The Existence of Freewill

Albion said:

The mistake with that is that while we do have some ability to judge, choose, and make decisions, this does not mean that all of our actions are freely made.

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Unless we have brain damage or some other mental disorder, on matters of moral choices, we do make them freely.

Jim

JimR-OCDS said:

Unless we have brain damage or some other mental disorder, on matters of moral choices, we do make them freely.

Jim

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No, you don't...although it may seem that you do. We are not ordinarily aware of all the factors--other than the obvious, such as mental derangement--that play upon us as we make our choices. And yes, we are quite capable of choosing Coke over Pepsi, but when it comes to more intricate moral issues, it's not that simple.

If you seriously think that a typical American Indian from, say, the Fifteenth Century, approached the questions of human existence with exactly the same mind as do you or might, you are only fooling yourself. But we don't do that, do we? We ordinarily think only of ourselves standing before the issue at hand and, knowing that we could take the left fork in the road rather than the right fork, we say that we have "freewill." You don't even have the same freedom of choice that another person now alive and of your same age and gender has in another culture, yet you think that all men of all time have the completely free (and therefore equal) ability to choose what's moral over what's immoral?

Albion said:

If you seriously think that a typical American Indian from, say, the Fifteenth Century, approached the questions of human existence with exactly the same mind as do you or might, you are only fooling yourself. But we don't do that, do we? We ordinarily think only of ourselves standing before the issue at hand and, knowing that we could take the left fork in the road rather than the right fork, we say that we have "freewill." You don't even have the same freedom of choice that another person now alive and of your same age and gender has in another culture, yet you think that all men of all time have the completely free (and therefore equal) ability to choose what's moral over what's immoral?

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I'm not talking about moral philosophy where a Native American of the 15th century of course would not view human existence the same as myself.

I'm talking about moral behavior. There's an entire department of study on moral behavior. Where does moral beliefs come from. Is it something we're born with? Is it something that is culturally embedded ?

A book I read just recently went into it, "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion," by Jonathan Haidt

Anyway, the author who is a moral psychologist, showed that many complex factors go into how we develop moral sense of right and wrong. But one thing is common when humans first begin. We have an inner sense not to cause harm to others and to be fair. Fairness is according to how one would want to be treated by others.

We have differences about moral issues such as birth control, sexuality and such, but we do share that causing harm to another person is wrong and treating them other than we would want others to treat us, is wrong.

Jim

JimR-OCDS said:

I'm not talking about moral philosophy where a Native American of the 15th century of course would not view human existence the same as myself.

I'm talking about moral behavior.

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Then you are still in the same situation. What action facing me as a possibility is moral? And what would be immoral? How do I know God--if there is one?

You know that there is no "one size fits all" answer to that, especially in the case of peoples who have never heard of the Judeo-Christian belief system.

Albion said:

Then you are still in the same situation. What action facing me as a possibility is moral? And what would be immoral? How do I know God--if there is one?

You know that there is no "one size fits all" answer to that, especially in the case of peoples who have never heard of the Judeo-Christian belief system.

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Again, belief or no belief in God is a different issue.

I'm talking about free-will, and the fact that we do make our moral choices freely.

Does a person who robs a store do so mindlessly ?

Does he have a sense that he did wrong?

Aside from the possibility of pathological disorders, he does.

Jim

A couple of observations...

Will by its very nature involves the ability to make choices. Thus "free-will" is almost a redundancy.

Will is the ability to intend or desire something, and/or the ability to act upon a choice or an intention.

Without the ability to make a choice, or to desire, will is essentially meaningless. It doesn't exist.

While this doesn't prove that will must always be unconstrained, it does suggest that "free-will" is the natural state of any will, and that constrained will is an unnatural, imperfect state.

Now, we clearly have the appearance that we have will. This is something that virtually every sane person would take to be self-evident. We undeniably make decisions, we undeniably have desires and intentions, we undeniably act upon decisions.

It would seem, therefore, to be undeniable that we have will. If we accept this, it would suggest that we are, by nature, creatures of will, and therefore since will by nature is free, we are by nature creatures of free will.

The question that some ask is essentially this... is our will, or our "free-will" an illusion?

One of the basic premises of this question is the idea that constraints, or limits, upon the will can prove will to be "not free", but rather determined by outside factors.

In my opinion there is a problem with this reasoning. Limits, or even constraints upon the will do not necessarily deny the ability to make choices or to have desires etc.

In essence the argument is something like this.. since outside factors restrain me from making any choice I want, I therefore have no choice.

My response is that even if your choices are limited or restrained by outside factors, you still have choice.

In other words, limited choice is not no choice.

So for example, what some of the arguments amount to is that because the law of gravity prevents me from simply choosing to fly through the air, or because physics and biology prevent me from breathing water, I can't choose to breath water... therefor I do not have free-will.

It is undeniable that there are limits on our ability to choose. However, those limits do not prove that we have no choice. In fact, quite the opposite. The very fact that there are limits suggests that within those limits choice exists.

Another common argument is that deterministic chains of cause and effect essentially over-rule free will. Our choices are all predetermined by factors that we do not choose. Therefore we have no real choice and no free-will.

The first problem with this is that it is just as impossible to prove this as it is to prove the converse. At best you have two options that can be reasonably argued and you must choose which one you believe.... which is rather ironic.

It is possible that my decisions could all be determined by my genetics, and a combination of outside factors such as weather and what not. But no one could ever prove this. You can choose to believe it if you like.

Now, one example that is used in this kind of argument is that of personal tastes. It is asserted that we do not choose our tastes, things we enjoy and things we don't enjoy... we discover them and they seem to be determined by possibly genetics, possibly environmental factors, possibly some combination of the two.

This same basic principle can be applied to any human behavior, and indeed it is in the field of psychology.

Yet, we know that though tastes and behaviors often seem to be determined by outside factors, we can change them by our own choices.

A person may not like coffee, but if they decide to like coffee they can drink it until they develop a taste for it.

Behaviors can also be modified based on similar principles.

This, in my opinion, suggests that though there are constraints and limits, we are free to make choices not only within the limits but even which attempt to change the limits and change the constraints.

JimR-OCDS said:

Again, belief or no belief in God is a different issue.

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Yes. It is the core issue. There really isn't much point in debating whether the Yankees or the Red Sox deserve our loyalty. Not on "Christian Forums" at least.

In theological discussions, "freewill" or "Election" have significance primarily as they relate to our ability to choose God and be saved. There isn't much of an argument about what color the new church carpeting should be, although I'm sure it matters to some people and the congregation presumably gets a choice.

I'm talking about free-will, and the fact that we do make our moral choices freely.

Does a person who robs a store do so mindlessly ?

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No one has been arguing that anyone is making his decisions "mindlessly."

But is this person's decision to rob or not rob, what to take, or whether to hurt the attendant have anything to do with his age, family life, social status, financial situation, or religion? If you say "no," you are keeping your theory of all of us having perfect freewill alive...but we all know better, don't we?

Albion

Yes. It is the core issue.

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No it's not. An atheist knows that killing another human being is wrong, and it didn't take belief in God for him to know this.

In theological discussions, "freewill" or "Election" have significance primarily as they relate to our ability to choose God and be saved. There isn't much of an argument about what color the new church carpeting should be, although I'm sure it matters to some people and the congregation presumably gets a choice.

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Again, a separate issue.

If we're going to follow your premise, then all those serving time in jail are serving because they lack belief in God, and therefore didn't know that the crime they committed was wrong.




Jim

Chany said:

As I said before in another post, without freewill, Christianity (and, based upon what I know of them, all major religions) could not be true. Therefore, unless there is good reason for believing in freewill beyond us simply not liking the consequences of the alternative, I would dismiss mainstream religion.

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Here's my problem with this...

Free-will is the self-evident state of our being and nature. It is a self-evident fact that we make choices all the time.

Given this, you should not have to prove free-will. the burden of proof would be on the deterministic view. there is no logical reason why determinism should be the default position. In fact everything is against it.

Nick T said:

However it is important to remember that those saints who bore witness to the biblical truth that few will pass through the narrow gates did not then conclude that God was not all-loving in his gift of free will towards mankind, as you seem to do.

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I haven't made any conclusions, and I think you err when you state that thes same Saints who spoke of the freeness of the saved also rejoiced thankfully. In some cases we really don't know much of anything else that these early Saints said.

Again, I haven't drawn any conclusions, but it sure is tempting to draw conclusions about people who would call a God who sentences most to eternal torture all-loving.

JimR-OCDS said:

No it's not. An atheist knows that killing another human being is wrong, and it didn't take belief in God for him to know this.

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It's the core issue as far as a discussion of Christian theology is concerned. OK now?

If we're going to follow your premise, then all those serving time in jail are serving because they lack belief in God, and therefore didn't know that the crime they committed was wrong.

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Whew. What a weird conclusion to have drawn.

Chany said:

As I said before in another post, without freewill, Christianity (and, based upon what I know of them, all major religions) could not be true.

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How so?

Simon_Templar said:

Here's my problem with this...

Free-will is the self-evident state of our being and nature. It is a self-evident fact that we make choices all the time.

Given this, you should not have to prove free-will. the burden of proof would be on the deterministic view. there is no logical reason why determinism should be the default position. In fact everything is against it.

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I don't think that's the problem. Rather, it seems to be that the suggestion that we don't have perfect and complete freewill is being greeted by those who think that's their position as though the opposite POV is that we can know nothing and have no ability to make sensible judgments at all.

Although I've tried to keep people from assuming that, I think they bring it to the discussion from many years of simply assuming that unless we have freewill--meaning that all of us have it in identical, equal, and sufficient measure--the idea has to be that we are mindless robots.

Albion said:

It's the core issue as far as a discussion of Christian theology is concerned. OK now?

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I am not sure about this. It seems plausible to me that even from a Christian perspective, God might have created our free will to operate primarily around moral choice. That of course would have implications for its relation to our salvation, but that does not seem like a far out possibility to me either.

Simon_Templar said:

Here's my problem with this...

Free-will is the self-evident state of our being and nature. It is a self-evident fact that we make choices all the time.

Given this, you should not have to prove free-will. the burden of proof would be on the deterministic view. there is no logical reason why determinism should be the default position. In fact everything is against it.

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I agre with you largely, and that a deterministic view seems to be less obvious.

But I think that a problem with what you have said about free will is that it applies equally to animals. And yet we do not really talk about animals having free will in the same way humans do.

I suppose, as Jim seems to be suggesting, this could center around the ability of animals to perceive moral choices or intellectual arguments - they have free will within their own modes of perception.

MKJ said:

I am not sure about this. It seems plausible to me that even from a Christian perspective, God might have created our free will to operate primarily around moral choice. That of course would have implications for its relation to our salvation, but that does not seem like a far out possibility to me either.

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That may be so. I was thinking that the USUAL place where the issue arises is the good ol' Catholicism/Arminianism vs. Calvinism/Predestination dispute. I called that the core issue. But I can't entirely shove the matter of moral choices aside.

Still, it doesn't require much freedom in order to follow the Ten Commandments, do good by your neighbors, etc. What is required is a routine ability to discern certain things. To know God, and therefore to be saved, is much, much less easily handled. In addition, the matter of moral behavior hinges upon there being a God and us knowing his will, wouldn't you agree?

Albion said:

It's the core issue as far as a discussion of Christian theology is concerned. OK now?


Whew. What a weird conclusion to have drawn.

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But I wasn't speaking about Christian Theology per se.


Jim

Alright, I asked it before. For those arguing we don't have free will, what would free will look like?

AMDG said:

Why does an argument have to exist at all? Why not simply accept that God gave us all freewill (and because of freewill, all nature also has "freewill")?

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Chany said:

A good one.

Alright, how are we defining free will? I would say a good definition is, "The ability for a rational being to use the intellect to decide particular action out of a choice of actions without the entirety of the choice being detemined by past causes."

My main issue is the bold part. Let me know if something is confusing.

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Within a Christian context, the issue becomes whether we can be a Christian (that being a particular action out of the choices of being a Christian or not) without the entirety of the choice (of being one) determined by past causes.

No one would argue that past choices affect our future decisions. Even without getting into the three powers of the soul, it's pretty basic. I avoid fire because I learned at a young age that fire can hurt me.

The issue is definitely important, if we can decide to be a Christian, logical arguments and evangelization become significantly more important. If not, then it is significantly less important, since God will save who he will save. It does not negate the duty to evangelize, all but the most hardcore Calvinists would believe that the call to repent is universal, it's just that it has been predetermined who will and who will not answer the call.

We really have to go back to original sin before we discuss free will. Does it exist? What is it? What are its effects? The West affirms the existence of original sin, but, they mean 2 different things by it. EO has ancestral sin and they mean a completely different thing by it altogether.

I reject the idea that we are as bad as we can be, I do think we have a knowledge of good and evil, it would be difficult to call God "good" if we had no idea what we meant by the word "good." I would reject the term "total depravity" but I do believe that we cannot please God apart from the grace of God.