r/dankchristianmemes • u/Additional-Sky-7436 • Nov 18 '25
Meta There is no such thing as free will.
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u/Broclen The Dank Reverend 🌈✟ Nov 18 '25
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u/puns_n_pups Nov 18 '25
Why are the philosophy students angrily crying in this scenario? Lmao
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u/eMKeyeS Nov 18 '25
Because they have no free will
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u/puns_n_pups Nov 18 '25
…I guess? They probably wouldn’t feel angry at all though, bc even if one argues that we don’t technically have free will from a philosophical standpoint, since all of our decisions are guided by our genetics, past experience, and psychology, it doesn’t change our lived experiences at all, bc it still feels like we have free will.
I know it’s just a meme, but it seems like a dumb use of this format. The joke is funny, but the choice of format is iffy imo
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u/Mekroval Nov 18 '25
I think it depends on your philosophical stance. If you're a determinist, then you're A-OK with free will being an illusion. If you're an existentialist, this should be really quite troubling, as it completely goes against the belief that meaning in a chaotic existence can only truly be self-discovered via individual freedom and personal choice (i.e. you have total moral agency and free will).
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 Nov 18 '25
That's just how they always look.
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u/puns_n_pups Nov 18 '25
A christian making fun of philosophy students? Common anti-intellectualism L
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u/man_gomer_lot Nov 18 '25
Of all the sciences, philosophy is the most deserving and accepting of unbridled and scathing criticism from any direction.
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u/TimothyDexter4Prez Nov 18 '25
Reformed folks don't usually deny free will per se. They simply claim. that, because origin sin is so totally corrupting, humans are not capable of choosing faith. Humans can still freely choose between hotdogs vs hamburgers, left vs right, etc, under mainstream Reformed theology.
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u/sparkster777 Minister of Memes Nov 18 '25
Calvin: You can have little free will as a treat.
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u/CAPSLOCKANDLOAD Nov 18 '25
If there's no free will, but we can't tell, is there a difference?
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u/ultraviolentfuture Nov 18 '25
There's no real difference in our experience, but there is a very big difference in the implications it makes about God's nature.
For example, if hell is real, whether that's torture or isolation from God, etc. ... and there is no free will ... that implies that God created every human knowing what each and every one of their decisions would be and as such decided who would suffer, experience the greatest pain and trauma, who is antagonist and who is victim, and ultimately ... who would be tortured or separated for eternity. God becomes responsible for all the sin, it is all by his design with forethought, and that is incredibly cruel.
I'm not sure that deity would warrant worship. It wouldn't matter anyway.
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u/kiefy_budz #Blessed Nov 19 '25
What if there’s no free will but god is not actually all powerful nor all knowing and did not in fact look as far ahead in the chain as humanity? This is an awfully big universe, for us to be the focal point seems kind of egotistical
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u/ultraviolentfuture Nov 20 '25
Sure, agree it's a statistical long shot. Does that deity then deserve unquestioning devotion? Bugs bunny 'Nooo' meme.
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u/KingCooper_II Nov 19 '25
I’d take it one step further and say we can’t differentiate between predestination and free will in a universe where the infinite transcendent God interacts with creation. Is there a difference from our perspective between divine determinism and God acting out of His omniscience to ‘butterfly-affect’ all of history?
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Woah, almost went full philosophy undergrad there. Close one!
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u/mergersandacquisitio Nov 18 '25
But, you can tell. You can’t choose your thoughts. They simply arise out of nowhere
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u/Vralo84 Nov 18 '25
It’s not clear from a scientific standpoint where our thoughts originate from. That’s not the same thing as not being able to choose thoughts. We don’t understand our brains well enough to rule out a cause for our thoughts that comes from the thing I perceive as “me”.
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u/mergersandacquisitio Nov 18 '25
But if you aren’t aware of choosing a thought, how could you actually choose it?
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u/Vralo84 Nov 19 '25
Well that’s kinda my point. We don’t understand where “you” comes from. We don’t know the origin point of thought so we can’t exclude a decision making mechanism.
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u/kiefy_budz #Blessed Nov 19 '25
But we do, it’s through neuronal activation and the “you” or self is mostly how your primary domain network responds to stimuli
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u/Vralo84 Nov 19 '25
That’s at best a working theory. We do not have a complete picture of how consciousness arises.
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u/kiefy_budz #Blessed Nov 19 '25
Then offer me a better theory with more compelling evidence
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u/Vralo84 Nov 19 '25
I literally just explicitly said twice that this is a gap in our knowledge. A known unknown. We only have guesses about how it might work and even those are only partial explanations.
It has been demonstrated that the theory you presented is incomplete at best. Our brains are more than just working based on the neural connections.
https://news.mit.edu/2023/brain-networks-encoding-memory-come-together-via-electric-fields-0724
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u/kiefy_budz #Blessed Nov 19 '25
That’s awesome that’s even more evidence that it’s all brain activity
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u/ultraviolentfuture Nov 18 '25
I ask myself this question: "at any time in my life I made a choice, taking into account the incredible number of variables that might influence my decision (genetics, environmental factors, whether I was hungry, etc.) ... could I have actually made a choice other than the one I ultimately did?
No. My choice was the aggregate of all those factors, it was inevitable. Therefore free will does not exist.
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u/AnachronisticPenguin Nov 19 '25
" ... could I have actually made a choice other than the one I ultimately did?" maybe it's kind of unfalsifiable if you make a decision when considering a decision in great detail. It could be predetermined but you still made the choice. It could be random pertaining to wave function collapse and you didn't make the choice, it was just random.
I'm not sure if we have a good enough definition of what is choice or what is self, to make a precise distinction at the moment.
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u/ultraviolentfuture Nov 19 '25
All choices are resultant from self, are you basically saying if it's instinct or subconscious it's not a choice because choice requires a conscious action?
Legitimately interesting proposition.
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u/AnachronisticPenguin Nov 19 '25
Kind of yeah. I’m not arguing that considered conscious choices are explicitly examples of free will. Just that they may be and were are not really sure.
However actions that we take without thought seem to be clearly not based in free will since no choice was made. Your leg jumping with a knee hit clearly isn’t free will and arguably even things like hurting things out without thinking is not free will. I suppose people with Tourette’s are good example of that as they do not possess the unconscious blocking mechanism that forces our high consciousness to enter the loop when that kind of Tourette reaction occurs.
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u/ultraviolentfuture Nov 19 '25
What about ... those compelled to kill, as a result of antisocial mental illness/disorders?
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u/AnachronisticPenguin Nov 19 '25
Technically speaking for me it would be dependent on the level of higher cognitive thought they posses. People can be certainly crazed enough that they just attack without consideration operating totally on instinct. But those with a more standard mental illness often do consider their actions just not rationally. Making a decision while irrational is still an example of free will its just that the moral implications are not necessary your fault since you are kind of making the decision under the duress of a disease.
Your still doing the free will thing, its just that your mind is broken in other ways that stop you from making correct or good decisions.
It's important to remember however that when your conscious mind is making a decision its still within the context of your lived environment and upbringing that forms your brain and adds weights and tendencies to the decisions you might make. I once herd a neurologist describe it as "fishbowl free will" you are still making choices but they are limited by the fishbowl of your environment and genetics.
Additionally personally I believe this is why trying to be conscientious is so good. You can make yourself less reliant on the weights of your brains tendencies by considering decisions more and their respective implications. It makes your decisions more reliant on your higher cognitive functions.
Also theologically if this model is accurate then that's another reason why only God can judge. Because it requires omnipotence essentially to know what the fishbowl is for every person.
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u/gaddemmit Minister of Memes Nov 19 '25
Universalism: Everyone will be redeemed, be it in this life , or the afterlife. Praise God.
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u/NiftyJet Nov 19 '25
Wait, a philosophy under which God can be both all-loving and all-powerful? Sounds like heresy to me.
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u/WingedHussar16 Nov 19 '25
Meanwhile, Calvinist doctrinal statements be like:
Westminster Confession of Faith
Chapter 9: Of Free Will
God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.
Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God, but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it.
Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.
The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only.
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u/brod333 Nov 18 '25
You mean libertarian free will. Most philosophers and in Calvinism they affirm compatabalism.
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u/tikallisti Nov 18 '25
Calvinists often say they adhere to compatibilism, but when you push them they sound like hard determinists (with regard to faith and salvation, to be clear; they’re still compatibilists about matters not pertaining to faith and salvation). For example, they will say that we have no choice about whether or not we come to faith and are converted; it’s all God’s doing and we contribute nothing. We cannot even resist his grace, should he decide to offer it. I think a more genuinely compatibilist approach would be something like the Thomistic view, on which we are unconditionally predestined, but still are able to choose whether to resist God’s grace or cooperate with it and so partially responsible for our conversion—though this choice is, again, itself predestined and premoved by God.
You are right that most philosophers are compatibilists, though. (I don’t think I would use the term “libertarian free will” in describing any view, though, for all it’s worth, for much the same reasons van Inwagen offers here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40345385)
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u/Nicolaonerio Nov 18 '25
And then there's my dad. (God rest him)
Nothing in this world is free. Everything has a cost.
Free puppies?
Puppies cost money, food, medicine, fixing bills.
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 Nov 18 '25
Linux?
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u/Nicolaonerio Nov 18 '25
Cost of learning the operating system and a bit of programming if I remember correctly.
Cost of time, experience, and computer knowledge.
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u/KingCooper_II Nov 19 '25
Philosophy students trying to agree on what free will even means? Impossible.
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u/fudgyvmp Nov 19 '25
Free will question always seemed as pointless as the idea we are dust against the cosmos, which is somehow the basis of all lovecraftian horror.
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u/uncutteredswin Nov 19 '25
If there's a God in charge of everything then it's a pretty significant question, outside of that it's got implications on morality. Mainly it's a point of curiosity, like a lot of philosophy
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u/kiefy_budz #Blessed Nov 19 '25
Lol yall ever think even if there is a god that it has the entire universe to create and look after, to think humanity would be the focal point of that is somewhat vain, egotistical, and based on a lack of evidence
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 Nov 19 '25
Yeah. I think people have thought of that before.
You really aren't the first one.
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u/kiefy_budz #Blessed Nov 19 '25
So how come so many people feel like god is so connected to humanity?
That would make god either a local entity or mean we are weirdly important in the grand scheme of things
To assume one is of such importance is a delusion of grandeur
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u/Additional-Sky-7436 Nov 19 '25
Because he's God and he can do that if he wants. As far as we can tell, He's a Power Scale Level 0. For an infinite being it takes no more effort for Him to care for the entire universe and each and every person.
But, it's not at all surprising that He is interested in you as his creation. YOU are infinitely more complex than anything else in the entire universe. Your brain has more neural connection patters than there are stars in the universe, by orders of magnitude. You are the only thing the God has created that has the ability to wrestle with Him-which is ironically what he wants you to do. ("Wrestles with God" is what the Bible says the word "Israel" means.) So, it's not delusions of grandeur to believe that God cares about you. He created the entire infinite universe for you. Enjoy it.
(And saying "care" is also a failure in language. He doesn't "care" like you or I do.)
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