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Recommended: What freedom means to me
The Gospel According to Matt Damon
Spoiler Alert: “We are the people that make sure things happen according to plan.” Is it outside the realm of likelihood to assume that free will is not ‘free’ at all? The Adjustment Bureau, a 2011 film starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, strikes this inquiry head-on to produce an exceedingly metaphorical understanding of Open Theistic theories. In addition, the film manages to portray a fresh take on divine intervention’s role in God’s blueprint for humanity. The picture’s director, George Nolfi, modernizes the story by putting it in terms of an ill-starred romance of an up-and-coming politician and contemporary ballet dancer who, upon meeting, alter each other’s priorities immensely. In line with the modernized plot, Case Workers at the Adjustment Bureau, those who make sure that all goes according to plan, are a loose representation of Angels. The one put in control of humankind’s complete destiny is called the “Chairman”, although we come to recognize him/her to be a God-like figure. The apex of the plot zeroes in on the idea that a deity, or Chairman, has some predetermined strategy for all of mankind, as we are incompetent of making mature judgments for ourselves. The film offers a variation of leitmotifs from that of freedom versus chance, to love conquering all, and even the outlandish assertion that God is simply a ruthless playmaker in the game of life, though that is to be interpreted with a grain of salt. A generalized Christian understanding of freedom and love in the framework of God both support and condemn the claims portrayed in The Adjustment Bureau. Provided is a link of the trailer to help supplement the sparse explanation given: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZJ0TP4nTaE.
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...ught by God to enable you to think it, but you are unrestricted in how you chose to access the tools provided to you by God.
Is free will actually as free as we like to believe? Does God, or life’s Chairman, poke around in our heads and make us think what he wants? The Adjustment Bureau is a romantic comedy of Western metaphysics that dives remarkably deep into the heart of contemporary Christian debates. A film intended to raise queries, yet still afford the ‘happily ever after’ we all so desperately yearn for. The Adjustment Bureau agents (angels), with the magic hats (halos), who travel through multidimensional doors (the gates of heaven), and answer to the all-righteous Chairman (God), managed to provide a piece of rhetoric beyond one’s wildest imagination: “I think that’s the Chairman’s real plan. That maybe one day, we won’t write the plan. You will.”
Granted that according to Will, the Southern Presbyterians believe that “what is to be is to be,” this belief on predestination becomes evident when Cretia and Looly, a covey of Presbyterian ladies, visit Will after his survival in the train- trestle incident and begin to express their predestination, saying that God spared Will because it was not his time to die, and it was God’s will that this boy should be alive. This expression makes Will puzzle with a question: is he alive because of God’s will? When he puts forth this question to his Grandpa, Rucker Blakeslee, Rucker replies Will that God gave him a brain that he could use wisely; therefore, he lied down betwixt the tracks to save himself. Eager to know more about predestination and God’s will, Will further asks his Grandpa whether it was God’s will that Bluford Jackson should die of Tetanus. On hearing Will’s question, Rucker explains that Bluford’s carelessness while bursting crackers was not God’s fault in anywa...
Free will, the ability of organisms to make choices without being influenced by divine intervention, is one of history’s most debated philosophical topics. Kurt Vonnegut discusses this matter in his two novels Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. In the first novel, he writes about a religion based on the idea that God puts us in groups to carry out His will. The second novel talks about a group of aliens from the planet Tralfamadore who say that out of the thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, “Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” In both novels, the protagonists Jonah and Billy accept their unavoidable fate, and so they don’t worry about life or death. Through his two novels, Vonnegut portrays the futility of believing in free will in a universe controlled by fate.
In Roderick Chisholm’s essay Human Freedom and the Self he makes the reader aware of an interesting paradox which is not normally associated with the theory of free will. Chisholm outlines the metaphysical problem of human freedom as the fact that we claim human beings to be the responsible agents in their lives yet this directly opposes both the deterministic (that every action was caused by a previous action) and the indeterministic (that every act is not caused by anything in particular) view of human action. To hold the theory that humans are the responsible agents in regards to their actions is to discredit hundreds of years of philosophical intuition and insight.
St. Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, and Anselm all address the concept of free will and God’s foreknowledge in their works “The City of God”, “The Consolation of Philosophy”, and “De Concordia”. While each work was written during a different time period, each of their approaches consists of a solution comprised of both unifying and unique points and arguments. While there is no clear contesting between one work and another, it is clear that free will is a complex and critical idea in Christian theology that has long since been debated. '
There is so much mystified confusion surrounding the will of God in today’s society. It is evident in the ways that people use the term that views about it differ widely; there is even contradiction in two things the same person might say. It is because of the recommendation of my pastor and others that I decided to read The Will of God, written by Leslie D. Weatherhead.
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
Philosophers have developed many different theories to explain the existence and behavior of “free will.” This classical debate has created two main family trees of theories, with multiple layers and overlapping. It all begins with Determinist and Indeterminist theories. Simply put, determinists believe that our choices are determined by circumstance, and that the freedom to make our own decisions does not exist. Indeterminists, for example Libertarians, believe that we are free to make our own choices; these choices are not determined by other factors, like prior events. In class, we began the discussion of free will, and the competing arguments of Determinists and Indeterminists, with the works of Roderick Chisholm, a libertarian who made
An Analysis of Matt Ridley’s The Origins of Virtue. Inwardly examining his own nature, man would prefer to see himself as a virtuously courageous being designed in the image of a divine supernatural force. Not to say that the true nature of man is a complete beast, he does possess, like many other creatures, admirable traits. As author Matt Ridley examines the nature of man in his work The Origins of Virtue, both the selfish and altruistic sides of man are explored.
In philosophy today, free will is defined as, “the power of human beings to choose certain actions, uninfluenced by pressure of any sort, when a number of other options are simultaneously possible.” Philosophers have debated the issue of whether humans truly possess free will since ancient times. Some argue that humans act freely, while others believe that, “Every event, including our choices and decisions, is determined by previous events and the laws of nature—that is, given the past and the laws of nature, every event could not have been otherwise,” which is an idea known as determinism (Barry, #14). This relationship between free will and determinism continues to puzzle philosophers into the twenty-first century. An example of a piece to the free will puzzle, are the schools of thought of Incompatibilism and Compatibilism. Incompatibilism is defined as,
For centuries philosophers have debated over the presence of free will. As a result of these often-heated arguments, many factions have evolved, the two most prominent being the schools of Libertarianism and of Determinism. Within these two schools of thought lies another debate, that of compatibilism, or whether or not the two believes can co-exist. In his essay, Has the Self “Free Will”?, C.A. Campbell, a staunch non-compatiblist and libertarian, attempts to explain the Libertarian argument.
The problem of free will and determinism is a mystery about what human beings are able to do. The best way to describe it is to think of the alternatives taken into consideration when someone is deciding what to do, as being parts of various “alternative features” (Van-Inwagen). Robert Kane argues for a new version of libertarianism with an indeterminist element. He believes that deeper freedom is not an illusion. Derk Pereboom takes an agnostic approach about causal determinism and sees himself as a hard incompatibilist. I will argue against Kane and for Pereboom, because I believe that Kane struggles to present an argument that is compatible with the latest scientific views of the world.
To conclude, both Pereboom and Kane come to two very distinct settlements on the debate in question. Both of these philosophers have different beliefs on how we should assess and approach the conceptual ideas of free will. Each position is constantly under scrutiny as philosophers and scientists alike, attempt to decipher and dismiss the multiple theories that have developed over the years. Furthermore, with so much emphasis placed on this particular debate, many people even begin to associate free will with the possibility of an existing higher power.
2. Reamer, Frederic G. “The Free Will-Determinism Debate and Social Work.” Social Service Review, vol. 57, no. 4, 1983, pp. 626–644. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30011687.
Proverbs 16:9: The mind of a man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.
Are our lives only a set out plan controlled by fate? Do our choices and our actions determine our futures? What is the defining factors that affect the course of our existence on Earth? These are all questions that have afflicted society for centuries. As actor William Shatner once said, “The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling.” Previously, this debate has been present mainly in the theological world between different religious denominations. However, recently this examination has moved to the secular universe. I am of the belief that we can live our lives with free will over our actions because of my ideas on humanity, my views on life, my understanding of reason, and my belief that there is a Creator.