Apologetics: Atheism Confuses Me – Is Free Will a Thing?

Continuing our discussion about free will, one of the strangest things about atheism is how much atheists brag about how much freedom they have. Without God, they have total free will and can run around doing absolutely anything they want! They have no one to hold them accountable, unless someone with more guns comes in and demands they act a certain way (i.e. the government), but you know…technicalities.

However, despite this seeming lack of responsibility to any higher power, atheists seem to forget one critical point – atheism can’t support the existence of free will.

Atheists, before you get angry at me and start commenting, hear me out on this.

According to atheism, since God doesn’t exist, everything exists by way of random chance. The universe, the earth, the plants, animals, and yourself are all the result of accidental chemical reactions that continue to this day. That means that you as a person are a conglomeration of a bunch of atoms bumping into each other, forming molecules and creating chemicals that react with each other, doing different things, including fueling your conciousness.

This is where the free will thing starts to come into play. Scientists still don’t understand human consciousness. The closest thing they can get to understanding it is by mapping your brain’s activity, seeing what parts of the brain release what, etc. What actually causes consciousness, though, is still a mystery. It’s kind of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario depending on who you ask and what you’re talking about. For example, if someone’s depressed, are they depressed because of a legit neurological or chemical issue that was already there, or is it caused by them thinking about things a certain way that’s causing their brains to act accordingly? Is it a mix of both? Scientists still aren’t quite sure.

I say this is where the free will thing comes in because according to atheism’s worldview, since everything is matter and is the result of matter running into each other and reacting, then that means everything you do is the result of those chemical reactions. Because of that, you can’t actually decide to do anything. You can’t control what the cells that make up your brain do any more than I can control the weather. And if you can’t control that, then ultimately, you can’t have free will, because free will requires some degree of control.

So, what does that mean? If we can’t have free will because everything we do is a chemical reaction, where does that leave us?

The moral dilemma posed by this aside, the existence of free will is something that can only exist if humans have a soul, if humans aren’t just made up of matter alone. Once we acknowledge that we have a soul, then we must wonder who created that soul? After all, a soul can’t be made of matter or anything measurable. It’s supernatural and points to the existence of the supernatural, which should then make you wonder which God or gods has created that soul.

Until next time,

M.J.