Freewill: Is it Possible?
In discussions with Christians, the topic of “free will” is often raised. The basic idea is the claim that God gave people free will to be able to choose whether or not to follow Him. I don’t believe that such a concept is possible in light of the alleged existence of an omniscient and omnipotent entity. I will explain my reasoning herein.
I will start with an analogy that I will borrow from another skeptic, Chris Smith, called "God the Iron Worker". I will paraphrase and expand on Smith's rendition. First, imagine an engineer building a building. He would likely do load calculations to determine the strength of materials needed to build the building. Say he calculates that the main beams should have a tensile strength of 50,000 psi. Then, he might use a materials reference book to pick out materials. Or, if he has some material in mind but doesn't know the strength, he might run some experiments to see how strong the material is.
So, what if God was going to build a building? How much tensile strength would the materials need to be? 50,000 psi? .0001? 2 trillion? For God, it would be purely arbitrary, decided by fiat. For an omnipotent, omniscient being could never do anything out of necessity. He sets the rules on how things hold together, and can set those rules to anything He wants.
So, say God decides the girders need to have 50,000 psi tensile strength. He conjures up a beam and stress tests it. Dammit, only 40,000 psi! What’s wrong with this picture? Of course He would know without testing it that it would fail. He would know by his omniscience, of course, since he would have to know everything or not be omniscient. But he would also know by his omnipotence; he had the full power and control over that which he created. I make it a point to indicate that he would only need one or the other, omniscience or omnipotence, to know for certain what the strength of materials he creates. Since he is (allegedly) both omniscient and omnipotent, that makes it all the more impossible for him to not know what would happen to the beam. Therefore, God would have no need at all to test the beam.
I realize that some readers may be objecting. Readers may well realize that I am going to apply this to the idea of free will, but may assert that free will is different, human personality is far less predictable than a steel girder. If you know strong one piece of 316 grade stainless steel is, you pretty much know how strong any piece of 316 grade stainless steel is. But if you put two different people in very similar situations, you will often get very different reactions. The question becomes, what is the source of these differences? Why would two different people react very differently? How does this thing “free will” operate here?
It appears to me that Christians seem to think of an individual’s “free will” as “evolving”, though they would not use the term. Here is what I mean. Christians will usually accept that God gives people different skills, different personalities, different reasoning capabilities, etc. And that God puts people into different environments, such as different eras in human history, different geographical and sociological settings, etc. In other words, God sets up each individual’s starting point, so to speak. And most Christians wouldn’t deny that these starting points given by God play a part in one’s decision making process. And yet, somehow, there is this element of “free will” at work here, beyond which that God put there in the starting point.
But how can this be? By what process does this thing “free will” operate under? And where does it come from? Either it comes from God and thereby operates per His design, or it creates itself! Either it does what God made it do, or it evolves on its own! Is there any other option? But given that most Christians assert that nothing can come from nothing, nothing can create itself, and nothing can evolve, the idea that “free will” self-evolves looks dead-in-the-water. So, if this thing “free will” exists, it must be necessarily be created and operate under God’s design.
Furthermore, this is necessarily so, by definition of omniscience and omnipotence. Like God’s steel girder, how could this thing “free will” do anything that isn’t pre-built into it by its design from God? For example, let’s examine my writing this paper. Why am I doing this? I am writing this paper because it is consistent with my beliefs and my personality, and the environment I am in allows me to do so. Did I create my own personality? Did I create the environment I live in? No I did not.
Again, I realize that some readers will object, and claim that some of my environment and some of beliefs are by my choice, my “free will”. Such readers may argue that I got the personality I have now, and the environment I have now based on previous choices—previous actions based on “free will”. But how were those choices made? By the environment of the time, and the choices made before then. And before then, and before then, until you get back to where I was born--back to the starting point that Christians admit came from God: my original birth environment and original birth personality and skills. My current choices are either a deterministic progression from my starting point of my birth, or “free will” magically comes from nowhere, evolving by itself.
Here is another way to look at it: what exactly is not under the direct control of an omniscient, omnipotent entity? The answer, by definition, must be nothing. If there is something not under God's control he is by definition not omnipotent. Therefore free will must either be something controlled by God, or God is not omnipotent. It's as simple as that.
If I may digress a bit, I'd like to discuss what it even means to "control" something. What does it mean to “control” something? I had a Christian say to me that the world is like God rolled a snowball down a mountain. God set things in motion, but doesn’t know exactly what happens until it does--like throwing a snowball down a mountain.
True, if I throw a snowball down a mountain, I won’t know how big it will get and where it will go. But that is because I’m a human and not omniscient. But if God rolled a snowball down a hill, he would know how many molecules were in the snowball to begin with, where the ball would bounce, how many molecules will be picked up or dropped off at each bounce, etc.
When I pointed this out to the Christian who raised this analogy, he said that maybe I’m right, if God threw a snowball down a mountain, he would know exactly where the snowball would hit--yet he somehow maintained that God would not be “in control” of the snowball per se. God wouldn’t be directly grabbing the snowball and moving it each step of the way down the mountain. God would merely be watching the snowball follow the course that he knew ahead of time it would take. And that’s not the same thing as “control” per se--supposedly.
But where is the difference? What is the dividing line between “controlling” something, and merely watching something do exactly that which you knew it would do based on your initial actions? I say there is no difference. Let’s say I dropped a hundred pound “snowball” –or block of ice--on someone’s head. Could I tell the judge at my murder trial that once I let go of the block, it was “out of my hands” so to speak, and therefore not my fault? Of course not. Once I let go of the block, I would not be personally “controlling” its descent. But the block did exactly what I knew it would do when I dropped it and therefore there I was indeed in control of it.
Nevertheless, there would indeed be things about this situation that would not be within my control. I didn’t design the nature of water to create ice. I didn’t create the nature of gravity to cause objects to fall to the earth. I didn’t design the human skull to not withstand a hundred pound weight dropped on it. But, it is not necessary for them to be of my creation for me to know what will happen. And if I do certain actions with known outcomes, the fact that parts of the environment are outside of my control doesn’t mean I’m not responsible or not “in control” of that which I set into motion knowing what would happen.
So, now what if God dropped a hundred pound block on someone’s head? Well, not only would He be “in control” because He took an action with a known outcome--but He would also be “in control” because He did design the nature of water to create ice, the nature of gravity to cause objects to fall to earth, and the nature of the human skull to not withstand such a force. The point being, He wouldn't even need to be omniscient or omnipotent in order to be "in control." How much more so would God be in control if he is both omniscient and omnipotent?
Again, I imagine some readers objecting. God might be “in control” if He dropped a block on someone’s head, or just rolled a snowball down a hill, but surely the universe is far more complicated, no? Maybe it is, but, where is there any fundamental difference between the two? If God creates the universe, with a specific design that will result in all the specific events that happen in the universe, how is He not in control? He is fully in control both by his omniscience and by his omnipotence. He both knows what will happen, and creates everything such that it will happen that way. Where is there any room for a “free will” that is outside of the control of an omnipotent, omniscient being?
Now I'd like to discuss a related topic. Let us assume for a moment that I am somehow wrong and there is indeed something called "free will". Even if this is somehow true, wouldn't God know what I would do with my free will before I ever do it? And if so, why does God even need to go through the motions of seeing me do things? This issue I've had a lot of difficulty explaining and discussing with Christians. They often seem to be not quite certain regarding the issue of whether God is temporal or not. (Whether or not God is limited by time just like us, or if God is "timeless"/"beyond time".) Most modern theologians assert that God is non-temporal ("beyond time") and knows everything that will ever happen before it happens. Yet this is very contradictory to the God of the Bible that reacts to things as they happen. For example, in Genesis, God regrets creating man and therefore sends the flood. But then He regrets sending the flood! How can an entity that knows everything that will ever happen possibly “regret” anything?
Yet, it’s obvious that if God did create the universe, he must be "beyond time". I remember reading in a Bryan Greene physics book about how time progresses at different rates in different parts of the universe due to relativity, the speed of the objects in motion. He said that if we could have a view portal to other worlds throughout the universe, some would seem to be moving very fast, others very slow. The point being simply that if God created the universe, He obviously couldn’t be tied to any specific time frame. On a cosmic scale, earth’s time-frame isn’t any “better” or “worse” than other time frame. God would have to be timeless, or non-temporal, which, again, is what most modern theologians assert. And yet the God of the Bible reacts to things as they happen. To reiterate, God must be "timeless" and therefore must know everything that will ever happen and therefore would have no possible need to actually see things happen.
This happens to bring up an interesting related topic. Not only would God know everything that ever happens in this world, He would know everything that would ever happen in every possible world! The following is an imperfect analogy, but, it’s the best I can come up with. Imagine that you had perfect photographic memory, and had memorized every single frame of a movie. Every one. I could ask you what happened on the 1,000th frame of the movie, and you could sketch it out perfectly, with every hair in place.
Now imagine that you can do that with every movie ever made. Awesome, powers, eh? Now imagine that you can do that with every movie that could ever be made! Imagine that, knowing every frame of every possible movie that could ever be made anywhere in the universe from the beginning to the end of time. That would be one heck of a memory. If you could do that, you would be “omniscient” with regards to movies. God is (allegedly) omniscient, period. And therefore God would know in infinite and perfect detail of every possible universe that could ever exist.
Before I move on, I have had readers object to this, that I'm taking "omniscience" and "omnipotence" too literally. So, let me include some Bible verses. Here is Matthew 10:28-31 NIV:
I will start with an analogy that I will borrow from another skeptic, Chris Smith, called "God the Iron Worker". I will paraphrase and expand on Smith's rendition. First, imagine an engineer building a building. He would likely do load calculations to determine the strength of materials needed to build the building. Say he calculates that the main beams should have a tensile strength of 50,000 psi. Then, he might use a materials reference book to pick out materials. Or, if he has some material in mind but doesn't know the strength, he might run some experiments to see how strong the material is.
So, what if God was going to build a building? How much tensile strength would the materials need to be? 50,000 psi? .0001? 2 trillion? For God, it would be purely arbitrary, decided by fiat. For an omnipotent, omniscient being could never do anything out of necessity. He sets the rules on how things hold together, and can set those rules to anything He wants.
So, say God decides the girders need to have 50,000 psi tensile strength. He conjures up a beam and stress tests it. Dammit, only 40,000 psi! What’s wrong with this picture? Of course He would know without testing it that it would fail. He would know by his omniscience, of course, since he would have to know everything or not be omniscient. But he would also know by his omnipotence; he had the full power and control over that which he created. I make it a point to indicate that he would only need one or the other, omniscience or omnipotence, to know for certain what the strength of materials he creates. Since he is (allegedly) both omniscient and omnipotent, that makes it all the more impossible for him to not know what would happen to the beam. Therefore, God would have no need at all to test the beam.
I realize that some readers may be objecting. Readers may well realize that I am going to apply this to the idea of free will, but may assert that free will is different, human personality is far less predictable than a steel girder. If you know strong one piece of 316 grade stainless steel is, you pretty much know how strong any piece of 316 grade stainless steel is. But if you put two different people in very similar situations, you will often get very different reactions. The question becomes, what is the source of these differences? Why would two different people react very differently? How does this thing “free will” operate here?
It appears to me that Christians seem to think of an individual’s “free will” as “evolving”, though they would not use the term. Here is what I mean. Christians will usually accept that God gives people different skills, different personalities, different reasoning capabilities, etc. And that God puts people into different environments, such as different eras in human history, different geographical and sociological settings, etc. In other words, God sets up each individual’s starting point, so to speak. And most Christians wouldn’t deny that these starting points given by God play a part in one’s decision making process. And yet, somehow, there is this element of “free will” at work here, beyond which that God put there in the starting point.
But how can this be? By what process does this thing “free will” operate under? And where does it come from? Either it comes from God and thereby operates per His design, or it creates itself! Either it does what God made it do, or it evolves on its own! Is there any other option? But given that most Christians assert that nothing can come from nothing, nothing can create itself, and nothing can evolve, the idea that “free will” self-evolves looks dead-in-the-water. So, if this thing “free will” exists, it must be necessarily be created and operate under God’s design.
Furthermore, this is necessarily so, by definition of omniscience and omnipotence. Like God’s steel girder, how could this thing “free will” do anything that isn’t pre-built into it by its design from God? For example, let’s examine my writing this paper. Why am I doing this? I am writing this paper because it is consistent with my beliefs and my personality, and the environment I am in allows me to do so. Did I create my own personality? Did I create the environment I live in? No I did not.
Again, I realize that some readers will object, and claim that some of my environment and some of beliefs are by my choice, my “free will”. Such readers may argue that I got the personality I have now, and the environment I have now based on previous choices—previous actions based on “free will”. But how were those choices made? By the environment of the time, and the choices made before then. And before then, and before then, until you get back to where I was born--back to the starting point that Christians admit came from God: my original birth environment and original birth personality and skills. My current choices are either a deterministic progression from my starting point of my birth, or “free will” magically comes from nowhere, evolving by itself.
Here is another way to look at it: what exactly is not under the direct control of an omniscient, omnipotent entity? The answer, by definition, must be nothing. If there is something not under God's control he is by definition not omnipotent. Therefore free will must either be something controlled by God, or God is not omnipotent. It's as simple as that.
If I may digress a bit, I'd like to discuss what it even means to "control" something. What does it mean to “control” something? I had a Christian say to me that the world is like God rolled a snowball down a mountain. God set things in motion, but doesn’t know exactly what happens until it does--like throwing a snowball down a mountain.
True, if I throw a snowball down a mountain, I won’t know how big it will get and where it will go. But that is because I’m a human and not omniscient. But if God rolled a snowball down a hill, he would know how many molecules were in the snowball to begin with, where the ball would bounce, how many molecules will be picked up or dropped off at each bounce, etc.
When I pointed this out to the Christian who raised this analogy, he said that maybe I’m right, if God threw a snowball down a mountain, he would know exactly where the snowball would hit--yet he somehow maintained that God would not be “in control” of the snowball per se. God wouldn’t be directly grabbing the snowball and moving it each step of the way down the mountain. God would merely be watching the snowball follow the course that he knew ahead of time it would take. And that’s not the same thing as “control” per se--supposedly.
But where is the difference? What is the dividing line between “controlling” something, and merely watching something do exactly that which you knew it would do based on your initial actions? I say there is no difference. Let’s say I dropped a hundred pound “snowball” –or block of ice--on someone’s head. Could I tell the judge at my murder trial that once I let go of the block, it was “out of my hands” so to speak, and therefore not my fault? Of course not. Once I let go of the block, I would not be personally “controlling” its descent. But the block did exactly what I knew it would do when I dropped it and therefore there I was indeed in control of it.
Nevertheless, there would indeed be things about this situation that would not be within my control. I didn’t design the nature of water to create ice. I didn’t create the nature of gravity to cause objects to fall to the earth. I didn’t design the human skull to not withstand a hundred pound weight dropped on it. But, it is not necessary for them to be of my creation for me to know what will happen. And if I do certain actions with known outcomes, the fact that parts of the environment are outside of my control doesn’t mean I’m not responsible or not “in control” of that which I set into motion knowing what would happen.
So, now what if God dropped a hundred pound block on someone’s head? Well, not only would He be “in control” because He took an action with a known outcome--but He would also be “in control” because He did design the nature of water to create ice, the nature of gravity to cause objects to fall to earth, and the nature of the human skull to not withstand such a force. The point being, He wouldn't even need to be omniscient or omnipotent in order to be "in control." How much more so would God be in control if he is both omniscient and omnipotent?
Again, I imagine some readers objecting. God might be “in control” if He dropped a block on someone’s head, or just rolled a snowball down a hill, but surely the universe is far more complicated, no? Maybe it is, but, where is there any fundamental difference between the two? If God creates the universe, with a specific design that will result in all the specific events that happen in the universe, how is He not in control? He is fully in control both by his omniscience and by his omnipotence. He both knows what will happen, and creates everything such that it will happen that way. Where is there any room for a “free will” that is outside of the control of an omnipotent, omniscient being?
Now I'd like to discuss a related topic. Let us assume for a moment that I am somehow wrong and there is indeed something called "free will". Even if this is somehow true, wouldn't God know what I would do with my free will before I ever do it? And if so, why does God even need to go through the motions of seeing me do things? This issue I've had a lot of difficulty explaining and discussing with Christians. They often seem to be not quite certain regarding the issue of whether God is temporal or not. (Whether or not God is limited by time just like us, or if God is "timeless"/"beyond time".) Most modern theologians assert that God is non-temporal ("beyond time") and knows everything that will ever happen before it happens. Yet this is very contradictory to the God of the Bible that reacts to things as they happen. For example, in Genesis, God regrets creating man and therefore sends the flood. But then He regrets sending the flood! How can an entity that knows everything that will ever happen possibly “regret” anything?
Yet, it’s obvious that if God did create the universe, he must be "beyond time". I remember reading in a Bryan Greene physics book about how time progresses at different rates in different parts of the universe due to relativity, the speed of the objects in motion. He said that if we could have a view portal to other worlds throughout the universe, some would seem to be moving very fast, others very slow. The point being simply that if God created the universe, He obviously couldn’t be tied to any specific time frame. On a cosmic scale, earth’s time-frame isn’t any “better” or “worse” than other time frame. God would have to be timeless, or non-temporal, which, again, is what most modern theologians assert. And yet the God of the Bible reacts to things as they happen. To reiterate, God must be "timeless" and therefore must know everything that will ever happen and therefore would have no possible need to actually see things happen.
This happens to bring up an interesting related topic. Not only would God know everything that ever happens in this world, He would know everything that would ever happen in every possible world! The following is an imperfect analogy, but, it’s the best I can come up with. Imagine that you had perfect photographic memory, and had memorized every single frame of a movie. Every one. I could ask you what happened on the 1,000th frame of the movie, and you could sketch it out perfectly, with every hair in place.
Now imagine that you can do that with every movie ever made. Awesome, powers, eh? Now imagine that you can do that with every movie that could ever be made! Imagine that, knowing every frame of every possible movie that could ever be made anywhere in the universe from the beginning to the end of time. That would be one heck of a memory. If you could do that, you would be “omniscient” with regards to movies. God is (allegedly) omniscient, period. And therefore God would know in infinite and perfect detail of every possible universe that could ever exist.
Before I move on, I have had readers object to this, that I'm taking "omniscience" and "omnipotence" too literally. So, let me include some Bible verses. Here is Matthew 10:28-31 NIV:
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Matt 10:28-31 NIV)
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Note that it specifically states that God even knows every hair on your head. Which, of course He would, given that He is omniscient. Not only does he know every hair, but every cell in your body. Which is of course in constant change—how many cells you have changes thousands of times every second. God knows every molecule that makes up every strand of hair and every cell. And He knows this for every person alive, and every person that has ever lived or ever will live. He knows this for every plant and animal, every rock or mineral. Every planet, every star and every galaxy. And he knows this for every thing in this universe, any other universes He made, and even of every universe He could make.
Again, I realize that some readers may think I’m taking this too far. As if God is only kind-of omniscient. Actually, my position here is completely consistent with most modern theologians. Gottfried Leibniz, a philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century proposed that God actualized the best possible world because he would know of all possible worlds and, as a benevolent deity, would actualize the best one. A modern Christian apologist and theologian, Alvin Plantinga borrows from Leibniz. Again, the Bible itself says God knows everything, without limits. Period.
Now, I do understand that some theists will posit God as not being truly omniscient/omnipotent. Perhaps His power is so beyond ours it appears to us that he is omniscient and omnipotent, but that He actually does have some limits. You then run into different problems such as, where does God's limits come from? If limits exist that not even God can cross, doesn't this contradict some of the arguments that posit that the existence of God is required to set the rules and limits for everything else?
Such arguments for God having some kind of limits are invariably used ad-hoc. Such as, if a skeptic says something like, "an omnipotent entity can do ...", the theist tends to invent restrictions on what God could do in order to avoid the conclusions being drawn by the skeptic. Arguing about such a fluid definition of an entity is pointless, the alleged deity becomes a moving target that can't be addressed as the definition changes at will. Therefore, I can only make a rational discussion if I have some specific target to address. God being omniscient and omnipotent is standard Christian theology accepted by most Christian theologians and therefore I will continue on with that understanding.
Therefore, I will return back to my photographic memory analogy, where I asked the reader to imagine that they had perfect photographic memory of every frame of every movie ever made, or even could be made. If this was the case, would it matter much to you which movies actually were made vs. movies that merely could have been made? What difference could it make to you?
Further, how could you ever have any emotional reaction to any of the movies? Would you be thinking to yourself, “man, whenever I think about the frame where the Grinch sticks the tree up the chimney, man, that Grinch really pisses me off!” Emotions are reactionary, which makes them contradictory to the idea of an omniscient deity. So, if God knows every detail of every second of existence everywhere in this universe and every possible universe, how could He be motivated to actualize any of them? How could He be emotionally involved in any of them?
Here is perhaps another way to think of it. I will use another analogy, this time from the movie The Terminator. In the terminator movies, humans programmed the terminators, but, they developed self awareness and progressed beyond their initial programming. I once encountered a Christian that argued that humans are somewhat akin to the terminator characters, wherein God conceived the original human "programming" but that our free will allows us to progress beyond that which God "programmed" into us.
At least theoretically, a terminator type scenario could happen with human programmers. I’m a programmer myself. I am not able to fully understand what results my code would produce in every possible scenario. That’s why there are bugs in software, the human engineer is imperfect. Now imagine God writing a computer program. Every line of code, He would know what it would do in every possible scenario. He could never write a ‘bug’ because he would never have any error. If God puts a line of code in that will result in “kill John Conner” He will know it. And if He didn’t want that result, He wouldn’t put in that line of code.
So, now, to take this analogy to human personality, well, what’s the difference? It is much less predictable than lines of computer code, as a general rule. That is, for humans. But if there is a “line of code” in my personality that says “engage in illicit behavior in ‘X’ specific circumstance” God would know it is there – because HE PUT IT THERE! There is no way for God to make a terminator that does what He didn’t specifically program into it from the beginning.
Now I’d like to change the topic slightly, to what does the Bible say about free will? Like most subjects, the Bible is very contradictory. There are passages that seem to support the position most Christians take, which is that God created free will and wishes for everyone to use their free will to choose to be saved. But, there are other passages that are completely contradictory to this. I will refer to some passages in the Bible. First, from the Old Testament:
Again, I realize that some readers may think I’m taking this too far. As if God is only kind-of omniscient. Actually, my position here is completely consistent with most modern theologians. Gottfried Leibniz, a philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century proposed that God actualized the best possible world because he would know of all possible worlds and, as a benevolent deity, would actualize the best one. A modern Christian apologist and theologian, Alvin Plantinga borrows from Leibniz. Again, the Bible itself says God knows everything, without limits. Period.
Now, I do understand that some theists will posit God as not being truly omniscient/omnipotent. Perhaps His power is so beyond ours it appears to us that he is omniscient and omnipotent, but that He actually does have some limits. You then run into different problems such as, where does God's limits come from? If limits exist that not even God can cross, doesn't this contradict some of the arguments that posit that the existence of God is required to set the rules and limits for everything else?
Such arguments for God having some kind of limits are invariably used ad-hoc. Such as, if a skeptic says something like, "an omnipotent entity can do ...", the theist tends to invent restrictions on what God could do in order to avoid the conclusions being drawn by the skeptic. Arguing about such a fluid definition of an entity is pointless, the alleged deity becomes a moving target that can't be addressed as the definition changes at will. Therefore, I can only make a rational discussion if I have some specific target to address. God being omniscient and omnipotent is standard Christian theology accepted by most Christian theologians and therefore I will continue on with that understanding.
Therefore, I will return back to my photographic memory analogy, where I asked the reader to imagine that they had perfect photographic memory of every frame of every movie ever made, or even could be made. If this was the case, would it matter much to you which movies actually were made vs. movies that merely could have been made? What difference could it make to you?
Further, how could you ever have any emotional reaction to any of the movies? Would you be thinking to yourself, “man, whenever I think about the frame where the Grinch sticks the tree up the chimney, man, that Grinch really pisses me off!” Emotions are reactionary, which makes them contradictory to the idea of an omniscient deity. So, if God knows every detail of every second of existence everywhere in this universe and every possible universe, how could He be motivated to actualize any of them? How could He be emotionally involved in any of them?
Here is perhaps another way to think of it. I will use another analogy, this time from the movie The Terminator. In the terminator movies, humans programmed the terminators, but, they developed self awareness and progressed beyond their initial programming. I once encountered a Christian that argued that humans are somewhat akin to the terminator characters, wherein God conceived the original human "programming" but that our free will allows us to progress beyond that which God "programmed" into us.
At least theoretically, a terminator type scenario could happen with human programmers. I’m a programmer myself. I am not able to fully understand what results my code would produce in every possible scenario. That’s why there are bugs in software, the human engineer is imperfect. Now imagine God writing a computer program. Every line of code, He would know what it would do in every possible scenario. He could never write a ‘bug’ because he would never have any error. If God puts a line of code in that will result in “kill John Conner” He will know it. And if He didn’t want that result, He wouldn’t put in that line of code.
So, now, to take this analogy to human personality, well, what’s the difference? It is much less predictable than lines of computer code, as a general rule. That is, for humans. But if there is a “line of code” in my personality that says “engage in illicit behavior in ‘X’ specific circumstance” God would know it is there – because HE PUT IT THERE! There is no way for God to make a terminator that does what He didn’t specifically program into it from the beginning.
Now I’d like to change the topic slightly, to what does the Bible say about free will? Like most subjects, the Bible is very contradictory. There are passages that seem to support the position most Christians take, which is that God created free will and wishes for everyone to use their free will to choose to be saved. But, there are other passages that are completely contradictory to this. I will refer to some passages in the Bible. First, from the Old Testament:
Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isa. 6:10).
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So, here we have God specifically disallowing free will for the very reason that he does NOT want specific people to be saved!
This passage is referred to and confirmed in the New Testament:
This passage is referred to and confirmed in the New Testament:
Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:
"Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn—and I would heal them." Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him. (John 12:37-41) |
Each of the Gospels has a proclamation that the reason Jesus speaks in parables is specifically to prevent some people from understanding.
When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
" 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven! (Mark 4:10-12) |
So, we see that Jesus specifically does not want some people to be forgiven and therefore uses parables. See similar passages in Matt. 13:13-14 Luke 8:9-10
The final passage I wish to refer to is where Paul also states that God intentionally disallows free will:
The final passage I wish to refer to is where Paul also states that God intentionally disallows free will:
So you see God is kind to some just because he wants to be, and he makes some refuse to listen. (Rom. 9:18).
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So, according to Paul, God is capricious, saving some people and not others just on His whim.
Again, I am aware that there is scripture to contradict this, saying that God wants everybody to be saved. And this proves what? Well, that the Bible is contradictory, that is what it proves.
In summary, “free will” is contradictory to the concept of an omniscient deity. If there is something that is outside of the control of an omnipotent deity, then it is not omnipotent. Further even if “free will” could exist, God would know what everyone does with their free will in infinite detail and would know this whether he created you or not. Therefore, such an entity couldn’t have any motivation to “actualize” anything, there is no more information for Him to gain. He already knows EVERYTHING, and therefore can not possibly gain any new information. And, regardless of whether free will could exist or not, the Bible has many passages showing it does not.
But what about “free will” from an atheist perspective? Well, I’m afraid that I don’t think that is possible either. True, I do act as if I believe I have free will. I do have a strong illusion of free will. I am able to have this illusion because I do not know the future. But alas, it is still an illusion.
Again, I am aware that there is scripture to contradict this, saying that God wants everybody to be saved. And this proves what? Well, that the Bible is contradictory, that is what it proves.
In summary, “free will” is contradictory to the concept of an omniscient deity. If there is something that is outside of the control of an omnipotent deity, then it is not omnipotent. Further even if “free will” could exist, God would know what everyone does with their free will in infinite detail and would know this whether he created you or not. Therefore, such an entity couldn’t have any motivation to “actualize” anything, there is no more information for Him to gain. He already knows EVERYTHING, and therefore can not possibly gain any new information. And, regardless of whether free will could exist or not, the Bible has many passages showing it does not.
But what about “free will” from an atheist perspective? Well, I’m afraid that I don’t think that is possible either. True, I do act as if I believe I have free will. I do have a strong illusion of free will. I am able to have this illusion because I do not know the future. But alas, it is still an illusion.