Do humans have free will?

[martyychang]

Free will is defined as having a choice, or having control over one's own destiny.

[MattPMc]

Let not the Calvinist ideology of pre-destination get in the way of this... Just because YHWH knows what you’ll be when you grow up or because it’s part of some plan does not mean your free will is null and void, it suggests more that a being capable of existing either outside of time or can experience all of time at the same time just knows what’s happening or has happened or will happen and can see all those threads.

_{Sent with GitHawk}

[martyychang]

Perhaps another way to think of free will is, "Do my actions matter?" I just found an article that I think sums up my thoughts on the matter fairly well.

@MattPMc how might you react (emojis and all) to the statement below?

If God has a plan and God's plan is absolute, humans effectively have no free will. If humans have free will and the ability to influence humanity's final outcome (self-destruction or eternal life), God's plan cannot be absolute.

[MattPMc]

...fair warning @martyychang - I can be quite verbose... 💯 🎉

LONG STORY SHORT I do indeed feel our actions matter - a pebble hitting a body of water creates ripples, be it a puddle or a pond or a lake or a river or the ocean... It changes not the nature nor will it alter the course of the water, but it still has impact.

LONG STORY LONG I suppose I would start by quoting Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

As a non-believer - I usually denounce being referred to by the generic term 'atheist' both etymologically (adeist would be closer to truth) and much of the pre-conceived baggage that comes with it (Dawkins is both brilliant but annoying, and Bill Maher just irritates me... as examples) - it is often difficult to separate some of the more direct influences religious thought and texts have had on world history. People can make mistakes and can make them for years, but when our eyes are opened to the truth of those mistakes, it is then our responsibility as thinking humans to rectify and/or repent of this ills and attempt to move forward with renewed faith in oneself and one's morality. I think certain actions will always be immoral no matter what holy text indicates otherwise, but I need not drag that into this discussion.

What I often take away from the Epicurean trilemma - I do so enjoy that word - is that the larger issue for non-believers should still be that no matter how objectively evil acts are justified, it is human will at the center of it. Yes, it does indeed appear that much more harm comes from those who take their religious perspective to a markedly inhumane level, but one cannot discount the amount of truly humane actions taken by those who believe basically the same thing. I'll not excuse Mother Teresa's actions within her own charity (for indeed she was pro-suffering), but I'll not discount those nuns who believed they were legitimately helping those most in need.

In relation to the dilemma above, I prefer to think of humanity as having agency, though problems can arise from chemical interactions in the brain that may diminish our ability to make cogent choices - this is not the statistically expected behavior in my understanding but is a distinct possibility. What does trouble me is the idea of a higher-level being - or legitimate deity - knowing to the Nth degree our moment-to-moment thoughts and actions, but allowing such atrocities as has taken place throughout human history (hence Epicurus). While I think most of us would have preferred such horrors had not taken place at all, I must fault humanity 100% for such idiocy and pure evil, which is the downside of said agency.

I appreciated the article, and indeed share many of the same arguments on how good intentions X bad timing = angering people, but I must say I feel the challenge posted is far too simplistic and anthropomorphic for a being that is supposed to exist beyond our human understanding or experience. Not only does it reduce any metrics around what the "plan" is, for the deity may be playing a vastly different game than we are (Go vs. Simon Says), but both options semantically bring said deity down to our level of understanding, negating its proposed omniscience.

Overall, I think the problem of the free will argument allows humanity to shift blame or gratitude in often the wrong direction. I've heard parents heap praise on their children for working their butts off to get good grades, to go after scholarships, to apply to the schools they wanted and go above and beyond to get the attention of the admissions people... then thank God for that same child getting accepted. I once knew a guy who had medically died 11 times by the age of 18, only to be brought back by the medical teams attending him - and have people thank God... Cancer survivors - same thing. When challenged, the usual rebuttal is that God gave those medical professionals the to become a medical professional, but this cheapens the amount of determination and effort they put into what they do on a daily basis.

On the flip side, I was raised to think the bad things all came from Satan - a constructed character if ever there was one... but this also totally misses the mark and just allows humanity to evade its own culpability in everything from the Holocaust to permitting Lucas to re-align his films to make Greedo shoot first (an atrocity in my opinion). To suggest that those who were tricked by Satan will end up in eternal torment rather neglects the history of the Catholic Church in creating Hell in the first place, but it again suggests humans are free to just do whatever they please without consequence, inasmuch if God is supposed to make the ultimate decision, shouldn't we just carry on like idiots?

In conclusion - finally, I know - it is my belief that the ONLY thing we truly have any real control over is our own reactions... Call it free will, call it agency, call it late for dinner, it's still on us...