The Free-Will Dilemma: Skepticism or Atheism?

Probably the most hotly debated question in Christian theology, and perhaps in philosophy in general, is the question of human free-will. There are essentially two options- Determinism and Libertarianism. Determinism claims that all things are determined by some "external" factor- be it the natural laws of the universe that govern how things physically interact or the will of God that decrees how all things will be. Libertarianism claims the opposite- no external force such as this compels us to the decisions we make or the actions we take. The implications of these two views is what interests me and I think leads to a rather unsettling dilemma.

I have previously argued that determinism leads to a radical skepticism. If all things are determined, this includes my thoughts and beliefs. This raises an important question: what reason do I have to trust that my beliefs are in any way valid or true if they have been determined for me? If determinism is true, I cannot even objectively wrestle with this question, my thoughts and conclusions concerning it are also going to be determined! Thus, it seems that this leads to a radical skepticism in which I have no reason to trust my mental faculties to tell me anything true.

Some determinists try to argue for compatibalism, which is an attempt to preserve some semblance of free-will under determinism. In essence, compatibalism argues that our actions are "free" if they coincide with our desires. This is primarily a solution employed in Christian theology to answer the question of how we can be held morally responsible for our actions under determinism, but some thinkers attempt to employ it to answer the question of skepticism as well, claiming that if our thoughts coincide with our desires, we have freely reached our beliefs and thus can trust them. There seems to be an underlying philosophical problem for this solution however, namely that it only pushes our problem back one step. Desires are not self-existing entities anymore than thoughts are. They too originate from somewhere, and if their source is external (ie, God shapes our desires in some sense), then we seem to gotten no closer to a solution to the problem of skepticism. If our desires are not externally determined (we determine them, in other words), then we are now libertarians and not determinists.

Libertarianism has its own set of philosophical problems. At the heart of these issues is the question of whether or not we can have any sort of "neutral decisions." In other words, do we really have equally available options when we make a decision or are other things influencing us in our decision? On face value, it seems that we obviously do not- there are always things that influence us or our desires. So to say our options in any decision really are equally viable, we have to say we have the ability to go against our strongest inclination. If this is even logically consistent (wouldn't the final choice we make turn out to be our strongest inclination?), then it seems to throw out causality (at least in terms of our decisions, but this probably has a wider scope as well). Once we have denied causality, however, we find ourselves on a quick slope to a form of atheism in which there are no reasons for anything that happens (interestingly, this form of atheism seems to also have to deal with a form of skepticism). This doesn't seem to be a viable option for a Christian theist.

However, if we say that our free decisions are not neutral, they are influenced by external factors, then it becomes very unclear how they are actually free. It would seem that external cause(s) are "causing" us to make the decisions we make, leading us back to a form of determinism, and thus to face the issue of skepticism again. So we seem stuck in a dilemma between skepticism and atheism (combined with another form of skepticism), neither a particularly appealing option.

This post is not meant to be a capitulation to skepticism or atheism or a throwing up in the air of my hands to give up thinking about these issues. I am sure solutions to these problems exist on both sides (I am certain I am not the only person to think about these issues), but I am unsure what they might be or how solid they actually are. So really this is meant to be a call for some sort of dialogue to be opened up.

Clarification: The dilemma it seems is going to require one of two solutions: either (1) a way out of skepticism for the determinist, or (2) a definition of libertarian freedom that allows for causation.

The Irrationality of Naturalism

The enlightenment and Modernist philosophy have posed a dramatic philosophical challenge to Christianity, with, for the first time in philosophical history, atheism becoming a dominant presupposition. Indeed, atheism seems the inevitable conclusion of Modernist philosophy. The problem, however, is that this results in a complete logical absurdity.

Modernist philosophy replaces the ancient concept of "telos" (the idea that all things are striving to fulfill a purpose) with naturalistic determinism: the regularity of the universe is explained by set natural laws. If we follow the naturalist thought process, this eliminates all supernatural existences- God, human souls, angels, etc.- and reduces us to a completely material universe governed by the physical laws. If this state of things is correct, then all things are completely deterministic. Under naturalism, this must also include the activities of our minds, which are natural entities. Thus our thoughts, desires, beliefs, etc. are all determined by the natural laws of the physical universe.

This description of our mental state results in a radical skepticism. If my thoughts and beliefs are merely the products of physical reactions that have been determined since the moment the universe came into existence then what reason do I have to trust that these beliefs are in any way sound? It does not seem that such a reason exists, and even if I could come up with such a reason that conclusion would also be reached only because of chemical reactions over which I had no control. This eventually results in an absurdity because even my beliefs in naturalism or the deterministic nature of the universe would also be subject to the same criticism. Ultimately then, I not only have no basis for knowing anything (the usual claim of skepticism), I actually do not know anything under naturalistic determinism.

This is certainly not an argument for Christianity. In fact, this could be used just as well by a pantheist mystic as by a Christian. What this does establish to me, though, is that if we want to maintain any claims to knowledge then we cannot embrace a fully naturalistic worldview. Even if we scrap naturalism, though, the question remains whether the modernist paradigm of science (which has an anti-supernatural balance and attempts to explain natural phenomenon according to set scientific laws) can be maintained without a naturalist conclusion. In other words, can we maintain Descartes dualism and claim that the natural world operates by fixed laws but somehow our minds are able to escape those laws (despite being attached to bodies that are subject to them)? This seems to be a very flimsy solution at best.

Instead, I think that we have to return to a more ancient way of looking at the universe and reinterpret Aristotle's concept of "telos." Christianity should have no problem adopting the idea that all things are working toward accomplishing an ultimate purpose. This idea also explains the regularity that science observes without moving toward a conclusion that is completely naturalistic and irrational.

The "Offense of the Gospel" and Christian Involvement in Politics

A thought that occurred to me earlier:

The early church was heavily persecuted by both Jews and Romans because of strongly political implications to its message. To the Jews, the concept of the messiah had long been a political concept about freedom from their oppressors and an exaltation of their nation as the "people of God." Christianity strongly countered that message by preaching about a spiritual Kingdom of God that included both Jews and Gentiles. Paul's taking the gospel to the Gentiles made this essentially anti-nationalist message (not anti-Jewish, but opposed to the sentiment in Judaism that held their people in a particularly high esteem as the only people of God) much more vocal. Essentially, the Jewish reaction against Christianity was largely motivated by Jewish nationalist sentiments, a very political motive.

Likewise, the Romans had a very political reason for opposing Christianity. The Roman empire was held together by a common bond of loyalty to Caesar as King/God. Early Christians refused to submit to this loyalty because they held Jesus to be the only King/God. This must have been greatly insulting to the Roman political order- not only were they refusing submission and loyalty to Rome, the Christians were claiming that someone who had been crucified by Rome was greater than the Emperor. So Roman political pride was also offended by Christianity, and they too had largely political reasons for opposing the church.

So what can this teach us? It seems to hold a political implication- loyalty to a state can never rise above loyalty to Christ in Christian thinking. Protestants are quick to jump on this in criticism of Catholics. Indeed, the medieval Papacy probably did usurp the loyalty it should have given to God. However, I have heard a good number of Evangelicals in this country preach on behalf of a past President and rally support for the Iraq War. I wonder if this is any less a case of loyalty being passed on to the wrong party?

In a free society such as we enjoy in the West, it is perhaps more difficult to find direct analogies. Certainly we can be loyal citizens of our country without compromising (for the most part) our loyalties to God. However, when I hear conservative leaders making sweeping statements about America being the greatest nation on earth and conservative Christians nodding their heads in agreement I wonder if our national loyalty has become a bit too deeply entrenched.

Need For A Different Kind of Apologetic

Saw this article today on the BBC. Very interesting. One criticism I have is that there is an assumption that on planets where the conditions would allow complex, intelligent life to develop, such life-forms would appear. I don't think this is necessarily the case, though I'm not denying that it could be. However, put in more moderate terms, this article suggests that there are at least 361 other planets in our galaxy alone that could possibly support an intelligent life-form such as ours.

I am still trying to think about the theological ramifications of this possibility. I don't think there is necessarily a direct challenge to Christianity here, but I do think that this dramatically alters how Christians often do apologetics.

One of the major arguments presented in defense of Christianity (or more generally, of Theism) is called the "Fine-Tuning" Argument. Basically, it says that the conditions necessary for life, and specifically intelligent life, to form are very specific and that the universe could not possibly have produced such conditions randomly. Very frequently, this is done in terms of describing the conditions that allow our planet specifically to support such life. The assumption seems to be that we are unique. This research completely shatters that assumption.

This can't be pushed to far. There are still some more universal conditions that would have to be very specific. For instance, gravity must exist in a specific way to allow the universe to continue to expand. However, the number of factors for which we have to explain the "fine-tuning" has been dramatically reduced. All the factors relating the specific nature of a planet that would support life have been shown to occur frequently. Intelligent "fine-tuning" now seems a much less likely hypothesis for most of these factors. So it seems a different kind of apologetic argument is going to be necessary for Christianity.

I have been fairly skeptical of "classical" arguments for Christianity for a while because they are subject to problems like being refuted or rendered irrelevant by new scientific findings like this. I think a much more beneficial strategy is to start by highlighting several major philosophical problems for naturalism. To me, the most pertinent seem to be that naturalism leads to an incoherent absurdity (namely, that we know absolutely nothing and that all our thoughts, beliefs, and communication is an illusion that is utterly meaningless). These absurdities seem to leave us with the conclusion that the "natural" world is not all that reality consists of. Similar philosophical problems can be raised for pantheism, which seems to leave us with a theistic world-view. From there, I think the evidences for the resurrection of Christ can fairly clearly establish Christianity as the most convincing form of theism.

Deep Thinking In Practical Terms

This post is a little more academic, but I think these are important things to think about.

There are two questions that I have wrestled a lot with lately(lately meaning the last four years in the case of the first question) that I am trying to examine in slightly different lights.

The first question has to do with the nature of "salvation" or the nature of the "gospel." Are these the same things? What are we saved from? Is salvation merely a "pardon" or giving of forgiveness as it seems in many Baptist circles especially. Or is salvation a constant process of taking sacraments and doing good works to become justified in the sight of God, as Catholics seem to think. Is the point of the gospel to get us into heaven or is it to take part in something that is happening here on earth?

These questions are difficult to think through, but I'm trying to put this in a slightly different light. Instead of thinking about these questions in a strictly theoretical and theological perspective where we might debate the merits of each view and its sources of authority, I'm trying to understand the implications of these questions practically. While certainly there is a theoretical aspect to theology and to Christian belief, it seems like Christianity is also intended to be an belief system that is accompanied by a lot of action. So the question I am posing now is "what are the implications for different views on the nature of the gospel/salvation for what we do as Christians?" This is especially pertinent in terms of how we view evangelism. If the gospel is entirely a spiritual message- your sins will be forgiven and you will go live with God in heaven when you die on earth- then our evangelism will be focused on "conversion" and be much more spiritualized. This seems to fit the contemporary Baptist model especially. However, if we view the gospel as a call to participation in God's kingdom on earth (NT Wright is major advocate of this view, for example), then our evangelism will be more focused on calling people to believe in and participate in the work of the church (which will be much more humanitarian and less "spiritual"). So I've really been examining the practical side of this issue more lately and trying to understand how the practical and theoretical influence one-another.

Another related question is an examination of history and how the gospel fits into different historical contexts. For instance, the early church was in a very Jewish context that had at its center the concept of a Messiah. Christianity latched onto that by proclaiming Jesus to be this Messiah. Later, as Christianity expanded into a more Greco-Roman world, it began to adopt the philosophical context of this community by appealing to Perfect-Being Theology especially to explain the nature of God. Most of what we consider the classical theological views of God are taken from Greek philosophy and supported by scripture, rather than the other way around (contrary to the claims of many evangelicals and fundamentalists). As time progressed and the Roman empire fell a more pessimistic and "legal" framework of thinking developed and from that came the theology of Augustine that proclaimed that Christ had paid a certain penalty for our sins, one demanded to "justify" us in the sight of God. And a new view of salvation developed, one in which Christ's work is seen as taking our place and paying our penalty in order to make us perfect in the sight of a God who cannot tolerate imperfection (and yet talks to Moses as a friend, just to give us a hint of where this view, like most, does not completely represent the Biblical data). In other words, Christianity seems to adapt to address different philosophical contexts. In each of these the "tradition" has changed. The question is how does this historical development affect our views today? Should we also adapt to a new philosophical context or do we cling to tradition (a call which ironically seems most strong from fundamentalists who also reject Catholicism's canonization of tradition).

This issue become especially interesting in examining the progression of Protestant thought in the last few hundred years. Protestantism developed as a rejection of a view that had developed in the medieval church to say that by taking the sacraments we somehow obligate God to extend grace to us. I believe the protestants were probably correct in rejecting this theological development in church practice, but Protestants stayed in the same framework of thinking as the medieval church, most adopting views very close to Augustine. However, right on the heals of the Reformation came the Enlightenment, and suddenly the philosophical context of the world changed to being much more optimistic and based around the progress of man's knowledge toward triumph over the forces of the world. In this context, the stories of Christianity seemed outdated and incapable of measuring up to the rigors of academic study. From this context developed Liberalism, which attempted to accommodate Enlightenment thought and in doing so rejected the overwhelming majority of the Christian tradition and formed something radically different from any prior form of Christianity (and for this reason, it seems questionable to consider the more radical forms of Liberalism to be part of Christianity). In response to the extreme measures of Liberalism, Fundamentalism formed which made the opposite error- instead of throwing out tradition they added to it things that had never been essential aspects of the Christian tradition and made them "necessary" to being part of Christianity. Neither view seemed to really address the modernistic social context, and as a result Christianity lost a lot of credibility. Post-modernism seems to pose a similar challenge, but at the same time some very interesting opportunities for Christianity to re-engage the culture meaningfully and address the new context. The question is how this will happen and who will participate? Will more "conservative" Christians shy away for fear of change? Will more liberal Christians throw away theology altogether? Is there some-sort of balance that can be formed to address the culture and still remain essentially Christian?