The arguments against the existence of Free Will are fueled by mechanistic and materialistic talking points, while the argument for Free Will usually has it’s origin in religious thought.

The more complex the argument becomes, the more rules are affixed to the proposed philosophy. To Free Will believers, the qualifications for what comprises and accomodates the belief might postulate that man has Free Will because he has a divine spirit, or because his actions are not always predictable. The Determinists and Fatalists might discount the presumption of divinity, thereby eliminating an imperceivable, invisible, or imaginary organizing force that might allow for Free Will. The Free Will opponents might use the claim that all events are subject to causality, which eliminates any randomness that might be mistaken for Free Will. The proof that Free Will does not exist lies in the assertion that every action is predetermined; there are no random acts, and all actions must be predictable.

Here is the fatal flaw in the argument against Free Will. The Determinists set up the criterion that every act must be predictable, but that only invites the possibility for the perception of Free Will, whenever an event transpires without prediction to said event.

So, while I agree that we cannot escape the chain of causality, I cannot say with any surety that Free Will is an illusion, until man has the ability to predict every single action by every single human being.

As long as one person makes one unpredictable action, that stands as proof of Free Will.

The criterion set by Determinists and Fatalists, is that every action a person makes is contingent on causal factors…a chain of events that precedes and determines the eventual outcome of any action. There can be no randomness, as randomness lacks specificity, and every event must adhere to a specific pattern.

If we had the ability to weigh the possiblities and probabilities of any given action a person would (not could!) make, then we could say without a doubt that there is no Free Will, but the burden of proof lies on the side of the Free Will doubters who lack the ability to perceive the specific pattern of reality; who lack the ability to predict every action in every given situation that any, and every person could ever possibly and probably make.

Further, one would have to predict not only the probable outcomes of every individual act, but the only outcome that every single person would have to arrive at.

There may come a day when every possibility and probability can be measured, weighed, and set towards predicting every realized outcome, but until that day, there is no proof that Free Will does not exist.

To summarize, the end result of each of our choices and decisions in life is pre-destined. How we arrive at the end result is a direct consequence of free will. If one can thoroughly understand this rational concept, then the jump from having free will to being tested for our actions in this life, on the Day of Judgment, is the logical next step.

Reflecting on some valid criticisms concerning the “Occupy Wall Street” protests it appears that there is some form of sociodynamic entropy at work. If too many people break into too many groups representing too many causes, then the unifying message will be lose power and clarity.

The unifying message s that there is too much disparity in this nation (and all nations of the world), as the result of a steady barrage of class warfare and redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle class citizens to the wealthiest CEO’s of multinational conglomerate corporations.

While the obverse side of the coin may represent the weakening of the protest through rapid growth and dissolution of purpose, the reverse concerns the possibility that a well organized movement with singularity of purpose will be easier for corporatists to abduct and control.

Therefore, there must remain a degree of diversity within the ranks of the protesters in order to make the immunize the collective from external attack.

The degree of diversity must be inversely proportional to the level of organization. If the scales are tipped too far to one side the movement will lose its structural integrity, and if it tilts too far to the opposite side it will be vulnerable to opponents who wish to control and redirect the movement.

If the movement is too clean and organized; if the message is too clear and focused; if the collective devolves to a hive mentality, then it will become another easy target…like the Tea Party.

Matthew West

Players or Pawns?

     The mere coexistence of two ideas has proven causally efficacious. Separately, the notions are not so problematic. God is all-knowing. Human beings freely choose their actions. Developed together though, the apparent reality of human choice and the generally accepted omnipotence and fore-knowledge of God repeatedly gives rise to one of the most intriguing yet puzzling questions available for consideration: Do we have free will or are our actions causally determined? The Stoics, Cicero, and St. Augustine all grappled with this question to the extent that in Augustine’s days as a bishop he valiantly tried to reconcile, from his interest in the Stoics’ response to the problem, and may have succeeded in reconciling, this apparent disjunction that Cicero considered unavoidable.

     Socrates thought that the form of the good, a heavenly ruling force dispensing with reality for the sake of lesser forms, heavily influences the actions of wise folk because wise folk know the good. Their actions are a function of their desire for the good and are therefore tailored to it. St. Augustine and the Stoics however, took a more radical view, arguing that all human action is pre-determined, with the Stoics claiming that all action proceeds according to fate. Cicero, for his part, expressed the puzzling nature of the Stoics’ claim with the objection that, if human action is predetermined then free will is impossible. Without free will, it seems that humans are not morally responsible for their actions, but are simply like inanimate, passive pawns in a sort of game played by whatever or whoever rules the world. The Stoics and St. Augustine recognized this apparent contradiction and did what they could to deal with it satisfactorily. With consideration then, it looks as if St. Augustine’s attempt to resolve the free will-fatalism dilemma Cicero poses, which utilizes God’s eternality and implication of human wills into his own, serves not to conclusively calm one’s contradictory intuitions about the dilemma, but to make more intelligible the reality of both free will and God’s fore-knowledge.

     Socrates’ idea that the form of the good causally determines the action of wise people is one of the first instances of a determinism-type outlook that we know of. A somewhat different philosophical view than the larger conflict between free will and God’s foreknowledge, the bold idea Socrates propounded nevertheless seems to have set the stage. Socrates wanted to say was that it was impossible for one to knowingly act contrary to the good. To reach this claim he had to take for granted a hardly indisputable idea that we see in a few of Socrates’ dialogues, including Protagoras and Apology. This is the claim that no one knowingly harms themselves. Socrates remarks in Protagoras that “no one freely goes for bad things or things he believes to be bad” in his search for virtue in discussion with Protagoras and others.1 Virtue was “an art that embodies exact knowledge,” and Socrates implicitly meant that knowledge is the ultimate good.2 So if one has knowledge, then one has the ultimate good. If one has reached the ultimate good and cannot choose the bad for oneself, then one cannot act contrary to the good with all knowledge of what would harm one, since Socrates understands that acting contrary the good is harmful to oneself. Those who have not attained the good simply strive to attain what they “believe to be [good],” which is often bad.3

      For Socrates, the possibility of not knowing the good proved to be pretty important in the Apology, where Socrates is accused of willingly corrupting the youth of Athens. Calling absurdity, Socrates points out that willingly corrupting the youth would amount to willingly creating wicked associates. As “the wicked do some harm to those who are ever closest to them” and “good people benefit them,” it is utterly foolish to think Socrates knowingly instilled wickedness into the minds of his students.4 Further attacking his accusations, Socrates cautions that if he corrupted the youth unwillingly he would not be due for punishment, since Athenian law could not punish folk for “such unwilling wrongdoings,”5 but should “instruct them and exhort them” since, if they “learn better, [they] shall cease what [they] are doing unwillingly.”6 Socrates so strongly held that the good was knowledge that he relies on the claim for the defense of his life. Wrongdoers should not be punished for simply not knowing the good, but should be instructed and lead to the good.

        Although Plato did not explicitly write on the concept of free will in any of the work we have, the upshot of the foregoing is essentially that Socrates (or Plato, or both for that matter) felt quite firmly that the desire for the good is a powerful force that both causes all to pursue what they think is good, or at the very least is overwhelmingly influential in directing human action, in both the lives of those ignorant and knowledgeable of the good. The claim becomes almost radical for those who know the good, since by implication Socrates meant that those knowing the good could not possibly act immorally, since knowing the good meant they know that immoral action is bad for them. To be clear, Socrates was not a fatalist.

         With the laid underpinnings of the idea and related ideas of the goodness of ends acting on the means towards those ends, the group of dogmatist philosophers known as the Stoics came along as a group within a larger, general Hellenistic school, taking these ideas a step or two further. Fatalism heavily characterized the philosophy of the Stoics, which is the idea that all human action proceeds according to fate. It is not just that the good, or whatever the Stoics version of Socrates’ ‘the good’ might have been, causes wise people to act virtuously, but every single human action from taking a step to leading a popular revolution is meant to happen and could not have not happened. Whatever the force behind or within fate may be, it causes every single event in the world.

          Interestingly enough, the Stoics were all about ethics and moral duty and it turns out that they took a line on virtue similar to that of Socrates. It was an intellectualist approach to ethics, namely, that if one knows what is good, then one will not fail to attempt to do it. In their pursuit of ataraxia, a sort of pleasant existence free from disturbance, the Stoics supported the prescription of an ethically responsible, disciplined life in which, ideally, one does not deny oneself but masters one’s mind with a reason that does not assent to pain or pleasure. The Stoics recognized the apparent inconsistency in their lines of thought, since it is at best bewildering to imagine how both fatalism and moral responsibility can exist. How am I morally responsible for my actions if all that I do is essentially done by the forces of fate and not myself? Trying to resolve the problem, the Stoics came up with something like the ‘free will’ we talk of today. The free will they envisioned however is a free will amidst bondage, or a type of bondage to the forces of fate. It is like a cart pulled by a horse and driven by a farmer, with a dog tied to the back of the cart. The farmer whips the horses and the cart proceeds forward, the dog powerless to stop it. The dog is still left with a choice. It can walk or be dragged in an immature rebellion. The realities of this situation are like the realities of the human predicament. We, like the dog, have a kind of free will, but not enough to halt or speed up the natural flow and order of nature. In essence it is a mode of free will: our response to our larger lack of freedom from fatalism. Given this, it behooves us to comport ourselves to an admittedly harsh reality in rational way, exercising our limited but influential power to decide if we are going to walk or be dragged. The free will we have then is ideally a free will amidst reason as well as harsh reality, and this is still an autonomous, deliberate act that is worthy of moral praise by those that all actions affect within the Stoics’ profoundly holistic, inter-connected world. Not surprisingly then, the Stoics praised deliberate action and prudence over mere action in their quest for ataraxia. So with the Stoics, prudent action was the perfect example action done freely but still subject and bonded to fate.

         The motivation for an actor’s decision to get up and walk is rooted in one of the Stoics’ most important ideas: that there is a supreme plan for the world and we are fools to try to reject it. The plan then is thought up and implemented by God, presumably, and all that occurs in the world, even the most trivial and most evils of acts, somehow fits into that plan. It might be understood by this then that an evil act is in a sense not ‘evil’, but just extremely removed from God, “merely the absence [or paucity] of good.”7

          The famous Christian philosopher and theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo, sort of jumped on the bandwagon. When he entered the philosophical scene, he began to use some of these ideas as the foundation for much of his version of Christian theology, not to mention as useful problem-solving tools.

           Retaining and accepting similar strands of Plato’s conception of the form of the good, Augustine, for his own philosophy, considered God to be this perfect entity, with many of the same attributes that Plato attributed to the form of the good: eternality, immutability, wholeness, purity, and transcendence. The difference for Augustine was that he thought God had a personality as an all-knowing, loving, and fatherly figure with a supreme plan and order for world events. The supreme good is God, but He is not an impersonal ruling force, but it is a father-like personality that is actively engaged with humans and the world at large on a daily basis.

            As Augustine maintained that God, being all-knowing and all-powerful, had fore-knowledge of all events to come, Cicero recognized the now familiar, glaring issue, which the Stoics had already tried to resolve. It does not seem possible for humans to have free will if God knew and ordered events before they happened. Augustine then, in his City of God, knowing Cicero’s concern, laid out Cicero’s argument against the compatibility of free will and God’s fore-knowledge, and offered his own response and attempt to reconcile the competing notions. Cicero started with the harmless observation that “if all future events are known in advance,” then they will happen in exactly the order in which they are known.8 Implicit here though is the assumption of the connection between knowledge and implementation. It is theoretically possible for God to know what is going to happen but still totally remove himself from it all. If events happen in the exact order in which God foreknows them, then “there is a certain order of things foreknown by God.”9 This seems to follow easily enough. Continuing though, if there is an established order of things, then there should also be a “certain order of causes, for nothing can come about which is not preceded by some sufficient cause.”10 Cicero may mean to identify events and causes here, such that every thing that happens is a result of some cause and is a cause itself. But, Augustine does have him saying just that every event requires a cause, and that if this is so, someone ordering events would also be ordering causes and therefore caring not just that the ordered events happen, but that they happen for certain reasons. For our purposes it is enough to assume events are both events and causes of other events.

            If there is a “certain order of causes by which everything that happens happens, then, Cicero says, all things that happen happen by fate.”11 If all things happen by fate, there must not be any free choice of the will, and “if we concede that, [Cicero] says, then the whole of human life is undermined.”12 Humanity’s great ideas, writings, revolutions, tragedies, and successes all shrink into standard procedure. In vain do humans implore, persuade, act, rebuke, and persuade, so it seems. These possibilities are intolerable for Cicero and in order to deny them he “wishes to say that there is no foreknowledge of things to come.”13 For Cicero, either we have freedom of the will or God, or someone, has foreknowledge of all events in the world.

             Augustine denies the incompatible disjunction that Cicero poses. He assures us that with a developed understanding of Christian theology that we can have both free will and God’s foreknowledge and pre-determination of events. According to Augustine, this argument “restricts the mind of the religious man,” into a false question.14 If a certain order of causes exists in the mind of God, then, for Augustine, it still does not automatically follow that we have no free will in the matter. As Augustine thinks that God works out his master plan through men, he claims that “our wills are themselves included in the order of causes which is certain to God and contained within his foreknowledge.”15 God works through our wills. It is actually the case that God gave men free will and knew that they would exercise their free will in a particular manner. God did pre-determine the events that happen in the world, as well as their causes, and men’s’ wills and actions are not exceptions. For Augustine it is not so much fate that causes our wills, but “the will of God” which “can do all things.”16 God, if He is in fact properly so called, could not have overlooked men’s wills in laying out his order of causes and events, so it is simply the case that the free will we experience and exercise, along with its power, is a part of God’s foreknowledge and plan. This does not look too different from the supreme plan that the Stoics spoke of.

               Augustine’s resolution may also take the form of what some call “The Guarantor Solution.”17 The effect of this response is to claim that God also has foreknowledge of our powers and choices within our wills, and to “remove the threat foreknowledge poses for free will” by God’s fore knowledge guaranteeing, rather than eliminating, our free will.18 This is precisely because of what Augustine suggested in his response to Cicero: God knows and plans and gives us the ability to do exactly what we end up doing with out free will.

               Although it may seem unacceptably simple, Augustine’s method of solving the conundrum resonates, especially when qualified with a few argumentative and speculative points.

               Even while God (I am assuming His existence) is omnipotent, concepts like necessity and fate seem to be poorly defined, impersonal, vague forces. They might have been erected by man in the fear that he is not nearly as in control of his life as he would like to believe, or subconsciously assumes on a daily basis. If one worries about the rule of necessity and fate as meaning that things absolutely had to happen exactly as they did, then there seems to be a blatant overlooking of a person’s enormously influential mind and will in relation to events in their environment. For instance, it is plainly absurd to think parents do not exercise heavy causal influence upon their children. If God is the all-powerful, contemporaneous (constantly causing) and first-causer we assume He is, then any other force like ‘fate’ or ‘necessity’ that exists is even at its greatest power still subject to God’s power. God is not God if he is subject. It is apparent to me that the real worry we have is that we are not in control of our lives or that the story of world history will turn out to be boring and uninteresting because it was all planned out beforehand and our roles in the story mean little if anything.

                Because we are largely ignorant of the future and especially so relative to God, I do not find this worry worthwhile. We must deal with our relative ignorance as best we know how, likely by faith, as Augustine would surely maintain. The story of the world guided by an all-powerful hand who knows all and directs all before and during our lives remains an exciting, intensely meaningful story for human beings, precisely because we are largely ignorant of God’s plans. We don’t know what is coming next. Whatever the Truth about the free-will and pre-determination debate turns out to be, it is more than clear that in their regular, day-to-day lives humans operate with an overwhelmingly strong mindset of free will. We are sure that if we decide to drop our keys on the ground, it will happen. This appears to be the case for most, save a small percentage of intensely introspective and frequently religious hermits and ascetics that try their utmost to avoid free action. But even they choose not to choose, as Sartre and the existentialists might cry. To be sure, some people do not see a point in acting like they are freely choosing because they adamantly believe in something like hard-determinism, where we have absolutely no free will and are pawns moved about by God at His own will. For these folk, this belief so deeply pervades their everyday thought that it ironically affects their action, or lack thereof. Most of us though, including those of us still believing in something like God’s foreknowledge and pre-determination, confidently perceive a reality of free choice, such that we feel we do not have to do what we choose to do and that our thoughts cause our actions. These daily decisions (like what to wear in the morning) expose themselves as manifest options to our inner mental reality from our observations of the world, even for those believing in pre-determination. It is my contention that even one believing in God’s foreknowledge and pre-determination of events can acknowledge these kinds of choices and must, willingly or not, and make them. This perceived reality of choice seems to be true despite, or rather because of, a larger, cosmic, or Godly reality characterizing the universe.

         This latter reality however, if it exists, is one that only God knows. This distinction makes it is possible that the most influential social reformer deliberately choosing to protest, persuade, and write for a cause whose goal materializes does in fact act freely. But the freedom with which this person acts is not a heavy, comprehensively defined type of freedom making claims about the True and final reality that only God knows and controls. It is not a freedom that would exist if God did not order our every action. It is a freedom, a kind of mental separation from the knowledge of God’s comprehensive plan, which is perceived and acted upon by an individual, having a measurable effect in the world. But it is not free from God’s causing hand, if God orders all. A natural reaction is to think that this freedom* is purely illusory, a fiction of the individual mind that does not reflect a reality of hard-determinism. Although I do not find it illusory, whether it is or not it is safe to say just about all of us experience it.

                          This sort of truncated version of freedom remains a valid freedom of the will, does not deconstruct into the lifelessness of a moved but unmoving chess piece, and is the reality that we are ignorant of God’s plans. Both this ignorance and our perception of free choice prevent the destruction of moral responsibility and final judgment. Even if our sinful mistakes are part of God’s plan, it is usually still the case that we made a wrong choice within out immediate panoramas of free options. If God ordained that we would act immorally and we ordained no such thing, but chose to act within our perceived reality, we shall still be morally responsible for what we do and subject to God’s final judgment in the end. If we were given knowledge of the order of all things moral and immoral we would know how our immorality fits within God’s plan and free will would truly be a fiction. But it is not a fiction because the reality is that our freedom exists, save in a limited manner. We are punishable, interestingly, both because we knew an act to be wrong and did it anyway and because we are ignorant of God’s plans. If, for some reason, we humans had our own developed plans for the world and foreknowledge of everything to come, then aside from rivaling God there would likely be no free will (except maybe for intelligent animals!). As long as everyone could synchronize their plans with those of all else in the world so that, among other constraints, two people are not in the same place at the same time, then all mini-plans would fit into God’s master plan and all actions would be pre-determined. Life would be almost meaningless, given that we would each have foreknowledge of our own and other’s lives. Undoubtedly, no free will would exist.

           It is abundantly clear that no human has any foreknowledge that could begin to constitute a plan half as comprehensive as God’s, yet just about all understand basic rights and wrongs, without knowing all of the effects of their choices. We are free and morally responsible in this way. We have a bit of limited, perceptual power and it seems God is interested in what we do with it. We choose because God causes us to choose, but also because we are ignorant of the order and exact causes of events in the world and all we know to do is to try. It comes to mind as the best we can do is something like learning from history, such that we’ve figured out that military intervention is hardly a great way to spread democracy. Free will exists then, but in a weaker sense than is generally given to the term, a weakness reminding that our control of our own lives is limited, at best. We are free not because we are free from God’s intimate hand of causation, nor even just because we perceive that we act freely. We have a type of free will both because we are not obviously forced to act as we do (both physically and mentally) and because we are largely ignorant of God’s plans for the world. We are not free from those plans as Augustine pressed, but are sort of derivatively implicated in them. God implements His plans powerfully, in part the power that He gives us, and the plans seem to be characterized by men’s thoughts, choices, wills, and actions. God knew and ordained what choices we would make and what actions we would perform. Separated from that knowledge, we are deeply implicated in it (hence the need to listen to the one with the foreknowledge). Aside from prophecy, the closest we may come to it is a kind of retrospective confidence, maybe securing us from the debilitating doubt of mistake, that questionable events in our lives could and should not have gone any other way to bring us where we are today. We carry out an ordained plan of God’s without knowing a lot about the plan or about the effects of our deeds and just how they fit into the supreme plan.

1 Taylor, C.C. W. Protagoras. 358c7-d

2 Ibid. 357b5.

3 Ibid. 358d.

4 Apology. 25c6-8.

5 Ibid. 26a2-3

6 Ibid. 26a3-5

7 Jones, W.T. A Discussion of Neoplatonism and Its Influence on Augustine and the Christian

Tradition. The Medieval Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., 1969). p.3.

8 Augustine. City of God, V: VIIII

9 Augustine, V:VIIII

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Augustine, V: VIIII

16 Ibid.

17 Matthews, Gareth B. Augustine. P. 97.

18 Ibid, p.98.

            Within the sublime realm of possibility, all choice is laid before thee.  One may choose to be whatever one wishes.  One may live as King or Queen, Sorcerer or Sage, Warrior or Peasant, Friend or Foe, or Someone Else or simply Self.  This choice opens the doorway of belief.  For when the partaker of death realizes he may become anyone at any time by simply choosing to be, one also realizes he may choose to become himself at the moment of his death.  And in choosing to do so may also choose to remove the experience of that death and continue living on.

            One realizing he is at total choice of his experience after partaking of death can only summarize that he has always been at total choice.  This he has.  Death was a choice he made to bring himself to remembrance of his free choice.  The seemingly unpleasant choice of death (at the time it was made) was unconsciously made, because of the fact he did not yet remember he was at free choice.  He accepted the feelings and emotions of his body as being the decision maker, and felt powerless to overcome those decisions.  Now, after his experience, one can again know that his soul has ultimate power in decision making, and again regain control of his own destiny.

Now one can decide to stop death before it happens.

One can catch the body in a lie.    

Red Pill or Blue Pill

            Is social control through deception just or unjust, and should society be an opposition to a superficial world, or submit to it, with the consciousness of one’s choice? In The Matrix, The machines have dominated the real world and imposed a controlled society on humans, using deception as its prime mechanism of sovereignty. One must ask the question, do I still seek truth, or would I rather continue to live in the matrix, unconsciously. In other words, would I rather have free will, and the freedom of choice, or contend to complete ignorance, without consciousness. Would I rather have justified true belief, or fake implantations to emulate reality? Free will, freedom of choice, and knowledge, is superior to the benefits of social control through deception, like a superficial world such as a Matrix, no matter how great that superficial world is. Firstly, we as human beings are naturally meant to have free will and free choice, and social control using deception is morally and ethically sinful. Secondly, everyone should have the right to attain the necessary knowledge, to inform your choices and fate.

            Free will and the freedom of choice is a natural necessity for all humans, so they can choose their own path in life, without the deception of the machine’s regulation for power. For people engrossed in the matrix, how can we make the assumption that they would rather live in the matrix, then fight for Zion in the real world, where it actually matters. All humans deserve this free choice, so they themselves can choose the ‘blue pill, or the red pill.’ The deception of the matrix itself is cruel and sinful. This form of social control, using deception, is wrongful from the start, since it was forced upon the human race, without their choice, and consciousness. To argue in the sake of machines is basically arguing that might makes right, in which case the might of the machines, gave them the right to enslave the human race. Therefore, since machines had to right to enslave the human race, the whole matrix is unethical from the start.

            All humans should also be able to achieve true knowledge, in order to influence their choices and free will. People locked in the matrix believe that they have choices and free will, but they really do not, because they are lacking the true knowledge of life. On the other hand, the people in the last human city of Zion, have the true knowledge, and are making their own choices, which are actually purposeful. The people of the Matrix and the real world both believe that they have free will and choice, but the people of the Matrix actually do not because they do not have knowledge. Meanwhile the humans in Zion and the resistance do. The humans of the matrix should have the right to attain this true knowledge, but since the machines have hidden it, the humans are ignorant. We fall back into the concept of free will. The humans deserve free will, and thus, they also deserve true knowledge. If a human feels obliged to join the opposition in the real world, they must be granted that opportunity.

            Free will, and free choice, in accordance with true knowledge, is a perpetual cycle that both complement each other. You cannot have free will or free choice without true knowledge, and you cannot have knowledge without free will or free choice. The people of the matrix are stripped of all free will and free choice, and therefore they also lose all knowledge. Cypher, the traitor states that ‘ignorance is bliss’ but that quote is morally wrong. Socrates believed that all vice is the result of ignorance, and that no person is willingly bad; correspondingly, virtue is knowledge, and those who know the right will act rightly. Therefore ignorance is not bliss but influential to evil. Those who know ‘right’ or the truth will act ‘rightly’ such as the resistance, in favor the real world, and not a computer program. 

In the first part of this essay, the two respective ends of the spectrums of the free will debate were analysed in a philosophical sense as opposed to a theological sense. There exists a middle way between both the determinists and the libertarians called Compatabilists who essentially believe that both free will and determinism can co-exist in harmony. The Compatabilists would disagree with the statement above as this essay seeks to explain how this option is viable. This essay will also explore the theories concerning the theological difficulties of an omniscient being as well as the effect of a potential problem regarding the existence of determinism and the afterlife.

Compatabilists, or also known as Soft Determinists believe that certain aspects of human beings are determined, but we are however morally responsible for the acts we commit. Some have attempted to resolve the conflict between free will and determinism by saying that it is only apparent and not real the issues we are discussing. David Hume offers an in depth explanation regarding the compatibalist standpoint, and aims to show that there is no genuine conflict between causal necessity and liberty. Hume’s primary point is our idea of necessary causation; he describes the link we ascribe cause and effect as an “arbitrary act of the mind”; i.e. the link does not necessarily exist but due to our empirical experiences we solely assume it does. Hume notes the difference we attribute to nature and ourselves; we feel that there is no freedom in matters of natural law, where as we feel there is freedom in matters of human action. Hume also places an emphasis that when we use the term liberty we do not mean random acts or caprice. When we do talk of freedom, we mean an action that is caused by a determination of the will. He defines causal necessity as “the repeated constraint or conjunction of objects and the determining of the mind by custom to infer one from the

other.” From this we can assume that Hume regards as free when we are not constrained, and he then reaches the conclusion that human action is determined since it is the inevitable outcome of causes and yet free as it is not the subject of constraint. Hume’s method explaining the Compatabilists position is by clarifying the definitions used in the free will argument. He also believed that the term of customary transition must be clarified, and is linked to the mind arbitrarily acting causing us to feel there is causation in physical events but not in any human events. Hume believes that there is no difference between these two respective events, and they should be regarded in a similar fashion. The final definition that he seeks to clarify is liberty itself, he believes that liberty is not liberty if it as a result of a random act, but is instead committed by rational and predictable causes.

The ideas put forward by Hume on the surface appear to be relatively conciliatory and effective as it seems to clarify the definitions used in this debate. However, his argument is often accused of contradicting himself. His accounts of necessity and liberty do not appear to be particularly convincing, and the definitions do not seem to cohere with how we would normally use them in everyday life. Hume says that we are free in our actions, and that our ‘freedom’ comes from our desires being a cause, and then would this mean that the actions of a psychologically unstable individual are equally morally responsible and free? This definition of ‘free’ as a lack of constraint may simply be as a result of the ignorance of the individual, or the inability to acknowledge that such constraints exist. An often cited criticism aimed at Hume is his categorization of humans with the inanimate world; philosophers often criticise Hume that human acts can be changed by rational considerations rather than causal considerations, and this in fact distinguishes them from the physical world. The Humean view on compatabalism appears to conjure more problems than it resolves; his writings raise the issue of moral responsibility but does not address it. As aforementioned, is a lunatic equally as morally responsible for a murder as a sane person would be? Hume also ignores external factors such as upbringing, experience and peer pressure which severely weakens his attempts to combine both compatabalism and determinism.

Compatabilists also place an emphasis on the distinction made between actions compelled by some outside force and acts chosen or rather determined by an act of will. This point of view is explained in detail by Walter Terence Stace, a British Philosopher who argued for the defence of compatabalism. He tries to examine the possibility of compatabalism by examining the definitions of free will. He also goes into details concerning the possibility of moral responsibility co-existing with deterministic free will. Stace believes that a definition for the term free will must be compatible and recognisable with how it is used in everyday life. In order to ensure the definitions he uses are explicitly clear, he used examples where the terms can be used on everyday life. His first example was of a man asking Gandhi if he fasted of his own free will, and understandably Gandhi would answer positively as he feels it is his choice. He also provides the example of a starving man, and asks him if he is refraining from food of his own free will, he will almost definitely answer negatively. From this, he is able to create the definitions for acts of a free will and those that are against the wills of the individuals; for an act to be free the act must be one “who immediate causes are psychological states in the agent” i.e. the agents feelings, emotions, desires etc contribute to the individual wanting to commit an act. An act that goes against someone’s free will is described as an act “whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to the agent” meaning that if an act is caused by external forces it is not free. He goes on to say that because acts of free will have causes such as desires and hopes, free will is compatible with determinism. Stace shows agreement with

the libertarian stance of a moral self, he believes that morality must exist otherwise people would be allowed to perform whatever acts they wish without punishment. In everyday life, people are credited or punished for acts that they have committed even if their actions could have been correctly predicted; therefore by the hard determinists own criteria Stace shows that determinism can exist in a world with moral responsibility. The issue regarding moral responsibility has been argued for by many people including Ted Honderich, who appealed to the legal concept of strict liability. This takes into consideration the legal aspect of a crime, most commonly associated with the Nuremburg Trials where Nazi officials were being tried for their war crimes. Many of them pleaded for their innocence, insisting they were only following orders. Under this principle, Honderich said “that an act of mine is an effect does not entail that I cannot be held liable” however this was ruled as a reason for such an action to be committed, but not as an excuse; and were nonetheless punished for the parts they played in the atrocities.

In order to fully understand whether or not the above statement can be considered as true, one must first analyse the religious perspective that the problem of God’s omniscience poses. I shall focus on the biblical interpretations by philosophers on differing opinions regarding freewill in Christianity. Two Christian philosophers, St Augustine and Pelagius, took it upon themselves to formulate their own theories contemplating the existence of free will and potentially determinism in the world.

St Augustine, the Christian bishop of Hippo, took a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation story (Genesis 1 and 2- the first two books of the Bible) and thus assumed the events in the Garden of Eden to be historical events. His theory was based on the concept that God created the universe in six days, and on the sixth day created man (Adam) and a woman (Eve) who were instructed now to eat from the tree of knowledge otherwise they would die. Adam and Eve both ate from the forbidden fruit, and were in turn expelled from the Garden of Eden. This event has a huge influence on the Augustian point of view as he believed all human kind were seminally present in the loins of Adam, and we have inherited his original sin. Augustine believed that human beings were created immortal, and would not have died had they not sinned against God. Augustine believed that creation is corrupted, and that we fell from grace at the time of the fall; all creatures are now destined to sin against God unless they are filled with God’s grace. Augustine said that because of Original sin, humans are “so hopelessly corrupted that we are absolutely incapable of doing anything good by our own forces; free choice, if it means a choice between good and evil, has been utterly waste by sin; our will, insofar as it is ours, and not God’s, can merely do evil and desire evil” The problem of evil and suffering would transfer blame to God for creating a universe with the potential for evil in it, however Augustine overcomes this by denying that evil is an existent entity, but rather a privatio boni- a privation of good. In the quotation previously mentioned free will becomes nonexistence because humans are incapable of committing any acts but evil ones; this essentially shows that Augustine believes in a limited free will, if not a theory of determinism whereby people will only do good deeds if God intervenes.

The Augustian theodicy seems to portray a relatively bleak outlook onto the possibility of free will. The Augustian theodicy essentially removes all free will, and with it any moral responsibility and thus eradicates any sort of punishment for human beings. Thus far, this theodicy would agree with the statement insofar that God has not blessed us with his grace with the opportunity to commit good deeds. Further arguments, or criticisms of this theodicy is that the concept of passing on sin from

one individual to another who has not sinned seems unjust; why should the son suffer for the sins of the father? Essentially the Augustinian theodicy is stating that Adam and Eve had free will in the Garden of Eden, but because of their turning away from God, man cannot be trusted with that freedom, so now all free will has been eradicated; everything now appears to be determined.

The view of Pelagius is conceived as a more commonly accepted viewpoint, and differs quite drastically from the Augustinian viewpoint. Pelagius analysed the Genesis creation stories in an allegorical sense. He believed that Adam and Eve had always been created mortal; they would have died even if they had not sinned against God. Additionally, Pelagius taught that Original sin was simply the sin that Adam committed, and was not transferred to future generations. This ruled out the need for infant baptism to eradicate this original sin. Whilst Augustine believed that the fall was a negative thing, Pelagius believed it was instead a positive thing; “just as a young person needs to defy his parents in order to grow to maturity, so Adam and Eve needed to defy God in order to share his knowledge of Good and Evil. By defying God, Adam and Eve grew to maturity in his image” Therefore Pelagius believed that by having the fall from grace of man, Adam and Eve became responsible to God for their actions. From this perspective, man has freedom either to turn to God or to sin against him, but the presence of freedom makes the good acts to please God more genuine and thus more perfect. The Pelagian view allows free will to exist, as God has allowed humans the choice to act freely so that they may turn to God freely. The concept of John Hick’s epistemic distance can be applied here; if we were in contact with God and pressured into doing good deeds because we can feel his presence, our acts are rendered not as wholly perfect as if we willing chose to turn to God.

The Pelagian view is thought to be a relatively better interpretation of the Genesis Creation stories as it can be accepted with greater ease. It gains scriptural support in Deuteronomy 24:16: “nor children for their fathers; only for his own shall a man be put to death” This Bible quotation supports the denial of the transmission of original sin; each man should be made accountable for the sins he committed and not for the sins of the father. The New Testament also agrees with the concept of Children’s innocence and sinless nature; i.e. that those who have not sinned should be sent to heaven. However, this causes various queries concerning a baby that has not yet been provided with the opportunity to perform good or bad deeds, and thus does not merit eternal punishment or eternal pleasure in heaven. This can be said to be determined, that all babies will go to heaven, and thus they have no free will. This also raises the question of when free will is instilled in someone; at one point can be draw the line and say that they act completely out of their will. The main criticism of the Pelagian view of the fall is his interpretation that it is a positive thing; many Christians accept that the Fall resulted in the presence of the epistemic distance between man and God as aforementioned.

John Calvin, a French theologian, who supported the interpretation as put forward by St. Augustine. Calvin appealed to the biblical quotation in Romans 8:28-30 which strongly suggests that God has pre-determined all life in creation: “…for those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son…and whose whom he predestined, he also called; those whom he called, he also justified; those whom he justified, he also glorified” This quotation quite clearly explains that God has chosen and determined those that are going to be glorified and made in the likeness of his son. However, Paul writing to the Romans appears to contradict himself in Romans 2:7-8 where he makes implicitly clear that we do in fact have freewill. Many people may see this as a

problem, but Paul may not have seen this. He may simply have considered this to be a Compatabilist perspective where we have both free will and certain aspects that are determined. Calvin would argue, like Augustine that we do not have free will and that we are in fact determined in every act we commit. Felicity Mccullock describes Calvin as Augustine restated.

One of the major problems that the Calvinist account faces is that injustice seemingly portrayed by such a theory. The predestination as highlighted in Romans 8:28-30 shows that God may not potentially be the just figure he is portrayed to be; if God decides who is and isn’t saved, this means that individuals are unable to redeem themselves from sins, and have essentially been destined to a certain destination in the afterlife. If God has chosen that an individual will not be saved, surely there cannot be any human responsibility as they do not have the free will to willing turn to God? (Many of the criticisms posed to the Augustinian stance also apply here). Calvin acknowledged that his argument may have been criticised, so put up a response to this supposed removal of human responsibility. Calvin said that every event has two accounts, one from a human perspective and the other from Gods perspective. He believed that God has an overall plan, and everything that we humans do abides by this plan; all of the acts humans commit are thought to be done through secondary causes; i.e. the eventual outcome set out by God’s plan will nevertheless be achieved; this is similar to the necessaritarianism in that the outcome will still be achieved no matter what the initial path taken is. Calvin appears to be Compatabilist in his response as he says that God is aware of what the decision chosen by each individual is through his omniscience but allows humans to come to their decisions of their own accord. He believes that God carries out his plan differently according to those that believe in him and those that do not; those who have faith will have a conscious collaboration, whereas those without will still act according to his plans as God has created a situation where the plan will be fulfilled. Calvin said that God chooses both those to save and not to save, whereas another reformer Luther says that God chooses those to save, and those that are not saved are the cause of their own damnation which is known as single determinism. Essentially the Calvinist view appears to be compatabilist as it facilitates both free will and the predetermined nature of God’s creation.

As we have seen in this part of this essay, both free will and determinism are able to co-exist. The theories as set out by philosophers such as Stace highlight how free will and determinism appears to be consistent in our everyday by means of explaining the difference between internal and external causes. From a biblical perspective, opinions appear to be divided concerning the nature of God. The Bible itself appears to be relatively vague in the opinion it portrays to the Christians, and different interpretations, whether literal or allegorical have attained different results in terms of whether God predetermines the universe or allows us the freedom to choose. What can be concluded, is the general consensus that we believe we have the opportunity to perform actions of our own accord by use of our empirical sense data, but it appears that God, if he is truly omniscient has prior knowledge of the acts we commit even if we do have free will. To conclude, we can say that both free will and determinism can be compatible as shown by the accounts given by Stace and Pelagius who remain appealing to people despite their respective criticisms.

Are our lives and the actions we make the result of free will or predestination? That’s the question that plagues us all, and one I keep coming back to. Just when I think the answer is clear, something else comes along to screw with my head. I want to believe that free will is infinitely more dominant than predestination, but if my life is part of some big plan, then shouldn’t I be doing better than where I am at right now? Am I predestined to be a schmuck? I’m sure people will comment on this review and say I already am a schmuck, but they’re probably wondering if they are schmucks themselves (a little hint, they are).

Free will and predestination are at the heart of “The Adjustment Bureau,” the latest adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. This man’s works have inspired great movies like “Blade Runner” and “Total Recall” as well as “Paycheck,” which like “Broken Arrow” was John Woo-lite at its most painful. It stars Matt Damon as David Norris, a New York congressman who as the movie opens has lost the election for a seat on the United States Senate. You could say that he pulled an Anthony Weiner when pictures arise of him showing a significant part of his body. This of course became far more interesting for people to talk about instead eliminating unemployment.

While practicing his concession speech in the men’s room, David finds a woman named Elise hiding in one of the stalls. She confesses that she just crashed a wedding (damn you Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn!) and tells him he should be honest in accepting defeat. They end up sharing one hell of a passionate kiss before he goes onstage to give one of the more thankfully honest speeches ever uttered by a politician. But his encounter with her and ends up rankling the bureau of the movie’s title, and they do everything in their power to keep these two apart.

The Adjustment Bureau consists mostly of middle aged men dressed in nice suits and a hat that allows them to teleport from one place to the next. This way, they can keep a person’s actions in check while beating the rush hour traffic and saving gas. They all look like they came off the set of “Mad Men” which is ironic because one of the movie’s stars is John Slattery.

For David, they have a plan to guide his life to one of political prominence. The meeting with Elise was indeed part of the plan when she bumped into him, but they were apparently never supposed to meet up again. David however rebels against this notion and is determined to be with Elise regardless of the circumstances. But in pursuing her, he risks not just his future but hers as well.

The concept behind “The Adjustment Bureau” is ingenious because we want free will to win out, but the threat of predestination hovers over all the actions these characters make. It makes you wonder if there is a way to beat destiny, and that’s even if your destiny has great accomplishments and wealth in store for you. Chance encounters act as a break in the plan, and it comes to where David Norris lives for them. Then again, came you blame him when those encounters involve Emily Blunt?

Matt Damon is as always a terrific actor, and he brings this particular congressman down to earth. This is not your usual bombastic politician hungry for power and more than willing to abuse it. David Norris is a regular guy who went from being a bad boy who saw much of juvenile detention to one of the most popular congressmen ever elected. Matt makes him an elected official who seems genuine in fulfilling his promises, and that’s saying a lot considering how incredibly cynical we are about politics in America today.

Emily Blunt is a very appealing presence here, and I’m not sure I’ve seen her in anything else up to this point. Her character of Elise is pleasant and has a free spirit about her that makes her all the more attractive. The chemistry she has with Matt Damon is strong, and you want to see theses be together. Throughout “The Adjustment Bureau,” Emily proves to be many things and is not always blunt about it.

This movie marks the directorial debut of George Nolfi, one of several screenwriters behind “The Bourne Ultimatum.” He does good work keeping the suspense up and directing the cast to very naturalistic performances. George also wrote the script for this, and I love how well he conceives the conversations between Matt and Emily. The concession speech Matt Damon gives is the kind I am desperate from any politician regardless of party affiliation. Plus, the conversations he has Emily are great and never close to groan inducing. I still can’t seem to get over the eye rolling dialogue from those “Star Wars” prequels between Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen. Unlike that other George though, Nolfi showers great dialogue over the cast he works with here.

The ending to “The Adjustment Bureau” does feel a little hokey as things get resolved in a much too tidy fashion. I imagine people will view it in different ways and already have in mind the kind of ending they would prefer to see. The way the movie is constructed, it could have ended in various ways. Then again, that’s what makes “The Adjustment Bureau” particularly exciting; we are never sure if or how these two will end up together, assuming they are meant to be together at all.

After stumbling through movies like “Paycheck,” it’s nice to see a filmmaker do right by Philip K. Dick whose stories are infinitely fascinating in the concepts they explore. It may not be on a par with “Blade Runner,” but most films aren’t anyway. “The Adjustment Bureau” makes very entertaining use of the debate over whether predestination or free will defines who we are. Of course, people may still be wondering about that once the end credits have finished (frustrating, isn’t it?).

* * * ½ out of * * * *

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This article will explore consciousness, and what it is, and how exactly that it works.

Consciousness is a bridge across which intuition travels in going from the soul to its lower bodies. Consciousness can only exist in a vessel of love, or more around it, as you will see later. Our soul is not so much conscious directly itself, but it perceives consciousness more as a knowing from seeing the consciousness displayed through the experiences taking place with love in its own lower bodies.

A soul can never be conscious separately as itself, as also God cannot be, because consciousness is a creation, or a tool created by a soul for its lower created bodies to use. Consciousness is a field that is created by moving love in a similar way to how a magnetic field is created around moving electricity.

When love moves from God to a soul, and is not blocked or restricted in this process by our mind blocking part of it from fear, consciousness is created around us, the vehicle or vessel, for God’s love. The more we love, the more consciously aware we become. When we live from perfect unconditional love, we have reached also the state of God consciousness then, as well.

This is all done in this way so that the soul can have independent learning capabilities to freely learn love’s truths from outwardly, and so from a position more or less distanced away from itself, rather than being only known all internally from oneness as a part of its own largely otherwise unknowable hidden makeup.

These attributes of love can be displayed within infinitely different ways all truthfully, and so love’s truth is seen to have many faces, but only the one body.

Is consciousness a screen upon which we can project all of our own pictures, but that the real truth of this is in fact that our pictures are not real? In this scenario, only the screen of consciousness is real, but is this true, or is it really actually all the other way around?

Is it our pictures of truth, and that are rendered in love’s energy, that are creating this screen of consciousness to reflect love’s truths back again to us, so that we can recognise them as being already all within ourselves.

Consciousness is real in the sense that it is a field around love, but it is intangible as such, and it relies on love’s energy to feed it, sustain it, and to keep it in place. Consciousness is a sort of parasite on love that allows love to show us its otherwise hidden, unseeable, and also otherwise consciously
unknowable truths.

Our ego is the part of our soul that runs our earthly life. It identifies itself with its mind and body, but our soul itself has no mind and body. They are merely its outer garments, and not to be identified with. Our soul is not comprised of pure consciousness as some have suggested. It is actually made from the pure but unconscious raw unrealised energy of love. Consciousness is created out from this when a soul links to another soul, or to God with love. The more that we love, the more conscious of ourselves we become.

Consciousness allows us to know who we are within God. God can also know himself in this way, from us knowing ourselves.

Consciousness absorbs knowledge and in this way it acquires yet another field again on top of itself, called wisdom. Consciousness records this knowledge and wisdom in what are known as the Akashic records. These are energy fields held in place by consciousness to store its accumulating knowledge of love’s truths in, as they become revealed from each soul’s experiences with love.

All of this is ongoing, and never ending. There is always another step to take, andother expereince to go through, and a higher consciousness to grow around ourselves as we do so. God consciousness is not the highest consciousness. It is like in karate, when we achieve our black belt, it all begins again from that point.

Consciousness can continue to increase and to expand itself indefinitely, and infinitely so.

Some have a problem with us saying that God gave us free will. Why? They reason that if God gave us free will then we can do whatever we want without any consequences. There should not be consequences when we use our “free will” to choose things contrary to God’s liking.

In that case, saying that God gave us the freedom to choose whatever we wanted to do but our decisions would be bring consequences would be a more correct way of expressing what God gave us. They feel that the term “freedom to choose” is a more correct way of describing what God gave us.

Whatever!

Let’s say you invite someone over to your house. You tell them to make themselves at home. By saying that, should they understand that they can do whatever they want in your home. Does your  “make yourself at home” mean that you have given them carte blanche to go in your drawers or that they can knock down a wall?

Let’s be reasonable! Why are some so unreasonable?