Theological Refutations to Free Will

The topic of "Free Will" has long since been a discussion point in theology - most notably in Christianity. It's been used as a "rebuttal" to hard questions such as The Problem of Evil and/or Suffering, and why tangible evidence for the existence of God is so.... Elusive.

Most atheists I know (and a lot of theists too), usually tend to lean towards a stance of "Hard Determinism", which basically means that "free will" doesn't actually exist... That, at most, it exists as an illusion... The "illusion of Free Will".

What this stems from is our modern scientific knowledge about human behavior and how it's deterministically affected by external influences: The synapses in our brains, the hormones in our bodies, the hereditary traits in our genes, the social conditioning forced upon us by our parents, the social conditioning forced upon us by friends and society, our very experiences throughout our lifetimes, and so on.
All of these external sources have been shown to be what determines our 'choices' in life... Our "Free Will" so to speak... In a study after study in the fields of psychology and sociology.
So, in a sense, there is a sort of predetermination to our lives, our choices, and our 'Free Will'.

The above would, therefore, be the "scientific refutation" of "Free Will".

But is that enough to refute the theistic rebuttal of "Free Will"?
It would probably not from their point of view, because they believe in non-material souls, and they would most commonly believe that it is the true driving 'force' behind their "Free Will".
At least, that would be the most common belief.
So basically, what I'm trying to say is that "scientific refutations" would usually be useless here.

What we need to do, and what would be more effective, is to "meet them where they are" and refute their points there. In other words: Defeat their arguments using their own theology!

So without further adieu, here is a list of refutations to Free Will, based on the Judeo-Christian theology itself!

Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer

Prayer

Intercessory Prayer contradict Free Will.
Imagine someone who's praying for a cancer patient to get better.
Should God listen to that prayer?
If God actually interferes with our world and cures this patient of their cancer... wouldn't that interfere with some mortician's Free Will to earn a few grands from a casket and a funeral? BAM - Free Will refuted.
Don't even get me started on people who pray for their favorite sports teams... The number of players and fans of the rival sports team... All those Free Wills... DESTROYED.
Too bad.
Bottom line: You can't have both intercessory prayer and free will.

Also, when you combine prayer and Omniscience / Predetermination, then you get some rather bizzare implications... God supposedly knows in advance what you're going to pray for, and he supposedly knows in advance whether your prayer is going to get answered or not. But then... What's the point of prayer in the first place? Does God just enjoy hearing you beg, or something? And if God has some sort of 'grand plan' then why would he change it just to appease your prayers?
That's all pretty weird.

Omnibenevolence

If God is Omnibenevolent, then he would WANT to interfere with our lives in order to prevent disaster and suffering.
But... If on the other hand he allows the undisturbed existence of Free Will, then he knowingly allows the free rampaging of evil and suffering... And since evil and suffering demonstrably do exist... BAM - Omnibenevolence refuted. You can't have it both ways.

God's Plan

If God has a 'grand plan' of some sort which he himself has put forward in motion, and this 'plan' somehow affects our lives - then this is indeed a direct violation of our free will.
In other words: If our lives are PLANNED IN ADVANCE by God, then it means our lives are predetermined by God, and we have NO free will.
But it's the PLANNING which contradicts our free will.
Not the "predetermination" by itself (unless the 'predetermination' was done purposefully by God... Which is the same as 'planning', basically).

"Historically" Violated Free Will

As most of us have read the Bible, I'm sure most of us are familiar with the many stories in it where God himself has interfered with the affairs of humans in some way or another.

One stark example of such a story is the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

Remember the passage where God "hardened Pharaoh's heart" so that he would refuse Moses's plea to let his people go? That's a rude violation of Pharaoh's Free Will right there! Also, all the ten plagues of Egypt? Is each one of them not a direct violation of the Egyptian citizens' Free Will?

There are of course many such stories throughout the Bible where God supposedly violated someone's Free Will by interfering with our world in one way or another.

So that means that "historically" (i.e. based on the Bible) God HAS ALREADY violated humanity's Free Will. So what changed so drastically that he supposedly doesn't do that anymore?
Did Jesus happen? I dunno, Jesus seemed to have interfered with people's Free Will after his resurrection too. Remember St. Paul? He never even met Jesus in person! Jesus was supposedly revealed to him through visions or dreams. Is that not a violation of Paul's Free Will?
Speaking of visions and dreams...

Modern Violations of Free Will

Have you ever heard about "born again Christians" who, for whatever reason, at some point in their lives, had Jesus "reveal himself" to them, and thus convincing them to convert to Christianity?

There are many such stories trouted around, some a bit famous, some not so much.

Now, let's put the total unreliability of these stories aside for a moment and give them the benefit of the doubt.

What does this mean for these people's Free Will?

Obviously it would mean that God has chosen to interfere with these people's lives and has effectively violated their Free Will!

So if Christians believe such stories to be true, then why use the Free Will argument in the first place?? Doesn't look like it's an actual concern to God.

I know, I know, some Christians would claim that it's not an actual violation of Free Will because such stories only come from Christians who "looked for Jesus" before actually having him revealed to them. So it was their "will" that Jesus would be revealed.

Well, first of all: No, NOT all such stories come from people who "looked for Jesus". There are several such stories that come from people who claim to have been "atheists" until that moment of revelation (for example, during a near-death experience as a result of a car accident), so technically they didn't have the "will" to have Jesus revealed to them.

Also, there are plenty of stories of people who did "look for Jesus" and had the "will" to have him be revealed to them, and yet no such thing happened - and those people became atheists because of that.

So we see that there's an inconsistency here.

Of course, one might claim that those people who had Jesus revealed to them really did "look for him", even if they claim otherwise; and those people who did not have Jesus revealed to them, did not actually "look for him", even if they claim otherwise.

But then, if you make such an argument, you would be making unfalsifiable assertions, presuppositions, and baseless assumptions about people's feelings. Not a very strong line of argument, to say the least (but aren't they all like that? tee hee).

But what if Free Will does actually exist?

If an apologist still insists that Free Will actually exists and is important to their God, then based on all the points raised previously, they would have to concede to the following:

1. God does not answer prayers.
2. God is not omnibenevolent.
3. God does not have a plan.
4. The Biblical stories are almost all lies because God never interfered with human affairs (or, alternatively: God used to interfere with human affairs, but doesn't anymore).
5. All the "born again Christians" who speak of God revealing himself to them are either liars or delusional.
6. God, in general, doesn't interfere with human affairs. Therefore it's indistinguishable from him not existing, or being dead.

As you can see, these are points that you'd find are very difficult, if not impossible, for apologists to concede to. But then they find themselves stuck in cognitive dissonance, holding two contradictory viewpoints: God is/does X, but it doesn't look like he is/does, because of Free Will, but if Free Will exists, then God is/does not X.

Which brings me to the following...

The Real Problem: Presuppositions and Rationalizations

Don't delude yourself even for a moment.
Even if you bring any of those points up to an apologist, they will most likely do have some sort of answer for it.
Sure, it won't be logical, it won't be making much sense, but it does make sense to them.

The reason is simple:

They presuppose that God exists.

They presuppose that he's omnipotent, omniscient and all that.

They don't look for logic. They don't look for evidence. They look for rationalizations for the sole purpose of maintaining their presupposition.

Here's a simple demonstration:

Superman is invincible. He cannot be killed. That would be our presupposition.

Therefore, we conclude that, among other things, Superman would be immune to bullets.

Please note that in this exercise we never actually seen Superman being fired upon.

We were only told that he's invincible. But never actually seen it ourselves.

But then, one day, some guy fires at Superman using a pistol, and Superman dies as a result.

What happened? Isn't Superman supposed to be invincible? No, no, something isn't right.

Maybe the bullets are special? Made of Kryptonite? That would be our first rationalization.

But we check the evidence and we see that no, the bullets dug out of Superman's corpse are plain Earth metal. Just regular copper alloy.

Wait, what? That's impossible. No, no, it must be something else.

Superman is supposed to be invincible... He would know that he's invincible, therefore he would know that the bullets wouldn't hurt him... Unless... Unless he knew that they would? But then, it would mean that Superman had let the bullets hit him even though he knew it would kill him...
But... That would mean that Superman wanted to be killed?? Our second rationalization creeps in.

So if Superman wanted to be killed, that means there's some sort of ulterior reason for it... He sacrifices himself... But for what? At this point we would look for clues in what Superman said and did when he was still alive... Maybe... Just maybe he threw some hints about his reasons? Some sort of clue? Our third rationalization developes.

We look through the evidence and we see no clue... We see no sign of Superman knowing that he's going to be killed or leaving some sort of post-morterm message.

Then that means.... That must mean that whatever message he left, it was secret! Yes, that's it!
It must have been told to someone in secret! But who could share in Superman's secret??

GASP! It must have been the shooter! The same person who shot and killed Superman in the first place! Who else would be stupid enough to even try and kill an invincible being?? Someone who was in on it, that's who!

And so our rationalizations go on and on and on...

Without a single shred of evidence to support any of it.

Before long, the rationalizations themselves become the only piece of "evidence" that there is.
They become "canonized", so to speak. With time and generations going by, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the facts from the fiction, the evidence from the rationalizations...

And thus - a legend is born.

That is the same story with Jesus Christ.
From being the "son of God" who was supposed to be a demi-God who would lead a revolution, he was killed - against all expectations, and from there the rationalizations flowed and flowed on and on and on.

This is why the most "detailed" scriptures of the New Testament... Those that contain the most fantasmical information about Jesus... Were those that were written the latest.

This is how LEGENDS are born.
Legends.......
Based on fictions....
Based on rationalizations....
Based on presuppositions.....
Based on....

Nothing.