Uncaused causes
Few Christians seem to realize that the standard First Cause argument
for the existence of God ("everything has a cause, nothing can cause
itself, an infinite chain of causes is impossible, hence there was a
First Cause, and it is the Christian God") implies that the universe is
completely deterministic and rules out any possibility of free will in
humans. Were I a Christian, I would therefore be wary of using such
arguments, since both masses and intellectuals seem to find it
difficult to distinguish between determinism and fatalism, or that
determinism somehow implies that everything is predictable from a small
set of known variables.
Of course, determinism need not worry anybody or make them change their behaviour. Since we can't observe these earlier causes, we have an illusion of free will the same way that a blackjack player has an illusion that the game is random, even though once the deck has been shuffled, all future events of the game are determined by it. The next card is what it is, even though we don't know what it is when we make a bet. As for the practical consequences of determinism, if some criminal tries to argue that his crime was determined by earlier causes and he cannot therefore be held responsible for it, the judge can say that his giving him a stiff sentence was also determined by earlier causes and he cannot be held responsible for that. If judge has a good sense of humor, he can move and act in the stereotypical robotic manner while saying this.
But back to the main argument. The assumption that everything has a cause makes the physical events to be perfectly deterministic. But how about our mental events that perhaps take place in a nonphysical plane, and the choices that we make and the actions that we physically do as result of these mental events? For example, consider my recent choice to eat Korean food for lunch earlier today instead of Chinese or Indian. Since this mental event and choice was something, by the assumptions of FCA it was caused by some other cause or a set of causes. So even on the nonmaterial plane that is independent of the physical universe, there can be no real free will, since all our actions and choices are determined by earlier causes.
A theist might now counter and say that this doesn't really invalidate the FCA. Since God causes humans to have the free will, this way we get back to the same first cause. But we must now be careful and distinguish between God causing me to have free will and God causing that free will to choose to eat Korean instead of Chinese. Christians of course claim the first, but I doubt that very many of them would claim the second since it's probably some form of heresy to believe that a puppeteer God directly causes all our decisions for us.
So if God didn't cause my choice (except in the trivial indirect manner) and everything has a cause, then what caused my choice? If my "free will" caused this choice, very well then, what other cause caused my free will to cause it? And so on. It seems to me that a logical person has to give up either the concept of free will or the First Cause argument, since they can't have both.
Of course, determinism need not worry anybody or make them change their behaviour. Since we can't observe these earlier causes, we have an illusion of free will the same way that a blackjack player has an illusion that the game is random, even though once the deck has been shuffled, all future events of the game are determined by it. The next card is what it is, even though we don't know what it is when we make a bet. As for the practical consequences of determinism, if some criminal tries to argue that his crime was determined by earlier causes and he cannot therefore be held responsible for it, the judge can say that his giving him a stiff sentence was also determined by earlier causes and he cannot be held responsible for that. If judge has a good sense of humor, he can move and act in the stereotypical robotic manner while saying this.
But back to the main argument. The assumption that everything has a cause makes the physical events to be perfectly deterministic. But how about our mental events that perhaps take place in a nonphysical plane, and the choices that we make and the actions that we physically do as result of these mental events? For example, consider my recent choice to eat Korean food for lunch earlier today instead of Chinese or Indian. Since this mental event and choice was something, by the assumptions of FCA it was caused by some other cause or a set of causes. So even on the nonmaterial plane that is independent of the physical universe, there can be no real free will, since all our actions and choices are determined by earlier causes.
A theist might now counter and say that this doesn't really invalidate the FCA. Since God causes humans to have the free will, this way we get back to the same first cause. But we must now be careful and distinguish between God causing me to have free will and God causing that free will to choose to eat Korean instead of Chinese. Christians of course claim the first, but I doubt that very many of them would claim the second since it's probably some form of heresy to believe that a puppeteer God directly causes all our decisions for us.
So if God didn't cause my choice (except in the trivial indirect manner) and everything has a cause, then what caused my choice? If my "free will" caused this choice, very well then, what other cause caused my free will to cause it? And so on. It seems to me that a logical person has to give up either the concept of free will or the First Cause argument, since they can't have both.
I see no problem in getting rid of the concept of "free will". In my view will is pseudo-free. It is influenced by the environment in such a chaotic manner that for all practical purposes it seems free even if it really would be deterministic (but this in a really, really complex degree).
Posted by Anonymous | 5:28 PM