The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Can God play dice?

Theology Philosophical
#1

Einstein once said that God doesn’t play dice with the universe, and despite the inferences some people might be tempted to draw from quantum physics, I think the following observation by C.S. Lewis is still valid.

He said “Those who like myself have had a philosophical rather than a scientific education find it almost impossible to believe that the (new) scientists (in the field of quantum mechanics) really mean what they seem to be saying. I cannot help thinking they mean no more than that the movements of individual units (sub-atomic particles) are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless.”
(Miracles, page 20, parenthesis mine.)

When physicists complain about the behaviors of sub-atomic particles being random, I think what they really mean is that they’re unpredictable (and appear random.)

I don’t think it’s possible to know whether their behaving in accordance with some undiscovered laws, or whether their unpredictable actions are directly caused by God.

The question I’m interested in here is whether it’s even possible for God to play dice with the Universe?

As I understand it, introducing true randomness into a computer program is almost impossible.

When programers want to introduce something like randomness into a system, they do so in one of two ways.

They either write programs that create causal chains so long and complicated that the results are humanly unpredictable, or they tape into some variable in the outside world (like street noise, air temperature, or atomic decay.)

I don’t see how God would have any such options.

It would seem as logically impossible for Him to create a causal chain of events so complicated that He couldn’t foresee the individual outcomes as it would for Him to create a stone too heavy for Him to lift, and if He’s the ground of all being, there’s no higher reality or outside world for Him to tap into.

So could God (if He wanted to) introduce any true randomness into the universe?

If anyone can see any way an omniscient, omnipotent, atemporal God could introduce true randomness into this system (the universe) please share your thoughts here.

Thank you.

Is compatibilism campatible with the existence of God?
Libertarian Freewill and the Existence of God
#2

From another forum.

Thank you.

And if Open Theism is false, and compatibilism is true (such that our choices are effects produced by efficient causes, and “libertarian freewill” is meaningless), would it not follow that even God would have to have some reason for the choices He makes?

Would it not follow that nothing in the universe He created/creates is random or meaningless?

Would there have to be some reason He willed some Phoenician (who’s name has been lost to history) to start the first written alphabet with a symbol representing the “aay” or “ahh” sound, willed the Hebrews and Greeks to copy this alphabet, and apparently willed every known human alphabet (a word derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet) to begin with this same phoneme?

Couldn’t all alphabets have begun with the “ee,” or “oh,” or “bee” sound?

Wouldn’t any phoneme serve the same purpose?

If some such things are random, or arbitrary (or anything is), would that mean that God must have libertarian freewill, and that (however logically incoherent the concept might seem to you and me) it isn’t meaningless?

Would it than follow that humans really do have libertarian freewill?

But what does this whole line of thought (which seems perfectly reasonable to me) do to the cosmological argument, the principle of sufficient reason, and other arguments we use in support of God’s existence?

Something tells us there must be a reason for things, but if some things are just random, or arbitrary, is that just a fallacy?

I assume all of you are more adept at philosophy than I am–please help me out here.

#3

I realize that this is probably going to seem like an off-topic posting at first, but reading what you’ve written so far, I get the impression that you’re having a difficult time differentiating between things having “reason(s)” and things having “purpose(s)”.

For instance, in your post, you ask about whether or not there’s some reason why “some Phoenician (who’s name has been lost to history)” started the first written alphabet with a symbol representing the “aay” or “ahh” sound, as opposed to some other phoneme. You then ask, “Wouldn’t any phoneme serve the same purpose?”

No doubt there was at least a reason, probably a few reasons, why that particular Phoenician started the alphabet the way that they did. Whether or not those reasons were purposeful is an entirely different thing, though.

It is possible for something to have a reason for it’s being without also being purposeful. Perhaps the best example of this would be sin, particularly when viewed from God’s perspective (which, in this instance, I think is possible).

God created a universe without sin. If we say that it was God’s purpose that sin should taint and spoil creation, it strikes me that we’re on a very slippery slope to God sanctioning evil and becoming the author of sin. I do not believe that God ever purposed for sin to be a part of the creation experience; nevertheless, I believe it is also safe to say that God has reasons for allowing sin to occur. Indeed, C.S. Lewis wrote about this in “The Problem of Pain”, if I recall correctly.

Something to consider. I hope it will be helpful.

#4

Thank you.

I will consider it (and perhaps ask more later.)

#5

But you said this on another thread.

Doesn’t that argue against the concept of libertarian freewill?

I mean if an individual ceases to be a rational agent in regards to totally irrational decisions (such as choosing a stick over a carrot, a sharp stick in the eye over something pleasurable, or evil and suffering over good and happiness), what is libertarian freewill (and what does it really explain)?

#6

P.S. Here’s something someone said on another forum.

(I’m not sure it makes any sense, but I’d like to know if you think it does?)

#7

Michael,

You bring up some great points. After reading through a majority of your posts here in the past few days on the philosophy forums, I want to share my thoughts on the matter.

I don’t think God could “play dice.” I agree with Lewis, that I don’t think it’s possible for things to “pop into” existence without causes. The question really boils down to where you stand on the nature of the law of cause and effect. Some don’t subscribe to it, by the way, and think it is just a principle of our thought which we impose onto reality. We’ve learned it through experience and the evolution of the race, but it’s not really how reality “works” at the quantum level. We’ve evolved and cause and effect thinking has served its pragmatic purpose on the larger scale. In fact, some say that ultimate reality, that is, at the quantum level, is beyond our comprehension. In a weird way, we would be accurate in defining it as “absurd.” We can’t understand it, but that’s how it works. Reality doesn’t have to ask our permission to be what it is; and if our brains can’t understand what “coming into existence out of nothing for no reason” means, if we can’t make sense of certain phenomena, the worse for us.

But…if that’s the case, we would have no way to prove it. What reasons could you give, for instance, to prove that reality is not reasonable? What experiment of reality would prove to you that the very reality that you are experimenting with is nonsensical? That would be, as Lewis often said, like one sawing off the branch he was sitting on. If reality is non sensical, you can’t use it to bolster your argument.

And then also if that’s the case, we really have no way of saying God does or doesn’t exist. If we can say reality is absurd and yet extant, there’s no more filter on what is and isn’t, what can or cannot be. My own view is classicist - effects have causes, things can’t come from nothing (even a “nothing state” which gave rise to something would still be something, by the way, because “it” would have the characteristic of “being a state in which something comes into being”), etc. For the record, I think the law of cause and effect and non contradiction are intrinsic properties in reality that we intuit intellectually. In other words, reality is what “teaches us reason,” which is an unseen principle permeating all existence.

Regarding free will, I don’t believe it exists. I also think the term “responsibility” is loosely used. If God exists, and if he truly is the most good being imaginable, all pain would have to serve remedial ends. George MacDonald said somewhere that he thought the idea of retribution was entirely human, and didn’t exist in the mind of God. I agree with him. Once all this settles in, things become a lot simpler. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that every sentient being acts of selfish motives (to please his desires) – even God. But, again if there is a God, there would be nothing wrong with this, because all beings would actually find the most fulfillment by trying to get what they want, once they learn what it really is that makes them happy. Enter “pain.” God’s teacher, as it were. The problem is demonstrating how pain and suffering are necessary in God’s plan, if there is no such thing as libertarian free will. Why did he not just design beings who naturally respond to pleasant feelings instead of painful ones? Again, why is pain necessary? Before I share my thoughts on this question, I’d like to hear yours and others.

#8

Michael,

You bring up some great points. After reading through a majority of your posts here in the past few days on the philosophy forums, I want to share my thoughts on the matter.

I don’t think God could “play dice.” I agree with Lewis, that I don’t think it’s possible for things to “pop into” existence without causes. The question really boils down to where you stand on the nature of the law of cause and effect. Some don’t subscribe to it, by the way, and think it is just a principle of our thought which we impose onto reality. We’ve learned it through experience and the evolution of the race, but it’s not really how reality “works” at the quantum level. We’ve evolved and cause and effect thinking has served its pragmatic purpose on the larger scale. In fact, some say that ultimate reality, that is, at the quantum level, is beyond our comprehension. In a weird way, we would be accurate in defining it as “absurd.” We can’t understand it, but that’s how it works. Reality doesn’t have to ask our permission to be what it is; and if our brains can’t understand what “coming into existence out of nothing for no reason” means, if we can’t make sense of certain phenomena, the worse for us.

But…if that’s the case, we would have no way to prove it. What reasons could you give, for instance, to prove that reality is not reasonable? What experiment of reality would prove to you that the very reality that you are experimenting with is nonsensical? That would be, as Lewis often said, like one sawing off the branch he was sitting on. If reality is non sensical, you can’t use it to bolster your argument.

And then also if that’s the case, we really have no way of saying God does or doesn’t exist. If we can say reality is absurd and yet extant, there’s no more filter on what is and isn’t, what can or cannot be. My own view is classicist - effects have causes, things can’t come from nothing (even a “nothing state” which gave rise to something would still be something, by the way, because “it” would have the characteristic of “being a state in which something comes into being”), etc. For the record, I think the law of cause and effect and non contradiction are intrinsic properties in reality that we intuit intellectually. In other words, reality is what “teaches us reason,” which is an unseen principle permeating all existence.

Regarding free will, I don’t believe it exists. I also think the term “responsibility” is loosely used. If God exists, and if he truly is the most good being imaginable, all pain would have to serve remedial ends. George MacDonald said somewhere that he thought the idea of retribution was entirely human and didn’t exist in the mind of God. I agree with him. Once all this settles in, things become a lot simpler. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that every sentient being acts from selfish motives (to please his desires) – even God. But, again if there is a God, there would be nothing wrong with this, because all beings would actually find the most fulfillment by trying to get what they want, once they learn what it really is that makes them happy. Enter “pain.” God’s teacher, as it were. The problem is demonstrating how pain and suffering are necessary in God’s plan, if there is no such thing as libertarian free will. Why did he not just design beings who naturally respond to pleasant feelings instead of painful ones? Again, why is pain necessary? Before I share my thoughts on this question, I’d like to hear yours and others.