Free Will, Round Squares, and a Question of Dubious Morality

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation with somebody who knew just enough of what you're talking about to understand the words and yet still completely miss the point?

I don't want - at all - to sound like there are any questions that one could ask about God that aren't worth asking, or that there are dumb questions, or anything like that. But sometimes there are questions that, if followed out to their logical extensions, highlight some pretty serious problems within the understanding behind the question itself.

For instance, consider the old classic: "Can God create a stone so heavy He can't lift it?"

The idea behind this question is supposedly to point out a paradox within the understanding of the omnipotence of God. God can do anything, right?

Well... Yes... but also no. Can God defy the laws of physics? For sure. Can He defy the laws of possibility? No. Asking about the heavy stone might as well be asking if God can create a round square. God can do anything that can be done, but contradictions of essential nature are outside of even God's power. God cannot create a thing that by actual definitions cannot exist.

(Everything else, of course, is completely fair game.)

I was asked a question somewhat like that a while back, and I'd like to share the experience with you because I feel that it points to a pretty fascinating viewpoint. I've encountered the question before in various settings, but never in actual conversation. Here's the question, and please understand that it positively blew my mind:

"Why would a loving God create me with free will knowing that I would sin and go to hell?"

Let's tackle this one piece at a time...

"Why would a loving God create me with free will..."

This part is easy! God created us with free will so that we would be free to Love Him, free to choose to serve Him, free to choose to Love Others, free to choose to do good, free to choose to do evil, free to choose to be self-centered, free to choose Coke or Pepsi, free to choose cats or dogs, free to choose all the millions of choices that come to us in every moment of our lives, so that we could see that there is Good in the world as well as Evil, and knowing the difference, that we should choose between the two.

Incidentally, the guy who asked me this question (whose name is not Harold, but I'm going to call him that) came from a position of non-belief, in case you hadn't guessed that. His disbelief in God is founded, as I understood it, in his belief in science. As I've mentioned here before, I don't understand what science has to do with the non-existence of God, but I'll allow a dude his beliefs, even if I can't see how they make sense at all.

I don't know how familiar you are with the band Rush, but they've got a song called "Freewill" which is a powerful rejection of religion across the board in favor of (as I'm sure you've guessed) free will.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice

You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill

I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose free will!

But what's interesting about the idea of non-theistic free will is that it's kind of an impossibility.

If the universe really is "nothing but a collection of atoms in motion" like my homeboy Dickie Dawkins would have us believe, then what we percieve as "free will" is actually not even a will at all, free or enslaved. If everything in existence is a product of mere chance, that means everything in existence is a product of mere chance. That means that you didn't choose your first kiss; it was mere chance. You didn't choose your favorite song; it was mere chance. You didn't choose to do that thing you did that one time that you really liked; it was mere chance. It was all just the reaction of the chemicals in your body interacting with each other, set in motion by the big bang, a result of the mind-bogglingly large domino chain set off when the first molecules exploded out from each other.

In a universe created without meaning or will, meaning and will can never come into existence. If everything is the result of chance, then nothing is the result of purpose - chance has no purpose. It just is.

So free will only exists because God gave it to us, and without God, free will is impossible. (Chew on THAT, Calvinists!)

But now let's move on to the really fun part of Harold's question...

"...knowing that I would sin and go to hell?"

Can you spot where that breaks down?

I'm with it on the "knowing that I would sin" part.

Where I get lost is the "and go to hell" thing.

ESPECIALLY since that comes after the "free will" bit we just talked about!

I don't even know which part makes less sense to me.

On one side we've got the idea that even though it's already been granted in the discussion that God created us with free will, Harold is still apparently choosing to exercise that will in such a way that the God he doesn't believe in would surely condemn him to a Hell he doesn't believe in, and yet the idea of not doing whatever it is that will get him sent to Hell is absurd and childish, a silly notion from the antiquated religion of Harold's parents, which he abandoned long ago after finding true enlightenment.

But the flip side of the coin is that God is somehow to blame for everything. God's the bad guy for creating Harold in the first place, allowing him the opportunity to choose to do things that he knows are bad.

What. In. The. World.

If you have free will... and you think the things that you're doing would get you sent to hell... why are you doing them?

Isn't the entire point of Hell that bad people go there? Why be a bad person? Why not use your God-given free will to choose to be good?

I don't have any problem holding God accountable for the earthquakes in Japan. I don't have any problem holding God accountable for the horrible droughts and famine throughout the world. I don't even have a problem holding God accountable for (most) health problems that people face in their lives.

But trying to put God on trial for your own actions?

Saying that it's God's fault that you're going to Hell, because YOU chose to use the free will you were given to do the things that send you there?

That's just plain ignorant.

And it seems to be purposeful ignorance at that.

It seems to me that there is a tendency among people who reject God (at least the God of Christianity) to reject Him on grounds that are completely without foundation.

Consider the game of Monopoly. Now let's say that I have a friend who refuses to play Monopoly, and doesn't hesitate to let me know it. After a while, things seem like they've lined up right for me to be able to ask why there's such a vehement opposition to Monopoly, and I finally get my answer: it's because you get to go again every time you roll doubles, which means that one player could possibly just keep rolling doubles and their turn never stop, which is completely unfair.

Now, for those of you who know the game of Monopoly, I am pretty sure you've spotted the flaw in that argument: after you roll doubles for the third time, you go to Jail. This is a part of the rules of the game. Rejecting the game because of a problem that has already been addressed within the rules of the game itself is a pretty dumb reason to reject a game, right?

So why doesn't that logic apply to God?

People raise objections to God that have already been covered by God! If you're going to use the Bible as a rap sheet for God, pulling out stories and ideas that condemn Him to unworthiness of worship, then the rest of the Bible has to be admissible as evidence as well. And what does the rest of the Bible say about that? Oh, yeah... GOD'S IN CHARGE.

I really can't express to you enough just how much I do not understand atheism.

I can understand what it is just fine. I get the concept. I follow the arguments so far as I can understand the words and what they mean in syntax. But I just do not get how it all comes together to be a sustainable worldview.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

I wonder if that's a good thing. I wonder if that means that my faith is so concrete that I can't even fathom a universe without God. I wonder if it just means I'm an idiot.