THIS IS PART 3 OF A 3 PART SERIES. THIS ENTRY CAN STAND ON ITS OWN, BUT IN HONOUR OF HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGY, YOU CAN READ THE FIRST TWO AS WELL.
Free will does not exist and I can prove it.
Every religion believes it. But let’s focus on Christianity. “It” is the belief that there is a reason for everything. Every being has its purpose. Every action has its significance. Every event is backed by a reason. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing can be dismissed by coincidence. Nothing is simply by happenstance.
Who decides the reason? Who decides the purpose? Who decides the significance? God. God has a plan.
Some theists believe that God creates everything both good and bad.
Other theists believe that God is responsible for good, and evil elements are responsible for bad. God simply “allows” the evil elements to do bad.
[The mortifyingly stupid argument is that when bad things happen to good people, God is testing them, and when bad things happen to bad people, God is punishing them. How convenient. But let’s stick to the main argument.]
Either way you take it, there is a reason. There is a purpose. For everything.
The only thing that falls outside of this scope is free will. It is the only thing that God supposedly does not tamper with. We choose to either be “good” and serve him, or be “bad” and shun him.
Free will is the tool with which we make this choice. And as with every tool, it can be used in several ways, but it is always in the control of the person wielding it.
What then, is the difference between the man who uses this prized tool to serve God and the man who lies, cheats, steals, kills, curses, has sex with children, and all such evil things?
I suppose theists would start uttering meaningless phrases:
• Strength of character
• Beliefs
• Faith
• Good will
• Inner goodness
It is the man, they say, who goes through life, sees what God has shown him, and ingests it, learns from his experiences, and serves God.
WHAT THE FUCK did these people just say? I can say what they just said in one, clear, intelligible word.
CHARACTER.
The character of the man determines the kind of person he is, and therefore how he is going to use his free will.
So what determines a person’s character? Well that’s easy for anyone with…
*raises hand*
“A major in sociology?”
*voice in the back*
“A background in psychology?”
… Actually, I was thinking along the lines of “half a brain cell”, but you get the idea. Choose from the long list of factors which shape our characters:
NURTURE
1. Big family v small family
2. Rich family v poor family
3. Religious family v family that does not care about religion
4. Two parents
5. Single parent / divorced parents / separated parents
6. Stay at home mom
7. Stay at home dads
8. Gay parenting (its happening)
9. Parents interested in children’s progress at school
10. Parents who come home late from work and/or are too tired/disinterested to care about their children’s academic progress
11. Children who had nannies and babysitters v children who knew only their parents
12. People who began working from an early age (say 12, 13) v people who began to work after university (23, 24)
13. Victims of child abuse / spousal abuse
14. Victims of rape, incest
15. Parents died when you were young v parents who died when you were old
16. Incompetent mothers (e.g. prostitutes)
17. Incompetent fathers (e.g. drunks, druggies)
18. Surrounded by art, literature, music, drama, plays
19. Surrounded by business, companies, managing people, dealing in shares and securities
20. Public schools v private schools
21. Religious schools v government schools
22. Schools with diverse populations v schools with predominantly one gender, race, religion, social class, economic class
23. School driven by academia v school driven by sports, art, culture
24. Friends who you study with and go to cinema together v friends who skip school, drink and smoke together
25. Small town v bustling city
26. Tiny island in Caribbean sea v world’s only remaining superpower v remote tribes untouched by the modern world
NATURE
1. How we look – the attitudes of pretty people v the attitudes of the less attractive.
2. Our hormonal makeup – temporary changes in hormones change our moods (periods, menopause etc). But hormones are not in the sole possession of women, and we all have different hormonal make-ups, and therefore we all have different temperaments.
3. Our chemical makeup – people with low amounts of serotonin, for example, tend to be impulsive and violent. In a study performed on prisoners doing “hard labour” in some country (cannot remember if it was England, Scotland, or Australia) it was found that these prisoners generally had lower amounts of serotonin in the brains than generally considered normal. So the chemical balances in our brains have a tremendous impact on our personality.
I know that I could have simply stated that our personality is affected by how we grew up and our biological make-up, but I thought I would have a greater impact if I extended that argument into list-form. Did it work?
Our personalities, our characters are determined by the interaction of millions of different social factors, several different hormones and many, many chemicals. There is an infinite number of combinations and permutations of these factors, which is why no two persons can ever be the same, and why no two personalities are ever identical. Similar, perhaps, but never identical.
And it is our character that determines how we use this free will bestowed upon us by God.
So what determines these circumstances? What determines our genetic make-up?
It certainly was not our free-will. And since free-will is the only thing that is supposed to fall outside of the scope of God’s control, it is God who allows us to be born into circumstances, and it is God who determines the code of our genes.
Essentially, God controls the circumstances which affect our character, which in turn affect our use of our free will.
Free will therefore does not exist.
And now for some good reading - Mailbag: C.S. Lewis, Part 1 and Mailbag: C.S. Lewis, Part 2