I agree with Homer Smith that it's problematic to say that either God predetermined all things or that he
perfectly foreknows all things (so that all that can happen is what he already knows will happen) and that
people are still responsible for their actions. I think both views are troublesome: I'm a theological
"libertarian," and while I won't bore you with a dissertation on that, suffice it to say that I really think that
people are free and are involved in shaping the future.
God bestows a certain autonomy not only to human beings, as Christian theology has long
recognized, but also on the natural order as such to develop in ways that God chooses not to control
in detail. God allows a degree of open-endedness and flexibility in nature, and this becomes that
natural, structural basis for the flexibility of conscious organisms and ... possibly for the freedom ...
of persons.Arthur R. Peacocke, biochemist and priest (2000)I know you agree with me on that (excluding the God part) because that view shows up in your songs,
especially on The New America.
I want to learn about your view of free will, or the extent to which you don't believe in it. I'd guess that
we agree that temperament, personality, genetics and so on predispose us to act in certain ways; that
environment shapes how we think and behave; that emotions, inter ests and drives have to do with brain
and body wiring and chemistry.
Greg Graffin, "There Will Be a Way," The New America (2000)
I am writing to you now, and not doing something else, for reasons rooted in my psychology, which is to
say in the neurons in my brain. But I could have chosen not to write to you at this time. It's nearly 10 p.m.;
I want to get up at 5:15 a.m. to go to the gym. The longer I write, the less likely it is that I'll get up-I feel
some tension about my decision to write. But I am writing. Surely you'd agree that I am exercising my free
will at this moment?