Why Current Neuroscience Doesn't Show that Free Will is a Myth

John Loftus at Debunking Christianity wrote a post claiming that, "Neuroscience is making it extremely difficult for believers to still claim that by freely choosing to believe we are saved (or condemned), that we freely choose to sin, or that there is a wrathful God who will judge us on the last day." Here is my response:

I think that we need to avoid the two extremes of the positive thinkers, who believe that anyone who sets their mind to something can achieve anything, and naturalists, who view people as no different than billiard balls who are powerless to resist the trajectory they’ve been set on, when interpreting the results of these studies. The former should be avoided because, quite obviously, someone who was born with severe cerebral palsy isn’t going to be a starter in the NFL no matter how badly they want to. The latter should be avoided because the information that we have does not warrant abandoning a properly basic belief in free will.

As my old Sociology professor would say, “Correlation is not causation,” and the crime statistics you’ve provided, John, are a mere correlation. Sure, given a genetic predisposition towards something like alcoholism and the wrong environment the chances that someone is going to become an alcoholic are quite high, but it doesn’t follow that the person is completely powerless not to drink. After all, if free will does not exit, then we could be as sure about anyone’s actions as we are of the velocity of a struck billiard ball, but that’s not what we see. We see alcoholics give up drinking and we see people who know they are genetically predisposed to alcoholism avoid drinking altogether. We also see people with the “dangerous” Y chromosome who grow up in tough environments become upstanding citizens.

Now, you’ve also provided some extreme case studies of people with a more limited free will. Someone with Chorea doesn’t have full control of their body, but it doesn’t follow that they have never made a free choice in their life, and it certainly doesn’t follow that, when I raise my arm, that I couldn’t have done otherwise or that I was destined from the big bang to raise my arm at that moment.

In order to have a defeater for my properly basic belief that I can generally choose to do otherwise we would need clear and conclusive evidence that my seemingly free choices are an illusion. We simply don’t have that evidence, at this point, so I have epistemic warrant to conclude that I do have free will until a true defeater is presented, and quite frankly, I think this should be the position of all rational people.

What we should do with this data from these studies? I believe that we should use it to try to prevent people who are predisposed to violence from making poor decisions. We should do what we can to ameliorate their environments and lives so that they won’t be so prone to violence. We should also make allowances for people, as I’m sure God does, with more limited free will, that truly can’t do otherwise.  

Is Reasonable Faith an Oxymoron?

There have been a series of posts by John Loftus on his Debunking Christianity blog where he argues that reasonable faith is an oxymoron. John defines faith as, “An attitude or feeling whereby someone attributes a higher probability to the evidence than what the evidence calls for.” Is this a good definition? On one hand, yes, John is right to talk about probabilities because the only thing that we can know with absolute certainty is that we exist, everything else must be believed or rejected with varying degrees of certainty. On the other hand, I think that John’s definition is not very precise because how can we know how high a probability has to be?

What are some other definitions of faith? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines faith as, “Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” I’m taking the Merriam-Webster definition as referring to absolute proof. The philosopher, Immanuel Kant defines faith as, “A rational attitude towards a potential object of knowledge which arises when we are subjectively certain it is true even though we are unable to gain theoretical or objective certainty.” Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” I think these definitions work better. From these definitions I think there is a faith element to all beliefs outside of the belief in our own existence. This is something that John disagrees with, but I think this is largely because of the religious connotations of the word faith, and his aversion to anything religious.

Now let’s get back to John’s discussion of faith. He writes:

I do not deny that at any given time we must assume some things since we cannot place on the table everything we think is true and examine them all at the same time. This is especially true about our notions that we exist, are communicating with other minds, that our memories represent the past, that there was a past, that there is a material world, that our senses give us accurate input that we are not dreaming right now, etc. What I deny is that we accept any of these things by faith. We might be wrong, but faith isn’t what allows us to accept such things. Scientific reasoning does. I can defend each one of my conclusions about such things though, and I do. These prior conclusions provide the background knowledge I have when involved in any discussion, and I’m allowed to have them.

John is right that we must make assumptions such as a universe exists outside of my mind but this assumption cannot be proven scientifically. John goes on to talk about our fairly reliable memories, archaeological evidence and scientific evidence for the Big Bang. It appears like we have these things, but what if all this stuff are just elaborate fictions fed to our minds by an evil genius who is trying to deceive us? What if Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin and their work are just literal as Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes and Bilbo Baggins? There is no way to be certain, but the fact that I can’t be absolutely certain that the world, which appears to surround me, literally exists doesn't dissuade me from being confident that the world exists because I can rationally make the assumption that there is no good reason to doubt the universe’s existence.

Negating the Negations: My Objections to Russ’ Debate Strategy with Christians

John Loftus published a post where he reposts an argument from his friend Russ. Russ’ debate strategy is to affirm theological statements from a theologian, who in Russ’ example is Bishop John Shelby Spong, that conflicts with traditional Christian theology. The idea is that if God is true then all theologians should agree about His attributes. However, there are multiple problems with this argument—it is formally and informally fallacious.

1. 1.       The first problem is that the argument is formally fallacious because it has the form of denying the antecedent. The argument can be formulated as follows:

1.       If Spong agrees with all the theological claims of traditional Christianity then Christianity is true.

2.       Spong does not agree with all the theological claims of traditional Christianity.

3.       Therefore Christianity if false. (from the formal fallacy denying the antecedent)

                This is argument is invalid because the conclusion does not follow from the premises. There are many reasons why traditional Christianity could true even though Spong disagrees with it. Spong’s sensus divinitatis or God sense could be off causing him to incorrectly perceive God’s nature. He could just be wrong or confused. He could have an agenda against traditional Christianity. In any case, this form of argument is always fallacious.

1. 2.       This argument is informally fallacious because it is an appeal to authority. Although Spong is an expert in his field, his position does not represent the general consensus of experts in the field of Christian theology. Russ even says that thousands of Christian theological heavyweights disagree with Spong’s opinion.
2. 3.       Just because an expert, like Spong, is highly decorated and went to prestigious schools doesn't mean they are always right. Take Dr. Albert Einstein, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, who argued for some time for a solid state universe, which was eventually shown to be false. If one of the greatest intellectual giants in the history of mankind can be wrong then anyone, including graduates from Harvard and Oxford can be wrong sometimes.
3. 4.       Just because people have disagreements about the nature of something doesn't mean that thing doesn’t exist. Saying that God doesn't exist because there are some disagreements about his nature is like saying that because there were disagreements about whether the earth is flat or spherical the earth doesn’t exist. People were walking on the earth and looking at the same earth but came to different conclusion about the nature of it. The flat earthers were just wrong.        
4. 5.       Even if this argument wasn't formally and informally fallacious, what kind of atheist are you if you are affirming the position of someone who believes in God? The Wikipedia article that Russ refers to says, “He [Spong] states that he is a Christian because he believes that Jesus Christ fully expressed the presence of a God of compassion and selfless love and that this is the meaning of the early Christian proclamation, "Jesus is Lord" (Spong, 1994 and Spong, 1991). Elaborating on this last idea he affirms that Jesus was adopted by God as his predilect son, thus embracing (at least at linguistic level) a form of the ancient adoptionist heresy (Born of a Woman 1992), and yet in an orthodox way he says that this would be the way God was fully incarnated in Jesus Christ.” Even if Spong has some unusual theology he still believes that God exists. It is strange, as an atheist, to embrace a position that says that God exists and then turn around and say that God doesn't exist because there are some disagreements about God’s nature. Nonexistent things don’t have natures to disagree about.

For all these reasons Russ' argument completely and utterly fails. 

Negating the Negations: My Objections to John Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith

John Loftus’ favorite argument against religious belief is his Outsider Test for Faith (or OTF) which is a slight variation of the problem of many religions. He says, “The presumption of The Outsider Test would be that since there are so very many religions, and with so many people believing in a particular religion because of “when and where they were born,” that when examining any religious belief, skepticism would be warranted, since the odds are good that the one you are investigating is wrong.”

He formulates his argument as follows:

Premise 1-- Religious diversity around the globe is a fact—many religions can be found in distinct geographical locations in the world.

Premise 2--There are no mutually agreed upon tests to determine which religion is true.

Premise 3--Religious apologists all claim they are correct and they reject all other distinctive religious beliefs but their own.

Premise 4--All religions seek to answer life’s most important questions in a believing communal social environment where the adherent is encouraged to believe and discouraged to doubt.

Therefore-- It’s probable that people adopt their religion based upon when and where they were born.

My first impression of the OTF is that it has a strong Midwest feel to it in that it assumes that most people are born into religion as Christianity is much more prevalent in the Midwest and the South (perhaps I get this sense because I know that John comes from Indiana and grew up in a Christian family). How does John account for people like me who grew up in atheist families, in the relatively secular Pacific Northwest (or the Northeast or Europe), but became Christians later in life? What about people who grew up in one religion but convert to another? I want to dig further into this argument and critique each premise of his argument.

Premise One
There is indeed a great deal of religious diversity in the world and I think this could point to the Argument from Desire:

Premise 1--Every natural, innate desire in us corresponds to some real object that can satisfy that desire.

Premise 2--But there exists in us a desire which nothing in time, nothing on earth, no creature can satisfy.

Premise 3--There must exist something more than time, earth and creatures, which can satisfy this desire.

Therefore--This something is what people call "God" and "life with God forever."

The pervasiveness of religion indicates that mankind senses that there is something beyond nature that it desires to interact with. As C.S. Lewis said, “"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Premise Two
I think we can view religions as different hypotheses to answer to mankind’s great questions such as how did we get here; why are we here; why is there so much suffering in the world; is this life all that there is? Religions also seek to meet our innate desire for something beyond this world. Religions like hypotheses can all be tested. John is right to say that there is no universal test to evaluate the validity of religions, but I think that Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli have developed some good criteria: (1)

1. Are they true? (Can we verify their claims?)

2. Are they good (moral)?

3. Are they salvific? (Can they save you?)

4. Are they educative?

5. Are they useful?

Using these criteria we could test the different religions. Perhaps, in a later post, I can explain why I believe that Christianity passes these criteria.

The New Zealand Earthquake and the Problem of Evil

The recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand has John Loftus bringing up the problem of evil once again. John said, “I consider the evidential case against a good God from naturally caused suffering to be the most significant problem for believers. Can anyone tell me why God did not do a perpetual miracle by averting that earthquake?” The naturalistic explanation for what happened in New Zealand, which I agree with, is that the earthquake resulted from the release elastic energy when plates along the Alpine fault rubbed together. This explanation doesn’t address John’s question about why God couldn’t/wouldn’t miraculously release this elastic energy in a way that didn’t result in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. To answer that question we explore the great cost of freedom.

When God formed mankind He endowed us with free will so that we could choose to love Him and follow Him or not. Giving mankind free will was the only way to have an authentic loving relationship with him. He could have made us into robots that worship God with an automatic fake love, but God chose to have an authentic unforced relationship with us. Mankind inevitably chose to reject God and follow its own path. God let us chose how we want to live our lives and let us face the consequences of our choices and actions. When we walked away from God we also chose to walk away from the joy and protections of life with God. Life apart from God is fraught with chaos, unhappiness and danger. We are no longer protected from dangers like earthquakes, tornados and tsunamis. As I wrote in an earlier post on theodicy, “It’s like we ran away from a perfectly safe home, in order gain freedom, and we are now vulnerable to the predators and dangers of a cold, hostile world.”

When it comes to the question of evil there are some fundamental misunderstandings about God’s love. When people say that God is good they are often saying that God is kind in that he does not subject us to pain. The correct way to define God’s goodness is that he does what is best for us. Sometimes what is best for us is to experience a little bit of pain in order to help us to grow as people. God is like a good Chemotherapist who subjects us to the discomforts of chemotherapy in order rid us of the cancer within us that threatens to destroy us. Sometimes God must use tough love with us.

Evidence of Atheist Delusion?

These Christians think all skeptical arguments are utterly lame, including mine. Who in their right mind would think this? Just once I'd like to hear a devout Christian say something like: "Hey, that's something I haven't thought of before," or, "This is a serious problem for my faith." It's just that these things are almost never said. No, they have the answers. And they laugh at all skeptical arguments, many of which derive from David Hume, who is thought to be the greatest English speaking philosopher who ever lived.

Now it's one thing to disagree with the skeptics. It's another thing entirely to think our arguments have no force at all. The fact that most Christians think they have no force at all simply means these Christians are delusional--John Loftus.

John Loftus of the Debunking Christianity blog has been lamenting the pushback he has been getting from believers who aren’t bowled over by his arguments. Since he is an ex-Christian I’m amazed that he doesn’t grasp the fact that theists and atheists have been locked in a stalemate for hundreds of years. Both sides have intelligent people with decent although imperfect arguments. Both sides seek absolute proof that God exists or doesn’t exist, proof that, at this point, doesn’t exist. I’m amazed that atheists like him can’t see that atheism is the mirror opposite of theism, that atheism is a belief that requires faith.

To a certain extent I agree with John that some atheist arguments like the problem of evil, the Santa Principle; and John’s Outsider Test for Faith do have some force, but I disagree that they prove that God doesn’t exist. The best atheist arguments show that it is possible that God doesn’t exist just like the best theist arguments show that it is probable that God exists. Since both sides are in a stalemate it comes down to whether you believe that God exists or that he doesn’t exist or that we don’t have enough information to know whether He exists.