Three Arguments Against Determinism

 (I am posting this short article that my brother emailed me, in order to reply to it.  My position is completely opposite of his.  I am just posting this now while I work on getting my response up.)



Three Arguments Against Determinism - by Greg Boyd

March 23rd, 2011

There was an interesting article in the NY Times yesterday by John Tierney entitled “Do You Have Free Will? Yes, It’s The Only Choice“.

The article reviews research that suggests that everybody intuitively believes people are morally responsible only for actions they could have refrained from doing and that when people don’t believe they are free they tend to behave more unethically. Hence, if free will is in fact an illusion, it is an illusion that is hard wired into us and one that is extremely helpful, if not absolutely necessary, for ethical behavior. If you believe in God and yet deny the reality of free will, you have to wonder why the Creator would hard-wire us to be so thoroughly self-deceived. In any event, I thought I’d offer three other pragmatic arguments for free will along the lines covered in this article.

The Incoherence of Ordained Morality. I would argue that the association of moral responsibility and free will is not only deeply intuitive, as the article suggests, it is also logically necessary. That is, I would argue that denying the association of moral responsibility and free will results in incoherence. For example, when a Calvinist asserts something like: “God ordains that Satan does evil in such a way that God remains morally holy for ordaining Satan to do evil while Satan becomes morally evil for doing what the all-holy God ordained him to do,” I submit they are asserting something that is beyond counter-intuitive; it is utterly incoherent. For a concept to have meaning it must have some rooting in our experience, at least by analogy. A concept for which there is no analogy in our experience is a vacuous concept. Yet, after decades of asking, I have yet to find anyone who can provide an analogy by which we might give meaning to the concept of an agent being morally responsible for what God ordained them to do. (I develop this argument at length in response to Paul Helseth in Four Views of Divine Providence).

Determinism is Self-Refuting. If free will is an illusion and everything is predetermined, then the ultimate cause of why a person believes that free will is an illusion and everything is predetermined is that they were predetermined to do so. But it’s hard to see how a belief can be considered “true” or “false” when it is, ultimately, simply a predetermined event. The snow falling outside my window right now is due to the fact that preexisting conditions determined it to be so. But we wouldn’t say that the snowfall is “true” or “false.”

Refuting Determinism By Action. You know what a person truly believes by how they act more than by what they say, for we often think we believe something when in fact we don’t. (E.g. the husband who convinces himself he loves his wife even though he mistreats her, cheats on her, etc.). On this basis I’d like to suggest that everyone who deliberates believes in free will, even if they think they do not, for its impossible to deliberate without acting on the conviction that the decision is up to you to resolve. For example, I am this moment deliberating about what to work on when I finish this blog. Should I work on a peace essay for a book collection that is due at the end of this week or should I finish reading a book by Andrew Sullivan that I started two days ago? As I weigh the pros and cons of both possibilities, I cannot help but manifest my conviction that I genuinely could opt for either one of these alternatives and that it is up to me to decide which I will choose. In other words, I reveal a deep rooted conviction that I am free as I deliberate, and the same holds true for every deliberation anyone engages in. There simply is no other way to deliberate. People may sincerely think they believe in determinism, but they act otherwise, and must act otherwise, every time they deliberate. The great American philosopher Charles Pierce argued that a belief that cannot be consistently acted on cannot be true. If he’s right about this - and I believe he is - then determinism must be false.

Words That Need to be Banned ASAP!

Image by tobin.t via Flickr

1. "Vetted."  Unless referring to a veteran, a veterinarian, or a Corvette.
2. "Evidence-based Medicine."
3. "Postmodern."
4. "Worldview."
5. "Welcome aboard! (when starting a new job)"  Unless you are on a ship.
6. "Metrics."
7. "Quantum physics."  Unless you're actually a physicist (and no, Deepak Chopra is not).
8. "Wiki" anything.
9. "Bonus parent."
10. "Missional." 
11. "Think Outside the Box."-  I think it's time to start thinking back inside the box again!

Review of: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Cover via Amazon

This review is from: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Paperback)

I couldn't read the entire thing, I just skimmed it. The author was just too annoying and self-absorbed. It was as if she thought we, the reader, would be so enthralled with the inanities of her pampered life that she could afford to write basically a diary of her life. 

And a boring diary too. Her "problems" really aren't that problematic. Her solution of traveling the world and taking a huge amount of time off work, to cavort with assorted men, etc., is not realistic for most of us. 

Her decision to divorce is not explained well; it seems as if she just got sick of her spouse. Selfish, complaining and whining, self-absorbed to the point of narcissism, and supremely confident that the reader will sympathize with her and her mundane writing....I just cannot believe everyone loved this book so much!

Check out my book review..."The Tipping Point"

"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

Image by jgarber via Flickr

Add caption

http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Point-Little-Things-Difference/dp/0316346624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303739849&sr=8-1

This is news?

This book was a disappointment. It basically stated the obvious, that certain factors "tip" people one way or another- context, persuasion, genetics, etc., and produce trends as well as personal preferences. There wasn't anything in here that was not common sense. 

For example, the chapter on why teenagers still start smoking even after decades of health warnings, etc., provided no new insight. Basically, the reason provided was that kids don't start smoking because the action of smoking is cool; they start smoking because the SMOKERS are cool. In other words, cool people smoke, just like they do other things. So to be cool, you'll emulate the cool people. And smoking is one thing you can do to be like them. 

Also, the author states that genetics is the reason why certain smokers become addicted (every-day smoking of several cigarettes per day, with great difficulty in quitting including withdrawal symptoms) and why other people can smoke very few cigarettes in a week, every week, for example, and easily stop doing that with no problem. Since the concept of "social smokers" is quite well known now, I don't think this was any revelation. Just like not every social drinker becomes an alcoholic, not every social smoker becomes a hard-core nicotine fiend. And doesn't genetics cause pretty much everything? I've heard a figure of 80% of our behavior, traits, intelligence, etc. is genetic. This may or may not be true, but the proposition that nature, rather than nurture, is controlling us is not a new idea either. The "masses" won't be impressed with his ideas on genes. 

This book was also very short. I would have appreciated much more substance, and just more MATERIAL in general. Thankfully I got this from the library so I didn't waste my money on a short, dissatisfying book that states the obvious and expects the public to be wowed by the "insight." 

The author seems to have rattled off this book in one sitting, perhaps as an afterthought, for what reason, I don't know. I also sensed a patronizing tone throughout. I get the impression by reading it that he wrote this first as an outline for some high school sociology class, and then tried to expand it to something that the great "unwashed masses" would take as a serious, scholarly work. Well, I'm sure that even the "masses" aren't that easily impressed. 

So I do not recommend wasting your time on this one!