Free will is the idea that we are able to have some choice in how we act and assumes that

we are free to choose our behavior, in other words we are self determined.
For example, people can make a free choice as to whether to commit a crime or not (unless
they are a child or they are insane). This does not mean that behavior is random, but we are
free from the causal influences of past events. According to freewill a person is responsible
for their own actions.

Freewill
One of the main assumptions of the humanistic approach is that humans have free will; not
all behavior is determined. Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free
will. Personal agency refers to the choices we make in life, the paths we go down and their
consequences.
For humanistic psychologists such as Maslow (1943) and Rogers (1951) freedom is not only
possible but also necessary if we are to become fully functional human beings. Both see
self-actualisation as a unique human need and form of motivation setting us apart from all
other species. There is thus a line to be drawn between the natural and the social sciences.
To take a simple example, when two chemicals react there is no sense in imagining that
they could behave in any other way than the way they do. However when two people come
together they could agree, fall out, come to a compromise, start a fight and so on. The
permutations are endless and in order to understand their behavior we would need to
understand what each party to the relationship chooses to do.
Cognitive psychologists are also inclined to attribute importance to free will, and adopt a soft
determinism view. However whereas humanists are especially interested in our choice of
ends (how each of us sees the road to self actualization) cognitive psychologists are more
inclined to focus on the choice of means. In other words for them it is the rational processing
of information which goes into the making of a decision which is their main interest.
Conscious reflection on our own behavior is seen as the best way of achieving goals and
learning from mistakes. Calculation, strategy, organization etc are interpreted as key
elements not only in governing the choices that we make but also in helping us make the
right choices in particular situations.
Mental illnesses appear to undermine the concept of freewill. For example, individuals with
OCD lose control of their thoughts and actions and people with depression lose control over
their emotions.

Ranged against the deterministic psychologies of those who believe that what is is inevitable
are therefore those who believe that human beings have the ability to control their own destinies.
However there is also an intermediate position that goes back to the psychoanalytic psychology
of Sigmund Freud.
At first sight Freud seems to be a supporter of determinism in that he argued that our
actions and our thoughts are controlled by the unconscious. However the very goal of
therapy was to help the patient overcome that force. Indeed without the belief that people
can change therapy itself makes no sense.
This insight has been taken up by several neo-Freudians. One of the most influential has
been Erich Fromm (1941). In Fear of Freedom he argues that all of us have the potential to
control our own lives but that many of us are too afraid to do so.
As a result we give up our freedom and allow our lives to be governed by circumstance,
other people, political ideology or irrational feelings. However determinism is not inevitable
and in the very choice we all have to do good or evil Fromm sees the essence of human
freedom.
---The alternatives to determinism are non-deteminsm, freedom or free will. Here we
shall focus on the notion of free will, the doctrine that we as conscious human
beings are free to make genuinely undetermined choices in circumstances where we
are genuinely able to do so, and where we so freely, or (relavently) unconstrainedly,
choose to do so.

Like determinism, free will comes in a variety of types and strengths. Here we shall
consider the general scientific view of free will and two common types of
philosophical approach to this notion.

3a Free Will: The Scientific View

There is a general scientific picture of the world that lends itself to predictability and
certainty of outcomes and hence more to determinism than any notions of freedom
or free will. Indeed in many minds, science is still associated with the deterministic
picture of the world, as it was in the nineteenth century. Modern science, however,
draws a picture that is quite different.

The world according to nineteenth century science was, broadly, as follows. Very
small particles of matter move about in virtually empty three-dimensional space.
These particles act on one another with forces that are uniquely determined by their
positioning and velocities. The forces of interaction, in their turn, uniquely

determine, in accordance with Newton's laws, the subsequent movement of

particles. Thus each subsequent state of the world is determined, in a unique way,
by its preceding state. Determinism was an intrinsic feature of the scientific
WORLDVIEW of that time. In such a world there was no room for freedom: it was
illusory. Human beings, themselves merely aggregates of particles, had as much
freedom as wound-up watch mechanisms.

In the twentieth century the scientific worldview underwent a radical change. It has
turned out that subatomic physics cannot be understood within the framework of
the Naive Realism of the preceding scientists. The Theory of Relativity and,
especially, Quantum Mechanics require that our worldview be based on a critical
(scientific) philosophy, according to which all our theories and mental pictures of the
world are only devices to organise and foresee our experience, and not the images
of the world as it "really" is. Thus along with the twentieth-century's specific
discoveries in the physics of the micro-world, we should consider the emergence of
a properly critical philosophy as a scientific discovery, and as one of the greatest
scientific discoveries of the twentieth century.

We now know the notion that the world is "really" space in which small particles
move along definite trajectories, is illusory: it is contradicted by experimental facts.
We also know that determinism, i.e. the notion that in the last analysis all the
events in the world must have specific causes, is illusory too. On the contrary,
freedom, which was banned from the science of the nineteenth century as an
illusion, became a part, if not the essence, of reality. The mechanistic worldview saw
the laws of nature as something that uniquely prescribes how events should
develop, with indeterminacy resulting only from our lack of knowledge;
contemporary science regards the laws of nature as only restrictions imposed on a
basically non-deterministic world. It is not an accident that the most general laws of
nature are conservation laws, which do not prescribe how things must be, but only
put certain restrictions or constraints upon them.

There is genuine freedom in the world. When we observe it from the outside, it
takes the form of quantum-mechanical unpredictability; when we observe it from
within, we call it our free will. We know that the reason why our behaviour is
unpredictable from the outside is that we have ultimate freedom of choice. This
freedom is the very essence of our personalities, the treasure of our lives. It is given
us as the first element of the world we come into.

Logically, the concept of free will is primary, impossible to derive or to explain from
anything else. The concept of necessity, including the concept of a natural law, is a
derivative: we call necessary, or predetermined, those things which cannot be
changed at will, or by will.

3b Free Will: The Philosophical View

Most people, if asked, would like genuine freedom of choice, proper free will, but
can we really have it? Philosophy offers a more complex analysis of this issue than
the general scientific view outlined above. Within the philosophical tradition, and
given the general set of philosophical principles belonging to this tradition, there are
two main strands of argument for free will, i) ethical and, ii) psychological. It is the
set of psychological considerations that concern us more directly here, though, of
course the ethical concerns are always present in the background to any debate.

As the main features of the doctrine of free will have been sketched in the history of
the problem, a very brief account of the argument for moral freedom will now
suffice. Will, where viewed as a free power, is defined by defenders of free will as
the capacity of self-determination. By self is here understood not a single present
mental state (William James), nor a series of mental states (David Hume and JS Mill),
but an abiding rational being which is the subject and cause of these states. We
should distinguish between:

Spontaneous acts, those proceeding from an internal principle (e.g. the growth of
plants and impulsive movements of animals);
Voluntary acts in a wide sense, those proceeding from an internal principle with
apprehension of an end (e.g. all conscious desires); and, finally
Those voluntary in the strict sense, that is, deliberate or free acts.
What distinguishes a voluntary act from a non-voluntary one is that there is a selfconscious advertence (to turn ones attention to) to our own causality or an
awareness that we are choosing the act, or acquiescing in the desire of it.

Spontaneous acts and desires are opposed to coaction or external compulsion, but
they are not thereby morally free acts. They may still be the necessary outcome of
the nature of the agent as, e.g. the actions of lower animals, of the insane, of young
children, and many impulsive acts of mature life. The essential feature of free
volition is the element of choice - the vis electiva, as St. Thomas Aquinas calls it, or
because we want to as Billie Piper puts it. There is a concomitant interrogative
awareness in the form of the query "Shall I acquiesce or shall I resist?", "Shall I do it
or shall I do something else?", and the consequent acceptance or refusal,
ratification or rejection, though either may be of varying degrees of completeness. It
is this act of consent or approval, which converts a mere involuntary impulse or
desire into a free volition and makes me accountable for it.

A train of thought or volition deliberately initiated or acquiesced in, but afterward

continued merely spontaneously, without reflective advertence to our elective
adoption of it, remains free in causa (for there was a choice, a free choice, about
bringing it about). I am therefore responsible for it, though actually the process has
passed into the department of merely spontaneous or automatic activity. A large
part of the operation of carrying out a resolution, once the decision is made, is
commonly of this kind.

The question of free will may now be stated thus. "Given all the conditions requisite
for eliciting an act of will except the act itself, does the act necessarily follow?" Or,
"Are all my volitions the inevitable outcome of my character and the motives acting
on me at the time?" Fatalists, necessarians, and determinists answer "Yes" to this
question. Libertarians, indeterminists and anti-determinists reply "No" to it. The
mind or soul in deliberate actions is a free cause. Given all of the conditions
requisite for action, we (in virtue or our mind or soul) can either act or abstain from
action. It can, and sometimes does, exercise its own causality against the weight of
character and present motives.

Ethics and Psychology in Free Will

The evidence for the existence of genuine free will usually consists of one of two
kinds, the ethical and the psychological, though the psychological arguments often
appeal to ethical considerations, and even the ethical arguments themselves are, in
some sense, psychological.

i) Ethical Arguments for Free Will

Necessarianism, fatalism or determinism in any form are usually held to be in

conflict with the chief moral notions and convictions of mankind at large. The actual
universality of such moral ideas is indisputable. Duty, moral obligation,
responsibility, merit, and justice signify notions universally present in the
consciousness of normally developed human beings. Further, these notions, as
universally understood, imply that human beings really are the master of some of
their acts, that they are, at least at times, capable of self-determination, that all
their volitions are not the inevitable outcome of their circumstances. This implies
that when I say that I ought not to have performed some forbidden act, that it was
my duty to obey the law, I imply that I could have done so. The judgement of all
human beings is the same on this point. When we say that a person is held justly
responsible for a crime, or that they deserve praise or reward for an heroic act of

self-sacrifice, we mean th at they were the author and cause of that act in such
fashion that they had it in their power not to perform the act.

We exempt the insane or the child, because we believe them devoid of moral
freedom and determined inevitably by the motives that happened to act on them.
This belief is so strong, or ingrained, or just plain true that determinists have to
admit that the meaning of these terms will, according to their view, have to be
changed. But this is to admit that their theory is in direct conflict with universal
psychological facts. It thereby stands disproved. Again, it may be argued that, if
logically followed out, the determinist doctrine would annihilate, or leave no room
for, human morality, and consequently that such a theory cannot be true. (Such a
view would then correspond to fatalism).

ii) Psychological Arguments for Free Will

Consciousness testifies to our moral freedom. We feel ourselves to be free when

exercising certain acts. We judge afterwards that we acted freely in those acts. We
distinguish them quite clearly from experiences in which we believe we were not
free or responsible. The conviction is not confined to the ignorant; even the
determinist psychologist is governed in practical life by this belief. Henry Sidgwick
states the fact in the most moderate terms, when he says:

"Certainly in the case of actions in which I have a distinct consciousness of choosing

between alternatives of conduct, one of which I conceive as right or reasonable, I
find it impossible not to think that I can now choose to do what I so conceive,
however strong may be my inclination to act unreasonably, and however uniformly I
may have yielded to such inclinations in the past "

- H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics

The weight of such evidence is best judged by carefully studying the various mental
activities in which freedom is exercised. Amongst the chief of these are: voluntary
attention, deliberation, choice, and sustained resistance to temptation. These
mental activities have been analysed at length by philosophers such as David
Hume, JS Mill, William James, and of course Sidgwick himself. (You may,
nonetheless, prefer to think them out with concrete examples of your own inner
experience and feel or intuit the force or power of the notions raised for
examination.)

The main objection to the range of psychological arguments for free will is stated in
the assertion that we can be conscious only of what we actually do, not of our
ability to do something else. The reply is that we can be conscious not only of what
we do, but of how we do it; not only of the act but of the mode of the act.
Observation reveals to us that we are subjects of different kinds of processes of
thought and volition. Sometimes the line of conscious activity follows the direction
of spontaneous impulse, the preponderating force of present motive and desire; at
other times we intervene and exert personal causality (in other words, we do
something about it).

Consciousness testifies (through our being conscious of some relevant such and
such) that we freely and actively strengthen one set of motives, resist the stronger
inclination, and not only drift to one side but actively choose it. In fact, we are sure
that we sometimes exert free volition, because at other times we are the subject of
conscious activities that are not free, and we know the difference. Again, it is urged
that experience shows that human beings are determined by motives, and that we
always act on this assumption. The reply is that experience proves, or at least
shows, that human beings are influenced by motives, but not that they are always
inexorably determined by the strongest motive. It is alleged that we always decide
in favour of the strongest motive. This is either untrue, or the barren statement that
we always choose what we choose. A free volition is "a causeless volition". Our self,
or our mind itself, is the cause. (Other objections include philosophical ones from
the point of view of fatalism and scientific ones from such general principles as the
Law of the Conservation of Energy.)

---For you will certainly carry out God's purpose, however you act, but it makes a difference to you
whether you serve like Judas or like John.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in
making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had
planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who
had since made a great mess of it.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact.
It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.
We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the
known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed
freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of
ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak
and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving
words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine with

the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.
Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures
We must believe in free will we have no choice.
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER, City Journal, Summer 1997
Most of us fail to appreciate the extent to which our behavior is under situational control, because we
prefer to believe that is all is internally generated. We wander around cloaked in an illusion of
vulnerability, mis-armed with an arrogance of free will and rationality.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO, "Ten Questions with Dr. Philip Zimbardo", Apr. 26, 2007

God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And
he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God
did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.
Marianne Williamson

---Answer: If free will means that God gives humans the opportunity to make choices that genuinely
affect their destiny, then yes, human beings do have a free will. The worlds current sinful state is
directly linked to choices made by Adam and Eve. God created mankind in His own image, and that
included the ability to choose.
However, free will does not mean that mankind can do anything he pleases. Our choices are limited
to what is in keeping with our nature. For example, a man may choose to walk across a bridge or not
to walk across it; what he may not choose is to fly over the bridgehis nature prevents him from
flying. In a similar way, a man cannot choose to make himself righteoushis (sin) nature prevents
him from canceling his guilt (Romans 3:23). So, free will is limited by nature.
This limitation does not mitigate our accountability. The Bible is clear that we not only have
the ability to choose, we also have the responsibility to choose wisely. In the Old Testament, God
chose a nation (Israel), but individuals within that nation still bore an obligation to choose obedience
to God. And individuals outside of Israel were able to choose to believe and follow God as well (e.g.,
Ruth and Rahab).
In the New Testament, sinners are commanded over and over to repent and believe (Matthew
3:2; 4:17; Acts 3:19; 1 John 3:23). Every call to repent is a call to choose. The command to believe
assumes that the hearer can choose to obey the command.
Jesus identified the problem of some unbelievers when He told them, You refuse to come to me to
have life (John 5:40). Clearly, they could have come if they wanted to; their problem was they chose
not to. A man reaps what he sows (Galatians 6:7), and those who are outside of salvation are

without excuse (Romans 1:20-21).

But how can man, limited by a sin nature, ever choose what is good? It is only through the grace and
power of God that free will truly becomes free in the sense of being able to choose salvation (John
15:16). It is the Holy Spirit who works in and through a persons will to regenerate that person (John
1:12-13) and give him/her a new nature created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness
(Ephesians 4:24). Salvation is Gods work. At the same time, our motives, desires, and actions are
voluntary, and we are rightly held responsible for them.

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