Keith’s Thought Experiment Is Driving Me Mad!

I recently commented on a post which began a conversation which has really made me think about my beliefs in a new way. The post basically hypothesized about a world where God caused potential child murderers to fall into a deep sleep just before trying to carry out such an awful act. The blogger believed such a world, if it allowed for other evil, would be much more palatable than that which we currently inhabit, yet still allow for expressions of free will.

Here are some excerpts from our discussion:

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Keith - You state that “we have total freedom within the range afforded us by physical and social limitations.” To me that sounds equivalent to saying that we are not totally free, for we are free only “within the range afforded us by physical and social limitations.” Since in comment 3 above your objection against God intervening was that “[a]ny universal limitations on moral action whatsoever” would mean that we are not really totally free, I thought that “limitations” were the stumbling block. But now you admit physical and social limitations, but still claim that we have total freedom. Again I ask you to please explain, what do you mean by total freedom?

If you force me to guess what you mean, I’ll hazard you mean by “total freedom” the choice to obey or disobey God. Thus, God preventing a child’s murder would be an unacceptable limitation on the murderer’s choice to disobey God. Is that what you believe?

Also, I wish you would explain how it is that the “slightest divine disrespect of human autonomy destroys free will.” For example, would God causing someone to fall into a deep sleep destroy that person’s free will? How?

Poppies - Your guess as to my belief is very accurate. I apologize for any perceived lack of clarity; it’s a result of my taking it for granted that certain limits are taken for granted in these types of discussions.

As for the mechanism of how any divine disrespect of human autonomy destroys free will: Let’s say people did fall asleep upon intending to kill children. If this were always the case, 100% repeatable under all conditions, such a situation would basically be fairly infallible proof of God. I say “fairly” because there will always be people for whom nothing is convincing due to a mindset utterly against God, but since most people in our current world believe in God I would have to imagine this child-murder-avoiding-sleep world would cause most people to feel as if they had no choice but to obey God’s commands. The reality of God’s 3-O existence would be incredibly palpable. It’s an important aspect of free will that God remain subtle, not particularly easily accessed, and dismissable. Hopefully that’s clear, I’ve made some assumptions that I think most people would find reasonable, but if you feel I should drill down further, I’m happy to do so.

Keith - I find your explanation of how any divine intervention would destroy free will unsatisfactory. Take the story of Adam and Eve. Certainly, they were quite sure that God exists — they were on speaking terms after all. Yet, they were obviously free to disobey. Also, consider Moses. He came upon God in the burning bush. He heard His voice. He saw the glory of God “from behind” after God passed by. Sounds to me like Moses would have been quite sure that God exists. Do you think that destroyed his free will? And there are many more examples of individuals portrayed in the Bible as knowing that God exists, yet appearing to still have free will.

How can you be sure that strong evidence of God’s existence would prevent people from disobeying? Most people agree that they have an obligation to obey the laws of the state, and they certainly believe that the state exists. They also know that if they are caught they will be punished. Yet, many still break laws. Now, if you replace “state” with “God” in the above, why would people not still be free to obey or disobey?

And let me point out to you — in ancient Israel as portrayed in the Old Testament, the state was headed by God. If what you are saying were true (and the events in the Old Testament really happened as written), then Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses, the prophets, and the whole generation that witnessed the Exodus, would have had their free will destroyed. You’re theory may make sense (to you) philosophically, but it doesn’t fit with the stories told in the Bible. Unless you take all that stuff as metaphorical, I don’t see how you can believe such a theory as a Christian.

Poppies - To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t thought about it in those terms before. I now see I can’t hold the theory I previously held. I’ll have to think about it more, because your thought experiment now takes on new meaning for me.

Keith - Now you’ve gone and done it! You’ve suprised me. I look forward to reading what you come up with.
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I’ve been thinking about this for days, and I have yet to come up with anything conclusive. If taken to it’s logical conclusion, Keith’s train of thought could end up in a world where the only freedom to express evil would be by way of thought alone; stopping at child murder seems pretty arbitrary, there’s lots of other moral evil we could do without. This obviously wouldn’t jibe with any conception of robust freedom. Yet, it does seem that a pretty large amount of divine intervention could occur without destroying free will.

These ideas have really rocked some long-held conceptions of mine. It will be interesting to see how this ends up. I feel like I’m going mad!

Disappointed with the Poison

I’m so disappointed at how ad hominem discussions between theists and atheists often become. Maybe it’s a result of the so-called “New Atheism”, or perhaps it’s due to the sense of theism slipping out of a place of cultural influence, but so many conversations I see and participate in become deluged by thoughtless attacks, dehumanization of the opposition, etc. Theists are just as guilty of this as atheists.

I certainly hope that culture starts turning away from this sort of poisonous discourse; whether atheism or theism is true, we’ll never live to find out if we keep swallowing these bitter pills.

Magnetic Atheism

I’ve wondered lately at the fact that those who make a decision to declare themselves atheists often remain with that label indefinitely, yet there are many former theists. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that most societies are theism-oriented, thus theism is seen as a sort of default. Accordingly, people will call themsleves theists though they have never really thought about or “owned” their beliefs. Meanwhile, atheists in such societies necessarily must go against the grain to embrace their beliefs, and it makes sense that this sort of hard-won worldview would be very “sticky”.

I must remember that no matter how hard-won my beliefs, if I find falsity in them, I must fight past the strong pull and discard them.