Is Free-Will an Illusion?

[D. Allan]

On the 'Dark-Night' thread, i wrote that Jesus had to choose between power or being broken. Now i'm not so sure. For instance Jesus after being 'anointed' with Spirit at his baptism was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. It sounds as He had no choice about it. And if He then had a dark-night or wilderness experience which shattered his ego, then the devils temptations appealing to His ego were no temptations at all. He simply was not interested. His heart was elsewhere.

d.allan

[D. Allan]

In the New York Times, Saturday, Jan. 6, 2007 Maureen Dowd writes: If free will is an illusion - if we are, as one philosopher put it, 'nothing more than sophisticated meat machines,' doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over - that would explain alot about the latest trend in which everyone is reverting to type.

William James wrote in 1890 that the whole 'sting and excitement' of life comes from 'our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago.'

But in Science Times this week, Dennis Overbye advised Dr. James to 'get over it,' observing that 'a bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control.'

As Mark Hallett of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke told Mr. Overbye, "Free will does exist, but it's a perception, not a power or a driving force.... The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don't have it.'

That would explain why, after voters insisted that the president wrap it up in Iraq, he made a big show of pretending to listen, then decided.... " etc. etc.

How about that. O.K. Feel free to respond passionately. I will realize that you can't help it. :E

[Pockey]

Yes free will is an illusion. We are all actually robots. Peel the skin away and it's all circuitry and wires here

[David Koot]

David, David . . . Of course Jesus had free will. Yes, He could have refused the leading of the Spirit to go into the wilderness, but He chose not to. Yes, today we may choose to follow the leading of the Spirit, or we may choose not to. The idea that we are either automatons or simply driven by the subsconscious, is either not realistic or instead may be conjured up by those who are slaves to their lower natures. I, for one, choose not to be a slave to my lower nature, nor am I an automaton. And yes, I DO have that freedom to choose.

Dave

[D. Allan]

Good for you, Dave. You are sure you have free-will. However, Mr. Hallett of the NIND, quoted above by Ms. Dowd, supports your belief by saying that your free will does exist but only as a perception. I don't see anyway we can prove him wrong.

Here is another snippet from Ms. Dowd, " Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, ...said a man can do what he wants but cannot will what he wants,...."

~d.allan

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Of course Jesus had free will. Yes, He could have refused the leading of the Spirit to go into the wilderness, but He chose not to.

Jesus surrendered to the Spirit. To do otherwise only leads to 'neurosis' pain and confusion. Sometimes it takes some of us longer to surrender. But the Spirit doesn't give up. He want to break up our egoic illusions and transform us.

Jesus said, the things I do I do not do of myself, but the Father who is in me does them. Does this mean He had surrendered even the illusion of free-will?

[Pockey]

[Planey]

If we do not have free will then this whole thing of damnation or salvation is a complete sham, a despicable fraud. If I cannot choose to accept Christ's sacrifice (i.e. a free-will choice) then I have no hope at all.

This is actually a possibility that I have considered. Maybe none of us has a choice and the whole shebang is just one huge exercise in malicious futility.

"...a tale told by a madman, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing... "

So very, very, true...

Graeme

[David Koot]

Tagging on here, responding to some earlier posts on this thread . . . so then, Maureen Dowd has quoted Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer? Schopenhauer, of all people?! Really???!!! Very well . . . if asked to choose between believing Herr Doktor Schopenhauer and the Bible, I will choose the Bible any day. And the Bible teaches that we do, indeed, have free will, and that God is able to strengthen our will so that we "will and do His pleasure."

[D. Allan]

Quote:

This is actually a possibility that I have considered. Maybe none of us has a choice and the whole shebang is just one huge exercise in malicious futility.

Malicious futility? It doesn't seem that way, does it. Life seems so awesome. And wonderful. Even if we are completely determined. We can relax and observe it like a movie or dream. To some it may be more like a nightmare or horror film, at times. But if it is just a movie we can watch, perhaps are salvation is when we 'wake-up.'

~d.allan

[D. Allan]

Quote:

This is actually a possibility that I have considered. Maybe none of us has a choice and the whole shebang is just one huge exercise in malicious futility.

Malicious futility? It doesn't seem that way, does it. Life seems so awesome. And wonderful. Even if we are completely determined... we can relax and observe it like a movie or dream. To some it may be more like a nightmare or horror film, at times. But if it is just a movie we can watch, perhaps our salvation comes when we 'wake-up.'

~d.allan

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Schopenhauer? Schopenhauer, of all people?! Really???!!! Very well . . . if asked to choose between believing Herr Doktor Schopenhauer and the Bible, I will choose the Bible any day.

I don't think many will disagree with your choice, Dave.

~d.allan

[D. Allan]

Look what I found at:

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Brockman2005.htm

If you don't find this thought-provoking you may at least find it amusing. The Author of the essay/review is Dr. Susan Blackmore a scientist in the field of consciousness studies. She teaches at a university in the U.K. I post it here:

"It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free will

In :

What We Believe But Cannot Prove:

Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty

Edited by John Brockman, Free Press, p 41-2

(also reprinted in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Houghton Mifflin)

It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free will. As Samuel Johnson said, “All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.” With recent developments in neuroscience and theories of consciousness, theory is even more against it than it was in his time. So I long ago set about systematically changing the experience. I now have no feeling of acting with free will, although the feeling took many years to ebb away.

But what happens? People say I’m lying! They say it’s impossible and so I must be deluding myself in order to preserve my theory. And what can I do or say to challenge them? I have no idea—other than to suggest that other people try the exercise, demanding as it is.

When the feeling is gone, decisions just happen with no sense of anyone making them, but then a new question arises—will the decisions be morally acceptable? Here I have made a great leap of faith. It seems that when people discard the illusion of an inner self who acts, as many mystics and Buddhist practitioners have done, they generally do behave in ways that we think of as moral or good. So perhaps giving up free will is not as dangerous as it sounds—but this too I cannot prove.

As for giving up the sense of an inner conscious self altogether—this is very much harder. I just keep on seeming to exist. But though I cannot prove it, I think it is true that I don’t.

Back Home

Page created 17 November 2005

Last updated: Friday, 04 August 2006 14:38

There are many other interesting articles to be found at her web site.

~d.allan

[John317]

On the 'Dark-Night' thread, i wrote that Jesus had to choose between power or being broken. Now i'm not so sure. For instance Jesus after being 'anointed' with Spirit at his baptism was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. It sounds as He had no choice about it. And if He then had a dark-night or wilderness experience which shattered his ego, then the devils temptations appealing to His ego were no temptations at all. He simply was not interested. His heart was elsewhere.

d.allan

But of course Jesus did have a choice in the matter. Jesus chose every moment of every day to accept the leading of the Holy Spirit. He could have said no at any point and so may we. Most people in fact do say no. Most people instead say yes to their sinful nature and to Satan's temptations. I did for years, until I changed my mind due to study, reflection, and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life.

There was a big debate between Calvin and Luther on free will. Lutherans and Catholics believe in free will; Calvin believed in double predestination, that God elects some to be saved and others to be lost in hell, irrespective of their choices.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Jesus chose every moment of every day to accept the leading of the Holy Spirit.

But isn't this the same as saying Jesus surrendered his free-will to the Spirit?

In the book Steps to Christ i found the idea that people commonly misunderstand the proper function of the will. They think they are supposed to 'exert' it. (Sounds strenuous!) However, the proper use of the will is to 'surrender it.

[John317]

Quote:

Jesus chose every moment of every day to accept the leading of the Holy Spirit.

But isn't this the same as saying Jesus surrendered his free-will to the Spirit?

In the book Steps to Christ i found the idea that people commonly misunderstand the proper function of the will. They think they are supposed to 'exert' it. (Sounds strenuous!) However, the proper use of the will is to 'surrender it.

OK, I think I understand what you mean.

God does not ask us to surrender our free will. It is the devil who wants to take away our free will. That is why he gets people on drugs and other substances so that they have no free will. One reason Christ died was in order to make sure we keep our free will. (This understanding of the issue is also at the forefront of the Seventh-day Adventist health message.)

We do surrender our wills to God in the sense that we choose His way when the human will would oppose God's way. That is, we pray that God would have his will, and not our own, done in us. We are saying, then, that we want our own wills to agree with God's. But that is not the same as surrendering our free will. To surrender or give up our free will would be to give up our choice, and that is not something God wants us to do, ever. In the end, God wants to be able to point to millions of people who freely chose to obey and worship Him. The Holy Spirit in our lives actually makes us more free, not less so. For instance, there was a time in my life when I was compelled to do sinful things by the desires of my body and by my lusts. God is in the process of freeing me from those desires and is giving me new desires so that I am free to chose to obey Him. But it is always my choice whether to listen to His voice speaking to me either through my heart or through the Bible or whether to go back to those same evil desires. I don't lose my free will.

[D. Allan]

I don't know if I have 'free-will' or not. It seems we do if we don't think about it. Isaac Bashevis Singer said, "We have to believe in free will. We've got no choice." But I do know that God has changed me very much in the last 9 years. And I'm very thankful for it. I can take no credit for it. I had a desire for 'more', where did it come from? Chance occurences made it possible for me to have faith in His grace. Faith made it possible for Him to change me, slowly but constantly. I feel that I had nothing to do with it. The paradox is that the more i 'surrender' my will the freer i feel!!

C. G. Jung, wrote, "Religion,...is.... the numinosum, that is, a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will. On the contrary, it seizes and controls the human subject, who is always rather its victim than its creator. The numinosum - whatever its cause may be - is an experience of the subject independent of his will." Also, "The conversion of Paul is a striking example of this. We might say, then, that the term "religion" designates the attitude peuliar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum. - From Psychology and Religion

~d.allan

[bevin]

Lots of rhetoric, no logic

Before you can ask "does X have Y" you need a measurable definition of Y.

Simple question, and if you can't answer it you may as well drop the topic

What measurable reproducible objective test determines whether an entity - be it animate, inanimate, electronic - has free will?

/Bevin

[John317]

I don't know if I have 'free-will' or not. It seems we do if we don't think about it. Isaac Bashevis Singer said, "We have to believe in free will. We've got no choice." But I do know that God has changed me very much in the last 9 years. And I'm very thankful for it. I can take no credit for it. I had a desire for 'more', where did it come from? Chance occurences made it possible for me to have faith in His grace. Faith made it possible for Him to change me, slowly but constantly. I feel that I had nothing to do with it. The paradox is that the more i 'surrender' my will the freer i feel!!

C. G. Jung, wrote, "Religion,...is.... the numinosum, that is, a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will. On the contrary, it seizes and controls the human subject, who is always rather its victim than its creator. The numinosum - whatever its cause may be - is an experience of the subject independent of his will." Also, "The conversion of Paul is a striking example of this. We might say, then, that the term "religion" designates the attitude peuliar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum. - From Psychology and Religion

~d.allan

If we have no free will, then the appeal of the Bible to "choose this day whom you will serve," and all the other Scriptures that teach the same, have no meaning.

Of course you have something to do with what you are doing and who you are. Otherwise everyone is just like a puppet. I don't think God wants a lot of puppets. He wants you to use your intelligence to make wise decisions based on evidence and reason.

You are taking advice from Jung and Singer, neither of whom are worthy of your trust when it comes to the subject under discussion. Jung did not accept the Bible as God's word and Isaac Singer-- great short story writer though he was-- did not accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. While I admire Nietzsche and Jung and Singer, as well as many other "thinkers," I don't accept their statements when they conflict with the Bible's teachings.

I would like to suggest that you consult the Comprehensive Index to the Writings of Ellen White, and search under the general topics, "Choice," "Freedom," and "Will." For instance, FE 297: "We are God's free, moral agents..."

[bevin]

Quote:

If we have no free will, then the appeal of the Bible to "choose this day whom you will serve," and all the other Scriptures that teach the same, have no meaning.

So you define "free will" as "the ability to choose"?

If so, then all animate objects, and many inanimate ones (for example, dice, coins, computers) have free will.

/Bevin

[Robert]

...Jesus after being 'anointed' with Spirit at his baptism was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. It sounds as He had no choice about it.

Impossible for God does not force....

[John317]

Lots of rhetoric, no logic

Before you can ask "does X have Y" you need a measurable definition of Y.

Simple question, and if you can't answer it you may as well drop the topic

What measurable reproducible objective test determines whether an entity - be it animate, inanimate, electronic - has free will?

/Bevin

I would usually agree with you, but when it comes to matters such as what we are discussing-- whether we have free will-- we have to accept the testimony of Scripture. For the Christian believer, human judgment cannot be superior to the word of God.

It's clear from the Bible that God made people with the freedom to choose. That is, God presents a choice of whether to obey or disobey and He holds us accountable for that choice. Is the God of the Bible pleased with the worship and obedience of creatures lacking free choice, or free will? And if it was not a genuine choice, God would not hold us responsible for making wrong choices, would He?

[John317]

Quote:

If we have no free will, then the appeal of the Bible to "choose this day whom you will serve," and all the other Scriptures that teach the same, have no meaning.

So you define "free will" as "the ability to choose"?

If so, then all animate objects, and many inanimate ones (for example, dice, coins, computers) have free will.

/Bevin

The Bible says that God made humans in His image. He did not make the animals or the other life forms, such as trees, in His image. Genesis 1 and 2 make it clear that part of being in God's image has to do with choosing to obey God. As far as we know the animals and plants don't make such a choice. At least the Bible gives us no reason to believe the animals and plants choose to obey or disobey God. In that sense, people are different from them in that people are free moral agents. That is why God commanded Adam and Eve to choose to obey God or Satan. Do you know of any Bible evidence that God has commanded either animals or plants or inanimate things to choose between God or Satan? We all are asked to make the same choice every day. We can safely assume that humans would not be asked to make that choice if our Creator knows we are incapable of it.

[LifeHiscost]

For instance Jesus after being 'anointed' with Spirit at his baptism was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness. It sounds as He had no choice about it.

I'm not sure where you arrived at the word "driven", for the Scripture that is referring to Jesus temptation in the wilderness uses "led" or "guided" in the five translations to which I referenced. OTOH if there were a scenario of Jesus' apparent unwillingness, it might be taken in the same general attitude of Paul when he stated he was "constrained". Both words lend themselves to somewhat of a reluctance on the part of the individual in question. However both might be seen as an initial distaste for the event called to but subsequently yielded to as Jesus did when asked to go through the horror of the crucifiction.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Matthew 4:1 KJV

"`And the lord said unto the servant, Go forth to the ways and hedges, and constrain to come in, that my house may be filled" Luke 14:23 YLT

"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Matthew 26:39 KJV

Blessings!!

[Robert]

In the book Steps to Christ i found the idea that people commonly misunderstand the proper function of the will. They think they are supposed to 'exert' it. (Sounds strenuous!) However, the proper use of the will is to 'surrender it.

Biblical speaking free will from God's point of view has to do with belief/faith. For example, we can choose to accept Christ.

On the other hand when it comes to performance (works of righteousness) man's nature gives him no choice. We are born slaves to self, i.e., we are spiritually bent towards self. So you can't just choose to do right. That's what Allan quote is about.

The only way to experience liberty from our fallen natures is not through our free-will choice as in simply choosing to do right. No, we have to give up trying and let God take the reigns of the will. That is a choice, but its a hard one because we are by nature proud. But once we do this He then can defeat the flesh through His power.

Robert