• Home
  • Blog: Ministry in Romania
  • Get Some Answers
    • Holy Week Answers
  • Get In Touch
  • Catechism
  • Videos
    • Sermons
  • Newsletters
  • Home
  • Blog: Ministry in Romania
  • Get Some Answers
    • Holy Week Answers
  • Get In Touch
  • Catechism
  • Videos
    • Sermons
  • Newsletters
   

The Time Machine Problem and Libertarian Free Will

9/15/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
In my view, one of the main problems with libertarian free (LFW) will is that it's groundless. By removing causation from an individual's choice, only randomness is left as an explanation, which is really no explanation at all. To show this problem, I like to refer to the time machine analogy.
If one holds to LFW, they must believe that at least in regard to some choices - particularly extremely meaningful choices and moral choices - one has the ability to choose otherwise. If one didn't have the ability to choose otherwise, then those who hold to LFW see no way in which individuals could be held responsible for their actions. 

In light of this, let's take a look at the life of Hitler. Presumably, on LFW Hitler could have made decisions other than the ones he actually made. Rather than become a dictator, he could have become a loving father or a good accountant. So let's get in our time machine and travel back to this meaningful decision in Hitler's life. "Should I become an accountant or should I pursue politics and dictatorship?" 

If we travel back in time and Hitler makes the same decision, that would be interesting. If we repeated the process a million times and Hitler made the same decision a million times, that would be damning. For if Hitler always made the same choice under the same set of circumstances, that means Hitler really couldn't have chosen otherwise, at least not in any meaningful sense as those who hold to LFW would define "freedom" and "ability." Such a result would show us that Hitler was so determined by his nature, nurture, and character that he could only have ever made the choice that he made. 

But what if we found the opposite. What if we traveled back a million times and found that Hitler's life looked significantly different each time. One time he became a beggar, one time a lover, one time a father, one time an accountant, one time a Christian, one time a dictator, and so on and so forth. Wouldn't that prove LFW? Whatever it would prove, it would not at all prove any hopeful notion of the will or moral culpability. 

Today we view Hitler as a moral monster because Hitler did some absolutely terrible things. But we view him as a monster not merely because of what he did, but because we believe that what he did was representative of who he was. Hitler wasn't just some nice guy who did some bad things. Hitler's fate isn't just a result of a bad go-round, which, if given another play, would likely be different. If we knew that pressing the rewind button could give us a different Hitler, it would be awfully hard to believe that Hitler's horrendous actions were representative of Hitler. Rather, it would be more like Hitler was a product of this particular instantiation of time - a happenstance, genocidal, despot. But we know that's not the case. The evil Hitler perpetrated reflected who he truly was. But if we traveled back in time and found that each time Hitler made different choices - many of which ended up with Hitler becoming an upstanding guy - in what way could we say that our real Hitler's actions are representative of who he truly was? For Hitler's dictatorial and murderous course didn't come about for any reason. It was random. We can show that it's random because were we to "flip the coin" again, we'd get a different response. We didn't change any input, we just ran the program again. In this sense, while we could judge an individual for the decisions they made in any given situation, their judgment would not be based on who they were when they made their decisions, but rather on who they became as a result of their random choices. 

So if we travel back in time and find an individual always makes the same decision, we know that their decision was determined in some sense. If we travel back in time and find that someone makes different decisions without any additional inputs, we know that decisions are randomly generated and not representative of who an individual truly is. In my view, I think it is far more reasonable to believe that our decisions are determined. There is a reason we choose what we do. But unlike materialists, I don't think that our decisions are determined by external factors, but rather by our natures. If I lust, I don't lust because a scantily clad woman made me lust, but because my wicked heart objectifies others, seeks my own pleasure, etc. Sure, I may not have lusted in the same way had a woman not dressed the way she did, but my character and my heart would have been the same without any external stimuli. My nature and character determine how I will handle external stimuli, my external stimuli don't determine me. In that sense, I am always culpable because my actions flow forth from who I am, and I would always make the same decision in a given situation because I am purely and truly who I am. We recognize that this boundedness to nature is not contrary to freedom when we recognize that God can't sin or change, so why should we have a problem with nature's true representation in humanity as well?
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    *The views and ideas on this site are in no way affiliated with any organization, business, or individuals we are a part of or work with. They're also not theological certainties. They're simply thinking out loud, on issues and difficulties as I process things.

    Categories

    All
    Abortion
    Abortion Counterrebuttals
    Afterlife
    Apologetics
    Atheism
    Atonement
    Baptism
    Christian Life
    Church
    Cosmology
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Death
    Free Will
    Generosity And Wealth
    G.K. Chesterton
    Government
    Grace And Mercy
    Incarnation
    Inerrancy
    Joy
    Love
    Materialism
    Meaningpurpose
    Media
    Ministry-and-outreach
    Ministry-and-outreach
    Morality
    On-guard
    Pacifism
    Pacifism-counterrebuttals
    Podcast
    Poetry
    Politics
    Politics-of-jesus
    Pragmatism And Consequentialism
    Prayer
    Problem-of-evil
    Race-and-unity
    Rapid Fire
    Rebellion
    Reformed
    Relationships
    Salvation
    Social-issues
    Social-justice
    Sovereignty-of-god
    Spirit
    Spiritual-warfare
    Spontaneous-expansion-of-the-church
    Suffering
    Tradition
    Trinity
    When-helping-hurts


    Archives

    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    March 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2013
    March 2009
    July 2007
    June 2007
    May 2007
    April 2007
    March 2007
    February 2007
    January 2007

    RESOURCES

    Check out some of our favorite online resources for theology and apologetics by clicking on the images below. 

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly