Can Scientists Find Free Will?
— Cowboy Bob Sorensen
A frequent complaint that atheists and evolutionist have against the Bible pertains to free will, a subject that has been debated for a long, long time. Some of them complain from prejudicial conjecture (presenting an uninformed, biased opinion), incomplete information or simple ignorance. The problem is compounded because different theologians have varying explanations for free will. Most Christians agree, however, that God did not create us to be robots.
Someone made a comment on Facebook demanding scientific proof for the existence of the soul. Right. That is a logical fallacy called the category error — you cannot use material methods to test for the non-material. It is just as futile to require empirical evidence for the existence of God, who is spirit and outside the confines of time and space. You may as well ask for a bushel basket of patriotism.
If evolution were true, then free will is impossible. Think about it. We are all star stuff, ultimate products of the Big Bang, time, chance, random processes, mutations, natural selection, survival of the fittest and so on. So, there is no right or wrong, and there is no justice; we are just bags of chemicals doing what our electrochemical impulses tell us to do. This also means that we cannot trust our senses, reasoning or our memories in an evolutionary worldview, nor can evolutionists account for morality).
When they lie about creationists, calling us "liars" because we disagree with evolution and its rock star icons, or when they simply misrepresent us because they are incapable of logic, when they plot to deceive people — that's okay. Conversely, those of us who believe that the Bible is true, that God created the world in six literal days about 6,000 years ago — that's okay, too. We're all just slaves to our chemical impulses; we have to believe the way we do, so nobody has any business complaining about us.
Neuroscientists use faulty materialistic presuppositions based on evolution to try to explain the mind itself (but their explanations fall far short of observations, reason and common sense). Unfortunately, many Christians have gone along with this, and it is akin to theistic evolutionists and other old-earth compromisers using atheistic conjectures and interpretations of evidence to explain Scripture. If we are reduced to electrochemical impulses, we have no soul, the mind is just the brain, and we are not accountable for our actions. A detailed examination of this can be found at "Christians, the Brain, and Person: Conceptual Confusion, Unintelligibility, and Implications".
Ironically, materialists are trying to find the physical cause or location of free will. Again, this seems like the category error to me.
Someone made a comment on Facebook demanding scientific proof for the existence of the soul. Right. That is a logical fallacy called the category error — you cannot use material methods to test for the non-material. It is just as futile to require empirical evidence for the existence of God, who is spirit and outside the confines of time and space. You may as well ask for a bushel basket of patriotism.
If evolution were true, then free will is impossible. Think about it. We are all star stuff, ultimate products of the Big Bang, time, chance, random processes, mutations, natural selection, survival of the fittest and so on. So, there is no right or wrong, and there is no justice; we are just bags of chemicals doing what our electrochemical impulses tell us to do. This also means that we cannot trust our senses, reasoning or our memories in an evolutionary worldview, nor can evolutionists account for morality).
When they lie about creationists, calling us "liars" because we disagree with evolution and its rock star icons, or when they simply misrepresent us because they are incapable of logic, when they plot to deceive people — that's okay. Conversely, those of us who believe that the Bible is true, that God created the world in six literal days about 6,000 years ago — that's okay, too. We're all just slaves to our chemical impulses; we have to believe the way we do, so nobody has any business complaining about us.
Neuroscientists use faulty materialistic presuppositions based on evolution to try to explain the mind itself (but their explanations fall far short of observations, reason and common sense). Unfortunately, many Christians have gone along with this, and it is akin to theistic evolutionists and other old-earth compromisers using atheistic conjectures and interpretations of evidence to explain Scripture. If we are reduced to electrochemical impulses, we have no soul, the mind is just the brain, and we are not accountable for our actions. A detailed examination of this can be found at "Christians, the Brain, and Person: Conceptual Confusion, Unintelligibility, and Implications".
Ironically, materialists are trying to find the physical cause or location of free will. Again, this seems like the category error to me.
Free will matters to children. It had better exist.I hope you decide to continue reading "Choosing to Believe in Free Will".
Neuroscientists have been trying for years to locate the source of free will in the brain. They have done this freely of their own will. But if they ever find free will is caused by the physical brain, or has been determined by our evolutionary past, it will cease to be free. The late Cornell evolution professor William Provine used to insist that Darwinism implied there is no free will. Apparently he chose to say this freely by his own choice, but he understood that free will is an illusion except in the Biblical world view that he once trusted as a child. Needless to say, preachers call on their flock to make life choices, because the Bible assumes (despite issues of God’s sovereignty) that people can hear, understand, and respond.
Here is some food for thought on free will from the secular news.