Do you have free will?
Do you make decisions?
This isn’t a trick question.
The answer isn’t cut and dried for everyone.
Recently, I received the following as an answer:
“To be honest, I’m not sure where I stand on the subject of free will. Intuitively, I used to believe in it, but from everything i’ve read, and thinking those things through in detail, i have to say we don’t have free will. It’s an illusion.”
Now…would you say the above answer is ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘I don’t know’?
It’s not clear, is it?
There is a vague ‘not sure where I stand’ followed later by, ‘I have to say we don’t have free will’.
Wherever I find the phrase, ‘I have to say’, I assume certainty.
When my living room is engulfed in flames, ‘I have to say’ my house is on fire.
When I’m surrounded by hundreds of galloping cows, ‘I have to say’ I’m in a stampede.
Taking him at his word, I asked if he encountered difficulty trying to live consistently with the belief that there is no free will.
He replied:
“Intuition makes you think you have free will. Intuition cannot be trusted. It is often dead, dead wrong.”
Then he included a link to an article entitled, “Scientific Evidence That You Probably Don’t Have Free Will”.
I responded that I have encountered some consistency problems with the belief that there is no free will.
“For example,” says I, “I’m not going to read your posted article. Am I being willfully ignorant?”
At which point, I was expecting him to reply with, “There is no such thing as willful ignorance. Reading or not reading the article is not your decision to make.”
HaHa Haaa Haaa Haaa Ha Ha!
I’m kidding. I wasn’t expecting him to say that at all…
I never expect consistency from atheists.
Atheists, like every other human being, know that we make decisions.
We decide to eat potato chips instead of green beans.
We decide who we’re going to marry.
We decide what to watch on Netflix.
But this is bad news when you’re trying to convince yourself that there is no God.
Because with decision comes consequences.
We are accountable for our behavior.
The heathen steer clear of morality questions so…
I was expecting something like:
“I’m not surprised. You tend to act only in ways that don’t threaten your pantomime version of reality. You’re a fearful person.”
…which is exactly how he replied.
“So”, says I, “How can I act differently if there’s no free will?”
To which he replied:
“Read the article then get back to me.”
Then, not content with merely collapsing his argument but needing to burn it to cinders, he offered:
“Do remember: in the age of information, ignorance is a choice.”
And I’m the one with the ‘pantomime version of reality’…
“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable,malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of religion, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” (2 Timothy 3)
The actual unedited conversation is here.
14 Responses
I think there are a lot of Christians struggling with the temptation to be “intellectual” (and abandon their faith), who would be amazed to learn how fragile naturalism and humanism are…
An Atheist can’t even say “I believe there is no God” nor “I believe free will doesn’t exist” because the entire structure crumbles like a house of cards when they do…
And none of the really important questions have ‘intellectual’ answers anyway.
“Do you love me?”
Well, let’s define what we mean by ‘love’…
One of my favorites is still: “Sure, your loved one is dead. But the energy he used will always be conserved in the universe!”
Ahhhhh, that helps.
You will is only free to choose what it wants at that moment. The problem is with the “Want to”.
You are not free to make your will “want to”, that is unless you already want to “want to”. But you are not free to make your will “want to want to”, unless you already want to “want to want to.” And so on.
We choose what we want a thousand times a day. Those choices are real with very real consequences and accountability. And most of the time no one is stopping us in those choices.
But you will always only choose what your will wants most (all things considered) at that moment. For example, I don’t want to get fat and I want to eat all the Fig Newtons. Two competing “want tos”. Whichever “want to” is stronger in me or uppermost in my mind at that moment of choice will result in my choice.
The problem is, I don’t have freedom over changing my “want tos”…unless I already want to…
That is why we need God to change our hearts and set us free from our bondages and regenerate us on the inside by giving us new desires.
It’s also how God can bring about such amazing events in our lives from even the smallest choice we made.
That is how he can be sovereign over our choices and turn our hearts like a channel of water yet still hold us entirely responsible for our choices. We are always doing what we really wanted to do at that moment. If we knew what he commanded and didn’t want to do it, we are blameworthy. If we did want to do it, we are commendable. It’s just that God has the power to turn our “want tos” if he wants to.
Hi Jonathan (1754),
First, let me commend you on your articulate response. You are amazingly sharp for someone who is over 250 years old!
There is more to consider than our ‘want to’. We also have to factor in the ‘ought to’. The ‘Fig Newton Conflict’ is not actually a decision between two ‘wants’ but a ‘want’ and a ‘don’t want’.
I want cookies.
I don’t want obesity.
I agree with you that God’s spirit changes the way we process decisions. The presence of God gives truth and clarity. It usually (uncomfortably) reveals which ‘want tos’ are selfish and which ‘don’t wants’ we should do anyway. I don’t think that God always changes our desires. The Spirit helps us understand which of those ‘wants’ we ‘ought’ to appease.
It seems you didn’t quite understand what I said. Let’s start with the very first sentence: “To be honest, I’m not sure where I stand on the subject of free will.” That’s it. That is the assessment of where my thoughts are on the matter. It’s a pretty clear statement. What followed was a little about where the science is pointing, what it is revealing, and given where the science is going, what it is revealing, it would be easier, as I stated, to argue against free will than for it. Now let’s return to that very first sentence: “To be honest, I’m not sure where I stand on the subject of free will.”
This would have perhaps made more sense to you if you read the article presented. Sadly, though, you’re not actually interested in investigating anything, are you? You just like pretending that you’re thinking honestly about things.
OK, since that has now been cleared up, I’ve asked you a question on your last post and I’d like you to answer it there…
Of course I didn’t quite understand. That’s ALWAYS the problem isn’t it?
I don’t know which question you’re wanting me to answer. There are a zillion comments on the last post. If you care to re-ask the question I’ll get busy misunderstanding it.
You know what the question is.
Yowza! Did you stick your tongue out after that last comment?
No. I don’t know which question you’re wanting me to answer.
Yes, you do know exactly what the question is… Or are you just happy pretending you haven’t seen it?
Does answering it, like an adult, threaten your pantomime that greatly?
To the best of my knowledge I responded to all your questions on the other blog. I don’t know which question you’re asking about.
And you have yet to ask a question that has even come close to threatening my pantomime.
So either ask the question again or call me a scaredy-cat and move along.
To refresh your memory, and please address it where it is, on the other post:
My response was written and I thought sent. Apparently, there was some hiccup because it never posted.
It is there now.
I see, now.