And then we have articles like this.
Freethinker Horia George Plugaru attacks the Free Will (henceforth FW) Defense, the classic theodicy that claims, in Plugaru's words,
God, although [he] wants to eradicate or at least greatly reduce the evil caused by humans, cannot interfere with the free will (FW) human beings have. According to this theist response, FW has enormous value (at least from God's point of view), since God protects it at the cost of indefinitely numerous atrocious acts.
Plugaru, building on the work of Theodore Drange, posits a new argument against free will's "enormous" value: the survival requirement of sleep. Since humans surrender their free will during sleep, for an average of 7-8 hours per night, or up to a third of their lives, Plugaru asks, is free will really so valuable?
Obviously, while we are asleep we do not and cannot make conscious choices, which means that we don't use our FW.
And so the question arises: if God values our FW so very much, why did he create us in such a way that for an important period of our lives we are forced to abandon our FW? In other words, if FW is so important from God's point of view, then why didn't he create us so that we would use our FW non-stop during our lives? It is obviously absurd to believe, on one hand, that for God our FW has an extraordinary importance, but on the other that he is ready to give up FW during a long period of time--in which one could have otherwise perform hundreds or thousands of free choices--without a serious reason.
There are a number of unwarranted claims, whose lack of a warrant undermines Plugaru's syllogism. First is the claim that free will is equated with conscious will, a category error. To claim that the decisions I make that I am not aware of--for example, the decision to breathe in and out continuously--are not an exercise of free will, is to beg the question.
Second, what are God's limitations on "interfering" with free will? Here the problem is not so much Plugaru's, but rather belongs to any advocate of the FW theodicy. If God is limited in his interference, how does this correspond to his omniscient omnibenevolence? If God does interfere, how?
Third, does having FW mean that all my actions are completely free? I am free to change my disposition, but am not free to change myself into a strand of limp spaghetti, at least not using current technology. Does this mean that my moral free will is no longer "valuable," because I have to surrender it, to some degree, to the dictates of biology? (And, furthermore, does God share human values, or rank-order them in a human fashion? Is there a divine "Hierarchy of Needs?")
Fourth, Plugaru's claim, at the bottom, is an argument from ignorance. "However, my criticism does not face such a problem because it is extremely hard to see what possible high priority God couldtry [sic] to achieve by requiring us to sleep." What is extremely hard for Plugaru to see may be quite obvious to a harder-thinking philosopher. Perhaps sleep is God's way of keeping humans from being too uppity--a biological Tower of Babel, of sorts.
Plugaru claims that his argument strengthens, and is also "stronger," than Drange's assertions. But compare Drange's concluding remarks on FW:
Finally, the claim that God has non-interference with human free will as a very high priority is not well supported in Scripture. According to the Bible, God killed millions of people. Surely that interfered with their free will, considering that they did not want to die. Furthermore, the Bible suggests that God knows the future and predestines people's fates. That, too, may interfere with human free will. In addition, there are many obstacles to free will in our present world (famine, mental retardation, grave diseases, premature death, etc.) and God does little or nothing to prevent them. This is not conclusive proof that God does not have human free will as a high priority, but it does count against it. It is at least another difficulty for the Free-Will Defense.
In short, it is already obvious that, for God, FW is not of "enormous" consequence, sleep or no sleep.
Oh, and it's nap time.
No comments:
Post a Comment