Free Will: The Question Materialism Can't Answer

You think you just decided to read this. But did you?

If the universe is purely physical — atoms bumping into atoms, neurons firing because of prior chemistry, all of it determined by the laws of physics — then your "decision" wasn't really a decision. It was the next link in a causal chain that started with the Big Bang. You didn't choose. Physics chose, and your brain produced the feeling of choosing as a kind of after-the-fact narration.

This isn't a strawman. It's the actual position of leading materialist philosophers. Sam Harris has written an entire book arguing that free will is an illusion. Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky published a 500-page case against free will in 2023, arguing that humans are "biological machines" with no more genuine agency than a falling rock.

If they're right, the implications are seismic.

If the universe is purely physical, then:

1. You didn't choose to read this. Your eyes moved because of neurons firing, which fired because of prior brain states, which were produced by genes, hormones, blood sugar, and the photons hitting your retina.

2. You're not responsible for anything. Praising someone for kindness is like praising a thermostat for being warm. Punishing someone for cruelty is like punishing a falling rock for hitting the ground. There's no "ought" — only what was always going to happen.

3. Reasoning is impossible. If your conclusions are produced by physics rather than logic, then you don't believe things because they're true. You believe them because of brain chemistry. Including the belief that there is no free will. The argument cancels itself.

4. Justice is incoherent. Every legal system in human history has assumed that people can do otherwise. If they can't, criminal trials are theater and prisons are revenge dressed up as ethics.

5. Love is fake. When someone says "I love you," they're reporting a chemical state, not making a choice. The most meaningful word in human experience becomes a noise produced by hormones.

Most people, when confronted with these implications, conclude something has gone wrong with the premise.

Here's the wildest part. The argument against free will defeats itself in a way that few materialists are willing to address.

If your belief that "free will is an illusion" is itself produced by determined chemistry, then it's not a belief you reasoned your way into. It's a brain state caused by prior brain states. You believe it because your neurons made you believe it — not because the argument is sound.

But the materialist also wants you to believe their argument is sound. They want you to evaluate it and agree. That's exactly the kind of mental act materialism says is impossible. The position needs free will to be heard and rejects free will to be true.

This is what philosophers call a "self-refuting" position. C.S. Lewis put it: "If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents — the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's."

You can't escape free will using arguments that require free will to evaluate.

The Bible never argues for free will. It assumes it on every page.

"I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." — Deuteronomy 30:19

"Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." — Joshua 24:15

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny themselves..." — Mark 8:34

The entire moral framework of Scripture — commands, blessings, curses, judgment, repentance, faith — only makes sense if humans are genuine agents who can do otherwise. If the will is an illusion, then "Thou shalt not steal" is as meaningless as telling a planet not to orbit.

The Bible's position is that human beings are made in the image of a free Creator. We're not just complicated chemistry. We're agents who can deliberate, weigh options, and act. The freedom isn't absolute (we're constrained by biology, environment, and habit) but it's real.

Even committed materialists don't actually live as if free will is fake. They thank people. They blame people. They feel guilt. They make plans. They weigh moral options. Their entire daily experience contradicts their stated position.

Paul captures the inner experience of choice in Romans 7:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do... For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing." — Romans 7:15, 19

That description of internal moral struggle only makes sense if there's a "self" doing the wanting, evaluating the options, and sometimes failing to act on them. A purely deterministic system has no such struggle. A rock doesn't regret falling.

"Neuroscience experiments prove free will is an illusion." This refers to the famous Benjamin Libet experiments, which appear to show brain activity beginning before conscious awareness of a decision. But Libet himself believed in free will — he argued the brain proposes and the conscious self can veto. Later studies (notably Aaron Schurger's) have shown the "readiness potential" Libet measured is more like background neural noise than a hidden decision-maker. The neuroscience doesn't actually settle the question.

"Quantum randomness gives free will." Some argue that quantum indeterminacy at the neural level provides the wiggle room for free will. But randomness isn't freedom. A random brain isn't a free brain — it's a roulette wheel. Real freedom requires something more than physics, not just less predictable physics.

"Compatibilism solves the problem." Some philosophers (Daniel Dennett among them) argue that "freedom" just means "acting according to your desires without external coercion" — which is compatible with determinism. But this redefines freedom into something most people wouldn't call freedom. If your desires were also determined by physics, then "free to act on your desires" is like saying a falling rock is free to fall. It's freedom in name only.

The free will question is one materialism can't dissolve. Either you have real agency, or you don't. If you don't, the very arguments you're using to convince yourself of that position aren't arguments — they're brain states. The position can't be rationally held.

The Bible's answer is older and simpler: humans are made in the image of a free God. The freedom isn't unlimited, but it's real. You're not chemistry pretending to choose. You're an agent, deliberating, responsible, loved, and accountable.

You actually did just choose to read this. The fact that the question feels weird is itself evidence that the answer matters.