Why I Don’t Believe in Free Will

12 Comments

1. By saying that we have no free will because to do so would somehow negate God’s knowledge presents a very different picture of God’s knowledge than I have, Paul. If God sees not linear history but comprehensive history all at once, He will necessarily know what I have/had chosen to do, since what I have chosen is what I have done. If I choose A instead of B, A is what I have performed, and God knows that A is what I chose because he sees in history that it is in fact what I did. If I change my mind and choose B, then B is what I have done, and God knowls that B is what I chose, for the same reason. By taking the tact that you state above, you’re putting yourself in the dilemma of saying that we have no free will because that would negate God’s knowledge, while saying that God’s knowledge is not causal. I don’t think you can have it both ways. God’s knowledge is perfect because in all of history, in any situation, I have chosen to do A rather than B, or B rather than C. It’s like reading a history book. Did Columbus have a choice of whether to sail looking for the West Indies? Does the fact that we read in a history book that he chose to sail rather than sit home on his recliner smoking his pipe indicate that he had no choice because we know it to be true? The crux of the matter is in your last point. God does not know past, present, or future; all he knows is IS. He sees it all at once, as it was done, as it is being done, as it will be done.

2. Brad:
   Thanks for your comments here. Allow me to explain.
   First, I did not say free will negates God’s knowledge, but that God’s knowledge negates free will. That was my second point. If, for example, God knew last week that today you would be responding to this post, then there is a sense in which you were not free to do otherwise, since what God knows is always and only true (or contingent, see 1 Sam 23:7-13 for an example of God’s contingent knowledge. Incidentally, I’m aware that the category of “true” may not apply to contingent events, since their ontological status is dubious). Last week it was a true future-tense statement that “today Brad would respond to this post.” Thus, Brad had to respond today to this post and was not free (in an absolute sense) to do otherwise.

   Put differently, free will does exist but is relative to the knowledge of God. My argument was that free will, in any absolute sense, does not exist, not that free will in any sense does not exist.

   As for the nature of God’s knowledge being comprehensive and him seeing all past and future events as one snapshot in time, that depends upon our understanding of God’s relationship to time and our understanding of the nature of time itself. As Bill Craig has noted in his article “Divine Eternity“, it is feasible God is timeless but is eternally aware of tensed facts. And, as Craig notes, our understanding of time may be suspect, given the various theories on tensed vs. tenseless time (see Craig’s article). I doubt we’ll solve this puzzle in a mere blog post!

   What I do find in Scripture is that God, as a non-material being, has no spatial or temporal characteristics but does relate to material beings. Since all of God’s being is simultaneously present, he has a relationship to time, but not in time (see Ps. 90:4 = 2 Pt. 3:8). God’s essential being transcends, or is beyond, time and location (1 Kgs. 8:17; Is. 66:1-2; Acts 7:48).

   Not only is God present to me, but he is present throughout the entire universe (Ps. 139:7; Acts 17:28; Col. 1:17). In fact it makes no sense for God to exist in time and space, because time and space were created by him (presupposed by the beginning of the created order, Gen. 1:1). Though biblical language describes God’s activity in time (e.g., Gen. 22:1; Job 31:14; Ps. 69:13; Gal. 4:4), Scripture does not intimate God being bound by time (Is 46:9-10). He has the “birds-eye” view of all things actual and possible in a single, simultaneous thought, though he is cognitively aware of every event as past, present, future, or contingent. It was Norm Geisler who once said “God knows everything in the eternal present but He does not know everything as the present moment in time; He knows the past as past, the future as future, etc” (Norman L. Geisler, Philosophy of Religion, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, n.d., note 10, chapter 14, p. 331).

   Having said all this, I would propose that God’s knowledge is the governing factor for any and all events that instantiate in this universe, including my response to your response!
   ‘->

   Relatively free in Christ,
   Paul

3. Why I Don’t Believe in Free Will?

   Three reasons:
   1. Because I do believe that Satan is real and the following passages from Scripture are true.
   Paul recounting Jesus’ words to him on the Damascus road:
   the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
   Acts 26:16-18

   If this is to be taken literally, then everywhere that Paul went should have resulted in all conversions and no rejections. And yet in reading Acts, clearly most of those people in darkness did not have their eyes opened nor did they turn from darkness to light. Obviously, this statement is one of opportunity not of determinism.

   Paul writing to the Corinthians:
   The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
   2 Corinthians 4:4
   The problem with your use of this quote is that it contradicts what you quoted from Acts. If we are to take 2 Corinthians literally and absolutely, then unbelievers cannot convert. If we take Acts literally and abosulutely, then all will convert. It does not good to insist that God’s Word is true if we interpret it so that it cannot be consistant.
   Thus, if Satan is real and the Scriptures are true, then it’s hard to hold fast to free will in any absolute sense.

   The fact is that I cannot make a hard and fast theological statement regarding free will from the passages you have quoted. The first passage tells me that God wants Paul to spread the gospel so that people will have a chance to believe (free will). The second tells me that Satan doesn’t want people to convert by free will. His work is such that unless God’s Spirit counters Satan’s work conversion will not take place. But you assume that that work by the Spirit does not make free will possible, but that it simply produces another, stronger irresistible force upon the person so that there is not moment of true acceptance, but only one of a shift from one source of determinism to another.

   2. Because I do believe that God’s knowledge of all things is perfect. Consider this syllogism:
   1. God’s knowledge is only true and comprehensively consists of all things past, present, future, and/or contingent, including those acts of the human will that are done freely.
   2. Since God’s knowledge is only true and comprehensive, no human can perform any act that would in any way modify or make false God’s knowledge.
   3. Therefore, all expressions of human free will are confined to the boundaries of God’s knowledge.

   I’m not sure of the value of this syllogism to your ultimate conclusion. Given your admission of free will in premise 1, your conclusion does indeed affirm free will, no matter how you “confine” it. Since you want to deny free will, you have to exclude it from premise 1.

   Put differently, humans, by their free acts of thought and/or behavior, do not have the ability to alter (make false) any aspect of God’s knowledge. Free acts of the will are confined to and occur within the parameters of God’s knowledge. This is not to say that God’s knowledge of future events causes human free acts.

   True and, as noted above, without “causes” your argument is lost.

   Only that no human activity is outside the scope of God’s knowledge, which is the stage upon which all human activity plays out in time. If God’s knowledge is true and comprehensive, and nothing occurs that has not been known, planned, and permitted by God, then humans are not “free” in any absolute sense. Human freedom, therefore, is relative to God’s true and perfect knowledge.

   You now enter into the 4 term fallacy. Not adequately having defined “free will” earlier, you now introduce a distinction between absolute and non-absolute free will. But if there are two kinds, your syllogism will not work. To work there must be only one definition of free will operative throughout.
   Aside from that, your syllogism also contains too many undefined and unresolved factors. For example you mention that God’s knowledge involves “permitted” actions as well as those which are “planned.” “Planned” probably should have been “determined” to keep the language game on the same board. But having admitted “permitted,” the game is lost anyway. If God’s absolute knowledge can involve “permitted” acts, then either “permitted” and “planned” are the same (which in turn leaves the question open as to whether the former includes the latter or the latter the former). If permitted can include free will actions, then, again, either free will is not being used in it’s customary way, or God’s plan and knowledge are able to accommodate truly free will acts. And there we arrive at the crucial definition. For an act to be truly free does it have to be “absolutely” free? If the answer is “NO” then you lose the game. If “Yes,” then what does “absolutely” mean?
   By reading what you have written so far, I take “absolutely” to mean free of God’s knowledge. But which Christian theologian until Process Theology would have said that? All previous views of God involved His transcendence from the space-time continuum. Call His knowledge the “formal” principle of determinism. But actions occur in the space-time continuum, and we could call that the “material” principle. Put another way, God “knowledge about,” differs from His “determination of.” If we collapse His knowledge about into His determination of, the not only is free will impossible, but so also is freeing God from responsibility for sinful actions, that only appear to be the freewill choices of … at least Satan. This is the awful truth that Zwingli faced and Calvin avoided. Beza and Gomarus unwisely went the way of Zwingli and ignored Calvin’s theology of “tension” (as Dr. Kantzer—one of the greatest Calvin scholars—used to say).

   3. Because the necessary presupposition to the successful fulfillment of all Bible prophecy requires God’s knowledge of all future events be without error.
   It is inconsistent to insist upon absolute free will while holding to the belief that God’s knowledge of all future events is perfect. If humans possess absolute freedom of the will, then any guarantees that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled is negated, since free will could overturn a divinely planned outcome. You can’t have your [prophetic] cake and [freely] eat it, too! Conversely, if the Bible’s prophecies have been and will be fulfilled without fail, then no humans can possess absolute freedom of the will.

   No, no, no. As even the Process theologians argued, a God who is omnipotent can always manipulate space time to work around free will. Freedom of the will doesn’t mean that people can make choices which God cannot counter. If all human actions are determined, why did Jesus warn people not to talk about His miracles? It certainly seems that He was avoiding the preemptive (and premature) decisions of the religious leaders.
   Have you not ever seen how the free will choices of people lead to their undoing? I’ve experienced it myself. I look back at my life and I see how God used my choices, free as they were, to mold me.
   In the end, you have to come back off of your “absolute” qualification. If it only means that man’s decisions must be able to trump an Almighty God, then you have gained nothing significant. No one is arguing that. Even on the lowly level of human decision, no one argues that man’s decisions aren’t influenced by God (without Him determining them), evil spirits, natural circumstances and other people (including culture). Any and all of those things play into the moment of decision. Thus, you should have titled your paper, “Why I Don’t Believe in Absolute Freedom of the Will.” But had you, no one would have read it, because no one believes that anyway.

   Truly (though not absolutely) free in Christ,
   Bill

4. My point exactly on whether talk of “time” is pertinent to God. But what Geisler sees as God seeing as past or future, I think God knows our actions as we know Columbus’ decision to sail from reading a history book. He had a choice, but when we read the book, we read the choice he made. Now whether God always gives us a choice in any matter: I’m not willing to go that far. But I don’t think that because God knew last week that I would respond to this, I therefore had no choice in responding. God knew last week (which is in itself a ridiculous notion as I see God and time, since he sees perfectly every action past, present, and future) what my choice tonight would be. Had I chosen to not respond, He would have known “last week” that I opted to stay silent. Refer back to my illustration of the history book and Columbus’ choice to sail.
   I think we’re really talking apples and oranges to some extent. But if you go too far down the road that we have no real free will because God’s knowledge puts boundaries on our decision, you eventually get to the point where, because His knowledge of our actions limits our decisions, His knowledge becomes the author of our actions, both good and evil.

5. Re: Your comments about Acts 26 “Obviously, this statement is one of opportunity not of determinism.” The text does not say that all to whom Paul preached would be saved. It’s implied that those God chooses, calls, grants forgiveness are saved. Moreover, I see no real difference between an “opportunity” realized and some kind of soft determinism, if God knows the future perfectly. The net effect is the same.

   Re: Your second point: “If we are to take 2 Corinthians literally and absolutely, then unbelievers cannot convert. If we take Acts literally and absolutely, then all will convert.” We should take 2 Cor 4:4 literally. The point is that Satan’s power blinds all unbelievers were it not for the grace of God in calling some to salvation. It’s not that all unbelievers cannot convert under any circumstances, but none can convert without first having the help of God. Paul’s point is that all are enslaved to the demonically imposed blindness. Contradictions are removed when qualifications are in place. Consistency in interpretation takes a back seat to the priority of definition. Given my definitions and qualifications here, there is no contradiction.

   Agreed that a hard and fast definition about free will should not be made about these passages. This is merely a snapshot of my belief; not the full-blown treatment of it.

   The value of the 1st premise is that what I mean by “acts of the human will done freely” is that I do not assume the typical definition of freedom here. Unfortunately, I did not qualify what I mean as “relatively” free rather than absolutely free. As I’ve said in my response to Brad (below), I do believe we have freedom, but that freedom is grounded in and, in some sense governed by (or “confined” by in your terms), God’s perfect knowledge. So, given my definition of “free” here in the 1st premise, I’m not denying free will, only qualifying it. And so, you’re correct that I should not equivocate my terms in my syllogism. Instead, I should have carefully qualified it first before offering an argument. Then the argument succeeds.

   The problem of God being the author of evil is a sticky wicket and there is great tension there for any kind of determinism. So I do not take lightly your concerns and will give them more consideration. At the end of the day, however, I cannot maintain God is responsible for evil acts committed by humans, so….

   You’re absolutely right I should have titled my paper differently. But then I would not have gotten this wonderful response from you! ;->

   Cheers my friend,
   Paul

6. Brad:
   Philosophers have been careful to distinguish between God’s knowledge of the actual and his knowledge of the possible (the latter also known as his “middle” knowledge). I believe God not only knows what actually will take place, but that he knows what might take place given the set of circumstances in which any human decision is rendered. So, that God knew what you would do or could do grounds your doing. You are “relatively” free to respond or not respond, but you’re not free to do contrary to what God already knows you will or might do. If, for example, God knew that you would respond by agreeing with my original post in toto, then you were not free to respond as you did. If you chose not to respond at all, then God would have known that instead. God cannot know as true two contrary facts. The true fact is that you did respond; that you might not respond was within God’s purview of middle knowledge (a.k.a. contingent knowledge), but God would not both know as true that you would and that you would not respond. As for Columbus, since God knew in 1488 CE that Columbus would sail the oceans blue sometime later that decade, then Columbus would “relatively” freely choose to do so. Of course, as Bill said above, no one is arguing that we are relatively free, so I suppose all of this is moot!

7. I think we’re more in agreement than it appears. My point is that God knows what I will choose, regardless of what that choice will be. If I have no choice about the action which God knows I will choose, then I am not accountable for those actions which are sinful. So why do I need to feel badly about and confess that which shouldn’t grieve God, since His knowledge left me with no choice. Knowing you as I do, I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. But what you wrote in your previous posts sure makes it sound that way.

8. Brad:
   As you’ve said, I would never maintain that God is the agent of evil/sinful actions. As Augustine said “God by his foreknowledge does not use compulsion in the case of future events . . . God has foreknowledge of all his own actions, but is not the agent of all that he foreknows . . . he has no responsibility for the future actions of men though he knows them beforehand” (On Free Will). Or elsewhere Augustine states “it is far from the truth that the sins of the creature must be attributed to the Creator, even though those things must necessarily happen which he has foreknown.” We must not confuse conditions with causes. God’s foreknowledge of all human choices is the condition under which all actions occur, but is not the cause of them.

   Hope this clarifies.

9. It doesn’t clarify at all, Paul. For if you follow the logic that we have no choice in our actions, yet our sinful actions over which we have no choice are not attributed to the One whose knowledge necessitates that actions, you wind up with a question that has no answer or is nonsensical at best. If we are to be held accountable by God for our sinful actions, we must have had the choice to resist the temptation. Thus is the nature of free will (at least as it pertains to our actions, not necessarily our “decision” for salvation, which is another sticky wicket entirely). If we are encouraged in Scripture to resist temptation, we must have the free will to either resist or succumb. Otherwise, the admonition makes no sense.

10. Brad:
    Please read my original post, then my first response to you. I did not say we have no choice in our actions; I qualified it that we have no absolute free choice. Our choices are relative to God’s knowledge, not that they are not free in some sense. In fact, that is my only point and I did not intend on speaking to the implications of moral responsibility. Moreover, I was clear that God’s knowledge does not “necessitate” our actions (see Augustine’s quotes). It’s a logical relationship of ground and consequent, not cause and effect. God’s knowledge is the ground; our choices are the consequent. God’s knowledge does not cause human choice. I fear we’re limiting our understanding to only one kind of freedom rather than seeing an alternative definition. I’m arguing against a strong, absolute sense of free will, given God’s perfect knowledge of all events. I am advocating a weak, relative sense of freedom.

    Let me say as clearly as I can: That human freedom is confined does not entail a contradiction. Only that there is no such thing as autonomous human freedom. I simply have a qualified understanding of what freedom is. To be autonomous is to act without any persuasion or influence whatsoever, and I suggest that no human acts occur in a vacuum. Instead, all acts are influenced by some force, be it our preferences, inclinations, environment, genetic predispositions, or whatever. Therefore, there are no autonomous acts isolated from and entirely free of some forces. Just as our decision are informed by and thus influence from our knowledge, so too are our decisions set in a larger context of God’s omniscience. When we introduce the notion that God knows what will occur, we are not saying that God determines an action by his foreknowing; only that his foreknowing cannot be made false by human decisions. That’s my one and only point.

11. Finally decided to come back and read your response, Paul. I needed a break. What you say above is not how your initial posts read. I totally agree that there are many things that influence our decisions, so you’re right that we don’t have any autonomous acts. I figured we were closer to agreement than we indicated and that the issue was the weakness of the English language. No more arguments here.

12. Whew! ;->