Free will vs Determinism: A reconciliation between the two ideas.
“If everything is predestined, how can we have free will?”
The question of free will and determinism is another question that is long debated in history of philosophers. In my previous article I wrote and attempted to reconcile the problem of evil. In that article I stated “The above question is a question that has been thought out by many great philosophers and have tried to solve this so called “paradox”.”
The question of free will and destiny is a similar case, however the critics of theism here have a slightly more valid point when they ask this question than asking “If God exists why does evil exist?”. The idea of determinism and free will seems very contradictory. Before I answer, I want to point out that I will be using “knowledge of God” and “Destiny” interchangeably. Since destiny in theistic terms really boils down to the knowledge of God.
Before I jump into this topic, let me lay out what I have understood from the free will vs determinism argument. The contention is as follows: “If an all knowing God exists, and God’s knowledge is infinite, God is already knowing of all outcomes, all actions that human beings do, and every single event to happen. Since that is the case, human beings have no free will since a human being’s actions will always be in accordance to what God’s knowledge is because God’s knowledge cannot be wrong. So if our actions are predetermined by God’s knowledge, me waking up and choosing to have pancakes over waffles, is really not my decision, it is God’s decision since his knowledge of my choices and actions came well before I did. So if we do not have free will.
This is the argument that I thought of against theism some time back. It is a very valid contention and I think this is the best response that I have so far have based on my faith in my religious scriptures.
The issue of time
When we define events, we define such things in reference to time. In fact, even “time” is defined in reference to what we perceive time to be, based on our boundaries and inability to fathom anything outside the concept of laws of physics that we live in.
Our minds are constraint by the existence of time, space and matter. Our daily experiences of events are often understood in light of the cause and effect theory. In a way, our minds have no choice but to only judge, learn, experience and explain things in reference to things that our minds are bound by, which are, as we said time, matter and space. This is not to say that our minds are wrong in doing that, it simply means that is what our minds are capable of doing only. We cannot reach outside the paradigm of references that we are restricted by. Let this sink in, before going to the next paragraph.
If we can understand this, we will continue to define the idea of “God” and “determinism”. God by definition is outside the boundaries of such laws of physics, time, matter and space. The Timelessness is a characteristic of God. In fact, all characteristics of God are limitless and timeless, including God’s knowledge.
Taking into account our inability to reach outside of the paradigm of timeliness, we as humans, cannot have our minds grasp the idea of a timeless existence and environment. This is to say that, as we stated before that the human mind and intellect is trained to see things in reference of the “Cause and effect” theory, or to put it simply, as “past, present and future”, which in itself is a reference to time. If we can take all this into account, we see that the question of free will vs determinism ends up being a meaningless question. Free will and determinism is compatible with each other, but simply not within the timeliness of the human mind.
When we ask the question “if everything is determined, do I have free will?”, a deeper look at the question shows that “determined” is past tense, and the question “do I have” or anything along those lines, is present tense. The issue is, this question only makes sense in the boundaries of time. The question ignores the existence of a timelessness dimension. In the paradigm of time, we cannot reconcile determinism with free will. Our minds simply cannot do that. This is as stated before, due to our inability to look at events without the “Cause and effect” factor. The question of “if God’s knowledge is all encompassing, then we do not have free will” is basically implying that “God’s knowledge/destiny was the cause, and the effect was our actions. To add, since the cause came before the effect, the effect had no choice but to execute itself”. However, “the cause coming before effect” has a timely implication. This implication does not exist when it comes to God’s knowledge/destiny. Since God is timeless, so is his knowledge.
Is this a problem with theism?
We might want to point out that this reconciliation is only possible through the idea of God. There are atheist philosophers and even scientists who take varying positions on determinism, casual determinism and free will / libertarian views. This isn’t to be taken as a religious issue. For example, the biological take on this issue is that our behaviors are influenced by external factors such as our biological make up or other environmental factors that we have no control over. So this is not a valid argument against theism, it is a debate going on in general among philosophers despite being theists or non theists.
