Articles
Is Free Will an Illusion? - 2
This article follows on from last week’s look at free will. As we delve deeper into this very practical subject, I want to credit Jack Cottrell and his observations on free will in his book The Faith Once for All. This article and the next will draw upon his breakdown of the topic.
This subject involves such questions as, “Are we in this world alone?” “Does God cause everything that happens?” “What is providence?” “Do people really have free will, or are we just carrying out acts that have been predetermined?”
Cottrell points out three main categories of thought:
1. God has nothing to do with anything. This would be the conclusion of both the atheist and deist. The atheist doesn’t believe in God at all; the deist believes God created everything but doesn’t intervene in or influence His creation in any way. For some atheists, “the physical laws of nature alone are sufficient to explain all things. Among these are mechanists, who say that the laws of nature operate like a machine, according to strictly predictable patterns. Even one’s thoughts and choices are predetermined by such laws: ‘The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile’” (113). This is the view of Richard Dawkins (see last week’s article). Dawkins says he believes in human consciousness but couldn’t really explain what it is. He said he believes in animal consciousness as well but holds that neither man nor animal have free will.
Other atheists admit that mankind is now exercising his evolved intellect to affect the world beyond its naturally occurring laws and properties, which sounds like they are leaning more in a Biblical direction given God’s purpose for mankind in Gen 1, a suggestion they would vehemently deny. Yet others allow room for some sort of cosmic metaphysical energy like karma, occultism or something akin to the force in Star Wars. One thing that folks in this classification agree on: God has nothing to do with anything.
2. God has everything to do with everything. Determinism asserts that “every detail of every event in every sense is totally dependent upon a personal divine being … he is the only true causative factor in the universe” (ibid). This is the basic conclusion of Calvinism. “The cornerstone of this concept of providence is God’s eternal decree. This decree is the act by which God, in eternity past, for his own purpose and glory and without regard to anything outside of himself, foreordained ‘whatsoever comes to pass.’ This is the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. The decree is called eternal because it was made before the actual creation and existence of anything outside of God. It is thus a detailed blueprint or computer program for everything that would ever happen. By means of the decree everything is predestined; history, or providence, is simply the execution of the decree which was fixed in eternity” (ibid 114).
While this ideology may sound extreme, it appears that some Christians have fallen prey to it. When someone has narrowly escaped an accident or disease, some comment, “It must not have been his time to go.” Or, if one dies an untimely death, some say things like, “The Lord took him/her early; I guess they were wanted in heaven more than they were needed on earth.” Or, "Everything turned out the way it was supposed to be." Such statements are sort of “left-handed” concessions that God determines everything on earth at a micro level.
In Calvinism “free will is asserted, but it is redefined so as to be compatible with deterministic sovereignty. Significant freedom is the power to choose between opposites, the ability to choose to do something or not to do it. But Calvinism replaces this concept of freedom with the idea that free will is the ability to choose in accord with one’s own inner character, motives, and desires. In other words, a person senses within himself a certain desire or motive or inclination to choose a certain way in a given situation, then proceeds to choose in accordance with his own desires. This sounds like true freedom until we realize that God has actually predestined all motives and desires. In the final analysis God predetermines what choices each person will make, simply by predetermining which desires and motives will be present in the person’s heart at any given time. Such choices are ‘free’ only in the sense that the person feels he is making a voluntary choice, even though everything about the situation has been predetermined and is being caused by God” (ibid 114-115). Richard Dawkins said almost the exact same thing except that he replaced God’s sovereignty with nature’s sovereignty.
3. God has something to do with everything. These foregoing absolutist views simply do not explain all the Scriptural evidence, as well as observational data, about the world’s operation. Undoubtedly, nothing happens in the cosmos that God is unaware of or is out of His control. He allows things to happen that He does not directly cause because that’s the kind of “reality” He created. He allows both free will and the laws of nature to operate. He has overarching purposes for the world, including those pertaining to His kingdom citizens, of which He has not informed us. He retains the right to intervene, override and guide as He wills while yet allowing human free will to operate. Evil men can choose to harm the innocent; despots can cruelly dominate their subjects; greed and hatred and envy create havoc, treachery and injustice – and God allows such because He respects the very free will He instilled within us. But He can override human and/or natural forces to achieve whatever specific outcome He may want to engineer, and this is why we pray for His blessings, help and favor while asking for His will to be done. But what that specific will is in a given situation we do not know.
Thus Cottrell observes: “In answer to the question, ‘Why do things happen the way they do?’ we can say that there are indeed three causal factors at work: God, free-will beings, and natural law. Thus it is wrong to blame God for every unpleasant or tragic thing that occurs. He may cause some of them, for punishment or chastisement; but most are due to sinful human choices … It is also wrong to think that everything happens for a purpose, especially a divine purpose. Many things happen because of human sin, carelessness, ignorance, and stupidity. We can learn lessons from them all, but that does not mean that God caused them just to teach us certain lessons. In the same way God can bring good results even out of bad things that he does not cause in the first place (Rom 8:28)” (ibid 118-119).
