Photo by Paal Leveraas
Can a person who has faith in a God claim that God has no free will? Well, I’d like to think that I have faith in a Divine Source and I certainly seem to be making that claim. As you may know that I enjoy making a shocking claim that seems contradictory or controversial and then supporting it with a well reasoned argument. Today is no different from any other, so if you please, follow me down the rabbit hole.
A common means to defining God is through three traits - omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. That is to say that the Divine knows all things, is all powerful, and is everywhere. I like this means of defining the Divine; it’s quite neat and tidy, saying more without words then what is says with words. The problem that I am faced with in accepting this definition is that it raises several significant questions. If God is all knowing, then why are we not warned of the horrific events of our past history? Being that God is all powerful, why doesn’t he heal amputees? Are serial killers in the presence of God while they commit their crimes?
The traditional Christian response to these questions is that it’s apart of God’s plan. To a point, I can sympathize with this sentiment, but let’s be honest - that’s a fancy way of saying “I don’t know.” Traditional non-theist responses to these questions are that either God doesn’t exist (the option that non-theists prefer), or God doesn’t care and is therefore not worth our time. These are both very reasonable conclusions, yet my personal experiences, as well as the experiences of other spiritual people, tell me otherwise. So I’m left with no satisfactory answers to these questions…
… That is, until I start to consider the human relationship to ants. In comparison to an ant, a human being is all powerful, all knowing, and all present. If we so choose to do so, we might control every aspect of an ant’s life, to where he lived and what he ate, to how soon he died and how he died. This would take away every choice that the ant would make on its own; the ant would have no free will. The same could be said about our relationship to God. An all knowing, all powerful, and all present Divine Source would, upon making one choice on our behalf, take away the free will we have over our own lives.
Would it not be more accurate to say that God chooses not to act in the world, rather then claim that God doesn’t have free will? I’m sorry to say, no. There is more to this issue than the subject of God’s inaction, because even God’s inaction can be interpreted as taking a choice away from humanity. Some people in this world may very well want God to take total control of their lives - they would sacrifice free will for safety without regret. As sad as this may be, you cannot deny that it is true.
God has no free will because God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. To know all things, the knowledge cannot be subjected to judgement. In order for the Divine to be all powerful, all forces must originate from the Divine - even opposing forces. For the Divine to be present in all places, it cannot hold any desire to be in one place or another, to be one thing or many. The Divine Source would have to be like water…
Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve read the Tao Te Ching, it should. You could even go so far as to say that my understanding of God is one and the same as the Tao. It wouldn’t be so far from the truth that I’d feel compelled to argue. At the same time, I still feel that there is one stone left unturned in this discussion of God and free will. You see, I honestly have a hard time even believing that there is such an animal as free will, nor do I believe that everything is predetermined. These are terms that we humans have created to describe what we perceive to be true, and may only exist as concepts. This may well be the ultimate reason why I can sincerely say that God has no free will; you can’t possess a quality that doesn’t actually exist, now can you?
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December 11th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
You said you wanted debate, so I hope you don’t mind if I point out what I feel are a few problems with your argument.
I completely disagree that God doesn’t have free will. Let me explain why.
First, I’ll start with the end of your argument - that God can’t possess something that doesn’t exist. Frankly, that’s a cop out. Yes, free will and/or pre-determinism are human concepts, but then isn’t “God” as well? Or, put another way, “God” is a word, a label, given to a faith based knowledge - a feeling. Well, I believe there is a God, just as I believe that there is free will. These “concepts” are a way to express to others a unique, feeling based, experience I’ve had. The only way to do that is through the words. And, although this may be circular logic, the very existence of the word and the concept suggest that others have had the feeling experience as well, which makes it not just my personal truth.
So, if there is some truth to the idea of free will, then the question becomes does God have it? (Although your post looked at this the other way around.) Yes, of course.
There are two general ways that God is seen in relation to the world/humans. First, as separate from, and second as part of. The “old man in the clouds” vs. “God is in all of us.” Either way, God has free will.
If God is separate, then your “all forces must originate from the Divine - even opposing forces” are separate as well and under the influence of God without conflict. “For the Divine to be present in all places, it cannot hold any desire to be in one place or another, to be one thing or many.” Again if God is separate, then this argument doesn’t hold water (no pun intended). As a human I’ve experienced more times than I can count where I am physically present, but mentally somewhere else. If God is separate, he could be doing the same thing on an enormous scale. And who are we to say/judge/presume that God doesn’t have desires?
On the other hand, if God is part of us, and the rest of the world, then my argument is even easier. Since we have free will, and God is part of us, then God has free will. If we can choose between opposing forces, so can God. The world is by definition in all places, yet, as I mentioned above, physical is separate from mental, so again, God can desire to want to be one place over another.
Of course, if you believe that everything is pre-determined, then God doesn’t have free will as you said. However, you’ve stated you don’t believe that everything is pre-determined. Therefore, God does have free will.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Hello and Welcome,
I’ve checked out your website and saw that I’m one of the folks on your blogroll. Thank you! I’ll be sure to add you to mine as well.
Quite a long response you have there. Let me see if I can tackle it… Have you ever heard Alan Watt’s “Prickles and Goo” analogy? If you haven’t, you can find it here - http://www.freshminds.com/animation/alan_watts_prickles.html. The basic premise of the analogy is that there are some people who look for structure, and other people who look for chaos. Each claims that reality is made of their favorite stuff - structure for those who see structure and chaos for those who see chaos… Both such such people easily find evidence of their world view - however, it is because they turn a blind eye to contradictory evidence and focus on the evidence that they want to see, that they don’t see that there is chaos within structure and structure within chaos.
To apply this to free will, consider the child who sees three toy commercials, each of which are targeted to his age group and gender. The child is then given the choice between the three toys. Regardless of which toy the child picks, someone who believes that we have free will would tell you that he is demonstrating free will. Regardless of which toy the child picks, someone who believes that we do not have free will will tell you that he is demonstrating the level of influence the commercials had on him. The truth is more complicated: Gooey prickles and Prickly goo. Our neat little duality falls apart the moment we take the time to look at the other side. The Free Will/Determinism duality would simply fall apart under that level of scrutiny… Therefore must not exist outside of human interpretation of reality.
I doubt I’ve made my argument well enough to convince you. The fact that we all see things differently is one reason why life is so interesting. I hope to see you on my blog again.
Namaste.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
First, thank you for the welcome and I’ll be glad to see my blog on your blogroll. As for the debate, I have one question.
You state: “The Free Will/Determinism duality would simply fall apart under that level of scrutiny… Therefore must not exist outside of human interpretation of reality.”
Yet, you also state that God has no free will, therefore bringing it into the “human interpretation of reality.”
So, my question: how does once again taking the cop out idea “it doesn’t exist so therefore it can’t apply” answer my points?
I understand there are different ways of viewing reality - as I mentioned in my first comment, those who don’t believe in free will feel opposite of the way I do - which goes back to the “Prickles and Goo” analogy you are making. I also understand that we have a difference of opinion; however, I’m not even sure we’re debating the same thing.
As humans, we interpret God through our own experiences. You agree with that, then you say we interpret free will through our experiences. You conclude that God doesn’t have free will because God is outside definition, while free will is within definition, but you’ve come to the conclusion - through your human definition! This is going around in circles and doesn’t refute what I said - that in my interpretation of experience (the realm where you have brought both God and free will) it doesn’t make any sense for God not to have free will.
I hope I’ve made sense of how I viewed your argument (if I sound like I’m going in circles, well, that’s because I’m trying to point out that your argument goes in circles.)
I also want to add that I’ve enjoyed your other articles, but this one got me fired up and wanting to respond. Is there anyone else out there who wants to join the discussion? Either on my side (I hope!) or on John’s?
December 17th, 2007 at 10:45 am
I don’t think I CAN take sides, since you’re both right. Or wrong. Or neither. Or both.
It seems to me that the nature of humans is to try to explain everything… to understand EVERYTHING. And so, we anthropomorphize the Divine in an attempt to explain and understand. But, in reference to John’s analogy, can the ant understand a human? I don’t really know, yet my human hubris says no. (I could be wrong about this. They may very well be smarter than we are.) Can a human understand the Divine? I know I can’t… I don’t even understand fellow humans. Or the ant.
Just because free will is a human construct, that doesn’t mean it is or isn’t something that can or can’t apply to the Divine. On one hand, one can say that all we have and all we are comes from the Divine, so the Divine must possess all that is so generously given. On the other hand, one can say that by not quelling our free will, the Divine suppresses its own. Both (I think) are just human explanations. Neither is more or less valid than the other, because we (as humans) just can’t KNOW.
Personally, I go with the idea that “God is.”