Christianity and the Problem of Free Will

James Genac
Undergraduate/Computer Science

One of the largest problems when presenting an argument against a particular religious belief is that the belief can be defended ad-infinitum, where the believer may at his liberty reformulate his position in an unfalsifiable manner. For example, over the last two issues, Evan Gillick wrote on the ‘Fall of Man’ and how it is infeasible given the scientific history of the earth (very briefly, the discussion was about how death and suffering have existed well before man, yet somehow man is the cause for this ‘unnatural phenomena’). Jerry Woods, though he wrote only a short section on the main point of Evan’s article, responded by denying the factuality of evolution. I have no doubt that Jerry would believe any scientific principle that he learned in school if it did not attempt to overturn his apple cart of belief on how a disembodied, literally male mind beyond space-time personally and supernaturally created the human species in his image, but since this is the case with evolution – a natural cause of our origin – the apologist within him springs up and attacks. One will see desperate attempts at appeals to authority (‘This well-educated Christian author doesn’t agree with evolution’), even if the majority of the scientific community believe in its factuality (If you don’t believe me, read about “Project Steve” - a survey among scientists with a name deriving from ‘Steve’ for random sampling purposes – 99% of scientists in this sample believe in the credibility of evolution [1]). Still, it may not be enough that most educated people believe in the validity of evolution – as it is possible that they are all wrong. It’s logically possible for the devil to have buried all of those fossils around the world in the right strata, you know... he could have also placed fossils that were very apparently from carnivorous animals deeper in the earth than human beings to make it appear as if humans weren’t responsible for the world’s “brokenness”. Or it could be a massive satanic conspiracy among those scientists, who seek only to justify their atheism/sinful lifestyles by forging evidence about something that throws big kinks in The One True Faith. Checkmate, you godless heathen. Though I find such ‘arguments’ against evolution a good source of comedy, perhaps one should take a more convincing approach to demonstrating the wrongness of the some of the core dogmatic beliefs of Christianity.

If you ask a Christian the question: “Is God beyond logic? Can he make square circles and set 1 + 1 to equal 6,078,008,135.101?” You’ll get a mix of yes’s and no’s.

To the ‘yes’ Christians: You’ll often cite verses like “With God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26)” as justification for this belief. Just because we can’t think of a square circle does not mean that God can’t make one: There are no worldly limits placed on him, you say. I’d like to point out some problems for you: How do you even utter true and false statements about your deity when he transcends true and false, or claim to know any fact about him since that fact would have a basis in logic? Can one not say things like “God is male and not male”, “God is good and not good”, “God exists and doesn’t exist” if he transcends logic? The problem with a God that has no ‘worldly limits’ is that existence of any kind needs limits if it is to have any meaning at all: God cannot both exist and not exist at the same time, and he cannot be God and not God at the same time; one cannot be contradictory things or act in contradictory manners – those statements, qualities, and actions are meaningless. In your description of God as a being without logical limits, these statements are not only possible, but necessarily true, if any meaning of the word actually remains. At this point, if this is what you truly believe, you’ve immunized yourself from any possible conversation about truth (which Christians seem to value) and have set an infinitely aqueous, unknowable entity as the fulcrum of your existence. I’ll have no part in that, and no further conversation is possible, much less needed.

To the ‘no’ Christians: All real things mustn’t be such nonsense as a married bachelor, you say. At least you have some sort of standard through which you can hope to experience this entity that you claim to speak to daily. You have a way of knowing truths about him – you can look at his attributes and analyze them on a logical basis. God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, you say. He created us all and is infinitely good and merciful – he gave us each a choice to love him or not. I will argue that there is an inert contradiction between the classical Christian’s belief in God’s future omniscience and us having a choice on our actions.

God’s omniscience is described by many Christians, including C.S. Lewis, as his existence outside of time; it’s as though he sees all actions over the time stream as an instant. Another common view is that God exists in the present, yet can use something along the lines of a ‘time telescope’ to see future events. These views require a universe in which the future exists and all future actions are determined, and have been determined for eternity - even before God spoke the universe into existence. More specifically, a contradictory claim is made when one holds this belief: Christians claim that we choose to obey or disobey (sin against) God, but no choice in any meaningful sense of the word is possible. God created the universe in such a manner that the entire fate of any given organism (let’s use Evan Gillick for this example) was knowable, actual, and thus existent – Gillick had no choice of being created, and was brought into this world where God damn well knew that he’d become a non-believer. God, being future omniscient or outside of time, also knows the state of Gillick’s heart when he will die. Was he not created for the endless fire since all of his “choices” existed before he was even born, and God still chose to bring him into being?

While there is no real contradiction if the above is true if you are a Calvinist, who believe that a pre-elect group of Christians get to go to heaven while the rest burn. In fact, this is the exact belief that a Calvinist consciously holds [2]. The contradiction arises when you try to say that God can know the future and we have choices. If you’re a ‘No Christian’ in saying that God cannot make logical contradictions, but somehow find this to be okay, you’re simply a ‘Yes Christian’ in denial: If our choices are knowable by God, they exist, and always have existed. We truly have no say over our placement on this earth, and thus the buck stops on God (who chose to make us in the way he did - a non existent entity cannot make itself, right?) for all of our actions. If you’re going to hold the belief that God knows the future, you must accept the undesirable baggage with your presupposition that the future exists: We have no choices, and all are made predestined for Heaven or the fire.

Isn’t this idea of God radically opposite of any innate ideas of mercy and justice that we have?

Christians, over the years, must have realized that the problem of free will poses a serious threat to their beliefs, leading some apologists to reformulate the Christian idea of God to accommodate freewill (and also attempts to get God off of the hook for the problem of evil). This new stance suggests that the Christian God exists within time, and views the future as ‘open’, or undetermined, and thus unknowable. The Christian God can thus be considered omniscient even if he does not know the future, but instead knows all things past and present. However, God can and does anticipate events using his profound knowledge of the present, and is still free to communicate his plans for future actions (i.e., telling the prophet Isaiah that he’s sending a savior born of a young woman, etc). The supporters of this belief maintain that most prophetic scripture deals only with God telling his people things that he would do in the future, or give people knowledge of distant present events. This view is called Open Theism [3], and derives its name from having an indeterminate or open future.

While it is certainly more palatable to a reasonable person, Open Theism has its own set of problems when one applies this idea to traditional Christian beliefs. Many Christians believe in an ‘immutable’ God who is eternally unchanging – perfectly consistent forever. Open Theism requires a changeable God, for he is always acquiring new knowledge of the ever-flowing present. Open Theism also requires God to be fallible, as it must be possible for him to make an incorrect prediction of the future. (If it was impossible for God to be wrong about a prediction of the future, he knows the future perfectly and we’re right back to where we started). How can a fallible being be perfect?

The question of whether Open Theism is supported by scripture should be on your mind right about now. First, though it is a well stated point that most prophetic scripture doesn’t require future omniscience, the key word in that sentence is most. The future cannot exist briefly, just enough for God to make a prediction such as Peter’s denial and then simply go back to being non-existent and ‘open’. (If true, Peter’s denial is an example of God knowing a detailed future event that had literally nothing to do with his future actions, and required more knowledge, e.g., the knowledge of the free choices of not only Peter, but the people who would question him, along with the time of day, location, and even that a rooster would specifically crow three times after his denial). For other brief examples of God’s alleged future omniscience, look at Jeremiah 1, where God supposedly speaks to Jeremiah and tells him that “he knew him before he was born” - how does a being that does not know the future have access to this knowledge of a totally unformed person? And Revelations? Is it not intended as prophetic future knowledge of not only God, but of worldly inhabitants that did not even exist at the time of its writing?

The Bible also has plenty of scriptural support for the immutability of God (Psalm 102:27, James 1:17, Malachi 3:6).

One side note, even if I grant that all prophetic scripture is somehow compatible with a non-future omniscient God, how can God have perfect knowledge about the present and not perfectly know the future? If God is omniscient in the present, he has all of the data in the universe, including our thoughts, our situations, all natural laws, etc – how can he not know the future infallibly, thus leading us again to determinism? If there is some knowable knowledge in the present, i.e., our choices, then God is not omniscient either because he lacks knowable knowledge.

Since I cited many instances of The Bible for their incredible qualities, a Christian may be about ready to say something along the lines of “You’re admitting that God is infallible, omniscient, etc. by using The Bible to counter Open Theism, and thus actually giving credibility to Christianity.” This is not quite so, as I only granted biblical truth to show that it is untenable even if certain key aspects of the faith are taken as axiomatic. The Bible doesn’t support Open Theism, nor are the contents logically sound. The stories in the Bible needn’t be considered true. Anyone could write a tale of one who knows future actions because the writer knows the end of the story. Given the alternatives of (A)Remaking the Christian God in the image of philosophy as an Open Theist, contrary to supposedly God-breathed scriptural doctrine, or (B)Believing in a logically contradictory entity that can make freewill even though freewill doesn’t exist because the future is existent, knowable, and thus determined... The most rational position is to deny the truth of Christianity. A Christian may respond by saying “We cannot hope to know these things about God, and I’m okay with that,” but I implore you to truly think of that statement: Aren’t you saying that you don’t know for certain that the future is deterministic; that the being you worship on your knees every day created so many people for a short life on earth, only to be tormented for eternity for actions they didn’t truly have a choice of? Are you saying that you don’t know if The Bible is the word of God? Either way, you have become an agnostic in denial.

Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Steve
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism