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[1.62]

Many of the arguments for the existence of God will include the claim that we have freewill. Freewill is a necessity if there are any moral responsibilities, implying we have the choice; “to do otherwise”. However, I am a compatibilist and atheist and see many problems with a god that is omniscient, omnipotent and a provider of freewill. The claims of theists that we have freewill is important to answering things like god’s hiddenness and our duty to believe. I hope the analogy below exposes the contradiction of freewill and omniscience. I am interested in seeing how Christians reconcile this problem.

God and His Marbles In the beginning, an omniscient, omnipotent God selected a particular jar of marbles. The properties and nature of this jar, along with its contents, was just one of an infinite range of possible jars. God has always known the contents of this selected jar; ten, one inch diameter marbles and ninety, two inch diameter marbles. God also created a screen that has openings that are slightly larger than one inch. The game begins when God begins to pour the marbles out of the selected jar onto a screen. Meanwhile, inside the jar, the marbles begin to wonder about their world and the uncertainty of what the future has in store for them. Over time they develop right and wrong ideas about the nature of their world and their existence. On their journey they create cultures and traditions that divide them into tribes. Some marbles claim to have been contacted by the Creator and begin to convince others that they should act and believe in a certain way. Other tribes do the same and so, nearly from the beginning there are many stories and beliefs but no marble actually knows what happens after they exit their world. Most of the marbles adhere to a tribal belief and follow its customs. No marble knows which is actually a one or a two inch marble. Ultimately, after passing out of the jar the marbles fall onto a screen. The one inch marbles pass through the screen and into another jar labeled - The Heavenly Jar. The remaining ninety, two inch marbles are “cast into an everlasting furnace”.

Definitions:

God = This is the omniscient, omnipotent God, Creator of marbles, jars, universe, matter and time; an all knowing being, existing outside of time.

The Jar = the universe and container of all matter, time and marbles

The marbles = The set of marbles that were selected from a set of all possible marble distributions and attributes, that, in this case, have the attributes of either being one or two inches in diameter. The marbles think they have freewill; the capacity to choose their actions independent of constraints or coercion. In other words, the ability to do otherwise. One inch marbles are the ones that acted and believed correctly while inside the jar. Marbles only know their true size after they have exited the jar and have been screened.

Selecting the jar of marbles = Selecting one jar from a set of jars that have all possible distributions and attributes of marbles. This is the set of initial conditions of the universe that God chooses. God knew, knows and has always known which 10 marbles would be redeemed and the 90 that will be forever tormented in fire based on the jar he selected. This is a fact of omniscience.

God created a screen with one inch openings = God created the screen with its particular sized openings as the criteria for reward and punishment, e.g., “narrow is the way” and “separating the wheat from the chaff. “

Pouring the marbles = God’s sustaining action causing marbles to follow the arrow of time.

Flow toward the opening = “Flow” is the sustaining force exerted by God, acting upon the marbles and represents the course of existence.

One inch marbles = These are the marbles that believe that they believe in the right God and actually believe in the right God. However they have no way of knowing that they believe in the correct God or that they have been chosen by God.

Two inches marbles = The marbles who didn’t believe or didn’t act on their God beliefs or didn’t believe in the Right God but thought they did, or were unconvinced. These oversized marbles were cast into the everlasting furnace.

Summary: God selected the particular marbles that would wind up confined in The Heavenly Jar. From a non-temporal view the marbles only had the illusion of freewill. They were preselected and constrained in a universe with a finite set of paths that were known, and are known, by God, at every point from the beginning until the end. The marbles in the jar were unaware of their true size and therefore had no way of knowing for sure who would be rewarded and who wouldn’t. Each marble could only act upon its antecedent causes and God’s sustaining force. We, like the marbles, only have the appearance of free will. If God is omniscient, our world and fate is predetermined and freewill is only an illusion. As in the movie "War Games", the winning move, professor, is not to play.

[jimwalton]

First of all, the ability to reason is grounded in free will. Reasoning involves deciding if something is true or credible by equating it to the reality to which it refers, then comparing it with competing ideas, and choosing which idea best fits reality. Without free will and the legitimate ability to choose, the role of reason itself in any intellectual discipline is suspect—there is no mechanism for evaluating information and deciding on plausibility. Without free will, then, science itself is an illusion, all conversations are meaningless, and our thoughts are unreliable. Our lives are irredeemably incoherent.

We study our natural world (the sciences) as if self-awareness, self-direction, and reason are real. We can evaluate that there are realities outside of ourselves that we can observe and draw true conclusions about. The notion of truth takes us beyond mere biological determinism, which is only concerned with survival (food, flight, fight, and reproduction). We act as if we honestly believe that we can ask "what if..." questions, assess the possibilities, make authentic decisions, and conclude truth. All of these are evidences of free will, reason, and objective truth, all of which show that we live and function as if these things are real, reliable, and even have a facet to them that could be considered "true."

Secondarily, if free will didn’t exist, we couldn’t know it, because I can’t evaluate possibilities or draw conclusions. I couldn’t think my way out of a paper bag let alone ascertain free will. Without free will, we couldn’t know anything. Knowledge is justified true belief. We decide if a belief is true by comparing it to the reality to which it refers, comparing it with competing ideas, and choosing which idea best fits reality. This requires some level of free will. If you don’t believe in free will, then you don’t believe in the validity of reasoning, and all arguments to the contrary are self-defeating.

Third, without free will, the characteristics that most make us human are impossible: love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and kindness, to name a few. If I have no choice but to love you, it’s not love at all. Love requires the will to choose. If the only reason I forgive you is because I have no other alternative, then I have not forgiven you at all, but only followed an irresistible force. Without free will, I am a determined animal, perhaps even robotic, but I am not human.

Fourth, without free will there is no such thing as justice. I can neither find nor enforce justice in a court of law if there is no self-direction, either on the criminal’s part (he can’t be held accountable if he was determined to do it) or on the judge’s part (he can’t make a rational decision if there is no such thing).

One cannot have free will without self-direction, and one cannot have self-direction without self-awareness, and one cannot have self-awareness without consciousness. The evidences are convincing that we have all these things. I have consciousness, therefore I am self-aware, and therefore I am self-directed. Both reason and experience tell us these things are so. Everything about humanity and reason point to the necessity of free will.

Now let’s deal with the question of God’s omniscience. That God knows everything has no impact on my freedom to choose. Knowledge has nothing to do with causality. No matter what I know, it doesn’t make you do anything. Suppose I know you love chocolate, and I know every time we go for ice cream you pick chocolate. My knowledge has nothing to do with your choices, and doesn’t cause you to do anything. It doesn’t even matter what I know or how much I know. My knowledge, or anybody’s knowledge, does not and cannot have any effect on your behavior. Knowledge doesn’t cause anything outside of its own entity. It matters not whether it’s trivial or substantial, because knowledge can only make an effect in someone or something else if it is linked with a power (a causal mechanism) to create an effect. Knowledge by itself is impotent as a causal mechanism in another entity. No matter how much I know, you can never say that my knowing something caused (forced) you to do something. Knowledge just doesn’t work that way.

But suppose I’m twice as smart as I am in real life (wouldn’t that be nice). How does that affect you? It doesn’t. Suppose I’m ten times as smart. How does that affect you? It doesn’t. Suppose I’m omniscient. How that affect you? It still doesn’t. Knowledge is passive, not causal. Just because I know something is going to happen doesn’t mean I caused it to happen. Knowledge, even omniscience, by itself is impotent as a causal mechanism in another entity. It must be teamed with some kind of power (force) to cause anything.

Your marble analogy is flawed from the beginning and everywhere. If you're going with Christian theology...

1. The marbles don't need to wonder about the world. What the Bible teaches is that God revealed himself and characteristics of the world.

2. The marbles don't need to be uncertain about the future. God revealed the options of life and death.

3. The marbles don't need to develop right and wrong ideas about the world and their nature. As pertaining to the "screen", it has been made known to them. They do need to learn, however, scientific knowledge.

4. The marbles don't just "think" they have free will. Free will is a logical necessity. They know they have it, from the start.

And so on.

Summary: Every marble is the same size, and can fit through the holes in the screen. All have been selected (2 Pet. 3.9; Jn. 12.32) and invited. The screen is actually tilted in favor to receive all marbles through the holes. God knows that some will not pass through of their own volition, but he still repeatedly invites them and rigs the system to get them through the holes. The only true obstacle to them passing through the holes is their own free will. God's knowledge did not have a causal effect on each marble's actions.

[1.62]

First of all, maybe you and I aren’t working from the same definition of freewill. My definition of freewill comes from Webster’s and says that it's the freedom of human beings to make choices that are not determined by prior causes. As I have asked others in this post, which implied my definition, in what way do we ever act or think that wasn't a result (cause) of our biology and sense experience (external environment)? Here is a very important question. Do you think your will or desire is uncaused? If so, how does this work? Does it just come from nothing?

Spinoza had this to say: “There is no such thing as free will. The mind is induced to wish this or that by some cause and that cause is determined by another cause, and so back to infinity”.

Spinoza uses the word wish (interchangeable with will). We are induced to wish this or that. Spinoza here explains that cause underlies the reason we wish to do this or that. Cause explains the reason why we choose. The causes are either biological or environmental. Your biological make up and all your experiences are what make you, you. That is absolutely all you are. To paraphrase Sam Harris, if I were atom for atom you, and had every experience identical to your experiences I would be you, doing exactly what you are doing right now…reading this well explained reply countering your belief in freewill. Did you have a choice in reading this sentence?

I have temporarily run out of time to continue this reply but I will address more later. Btw, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

[jimwalton]

I don't agree with Spinoza. The problem with his position is that if mental events are intrinsically related to neural events (a position called physicalism, or eliminative materialism), how can it not be the case that the contents of mental events are ultimately governed by the laws of neurobiology? But if eliminative materialism is true, then, as you and Spinoza contend, there is no freedom of the will, all moral responsibility is in jeopardy, and any talk about the role of reason in any intellectual discipline is misguided, as I mentioned.

The alternative, to which I subscribe, is that human behavior can be exhaustively explained by analysis at lower levels. Neurobiologists have observed that higher-level causal properties emerge, and therefore thinking and deciding are genuinely efficacious. Thinking matter is possible because we are matter that thinks. I believe that empirical evidence supports that the uniqueness of humankind doesn't rest entirely in the neural machinery. To rebut Sam Harris, I believe that if two beings were atom for atom alike with similar experiences as background, their futures could easily diverge because mental processes are neither static nor biologically determined, but vital and free. If eliminative materialism were the case, human behavior would be far more predictable.

[1.62]

I would like to see the empirical evidence you have that shows that my uniqueness is brought about by something extra that is non-neural. Is the evidence non-natural?

You are strawmanning Sam Harris' argument. Go back and read what I said he said and then what you said he said and you'll see.

I do not hold to the notion that mental processes are static. As I have said, we are entirely determined by our biological makeup and environmental experiences. There is nothing going on in the mind that requires anything other than the laws of physics and chemistry as an explanation. I don't pretend that this is a settled issue, but natural laws are all we observe taking place in the processes of the human mind and therefore does not require unnecessary or unprovable things like a soul.

You believe the marble world analogy is flawed and doesn't follow Christian Theology. You may be right but the disagreement you have with my marble analogy spills over into practically a thousand other christian theologies that your particular beliefs sets don't agree with, for example, Calvinism or Mormonism. I don't want to get hung up here, but what the marble analogy was supposed to present was a god that has the attribute of omniscience and omnipotence. An all knowing god knows THE outcome of creatures he created. He chose to create this world out of an infinite number of choices of worlds with an infinite number attributes. Even before he created this world he knew how the minions of this particular world would act and whether or not we would be rewarded or punished. He could have other worlds with other governing laws, and maybe he did, but all we can know is this world. He knows the final outcome of this world because of his perfect foreknowledge. If God does not have perfect foreknowledge then prophecy would not work. Prophecy, which by the way, is the cornerstone of Christianity's evidence, demands determinacy and all the sneaky problems it smuggles into freewill.

You focus on the individual marbles and add details that aren't there, which is funny because that's exactly what Christianity does. Kudos on consistency, but the analogy demonstrates that God already knew which marbles would succeed and which wouldn't. Omniscience demands this foreknowledge just as prophecy does.

It's wrong to think we cannot reason unless we have the type of free will you prescribe. Think carefully of the definition of free will: the freedom of human beings to make choices that are not determined by prior causes. It is by determinacy that we are able to reason and we are caused to act to reason because of our biological makeup and our environmental experiences. It is borderline nonsensical to think there is some sort of independent, untethered will that is somehow intentionally able to act without prior cause.

Also, we do not need free will in order to dispense justice. We need justice to determine whether someone is either guilty or not guilty, not how responsible they are. I know the world's justice system does assign responsibility, but it's real duty is to determine guilt. Even though we are not biologically responsible for our actions, in order to minimize harm to others, people should still be held accountable, and be punished when necessary. This serves as incentive to cooperate with society and its social contract. See that wasn't so hard.

Finally, I want to agree with you that my knowledge of something does not affect an outcome. But you miss the point so badly. If God exists and is both omniscient and omnipotent, then God is the causer and the determiner.

[jimwalton]

Great discussion. I disagree with just about everything. What fun.

You are still attributing causal properties to God's knowledge. Logically, I don't see it. Here's how it looks to me:

1. Someone else's knowledge has no effect on my behavior without another causal force at work. Knowledge is not a causal force between beings, but only within oneself.
2. God's knowledge, while complete, is not a causal force. Knowledge has no mechanism for causation.
3. Therefore God's omniscience doesn't make me do anything.
4. And therefore human beings are free to make choices that are no determined by God's knowledge, because God's knowledge is not a causal force.

Look at Jeremiah 18.1-12. Humans are free to choose and to act outside of any causal mechanism of God's, even the prophetic word, because the prophetic word is not even causal. First of all, the predictive element in biblical prophecy has to be kept distinct from causation, or else it ceases to be predictive. Prophets weren't predicting anything, but merely giving the word of the Lord. The prophecy is God's message, not the prophet's. If predicting is understood to preclude causation, then God cannot predict, for he is the first cause and the final cause. Rather than regarding prophecy as prediction, it is more helpful to consider it as "God's syllabus." The syllabus for a course doesn't "predict" what will happen in each class period of the term, but presents the instructor's plans and intentions for each period. The significance of the document is that the instructor is in a position to carry it out. Likewise, when a judge passes a sentence on a convicted criminal, he is not "predicting" what will happen to that person. Rather, he is decreeing what ought to be done and is in a position to see that it is done. In prophetic literature, God is declaring his intentions and decreeing his judgments.

This relates to my "justice" statement. If an individual is biologically determined, he can justifiable claim he didn't will the action, but had no choice. If there is no choice, there is neither responsibility for the behavior nor accountability for it. He had no choice but to follow his biological determination, whether to give someone a flower or a knife in the back. Kindness therefore aren't really kindness, but robotic response. Love isn't love at all, but an inescapable reflex to chemistry. So there is no such thing, and for you to say you love someone is meaningless. There is no evil either, for no one can help it. It's all physics and chemistry.

I propose that this is neither a realistic nor tenable approach to human existence and reality. You could fly a plane into a skyscraper and claim it was sheer chemistry. You deny both good and evil, love and hate, crime and justice. It's a meaningless approach to life, and no one lives with those presuppositions. You can't believe in "free won't" (the ability to NOT do X) and not in free will. Human beings have inhibitory control, and therefore they have causal control.

You wanted empirical evidence. Humans have the largest frontal lobe, where there is a nested hierarchy of control loops. To be a human agent—to act humanly—is to have very high level criteria for action. These are irreducible systems. Our criteria for decisions and action are based in comparing actions with expectations (other criteria) for evaluating outcomes. We consider both past experiences and future prospects, evaluating both short-term and long-term consequences. While 95% of human behavior may be on an automatic rather than an intentional behavioral basis, it is our reasoning and our relationships that evidence free will. Without free will, both are totally meaningless. Human beings have the ability to evaluate the outcome of behavior, betraying that we have free will.

An illustration from our world: colonies of ant have causal properties not entirely attributable to the capacities and behaviors of individual ants. In other words, complex, nonlinear, highly-interactive entities become causal systems through adaptive self-organization. Mess up the nest, and the ants go into complete disarray. Yet later they reorganize and adapt, not even the same way they were, creating organization that becomes causal in its own right. What causes ants' work is not the ants themselves, but the pattern of activity. So if the ants are like neurons, for them to do anything causal, they must organize themselves. Human development is the organization patterns of neurons in an adaptive way; we are more than just the sum of our parts and mundane chemical interactions.

I still stand on my conclusion: God's omniscience is neither causal nor determinant.