The Free Will Paradoxes: Part 2 - Why Are Miracles Rare?
Author’s Note: A breezy reading of this essay might give the impression that I think God uses or even *is* a calculator that decides deterministically when to intervene. I do not think this is the case. God is Sovereign and makes decisions per His independent will. But He also has constrained Himself in certain ways, in order to maximize our Free Will. What graphs I show below are not constraints on God in any way, whether of His choosing or not. They are qualitative (not quantitative) illustrations of how I think He weighs things…the aspects of reality that matter to Him that are merely part of the inputs that go into how He chooses to meet His goals. But I do think they are important inputs.
So do not think of this essay as a limit or control on God…it is intended instead as something that all of us should always desire…a peek into His heart.
Part 2: Why Don’t Miracles Happen All the Time?
Remember, last time we deduced that there are two aspects of Free Will. Free will consists of two things: choice and consequence. Without both, you effectively do not have free will, or at least much less than if you have both.
Total Free Will = Freedom of Choice + Consequences
Now what does this mean for our paradoxes? Well, with this definition of Total Free Will, one can begin to see that a hypothetical, constantly miraculous world truly does have less free will than the world of sparse miracles. Let us explore why.
One way to illustrate the free will in an area is graphically. Imagine a community of a thousand people, in fairly close interaction with each other. Let’s say they are fairly evenly spaced over a square mile. If one were to graph over this square mile the existing Total Free Will, as expressed by choices and consequences, it would look something like this:
In this graph, the horizontal directions are simply the square mile region the people live in. The plot in the z-axis, the vertical direction, shows the amount of free will at each point, representing the Total Free Will possessed by any person or group of people that inhabit some part of the square. Remember, the Total Free Will = each person’s ability to choose + their ability to have consequences of their choices. The colors exist to make it look pretty.
A very important thing to note is that this base level of free will is not necessarily dramatic, conscious free will being expressed. Rather, this Total Free Will is the sum of all the choices and consequences of these people as they go about their lives and interact with each other. It is sort of a background constant of free will that exists in our lives. 99% of our choices are small and not very deliberate. Only a small percentage of our choices are the dramatic, fully conscious ones, such as Nathan Hale defiantly stating, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” Surely in a case such as that, the graph above would show a spike of choice and consequence surrounding Nathan Hale, because of his strong intentionality, and the ripples of consequential influence this had on his death and others’ lives.
But in the graph above, everyone is just visiting Starbucks, making mundane, typical choices1.
Now, imagine if someone were to cancel out the consequences of the choices of people on some part of that square mile. Say every person living in the yellow corner closest to us decided to spend their entire paycheck on lottery tickets, and lost; but God or the government gave them a refund.[footnote: I choose to remember that this essay is about evil, miracles, and prayer, not the 2008 Banking Crisis]. While this would be popular among those who lost the lottery, the Total Free Will in that section would effectively go down, because the consequence of their foolish investment did not happen. They didn’t win the Lottery or lose their entire paychecks. Not only that, but all the people connected to that group of people would also have their Total Free Will go down just a bit, as their connected choices also experienced fewer natural outcomes. If the canceling of these consequences were to occur mainly in the yellow corner of the square closest to us, then the new Total Free Will graph may look something like this:
In this case, the Total Free Will in that yellow corner of the square mile has decreased due to local cancellation of consequences. These people effectively have less free will. Remember, not experiencing the consequences of your choices makes those choices not matter, which reduces Total Free Will.
Let’s pause briefly to discuss whether experiencing your consequences matters. Do we really need to live in a universe with high levels of Total Free Will, not just free choice? Absolutely, yes. A life of purpose cannot be had without consequential free will. What purpose can you have if you cannot cause consequences? Without the ability to actually change the world around you, without agency, you cannot have any purpose at all. So just as we cannot have Love without the free will to make choices, we cannot have Purpose without the ability to experience the consequences of those choices. Without both free choice and the experience of consequences, we are merely actors on a stage, incapable of real love or purpose.
For these reasons, I infer that one of God’s goals is to maximize Total Free Will in this universe. This is a key point: Total Free Will is necessary in order for us to experience love and purpose. Thus, maximizing Total Free Will must be one of God’s highest priorities.
This is why there are not constant miracles all around us. The use of miracles locally reduces the amount of total free will. This is because miracles potentially do two things:
They strongly influence people. Whatever thing you were doing or thinking before, this train of thoughts or actions will likely be strongly affected by experiencing a true miracle.
They fix things. A miracle of healing a man’s heart disease may cancel out the consequence of his having “fries with that” every single day. There are obviously gradations of this, and many miracles do not fix things. But sometimes they do, and that fixing may negate some consequences of free choices.
Thus, it is likely true that God minimizes or reduces the occurrence of miracles in order to maximize Total Free Will. Otherwise, we would expect many more miracles to occur, at least among the faithful. And yet they don’t, which is a paradox. But the paradox is resolved with these concepts:
God wants to maximize Total Free Will in order to maximize Love and Purpose in our lives
Miracles somewhat reduce Total Free Will via influence and the cancelling of some consequences
Thus, God does fewer miracles than He otherwise would, because He cares about maximizing Total Free Will quite a bit.
To clarify, I am NOT saying God is restricted in any way by this concept. I am saying that through this concept, we understand better how God thinks. By carefully thinking through the above concepts, we come to a deeper understanding of God’s motivations and priorities.
I am also NOT saying this is the only reason more miracles don’t happen (the Bible clearly indicates lack of faith and disobedience results in God’s favor, including miracles being withdrawn).
But we have succeeded in explaining why we do not live in a world of constant miracles. We have answered that paradox, and gained truth about God.
Next, we will see how this deeper understanding of Free Will helps us understand the Problem of Evil.
We assume at least 20 Starbucks are evenly distributed within the square mile.