God and Freedom

[This paper was presented at Oglethorpe University's Liberal Arts Symposium on April 14, 2009 by me, its author. Don't steal it, under penalty of death.]

 

God and Freedom

            God and free will are frequently placed side by side as compatible ideals. I want to argue that god’s existence is incompatible with free will. I will do this by looking at the notion of divine foreknowledge, and how this affects our freedom.

            To begin with, we must define god. As Anselm said, “God is that of which nothing greater can be thought:” an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being. For our purposes, we are primarily interested in the reaches of god’s knowledge. Such knowledge must be infinite, unrestrained by any boundary. If we limit god’s knowledge, then the entity of which we speak ceases to be called god.  Before we even reach the subject of freedom, though, problems arise. This model suggests that god knows for certain what he will do in the future. This is problematic, because god then lacks the power to change his future mind. God’s power becomes limited by his infinite knowledge. In a sense, god loses his own freedom. This conflict between omniscience and omnipotence might suggest that we need to refine our definition of god.

            I would argue, however, that god’s internal inconsistencies are unimportant. Having been defined as an infinite being, the precise details of his workings can lie beyond our grasp. It makes sense that as finite beings, we will perceive some contradictions. In other words, god is all-powerful and all-knowledgeable; he’s free to be paradoxical when he likes.

            The application of divine foreknowledge to human freedom is more interesting. Suppose I am presented with two choices, A and B. If I have free will, it’s anyone’s guess as to which one I will choose. However, god already knows, before I decide, which option I will select. This isn’t a matter of belief on god’s part; it’s necessarily a matter of absolute certainty. If god knows for certain that I will choose B, then A was never really a genuine option. Because of my very limited knowledge, A appeared to be a possible choice when in fact it was not. If my future “choices” are laid at god’s feet in crystal-clear certainty, it’s impossible that my “choices” are freely made.

This is somewhat in conflict with common sense, as we experience ourselves as being free. This is because it is for all practical purposes impossible to know, as an omniscient god must, what the future holds. We may follow a predetermined course, but we are unaware that we do so.

            It might be argued that this conflict between free will and god can be solved by invoking god’s incomprehensibility, as we did to reconcile infinite knowledge with infinite power. This tactic doesn’t seem to me to be applicable in this case. Previously we had an internal inconsistency, in which pieces of our incomprehensibly great being, god, were in conflict with each other. Here, the inconsistency is not internal. Free will is not a given as were infinite knowledge and power. In other words, god can appear to contradict himself, because we have limited understanding of him, but other simpler things like free will cannot contradict god, particularly when such things aren’t made logically necessary.

            There is one problem with this: Free will is necessary to solve the problem of evil. In this model, god can in essence see the future, complete with all its evil acts. This raises the question of why, as an omnibenevolent entity, he doesn’t interfere. I would argue, however, that this problem is also present if we have free will. God would be responsible for our having free will, and by extension what we do with it; god is still ultimately responsible for evil acts wrought by mankind. The problem of evil is present both in the free will and deterministic models.

            Here, we can either revise our definition of god, or our definition of free will. We could argue, for instance, that god does not in fact know what the future holds. This argument might involve the impossibility of certainty regarding future events. Perhaps future events are truly ambiguous right up until they happen, and have no inherent truth value beforehand. Omniscience, then, would have to be redefined as the possession of all possible knowledge.

            This does not appear to me to be a promising tack. By modifying god’s omniscience to exclude future events, we are turning god into a limited entity. As we have already established, limitation of god is incoherent. Perhaps we could argue that future events appear to be necessarily ambiguous to us, but to apply the same restriction to an infinite being seems an improper move.

Another possible reconciliation of god and freedom, titled “middle knowledge,” was proposed by Molina in the 16^th century. Laing offers this summery:

The theory of middle knowledge presents a picture of divine omniscience which includes not only knowledge of the past, present and future, but also knowledge of conditional future contingents (propositions which refer to how free creatures will choose in various circumstances), counterfactuals (propositions which refer to how things would actually be if circumstances were different than they are or will be), and counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (propositions which refer to what a free creature would have chosen (freely) to do if things had been different).

However, it seems to me that middle knowledge merely pushes the issue back a step. God still knows what I’ll do in any given situation. We are still left with a scenario in which the outcomes of what we call choices are already known by an omniscient god. Perhaps god freely chooses which scenarios to actualize, but the outcome of my own choices remains fixed in god’s omniscience.

            Another line of reasoning might suggest that divine foreknowledge does not in fact force future events, but merely coincides with them. Rudavsky sums up a response:

[It has been] suggested that the analysis of God’s foreknowledge follows that of human knowledge in that both involve belief states. Divine knowledge, however, unlike its human counterpart, is infallible. Hence the phrase “God foreknows p” can be unpacked as

2.1 God believes p in advance of the occurrence of p

2.2 p is true

2.3 God is incapable of error

The crucial part of this analysis is 2.3, that is, the emphasis upon God’s infallibility. It is God’s infallibility, coupled with his prior knowledge, rather than the causal force of his knowledge, which carries with it the suggestion of the necessity of the objects of his knowledge.

This analysis seems to me to be correct. In other words, it is the fact that god is incapable of error that brings with it the future as he has foreknown it.

         To conclude, it appears that the reconciliation of god and freedom is a difficult project indeed: Divine foreknowledge seems to prevent human freedom. I’ve argued that various tactics of joining the two, including Molina’s concept of middle knowledge and curtailing god’s omniscience, are ultimately unpersuasive.

 

Works Cited

Laing, John D. “Middle Knowledge.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/, 2005

Rudavsky, Tamar. “Divine Omniscience and Future Contingents in Gersonides.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 21(4), 1983: 513-516.

 

Why I am an atheist, part two

Having established in my previous post that we cannot know for sure whether or not god exists, the next step is fairly simple. The religious want to say something like this:

True, we cannot know for sure one way or the other; but that’s the point, isn’t it? Otherwise, belief in God wouldn’t be specifically based on faith. God’s ambiguity is in a sense almost part of the definition of God.

Sounds reasonable, right? Now:

What makes belief in unicorns, fairies, Harry Potter, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, witches, demons, spirits, ghosts, and so on any different?

We can go on ad nauseum. How about a nice list of obselete gods, just for good measure. We have, for instance, Acidalia, Aello, Aesculapius, Agathe, Agdistis, Ageleia, Aglauros, Agne, Agoraia, Agreia, Agreie, Agreiphontes, Agreus, Agrios, Agrotera, Aguieus, Aidoneus, Aigiokhos, Aigletes, Aigobolos, Ainia,Ainippe, Aithuia , Akesios, Akraia, Aktaios, Alalkomene, Alasiotas, Alcibie, Alcinoe, Alcippe, Alcis,Alea, Alexikakos, Aligena, Aliterios, Alkaia, Amaltheia, Ambidexter, Ambologera, Amynomene,Anaduomene, Anaea, Anax, Anaxilea, Androdameia,Andromache, Andromeda, Androphonos, Anosia, Antandre,Antania, Antheus, Anthroporraistes, Antianara, Antianeira, Antibrote, Antimache, Antimachos, Antiope,Antiopeia, Aoide, Apatouria, Aphneius, Aphrodite, Apollo, Apotropaios, Areia, Areia, Areion, Areopagite, Ares, Areto, Areximacha,Argus, Aridnus,Aristaios, Aristomache, Arkhegetes, Arktos, Arretos, Arsenothelys, Artemis, Asclepius, Asklepios, Aspheleios, Asteria, Astraeos , Athene, Auxites, Avaris, Axios, Axios Tauros,Bakcheios, Bakchos, Basileus, Basilis, Bassareus, Bauros, Boophis, Boreas , Botryophoros, Boukeros, Boulaia, Boulaios, Bremusa,Bromios, Byblis,Bythios, Caliope, Cedreatis, Celaneo, centaur, Cerberus, Charidotes, Charybdis, Chimera, Chloe, Chloris , Choreutes, Choroplekes, Chthonios, Clete, Clio, clotho,Clyemne, cockatrice, Crataeis, Custos, Cybebe, Cybele, Cyclops, Daphnaia, Daphnephoros, Deianeira, Deinomache, Delia, Delios, Delphic, Delphinios, Demeter, Dendrites, Derimacheia,Derinoe, Despoina, Dikerotes, Dimeter, Dimorphos, Dindymene, Dioktoros, Dionysos, Discordia, Dissotokos, Dithyrambos, Doris, Dryope,Echephyle,Echidna, Eiraphiotes, Ekstatophoros, Eleemon, Eleuthereus, Eleutherios, Ennosigaios, Enodia, Enodios, Enoplios, Enorches, Enualios, Eos , Epaine, Epidotes, Epikourios, Epipontia, Epitragidia, Epitumbidia, Erato, Ergane, Eribromios, Erigdoupos, Erinus, Eriobea, Eriounios, Eriphos, Eris, Eros,Euanthes, Euaster, Eubouleus, Euboulos, Euios, Eukhaitos, Eukleia, Eukles, Eumache, Eunemos, Euplois, Euros , Eurybe,Euryleia, Euterpe, Fates,Fortuna, Gaia, Gaieokhos, Galea, Gamelia, Gamelios, Gamostolos, Genetor, Genetullis, Geryon, Gethosynos, giants, Gigantophonos, Glaukopis, Gorgons, Gorgopis, Graiae, griffin, Gynaikothoinas, Gynnis, Hagisilaos, Hagnos, Haides, Harmothoe, harpy, Hegemone, Hegemonios, Hekate, Hekatos, Helios, Hellotis, Hephaistia, Hephaistos, Hera, Heraios, Herakles, Herkeios, Hermes, Heros Theos, Hersos, Hestia, Heteira, Hiksios, Hipp, Hippia, Hippios, Hippoi Athanatoi, Hippolyte, Hippolyte II,Hippomache,Hippothoe, Horkos, Hugieia, Hupatos, Hydra, Hypate, Hyperborean, Hypsipyle, Hypsistos, Iakchos, Iatros, Idaia, Invictus, Iphito,Ismenios, Ismenus,Itonia, Kabeiria, Kabeiroi, Kakia, Kallinikos, Kallipugos, Kallisti, Kappotas, Karneios, Karpophoros, Karytis, Kataibates, Katakhthonios, Kathatsios, Keladeine, Keraunos, Kerykes, Khalinitis, Khalkioikos, Kharmon, Khera, Khloe, Khlori,Khloris,Khruse, Khthonia, Khthonios, Kidaria, Kissobryos, Kissokomes, Kissos, Kitharodos, Kleidouchos, Kleoptoleme, Klymenos, Kore, Koruthalia, Korymbophoros, Kourotrophos, Kranaia, Kranaios, Krataiis, Kreousa, Kretogenes, Kriophoros, Kronides, Kronos,Kryphios, Ktesios, Kubebe, Kupris, Kuprogenes, Kurotrophos, Kuthereia, Kybele, Kydoime,Kynthia, Kyrios, Ladon, Lakinia, Lamia, Lampter, Laodoke, Laphria, Lenaios, Leukatas, Leukatas, Leukolenos, Leukophruene, Liknites, Limenia, Limnaios, Limnatis, Logios, Lokhia, Lousia, Loxias, Lukaios, Lukeios, Lyaios, Lygodesma, Lykopis, Lyseus, Lysippe, Maimaktes, Mainomenos, Majestas, Makar, Maleatas, Manikos, Mantis, Marpe, Marpesia, Medusa, Megale, Meilikhios, Melaina, Melainis, Melanaigis, Melanippe,Melete, Melousa, Melpomene, Melqart, Meses, Mimnousa, Minotaur, Mneme, Molpadia,Monogenes, Morpho, Morychos, Musagates, Musagetes, Nebrodes, Nephelegereta, Nereus,Nete, Nike, Nikephoros, Nomios, Nomius, Notos , Nyktelios, Nyktipolos, Nympheuomene, Nysios, Oiketor, Okyale, Okypous, Olumpios, Omadios, Ombrios, Orithia,Orius,Ortheia, Orthos, Ourania, Ourios, Paelemona, Paian, Pais, Palaios, Pallas, Pan Megas, Panakhais, Pandemos, Pandrosos, Pantariste, Parthenos, PAsianax, Pasiphaessa, Pater, Pater, Patroo s, Pegasus, Pelagia, Penthesilea, Perikionios, Persephone, Petraios, Phanes, Phanter, Phatria, Philios, Philippis, Philomeides, Phoebe, Phoebus, Phoenix, Phoibos, Phosphoros, Phratrios, Phutalmios, Physis, Pisto, Plouton, Polemusa,Poliakhos, Polias, Polieus, Polumetis, Polydektes, Polygethes, Polymnia, Polymorphos, Polyonomos, Porne, Poseidon, Potnia Khaos, Potnia Pheron, Promakhos, Pronoia, Propulaios, Propylaia, Proserpine, Prothoe, Protogonos, Prytaneia, Psychopompos, Puronia, Puthios, Pyrgomache, Python, Rhea, Sabazios, Salpinx, satyr, Saxanus, Scyleia,Scylla, sirens, Skeptouchos, Smintheus, Sophia, Sosipolis, Soter, Soteria, Sphinx, Staphylos, Sthenias, Sthenios, Strife, Summakhia, Sykites, Syzygia, Tallaios, Taureos, Taurokeros, Taurophagos, Tauropolos, Tauropon, Tecmessa, Teisipyte, Teleios, Telepyleia,Teletarches, Terpsichore, Thalestris, Thalia, The Dioskouroi, Theos, Theritas, Thermodosa, Thraso, Thyonidas, Thyrsophoros, Tmolene, Toxaris, Toxis, Toxophile,Trevia, Tricephalus, Trieterikos, Trigonos, Trismegestos, Tritogeneia, Tropaios, Trophonius,Tumborukhos, Tyche, Typhon, Urania, Valasca, Xanthippe, Xenios, Zagreus, Zathos, Zephryos , Zeus, Zeus Katakhthonios, and Zoophoros. And those are just the Greek ones. There are hundreds more listed here.

Belief (in any meaningful sense) in the existence of the members of the above list is simply not valid. It’s absurd; it’s incoherent; it doesn’t work. We should not believe in things for which we have no evidence, even if such evidence is contrary to the nature of the thing itself. God is no different.

… and that is why I am an atheist.

As a side note:

It seems to me there are two primary reasons why belief in gods or deities of any kind is still prevalent:

1. Profound flaws in the reasoning of everyday people.

2. The astoundingly, devastatingly effective indoctrination of children to believe obsolete, cult-like edicts.

Why I am an atheist, part one

I felt it would be a good idea to simply spell out why I don’t believe in god. After thinking about it, it was too long to compress into one post, so this is going to end up in at least 2 parts.

Let me first point out some avenues for belief that I have found to be unsound.

A1) Evidence of god in the world – intelligent design, miracles, etc.

Evidence of god simply doesn’t hold up. Nothing that we can observe in the world necessitates the existence of an infinite, all-powerful being. For example, how would an infinite being manifest itself in a finite form? It would be monumentally difficult, if not impossible. If god decided to show up one day as a 300 foot tall guy with a beard, how could we possibly know that it was god, and not just a 300 foot tall guy with a beard? (Example courtesy of Simon.) In other words, nothing in the world necessitates the existance of a divine being.

A1.1) Personal experience

“God spoke to me!” just isn’t going to cut it.

A1.2) The Bible

Similarly, “The Bible says so!” isn’t going to cut it either, because nothing gives the Bible any authority. Except the Bible. And then we start getting dizzy.

A2) Word tricks

God is perfect. Perfect things exist. God exists!!!

Hmmm.

I’m thinking of a perfect $100 bill. This bill would be more perfect if it existed in my pocket. Let’s see… Nope, didn’t work. Damn. Moving on…

First, I’ll start with those premises that my unbelief rests on.

1. God (by definition) is infinite.

Defense of this premise: God is necessarily infinite. If we make god finite, he ceases to be god.

2. God is wholly other.

Defense of this premise: By this, I mean that God is not limited in any way by reality as we perceive it. Again, obviously so: trying to make god fit into our human experience of the world is incoherent. God exists, if you will, on a different plane of reality. The implication here is that god is unable to interact with us, because by doing so, he would limit himself in some way, and no longer be god.

At this point, from these premises and our failed avenues for proving god’s existence, we can conclude the following: we cannot know one way or another whether god exists.

Now, at best, this might still lead to faith. After all, the notion of faith is based on our lack of certainty about god. At worst, we seem to be left only with agnosticism.

Next time, however, I will conclude that the only reasonable conclusion is not theism or agnosticism, but atheism.

Making fun of chain mail, part seven

Notes: Isn’t it funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell.

For starters, the sentence should end in a question mark…

Seriously, though. What exactly is the argument here? Apparently, it’s something like, the world is going to hell because people ‘trash’ god. No, no, no, NO! Correlation ≠ causation! See: http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php

Ooh… or maybe it’s more like, people who ‘trash’ god are those responsible for the world ‘going to hell.’ Intresting. Have a look at Sam Harris’ The End of Faith. Or Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war.

Isn’t it funny how someone can say ‘I believe in God’ but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also ‘believes’ in God).

Stuff like this makes me depressed. How much lower can people sink?

Point #1. No, it isn’t funny.

Point #2. Still haven’t mastered the whole “end-an-interrogative-with-a-question-mark” thing, yet, huh? (See? Question marks!)

Point #3. Insofar as we take “I believe in god” to be equivalent to “I believe god exists,” there is no reason that we can’t thereafter ‘follow satan.’ (gag.) I believe John McCain exists, but that doesn’t mean I follow him.

Point #4. I believe with all my heart in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Your religion is completely wrong and I hereby arbitrarily declare mine to be infallible. I will now go forth into the world to live by eons old doctrines that make no sense and corrupt young children such that my nonsensical dogma will live for centuries to come.

(I grant that point 4 was somewhat unrelated.)

…

Isn’t it funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me.

The punctuation gods are going to freaking kill you, lady!  It’s my responsibility to appease them! Silence, please:

Here, oh holy masters of commas and question marks, is my humble offering; may you bless and protect this poor, misguided soul who has lost her way, and is ignorant of your heavenly symbols.

???????????????????????????????????????????

Amen.

That taken care of, the simple explanation is that people exist, whereas god doesn’t. So needless to say, you’re going to be more concerned with the thoughts of existent entities, rather than nonexistent ones. 

This concludes my shredding of this material. Suffice to say that I found it immensely enjoyable, and hopefully others did too.

Merry [Holiday]!

I have a confession to make.

I have a [Holiday] tree.

This has caused me considerable anxiety. If I grant that it’s okay to get a [Holiday] tree for no reason at all, why isn’t it okay to believe in god for no reason at all? I pondered this for quite some time before I came up with the following rationale.

The reasons one puts a tree in one’s living room (in my case, anyway) is because it’s fun to do, it’s cheery, and it makes the neighbors think I’m a normal person, not some atheist nut. The tree is not reflective of any incoherent notions of transcendent beings. I have a tree in my living room for the same reason I have photographs of people on my desk, or a painting in the hall. For me, the tree carries little undeserved import.

In the case of god, though, there are accompanying incoherent notions of transcendence, which is quite unfortunate. God doesn’t exist; there’s no one watching over you; you don’t have a guardian angel. The truth hurts, but I’m going to say that personally, I’d rather have the truth then wrap myself up in warm-fuzzy falsehoods. By contrast, the tree is neither right nor wrong; it represents no metaphysical claim; it’s just a freaking plant.

It also helps to replace the C-word* with [Holiday] whenever possible.

Merry [Holiday]!

*No, no no, not that. Christmas. Sheesh.