• Do We Have Free Will?
• Or Is It An Illusion?

As I discussed in my previous post, according to Naturalism nothing exists except the material universe. ^<1> The Big Bang theory is widely accepted as the best explanation of how the material universe started. Everything after the Big Bang is accurately explained by Quantum Mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity. Those theories capture, in a mathematical formulation, detailed cause and effect interactions. Everything we know about the material universe comes from careful observation of cause and effect relationships.

What about humans? According to Naturalism, the material universe is everything that exists. That means humans are part of the material universe also. The implication is that we are controlled by cause and effect, just like all other material objects. Blood, nerves, brain, mind, and even the electrical impulses traveling through human brains are part of the material universe. If Naturalism is true, then humans are robots. We have no free will, no freedom of action, no freedom of thought. Everything we do, say, and think is the result of past events which we do not control. We do not have any responsibility for our actions. A baby learning to crawl is a robot because all its actions are predetermined by previous events.

Do you believe that? I don't. I am certain there is something more than the material universe. As C. S. Lewis explains it in Mere Christianity,

... every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.

From page 92 of [MereChristianity]Mere Christianity by Clive Staple Lewis, 1952 publisher: Harper Collins

The part of you that chooses is your soul. It is tempting to jump ahead. I am being careful to avoid that. All I am saying is that every person has a soul, otherwise we are robots. Each soul is unique, and is not part of the material universe. If it were part of the material universe, then we are back to Naturalism, which we know is not true.

Yet other people, some famous and brilliant, hold the opposite view. How can we respond to their criticisms? For example, Stephen Hawking,^<2> 1942—2018, was a famous physicist. He said:

Though we feel that we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets ... so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.

Stephen Hawking, page 32 of [GrandDesign]The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, 2010 publisher: Bantam Books

Some of our actions are instinctive, reflexes designed to help us survive. A crawling baby will pull its hand back quickly if it is poked by a hidden nail. At other times people force themselves to suffer significant pain and injury to, for example, save someone from a burning building.

My response to Stephen Hawking and others that insist on Naturalism is simple. If he truly believes Naturalism, then he also believes that what he wrote or said was forced on him by previous events beyond his control. The implication is that:

• His statements and ours are meaningless.
• His life and ours are meaningless.
• We are all robots.

What can we know about our souls? How does it change our thinking? I will explore these questions and more in future posts.^<3>

What do you think? Could Naturalism be true? Can it be defended on its own terms? Let me know in the comments.