Dr. Forbush Thinks

As a physicist I look at nature through the eyes of a scientist. Looking at the galaxies, stars, planets and moons they all have one thing in common. They all behave in one predictable way mainly based on the physics that we understand. They all follow the laws of physics and the motions of these objects can be predicted millions of years into the future, or at least thousands. The Universe is simplified when we think of the motion of the planets, the burning of stars, and even the birth of black holes. Some details are still sought, but these details will most certainly fit into the big picture of the Universe. The point is that we know the basic forces on a mass in the universe then we can predict where it will be in the future and how it will be moving.

Similarly, on the microscopic and subatomic scales we can also predict what will happen to molecules, atoms and particles as they travel through space. And, we can look at biological organisms and at least on a statistical level we can predict what plants and animals will do under certain conditions. We can predict an enormous number of ways in which organisms will react to external stimuli.

Being animals ourselves we also react to certain external stimuli in very predictable ways. For example, if you put food in a room full of hungry teenagers we can certainly predict that the teenagers will eat it. As humans, we know that we have free will. We know that we can choose to do or not do what we want when we want to do it. We know that this “free will” exists, but we also know that we put ourselves on autopilot as well. We wake up in the morning when the alarm goes off, and we do pretty much the same thing each morning. This is our routine and we follow it. If something happens out of the ordinary we react to it, and most often we react to it in a predictable way. Often we react in selfish ways that we view as best for our personal self interest. We also react in predictable ways to protect our family and friends or help them when we see that they are in need. When someone hurts us, we react in predictable ways where we shun the person, verbally abuse the person, or even violently attack the person. These are natural reactions to real problems and these reactions themselves can lead to real problems.

If we didn’t have free will we would react in predictable ways to problems we perceived. Life could certainly exist and our life would play out in a very predictable although perhaps very complicated way. The only thing that we have that can break this predictable and perhaps tragic cascade of events is free will. And, Jesus told us how we could use our free will to break this endless cascade of disharmony. He told us that when someone strikes us we should turn the other cheek. Nature would have us retaliate in some way when we are struck by someone. But retaliation is not the only choice. And Jesus made this succinct often quoted verse a profound statement of Christianity.

Christianity does not begin and end with Jesus’ simple statement on conflict resolution. There are other choices that we all make based on our free will to do something other than the natural reaction. We may choose to help someone in need. We may choose to read the Bible. We may choose to fight for what is right. And we may choose to follow Jesus. All of these choices may be counter to our natural inclination and therefore require us to use our free will.

Let’s think about this for a second. How does this work?

First, consider how we live our lives. Most of the things we do are routines. We get up in the morning and do the same routine on school or work days. We finish one routine, and we start the next routine. We encounter problems and we solve the problems with routines that we call on them as they are needed. Some routines may involve learning new things, listening to others and making decisions. Most of the time we deal with particular types of situations in particular ways. With all of this routine in our lives, when do we actually exercise our free will? It comes down to very few actual times, mainly when we change between routines, or when we change the routines themselves.

For example, one routine might be, come home, make dinner, clean up the kitchen, do homework, watch TV, then go to bed. Each piece of this routine involves other routines - like making dinner requires following a recipe, or recalling an easy to make meal. There may be a list of meals that you generally choose from. Day after day you may follow this routine, or some other similar routine. One day instead of watching TV you may decide to read the paper. When you exercise this change in routine then you are exercising free will. Similarly, you may decide to pick another meal to eat that isn’t among the meals you generally choose. Sometimes exercising free will is a “good” thing, and sometimes exercising free will is a “bad” thing. Free will itself is neither good nor bad it is what you decide to do that makes free will good or bad or even neutral. Routines that we have chosen at an earlier time may be “good,” “bad” or “neutral.” So, we may decide to use our free will to make our lives better. We may also choose to use our free will to hurt others or do things that will in the end make our lives worse.

Even though most of the time we choose to run on autopilot and perform routines that we have determined that we enjoy we also need to realize that opportunities to use our free will occur all the time. I the middle of a routine shopping trip we may meet a friend, acquaintance or foe. We may pull out the old routine and behave the way we normally do, or we may choose to use our free will to change the course of events.

Last week I performed an experiment. I split a room of teenagers into two groups. The two groups became teams and competed against each other. The winning team was rewarded with a pizza. I was careful to provide enough pizza to feed everyone in the room one piece each. The winning team however was rewarded with the entire pizza. My son, daughter and wife all correctly predicted that the winning team would eat the pizza themselves and fail to even think of offering any or the remaining pieces to rest of the room. This is an automatic reaction. This is how people react to their environment and the situation that they are put in. There was nothing wrong with their personal choice from our cultural point of view. But, the team missed an opportunity to break from the natural progression of events and offer to share their winnings.

As Christians however Jesus asks us to choose to use our “free will.” We need to decide to break with nature. We have the free will, but we must choose to act, instead of react to the things in our world. The use of free will to change our routines could help us in many ways. We could loose weight, exercise and get physically healthy. We could put down the video game, read a book, and get mentally healthy. And, we could look around us to take the opportunity to share what we have, make our local world a little bit better and get spiritually healthy.


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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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Religion, Philosophy