you
tell us about your your doctoral research it's about freewill right yeah primarily I'd say that's
the the main focus okay so why is this important why why should those of you watching this video
right now why why should they be interested in this topic how does it apply to them yeah
other than just you know talking about it over the coffee break right now argue over stuff why is it
important well if we have free will right it winds up being well having huge apologetic significance
because if free will is possessed by humanity there there seems to be something about humans
that doesn't work with the rest of the universe everything else in the universe maybe besides some
quantum mechanics seems to be causally determined by the forces of nature so basically well even
with quantum mechanics in mind you could say that everything about humanity if humanity was just a
flesh and blood and nothing else humanity would be causally determined by physics and chemistry
or the forces of nature and so we wouldn't have free well there's a lot of atheists out there who
realise this and so they conclude that humans aren't free that there's no free will in this
it's just an illusion in fact Sam Harris one of the leading atheists out there has a whole book
on it called freewill in which he concludes that we don't have free will hmm and even says that
your thoughts and your intentions emerge from background causes over which were unaware and
over which we exert no conscious control he says you don't have the freedom you think we have he
says you are not responsible for these things for your thoughts and your actions so why would we why
would we want if we lock someone up in prison wouldn't it be unjust how well to treat them in
a way that punishes them it seems that that would be I mean why not give them really nice rooms and
well you want to have the freedom to do otherwise the judge himself would not even have the freedom
to not send him to the prison I mean everything is causally determined so you can't say hey judge
you shouldn't have done that while he cannot do otherwise you know it's just I mean it's just a
meaningless life really think about it but look I think I've got several arguments that show that we
do have this genuine libertarian free will and I mean by libertarian I define that there's several
ways to define it I think they're all correct the most important is because you were pre-programmed
to believe no I think as long as there's no external causes if something else is not causally
determining you to think our act a certain way then you've got libertarian freedom but I like
to argue for something a little bit stronger and that's simply that I've got libertarian freedom
if I have the ability to choose between a range of alternative options each compatible with my nature
and I think we can demonstrate that we've all got this in fact I believe that it's self refuting to
argue otherwise all right do it prove it well I'll just let me really quick it's important because if
we have free will I think the best explanation of that is the biblical view of God and so it
becomes an apologetic but here's how I like to argue for a libertarian freedom I think we can
argue from it for it biblically and metaphysically but if I'm arguing with the skeptic I'm not gonna
start with the Bible so I'll just say look if if you don't have the freedom to think or to
evaluate certain concepts then you don't stand in a position to know if you're thinking correctly
or better than others or not you can assume it but that assumption wouldn't be up to you
either so think about it this way here's a thought experiment I like to get suppose a mad scientist
somehow got control of your brain and was able to causally determine everything you think about
in all of your beliefs he he determines exactly you know he determines how you think about your
beliefs and what you believe about your thoughts he determines exactly what you think of and about
and exactly how you think oven about it all of these things are up to the mad scientist not you
so your brain is kind of like a hard drive and the mad scientist programs exactly it's all up to him
okay and he causally determines everything about you including the next words that are gonna come
out of your mouth so here's the question how can you not the mad scientist rationally affirm any of
your thoughts or beliefs oh good luck with that it's impossible you can't do it in fact I don't
even know where you went okay but what if what if the mad scientist is a rational person and
you have been programmed to be rational well he can force you to have true beliefs but then you
can't rationally affirm any of your thoughts and believe you can't rationally affirm that
the beliefs that he's caused you to believe are you to hold are any better than the beliefs that
he's caused you to hold if he's got it okay roll of your brains so your beliefs could be correct
or they could be false you just couldn't know it you could that's right you couldn't know it
well because that would be reasoning yeah so you could assume that your thoughts are true but that
assumption would it be up to you either it'd be up to the mad scientist okay yeah so so this is what
I've heard dr. Craig refer to this as a sense of vertigo all right when you start to believe that
if determinism is true and exhaustive across the board a sense of vertigo sets in or everything you
believe isn't after you in the first place so this is this is cool stuff of course now this
what we're just discussing now that that's not new right right where has your where has your
dissertation gone out on new grounds in terms of applying this or is it broken new ground yeah well
I mean I I think I developed a syllogism that's you know I stand on the shoulders of giants and
the syllogism called the free thinking argument I think clearly you know it clarifies everything
and I know this is a good argument because William Lane Craig said he loved it and you're taking his
stuff further right yeah so so it's the and you know I've I first developed it at Biola in 2012
and I've been putting it through the fire kind of like what you did you know when you did your
work you wanted to take it and see if it sure withstood the test of the best objections and
so I've been doing this now for several years and and by all is a great school yeah yeah I mean they
they give you a good education there it's not as good as what you get at age it's still good yeah
they're both good schools yeah yeah so so yeah I mean if we don't have libertarian freedom then
say goodbye to rationality but we know that we're rational and to argue otherwise is to affirm it
because are you gonna bring a rational argument that you're not rational that's self-defeating
so so yeah how do we know that we can know that we're rational I mean let's just go with someone
like what sam harris said so if we may think we're rational how do we know that we're rational well
to argue otherwise is to affirm it I like I said it that way all right so so it should we live as
though we're rational well we're straight that we do but to think about this if somebody says
no we're not we're not rational beings and I've got a rational argument to prove it well wait a
second that's self-defeating so we've got to be I mean to argue otherwise is self-defeating you
know so we must be and and plus if somebody's gonna say no I'm not rational but let me tell
you neither are you why should anybody believe you yeah why should anybody care about anything
you say if you've already practiced that with I don't know what I'm talking about I remember
something on a on a parallel level I was speaking at Clemson a few years ago and after my lecture
students came up and I was just interacting with them and this one guy was just you know to the
point where he's skeptical about everything yeah and so I finally said to him well how do you know
that we're really just talking here rather than the mad scientist right you're a brain-in-a-vat
being stimulated by a mad scientist I had the perception that we're having to cease
as well I don't that that could be the case and we're really not having that discussion
so I said you're not even certain that you and I are having this conversation that's right and
I said then why am I wasting my time have a good night earned around toss to talk to the next yeah
all right so go ahead take it a little further now well you know so I argue that we that rationality
is one thing that we can point to that can demonstrate that we've got this libertarian
freedom but there's also a lot of Christians that don't think we have free will mm-hmm for the
Christian I'll say well let's look at let's look at scripture and actually you could do this with
a non-christian too because you can just bring up morality but for the Christian I say look um Paul
tell tells us and first Corinthians 10:13 that every time were attempted to sin that God promises
to provide a way of escape and so what follows from that I mean because I'm a Christian and you
know I don't know about you but I still struggle with sin occasionally yeah I still say right but
I know that when I sin I could have done otherwise God told me that I've got a way of escape so when
Christians at least have libertarians free well remember that the definition I'm arguing arguing
for here is the libertarian freedom is when one has are arraigned the ability to choose between
a range of alternative options each compatible with that beings nature and so Christians have
at least Christians have the kind of a nature that allows us to sin or to take the way of escape that
God provides so we have a clear biblical example here of that that at least Christians are free and
the libertarian sense and Paul is also telling us all the time to to exhibit self-control you
know self-control is all over Scripture right and really what does that mean I mean by definition
that's that seems to be libertarian freedom yeah the self isn't good if I am in control of myself
that's the epitome of libertarian freedom no external causes so yeah I think we have a
biblical grounds to affirm libertarian freedom and we've got rational grounds to affirm libertarian
freedom and even think about this I think our our justice system today makes it clear that we have
libertarian freedom yeah what do you you know my dad was a staunch Calvinist yeah and he was like
no we have no free will but then when you bring up the things like you're bringing up right here
like what what about sin does that mean that right god caused us to sin and he's oh no no
that's you once a present that require freewill yeah well no well how do you how do you put the
two together what's a mystery you know so yeah it's good stuff yeah no I just asked people that
don't think that we have free will I'm like do you have the ability to choose between a range
of options each compatible with your nature and then you for the Christian I say can you send or
not send based on first Corinthians 10:13 if they say no then you're bite and then you're
disagreeing with Paul you're disagreeing the scripture and if they say yes and he said well
congratulations you are a libertarian freedom fighter just like me yeah that's cool well hey
thanks for explaining that so in our next video what we're going to do is focus more on things
such as the Calvinist sort of debate that's out there Alvin is our minion and you have another
way of looking at Mullin is imrad that's right you can tell us what Mullin ISM is and and we'll talk
about the different positions and maybe how your take on things solves the debate that sounds great
Oh
you