I was inspired by a thread in the Ethics & Morality forum (Is homosexuality natural?) to think a little bit more about so-called "free will." My understand of biblical evidence for this is limited, but I suppose it is summarized by Deuteronomy 11:26-28
According to this, it seems that free will for Christians is basically the choice between believing in God (following his commandments) and sinning. Furthermore, many people seem to see "free will" as the uniquely human ability to choose between "right" and "wrong."
I personally do not see anything amazingly special in humans that would lead me to believe in free will, or at least not some romanticized version of it. I admit that the motives and thought processes of humans are difficult to detect and appear to be controllable by whatever person is exercising them. However, my personal view is that we are just a bag of chemicals, and science is hard.
The fact that our thought processes are so complex as to lead to the illusion of magically self-deterministic "free will" is, to me, a product of the relative complexity of the human brain due to our high brain to body mass ratio. Many animals have larger brains that do we, but they typically have larger bodies, requiring more neurons to control. We, on the other hand, have enough brain power left to process a very large array of input values through fairly complex channels (presumably not afforded by other animals), making it difficult to interpret how we came to an "output" without simply saying "it was my will" a la deus ex machina.
My thinking on this is still a bit raw, so I want to hear what other people have to say. THIS IS NOT RELIGIOUS APOLOGETICS (start a thread there if you must try to convert me, I may respond)!
Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.
According to this, it seems that free will for Christians is basically the choice between believing in God (following his commandments) and sinning. Furthermore, many people seem to see "free will" as the uniquely human ability to choose between "right" and "wrong."
I personally do not see anything amazingly special in humans that would lead me to believe in free will, or at least not some romanticized version of it. I admit that the motives and thought processes of humans are difficult to detect and appear to be controllable by whatever person is exercising them. However, my personal view is that we are just a bag of chemicals, and science is hard.
The fact that our thought processes are so complex as to lead to the illusion of magically self-deterministic "free will" is, to me, a product of the relative complexity of the human brain due to our high brain to body mass ratio. Many animals have larger brains that do we, but they typically have larger bodies, requiring more neurons to control. We, on the other hand, have enough brain power left to process a very large array of input values through fairly complex channels (presumably not afforded by other animals), making it difficult to interpret how we came to an "output" without simply saying "it was my will" a la deus ex machina.
My thinking on this is still a bit raw, so I want to hear what other people have to say. THIS IS NOT RELIGIOUS APOLOGETICS (start a thread there if you must try to convert me, I may respond)!