Breaking the Free Will Illusion

[HarryStotle]

I think that aligns with Augustine’s view that our free will is dependent upon God’s will for us and his grace.

In other words, free will is a capacity that we can make use of, not that we necessarily do. Sin divorces us from that capacity, but grace restores us to it.

It may be true that most of humanity do not, in fact, make use of their capacity, owing to concupiscence, but God’s grace is always available to free us from the incapacity.

If someone argues that, even from their first person perspective, their choices are not free but appear to be determined by their physiology, that may, in fact, be true for them and yet that would be quite compatible with Christian thought on the fall of humankind from grace. It doesn’t, however, mean their choices MUST BE determined by their existing physiological state.

 

[Veritas6]

Sam Harris’ assertion on determinism is that our thoughts and intentions are determined by prior causes, and we’re not responsible for them. Am I correct in stating this is a non-sequitur and an assertion? Shouldn’t we be responsible for those prior causes?

Could anyone who understands Harris’ stance and/or who watched @DetectiveNiko video help me out? Thank you.

God Bless

 

[JimG]

I didn’t intend to post in this thread, but I had no choice.
I’m just wondering if everyone else posted of their own free will.

 

[STT]

I believe in “hylemorphic dualism” and Edward Feser wrote a great article on it Edward Feser: Against “neurobabble” . I reject Cartesian dualism and understand the soul/brain are one together.

I am afraid that he is wrong. Any conscious decision is mad by only mind, if there is any. We know that brain behaves in deterministic way. That is only mind who experiences unless you claim that consciousness is an emergent property. You then fall in trap of over-determinism when it comes to conscious decision.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I am afraid that he is wrong. Any conscious decision is mad by only mind, if there is any. We know that brain behaves in deterministic way. That is only mind who experiences unless you claim that consciousness is an emergent property. You then fall in trap of over-determinism when it comes to conscious decision.

The brain behaves in a deterministic way, with respect to our understanding. But that doesn’t mean it behaves in an ultimately deterministic way. For instance, God could have set the starting conditions of the world such that our brains would make the decisions we freely make, with our wills. Or God could use alleged quantum “indeterminacy” to allow free will decisions in our brains. There are multiple options.

 

[STT]

To clarify, do we possess the ability to choose differently if we were able to rewind time? Most skeptics say if we could go back in time, where all the same variables and desires exist, I would always choose the same choice every time.

Example: I desire to go to Mass today, but I chose not to because I wasted too much time and will be late. Skeptics argue my mind would also be rewound, so I if I could go back in time, I could not choose to leave earlier (because everything would be the same).

Free will is the ability to choose freely in any situation, even if I desire one option over the other, the choice is free. Do we have the ability to choose a different option if we rewound time (as a though experiment)?

God Bless

You of course could do opposite of what you have done if we could rewind the time. That is however in conflict with God’s foreknowledge which is unique.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Sam Harris’ assertion on determinism is that our thoughts and intentions are determined by prior causes, and we’re not responsible for them. Am I correct in stating this is a non-sequitur and an assertion? Shouldn’t we be responsible for those prior causes?

Did we cause those causes, and the causes that caused them? Just keep tracing the question back.

 

[STT]

The brain behaves in a deterministic way, with respect to our understanding. But that doesn’t mean it behaves in an ultimately deterministic way.

That could be true. But you cannot get volitional act from an non-deterministic system.

For instance, God could have set the starting conditions of the world such that our brains would make the decisions we freely make, with our wills.

That doesn’t make any sense considering the previous comment.

Or God could use alleged quantum “indeterminacy” to allow free will decisions in our brains. There are multiple options.

Indeterminacy act rooted in quantum mechanics is different from volitional act.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

All my thoughts ARE caused. However, we should understand there’s a distinction between ultimate cause (God, who is uncaused) and intermediate causes (e.g , me, my parents, etc.). In other words, I am a REAL intermediate cause of my own thoughts. There may be prior causes, so to speak, such as my parents, or my skill at use of reason, my own experience and the experience of others gathered in the form of witness testimony given to me. All of this also has a causal relationship in me producing my thoughts. Yet, that doesn’t diminish the understanding that I must take in all that (name removed by moderator)ut, then process it myself, in my own mind, to produce my own (potentially new) ideas/thoughts.

Consequently, I am the cause of my ideas/thoughts, although I am not the Ultimate Cause. God (who is uncaused) is the Ultimate Cause.

Nonetheless, my use of reason/logic is imperfect. My experience is not all-encompassing, and the witness testimony I have is incomplete and/or imperfectly understood, so I do not always think (or act) correctly. Additionally I may have motives that are contrary to my ultimate good, so although God is the ultimate cause of my thoughts, it is possible (and likely) that I have missed the mark.

God bless,
Dave

 

[Veritas6]

I’ve always thought it’s futile to put limits on God’s omnipotence. I can’t accept the limits human logic has when people restrict their worldview to either determinism or indeterminism and then claim they know the power of God. The options could be either deterministic or indeterministic, but no one can limit God’s power.

God acts logical in a way that is consistent with what is True. God would not do anything contrary to what is logical, but I think free will could be like a paradox.

The hypostatic union of Jesus is a paradox. Paradoxes are not necessary contradictions.

I’ve noticed most people have this feeling of free will and being in control. But so many people are quick to disregard this belief as an illusion because it’s not “humanly” logical.

I don’t think we can fully understand how God can work, but restricting Him solely to human logic just doesn’t make sense. We certainly can understand God through logic, but if Jesus Christ’s Church states we have free will, we have free will.

So really it’s either you pretend to believe free-will is not existent, but always prove yourself to be a hypocrite; or you accept free-will existence as somewhat mysterious and not entirely expressable using human logic.

 

[Veritas6]

Conscious decisions could also be made in a “deterministic” system, but in no way are these decisions predetermined, or you likely fall into the retrospective determinism fallacy: if something happened under certain circumstances, it was therefore bound to happen under those circumstances.

You can make the argument no one is responsible human logically if all our thoughts have a cause, but no one will deny responsibility to the person that murders someone else with strong intention/motive who seriously considered the options beforehand.

I also can’t understand why skeptics make the leap that we aren’t responsible for our actions if determinism holds to be true. What’s the problem with us being the causes of our own actions? Is that logically impossible? Or does God have some mysterious power that we humans might not be able to understand fully?

 

[JoshuaIsLord]

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

“Today many thoroughly-instructed Roman Catholics may be surprised to learn that the same appalling doctrine of Divine predestination has been, and presumably still is, an essential element in their faith. Thus Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae contains a Question of ‘Predestination’ in which the Angelic Doctor lays it down that:

As men are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away [… and] so He also not only gave things their operative powers when they were first created, but is also always the cause of these in things. Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop. Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause

Dr Antony Flew (2003)5

Prof. Flew examines two later chapters of the Summa Theologiae where Aquinas argues against those who say that God merely influences our wills in order to promote what God wishes to be done, he says “these people are, of course, opposed quite plainly by authoritative texts of Holy Writ”. Aquinas asserts in those two chapters that God moves us directly to do as it wants, even including, as the quote above shows, operations the ‘falling away’ of agents. In other words, sin is, just like virtuous behaviour, directly controlled by God. Aquinas then quotes from Scripture: “For it says in Isaiah (xxxvi, 2) ‘Lord, you have worked all your work in us’. Hence we receive from God not only the power of willing but its employment also (Bk III, Chaps 88-89).”

 

[JoshuaIsLord]

St. Augustine (354-430) Taught that We Have No Free Will

St Augustine of Hippo is one of the four great founders of Western Christianity1, ‘few men have surpassed’ him in influence on Christianity. He strongly believed in predestination, and Calvin and Luther both owe a great part of their doctrines to St Augustine.

“[No-one] can, of their own power, abstain from sin. Only God’s grace enables men to be virtuous. Since we all inherit Adam’s sin, we all deserve eternal damnation. All who die unbaptized, even infants, will go to hell and suffer unending torment. We have no reason to complain of this, since we all wicked. […] But by God’s grace certain people, among those who have been baptized, are chosen to go to heaven; these are the elect. They do not go to heaven because they are good; we are all totally depraved, except in so far as God’s grace, which is only bestowed on the elect, enables us to be otherwise. No reason can be given why some are saved and the rest damned; this is due to God’s unmotivated choice.”

“History of Western Philosophy” by Bertrand Russell (1946)4

 

[Veritas6]

Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae contains a Question of ‘Predestination’ in which the Angelic Doctor lays it down that:

Aquinas states we have free will: “Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain.” (I, q. 83, a. 1).

“Before appealing to God’s will, Thomas secures the goodness of God by appealing to his previous understanding of providence as it relates to primary and secondary causes (I, q. 22, a. 3). Free will is a secondary cause flowing out from predestination. This distinction ensures that God is not the direct cause of murder or final damnation.”

“Most suggested the following logical order in the decree of God’s predestination. First, God wills all to be saved (1 Tim 2:4). Next, God foresees only those who will reject grace persistently and finally. Third, he predestinates all those not in this number to final glory.”

 

[Gorgias]

Conscious decisions could also be made in a “deterministic” system, but in no way are these decisions predetermined

so… how can a ‘deterministic system’ not have ‘predetermined decisions’…?

 

[Gorgias]

also can’t understand why skeptics make the leap that we aren’t responsible for our actions if determinism holds to be true. What’s the problem with us being the causes of our own actions? Is that logically impossible?

Yes, it is.

If I must make a decision in a particular way, then I’m not the cause of that action (other than in the trivial sense that I’m the agent who performs the deterministic action). Rather, the entity (or system) that determines my action is the cause of that action.

 

[Veritas6]

so… how can a ‘deterministic system’ not have ‘predetermined decisions’…?

I thought you stated above there’s a different between events that are determined and that all events are pre-determined? I don’t follow.

If I must make a decision in a particular way, then I’m not the cause of that action (other than in the trivial sense that I’m the agent who performs the deterministic action). Rather, the entity (or system) that determines my action is the cause of that action.

Is this only applicable in a deterministic universe? How can we have free will? (If determinism and indeterminism can’t produce free will).

 

[Gorgias]

I thought you stated above there’s a different between events that are determined and that all events are pre-determined? I don’t follow.

If the entire system is deterministic (and I say that our universe is not, due to the fact that we have moral agents who possess free will!), then all the events within that system must be deterministic, don’t they? (After all, if even one event is not deterministic, then how could we say that the entire system is deterministic?)

So… as you were saying: if the skeptics are right, and the entire system is deterministic, then yeah – we’re not responsible for our actions, because they were determined for us, not by us! The “problem with us being the causes of our own actions” is that it’s a hallmark of free will, not of determinism.

(Now, if we said that we’re the ‘causes’ of the events we participate in, and mean that only in a very trivial way, then I’d argue that we’re not ‘causes’ at all. In other words, if all ‘causation’ means is that, although I have no choice in the matter, I nevertheless am the guy who pulls the level, then I would argue that this isn’t ‘causation’ at all, but merely ‘participation’. For example, the sun participates in earthly seasons – but it doesn’t do so in any way that implies willed (or even sentient) behavior.)

Make sense?

 

[Veritas6]

If the entire system is deterministic (and I say that our universe is not, due to the fact that we have moral agents who possess free will!), then all the events within that system must be deterministic

Okay that makes sense. If our universe isn’t deterministic, what universe do we live in? Is it even possible to know?

 

[itsjustdave1988]

No, St. Augustine also taught we have free will.

For instance, St. Augustine teaches that some of those regenerated and justified in Christ are among the elect, but some are not.

…quote…
We, then, call men elected, and Christ’s disciples, and God’s children, because they are to be so called whom, being regenerated, we see to live piously; but they are then truly what they are called if they shall abide in that on account of which they are so called. But if they have not perseverance,–that is, if they continue not in that which they have begun to be,–they are not truly called what they are called and are not; for they are not this in the sight of Him to whom it is known what they are going to be,–that is to say, from good men, bad men. (“On Rebuke and Grace” (De Correptione et Gratis), Ch 22)

… But those who do not belong to this number of the predestinated … [some] receive the grace of God, but they are only for a season, and do not persevere; they forsake and are forsaken. FOR BY THEIR FREE WILL, as they have not received the gift of perseverance, they are sent away by the righteous and hidden judgment of God (ibid, Ch. 42)

If, however, being already regenerate and justified, he relapses OF HIS OWN WILL of into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say, “I have not received,” because OF HIS OWN FREE CHOICE to evil he has lost the grace of God, that he had received. (ibid, ch 9)
…