinism is all-important. As theists we have an outside intelligent referent, who is the ultimate arbiter of what is determined and what is chosen: God. Paul’s answer here is, this is all a mystery, to be left to God’s arbitration. It is truly beyond us. In some way that is beyond the ability for humans to comprehend, we cannot plumb the depths of our logical ability to say that we are deterministic beings while still being morally responsible beings. He is not saying that there is some balance between the two positions. He is not even giving an answer. He is really saying that determinism and moral choice are both fully true at once and that we ought not try to understand it.
It is even more fascinating that naturalistic dialogue about human freedom and escape from arbitrary moral restraint go straight down these same paths. What you find in these discussions is that people construct all kinds of strange theories about the nature of moral responsibility under a deterministic system, and then quickly discard them when it comes to real life. This dynamic is actually an explicit part of the ongoing philosophical discussion; it isn’t simply my personal criticism. Many theologians would join atheists in saying that, in a way, we are completely under determinism. In naturalistic philosophical discussions, there end up being a lot of very strange and impractical theories, and then a lot of reliance on extreme examples so you can figure out what one should really do. That is why people ultimately resort to stories (“suppose someone raped your daughter…” or “what about the Holocaust?”) to sort this out, which they then try to extract principle from. But you can always find a new example that you somehow know the answer for intuitively which breaks your extracted principle. It is really a huge clue to the nature of being human.
Theists are clear that we are created as free will beings in the image of God. The power of the idea of “sin” is that we freely choose evil, and bear moral responsibility. People presume that the essential Christian message is that there is a uniquely strict and enormously consequential moral burden placed upon us. I applaud the courage of some to see the implausibility of this, and to seek at least a false grace in the arms of a random uncaused universe. Some Christians presume that the message is that our deterministic nature is so overwhelming that we truly have no genuine free will. However, I believe that it is a Christian observation that our actions are predetermined, and born of free will, both fully at once. It is a mystery born of God — and this is the straight message from Romans 9. Further, the true Christian answer is that one way or another, we sin; we abuse our free moral agency. In fact the way we exercise our free will is to abuse it. The final Christian solution is that our deterministic/free will nature is redeemed, our sense of moral good is reunited with our sense of aesthetic good, in the unqualified grace that comes through cross of Christ. As Christians who actually believe the gospel, we have a powerful answer for determinism, moral responsibility, and genuine freedom. One-way unearned unbreakable love from God despite our moral choices, good or bad, is the new determinism. We are destined to be loved from the beginning of time to the end of time.
COMMENTS
12 responses to ““All This an Illusion”: A Reflection on Determinism and Free Choice”
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God use our “free-will” as an instrument of His wrath.
(Our wills are not the solution…but the problem)
Phenomenal! The most coherent article I have read concerning the age old Romans 9 dilemma….How in the ?!$*?! can we be held responsible if you made us this way (harden some hearts, soften others)? It is NOT just a problem for theists…it’s a question for all of us. Paul in Romans and the book of Job give the answer….summarized as “you might want to sit down and shut up and listen….uhhh ummmm… your Creator might be just a bit LARGER than you think….like infinitely greater…and you are not privi to this seeming paradox…because YOU COULDN’T UNDERSTAND IT as finite….. Wow, it is still hard for me to accept. It’s hard in our culture to accept something or someone we can’t control and fully understand…. Thank God he sent Jesus.
Hear, hear! Great article and comments. Check out Will Ferrell’s flick “Stranger Than Fiction” re determinism and the mysterious narrative.
“If God has made men deterministic, then how is there any possibility of moral responsibility?”
Thanks, Jim. I think this is a key question, but I very rarely see Christians address it. The concept of one-way love, it seems to me, skips the question entirely, leaving it a mystery. I can live with that. My faith has other foundations. Paul’s answer – does not the potter have a right over the clay . . . ? – seems to me to mean not “it’s a mystery” so much as “might makes right.” I don’t accept it.
Great comments! I have to confess that I wasn’t exactly expecting this post to go viral.
@Old Adam: I hear you; the point of this article isn’t to expound the theological niceties, but to show that atheists are not immune from these same issues. It really is fascinating. I think our apologetics need to acknowledge that a great deal of discussion is shifting from origins talk to these kinds of issues.
@Chris Crawford: thanks! Right on – it’s for all of us. I think that it is amazing that it shakes down that way!
@Phillip: I love that movie! I’ve seen it a couple of times.
@Ken: I agree, that the gospel is greater than and removed from our stance on predestination/free will. In a way, when we die to our self-salvation projects (which is another way to say, “free will”), and enter into the universe of grace and gift, we find ourselves. As to Paul’s answer about the potter having a right over the the clay, don’t you think God has both right AND might? Why is that wrong? There is at least a 4 hour discussion over beers on that one. You’d find me quoting the Euthyphro Dilemma and saying that God has no division of the moral and aesthetic good.
Jim, thanks for your reply, and thanks again for posting on a subject that I wish got more attention from Christians. If the question is just whether a creator has the right to do what he wills with his creation, I agree that he clearly does. But If we’re talking about creating living beings, some of whom will be damned, even if by their own supposed choice . . . I don’t see any way that can be reckoned as a loving act. To be clear, I’m a believer for other reasons; I’ve just never seen an answer to that problem (although the excerpt of the Milosz poem DZ posted today describes, I think, a Christian attitude towards it). I don’t see that something is “pious” just “because it is loved by the gods.” I’m tempted to say more, but this isn’t the place to do it. But I wish I could hear what you’d have to say in that 4-hour discussion. Thanks again.
Ken: It also seems you’re falling in the hole of defining the Creator as merely the biggest and best, but still within our category. Strangely Paul and HP. Lovecraft seem to say the same thing when the latter said, in one of his weird fictions, that a Human trying to understand the cosmos (and the old gods that be) is like an amoeba trying to understand a Human. Yet for Paul that God is not Cthulu but Jesus Christ, and the Father speaks the Son to us.
We can’t, as in ‘unable’, to understand. But instead of terror, we rejoice, because we see that we do have a Lord and that his name is Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. The question is not how many slices of pie(will) does God have and how many to humans have (100/0? 99/1? 50/50?). Jesus tells us His Father feeds the birds, yet we can clearly see them flying about, pecking for bugs. That should alter the typical argument with the petulant gods of Euthyphro and Socrates.
Cal
a Human trying to understand the cosmos (and the old gods that be) is like an amoeba trying to understand a Human.
Cal, I accept that as the right attitude to take, but not as an answer per se to the question. I don’t think the problem can be dealt with by saying “it’s a mystery” (although I accept that it is) or by saying that in a narrowly defined sense God has the right. I think that still leaves us with a God who give us reason but does something reason can’t square with good. (Who would choose to have children knowing some of them would be damned?). I’m comfortable with faith filling in here because (our) reason can’t explain. I’m comfortable with faith complementing reason – there are, of course, other reasons to believe. But I’m not comfortable with Paul’s given reason. He sounds like he’s groping for an excuse, for a defense, whereas the real explanation, if we could understand it, wouldn’t have that flavor at all. Also, the question for me isn’t what ratio of good we have. I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at there. But thanks for your comments.
I’m sure some Christian writers have addressed this all at length. (Alvin Plantinga, maybe?) I just haven’t found them.
Ken, I heard one of those atheist / Christian debates in college, and this idea that a loving God shouldn’t create someone that He knew He had predestined to hell was his chief argument against the existence of God. I thought, it was more of an argument against the existing God’s character, but that is splitting hairs. The problem with this is, it assumes there is only predestination, and no free will. I think there is somehow both. I think in the end we will find that God’s machinations with this are entirely just. Somewhere around year 10,000 in the afterlife we will have some kind of glorified body faceplant revelation where it ends up being obvious and completely simple. Maybe when we first see God it will all instantly be obvious. Who knows? It certainly doesn’t work to take the most one-dimensional simplistic view of this as the complete view and then build your skepticism on that.
The startling thing that is coming out these days is that atheists are not free from a very similar problem. Somehow this tension between determinism and free will is an inescapable part of being human no matter what you believe.
It remains true that we are justified by faith in Christ whether or not we have these complex issues worked out. Grace is our completely sufficient determinism.
I thought, it was more of an argument against the existing God’s character . . . I think in the end we will find that God’s machinations with this are entirely just.
I agree on both counts. I think we will know. I’m just not sure we have a clue yet. “God has a right” is not an answer, at least not to me. Grace is the answer to a related but separate problem.
Ken,
I’m not sure if you’ll see this but in case you do I thought it might help. You may already know but many of us wonder why would a God of love destroy everyone on earth with the flood. And the best answer I heard was that the human race was mixed with fallen angels. And also if it had continued that way everyone today would be mixed but thank God Noah wasn’t. As such I’m a lot more okay with the fact that God sent the flood and no one alive today is part horse part human or anything like that because that is possibly what may have happened. Especially knowing the Bible describes some angels with the face of a man, lion, eagle, and bear or something like that, I think it’s plausible some may have been part horse part human or whatever you might imagine. Likewise I don’t know the reason many people would go to hell but there’s a lot we don’t know and we’ll find out as you said. For now I trust God that He has good reasons.
God will save whom He will save.
As if there’s a one of us on this tiny orb who deserves it.