Every Libertarian Freewill a Random Decision Generator?

Michael · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

This was posted on another Forum, and I was wondering how many of you here (who believe in LFW) would agree with it?

The part I have a problem with is “He wouldn’t need to know the mechanism. There is no mechanism. It’s just his supernatural will. And if he wills it to be random it is random.”

Any thoughts?

Michael · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

These are my currant thoughts (and I posted this reply on that forum.)

And neither He or the secondary cause (i.e. the little black box) would create the particles, or determine their behavior–they’d just come into existence and start doing things all on their own because God willed it?

Isn’t saying that these particles could come into existence on their own (i.e. just appear out of the little black box), and do things on their own (i.e. behave indeterministically), and (at the same time) saying that this could be so because God wills it a contradiction in terms?

Aren’t you saying both that the mechanism of their existence and behavior is God’s will, and that there is no mechanism?

If I forget about there being no table, and no laws of gravity, or friction, or motion without God, I can imagine Him blindfolding Himself and letting the dice roll, but once I remember that He’s supposed to be the source of all, I tend to come to the conclusion that the dice would do nothing unless He willed them to.

So I ask myself how God’s will (or secondary deterministic causes that exist only because of God’s will) could cause the dice to move, and come to rest in a certain position, without God being fully aware of how they would move and where they would come to rest?

Chrisguy90 · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

First let me say - what a breath of fresh air to read your posts Michael! I’ve read through a few of your posts here on the philosophy forum and find your respect for reason and distaste of ambiguity similar to my own. Appeals to authority or anything other than reason, for that matter, are a waste of time in my opinion, and if people think they are getting around that by giving other reasons that “have nothing to do with reason” or that go above it or beyond it or what have you, they are mistaken. Such answers are reasons all the same. Aristotle said something like, we either choose to philosophize or choose not to, but in so choosing we philosophize all the same.

But now to your post. The issues you bring up are very interesting to me and I’ve thought about them most of my life. To be up front, I don’t believe in libertarian free will. I find the concept absurd, because I cannot imagine a will making a choice undirected and uninformed by a mind. And what the mind chooses - i.e. its knowledge and valuation of goods - is not something that is chosen. The greatest valuation made by the mind determines the action. We do things, in other words, because our strongest desires prompt us to. And even if we refrain from a strong desire, it is only because another has taken its place, i.e. the desire NOT to do the previously desired action. How the mind works is, in my opinion, mechanical and calculating. Deductive. There’s no reason to use negative language here. It’s not “cold” or “cruel.” I’m making no value statement here, merely describing how it works. I cannot imagine, as you say so well, a motiveless action.

You bring up an interesting point - how could God then choose to actualize two sets of affairs if he doesn’t deem one more valuable than the other? I don’t think he could choose one. Here are some of my initial thoughts (I definitely want to discuss these issues more, just not around a computer at the moment; I will be tonight however.)

Maybe all possible scenarios are actualized. Maybe there are an infinite number of universes which actualize everything that possibly could be actualized?

Maybe there is a hidden harmony inaccessible to us, something that pleases God to behold, some higher rule that governs his decision making? Aquinas and the scholastics saw everything in terms of spheres or orders. Maybe that idea can be applied on a cosmic and microcosmic scale for God - an intrinsic value system he has as part of his nature that judges certain things to r higher goods? Or maybe he beholds some universal symphony when planet x is this big, planet y is that color, and planet z spins such and such way?

Just some initial thoughts.

Paidion · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

Michael, libertarian free will has no relation to randomness. An act arising from free will is not random; it is chosen.

Those who hold to determinism do not allow the existence free will. They insist that an act must be either predetermined or random. In effect, they deny the existence of free will agents. In other words, they denies the existence of PERSONS!

This is what puzzles me so much. Those who hold to determinism (both “soft” and “hard” determinism) are themselves free will agents, and yet they deny the existence of free will agents.

Michael · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

But (from a Christian POV) wouldn’t that have The Son incarnating and suffering as a man in an infinite number of universes?

I guess it would also mean an infinite number of resurrections and ascensions, but I have a real hard time wrapping my mind around this.

Do an infinite number of Easter Sundays make up for an infinite number of crucifixions?

Does an infinite amount of happiness outweigh an infinite amount of suffering?

I can’t really get my mind around that either, but please say more.

Michael · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

But chosen for a reason right?

If you chose chocolate, it’s because you like chocolate, isn’t it?

And if you choose something else, isn’t it because you prefer something else (or maybe because there’s only one chocolate bar, and you know your grandson likes chocolate, or even because you’re diabetic, and you don’t want to go into a coma)?

The point is that (even if you’re unaware of it), isn’t there a reason for any choice you make?

Could you wake up one morning and say “I’m diabetic, I hate chocolate, I don’t want to die and I don’t like being sick, but I think I’ll choose to have a few chocolate bars for breakfast and have a diabetic coma today”?

Would you be any more “a person” if you could do that?

Chrisguy90 · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

I don’t subscribe to the idea that the crucifixion was necessary in terms of forgiving mankind (though it may have been necessary in that, knowing God’s nature, he could not have done anything BUT voluntarily came into the creation he made to suffer with that creation.) Either way, God would still prefer to enter his creation and be crucified than not do so (or else he would not have done so), so in a way it is not difficult for me to imagine him doing so.

How do we know God has not entered the creation in all sorts of other ways than becoming a human?

I’m not convinced that God could not have a reason for NOT making an infinite number of universes. I’m also not sure it is possible to have two exactly equal alternative choices. So long as there are differences in the items, there would be different preferences and placements in the universe. I’m not entirely sure it is possible to have two of the “exact” same things.

As to the scholastic notion, I’m only saying that maybe there are all sorts of values God puts on things that we can’t even see. Do you think we could understand or appreciate one of Beethoven’s symphonies as much as a pianist? What about compared to Beethoven himself? There are probably all sorts of levels of harmony to God’s creation we cannot even see.

Paidion · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

Sure — chosen for a reason. Thus, your choice is not RANDOM, for RANDOM implies no reason.

But neither does a reason imply cause. The fact that you had a reason for your choice in no way indicates that your choice was not freely made. You, yourself, are the cause of your action.

No matter how much you like chocolate, you could have chosen not to eat it. My wife is a great chocolate lover. But she often choose not to eat it. “Oh, then there must have been a reason for her choosing not to eat it,” you say. Yes, there was — the reason being that she wants to maintain good health. However, in spite of that, she could have chosen to have the chocolate on those occasions. “Oh, but there must have been a reason for her choosing to eat the chocolate on those occasions!” Yes, there was. She had a strong desire for chocolate on those occasions, but she could have resisted the impulse. “Oh, but if she had resisted the impulse, then there must have been a reason for that,” … and so on, ad infinitum. But it doesn’t matter whether or not she had a reason on each and every one of those occasions. The point is that she could have chosen otherwise on each and every one of those occasions. Thus she has libertarian free will!

Michael · March 9, 2018, 2:26am

Do you understand what Leibniz said here?

In consequence of this, the case also of Buridan’s ass between two meadows, impelled equally towards both of them, is a fiction that cannot occur in the universe…For the universe cannot be halved by a plane drawn through the middle of the ass, which is cut vertically through its length, so that all is equal and alike on both sides…Neither the parts of the universe nor the viscera of the animal are alike nor are they evenly placed on both sides of this vertical plane. There will therefore always be many things in the ass and outside the ass, although they be not apparent to us, which will determine him to go on one side rather than the other. And although man is free, and the ass is not, nevertheless for the same reason it must be true that in man likewise the case of a perfect equipoise between two courses is impossible.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason

Can you explain it to me?

Can you relate it to some of the questions I’ve asked about choices it would appear that God would have had to make (like shall I set earth spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise)?

Michael · March 9, 2018, 2:27am

For the benefit of anyone who may have been effected by some of my posts on topics like this, I feel I should share some helpful feedback I’ve gotten from Prof. Talbott, and a Philosopher/Theologian, Thomist (Anglican) Priest with universalist leanings (who’ve Ive learned to respect, and who I’'ve learned chooses his words very carefully when discussing complicated philosophical issues–which is why I’ll underline a couple of words and phrases that I found interesting after reading Prof. Talbott’s comments, and Aaron’s thoughts.)

In part, Prof. Talbott directed me to this.

…both moral freedom and moral responsibility probably come in degrees…If free will should be incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, as more than a few have argued it is,then the concept of free will would indeed be incoherent. But I think there is a way out of the quagmire, a way to resolve the logical tension between indeterminism and the requirement for rationality. It requires, first, that we think of freedom as a matter of degree, and second, that we come to appreciate the following all-important point: some of the very conditions essential to our emergence as free moral agents are themselves obstacles to full freedom and moral responsibility, obstacles that can be gradually overcome only after we have emerged as embryonic moral agents and have begun to interact with the world on our own, so to speak. As an illustration, consider simple ignorance. If we were created with a full and complete knowledge of God, that knowledge would not be a personal discovery at all. It would not be acquired through a complex learning process in which we formulate hypotheses, test them in our own experience, and then learn for ourselves over time why union with God is bliss and separation from him an objective horror; nor would it require a complex process in which we choose freely, experience the consequences of our choices, and then learn from these consequences why love and forgiveness are likewise better than selfishness and estrangement. Herein lies the truth, I believe, behind the free-will theist’s contention that our freedom in relation to God requires that we start out in a context where God remains hidden from us, at least for a season. But consider also how relative degrees of ignorance can severely restrict our freedom and, in that sense, can become an obstacle to a fully realized freedom. If I am ignorant of the fact that someone has laced the local water supply with LSD, then I have not freely chosen to ingest the LSD, however freely I may have chosen to drink the water. And similarly for the free-will theist’s understanding of divine hiddenness: insofar as the ambiguities, the ignorance, and the misperceptions in a given set of circumstances conceal God from us, or at least make unbelief a reasonable option, they also make committing ourselves to God in these circumstances more like a blind leap in the dark than a free choice for which we are morally responsible. So if anything, God’s hiddenness can render us less rather than more responsible for our failure to love the one whose true nature and very existence remain hidden from us. Now, even as ignorance is both a condition of and an obstacle to our freedom in relation to God, so also is indeterminism. As free moral agents, assuming we are such, we are not mere extensions of the physical universe, nor are our free actions the product of sufficient causes that lie either in the distant past before we were born or in eternity itself. That is the correct libertarian insight, and it seems to me utterly unlikely that any of our present actions are so determined, however determined some of them might be by more immediate beliefs and desires. For we all emerge and start making choices in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and misperception, where indeterminism could easily play a huge role in the choices (or quasi choices) we make, in providing the necessary break from the past, and in allowing us to emerge as independent agents who interact with our environment, learn from experience, and make discoveries on our own. In a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and illusion, moreover, people inevitably miss the mark, the theological name for which is sin, and fall into error; nor is it surprising that in such a context people will sometimes cling to their illusions or suffer from self-imposed delusions of various kinds. But the self-imposed delusions that arise in such a context no more render someone competent to choose an eternal destiny than the self-imposed delusions of an eight-year-old render the child competent to choose a future So the trick is to distinguish between the role that indeterminism plays in our emergence as free moral agents and the role it continues to play after we have become sufficiently rational to learn moral lessons from the consequences of our undetermined choices. Put it this way: it is essential to our moral freedom that we begin making moral choices in a context where those choices are not fully determined by sufficient causes; for, if they were so determined, they would most likely be determined by conditions external to the emerging agent. But it is also essential to our moral freedom that we should be rational enough to learn from our mistakes. So once we begin learning some relevant moral lessons—from our bad choices, in particular—some of our freest choices may be those voluntary choices where, given our own rational judgment concerning the best course of action, the alternative is no longer even psychologically possible.

willamette.edu/~ttalbott/Universalism.pdf

Now, my Priest friend (who’s comments are in blue, and who will remain anonymous.)

Major premise: an indifference of equipoise among plural alternatives would make choosing itself impossible.

Since this premise is false, the conclusion is false.

Indeed, this premise is easily shown to be false by consideration of the example you cited in earlier correspondence: the starving man equidistant from indistinguishable meals. The following statement, unlike the above premise, is self evident common-sense and logically inescapable: “If a starving man is faced with equidistant, indistinguishable meals, since it does not matter to his health or happiness which one he chooses, but not choosing one of them would possibly kill him, the only rational action is to freely choose one of them without requiring a justification based on meal-difference, since there is none. (And he will in fact do this, unless insane or otherwise prevented form acting thus.)” Since this proposition is obviously true and contradicts your major premise, the major premise can be ignored.

The only way around this would be if one could demonstrate that freely choosing between indifferently valued alternatives is intrinsically impossible. But, instead of this, you merely ask (below) how God could choose freely between indifferent goods, after rejecting a choosing-mechanism based on temporality (the first thing he thinks of). However, the very fact that you try to understand what the basis for such a free choice is, how the mechanism works of coming to a decision, shows that you have snuck in determinism and the PSR of Leibniz through the back door. In other words, you have assumed the very thing in dispute, a deterministic PSR, in order to argue against the contrary position. This is the classic logical error of begging the question. So, your question is internally inconsistent, in that you are effectively asking how God can choose with pure freedom in any situation while acting deterministically.

Part of the inescapable logic of accepting the reality of Divine free will is that choices between alternatives perfectly indifferent will be perfectly free and therefore will have no prior basis at all, relying on no mathematical mechanism of comparison whatsoever. That’s what freedom means in this context. To then ask, “But how does God (or an angel or man in a similar circumstance) do it?”, is to show that one is still thinking in terms of mechanism. Free will is an irreducible power, not a machine with parts or set process, and this is supremely so in the case of God, who is Simple, not composed.

Perhaps the worst objection to this position is to say “But this would make God’s decisions arbitrary.” In fact, paying attention to what is being said should lead one to realise that God’s decisions, given his complete freedom to choose between alternative goods, are anything but arbitrary insofar as they are motivated by love and directed towards beauty and truth in every possible case, but are purely libertarian in choosing between states of affairs that are good.

Minor premise: *It’s no more in harmony with the necessary attributes of God’s nature (like love, justice, or mercy), and no more conducive to man’s final happiness, for the sun to rise in the east than it would be for the sun to rise in the west.

Conclusion: a personal God (whose free will choices are determined only by His own nature) would therefore have no reason to choose an eastern sunrise over a western sunrise (but in causing the earth to rotate on it’s axis in one direction or the other, He would be choosing an eastern or western sunrise.) So He would be faced with “an indifference of equipoise among plural alternatives” that would “make choosing itself impossible”?

Where is the flaw in this logic (particularly if you factor in God being timeless, and unable to just pick first thing that comes to His mind, because He sees all options at once)?

How could there be a sufficient reason for the sun to rise in the east, and how could God have chosen this direction without a sufficient reason?

I have already repeatedly explained why the PSR of Leibniz is false. More to the point it has no evidence for it, and is not tautological (true by definition), therefore it is worthless as a basis for any argument at all.

I mentioned something an atheist said on another forum, but he was being sarcastic.

Could God really say “let there be a little black box, and let things uncreated and unstained by me just pop out of it, at times undecided by me, and do things uncaused by me”?

Wouldn’t that be the kind of thing C.S. Lewis said was impossible, even for God?

Yes, because it is nonsense as stated. Once God has created the said box and its potentialities, then all the particles in it that come to be and their interactions are dependent on him for existence and action…Also, it may well be that, taking a block-universe approach, as is common in Physics and comes naturally to classical theism, God chooses/determines the whole-state-reduction of the physical system in conformity with the QM laws he has “written”, which would mean that the system was indeterminate from within Nature but still determined in all material details by God (or by God and other free wills he creates). Nothing in Physics would be affected by such a transcendent determination.

(Personal Correspondence.)

I’ve found both of these responses (and Aaron’s pm, which seems to tie in with the views expressed here, and which I reproduce below) thoughtful, helpful, and well intentioned (and it’s my hope, that if I’ve undermined anyone’s faith here, they may find them helpful too.)

While I still consider determinism in some form far superior to its alternative (as have many Christian Universalists, such as the highly influential Hosea Ballou, Sylvanus Cobb, and A.E. Knoch), it’s certainly not without its difficulties.

Having said that, here’s my attempt at answering your question regarding God and LFW: I believe God necessarily transcends the circumstances that shape and define the choices of all finite persons he brings into existence. While every choice created beings make is elicited and influenced by circumstances and factors outside of our control (many of which we are completely unaware), I don’t see this as being true of God. It seems to me that the only constraint on God’s choices is his nature (which scripture seems to teach is supremely benevolent). Thus, if there is such a thing as libertarian freedom, then I’m inclined to believe that God is the only being who possesses it. And even then, the exercise of his LFW - whatever the choices may be - would be consistent with his nature (and thus consistent with the best interests/final happiness of any intelligent beings he chooses to bring into existence). IOW, God’s LFW would have certain “boundaries,” being constrained by his benevolent nature.

(Aaron, PM.)