Free Will and Evil

Free Will

Note: This article is purely dealing with the Judeo-Christian view on evil

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. [Stanford]

Often, when discussing beliefs with the religious, whenever the issue of the presence of evil in this world arises, I am often greeted with the claim that sin and evil is the result of free will. However, I disagree with this for two reasons:

Omnipotence
If God is truly omnipotent, he can do the logically impossible, thus, he can make the universe purely good, while giving us free will and “challenge” in life. While the definition of 'Good', is purely relative, you can assume the definition of good of which ever religion you are applying this to.

Much the same way God can make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it, then go and lift it anyway.

However, if you believe that God cannot do this, and then God is not truly omnipotent, rather can only achieve what is logically possible for God to achieve. This view is taken by most theologians these days, as true omnipotence causes too many issues.

Our Fault?

I also disagree with this explanation for evil, as I do not believe there is such a thing a true “free will” as the religious so often claim.

I hypothesise that we are not responsible for our actions as our decisions are made from deterministic processes, thus cannot be held accountable for our decisions by a “cosmic judge”. We cannot be held accountable, as most religions claim that the higher being instigated and created/controls the factors which affect our thought. Thus, either there is no such thing as sin or hell, or God is cruel and illogical.

First, a number of things need to be true for my hypothesis to be true:

· Our decisions are the result of our thoughts/reasoning/logic, be it subconscious, conscious or non-conscious.

· These thoughts which lead to the decision are caused by outside factors and the structure/make-up of our mind (which varies greatly from person to person, in terms of personality, reasoning ect).

· Our thoughts cannot come from any other source (What could it be? Some random thought generator in our brain? Once again, that fits back into the factor of the initial brain makeup)

* Some have contacted me claiming that they are also influenced by the quality of the soul, however, that (the soul as a supernatural existence, rather than just a concept) was created by God anyway, so thus, not attributable to the individual. *

I will further iterate how our decisions are the result of these factors.

The outside factors are a result of two factors:

· Natural/random events

· Events caused by other organisms

Events can include:

· Conversations

· Disasters

· Deaths

Thus, when you follow the events caused by other organisms, essentially, all events are the result of natural/random events or the make-up of the mind/body of other organisms.

Thus, all decisions are reliant on initial mental/bodily make-up of other organisms and/or random/natural events.

According to most fundamentals beliefs, Adam and Eve were the initial contributors to the gene pool, which still fits in, as your resultant brain structure relies upon their initial brain make-up, which God definitely (according to your beliefs) created/caused.

If you believe in evolution, big bang, ect and God, then these factors simply can be counted as random/natural process. Thus, it is only the outside factors (natural/random) which can be claimed to not be caused by God.

However the natural (according to the religious) must have been caused by God, as he/she/it set the ball rolling, causing all the resulting events (nature is influenced by random factors and other living organisms).

Thus, the only aspect which you could claim God chooses not to control is random factor, which by definition would not be random if he chooses to influence it. However, you can simply assume that this is events which would rely on random factor, and are perceived as such.

If this is true, then basically our stay in hell and heaven for all eternity relies on mere chance.

This then results in any decisions (or actions, thoughts, ect) of any human is the result of God, as he defined these initial factors (nature, brain makeup ect).

Therefore, God is responsible for our decision to sin (be it conscious or subconscious decision).

The main point is that we cannot be held accountable for our decisions, as we do not have any choice in how those factors affect us, thus punishing us for what those factors result in is cruel and illogical.

If my hypothesis is true, then there are only two options (that I can perceive) that remain:

1. God is cruel and illogical for punishing us for our decisions and resulting actions
2. There is no such thing as sin or hell

So… Which do you pick?


Note: I do not believe in God, I am simply working with this assumption, for the purposes of the argument.