Free Will, Power and Powerlessness

Skip, the fascinating thing about this point about free will and the debate around it is that it engenders a great deal of emotion for many people, on both sides.

Could it be that people who are so vociferous in their repulsion of a God that they wish for a good God to be true, but are disappointed when they discover, in their perception, that it is but myth to them? This is an issue that creates feelings and engenders passions because it can strike a personal loss, or a the trauma of a people, as in the God is Dead theology of Rubenstein in reaction to Auschwitz. I mention these with a sense of reverence, because this is something where we must, instead of blithe debate, walk carefully on the dreams and the corpses of dreams. I shall try to tread softly.

People, I would argue, have a notion of the perfect that seems to be embedded in our collective psyche. We know that there can be something more, that what we see is either, not as it should be, or incomplete. We manifest this knowledge in our ambitions, our drive for happiness and solace, and escape. We are aware at some level that there is some kind of ideal, that there could possibly be more than we imagine. This is expressed in science fiction, in our fascination with extraterrestials, with the manifold incarnations of religion. So we are disappointed and deeply so when our expectations for the ideal are betrayed. I would posit that there are two kinds of atheist, one that grows up born skeptical, and another that has lost their faith in some fashion or another. This may be a generalization, but perhaps a safe one. This loss of faith touches at some point on the monolithic issue that is free will.

Pure free will seems to be illusive. It's philosophic creation, and in a very pragmatic sense, we don't posess it entirely. Here's what I mean. If a person were to have pure free will, they would be an entirely unrestricted agent. They could, for example kill any person they desire, but would be constrained with the resultant consequences. They would go to jail, and their ability to chose most things would be taken from them. Free will may be a misnomer in a world of causality, but a perhaps free choice would be a better name for it, or "free act." This would be a choice that is bracketed by the cause of the choice or act and its results. This still pegs responsibility on the agent doing the act, but that agent isn't entirely free, their range of choices has been determined by events previous to that particular act.

Within this context, a God can exist, His power can be compatible with our ability to choose. This is necessary building block on the notion of a compassionate God. In order for God to be good He must allow us the room to chose between bad and good, Himself and selfish acts, or helping others versus hurting others or ignoring them.