Book review: Afraid to Believe in Free Will by Carl E. Begley

This book is a bit of an odd one, because I can’t quite nail it down. I suppose I was expecting a comparison between Calvinism and Arminianism, and this is definitely not that. It’s quite academic in flavour, looking at the philosophical and psychological history of belief in free will along with an analysis of societal contexts within which a stronger belief in free will would help.

First things first: I found this pretty interesting. I’m sure I’ll bring up stuff I’ve read here in conversations, and it definitely got me thinking. I’ve never put any time or effort into thinking through the ideas of whether or not we have free will, or whether or not belief in free will makes any difference, and this book has kick-started that thought process for me.

However, it’s fair to say that I don’t really get this book. It’s very academic in everything except the overall structure, which is frustrating – it took a while for me to understand where the author was going with this, and after having read it I’m not sure I get it even now, other than him saying that we ought to believe in free will. To say it’s branded as a Christian book that Christian input is fairly quiet throughout, and even when it comes in it’s analysed in the same way as any other philosophical source. The Bible’s quoted to back up Begley’s arguments and not to initiate thought, so I certainly didn’t feel like I’d learnt ‘the Christian view’ of free will here.

What particularly frustrated me was the way that the book looked at a couple of examples to demonstrate how belief in free will affects society, but the focus then shifted too far (in my eyes) onto the author’s own view of those particular situations; apparently offering financial support to the unemployed makes them lazy and reliant on good, hard-working citizens; of course communism is an idea from the devil himself; and scientific evidence shows that child abuse isn’t as harmful as society tells us it is. Yes, that last one is perhaps slightly skewing what the author says, but the particular chapter it’s in is long story about the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association and the confusion between the two – I still have no idea what the difference is, and I still have no idea how that relates to a belief in free will.

So in conclusion this has started some good thought processes, but I don’t think it’s done the best job at it – it’s got an academic tone without an academic objective, it gets too bogged down with the examples without explaining fully what we should conclude, and it doesn’t reinforce a Christian focus enough.

I got this ebook for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

Pesky time

The Interview (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s something frustrating about time, particularly the fact that it just doesn’t stop. It moves in one direction only at a consistent speed, with no regard for who it might be affecting. I have deadlines I have to make, and extra time would be very useful. I’ve made mistakes and had first-time experiences which I’d like to go back and undo, avoid, or re-experience that first time rush.

Time is something that’s out of my control. It directly affects me, I have no option other than to live in it, but I have no say in it.

Take a job interview, for example. You sit through this gruelling, intense experience which is going to determine whether or not you’re offered a new, enticing position, but you stumble over your words, can’t remember things and only realise once you get out that your collar was halfway up the entire time. Would you not spend the next couple of days doing not much more than reliving it, except this time in your head you get offered the job on the spot every time?

Nothing worse than 20-20 hindsight.

Except perhaps the completely unknown future; sitting through that interview without knowing what the result will be would be pretty bad too.

And then of course there’s the unknown present! I don’t know what’s happening outside of my sensory field, let alone in another city, country or planet! And my senses are pretty awful now I come to think about it, I need glasses to see anything more than vague colours and even then I miss an enormous amount of the information available to me.

It turns out I know barely anything about anything. My knowledge covers an insignificant amount of the tiniest fraction of available knowledge.

Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isaiah 55:6-9)

 

Related articles

• Come to me, call upon me, says the LORD. (monicamiller.wordpress.com)
• ‘Who Has the Answers?” (jpfinn7.wordpress.com)

Why I blog (and maybe you should too)

The Thinking Man sculpture at Musée Rodin in Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I started thinking a while ago about blogging – whether I should continue with it or not – because blogging has a significant number of downsides:

• The time it takes to write posts takes time away from other things which are arguably more important.
• It impacts on my thought life; something happens, and I immediately start thinking about how it would fit into my blog.
• I don’t feel like I get loads of visits so it’s not as if I’m changing the world by blogging – I could probably save the internet a good few megabytes by cancelling the whole thing!
• The responses I see are generally negative; far more people leave critical or angry comments than grateful comments. That doesn’t make me feel too good.

But, of course, it’s not all bad:

• Blogging makes me better at communicating – looking back at the first year or two of blog posts makes me cringe at my own naivety, aggression, and uninformed opinions. I’m sure I still have a long way to go, but I’m heading in the right direction.
• It impacts on my thought life; a few years ago, life just happened. Now I’m far more analytical, I think things through more logically and clearly, enabling me to appreciate God’s grace in creation, other people, and myself.
• I’m handed a heavy dose of humility whenever I see the stats or the eloquence of those who disagree with me.
• I’ve learnt a lot about how to deal with people who disagree with me.
• Having to face challenges head-on, and thinking through tough things, has only ever strengthened my faith in God. It’s good to have had that experience.

For the moment, I think I’m going to keep on blogging. Not many other people seem to read my blog, so doing it for the benefit of mankind would be a bit silly, but I’m going to maintain these objectives:

• Get better at communicating.
• Think about lots of stuff so that when people ask, I have an informed opinion.
• Create posts about Jesus so that random internet browsers are more likely to read something about him.
• Hope that some book publisher out there asks me to write a book that becomes an international bestseller, meaning I can think and write about Jesus full-time.

Oh well, I suppose three out of four wouldn’t be too bad.

Search terms

Image via Wikipedia

I’d always been told that one of the best features of a blog hosted at WordPress is the stats that are available. I’d never really dug into them, but they’re actually pretty cool.

This interested me, but here are the top ten search terms that have led people to this blog (not including searches for my name – misspellings of that are pretty much every other entry)…I wonder how many people found what they were searching for?

1. Takkiya
2. Oxo laughing stock
3. Angela Kemm
4. Todd Bentley divorce
5. Richard Dawkins
6. Mark Stibbe Todd Bentley
7. Humorous thoughts
8. How to dress like a tory
9. Aaron Rodgers captains photos
10. manupmen

How to Stay Christian in College by J. Budziszewski

This book is a manual written for current and future university students, designed to give them good preparation for coping with the spiritual battleground that is the uni campus.

I was excited about this book. It seemed to directly address a real problem, talking about real issues and not backing down. It was also really practical, so even though the opening chapters were talking about theology, the application was wonderfully clear.

But that said, I think the book let itself down when it tried to become too practical. In particular some imaginary conversations were recorded to show how certain logic can overcome incorrect worldviews, but it just didn’t seem realistic enough for me.

The two chapters on sex and politics stood out as particularly unhelpful. While I fully agreed with almost everything the author said, the analogies were flawed and talked about things which don’t seem that much of a concern any more. Maybe it’s because I’m from the UK but politics didn’t massively interest anyone I knew when I was at uni!

Overall I think this book’s heart is in the right place. It will certainly encourage Christian teenagers to enter university prepared to discuss their opinions in an informed manner. That said, I don’t think this would do much more than provide ammunition for a teenager who was ready to rebel at 18.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from NavPress Publishers as part of their Blogger Review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias (ed)

A collection of the finest and most respected apologists on the planet combined their skill and knowledge to bring this work to my bookshelf. By looking at a vast range of situations and audiences the book aims to inspire the reader to take apologetics beyond opinion to changed lives based on truth.

The key message for this book is that it’s not an apologetics book itself. I expected it to be full of convincing arguments to build my faith, but that’s not its purpose so if that’s what you’re looking for you’ll be disappointed, despite the list of authors!

In my opinion the last chapter is the best, in which Zacharias pushes home the importance of a radically changed life, the church community, and the development of apologetics into more than a debate. If I’d read this chapter first, the rest of the book would have made much more sense.

On the whole the book’s very strong. The authors are knowledgeable and give a good background about all of the topics covered. But there’s a problem in the wide range of topics – covering all Eastern and New Age religions in one short chapter doesn’t really do them justice and just leaves you asking more questions than you started with.

If you’re into apologetics I’d encourage you to read this book because it will get your priorities right, but don’t expect to receive a bunch of new arguments because it doesn’t do that.

I got this book for free from BookSneeze. I’m not required to give a positive review.