If you are trying to engage someone in a productive discussion on some particular point of disagreement, it is often helpful (necessary?) to go back to a starting point where you both agree and then find out where the divergence of thinking actually occurs. In doing this, you often find that the point of disagreement is not really what you thought it was. In that vein, I was recently thinking about a particular line of argument in my head and I thought it would make sense to go back to a statement everyone would agree with. So, working backwards in my mind, I eventually settled on the following question as a starting point for agreement: “Does God have free will?” I considered it to be a rhetorical question. I said to myself “Of course the answer has to be ‘yes.’” Everyone would agree that God has free will. It seemed like a great starting point for the line of discussion I had in my mind.
When I
first considered this question, I considered it so obvious that I thought even
people who don’t believe in God would agree with it. Specifically, I thought everyone would agree
with the following statement:
“If there is a God of any
consequence, then the one fundamental characteristic he[1]
must have is the characteristic of free will.”
Well…I’ve
come to realize that not everyone agrees with that statement. At first I was incredulous. I really was.
But the more I’ve considered the issue, the more I’ve come to realize
that it’s a trickier question than I first imagined. I’ve come to realize that it is not
the obvious starting point at which everyone would agree. But I’ve also come to realize that it might
be a rather valuable starting point from which to consider the whole issue of
free will and determinism. That issue, when
debated and discussed, is almost always focused around the human condition –
i.e. do humans have free will? But
in all of my reading on the issue of free will (which, granted, is limited), I
have not come across any serious in-depth discussion of free will as it might
relate to God.[2] I know, of course, that not everyone believes
in God and so many might say “why argue about something that doesn’t
exist?” But, as I phrased the question
above, I think it is a useful line of thinking for anyone, including those who
do not believe there is a god of any kind.
The point is, our views about free will and determinism are really
exposed if we start asking about free will for a being, hypothetical or not,
that has characteristics of being all-powerful and all-knowing. Can such a being have free will???
Exploring
this question has not changed my original view:
I still think the answer is a resounding “yes.” I still think that God obviously has
free will. But I can see now that part
of the reason I feel that way is based on the very fundamental views I have
about reality. Those views are not
shared by everyone!
An example
of the pathway this question takes is to rephrase it to something like “Can God
do what He wants?” Again, my first
reaction is “of course God can do what He wants.” But, then, someone might say “If God knows
the future, then is He is bound to act according to that future, so He is not
free.” That’s a common problem with an
all-knowing God. But I think most people
would say that God is outside of time and space – i.e. is not constrained by
time and space – and therefore it’s not at all clear what it would mean for God
to “know His own future.” God is not
living through time, waiting for certain events to happen and then making a
decision (free will decision?) about them.
But, then, you have to wonder if free will has the same meaning if you
take time out of the equation. For example,
can cause and effect happen in a realm devoid of time? I’m sure a few philosophers have wrestled
with that question and written books on the topic. But, as for me, I’ve never experienced life
outside of time so I have no idea how timelessness works.
OK, so
fine, that’s plenty confusing. Maybe a
similar question would be that, if God is outside of time and space, what does
it mean for God to “want” something? The
word “want” as we typically use it, has a basis in a universe constrained by
time. If you “want” something, it
implies that you don’t have it now but you would like to have it in the future. Thus, it quickly becomes clear that you would
have to define “want” differently when it comes to God (or any being existing
outside of time), and so the question gets messy. So, then you have to ask “can God want
anything?” And down the philosophical rabbit hole we
go! As is often the case, philosophy
becomes a task of carefully defining the terms, which can often prove rather
difficult and never-ending.
One
question we often ask with respect to free will has to do with responsibility for
one’s own actions. So, what about the
question “Is God responsible for His own actions?” Here we might have a clear answer. We could ask it another way: “Can anyone or
anything else be responsible for the actions of God?” If the answer is “yes”, then doesn’t that
make the “anyone” or “anything” the real God? And so we would be asking the same question
of that “anyone” – are they responsible for their own actions? The buck has to stop somewhere unless there
is one big circle of causality, which seems illogical to me. So, I would say “yes, certainly God is
responsible for His own actions.” Is
there anyone who would disagree with that?
So here is
where this line of thinking seems to help identify points of divergence. I, personally, make a direct link between
“responsibility for your actions” and “free will.” I cannot conceive of any reality in which you
can be responsible for your own actions if you are not free to decide those
actions. If God does anything, He
is responsible for it. And, if He is
responsible, then He “chose” it. And, if
He chose a course of action, then He could have chosen otherwise. If He could not choose otherwise, then
who or what prevented Him from choosing otherwise? If something can prevent God from choosing
otherwise, then that person/thing becomes God in my opinion. Here’s where the concept of God’s free will
diverges from a concept of man’s free will.
The question of “could I (a human being) have chosen otherwise?” is
harder to answer. As a human being, I could
be compelled by some other force or thing or being, and so the answer to the
question is not as obvious. But, when it
comes to God, well, God, by definition, cannot be controlled by any outside force. The answer to that question has to be “God is
not compelled by any other force to make the decisions He makes” in order for
God to be truly God.
I suppose
this line of thinking is a lot like asking if God is the “first cause.” To me, that is part of the definition of God. In fact, some would argue that it is the need
for some “first cause” that is the best argument for the existence of God. You can’t ask “who caused God?” or “who
created God?” God is not created and is
not caused. Personally, I do find the
argument logically reasonable, but I don’t see it as the best argument for the
existence of God – at least not the existence of a living God – as I discuss
elsewhere <here>.
In future
entries, I am going to be building on the idea that God has free will. But I acknowledge here that not everyone will
accept that concept at face value. I
would certainly be interested in hearing the ideas of others on this topic.
