[Vision2020] Christ Church and freedom of religion

[Joe Campbell]

Princess writes: "Actually, only what you label Calvinism (but which is more properly labeled a biblical worldview) is able to account for free will. It is in fact people who believe in a purely mechanical universe (i.e., Darwinian evolutionists) who cannot account for free will. From that perspective, the universe and all that it contains are reduced to the products of pure random chance: what we deceive ourselves into believing to be free-will decisions are in fact explainable entirely as the result of biochemical reactions which themselves are taking place as the result of a long, vast series of random chance occurrences. Anything which ultimately derives from pure random chance is ultimately meaningless: after all, it is the result of pure random chance. In other words, according to this perspective, everything is mechanically determined and ultimately derived from pure random chance. 'Free will' becomes quite impossible in such a mechanically deterministic universe."

How does putting an all-powerful God in the picture help matters? If God created everything, and we have not control over God's creation, then we have no control over our actions either, for they are a product of God's creation. This is just the same argument with God playing the role of "pure random chance." 

If you can find a place for free will in a divine world, then you should be able to find it in a world of "random chance," as well. In fact, the divine world causes problems for free will that the "random chance" world does not. God foreknew everything when he created the universe; he foreknew I'd write this sentence; thus it was set into stone at the creation of the universe and is unfree. But you know all this. This is why Calvin himself denied free will!

No doubt, Princess, you can do some fancy philosophical dance to get around these problems. But I can dance just as well to try to get around the problems that you note for freedom in a world of "random chance." I deny that the latter problem is worse than the former one.

Sorry if this is unclear! I'm pressed with work from my real job this week -- writing two articles and a commentary on the subject of free will, in fact!

Best, Joe