Logical analysis of "Free will and god(s)" argument

Question

Please evaluate the following argument strictly for formal logical validity. I am NOT interested in debating the content or in philosophical perspectives on the content. However, I AM interested in ways to tweak this argument to make it valid if it is not.

1. All effects, big or small, are either caused by spontaneity (assuming it even exists), by other effect(s), or a combination thereof.
2. There is no "real choice" in spontaneity, or in effects caused by other effects.
3. If cause and effect are not linear, "real choice" must be judged by the same physical laws. (see NOTE below)
4. "Real choice" is an impossibility. (conclusion)

 

1. "real choice" is an impossibility.
2. "gods" that require "real choice" are an impossibility. (conclusion)

"Free will" = "real choice" = "the idea that one has any, non-imagined, level of control over their actions or thoughts."

NOTE: "There would be no reason why you could not specify in your premises that if cause and effect are not linear then free-will must be judged by the same physical laws. With that you can then proceed to argue that God does not have free will at any one instance of time because he must either have been created by something else, created spontaneously without his will, or created by himself, but at another point in the cause-effect cycle which renders his current choices not free by our new definition of free will. A complex argument, but a sound one I think. – Isaacson"

Answer 1

I'm going to presume from the way you've worded your question that you would like to frame your argument in ordinary language rather than in any particular form of Logic. To that effect, 2 and 3 could be conflated more neatly by simply asserting that the only two factors from which effects can arise are randomness and determinate cause. This would not be an unreasonable assumption and rules out in one premise the possibility that a combination of the two may give rise to a third form of effect as you have specified that no other factors can be involved. Here you have a relatively neat argument for determinism or compatibilism.

The problem arises when you reach the second part of your argument.

Your conclusion at 3 only results from your premises 1 and 2 if God is subject to the rules that you have just specified in the first part. If he is not, then he can simply "create" free will in defiance of these rules. You would need to start the argument with an additional premise that any God is subject to the rules outlined above, and I'm not sure that would allow your argument to be much used against the majority of religions (assuming that's the point).

In effect, you then do not need the first part of your argument at all. You could simply say that any God who, by exercise of any of his powers, limits free will is not a beneficent God and so not worthy of worship (as your second argument already includes the concept of worthiness we have not lost any certainty). Most religions already have their version of a refutation of this argument. Virmaior has provided a excellent outline of these here for Christianity.

The trouble with using logic to argue against religion is that logic requires accurate premises in order to be useful which can only be obtained empirically from physical laws. Most religions consider their Gods to be above physical laws.

To paraphrase Wittgenstein, you cannot use rational argument to counter a view which was not arrived at rationally in the first place.

Answer 2

If 5. is a premise then 3. and 4. are unecessary, at least according to any way that I'd formalize the problem.

If 5 is meant to be an inference, then 5 does not follow from 3. and 4. without additional premises.

In words, 3 rules out choice for "pure randomness" cases, and 4. rules out choice for "pure caused by effects" cases. Without some additional information on the structure of what constitutes a choice we cannot rule out that there are effects that are caused by a mix of randomness plus prior causal effects that lie within the set of things that comprise choices.

More formally, Let R, E be the set of random causes and the set of effects respectively; together these constitute the domain of discourse. I'm going to formalize "choice" as a predicate on the subsets of the domain of discourse. Bullet 3. is "for any subset r of R, choice(r) is false". Bullet 4. is "for any subset e of E, choice(e) is false". This says nothing about choice(x) when the set x contains a combination of elements from both R and E.

Answer 3

"All effects, big or small, are either caused by randomness (assuming it even exists), by other effect(s), or a combination thereof." - If you observe carefully there is nothing called as randomness. Everything is being played by some laws gross or subtle (physical laws), Water droplets scattered apart when fall from a building. Air, surface tension, humidity etc a lot of physical factors determine the scattering or fusion of droplets so where is randomness?

There is no "real choice" in randomness, or in effects caused by other effects. Real choice is an impossibility. (conclusion) - Now we know there is nothing like randomness, so talk about effects caused by other effects. Yeah, every effect is followed by some parent effect which itself is a child effect of some parent effect therefore there must be a primordial effect. Therefore

1. There is no randomness
2. Every effect is a effect of some other effect. Therefore there must be a primordial effect.
3. Since, There is no randomness and there must be a primordial effect , therefore must be a free will to cause the primordial effect.
4. Free will is possibility,so God is.

Thanks.