Argument from free will
Encyclopedia
The argument from free will (also called the paradox of free will, or theological fatalism) contends that omniscience
and free will
are incompatible
, and that any conception of God
that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory
. The argument may focus on the incoherence of people having free will, or else God himself having free will. These arguments are deeply concerned with the implications of predestination
, and often seem to echo the standard argument against free will
.
of humankind possessing free will. These arguments are deeply concerned with the implications of predestination
.
Moses Maimonides formulated an argument regarding a person
's free will, in traditional terms of good and evil actions, as follows:
Various means of reconciling God's omniscience
(possession of all possible knowledge) with human free will
have been proposed:
A proposition first offered by Thomas Aquinas
. and later C. S. Lewis
, it suggests that God's perception of time is different, and that this is relevant to our understanding of our own free will. In his book Mere Christianity
, Lewis argues that God is actually outside of time and therefore does not "foresee" events, but rather simply observes them all at once. He explains:
An obvious criticism of God being outside of time is that this does not seem to grant free will. Predestination
, regardless of how God perceives time, still seems to mean a person's actions will be determined
. A logical formulation of this criticism might go as follows:
Theists generally agree that God is a personal being and that God is omniscient
but there is some disagreement about whether "omniscient" means:
If omniscient is used in the first sense then the argument's applicability depends on what God chooses to know, and therefore it is not a complete argument against the existence of God. In both cases the argument depends on the assumption that it is logically possible for God to know every choice that he will make in advance of making that choice.
The compatibilist school of thought holds that free will
is compatible with determinism
and fatalism
and therefore does not accept the assumptions of point 2. A related line of thought, which goes back at least to Boethius, holds that God observing someone making a choice does not constrain their choice, although this is in the context of human free will
One criticism of the Argument from Free Will is that in point 4 of the proof it simply assumes that foreknowledge
and free will are incompatible. It uses circular logic to "prove" this, by simply stating that "a being that knows its choices in advance has no potential to avoid its choices". Point 4 is therefore saying, in essence, "A being that knows its choices in advance has no free will, and therefore has no free will". By assuming what it is trying to prove, that point undermines the entire argument.
Specifically, point 4 commits the modal fallacy of assuming that because some choice is known to be true, it must be necessarily true (i.e. there is no way it could possibly be false). Logically, the truth value of some proposition cannot be used to infer that the same proposition is necessarily true.
Using logical terminology and applying it to AFFW, there is a marked distinction between the statement "It is impossible (for God to know a future action to be true and for that action to not occur)" and the statement "If God knows that a future action is true, then it is impossible for that action to not occur." While the two statements may seem to say the same thing, they are not logically equivalent
. The second sentence is false because it commits the modal fallacy of saying that a certain action is impossible, instead of saying that the two propositions (God knows a future action to be true, and that action does not occur) are jointly impossible. Simply asserting that God knows a future action does not make it impossible for that action not to occur. The confusion comes in mistaking a semantic relation between two events for a causal relation between two events.
With these assumptions more explicitly stated, the proof becomes:
This claims to prove that at time T, person X is unable to do any action other than A. However, you could also remove steps 4–6, and arrive at the same conclusion. This is called logical determinism, and it suffers from the same modal fallacy as AFFW. If a certain proposition is true, that does not imply that the proposition is logically necessary. Once you remove the invalid assertion, then the argument for logical determinism
is shown to be false. Similarly, when that same invalid assertion is removed from AFFW ("by the definitions of 'knowledge' and 'choice', if one knows for certain what choice one will make in the future, one will not be able to make the opposite choice"), the proof is shown to be false.
Both of the interpretations of omnisicience referred to in the criticism include a qualification: what is chosen to be known, or what is logical. So the proposed definitions impose limitations on this God. So saying that Barker assumes "that it is logically possible for God to know every choice that he will make in advance of making that choice" is self-defeating as an objection. Firstly, it contradicts the traditional concept of the omnipotent, infallible God in Christianity
that Barker is responding to; and secondly, it leads logically to the position that humans could potentially know more than this God.
It is not enough to simply take the position that free will is compatible with determinism. The argument against free will is not about "God observing someone making a choice", it is about perfect foreknowledge that something will necessarily happen, negating that there is choice. If the future is perfectly known, it is fixed, and there are no choices.
The charge that the argument against free will assumes that foreknowledge and free will are incompatible (and therefore circular), is untenable. The incompatibility stems from the claim of omnisicence. It is a quite reasonable position to take that "a being that knows its choices in advance has no potential to avoid its choices." The challenge for the theist is to provide a reasonable account of how, if all is infallibly known in advance, that it is even possible that anything could be different.
The real problem is in the way that concepts of Gods are developed, and the extraordinary claims that are made, which are not based on empirical evidence.
The objection on the grounds of committing a modal fallacy is also untenable. In the case of omniscience, foreknowledge of what will happen tomorrow means that it is indeed logically necessary that it happens, with no possibility that it will not. Otherwise it is not omniscience. So the truth of "X will happen tomorrow" is equivalent to "it is necessarily the case that X will happen tomorrow".
In addition, the new proof provided is poorly constructed. Omniscience, or foreknowledge, is placed incorrectly in the sequence (starting at step 4), after the choice is made. Clearly foreknowledge, by definition, occurs before the choice is made. So if at a point in time before T there is infallible knowledge that X will choose to do action A at time T, then it is incorrect that at time T X can choose to do any action because X is committed to A and only A. The claim of free will collapses. The specification is very different with and without the inclusion of omniscience.
The objection that the "confusion comes in mistaking a semantic relation between two events for a causal relation between two events" can be criticised as at the very least presenting a false dilemma
, or at worst begging the question
. The false dilemma stems from the lack of specificity of how the infallible divine foreknowledge can occur. Begging the question stems from the assumption that the infallible, divine foreknowledge is not based on causality. Omniscience, knowing everything to come, that the future is settled and fixed, can only make sense if determinism is true. If everything is causally determined, then it is feasible that perfect knowledge of the causal relationships will produce perfect knowledge of what is to come: omniscience.
Omniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
and free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
are incompatible
Incompatible-properties argument
The incompatible-properties argument is the idea that no description of God is consistent with reality. For example, if one takes the definition of God to be described fully from the Bible, then the claims of what properties God has described therein might be argued to lead to a...
, and that any conception of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory
Contradiction
In classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical, usually opposite inversions of each other...
. The argument may focus on the incoherence of people having free will, or else God himself having free will. These arguments are deeply concerned with the implications of predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
, and often seem to echo the standard argument against free will
Standard argument against free will
The dilemma of determinism is the claim that if determinism is true, our actions are controlled by preceding events and thus we are not free; and that if indeterminism is true, our actions are random and we are likewise not free; and that as determinism and indeterminism exhaust the logical...
.
People and their free will
Some arguments against God focus on the supposed incoherenceIncoherence
Incoherence is an album by Peter Hammill, released on his Fie! label in March 2004. Incoherence is a concept album about language, containing 14 tracks with soft transitions between them. The album was produced and played by Hammill himself, with contributions from Stuart Gordon on violin and David...
of humankind possessing free will. These arguments are deeply concerned with the implications of predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
.
Moses Maimonides formulated an argument regarding a person
Person
A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
's free will, in traditional terms of good and evil actions, as follows:
Various means of reconciling God's omniscience
Omniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
(possession of all possible knowledge) with human free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
have been proposed:
Counters reconceptualizing free will
- God can know in advance what I will do, because free will is to be understood only as freedom from coercionCoercionCoercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
, and anything further is an illusion. This is the move made by compatibilisticCompatibilismCompatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent. It may, however, be more accurate to say that compatibilists define 'free will' in a way that allows it to co-exist with determinism...
philosophies. - The sovereignty (autonomy) of God, existing within a free agent, provides strong inner compulsions toward a course of action (calling), and the power of choice (election). The actions of a human are thus determined by a human acting on relatively strong or weak urges (both from God and the environment around them) and their own relative power to choose.
- Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has stated that man does have limited free will; he can decide whether or not to surrender to the will of Krishna. All other material happenings and their implications are inconceivably predestined.
Counters reconceptualizing omniscience
- MolinismMolinismMolinism, named after 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile the providence of God with human free will. William Lane Craig is probably its best known advocate today, though other important Molinists include Alfred Freddoso, Alvin...
argues that God can know in advance what I will do, even though free will in the fullest sense of the phrase does exist, because God somehow has a "middle knowledge" – that is, knowledge of how agents would freely act in any given circumstances. - God's OmnipotenceOmnipotenceOmnipotence is unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence to only the deity of whichever faith is being addressed...
includes the power to set a limit on what can be known, and thus his own knowledge. Moreover, God chooses to know and predetermine some things, but not others. This allows for humankind's free moral choices for those things that God chose not to foreordain. - "It is not possible for God to know the result of a free human choice". The results of a human's choice is thus not included in God's omniscience (understood here as "knowledge of everything that can be known") any more than the supposed 'knowledge' of what a square circle would look like. Critics maintain that omniscience must include the choices humans will make, or else God could not know anything after the very first human choice ever made.
- In line with presentismPresentismPresentism may refer to:* Presentism * Presentism...
, God knows everything that ever happened, and that is happening, but cannot know the future, because it doesn't exist. Because it is not possible to know something that doesn't exist, not knowing the future does not affect God's omniscience. In the same way, because it is not possible to make triangles with four angles, not being able to make triangles with four angles does not affect God's omnipotence.
"God is outside of time"
A proposition first offered by Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
. and later C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, it suggests that God's perception of time is different, and that this is relevant to our understanding of our own free will. In his book Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity is a theological book by C. S. Lewis, adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, while Lewis was at Oxford during World War II...
, Lewis argues that God is actually outside of time and therefore does not "foresee" events, but rather simply observes them all at once. He explains:
An obvious criticism of God being outside of time is that this does not seem to grant free will. Predestination
Predestination
Predestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
, regardless of how God perceives time, still seems to mean a person's actions will be determined
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
. A logical formulation of this criticism might go as follows:
- God timelessly knows choice "C" that a human would claim to "make freely".
- If C is in the timeless realm, then it is now-necessary that C.
- If it is now-necessary that C, then C cannot be otherwise (this is the definition of “necessary”). That is, there are no actual "possibilities" due to predestinationPredestinationPredestination, in theology is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted biblical predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others...
. - If you cannot do otherwise when you act, you do not act freely (Principle of Alternate Possibilities)
- Therefore, when you do an act, you will not do it freely.
General proof
A simple version of an argument appealing specifically to God's free will:- Yesterday God infallibly believed T. (Supposition of infallible foreknowledge as a subset of omniscience)
- If E occurred in the past, it is now-necessary that E occurred then. (Principle of the Necessity of the Past)
- It is now-necessary that yesterday God believed T. (1, 2)
- Necessarily, if yesterday God believed T, then T. (Definition of “infallibility”)
- If p is now-necessary, and necessarily (p → q), then q is now-necessary. (Transfer of Necessity Principle)
- So it is now-necessary that T. (3, 4, 5)
- If it is now-necessary that T, then God cannot do otherwise. (Definition of “necessary”)
- Therefore, God cannot do otherwise. (6, 7)
- If God cannot do otherwise when God does an act, God does not act freely. (Principle of Alternate Possibilities)
- Therefore, when God does an act, God will not do it freely. (8, 9)
- Therefore, an omniscient god cannot have free will. (1, 10)
Dan Barker
Dan Barker's version of the argument is formulated as follows:- God is defined as a personal being who knows everything.
- Personal beings have free will.
- In order to have free will, you must have more than one option, each of which is avoidable. This means that before you make a choice, there must be a state of uncertainty during a period of potential: you cannot know the future. Even if you think you can predict your decision, if you claim to have free will, you must admit the potential (if not the desire) to change your mind before the decision is final.
- A being who knows everything can have no "state of uncertainty". It knows its choices in advance.
- A being that knows its choices in advance has no potential to avoid its choices, and therefore lacks free will.
- Since a being that lacks free will is not a personal being, a personal being who knows everything cannot exist.
- Therefore, a personal God does not exist.
Criticisms of Barker's formulation
The principal criticisms of this argument center around points 1 and 2, though there is some concern regarding point 4. All point numbers refer to Barker's formulation.Point 1
Theists generally agree that God is a personal being and that God is omniscient
Omniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
but there is some disagreement about whether "omniscient" means:
- "knows everything that God chooses to know and that is logically possible to know"; Or instead the slightly stronger:
- "knows everything that is logically possible to know"
If omniscient is used in the first sense then the argument's applicability depends on what God chooses to know, and therefore it is not a complete argument against the existence of God. In both cases the argument depends on the assumption that it is logically possible for God to know every choice that he will make in advance of making that choice.
Point 2
The compatibilist school of thought holds that free will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
is compatible with determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
and fatalism
Fatalism
Fatalism is a philosophical doctrine emphasizing the subjugation of all events or actions to fate.Fatalism generally refers to several of the following ideas:...
and therefore does not accept the assumptions of point 2. A related line of thought, which goes back at least to Boethius, holds that God observing someone making a choice does not constrain their choice, although this is in the context of human free will
Point 4
One criticism of the Argument from Free Will is that in point 4 of the proof it simply assumes that foreknowledge
Foreknowledge
Foreknowledge may refer to* Various concepts of knowledge regarding future events:** Predestination** Prediction - Informed or uninformed guesses regarding future events...
and free will are incompatible. It uses circular logic to "prove" this, by simply stating that "a being that knows its choices in advance has no potential to avoid its choices". Point 4 is therefore saying, in essence, "A being that knows its choices in advance has no free will, and therefore has no free will". By assuming what it is trying to prove, that point undermines the entire argument.
Specifically, point 4 commits the modal fallacy of assuming that because some choice is known to be true, it must be necessarily true (i.e. there is no way it could possibly be false). Logically, the truth value of some proposition cannot be used to infer that the same proposition is necessarily true.
Using logical terminology and applying it to AFFW, there is a marked distinction between the statement "It is impossible (for God to know a future action to be true and for that action to not occur)" and the statement "If God knows that a future action is true, then it is impossible for that action to not occur." While the two statements may seem to say the same thing, they are not logically equivalent
Logical equivalence
In logic, statements p and q are logically equivalent if they have the same logical content.Syntactically, p and q are equivalent if each can be proved from the other...
. The second sentence is false because it commits the modal fallacy of saying that a certain action is impossible, instead of saying that the two propositions (God knows a future action to be true, and that action does not occur) are jointly impossible. Simply asserting that God knows a future action does not make it impossible for that action not to occur. The confusion comes in mistaking a semantic relation between two events for a causal relation between two events.
With these assumptions more explicitly stated, the proof becomes:
- Assume that person X has free will (assumption).
- By the definition of free will, at any point in time, X can choose to do any action A, where A belongs to A(T), the set of all actions that X is physically capable of at time T (definition of free will).
- At time T, person X will choose to do action A (i.e. a person cannot logically choose to do both A and not A) (Law of the Excluded MiddleLaw of excluded middleIn logic, the law of excluded middle is the third of the so-called three classic laws of thought. It states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is....
). - Assume that an omniscient God exists (assumption).
- By the definition of omniscience, God knows everything that will happen at any point in time (definition of omniscience).
- From 3. and 5., God knows that at time T, person X will choose to do action A (logical conclusion).
- Therefore, person X must do action A at time T.
This claims to prove that at time T, person X is unable to do any action other than A. However, you could also remove steps 4–6, and arrive at the same conclusion. This is called logical determinism, and it suffers from the same modal fallacy as AFFW. If a certain proposition is true, that does not imply that the proposition is logically necessary. Once you remove the invalid assertion, then the argument for logical determinism
Deterministic system (philosophy)
A deterministic system is a conceptual model of the philosophical doctrine of determinism applied to a system for understanding everything that has and will occur in the system, based on the physical outcomes of causality. In a deterministic system, every action, or cause, produces a reaction, or...
is shown to be false. Similarly, when that same invalid assertion is removed from AFFW ("by the definitions of 'knowledge' and 'choice', if one knows for certain what choice one will make in the future, one will not be able to make the opposite choice"), the proof is shown to be false.
Point 1
Both of the interpretations of omnisicience referred to in the criticism include a qualification: what is chosen to be known, or what is logical. So the proposed definitions impose limitations on this God. So saying that Barker assumes "that it is logically possible for God to know every choice that he will make in advance of making that choice" is self-defeating as an objection. Firstly, it contradicts the traditional concept of the omnipotent, infallible God in Christianity
God in Christianity
In Christianity, God is the eternal being that created and preserves the universe. God is believed by most Christians to be immanent , while others believe the plan of redemption show he will be immanent later...
that Barker is responding to; and secondly, it leads logically to the position that humans could potentially know more than this God.
Point 2
It is not enough to simply take the position that free will is compatible with determinism. The argument against free will is not about "God observing someone making a choice", it is about perfect foreknowledge that something will necessarily happen, negating that there is choice. If the future is perfectly known, it is fixed, and there are no choices.
Point 4
The charge that the argument against free will assumes that foreknowledge and free will are incompatible (and therefore circular), is untenable. The incompatibility stems from the claim of omnisicence. It is a quite reasonable position to take that "a being that knows its choices in advance has no potential to avoid its choices." The challenge for the theist is to provide a reasonable account of how, if all is infallibly known in advance, that it is even possible that anything could be different.
The real problem is in the way that concepts of Gods are developed, and the extraordinary claims that are made, which are not based on empirical evidence.
The objection on the grounds of committing a modal fallacy is also untenable. In the case of omniscience, foreknowledge of what will happen tomorrow means that it is indeed logically necessary that it happens, with no possibility that it will not. Otherwise it is not omniscience. So the truth of "X will happen tomorrow" is equivalent to "it is necessarily the case that X will happen tomorrow".
In addition, the new proof provided is poorly constructed. Omniscience, or foreknowledge, is placed incorrectly in the sequence (starting at step 4), after the choice is made. Clearly foreknowledge, by definition, occurs before the choice is made. So if at a point in time before T there is infallible knowledge that X will choose to do action A at time T, then it is incorrect that at time T X can choose to do any action because X is committed to A and only A. The claim of free will collapses. The specification is very different with and without the inclusion of omniscience.
The objection that the "confusion comes in mistaking a semantic relation between two events for a causal relation between two events" can be criticised as at the very least presenting a false dilemma
False dilemma
A false dilemma is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options...
, or at worst begging the question
Begging the question
Begging the question is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise....
. The false dilemma stems from the lack of specificity of how the infallible divine foreknowledge can occur. Begging the question stems from the assumption that the infallible, divine foreknowledge is not based on causality. Omniscience, knowing everything to come, that the future is settled and fixed, can only make sense if determinism is true. If everything is causally determined, then it is feasible that perfect knowledge of the causal relationships will produce perfect knowledge of what is to come: omniscience.
See also
- Book of Life
- MolinismMolinismMolinism, named after 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile the providence of God with human free will. William Lane Craig is probably its best known advocate today, though other important Molinists include Alfred Freddoso, Alvin...
- List of paradoxes
Further reading
- Thomas Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles
- Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica I, Q. XIV, esp. Art. 13: "Whether the Knowledge of God is of Future COntingent Things?".
- Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Many editions.
- Hasker, William. God, Time, and Foreknowledge". Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
- Molina, Luis de. On Divine Foreknowledge, trans. Alfred J. Freddoso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
- Plantinga, Alvin. "On Ockham's Way Out". Faith and Philosophy 3 (3): 235–269.
- Ockham, William. Predestination, God's Foreknowledge, and Future Contingents, trans. M.M. Adams and N. Kretzmann. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983.
- Zagzebski, Linda. "The Dilemma of Freedom an Foreknowledge". New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
External links
- Free Will – Freethoughtpedia.com original article on the nature of Free Will and how it applies to religion
- The Paradox of Free will – An online discussion