And now time for…
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Very cool!!
Martinis!
Maybe that’s what caused some to be unable to follow my logic!
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This is just my opinion, but I have found that most people who hold to the free will justification also hold to some form of hopeful Universalism. I believe it comes from the C.S. Lewis line of referring to Hell as locked on the inside. But if one is free to choose Hell, why would they not also be free to leave hell? It seems like it makes most sense that one is inclined to reject evil when its ugliness becomes most apparent, and choose the good when they come in contact with its fullness. In theology, I have heard of what is called Gods permissive will.
I have this story about how I came to accept both universal Salvation and mystery. When I first became a Universalist, I found the belief made more sense, and something about Eternal Damnation never made sense. I read over all the justifications for Eternal Damnation, and it all came down to A) God is a punitive fascist, B) God is too permissive, and would let the devil and sin win or C) Dualism where good and evil are equal like in Manicheanism. So when I read about Universal Salvation, Christianity in every way made sense, and the old testament I now saw as a story of Gods fidelity rather than some petty tyrants punishment. So I came to see that all teachings had to make sense, and should not be accepted if they were nonsense, no matter if church authorities or a literal reading of the bible said so. But I came to believe that the intellect could know everything, and was just a matter of wanting to learn particular aspects of theology or the bible. Three years later, I got into an interest in deep subjects, such as Gods goodness, the mechanics of the cross, Gods nature and Eternity. After the question of Eternity, I got major aperiophobia. No answers satisfied me, and I thought my only options were to believe life is temporary after a long time, or life just keeps going on. But I could not grasp at Timelessness, and the more I tried to understand it, the more confused I got. I tried watching video’s on science like quantum mechanics and relativity, but could not understand the math. I started to believe that existence was a cycle with no beginning or ending, like the eternal return, where everything happened an infinite number of times before, and will happen infinitely afterwards. Sort of like a movie. This was not as frightening, but seemed highly nihilistic. No ultimate truth. It was actually because I listened to some self help from the teacher Eckhart Tolle, and he mentioned being as indefineable. A day after Easter, it clicked with me on the existence of the supra-rational. I could see beyond reason without having to sink into the sub-rational.
I’ve struggled with the question of LFW, as many of us have. Some problems I have with it are:
- If we claim LFW is true, then I think we have to also accept that the will was not affected by the Fall - in whatever sense you think of the Fall of man - and somehow floats above the rest of our personhood, untouched and free. I think that our entire nature was corrupted - not entirely corrupted, not at all - but to some extent, and that the Will was corrupted also. Some folks that claim LFW is true seem to give the idea that it is not corrupted, that at any time, we can choose the good freely.
I can’t quite understand that. If all Adam did was transgress, leaving his moral faculties untouched, then a simple forgiveness would have been the answer; but what we see is the corruption of the human race, each person. It is not enough to be forgiven; a change of mind/will/direction is also needed. - People brought up in loving and moral homes generally make better moral choices. Why? Because environment, nature/nurture, forms their wills. That being the case, I understand that the will is NOT free but must be formed. It needs influences, which support the idea that the will is not some free-floating faculty untouched by circumstances or moral education.
- Conversely, longitudinal studies over many years draw a very simple lesson: as the twig is bent, so grows the tree. That would NOT be the case if the LFW was riding above circumstance and training.
- The scripture is clear that we can be deceived; part of that deception is to make us think we are doing something ‘good’. Which means that our minds, being deceived, lead our wills into sin. So again, it is not the will that leads the parade.
So I don’t think the Will is a separate faculty of the person; it is shaped like the rest of the personality, by influences often not of its own choosing. As a result of the Fall, the whole person now lacks much of the Good we were created with, and the will is captive to that fall just as the rest of our personhood.
I could go on but those are some points that convinceme LFW is not possible. $.02
BTW I think Talbott is wrong about the LFW thing.
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You believe that, but unfortunately, you can never KNOW that.
Libertarian Free Will is entirely possible. The fact that many circumstances, environment, etc. influence our free wills in no way disproves their existence.
I think it does disprove it, Don. I think you are maintaining that LFW means our wills are untouched, undamaged by the Fall, not deceived. I think it is apparent that they are all of those things. If the Fall did not affect our wills, what did it affect? Our nature? Of course, but the will is PART of our nature, not an independent faculty.
Suppose a man holds a gun to your head and demands your money. Your will is not to give him your money. But you do give it to him to preserve your life. Has the man’s threat changed your will. Do you suddenly want to give the man your money? No. Your will hasn’t changed. Your will is still to keep your money. But your will to save your life is deeper. So that takes precedence over your will to keep your money.
That may not be an exercise in free will. It all depends on the definition of free will one appeals to. Philosopher/Theologian William Craig and others claim the critical factor in free will is not being caused to do something by causes other than oneself. Thus, if someone forces your choice at gunpoint, that would be a textbook example of not choosing freely, by this view of free will.
This view contrasts with the view based on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, which states that all that is required for free will is the possibility that one could have chosen other than what one chose.
Giving a name to ‘something’ does not mean that it is real; we have a name for something - ‘free will’ - but it is an assumption only; we use that name to explain behaviors that we feel can only be explained using that name.
But there are better explanations that an assumed ‘free will’. I laid out some of them above.
As a philosophical speculation, fine - we can play that game. But it is a word game only imo.
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I’m wondering if the FWD is basically a debate over anthropology.
LFW adherents SEEM to think that though man is a fallen being, his ‘will’ somehow avoided that corruption, and is whole and lording over the rest of the man. His childhood, no matter how messed up, his education no matter how worthless it was, the violent and immoral friends he fell in with while his dad was drunk and mom was gone - those things in the end don’t matter, because the will is somehow ‘above’ all that.
I think a more reasonable and realistic picture is to think of our life as a ‘weave’: many many threads of different colors meshing, interlocked, each influencing the other, and together making a whole cloth.
Pull one thread, and the others warp around it and start coming undone.
Each thread is an experience, a thought, a mood, a life trend, a habit, a choice. Love, hatred, violence, peaceful happiness - all woven together and making a pattern.
What we call ‘the will’ is not one thing - no part of our personality is one thing - that lords it over the other threads. Our freedom of choice, to the limit we even have it, is I think more of an emergent property, out of the entire holistic pattern.
In other words, it is not a simple free choice.
Or the idea of a prism comes to mind. Light enters one side and an array of colors emerges on the other side. If the prism is a man, and a choice is given him, if we could see what goes into the choice we would see an array of millions of colors. No one of them is paramount, some are even invisible but real. All elements in the choice that is made.
No matter your thoughts on Freud, one thing about him does stand out - he had great insight into fallen human nature. He and countless others since him (and many insightful people throughout history) dealt with people that had problems, acting-out, psychosis, breakdowns etc. that no simple thing such as ‘free will’ could explain. They made bad choices, yes - but the genius of the unconscious, of the simple ‘as the twig is bent, so grows the tree’, the idea that like an iceberg, we may be only aware of 10% WHY we do something and not the other, the remaining 90% remaining out of view but exerting a huge measure of influence, under the radar - those ideas and many more seem to make clear that our choices are NOT clear at all.
What measure of responsibility we have is a big question. But the answer cannot simply be: you are free to choose. IMO.
Understanding ourselves, understanding that a lot of who we are and the choices we’ve made WAS NOT OUR FAULT, makes us wiser, more responsible, more accommodating of the faults of others.
I’ve read these in the past:
June Singer, “The Boundaries of the Soul”
Karen Horney, “Neurosis and Human Growth”
Charles Taylor, "Sources of the Self’
Mic Hunter, “Abused Boys, the Neglected Victims of Abuse”
Carl Jung, various
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Dave, this is full of insight, and I think close to Tom Talbott’s approach to the nature of human ‘freedom.’ He rejects determinism, but knows full well that our (non-libertarian) choices and motives are shaped by our influences and the finiteness with which we are born.
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So as always, IMO… we have freewill but within limits, be they a combination of past and present.
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I guess I’ll have to re-read Talbott on this issue. I remember getting some push-back from him on this very subject when he was updating his book. Thanks.
Yes, Dave, more than in his book, I believe Talbott has several papers on his website that touch on will, determinism, and what he sees as the nature of our creation and development.
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No one can force your choice at gunpoint. With the free will which you possess, you may choose not to give him your money, even if that choice could result in your death. The gun pointed at your head influences your choice, but does not cause it.
Hitting the top of a post with a mallet causes the post to go into the ground. A human being is not a brainless post. Again, there are many influences upon a person, but none of these cause his acts.
Don, I"m trying to understand. Do you mean that NOTHING causes a person’s acts? Do you think the brain is unaffected by experience, fear, love, threats etc? (I’m sure you don’t think that, of course).
My idea is that a Person makes a decision - but what makes the Person? Is there part of Personhood that stands aloof, or is the total person - the entire weave - responsible for acts? Maybe the will is not one separate faculty, but is made up of a multitude of threads, and the choosing Person is a result of all he/she has chosen in the past, or been changed by.
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Curious as well. If someone someone smashes your finger, can you choose to not be in pain? Or choose to not say ouch?
I think at some point an influence can be powerful enough to become a cause, it seems to me to be a matter of degree.