Uneasy Tension of Postmodern Mysticism

This clip comes from the 2001 movie Waking Life which delves into deep philosophical waters about life's big questions. It is a series of interviews with professors, writers, thinkers, then juxtaposed with a dramatic scene that ties into what each interview discusses. Before getting into the meat of this, I want to define a few terms first:

Freedom - A person's decision is the first and sufficient cause for an effect. My decision to lift my arm is caused by my decision to raise it. There may be other events that are a part of that decision, but the decision itself is uncaused, making it free. This is required for morality because morality presupposes freedom. You make a moral decision only if you could have freely chosen to do otherwise.

Determinism - A person's decision is not the first or sufficient cause for an effect. My decision to lift my arm is caused by God or by a chain of natural events, starting in my nervous system and ending with a reaction in my arm lifting. Determinism reduces morality to a mirage. We think we can freely choose otherwise, but if our decisions are determined by other things, we can't choose otherwise, and all morality is illusory.

Compatibilism - The idea that freedom is complimentary with determinism. We are determined, but it isn't contrary to a real choice. This is more of a 'middle ground' effort, but in essence, either we are free or determined.

Are we determined or free? When I lift my arm, is it ultimately because I chose to do it, or because a series of events in my environment and within my nervous system, led to it? If I admit I am free, then what does that do to a scientific view of reality? If I deny freedom, how does that look, lived out consistently?

As David Sosa explains, it's a pretty big deal. On the one hand, freedom is grounded into morality and even our very self. It constitutes a basic, fundamental aspect of who we are and what makes life what it is. But, David also admits something very telling. Prior to the 'age of reason' great thinkers wrestled with the problem of freedom in terms of God. But today, its the same problem, but in terms of science, rather than God. Science explains how our eyes, ears, brains and nervous system work. But it cannot provide an explanation for trust in mental activity or even our ability to freely choose anything. Replace God with science, and the problem doesn't just remain, but becomes even more acute.

David believes we should accept the scientific conclusion of determinism but hang on to freedom. He holds to the existential shibboleth that we are a sum total of all our choices. But, as he correctly concludes, if that is so, then are our choices, really choices? Are we determined by laws of physics or the indeterminacy of quantum theory? He prefers to be a gear in a deterministic world than a chaotic quantum happening. He gives no reasons why, other than the idea of abandoning freedom leads to horrific and absurd conclusions. In other words, David is a mystic. We do not reject freedom, morality and the concept of individual persons, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Over 250 years of enlightenment and progress of thought and we end up with mysticism.

This isn't just a problem with secular thought. There is also a form of Christian freedom and determinism, with compatibilism as a middle ground alternative. So, this question of freedom and determinism isn't just a problem with religious people or scientific naturalism. Either God or nature swallows up free agency, moral motions, self identity, or we need to see if God or nature are nessecarily contrary to free will.

What's the Real Problem The reason David can't reject freedom is because...you simply can't reject it. It's such an intrinsically important part of existence, to deny it would be to pull the rug out from underneath even rationality. But science, so far, seems to have done nothing but made the concept of freedom more and more like folk lore. We are forced, under scientific naturalism, to either abandon freedom in the name of science, abandon science to hang on to freedom, or else hold both in tension, without any basis for freedom or even know if it exists. All we can say is that we can't deny it, experientially.

Freedom is real. It is a first and sufficient cause for things. But it is not a part of scientific knowledge, nor can it be. I realize there are hopeful people out there waiting on psychoneural studies to explain it all. But as we wait and ferret through the nutty hypotheses offered, the underlying reality, whether we admit it or not, is that freedom is not within the realm of scientific study. In fact, freedom belongs to a series of knowledge claims that are non-scientific and because of that, are unjustified, unproven and unexplained in a society that holds science as the primary or final arbiter of all knowledge. But such knowledge exists, is justified, even though it can't through scientific inquiry.

But even if we get past that issue, we are far from out of the woods. Whether we are Christians within the Reformed or Armenian camps or non-believers in the deterministic or libertarian free agency camps, we cannot resolve the issue between determinism and freedom. You can't criticize Christian thought for not resolving God's will with human responsibility anymore than you can criticize non-religious disciplines for failure of resolving freedom with determinism. We are all, whether Christian or atheist, locked into a reality that has no final answers about this topic, starting from ourselves (using logic, science) or relying solely on Scripture (Scripture affirms both freedom and God's ultimate sovereignty, without resolving them).

So, the real problem is the craving the human mind has for resolution to things, to the point that we refuse....absolutely refuse....to accept the tension and continue with the theories, explanations, etc. What if the answer to this problem is....we don't know and can't know? It almost offends the senses of either humanist or Reformed or Armenian Christian. We must simply get resolution or implode. There is no resolution. And life will continue sufficiently without one. The real problem is that we crave answers that are beyond our grasp.

The Solution Isn't Mysticism Unlike David, I believe in Scripture and am not a mystic. Now, when I say 'mystic', I mean someone who holds to unjustified beliefs. There is a huge difference between someone who believes things they have no right to believe from someone who believes something that can't be completely resolved, with what we know and have to work with. For example, here's the two positions summarized in two different statements:

1) Free will and determinism, although seemingly contradictory, may be resolved with answers that are beyond our grasp.

2) Free will is falsified by determinsism, but I will continue to live as if that wasn't true, despite evidence to the contrary.

My belief in freedom is anchored in the fact I am created with image-bearing qualities that reflect my Creator. I think and choose on a limited human level, reflecting a Mind that ultimately chose to create me and had thought of me long before the universe even came about. God is unembodied personal power (Spirit). I am embodied personal power (spirit). Science will never be able to analyze, prove, reduce or eliminate this spiritual aspect, because it is beyond science, and is grounded in non-scientific knowledge, justified, warranted knowledge, but beyond science.

David, on the other hand, rejects this. So, what does he ground freedom in? Nothing. It's a brute acceptance. Not only that, its a brute acceptance in the face of scientific evidence that, in the absence of Scriptural answers, seems to not really exist at all. He believes contrary to reasons or evidence that suggests otherwise. David is a mystic. In fact, anyone who is not a pure determinist, yet holds to the acceptance of freedom and self, are mystics too. Outside of Scripture, your choices are to be deterministic, leading to a wholesale rejection of morality, personal identity and rationality and holding on to any vestige of those things only under some mystical 'leap of faith'... for practical reasons only, and as a betrayal to scientific knowledge. If we want to live out determinism out to its logical conclusions, we become very scary people. I think after B.F. Skinner, even the secularist folks abandoned behaviorism and re-introduced the mental realm back into curriculum (someone needs to inform Obama and the czars of this....since they are about 30 years behind them in this area). But if we avoid determinism, our only choice is mysticism.

So, we start with Descartes, go through the Age of Enlightenment, scientific revolution, technological advancement, ending up with more mysticism than we started with before rejecting the authority of Scripture in the first place. We were permitted to move forward in a different direction, only to end up in the same place, but with the tires stuck in the mud. It turns out, by rejecting Scripture and beginning with our own raw materials and environment around us, we cannot arrive at any final anwers.

To rehash Francis Schaeffer, we are locked into a reality that, outside of Scripture, simply has no answers. Any suggested are non-answers and are mystical leaps. Why else would there be such a renewed interest in the occult, spirituality, etc.? We know this to be true. You know this to be true too. I would be curious to see what reasons you'd have, if that's not the case.