Review of the 36 Arguments for the Existence of God #18. THE ARGUMENT FROM FREE WILL
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Pastor Jennifer v2
Feb 23, 2012, 11:34:03 AM2/23/12
to Evidence For God
18. THE ARGUMENT FROM FREE WILL
1. Having free will means having the freedom to choose our actions,
rather than having them determined by some prior cause.
2. If we don’t have free will, then we are not agents, for then we
are not really acting, but, rather, we’re being acted upon. (That’s
why we don’t punish people for involuntary actions—such as a teller
who hands money to a bank robber at gunpoint, or a driver who injures
a pedestrian after a defective tire blows out.)
3. To be a moral agent means to be held morally responsible for what
one does.
4. If we can’t be held morally responsible for anything we do, then
the very idea of morality is meaningless.
5. Morality is not meaningless.
6. We have free will (from 2–5).
7. We, as moral agents, are not subject to the laws of nature—in
particular, the neural events in a genetically and environmentally
determined brain (from 1 and 6).
8. Only a being who is apart from the laws of nature and partakes of
the moral sphere could explain our being moral agents (from 7).
9. Only God is a being who is apart from the laws of nature and
partakes of the moral sphere.
10. Only God can explain our moral agency (from 8 and 9)
11. God exists.
FLAW 1:
This argument, in order to lead to God, must ignore the paradoxical
Fork of Free Will. Either my actions are predictable (from my genes,
my upbringing, my brain state, my current situation, and so on), or
they are not. If they are predictable, then there is no reason to deny
that they are caused, and we would not have free will. So, if we are
to be free, our actions must be unpredictable—in other words, random.
But if our behavior is random, then in what sense can it be
attributable to us at all? If it really is a random event when I give
the infirm man my seat in the subway, then in what sense is it me to
whom this good deed should be attributed? If the action isn’t caused
by my psychological states, which are themselves caused by other
states, then in what way is it really my action? And what good would
it do to insist on moral responsibility if our choices are random, and
cannot be predicted from prior events (such as growing up in a society
that holds people responsible)? This leads us back to the conclusion
that we, as moral agents, must be parts of the natural world— the very
negation of Premise 7.
FLAW 2:
Premise 10 is an example of the Fallacy of Using One Mystery to
Explain Another. It expresses, rather than dispels, the confusion we
feel when faced with the Fork of Free Will. The paradox has not been
clarified in the least by introducing God into the analysis.
COMMENT:
Free will is yet another quandary that takes us to the edge of our
human capacity for understanding. The concept is baffling, because our
moral agency seems to demand both that our actions be determined, and
also that they not be determined.
R Goldstein
1. Having free will means having the freedom to choose our actions,
rather than having them determined by some prior cause.
2. If we don’t have free will, then we are not agents, for then we
are not really acting, but, rather, we’re being acted upon. (That’s
why we don’t punish people for involuntary actions—such as a teller
who hands money to a bank robber at gunpoint, or a driver who injures
a pedestrian after a defective tire blows out.)
3. To be a moral agent means to be held morally responsible for what
one does.
4. If we can’t be held morally responsible for anything we do, then
the very idea of morality is meaningless.
5. Morality is not meaningless.
6. We have free will (from 2–5).
7. We, as moral agents, are not subject to the laws of nature—in
particular, the neural events in a genetically and environmentally
determined brain (from 1 and 6).
8. Only a being who is apart from the laws of nature and partakes of
the moral sphere could explain our being moral agents (from 7).
9. Only God is a being who is apart from the laws of nature and
partakes of the moral sphere.
10. Only God can explain our moral agency (from 8 and 9)
11. God exists.
FLAW 1:
This argument, in order to lead to God, must ignore the paradoxical
Fork of Free Will. Either my actions are predictable (from my genes,
my upbringing, my brain state, my current situation, and so on), or
they are not. If they are predictable, then there is no reason to deny
that they are caused, and we would not have free will. So, if we are
to be free, our actions must be unpredictable—in other words, random.
But if our behavior is random, then in what sense can it be
attributable to us at all? If it really is a random event when I give
the infirm man my seat in the subway, then in what sense is it me to
whom this good deed should be attributed? If the action isn’t caused
by my psychological states, which are themselves caused by other
states, then in what way is it really my action? And what good would
it do to insist on moral responsibility if our choices are random, and
cannot be predicted from prior events (such as growing up in a society
that holds people responsible)? This leads us back to the conclusion
that we, as moral agents, must be parts of the natural world— the very
negation of Premise 7.
FLAW 2:
Premise 10 is an example of the Fallacy of Using One Mystery to
Explain Another. It expresses, rather than dispels, the confusion we
feel when faced with the Fork of Free Will. The paradox has not been
clarified in the least by introducing God into the analysis.
COMMENT:
Free will is yet another quandary that takes us to the edge of our
human capacity for understanding. The concept is baffling, because our
moral agency seems to demand both that our actions be determined, and
also that they not be determined.
R Goldstein
Brock
Feb 23, 2012, 6:20:17 PM2/23/12
to Evidence For God
On Feb 23, 11:34 am, Pastor Jennifer v2
<jennifer.s.jo...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 18. THE ARGUMENT FROM FREE WILL
>
> 1. Having free will means having the freedom to choose our actions,
> rather than having them determined by some prior cause.
> 2. If we don’t have free will, then we are not agents, for then we
> are not really acting, but, rather, we’re being acted upon. (That’s
> why we don’t punish people for involuntary actions—such as a teller
> who hands money to a bank robber at gunpoint, or a driver who injures
> a pedestrian after a defective tire blows out.)
> 3. To be a moral agent means to be held morally responsible for what
> one does.
> 4. If we can’t be held morally responsible for anything we do, then
> the very idea of morality is meaningless.
> 5. Morality is not meaningless.
> 6. We have free will (from 2–5).
> 7. We, as moral agents, are not subject to the laws of nature—in
> particular, the neural events in a genetically and environmentally
> determined brain (from 1 and 6).
> 8. Only a being who is apart from the laws of nature and partakes of
> the moral sphere could explain our being moral agents (from 7).
> 9. Only God is a being who is apart from the laws of nature and
> partakes of the moral sphere.
> 10. Only God can explain our moral agency (from 8 and 9)
> 11. God exists.
>
Again, the same limitations apply to this treatment:
> 18. THE ARGUMENT FROM FREE WILL
>
> 1. Having free will means having the freedom to choose our actions,
> rather than having them determined by some prior cause.
> 2. If we don’t have free will, then we are not agents, for then we
> are not really acting, but, rather, we’re being acted upon. (That’s
> why we don’t punish people for involuntary actions—such as a teller
> who hands money to a bank robber at gunpoint, or a driver who injures
> a pedestrian after a defective tire blows out.)
> 3. To be a moral agent means to be held morally responsible for what
> one does.
> 4. If we can’t be held morally responsible for anything we do, then
> the very idea of morality is meaningless.
> 5. Morality is not meaningless.
> 6. We have free will (from 2–5).
> 7. We, as moral agents, are not subject to the laws of nature—in
> particular, the neural events in a genetically and environmentally
> determined brain (from 1 and 6).
> 8. Only a being who is apart from the laws of nature and partakes of
> the moral sphere could explain our being moral agents (from 7).
> 9. Only God is a being who is apart from the laws of nature and
> partakes of the moral sphere.
> 10. Only God can explain our moral agency (from 8 and 9)
> 11. God exists.
>
* there is no one "THE ARGUMENT ...", rather it refers to a general
category of arguments, thus to defeat one specific example is not
adequate to dismiss the category
* the argument, to the degree it is a paraphrase, doesn't adequately
represent (either intentionally or accidentally) the argument as put
forward by a proponent, and faces the danger of being simply a straw-
man
Regards,
Brock
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