Free or Fated 1

The philosophy textbook goes on...

10.1 What is Free Will?
On one level, the question of whether we are free or not is relatively easy. No one physically forced me to get out of bed this morning. No one physically forces you to do the vast majority of the things you do. From this standpoint, you "freely" do most of the things you do. Even though someone is likely "motivating" you to read this book, no one is physically forcing you to do so. You might flunk something or another if you chose not to read, but you are still free not to.

To be sure, there are many contexts in which people are forced to do things in some manner or another. Someone might physically force you to do something "against your will." They might push you somewhere you do not want to be pushed, for example.

We all also have various physical, intellectual, and social gifts and limitations. Most of us are not "free" to run, swim, or play well enough to be in the Olympics. Most of us are not "free" to get A's on calculus tests or get elected President of the United States. The motto, "You can do anything you put your mind to," is noble and inspiring, but patently false.

We are also aware that drugs and alcohol can cause a person to do things that they would never do under normal circumstances. A person who is drunk or high may not be "free" to stop themselves from saying things they normally would. A person who is addicted to heroin might steal or even kill to get more, something they might not otherwise even think of doing.

However, in the above illustrations, we are really talking about the freedom to act more than about free will. Free will is the ability to do something other than what you want to do. It is the freedom to will what you want rather than the freedom to do what you want.

[textbox--free will, determinism]

In that sense, the example of drugs we mentioned begins to get at the question of free will. Drugs are an easy example of something that can impair your will to the extent that you cannot steer your desires one way or another. You are a slave to your drunken will.

The field of psychology has made it more and more clear that our "will," our desires, are far more determined by various forces than we realize. The old nature/nurture debate highlights these forces--do we become who we are more because of our genes or because of our upbringing. Many people go through their whole life without realizing that they act in various ways because of the forces of their genetics or environment. In that sense, they may be free to act according to their will. But they do not have freedom of will in these areas, since they are not even aware of the forces leading them to want what they want.

We are prone to underestimate the psychological and sociological forces at work on us. Those who spend their entire lives on welfare and in poverty may very well not be "free" to want a different life. A woman whose husband abuses her or a child who is kidnapped and raised by the kidnapper may very well not be "free" to want out of such situations. Those of us who live "normal" lives sometimes naively blame such individuals for remaining in such situations. But it is quite possible that they are not really free to do otherwise.

One of the benefits of studying philosophy that we mentioned in the very first chapter was that philosophy can make a person freer. When individuals are aware of the forces at work on their will--their culture, their history, the flow of ideas in which they find themselves--then they are freer to choose something other than what they would otherwise choose without knowing why.

But one might also argue that such knowledge only moves the determinism--the fact that they cannot help but will and act in a certain way--one step further back. Their knowledge may have brought more choice than they had before in one respect. But perhaps given their new knowledge, their decision between the new choices is still inevitable. That is the question of this chapter.

10.2 Ancient Fatalism
It does not seem to be a coincidence that modern Western culture, with all its technological developments, tends to emphasize human freedom. The Western world is a democratic world, where people at least think they have a voice in their future. Medical and technological advancements are coming at such a rapid rate that things that would have been fatal even ten years ago are becoming passe.

At the same time, it makes sense that ancient cultures and less developed countries have a much greater sense of fatedness. Imagine a world where hurricanes come ashore without warning and where what we consider trivial sicknesses might just as well kill you the day after you show the first signs of sickness. It is no coincidence that most cultures in the past viewed their gods as whimsical beings whose anger needed continuous placating.

Fatalism is an attitude that does not think human choices affect what will happen in the future. "Que sera, sera," what will be, will be. "When it's your time to go, it's your time to go." Everyone has a destiny, and there's no point in fighting it. A person with a fatalistic attitude does not feel in control of their "fate," of what is going to happen to them in life or death.

Fatalism is more of an attitude than a philosophy today. However, it was the pervasive attitude of the Greco-Roman world, as a number of myths reflect. Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, for example, makes it clear that even the king of the gods, Zeus was ultimately subject to the whims of the Fates. The popular Disney movie Hercules depicts the Fates unable to cut the thread of Hercules' life because he had become immortal at just the right moment. But in Greek thought, Hercules could only become immortal if in fact the Fates themselves had willed it.

Another well known myth is the story of Oedipus. When he is first born, it is prophesied that he will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. In an attempt to thwart his fate, Oedipus' father "exposes" him as an infant, leaves him for dead in the middle of nowhere.

Yet as always seems to happen, someone rescues him, and he grows up thinking that he is actually the son of a different king. When he then hears the prophecy--that he will kill his father and marry his mother--he flees his home, thinking his adopted parents are his real parents.

To know one's surprise, he then encounters his biological father at a crossroads and ends up killing him. He then arrives at his mother's city and, after rescuing it from a monster, marries his mother as a reward. All the parties involved have done their best to flee their fates... and in the process have fulfilled it.

The Oedipus story seems to highlight something that might be helpful as we read passages in Paul's writings that seem, at the same time, to affirm both the idea that God determines who will be saved and yet seem to imply that anyone might be saved. From our current perspective, these two ideas seem to contradict each other logically. Yet in the Oedipus story, the characters all seem to act freely, even though the final outcome is already determined.

The Bible itself never presents us with a worked out theology of human freedom in relation to God's will and plan. Indeed, because different Christians have focused on different biblical passages, we find vastly different Christian ideas about whether our fates are already determined or whether God has given us some degree of freedom. Focus on one set of passages and you might not believe that God allows humans to decide their fate. Focus on others, and you might think God leaves it up to us to choose.

For example, it is no surprise that many evangelical Old Testament scholars are sympathetic to Open Theism. Open theists believe that while God could know everything, He has chosen not to do so in order that humans can have free will. They thus have bought into the argument that if God knows the future, then we cannot possibly do anything other than what God knows and, thus, we are not free. Because they believe we are free to choose God or not to choose Him, they deny God's [current] omniscience. We will show subsequently that this argument is seriously flawed.

However, it is not surprising that some Old Testament scholars are sympathetic to this view, for the Old Testament by and large does not present God as omniscient. Just before God causes the Flood, He says that He is sorry that he created humanity in the first place (Gen. 6). Obviously, an all knowing God would know what was going to happen before creating humanity. God cannot thus "be sorry" for anything if He is omniscient.

Indeed, the very idea that God might have emotions seems to imply that He reacts to things and thus that He lacks foreknowledge of what will happen. While we as humans often distinguish between head knowledge and experiential knowledge, omniscience for God means that He has all knowledge. If He created everything from nothing, then there is no distinction for Him of this sort. Language of God getting angry or being sorry is thus likely anthropomorphic language, language we should not take literally.

The Old Testament thus presents God as changing His mind on more than one occasion. God sends the prophet Jonah to Ninevah with the prediction that He is going to destroy them. But then God changes His mind and does not do so. If we are to believe that God is omniscient, then we must take language like this as somewhat figurative, the Bible expressing God's actions in anthropomorphic terms.

The New Testament similarly could lead us in different directions on the question of free will. The bulk of the New Testament treats faith in Christ as something available to all people with an individual's act of faith as the decisive element. God is said to love the world (John 3:16) and to want everyone to be saved (1 Tim. 2:4).

Yet some streams of Christian thought focus on passages that seem to say that God decides who will be saved. Romans 9 often features heavily in their thinking. Romans 9 seems to say that God is the one who decides who will be saved and who will not.

Yet somewhat like the Oedipus story, Paul does not seem to see determinism and free will as mutually exclusive. Another ancient school of thought to which Paul sometimes sounds similar is Stoicism. When Paul says in Philippians that he has both had a lot and a little, but has learned to be content whatever his circumstances (4:*), he is saying the kinds of things a Stoic would say.

The Stoics believed that the universe was governed by divine Mind, which they called the logos or the word. <1> The logos decided what would take place, so it was useless to fight against it. We all have seeds of the logos, divine reason, inside us. We should learn to "love our fate." We have enough freedom to resist God's will. But the ultimate outcome is decided.

In the end, as we have said, the Bible does not work out a full theology of free will and determinism. The variety of Christian positions on the issue exemplify this fact. Hopefully by the end of the chapter you will be in a better position to make up your own mind.

<1> A number of New Testament passages that refer to the word of God, particularly passages that have to do with Christ, likely reflect the indirect influence of Stoicism on early Christian thought.