Self-consciousness and the necessity of temporary autonomy

[Chrisguy90]

I think that in order for us to be self-conscious, we must experience a separation and distance from God. This means, I think, that we must have free will in order to know ourselves as singular, independent beings from God and others. Self-consciousness seems to me to require the experience of personal agency. That is, I must be aware that I am the cause of my own acts. To truly be a cause of my own acts, I must possess freedom or autonomy, at least for a time. I think the traditional free will defenses mostly fail because they give the incorrect reason regarding WHY God gave us this freedom. I also think that the definition of free will which follows from the traditional defense is problematic.

Most defenders of the FWD say that free will was given to creatures because it is only through it that good acts are possible. But here we must ask what definition of freedom is being used. If we mean “the ability to do otherwise” then that would entail that God cannot do good - for he does not have this kind of free will. Neither can it mean “the ability to sin,” for then God could do acts of goodness.

The only definition of free will that can be coherently applied to both creatures and God without equivocating the term is “to be the cause of one’s acts.” To possess autonomy or free will it need not be the case that one can “do otherwise.” Now, some will say that it is only by being the cause of one’s acts that an act can have value or be good, and that is why God gave us free will. But I think this is contradicted all the time by personal experience. A mother does not libertarianly choose to love her child, nor does a lover choose to love his beloved, nor a dog his master. These are simply emotions that “happen to” us. We are not their “free” cause. But that doesn’t make such acts less good. I do not think it possible to be “oneself” the cause of a generating love towards another. Also, this would imply that unless one was able to freely, of ones self as a cause, constantly love God in heaven, one’s act would not be good. But I do not think either those in heaven are anything less than confirmed in their act of will. They do not continually make the free choice from their own selves.

So I think it follows to say that compatibilistic freedom is not something which takes away or destroys from the goodness of an act. I think the saved in heaven will be compatibilistically free - that is, they will be “made” from a source outside themselves to love perfectly. I also think that compatibilistic freedom is the best way to account for many themes in Scripture - particularly the strong passages which portray God using irresistible grace to convert people (like Paul.) Compatibilistic freedom is certainly more consistent with my personal experiences as well. Most times when I’ve “conquered” temptations it is not because I have sent them away perfectly with my own will. Rather it seems they just have no power over me at the moment or anymore. It seems very much that they are “taken” from me as live options. Further, many of our beliefs are not things we “choose” nor have any power in choosing, particularly regarding our belief in God and Jesus. We just simply “see” them or “find ourselves believing them.” But surely we would say such acts of faith are good.

So if God could have made his creatures compatibilistically free and not detracted from the good that they did, why did he not?

This is where I think the traditional free will defense needs to be tweaked. Here is my suggestion: I think it’s because the gift of free will doesn’t have anything to do with the ability to do an ***ACT - (though that is a secondary and unavoidable consequence) - but rather it has to do with the ability to possess a KNOWLEDGE or PERCEPTION ***otherwise impossible.

Is it not possible that free will was granted in order for us to know ourselves as separate from God, and, in order to be fully “united” to God and know that WE – as separate beings and existences – were joined to him, we would have to experience a contingency or separateness otherwise impossible without that very autonomy? To be a self implies independence, separation. For the idea of us as selves to be true, we must become aware of our own freedom. How indeed could a self-conscious being understand itself or the idea of causation, except by experiencing both its own freedom and its ability to determine things? I know the difference between a voluntary cause and an involuntary one only because I have FELT the difference. I know that when I reach to take this glass, or kiss my wife, or ask for forgiveness that I do so, oftentimes, under the experience of volition, but that when I sneeze or blush or feel a strong wind that these things are HAPPENING TO ME. I don’t think the two ideas - self-consciousness and causation - could exist in the mind of a rational agent or ever arise unless it experienced true FREE WILL.

George MacDonald wrote somewhere: “For the very beginnings of unity there must be two.” Perhaps to have any intelligible experience of the thought “I am joined to God!” we must first exist as separate, free beings apart from him? Perhaps it is only in this context that the “I” in the “I am joined to God” could be understood? And it is just because we happen to be in relation to God while we are here on earth experiencing our freedom that we are able to sin. God could not make us free and prevent us from sinning - even omnipotence cannot do that.

And so by experiencing personal, self conscious causation, we are able both to know ourselves as independent beings, but also to experience what it means to be a “cause” and the “source” of “good” in the sense that we are, when we experience freedom, trying ourselves to BE good. Perhaps this knowledge is necessary to fully appreciate the truth that “God is the cause of my eternal bliss! He is the source of all my good!” in the afterlife.

Maybe to be one, there must first be two.

Thoughts?

[Wormwood]

My take on this is that for a being to be “other” than God, CSL said something about “Thought that floats on a different blood”, requires at least a measure of free will. To my mind this is what creation is about, God wants to have interaction with beings who can surprise him.

That I suppose is part of the reason we keep pets. Even, “Oh look, my bunny’s sitting at the other end of his hutch,” is a welcome input in a difficult world.

Curiously this impacts on what I’m doing at the moment - writing comms software. I need something to play the other end of the line for testing, something that’s not on the same power and clocks as the big computer, even if that something is a tiny, low powered development card.

[Paidion]

So I think it follows to say that compatibilistic freedom is not something which takes away or destroys from the goodness of an act. I think the saved in heaven will be compatibilistically free …

Chrisguy, the term “compatibilistic freedom” is an oxymoron. Indeed, compatibilism is sometimes called “soft determinism”. It is just as deterministic as “hard determinism”. In both systems of thinking, every event which occurs could not have been otherwise.
The only way in which “soft determinism” differs from “hard determinism” is that “freedom” is described as a condition in which there are no external constraints to one’s actions. Nothwithstanding, those actions are every bit as much determined by prior causes as they are in “hard determinism”.

I have a difficult time accepting that so many people profess to believe in some form of determinism. All of us conduct our everyday lives as if we were free-will agents who determine our own actions. How do believers in determinism integrate the way they behave and feel concerning their choices with their belief that all of their actions are externally determined?

[akimel]

Chris, there can be no independence from God. To even talk this way is to treat him as fellow inhabitant in the universe. But God is not a member of the universe. He is not an object we butt up against. His agency and presence in the world in no way competes with ours. God is the transcendent source of our existence and freedom. To speak of distance between God and us is, while perhaps inevitable, strictly speaking incorrect. There can be no distance in any meaningful sense between the Creator and his creatures, which is why he is nearer to us than we are to ourselves (there’s the metaphorical language again). Herbert McCabe is very good on this: see his books God Matters and God Still Matters.

Hence human self-conscious does not depend on independence of God; indeed, we can speak of the development of self-consciousness without invoking God at all.

[Chrisguy90]

Chris, there can be no independence from God. To even talk this way is to treat him as fellow inhabitant in the universe. But God is not a member of the universe. He is not an object we butt up against. His agency and presence in the world in no way competes with ours. God is the transcendent source of our existence and freedom. To speak of distance between God and us is, while perhaps inevitable, strictly speaking incorrect. There can be no distance in any meaningful sense between the Creator and his creatures, which is why he is nearer to us than we are to ourselves (there’s the metaphorical language again). Herbert McCabe is very good on this: see his books God Matters and God Still Matters.

Hence human self-conscious does not depend on independence of God; indeed, we can speak of the development of self-consciousness without invoking God at all.

Are you, then, a pantheist?

[Chrisguy90]

So I think it follows to say that compatibilistic freedom is not something which takes away or destroys from the goodness of an act. I think the saved in heaven will be compatibilistically free …

Chrisguy, the term “compatibilistic freedom” is an oxymoron. Indeed, compatibilism is sometimes called “soft determinism”. It is just as deterministic as “hard determinism”. In both systems of thinking, every event which occurs could not have been otherwise.
The only way in which “soft determinism” differs from “hard determinism” is that “freedom” is described as a condition in which there are no external constraints to one’s actions. Nothwithstanding, those actions are every bit as much determined by prior causes as they are in “hard determinism”.

I have a difficult time accepting that so many people profess to believe in some form of determinism. All of us conduct our everyday lives as if we were free-will agents who determine our own actions. How do believers in determinism integrate the way they behave and feel concerning their choices with their belief that all of their actions are externally determined?

When you sneeze, do you not think its you who’s sneezing? Or when you take a breath of air, is it not you that is breathing?

[akimel]

Are you, then, a pantheist?

Of course not. The Christian understanding of the creatio ex nihilo rules that out completely. The key point is the radical transcendence (difference, not distance) of God, which simultaneously makes possible his radical immanence in his creation. Neither his presence nor his agency competes with creaturely presence and activity. McCabe puts it this way:

It is with God’s activity as it is with his presence. He does not take up space. If I fill up a basket with apples and oranges, the more apples there are, the less room there is for oranges, and vice versa. The apples and the oranges compete for the available space. But apples and God do not compete for available space. We can say that God is everywhere, that there is no such thing as a place where he is not, for wherever there is anything God is there holding it in being. God is not, of course, himself spatial. He has no size or position or shape. But we can nevertheless say that he is present everywhere. Clearly he is not alongside his creatures. We do not say that the more apples there are in the basket the less room there is for God. The apples do not have to shift over to make room for God. The presence of God does not leave less room for the apples. On the contrary, it is because of the presence of God that the apples are there at all. We can say, “There is nothing here except an apple,” just because God is there too. The apple is not moved to one side by God. It is where it is because of God.

Now it is the same with causality as with spatial presence. Created causes compete with each other. This activity is due to me and to that extent it is not due to causes other than me. Usually an activity is due partly to me and partly to other causes. The other causes make a difference to my activity. My activity is like this, though it would have been like that but for the interference of some other causes. That is how we detect the operation of other causes. The more other causes operate, the less the activity is due to me; the less responsible I am for it, the less it is a free action.

But the activity of God does not make any difference to my activity. It makes it what it is in the first place. It is because of the activity of God that I have my own activity to begin with. God is not alongside me, competing with me, an alternative to me, taking up space that I could have occupied or doing things that I might have done.

All created causes make a difference to the world. They are parts of the world which impose themselves on other parts of the world. When the hurricance has pssed by, you can see that a hurricane has passed by; the world is different from what it was before. But God’s creative and sustaining activity does not make the world different from what it is–how could it? It makes the world what it is. …

God’s activity, then, does not compete with mine. Whereas the activity of any other creature makes a difference to mine and would interefere with my freedom, the activity of God makes no difference. It has a more fundamental and important job to do than make a difference. It makes me have my own activity in the first place. I am free: I have my own spontaneous activity not determined by other creatures, because God makes me free. Not free of him (this would be to cease to exist), but free of other creatures.

The idea that God’s causality could interfere with my freedom can only arise from an idolatrous notion of God as a very large and powerful creature–a part of the world. We see an ascending scale of powerful causes. The more powerful the causes, the more difference it makes. And we are inclined to locate God at the top of the scale, and to imagine that he makes the most difference of all. But does not make the most difference. He makes, if you like, all the difference–which is the same as making no difference at all. (Faith Within Reason, pp. 73-76)

Human beings do not need God to remove himself from their presence in order to achieve self-consciousness. That is to misconceive the nature of uncreated reality. To put it simply, God plus the world does not equal two.

[Chrisguy90]

Of course not. The Christian understanding of the creatio ex nihilo rules that out completely. The key point is the radical transcendence (difference, not distance) of God, which simultaneously makes possible his radical immanence in his creation. Neither his presence nor his agency competes with creaturely presence and activity.

If God is not in some sense totally independent of his creation, how do you account for sin and how to you say God is not guilty of causing it?