God. Real. Right.

A long series of posts on this site have explained so far (1) why it is challenging to understand how there could be a free will, and (2) that it is much more theologically, philosophically, and ethically crippling to reject its possibility.
This entry begins to make the case (3) that it is possible that there is a free will, and that commitment to the reality of free will renews access to essentials of a Christian worldview, including teleology. Posts to date are compiled here.

3 It is both possible and advantageous to talk about a real and radical free will.

In contrast to the things described so far—that is, in contrast to the impossibility of freedom being what it was originally cracked up to be—suppose freedom is everything originally understood. What exactly would it be? There are two different ways to answer the question, and both are important here. One answer deals with the significant capability of a will. The other deals with just how and where to pigeonhole the will as a thing.

On the first answer, the will’s ability, the most direct route is simply to observe that an individual with a free will can act in different ways given exactly the same circumstances. On the second answer, the will’s metaphysical status, the thing to do is compare it to other things considered to exist. First things first. That is, the next goal is to establish that freedom can be taken to mean that a person has real choices to make; and within that goal, the first step is to demonstrate that such a conception of the will is meaningful even if not empirically demonstrable.

3.1 Freedom can be taken as the ability of an individual to actualize a variety of potentials.

3.1.1 That this view of freedom is empirically unverifiable does not eliminate its significance.

There is no way to prove empirically whether individuals have such a freedom or not. Since an individual can only actualize one behavior in a given circumstance, and since a given circumstance can only appear once, there is no possible way to verify that she could not have gone a different way, or that she could have. That impossibility—the impossibility of proving either way empirically—could lead some to claim that there is no real difference between the two ways of describing the world. One describes it as free, the other as determined. The contention is that both systems offer internally coherent descriptions of the world. For instance: Megan uses the term blue to describe color x, yellow to describe color y, and green to describe color z. Leah, on the other hand, uses the term red to describe color x, yellow to describe color y, and orange to describe color z. (Forget all the complication for the moment. For instance, the only thing that could be meant by “color x” really has nothing to do with what appears as color, but is instead a reference to a certain range of frequency of light.) If everyone agrees to use (more…)

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This Southeast Asian Proverb closes a letter I received a few days ago from a good friend and faithful disciple who is serving with his growing family as a witness for Jesus in a closed country. His use of the proverb is especially appropriate in light of both of the two prayer requests just above it:

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This post is the next in the line of reasoning I employ to explain (1) why it is challenging to understand how there could be a free will, but (2) that it is much more theologically, philosophically, and ethically crippling to reject its possibility, (3) that it is possible that there is a free will, and finally (4) that commitment to the reality of free will renews access to essentials of a Christian worldview, including teleology. This is the final post in the second section. Posts to date are compiled here.

2.2.3 As determinism eliminates or reduces real moral responsibility, then either motivation for good behavior declines or deception becomes society’s ally.

Suppose it is true that the less personal freedom individuals understand to be theirs, the less assertive they become in addressing their weaknesses, overcoming their limitations, or in plunging into matters formerly considered insurmountable. (This supposition does cut both ways. Freedom also precipitates evil. But that admission is no loss at all to the libertarian position. It follows and fits naturally with the idea of responsibility.) This supposition is at least in some measure phenomenologically accurate. Hard determinism produces a kind of malaise concerning personal activity and motivation. Since things cannot be other than what they are and will be, why get all into a dither about affecting them? Then it turns to the determinist’s advantage (in the interest of society) to maintain a sense of freedom and responsibility for individuals, not as a claim of correspondent truth, but as a stimulus to beneficial behavior. In fact, the only practical alternative to such a deception is the wholesale purchase of Skinner’s suggestion to go Beyond Freedom and Dignity altogether, recognizing that the ideals of freedom and dignity only hamper the development of a technology of behavior which would allow presumably benevolent social authorities not only to train people to do what is beneficial, but also to want what is beneficial, making objection absurd. The latter world is so contemptible that it will require a few more decades before most people will be sold on its viability. The former, however—the one in which people are told they are free even though the more informed among them understand they really are not—is already present. Certainly high-minded, particularly theological determinists would condemn using any such utilitarian deception. But they would condemn themselves in so doing. For the soft determinism—the compatiblism—many of them embrace is precisely the deceptive form of hard determinism suggested above. For what exactly does soft determinism do? It allows its adherents to continue to take advantage of terms identified with freedom, including freedom itself, while maintaining every tenet of hard determinism un-impinged.

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Click on the image for the Dallas Morning News’ photo-journalistic telling of this compelling story about the beauty, significance, and value of life. TK and Deidrea Laux plan to be in studio for “Live from Criswell” on Thursday, October 15. It should be a remarkable opportunity to reevaluate the gift of life.

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Here’s the Baptist Press story I mentioned on the air yesterday.

In U.K., care denied for premature baby

Posted on Sep 18, 2009 | by Staff
WASHINGTON (BP)–A young British mother says her prematurely born son was left to die last October by doctors because he fell two days short of the minimum requirement for care.

Sarah Capewell’s son, Jayden, was born 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy, but physicians said he needed to be at 22 weeks gestation in order to be treated, she told The Daily Mail in a Sept. 9 article. He lived for nearly two hours without medical assistance. She is seeking a review of the guidelines followed by National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in such cases.

Jayden, who was born at an NHS hospital in Norfolk, was breathing without help, had a strong heart rate and was moving his arms and legs after his birth, said Capewell, 23.

She told The Daily Mail she pleaded with a pediatrician, saying, “You have got to help.” The doctor said, “No we don’t”

While she was having contractions, a chaplain visited her to make plans for a funeral for her yet-to-be-born son, Capewell said. “I was sitting there, reading this leaflet about planning a funeral and thinking, this is my baby, he isn’t even born yet, let alone dead,” she said, according to the newspaper.

Compiled by Baptist Press Washington bureau chief Tom Strode.

Here’s the well-informed listener e-mail I received in response to what I said on air:

I enjoy listening to your show almost daily as I drive home from work and I appreicate the topics you discuss. I generally agree with most of what you say. However on this subject from Oct 6, 2009, I think you were not well informed and (more…)

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Michael Moore certainly knows how to make a spiel entertaining. But no amount of entertainment, and for that matter, rhetoric, can make a claim true. Michael Moore does more than make a claim. Instead, he makes an argument—a series of statements intended to establish another statement, as Monty Python so eloquently stated decades ago. Arguments come in many forms. But regardless of form, some are sound and some are not. Unsound arguments are fallacious by definition. But fallacies also come in many forms. For instance, some are formal (committing at least one error in how the argument is structured, regardless of content) while others are material (making factual claims which are false). Fortunately, Mr. Moore’s fallacies are of both kinds.
It would be a herculean and soul-deadening task to address every falsehood presented in the latest of Moore’s documentaries, Capitalism: A Love Story. So, instead, let’s focus only on (more…)

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Our last day in Israel was spent at places of importance surrounding the crucifixion. We descended from the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane to the Kidron Valley. We visited Caiaphas’ house and the Pool of Bethesda. We stood in the pit where Jesus was kept the night of his arrest. And we saw the best candidate for Golgotha and the Garden Tomb. Best moment: reading Psalm 88 while standing in the pit mentioned above. Worst moment (or at least the oddest): a stranger in the Arab quarter grabbing Dr. Wooddell by the arm and declaring, “I love you; I want to kill you.” Hmm.
The greatest impact of the trip overall is realizing how incarnate Christianity is—not myths caricaturing theories but facts applying truths.
The worst impact of the trip overall is realizing how poorly instantiated the reality of Christianity is in me. We’ll just have to work on that.

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Sunday began with a visit to the ancient crossroads city of Megiddo. Megiddo was three times as old as any American city (say, Jamestown as 500 years old) before Solomon made it one of his three chariot cities. Then we crossed over toward the Jordan Valley where we visited Bet-She’an (or Beth Shean, or something like that), which is a First Century Roman city not mentioned in the New Testament, although it was certainly along the trail Jesus travelled when, for instance, leaving the Galilee to be baptized and face the wilderness temptation. Finally we arrived at the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of Earth, 1300 feet below sea level (and another 1300 feet deep, by the way). Along the way we also saw the mountain of Elisha’s pre-prophetic farm life, the mountain on which David heard of Saul’s death, the location from which Gideon’s confrontation with the Midianites began, and the oasis city of Jericho, in the running for the most ancient city in the world. Best moment: putting together innumerable events with a few of the twenty layers of archeological evidence at Megiddo. Worst moment: taking two showers and still having Dead Sea residue.

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Here are the pictures from our third day in Israel: Sabbath Day. We spent it in the upper Galilee; first at Tel-Dan (one of Jereboam’s two cities where he built golden-calf alters hoping to prevent the Northern Kingdom from re-pledging their loyalty to the Southern Kingdom); next at Caesarea Philippi (Bana) where Jesus confronted Peter and the disciples with His identity and calling; and finally to a former Syrian bunker on the Upper Golan Heights. The last stop has no specific biblical significance other than as a probable way point on the innumerable ancient and more recent past invasions and journeys from or through Syria into Israel. Best moment: standing right where Jereboam or his corrupt priests offered sacrifices to one of his golden calves; at the same time being where the only ancient extra-biblical inscription referring to the house of David was found. Worst moment: considering why the valley below the bunker where we were enjoying a beautiful new coffee house is called “The Valley of Tears.”

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Richard Land heads the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Here is a link to the ERLC’s overview of a few of the most troubling aspects of proposed health care reform measures pending before congress. I believe this account is the most accurate and considerately measured response around. (The document is a “pdf”, meaning you’ll need Adobe Acrobat or Mac Preview or some other “portable document file” software in order to see the file.)

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