The Actual Contradiction of Autonomous Free Will
Friday, October 16, 2009 at 9:53AM 
Continuing this conversation.
In this scenario, you are saying that nothing happens unless God intends it to happen.
Yes. That’s what the Bible teaches. God “works all things after the counsel of his will.” The worst crime in human history, the murder of God’s own Son occurred when people did “whatever [God’s] hand and [God’s] plan had predestined to take place.” God has his own good purposes in everything, purposes we won’t fully understand unless he reveals them.
Loss of free will is inherent.
Free will is a tricky term. Whether we have free will or not depends on how it is defined. But no, we don’t make autonomous choices.
If we have no free will, it matters little what decisions we make because God intended us to do them when he created the universe, and we can’t go against God’s plan.
It matters what choices we make because God works his plan through our choices. Our choices are means by which he brings about his plan. And we are responsible for our choices because they come from our own desires and motives.
Your scenario also suggests there is no omnipotence.
Omnipotence is defined as the ability to do everything he desires or plans to do. If God is “working all things according to the counsel of his will,” then he is omnipotent.
If he can see the future, he still can’t make any choices.
The future that he sees is the future that he chose to bring to pass. Everything that will happen represents a choice he made in eternity.
But if by “he still can’t make any choices” you mean that he can’t change his mind, then I agree. God is immutable and his plan for history is immutable.
No matter which way you look at it, free will is abrogated, if not in God, in us.
God is the one whose will is autonomous. He’s the creator, we’re the creatures. We can’t take our next breath unless he sustains it.
If God has autonomous free will, then we can’t. That would make for a contradiction.
Reader Comments (5)
Great post, Rebecca. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I've often said, "What free will? If you think your will is free you are truly deceived."
I reposted this here because I didn't realize you also made it a new blog post.
Is contradicted byIf God has autonomous free will, then we can't. That would make for a contradiction.
You can't have it both ways. You can't say that our decisions matter since they really aren't our decisions. God intended for us to make them, so they are God's decisions. If you are correct, we are each nothing more than machines created to do exactly what we do, when we do it. Therefore, since it is not possible for us to go against God's will, it doesn't matter what we do because whatever we do is based on his plan.
The idea that we are responsible for our decisions when we have no free will to do otherwise is ludicrous. You don't punish a machine for functioning exactly as it was designed to function. That would make no sense.
"The person who has not given the matter any special thought assumes that he has great freedom. But when he comes to examine this boasted freedom a little more closely he finds that he is much more limited than at first appeared. He is limited by the laws of the physical world, by his particular environment, habits, past training, social customs, fear of punishment or disapproval, his present desires, ambitions, etc., so that he is far from being the absolute master of his actions. At any moment he is pretty much what his past has made him. But so long as he acts under the control of his own nature and determines his actions from within, he has all the liberty of which a creature is capable. Any other kind of liberty is anarchy." – Lorraine Boettner
I reposted this here because I didn't realize you also made it a new blog post.
If I spend a little time on a response in the comments, I often make it into a blog post, but I'd see your response either place. :)
You can't have it both ways. You can't say that our decisions matter since they really aren't our decisions. God intended for us to make them, so they are God's decisions.
It depends on what you mean by "matter". You seem to define decisions that matter as decisions that can change the future. I define decisions that matter as "decisions that bring about the future God has planned." God intended for us to make them, so they are God's decisions, and based on God's decisions, we decide. We look at the alternatives, weigh them, and choose as seems best or most desirable to us and our decisions bring God's plan to fruition.
The idea that we are responsible for our decisions when we have no free will to do otherwise is ludicrous. You don't punish a machine for functioning exactly as it was designed to function. That would make no sense.
Machines don't have motives or desires. Machines don't have wills. Machines don't consider alternatives.
Let's cut to the chase: You are willing to see God as a God without omniscience or omnipotence in order to preserve autonomous human choice—in order to have our choices determine the future. You are willing to make God smaller so that we can be bigger.
In your conception of God, human beings rule the future rather than God. Or you might say that human beings rule God rather than him ruling us.
I'm not willing to go there, because that's not the way God reveals himself in scripture.
Jules,
Thanks for the quote from Boettner. Very pertinent.