What do we do about the fact that nobody has free will

[Norway]

I have some trouble with the idea of free will. It seems rather essential for explaining evil and yet, the more I think about it and discuss it the less robust the “we have free will” arguments seem. Here are three of the more compelling arguments against it from three different fields. I’d like to hear some replies.

Philosophy:
Here is a classic that is stronger than most people give it credit for

1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.

Physics:
This one won’t have premises because I don’t know the math well enough, but I have it on good authority that if general relativity is actually the case, then all of our actions must already exist “out there” and someone could see my future given the right circumstances. The idea is that right now, what counts as the present for me exists as the past for someone if they were significantly far away from me. In the same way, what exists as my present would also be someone else future. All of the events that will ever happen already exist depending on where you are in the universe. I don’t think it matters much that no one, as far as we know, is over there. Mathematically it all exists already. Here is a youtube clip that explains it better than me.
youtu.be/MO_Q_f1WgQI

Biology:
Using functional MRI machines doctors can predict the choice a subject will make well prior to the subject being conscious of having made a choice. They hook you up to the machine and say “press either the left or right button” and before you are aware of having made a choice they know what you will choose. Now, one might easily say that subconscious decisions are still decisions, but morally and even legally I don’t think that we agree with that. I am not held responsible for things I have no control over. Presumably we have no control over our subconscious, which is why we dream weird things.

 

[Rolltide]

God’s omnipotence and ability to know our actions vs. our free will works something like this, and I realize that this is an odd analogy:

Think of God as an NFL official who is also a football commentator for ESPN. It is the end of the season, and the Super Bowl is over. God is giving a report on the season in review.

Since all the games have been played, God knows every score, every play, and the outcome of every down. He knows who caught the ball, and who failed to make a tackle. He can analyze every aspect, or watch it in slow motion. God has knowledge of everything that happened that season.

As an NFL official, God also constructed the rules of the game. He picked the people who would officiate, and used the “instant replay” when necessary to overturn a few bad decisions, in order to make sure that the rules that he set came out the way they were intended.

Now, that said, God did not actually interfere in any of the plays, nor did he play the game for the people. Each coach, and player could have made any decision they chose. In a given situation, a quarterback could have opted to run the ball, make a pass, take a knee, or, heaven forbid, even throw the game. God did not make any of these decisions. He granted the players free will to play however they desired. This, however, does not in any way impact the fact that God still knows what happened, since it’s the end of the season, nor does it change the fact that God provided the rules to the game.

Eternity is a difficult concept, and it works a bit like that. Imagine God sitting at the end of time looking back at everything that has happened and knowing the outcome. He was able to construct rules… a plan… but still give us free will. It is a daunting concept to wrap one’s mind around.

 

[davidv]

I have some trouble with the idea of free will. It seems rather essential for explaining evil and yet, the more I think about it and discuss it the less robust the “we have free will” arguments seem. Here are three of the more compelling arguments against it from three different fields. I’d like to hear some replies.

Philosophy:
Here is a classic that is stronger than most people give it credit for

1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.

Two problems with this argument which causes it to be invalid:

1. Free will is the freedom to choose, not the freedom to act
2. Knowledge is incorrectly assumed to equal causation.

Physics:
This one won’t have premises because I don’t know the math well enough, but I have it on good authority that if general relativity is actually the case, then all of our actions must already exist “out there” and someone could see my future given the right circumstances. The idea is that right now, what counts as the present for me exists as the past for someone if they were significantly far away from me. In the same way, what exists as my present would also be someone else future. All of the events that will ever happen already exist depending on where you are in the universe. I don’t think it matters much that no one, as far as we know, is over there. Mathematically it all exists already. Here is a youtube clip that explains it better than me.
youtu.be/MO_Q_f1WgQI

Invade nonsequiteur.

Biology:
Using functional MRI machines doctors can predict the choice a subject will make well prior to the subject being conscious of having made a choice. They hook you up to the machine and say “press either the left or right button” and before you are aware of having made a choice they know what you will choose. Now, one might easily say that subconscious decisions are still decisions, but morally and even legally I don’t think that we agree with that. I am not held responsible for things I have no control over. Presumably we have no control over our subconscious, which is why we dream weird things.

Incorrectly assumes that the brain equals the mind/will.

 

[edward_george]

The example of eating toast would be true if God knowing beforehand about someone’s actions deprived that person of their free choice in doing them. If I see your car stalled on the train tracks and a train coming toward it at 80 mph, and only a few yards away, I can say “I know that train is about to hit that car,” and my foreknowledge thereof (in this case, fairly certain knowledge based on past experience or reasonable guesses) does not cause the train to hit the car. In God’s case, his knowledge is beyond this kind of knowledge, since he knows all. But his knowing of it does not necessarily negate free will. Show how God knowing all things negates free will. Knowing what will happen does not make it happen.

-ACEGC

 

[frangiuliano115]

I have some trouble with the idea of free will. It seems rather essential for explaining evil and yet, the more I think about it and discuss it the less robust the “we have free will” arguments seem. Here are three of the more compelling arguments against it from three different fields. I’d like to hear some replies.

Philosophy:
Here is a classic that is stronger than most people give it credit for

1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.

Physics:
This one won’t have premises because I don’t know the math well enough, but I have it on good authority that if general relativity is actually the case, then all of our actions must already exist “out there” and someone could see my future given the right circumstances. The idea is that right now, what counts as the present for me exists as the past for someone if they were significantly far away from me. In the same way, what exists as my present would also be someone else future. All of the events that will ever happen already exist depending on where you are in the universe. I don’t think it matters much that no one, as far as we know, is over there. Mathematically it all exists already. Here is a youtube clip that explains it better than me.
youtu.be/MO_Q_f1WgQI

Biology:
Using functional MRI machines doctors can predict the choice a subject will make well prior to the subject being conscious of having made a choice. They hook you up to the machine and say “press either the left or right button” and before you are aware of having made a choice they know what you will choose. Now, one might easily say that subconscious decisions are still decisions, but morally and even legally I don’t think that we agree with that. I am not held responsible for things I have no control over. Presumably we have no control over our subconscious, which is why we dream weird things.

Rolltide has the long explanation. Here’s the short one:

God knows everything before it happens. He knew it way back when before we were even born. I don’t see any problem with this. He is omniscient - all knowing. He sees time as one continuous stream; there’s no past, present or future. Much like the eternity that Rolltide explains. Or we try to explain. That, in a simple way, covers philosophy and physics.

Re the biology field. I’ve never heard of this and will not respond to it except to say that there’s a split second between the time we’re given the choice and the time we press the button. I think this is all there is to it.

Rolltide is hinting a bit in pp 4 to God’s providence. Trying to understand this in conjunction to free will is a daunting concept so I don’t think about it too much but just accept what God’s rules are.

I like to say that God created philosophy, physics and biology!

Fran

 

[PietroPaolo]

The answer to your dilemma is quite simple. God doesn’t know that you’ll eat toast before you eat it. For God to know before, God would have to be trapped in time, like we are. God isn’t, He made time and isn’t “in” it any more than He is “in” space. You can’t avoid God through time travel any more than you can avoid Him by going to the moon in a rocket. God sees all time in one eternal “now.” Just as me watching you eat toast doesn’t negate your free will, neither does God’s watching you eat toast negate your free will. I believe CS Lewis in Mere Christianity has a brilliant explanation of this, as does St. Augustine in his Confessions. I recommend both of them, highly.

 

[Norway]

God’s omnipotence and ability to know our actions vs. our free will works something like this, and I realize that this is an odd analogy:

Thank you for replying!

As a masters student in philosophy I have heard this argument many times (though never with the handy sports analogy). But I think it missed the problem by assuming I am conflating knowledge and causation, as the guy after you also assumed. I am not saying that God is causing anything here. The problem isn’t with God’s omnipotence but his omniscience.

The idea is that, in order for a choice to be free I need something like “Either A or B could happen” and because of God’s omniscience, we really have “Only A can happen.” It is not about God causing one or the other, it is about me needing the possibility of either A or B but not having that possibility because God isn’t in the dark about my breakfast tomorrow.

If God knows I will eat toast tomorrow and God can’t be wrong, then I am never doing anything tomorrow but eating toast. God isn’t making me eat toast but it is not like the choice is up in the air right now. You see what I mean?

 

[Evania]

Hi Norway,

God knowing in advance that you will eat toast does not mean that you didn’t have the option to eat a Poptart instead. You had the free will to choose to eat toast or something else, and chose accordingly. As God, He was able to know your decision in advance. As another poster pointed out, in their train analogy, we are able to make intelligent observations all the time. However, God being God, He is able to exercise that to a far greater degree than we’ll ever be able to fully understand.

 

[JerryZ]

I have some trouble with the idea of free will. It seems rather essential for explaining evil and yet, the more I think about it and discuss it the less robust the “we have free will” arguments seem. Here are three of the more compelling arguments against it from three different fields. I’d like to hear some replies.

Philosophy:
Here is a classic that is stronger than most people give it credit for

1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.

Physics:
This one won’t have premises because I don’t know the math well enough, but I have it on good authority that if general relativity is actually the case, then all of our actions must already exist “out there” and someone could see my future given the right circumstances. The idea is that right now, what counts as the present for me exists as the past for someone if they were significantly far away from me. In the same way, what exists as my present would also be someone else future. All of the events that will ever happen already exist depending on where you are in the universe. I don’t think it matters much that no one, as far as we know, is over there. Mathematically it all exists already. Here is a youtube clip that explains it better than me.
youtu.be/MO_Q_f1WgQI

Biology:
Using functional MRI machines doctors can predict the choice a subject will make well prior to the subject being conscious of having made a choice. They hook you up to the machine and say “press either the left or right button” and before you are aware of having made a choice they know what you will choose. Now, one might easily say that subconscious decisions are still decisions, but morally and even legally I don’t think that we agree with that. I am not held responsible for things I have no control over. Presumably we have no control over our subconscious, which is why we dream weird things.

Ok so indeed if your premise is true and, you do not have free will. I need, command you to make a large deposit of money into my bank account!

I believe that you’ll probably deny my order ahem command, therefore you do have free will. Free will means that you can choose good or evil. And that GOD will not force you to change your course of action, but because GOD is outside time HE is not bound by it. And HE can see all the choices you made/make/will make as you made them in time (yours). He can nudge people but not force them, you could not be punished nor rewarded for that matter if you did not have free choice.

 

[nodito]

Another analogy:

I have a two year old daughter. There are so many times throughout the day when I just know how she is going to react to a given situation, simply because I have seen her react that way a dozen times before and because her thinking process is so much more nascent than mine.

For example, if I sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to her and, at the end of a line, I omit a word, my daughter will fill in the blank. She does it every single time. I even know that she will enthusiastically shout, “Play ball!” at the end of song.

I know these things because I know my daughter well, and I’ve known her well her entire short little life. My knowing what she is going to do when I sing that song does not deprive her of her free will in any manner whatsoever. She’s free to hear me sing the song and choose instead to ignore me or sing a different song or cry or just walk away and play with her toys. It’s just that I know that she won’t.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows how we’re going to react to any given situation and what we’ll feel like eating tomorrow. But we still have the choice.

 

[Norway]

The answer to your dilemma is quite simple. God doesn’t know that you’ll eat toast before you eat it. For God to know before, God would have to be trapped in time, like we are. God isn’t, He made time and isn’t “in” it any more than He is “in” space. You can’t avoid God through time travel any more than you can avoid Him by going to the moon in a rocket. God sees all time in one eternal “now.” Just as me watching you eat toast doesn’t negate your free will, neither does God’s watching you eat toast negate your free will. I believe CS Lewis in Mere Christianity has a brilliant explanation of this, as does St. Augustine in his Confessions. I recommend both of them, highly.

Thank you for replying! I have actually read both more than once and they are both excellent. I actually agree with all you said here. I am just pretending for the sake of valuable conversations.

Regarding what you said, I think it is important to realize what your reply means in relation to how we talk about our choices, especially in light of arguments like those we see against free will from other disciplines like physics. Based on what you are saying, our choices are essentially not an “I will choose either this or that.” All of our choices already exist. Every single choice we have ever made exists already and is eternally “being made” from God’s perspective. That is important! Especially when we try to answer arguments from physics.

It is really interesting to think about especially considering that in physics, every state of affairs that will ever exist already exists. Literally, if you or some other species were on the other side of the universe, their present includes my future. It might be beneficial for us to start thinking about our Will as not “I will pick either this or that” but more “I am this way or that way” which is very close to what the determinist are saying already.

We have to think, if the Will is not about a temporal choice between options, what is it really? If things aren’t really “up in the air” for either God or physics, what is the best way to talk about what it means to WILL something?

 

[GEddie]

Although free-will as an absolute is somewhat of a mirage (our will is conditioned by our physical bodies and by the geometry of our life) we are to use what freedom we have to love God and to seek Him through others.

The omniscience of God isn’t really a factor because we don’t experience it.

ICXC. NIKA

 

[frangiuliano115]

Thank you for replying! I have actually read both more than once and they are both excellent. I actually agree with all you said here. I am just pretending for the sake of valuable conversations.

Regarding what you said, I think it is important to realize what your reply means in relation to how we talk about our choices, especially in light of arguments like those we see against free will from other disciplines like physics. Based on what you are saying, our choices are essentially not an “I will choose either this or that.” All of our choices already exist. Every single choice we have ever made exists already and is eternally “being made” from God’s perspective. That is important! Especially when we try to answer arguments from physics.

It is really interesting to think about especially considering that in physics, every state of affairs that will ever exist already exists. Literally, if you or some other species were on the other side of the universe, their present includes my future. It might be beneficial for us to start thinking about our Will as not “I will pick either this or that” but more “I am this way or that way” which is very close to what the determinist are saying already.

We have to think, if the Will is not about a temporal choice between options, what is it really? If things aren’t really “up in the air” for either God or physics, what is the best way to talk about what it means to WILL something?

Well Norway,

Since you think you understand everything better now, let me nudge you out of your complacency a bit.

Since you seem to have free will out of the way, now do this:
Study up on God’s Providence.
Nothing happens without His willing it.

It’s too much. But philosophy type people such as yourself could handle it better than we normal folk! I’ve stopped trying to understand it.

BTW, you might like Fr. Spitzer’s books too. He’s a physicist.

Fran

 

[John_Martin]

free will is not about choices of A over B.

Free will is about either being moved to “react” from our perceptions triggering a movement in our appetites (not free will) or having an goal of some final end in our intellect / reason and will, from which we moderate our activities, deciding with our higher reason what we will do as the appetite attempts to move us to their own satisfaction.

A car moving slower than mine appears ahead of me on the interstate. In a reaction of appetite I become uncomfortable (just happens, not freedom), my eyes glance quickly to the left lane, to the mirrors (just happens, not freedom). And I have another apprehension, a perception of imagination, of myself darting into the left lane while slamming on the accelerator to fit into a small gap between two cars there, probably displacing them in their comfort zones, and leaving this slow driver “in the dust” (just happens, not freedom).
As I react and am about to hit the gas, there is the thought, “this is not virtuous”.

As I began my drive I had been thinking about how God had infused me with virtue when I was baptized and confirmed, in the other sacraments, and my soul had put the words in my conscious thoughts, that “I am going to drive to work virtuously”. I was going to make use of what he had given me.

Suddenly, as I was about to pass, I began to do my driving according to how I could see it fitting with my self-understanding of being God’s new virtue filled being, and according to what I knew of virtuous driving. My acts of driving were no longer reactions to appetites, but moral acts, acts reasoned to match the goodness of my knowing in my intellect and will, thus they were acts of free will.

 

[You]

I have some trouble with the idea of free will. It seems rather essential for explaining evil and yet, the more I think about it and discuss it the less robust the “we have free will” arguments seem. Here are three of the more compelling arguments against it from three different fields. I’d like to hear some replies.

Philosophy:
Here is a classic that is stronger than most people give it credit for

1. In order for an action to be free, there needs to be a choice of possible actions.
2. If God knows I will eat toast for breakfast tomorrow then I must eat toast tomorrow since God is never wrong.
3. If I must eat toast tomorrow, then I have no choice whether or not I will eat toast.

Therefore: the toast eating action isn’t free.

Physics:
This one won’t have premises because I don’t know the math well enough, but I have it on good authority that if general relativity is actually the case, then all of our actions must already exist “out there” and someone could see my future given the right circumstances. The idea is that right now, what counts as the present for me exists as the past for someone if they were significantly far away from me. In the same way, what exists as my present would also be someone else future. All of the events that will ever happen already exist depending on where you are in the universe. I don’t think it matters much that no one, as far as we know, is over there. Mathematically it all exists already. Here is a youtube clip that explains it better than me.
youtu.be/MO_Q_f1WgQI

Biology:
Using functional MRI machines doctors can predict the choice a subject will make well prior to the subject being conscious of having made a choice. They hook you up to the machine and say “press either the left or right button” and before you are aware of having made a choice they know what you will choose. Now, one might easily say that subconscious decisions are still decisions, but morally and even legally I don’t think that we agree with that. I am not held responsible for things I have no control over. Presumably we have no control over our subconscious, which is why we dream weird things.

Toast. Everything is always now for them outside time. i.e. I can see all at once all the future breakfasts you will ever eat, not because I see the future but because for me it is always now. I choose freely at some time in the future and my choice is always now for them outside time. Not in the future.

Relativity. Has a big problem with itself and gravity. So I’d call it a working theory which does not work with most of observed reality. Gravity, dark matter, dark energy. Most of the mass of the universe is missing. There is too much unknown to say it is known how it all works. You could try thinking about it in terms of islands in the pacific, if the islands are far enough apart then everyone knows the past and future of the other. Clearly this is not the case.

Biology. In order for the person being scanned to make the free will type decision and for the experimenters to see the image, the person has first to hear the question. So if you hear the question then you make a decision. Left or right. A lack of freewill sort of supposes predestiny which might mean the person chooses left or right before they know what the question is.

 

[Norway]

Well Norway,

Since you think you understand everything better now, let me nudge you out of your complacency a bit.

Since you seem to have free will out of the way, now do this:
Study up on God’s Providence.
Nothing happens without His willing it.

It’s too much. But philosophy type people such as yourself could handle it better than we normal folk! I’ve stopped trying to understand it.

BTW, you might like Fr. Spitzer’s books too. He’s a physicist.

Fran

Hey Fran!

Communication over the internet is difficult because it removes all that non verbal stuff that is so helpful. So I think you might have misunderstood my tone or perhaps I am misunderstanding yours. You sound a little sarcastic.

You misunderstood me if you think I was claiming to have any real understanding of free will. It is certainly not “out of the way” for me.

If you are taking issue with the fact that I said I have some experience in philosophy, that is just useful information in these sorts of discussions. It gives people a starting place for what sort of answer is best.

If you are taking issue with the fact that I was pretending to think free will is moot, that’s just the Socratic method. It really works well to have an opponent rather than for everyone to pat themselves on the back and say “We’ve got it all figured out!”

Regarding the “philosophy types” that you seem not to be a fan of (unless I am misreading you), we are on the philosophy branch of Catholic Answers. I am not sure who you were expecting to find.

Regarding God’s providence, of course we all hope and trust in that. We have nothing else in the end. But we are called to serve God with all of our selves including our minds. We should endeavor to “test everything” as the scriptures say and trust that the truth is there, paramount, and able to be discovered if we “seek and keep on seeking.” You seem to think I have stopped seeking and have claimed to know it all. If you look at my posts, two of them are essentially questions and the third is me agreeing with a post I thought was especially insightful. In terms of seeking and not claiming to have found, I seem to be up on you two to nothing.

Lastly, I’ll see if I can check out that book. It seems cool.

 

[frangiuliano115]

Hey Fran!

Communication over the internet is difficult because it removes all that non verbal stuff that is so helpful. So I think you might have misunderstood my tone or perhaps I am misunderstanding yours. You sound a little sarcastic.

You misunderstood me if you think I was claiming to have any real understanding of free will. It is certainly not “out of the way” for me.

If you are taking issue with the fact that I said I have some experience in philosophy, that is just useful information in these sorts of discussions. It gives people a starting place for what sort of answer is best.

If you are taking issue with the fact that I was pretending to think free will is moot, that’s just the Socratic method. It really works well to have an opponent rather than for everyone to pat themselves on the back and say “We’ve got it all figured out!”

Regarding the “philosophy types” that you seem not to be a fan of (unless I am misreading you), we are on the philosophy branch of Catholic Answers. I am not sure who you were expecting to find.

Regarding God’s providence, of course we all hope and trust in that. We have nothing else in the end. But we are called to serve God with all of our selves including our minds. We should endeavor to “test everything” as the scriptures say and trust that the truth is there, paramount, and able to be discovered if we “seek and keep on seeking.” You seem to think I have stopped seeking and have claimed to know it all. If you look at my posts, two of them are essentially questions and the third is me agreeing with a post I thought was especially insightful. In terms of seeking and not claiming to have found, I seem to be up on you two to nothing.

Lastly, I’ll see if I can check out that book. It seems cool.

Oops. None of the above. I reread my post and I see what you mean. Sorry.

It wasn’t meant to be sarcastic. This is what I meant:

The more we learn
The less we know

It’s a really interesting concept to me how we could have free will and yet nothing happens without God’s will that it be so. It’s a contradiction in terms. And yet that’s how it is. I just felt that since you were sincerely searching, this could be your next step.

Free will is pretty easy to understand, it’s coupled with that other concept that gives me a problem. I’ve stopped trying to understand it and just accept, as you say.

Re the philosophy comment: It did sound like you might be into that. I meant that I don’t know too much about it. In fact, very little. I’m a big fan of philosophy types; one on a different thread was really helpful with his comments. In fact, I very much admire these “types”. Did you know that priests have to study philosophy for at least two years? Difficult to be upset with them!

I’m really sorry my post sounded the way it did. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other around and you’ll get to see I’m not like I sounded.

In Christ
Fran

 

[cornbread_r2]

The OP may want to look into the way Open Theism deals with these issues.

From that article:

In short, open theism says that since God and humans are free, God’s knowledge is dynamic and God’s providence flexible. While several versions of traditional theism would picture God’s knowledge of the future as a singular, fixed trajectory, open theism would see it as a plurality of branching possibilities, with some possibilities becoming settled as time moves forward.[5][6] Thus, the future as well as God’s knowledge of it is open (hence “open” theism).

As I understand it, Open Theism apparently sacrifices some of God’s omniscience in order to preserve God’s free will and omnipotence.

 

[frangiuliano115]

The OP may want to look into the way Open Theism deals with these issues.

From that article:

As I understand it, Open Theism apparently sacrifices some of God’s omniscience in order to preserve God’s free will and omnipotence.

I read the above.

Just off the top of my head: It goes against everything I know about God.

I don’t like the idea of the future being flexible. That would mean that God doesn’t know the future. That would mean that He’s not outside of time, but I’m not sure of this conclusion. Don’t understand the time thing enough. To me it’s like He’s standing outside looking in at something and it’s always NOW.

God has to be all-knowing, how could it be otherwise? Jesus wasn’t all knowing when He was on earth. His knowing was limited, but He was here so that can’t be considered. He didn’t have full knowledge.

Very interesting article. Will be following along.

Oh. And the chart had Calvanism at the end. I don’t agree with Calvinism, needless to say.

It does seem like we keep coming up with new ideas about God. We strive so hard to understand the un-understandable.

The search for God and the search for perfection means that both must exist. I think I read this in Mere Christianity, not sure - but it makes sense.

Fran

 

[oldcelt]

Consider the possibly that we have absolute free will with no interference from any deity. To me, as an observing and sentient being…that makes the most sense.
Take it for what it is worth.

John