Denying our Freewill and Culpability and its Costs

In 1871, Thomas Huxley, a zealous advocate of Charles Darwin, claimed that “Mind is a function of matter,” and, of course, matter is exclusively under control of the laws of science. This leaves no room for freewill.

Similarly, in his recent book, “Free Will,” atheist Sam Harris writes, “Free will is an illusion.” Consequently, what feels like freewill is nothing more than chemical processes. This leaves no room for human culpability. If our thoughts and actions are entirely controlled by biochemical reactions, then we couldn’t have done otherwise. Hence, there is no basis for guilt and culpability.

However, this denial of freewill and culpability (DFC) is highly problematic for a number of reasons:

DFC goes against everything we intuitively know about ourselves and our lives. When I make any decision, like flipping through the TV channels, it seems that I am freely choosing one station over another. Of course, like anyone else, I am subject to powerful biological-genetic forces. Admittedly, I am biologically predisposed to not like loud and glitzy programming. Therefore, some will say, “Well, this proves you’re pre-programmed to make certain choices.”

Although there is truth in this claim, it falls far short of proving that pre-programming is the only factor involved in my choices.

Of course, Harris and the other atheists will respond, “Your experience of free choice is just an illusion.” However, if I can’t trust my sense that I am making freewill choices, then I can’t trust my senses that I even exist, that I am a person, or that I am culpable for my actions!  If something that I experience with such clarity is illusory, perhaps my very existence and the existence of this world are also illusory. Perhaps I’m just someone else’s consciousness. Perhaps, as some Buddhists claim, we are just part of one universal consciousness and lack any individual existence.

If our intuitions and perceptions are simply part of this great delusion, then science and all reason are also part of this same delusion, along with Harris’ DFC thinking.

In other words, if I apply such skepticism to my perceptions that, to some degree, I am making culpable, free choices, then I have to be skeptical about everything else in my life!

To an extent, freewill and culpability differs among people. However, one DFC writes that there can exist no freewill distinctions among us, since freewill is entirely absent:

• There are only two types of people in the world. Those who believe in free will and those who do not. There is no grey area or wiggle room… There is no such thing as a little freewill.

However, many recognize that we do possess differing degrees of freewill. The heroin addict is more constrained in his free choices than before he became addicted. He can think of little else besides his next fix.

And what about captives given a drug – LSD or truth serum - to control their behavior? Do not they have less freedom of choice and culpability than before? Or the comatose? Or when someone puts a gun to our head, forcing us to commit a crime? Should we not take these considerations into account?

If these observations of relative freedom are true, then the narrow, unvarying materialistic view denying any area of freewill and culpability is clearly wrong. From the perspective of the DFC, everyone is equally and completely controlled by brain chemistry. Consequently, there can be no room for varying degrees of freewill and culpability – the very thing that our justice system and schools depend on!

We can perceive a distinction between purely chemical determination of our behavior and our relatively free responses. Wilder Penfield, the father of modern neurosurgery performed experiments demonstrating that brain activity doesn’t seem to account for all of our mental experience. Lee Edward Travis sums up his findings this way:

• Penfield would stimulate electrically the proper motor cortex of conscious patients and challenge them to keep one hand from moving when the current was applied. The patient would seize this hand with the other hand and struggle to hold it still. Thus one hand under the control of the electrical current and the other hand under the control of the patient’s mind fought against each other. Penfield risked the explanation that the patient had not only a physical brain that was stimulated to action but also a nonphysical reality that interacted with the brain. (The Mysterious Matter of the Mind, 95-96)

There appears to be a distinction between brain chemistry and a nonphysical reality – the home of freewill. J.P. Moreland commented on another interesting aspect of Penfield’s findings:

• No matter how much Penfield probed the cerebral cortex, he said, “There is no place…where electrical stimulation will cause a patient to believe or to decide.” (The Case for the Creator, Lee Strobel, 258) 

If our mind is no more than a physical brain, then we should expect that electrical charges could stimulate every kind of response. However, this isn’t the case. It seems that our choices and beliefs cannot be entirely accounted for by the physical brain.

There seems to be a nonphysical basis for thinking. Strobel writes:

• In their journal article, Sam Parnia and Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, describe their study of sixty-three heart attack victims who were declared clinically dead but were later revived and interviewed. About ten percent reported having well-structured, lucid thought processes, with memory formation and reasoning, during the time that their brains were not functioning. The effects of oxygen starvation or drugs – objections commonly offered by skeptics – were ruled out as factors. (Strobel, 251)

This contradicts the atheistic narrative that thinking and choosing depend exclusively upon physical brain activity. In order to maintain their narrow materialistic worldview, the atheist is forced to discount this kind of study along with the many accounts of extra-body experiences.

DFC is also humanly demeaning. This is very significant because it will affect how we view ourselves, our fellow humans and also how we treat them. If humans are no more than sophisticated chemical machines, there is a greater likelihood that we will use them like machines and destroy them when they no longer serve our purposes.

DFC undermines everything upon which civilization is based – justice, right and wrong, reward and punishment. A world where we cannot do other than what we have been predetermined to do has no room for any consideration of virtue or vice. If biology alone made the rapist rape, then it is not just to punish him. After all, he could make no other choice. Consequently, no punishment is just and no reward is deserved. It’s just a matter of chemistry not morality.

DFC is a major threat to the existence and well-being of civilization. The deniers of FC, nevertheless, admit the need for punishment, but this is a punishment apart from truth and justice. Instead of “justice makes right,” it is only “might that makes right” – the might of the majority to protect their own interests. They will bring charges against the burglar, not because he deserves punishment but because he has violated the interests of the majority. Therefore, the burglar will be punished, not because he has done wrong or that he deserves punishment but because he is the rebel who has violated social norms in a biochemically predetermined world.

What will the denier teach his son or the school system teach their students? That there is no right and wrong and they couldn’t have acted otherwise? They will naturally ask, “Why then am I being punished?” The answer cannot rise above, “You have violated our norms, and society must restrain you.” This can only breed cynicism.

DFC is the death to all meaningful relationships. When the DFC is caught having an affair, he can only say, “I couldn’t have acted otherwise, so don’t blame me!” Instead, resolution of such interpersonal conflicts requires the offender to say, “Please forgive me. I know I really hurt you terribly. I promise to not do this again!” However, biochemical machines cannot truthfully make such promises. They can only say, “If my biochemistry permits, I will not do this again” – hardly an adequate response. Consequently, the denier must live in the shadows of the lie.

DFC logically undermines itself. How? Because its very philosophy is no more than the product of a biochemistry, which would not allow the DFC to decide otherwise. Truth can play only a very diminished role in the world of materialistic determinism.

Why do Intelligent People Become DFCs?

Why do we trap ourselves in narrow, dysfunctional boxes, which effectively narrow our estimation of self and of life? One DFC friend explained to me the great relief he had experienced once he rejected freewill. He was no longer responsible for his behavior, and his sense of guilt became greatly diminished. With this diminished estimation his humanity, he no longer had to blame himself for not living up to his moral ideas. Who can blame him! But what will he say to his wife who has caught him cheating? “I couldn’t do otherwise?” This will not work long in the real world.

More commonly, in our multi-cultural world, any basis for true, objective culpability has been eliminated, whether by moral relativism or the pre-determining forces of nurture and nature, a close relative of DFC. Consequently, we cannot judge, since no one is culpable. What then is left to positively influence our neighbor and our children? The mantra, “Love conquers all!” The idea is this – if we just love enough, we can overcome all hate, anger, and criminality.

Consequently, the Jews failed to love the Nazis enough, and the beheaded, kidnapped, and raped Christians failed to love ISIS and Boko Haram enough. It’s just another way of rewarding the bully and of blaming the victim.

Instead, the thriving society needs both the carrot and the stick, both positive and negative reinforcement. Our elected officials and institutions must be held to account. Our employees need to be monitored. Kindness is often not enough. While some will learn through love and kindness, others require severity. We need police and prison. Just look at what happens when the police go on strike – Bedlam!

The innocent need protected and the guilty need punished. As soon as we reject this distinction, we condemn society and those we had wanted to love.

How then do we deal with our crippling feelings of guilt and shame? It doesn’t seem that we can meaningfully forgive ourselves. Instead, we need the assurances that Christ Himself has forgiven us and has separated us from our sins and moral failures, as heaven is separated from earth. It is only with this assurance that we can move on, without denying the truths of our freewill and culpability.

The Folly of Denying Freewill

With the rejection of the Christian faith, another faith is becoming increasingly attractive – the denial of freewill and human culpability. One freewill denier (FD) wrote:

• What are some of the benefits of understanding that free will is a myth?... More love, humility, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, gratitude, understanding, cooperation; less blame, hatred, depression, anger, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, guilt resentment, hurt, jealousy, arrogance, aggression, violence, revenge.

For this FD, the belief in freewill is a psychological burden. There are also other reasons to deny freewill. Even as far back as 1871, Thomas Huxley, a zealous advocate of Charles Darwin, advocated for this position for another reason:

• Mind is a function of matter [and nothing beyond that], when that matter has attained a certain degree of organization.

Similarly, in his recent book, “Free Will,” atheist Sam Harris writes, “Free will is an illusion.” What feels like freewill is nothing more than chemical processes.

However, there are many problems with the conclusion of the FDs:

A denial of freewill goes against everything we intuitively know about ourselves and our lives. When I make any decision, like flipping through the TV channels, it seems that I am freely choosing one station over another. Of course, like anyone else, I am subject to powerful biological-genetic forces. Admittedly, I am biologically predisposed to not like loud and glitzy programming. Therefore, some will say, “Well, this proves you’re pre-programmed to make certain choices.”

Although there is truth in this claim, it falls far short of proving that pre-programming is the only factor involved in my choices.

Of course, Harris and the other atheists will respond, “Your experience of free choice is just an illusion.” However, if I can’t trust my sense that I am making freewill choices, then I can’t trust my sense that I even exist!  If something that I experience with such clarity is illusory, perhaps my very existence and the existence of this world are also illusory. Perhaps I’m just someone else’s consciousness. Perhaps, as some Buddhists claim, we are just part of one universal consciousness and lack any individual existence.

If our intuitions and perceptions are simply part of this great delusion, then science and all reason are also part of this same delusion, along with Harris’ thinking.

In other words, if I apply such skepticism to my perceptions that I am making free choices to some degree, then I have to be skeptical about everything else in my life!

The extent of freewill differs among people. However, one FD writes that there exist no freewill distinctions among us, since freewill is entirely absent:

• There are only two types of people in the world. Those who believe in free will and those who do not. There is no grey area or wiggle room… There is no such thing as a little freewill.

However, many recognize that we possess differing degrees of freewill. The heroin addict is more constrained in his free choices than before he became addicted. He can think of little else besides his next fix.

Conversely, Christians report that, in Christ, they have come to enjoy a greater measure of freedom. They are not as constrained by their psychological needs for approval and success as they had been, because they are convinced that they have God’s approval.

If these observations of relative freedom are true, then the narrow, unvarying materialistic view denying any area of freewill is invalidated. From the perspective of the FD, everyone is equally and completely controlled by brain chemistry. Consequently, there can be no room for varying degrees of freewill – the very thing we find!

We can perceive a distinction between purely chemical determination of our behavior and our relatively free responses. Wilder Penfield, the father of modern neurosurgery performed experiments demonstrating that brain activity doesn’t seem to account for all of our mental experience. Lee Edward Travis sums up his findings this way:

• Penfield would stimulate electrically the proper motor cortex of conscious patients and challenge them to keep one hand from moving when the current was applied. The patient would seize this hand with the other hand and struggle to hold it still. Thus one hand under the control of the electrical current and the other hand under the control of the patient’s mind fought against each other. Penfield risked the explanation that the patient had not only a physical brain that was stimulated to action but also a nonphysical reality that interacted with the brain. (The Mysterious Matter of the Mind, 95-96)

There appears to be a distinction between brain chemistry and a nonphysical reality – the home of freewill. J.P. Moreland commented on another interesting aspect of Penfield’s findings:

• No matter how much Penfield probed the cerebral cortex, he said, “There is no place…where electrical stimulation will cause a patient to believe or to decide.” (The Case for the Creator, Lee Strobel, 258)

If our mind is no more than a physical brain, then we should expect that electrical charges could stimulate every kind of response. However, this isn’t the case. It seems that our choices and beliefs cannot be entirely accounted for by the physical brain.

There seems to be a nonphysical basis for thinking. Strobel writes:

• In their journal article, Sam Parnia and Peter Fenwick, a neuropsychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, describe their study of sixty-three heart attack victims who were declared clinically dead but were later revived and interviewed. About ten percent reported having well-structured, lucid thought processes, with memory formation and reasoning, during the time that their brains were not functioning. The effects of oxygen starvation or drugs – objections commonly offered by skeptics – were ruled out as factors. (Strobel, 251)

This contradicts the atheistic narrative that thinking and choosing depend exclusively upon brain activity. In order to maintain their narrow materialistic worldview, the atheist is forced to discount this kind of study along with the many accounts of extra-body experiences.

If our brain chemistry compels all of our choices, then we cannot truly be culpable and responsible moral agents. This idea of non-existence of freewill is humanly demeaning. This is very significant because it will affect how we view ourselves, our fellow humans and also how we treat them. If humans are no more than sophisticated chemical machines, there is a greater likelihood that we will use them like machines.

The FD might agree that their view of freewill seriously diminishes our estimation of humanity. However, he often retorts, “I’m more interested in truth than in what feels good.”

However, the denial of freewill goes far beyond the question of a lower estimation of humanity. This denial undermines everything upon which civilization is based – justice, right and wrong, reward and punishment. A world where we cannot do other than what we have been determined to do has no room for virtue of any form.

If biology alone made the rapist rape, then it is not just to punish him. After all, he could make no other choice. Consequently, no punishment is just and no reward is deserved. It’s just a matter of chemistry not morality.

The denial of freewill poses a threat to civilization, and FDs recognize this. Consequently, they are scrambling to resurrect the concept of moral responsibility, which they have undermined. Professor of Philosophy, Chad Meister, writes about Harris’s muddled scrambling:

• While in Harris’s view we lack free will and moral culpability for our actions, he nonetheless believes that we can still be “blameworthy” for our actions. How so? “Because,” he says, “what we do subsequent to conscious planning tends to most fully reflect the global properties of the our minds” (Christian Research Journal, Volume 35, Number 4, 59)

 

Oddly, Harris claims that we can be “blameworthy” without being morally culpable and that society can punish us even though we couldn’t have done otherwise! This is a blatant contradiction. If our “conscious planning” and what we do subsequently are strictly the products of brain chemistry, then there is no basis for either “blameworthiness” or moral culpability. They die a common death with the denial of freewill.

Some FDs are candid enough to admit that this is a real problem for their worldview. However, they will bring charges against the burglar. In this, their actions contradict their worldview. While they seek justice, they admit that they lack any just basis for this concept in their pre-determined chemical world.

The denial of freewill seems to also constitute a denial of any meaningful thought. All brain chemistry is subject to the laws of nature and conformable to their formulas. However, formulas and laws produce repeated and predictable patterns, not the nuances of thought. Clearly, the books that we write and the discoveries we make don’t reflect repeated, formulaic, hard-wired, unvarying processes. Instead, these creations reflect something greater – reasoning, the weighing of evidence for and against various paradigms. All of this requires something beyond what chemistry can offer. It requires the subtle and gloriously nuanced ability to freely choose among various thoughts and ideas.

Why are people FDs? Why do we trap ourselves in narrow boxes, which effectively narrow our estimation of self and of life? One FD friend explained to me the great relief he had experienced once he rejected freewill. He was no longer responsible for his behavior, and his sense of guilt became greatly diminished. With his diminished estimation of humanity, he no longer had to blame himself for not living up to his moral ideas. Who can blame him! But what will he say to his wife who has caught him cheating? “I couldn’t do otherwise?” This will not work in the real world.

While I can sympathize with the FD, Christ offers a better way – a way to not only diminish guilt but to obliterate it. Besides, Christ obliterates our guilt in a way that doesn’t infringe upon moral responsibility and true accountability. His forgiveness replaces guilt with gratitude, denial with delight, moral flight with moral responsibility, and the denigration of self with human dignity. We are more than simply a sophisticated computer!

FDs have embraced a religion that might provide temporary comfort, but one which does not correspond with reality. Consequently, it will prove costly.

Resolving the Tension between our Freewill and God’s Sovereign Determinations

Here’s the conflict – although the Bible doesn’t mention the word “freewill,” it teaches as if this concept is beyond any dispute. So much of the Bible is about our responsibility to pray, obey, worship, and to study Scripture and the consequences we incur when we fail to fulfill these responsibilities.

However, there are many equally compelling verses that indicate that, through God’s unchanging plan, sovereignty, and oversight over His creation, He exercises even greater control over human events. He brings nations to the exact place He wants them to be to accomplish His purposes. He sets their national boundaries and times of flourishing. Here are just a few verses that we tend to overlook:

• “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.” (Acts 17:26)

• The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. (Prov. 21:1)

• Lord, You will establish peace for us, for You have also done all our works in us. (Isaiah 26:12)

• John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27)

• A man’s steps are of the Lord (Prov. 20:24); The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD. (Psalm 37:23)

• For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:10)

These verses don’t mean that God causes everything – He certainly isn’t the Author of sin – but it does mean that He ordains everything (Eph. 1:11), either by causing, guiding or allowing things to happen.

Here is one example of how we struggle to combine these concepts of our freewill responsibilities and God’s unchanging plan and providence over our lives.

• If God has really prepared for me the good works I am to do and has promised to direct my steps, I shouldn’t have to look around for a job. Instead, He will provide it. Nor would I even have to pray about this since He has even determined beforehand how my life will play out! (Psalm 139) 

Although we know that this reasoning is faulty - and that we must assume responsibility for our lives and our sins - it is hard to find fault with simply trusting God, if God is truly in control of our lives. But there is really a very “easy” resolution to the conflict between our responsibility (human freewill) and God’s all-embracing, providential and immutable plans. Accept them both! If we trust God, we will do as He says!

This is the Doctrine of Compatibility. It affirms that our freewill responsibilities are somehow compatible with God’s control of His creation. This is one of the truths about our infinite God – like the Trinity – that we finite beings cannot fully rationally understand. However, we believe in these truths because they are so deeply reflected in Scripture.

In fact, we already do believe in Compatibility! We believe that Scripture is fully the product of God – fully God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet we also acknowledge that, to some extent, it is also the word of man.

Paul claimed that his teachings were actually the Word of God:

• And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.(1 Thess. 2:13) 

Nevertheless, Paul’s writings reflect his own humanity, style, focus, experiences, emotions, and choices in many ways. He wrote about friends, enemies, and gave personal greetings. He chose to include certain personal references as freely as I choose to order a slice with pepperoni instead of mushrooms. (I cannot doubt my free choice without also doubting everything I think and understand. Such skepticism undermines all thought.)

However, I suspect that Paul, as he taught and wrote, always prayed that God would guide his choices, thereby acknowledging that he freely made choices as God directed him – Compatibility!

You will probably respond, “That just doesn’t make any sense. These two concepts cannot be compatible.” However, Scripture consistently regards human responsibility as compatible with God’s providential control. Paul put these two concepts together this way:

• Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil. 2:12-13)

While we have the responsibility to work out our salvation, this is because our Lord is at work within us to give us the right desires and thoughts, to convict us of sin and to illuminate Scripture. Therefore, even if we have labored mightily to understand His Word, He gets all the credit: 

• But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Cor. 15:10)

Paul even credited God with his hard labors and everything good that he had accomplished. Paul believed in Compatibility! After “many days” at sea on route to Rome in the midst of a great storm, the sailors lost hope of survival. Paul informed them of the revelation he had received from his God: “There will be no loss of life among you, only the ship” (Acts. 27:22).

Coming from God, this prophecy was written in stone, but:

• Paul [subsequently] said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these [sailors] men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 27:31)

This revelation seems to conflict with Paul’s first revelation that absolutely no life would be lost, period! However, God’s providential outcome and Word are somehow compatible with intermediate human choices to accomplish this outcome. Rather than cancelling out our will, our thinking, or our actions, our God is somehow able to work through these human means to accomplish His infallible purposes, as He had done through the writing of Scripture.

Admittedly, we cannot get our minds around Compatibility, but we mustn’t reject it for this reason. To reject it is to reject our very faith.