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About Free-Will UPPSALA UNIVERSITET Teologiska institutionen Tros- och livsåskådningsvetenskap E E-uppsats i religionsfilosofi 15hp Handledare: Mikael Stenmark HT 2012 About free-will In search for a philosophical and theistic understanding of free-will by Oliver Li Table of Contents Part I...........................................................................................................................................................3 1.Introduction........................................................................................................................................3 1.1 The Objective..................................................................................................................................4 1.2. Specifying the problems.................................................................................................................5 1.3. About methodology........................................................................................................................6 1.3.1 Choice of literature..................................................................................................................6 1.3.2 Methodological aspects...........................................................................................................8 Part II........................................................................................................................................................10 2. The philosophical view....................................................................................................................10 2.1. Philosophical questions related to free-will.............................................................................10 2.1.1. Compatibilism..................................................................................................................12 2.1.2. Incompatibilism ..............................................................................................................18 2.1.3. Libertarianism..................................................................................................................21 2.1.4. Determinism and Indeterminism......................................................................................24 2.2. Discussion, summary and conclusion......................................................................................27 3. Free-will and theistic thinking.........................................................................................................30 3.1. Problems related to free-will in Christianity...........................................................................30 3.1.1 Omniscience and predestination.......................................................................................32 3.1.2. Omnipotence....................................................................................................................36 3.1.3. The Personal Relationship to God..................................................................................38 3.1.4. Theodicy...........................................................................................................................39 3.2. Discussion, summary and conclusion......................................................................................40 4. Final summary of the results, conclusions and outlook..................................................................43 References:...............................................................................................................................................45 2 Part I 1.Introduction One major experience in the mental life of human beings is that we at least seem to decide actions in our lives by our own free-will, that we act freely and that we ultimately we seem to have the possibility of being creative, to freely create new thoughts, artifacts and initiate “new” actions . Issues concerning the free-will and freedom (for example in creativity) of human beings have a long history in philosophy, religion and have obviously also been a topic in present neuroscientific research. In philosophy it has been and still is a major question what free-will “actually is”, how humans can describe and understand their basic experience of having the possibility to decide actions and whether it is possible to rationally understand the processes in free decision-making and/or free creation. Humans obviously already have a basic understanding what free-will is; we all are familiar with people saying sentences like “I can do whatever I like” or “This is my own decision” or “I made this, this is my own creation.” So in our languages and in our relations to other humans we already have a basic understanding of what free-will might possibly be. The experience of free-will is also closely connected and related to the experience of self-consciousness. Only if we are aware of ourselves and thus of our actions, is it possible to experience freedom and/or free-will and thus the question of free-will is often discussed within the mind/body problem and/or within the discussion about what consciousness and/or self-consciousness is. Furthermore in philosophy the question about free-will constantly arise together with the idea of the material world being determined or not and the questions of our moral responsibility. Modern neuroscience is interested in describing the physical processes in our brains involved in our mental life. Since the experience of freedom and/or free-will is part of our mental life and since it also is related to consciousness and self-consciousness, neuroscientific research on consciousness, self- consciousness and the processes involved in human action will have contributions to a discussion about the free-will. 3 Religion is an important part of many peoples life and the question of free-will has been discussed within major religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. If we focus on Christianity and understand Christianity as being a theistic religion – which we will do in this essay –, then – of course assuming the existence of a God - a religious believer may ask questions like “Am I free in my relationship to God?”, “Do we choose to believe in God?”, “May I choose to be good or evil?” or “Is this or that my destiny, my decision or God's will?” and again the idea of having a free-will touches the question of our moral responsibility. So any discussion of free- will on a philosophical basis might have consequences for our understanding of free-will in religious contexts and vice versa any conception of God or our relation to God or the divine might have consequences for our understanding of free-will. Finally the question of free-will is of great importance for ethical questions. We may for example ask our selves in which situations we are responsible for our actions. Our understanding of free-will in relation to ethics will influence the way think about justice, the way we treat and meet other people, and the way we take care of other in people in need of help and so on. So we have at least three disciplines for which a discussion of free-will might be important: philosophy, religion and natural-science. Although ethical questions - being a part of philosophical and religious debates - connected to free-will are important it will not be the main issue to discuss these in detail in this essay. Neither will it be the main issue to discuss contemporary neuroscience in detail. Instead the focus will mainly be upon free-will in relationship to philosophy and religion. Scientific views and ethical questions will not be discussed separately but in a modern debate it will be important – whenever it seems necessary – to relate the philosophical and religious ideas about free-will to contemporary research especially within neuroscience and likewise it may be necessary to relate free- will to ethical questions especially the question of moral responsibility. 1.1 The Objective A discussion of the free-will in relationship to philosophy and religion will reasonably lead us amongst other questions to the following major question or goal: Is it possible, by analyzing, critically assessing and comparing philosophical theories about free-will, to find a reasonable philosophical understanding of human free-will, which at least is compatible with major Christian beliefs and does not contradict modern neuroscientific research? If this is the case, what would the main philosophical and religious 4 features of such an understanding be ? 1.2. Specifying the problems The problem of free-will has been discussed throughout the history of philosophy. Different views on what free-will is or if it even exists have been presented and analyzed by various philosophers. Usually free-will is understood in different ways depending on the philosophical background. A naturalist or physicalist, for example, may understand free-will in a different manner than a dualist or an idealist and so on. Christianity is usually understood as a theistic religion. In Christianity free-will has a major role in how we relate to God, the divine, our “destiny” and our moral (or unmoral) actions and decisions. Is free-will necessary in relationship to God? Do we have to have the possibility of free decisions? Are we slaves under our destiny? Is it even reasonable to assume that some form of predestination exists? Has God fixed all past, present and future actions? Does our free-will depend on our conception of God, i.e. is any form of theistic concept of God compatible
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