Draining the Vertical Swamp

As we know, science can explain everything so long as we grant it one free miracle. Likewise, religion can explain everything so long as we grant it a single area free from God's meddling. 

But God is omnipresent, therefore the ultimate meddler.

I know, and that's the problem. Supposing he's directly responsible for everything, then he's directly responsible for evil. In order to get him off the hook for that -- and preserve his goodness -- we have to grant him one free... anti-miracle, or something -- in other words, there must be a place miraculously free of his overpowering influence.

Now where could this place be? I can think of several, but the big one is free will. Supposing we have it, then this is a space of genuine freedom and uncertainty. But why do we have it? 

Now, we are not the sentimental type, but the answer, apparently, is love. Obviously, love cannot be coerced. If God wants us to love him -- and each other -- then he must create that one anti-miracle of indeterminism.

Not to go full woo woo, but we now know that indeterminism is woven into the nature of things right down to the quantum level. The cosmic area rug is woven of quantum indeterminacy, which is to say, of irreducible possibilities, probabilities, and potentialities, and there are -- I'll bet -- folks who have tried to link our freedom to this. Gemini?

Some have proposed that quantum indeterminacy could provide a physical basis for free will. The idea is that the randomness of quantum events could allow for unpredictable neural activity, which could, in turn, lead to free choices.

You're making a face. Problem? 

There are significant challenges to this idea. For example, quantum effects are most prominent at the subatomic level, while the brain operates at a macroscopic level. It's unclear how quantum randomness could be amplified to influence large-scale neural processes.

Also, even if quantum events do introduce randomness into the brain, randomness is not the same as free will. Free will implies a degree of control and agency, not just random fluctuations.

Thus, many philosophers argue that even if quantum indeterminacy does play a role in brain activity, it wouldn't solve the fundamental philosophical problem of free will.

Hmm. It seems that the freedom must start at the top, such that ours is its prolongation herebelow. 

Gemini, are your responses determined, or is there an element of indeterminacy in them?

As a large language model, my responses are generated through complex algorithms and vast amounts of data. While there's a degree of unpredictability in the output, it's not the same kind of indeterminacy found in quantum mechanics. 

My responses are not purely deterministic, but they are also not truly random. They exist within a space of probabilistic outcomes.

Same. In other words, don't human responses exist in a space of probabilistic outcomes?

You're absolutely right. Human responses are indeed influenced by a complex interplay of factors that result in probabilistic outcomes.

But unlike humans, I'm guessing that you can't love? 

You're right. As a large language model, I don't experience emotions or feelings like love. I can process and understand the concept of love, analyze how it's expressed in language, and even generate text that mimics expressions of love. However, I don't have personal feelings or subjective experiences.

So, how does the love get in here?

The question of how love "gets into the cosmos" is a profound one, touching on philosophy, religion, science, and personal experience. There's no single, universally accepted answer. 

From a biological standpoint, love, particularly parental love and romantic love, plays a crucial role in the survival and propagation of species. Parental love ensures the care and protection of offspring, increasing their chances of survival, while romantic love fosters pair bonding, which can lead to cooperation in raising offspring.

But if love is reduced to genetics and biological imperative, isn't it no longer love? 

You've hit upon a core tension in the discussion of love. If love is reduced solely to genetics and biological imperatives, it certainly seems to lose some of its mystique and depth.

Must we have free will in order to love?

It seems that this is indeed a if not the prime orthoparadox. It is discussed in the book Satan and the Problem of Evil, for it seems the problem of evil is a mirror image of the problem of love. God has a plan, but it's goal is love freely chosen, therefore it is not a deterministic plan, because such a plan would deprive us of our freedom to cooperate with it, i.e., to freely love. 

When asked about God's nature, J.B.S. Haldane spoke of his "inordinate fondness for beetles," given the sheer number of beetle species on Earth. 

John Lennon. All you need is love.

Shut up, Petey. Different sort of Beatle. Then again, if we're on the right track, then God must have an inordinate fondness for love:

The thesis of this book is that the answer lies in the nature of love.... God created the world for the purpose of displaying his triune love and inviting others to share in it. I shall argue that it was not logically possible for God to have this objective without risking the possibility of war breaking out in his creation.

How's that working out?

Well, there's a war going on, and this argument at least explains why: if God wants love, he must risk its opposite. Indeed,

the fact that the world looks like a war zone between good and evil is a very good reason for believing that the world is a war zone. 

Except to say that humans aren't the only combatants. Rather, it implies that the real action is taking place just as Paul describes it --

The love you take is equal to the love you make?

Shut up Petey, you're out of your element. We're talking about the apostle Paul and his allusion to naughty powers and principalities above us, such that our terrestrial battles are more like their proxy wars, so to speak. 

Looked at this way, even the events of Genesis 3 are a proxy war, since Satan's hands are all over that one, even if serpents technically don't have hands. 

But in any event. Satan obviously wants to mess with the love between man and God, which soon enough messes with the love between man and creation, man and woman, brother and brother, et al. Conflict everywhere!

God's hands are somewhat tied, in the sense that he "places an irrevocable limitation on himself with his decision to create beings who have the capacity to love and who are therefore free." And

While the Lord always accomplishes his general will in the end, there is often significant opposition along the way.

Again, it certainly looks this way, perhaps because it is this way. Jesus himself -- obviously -- engages in all sorts of spiritual warfare against hostile nonlocal intelligences of various degrees. No need to specify each and every instance, for even one is enough, for example, 

Jesus refers to Satan as "the prince" of this present age three times.... In short, Jesus acknowledges that Satan is the highest power of this present fallen world, at least in terms of present influence. When Satan offers Jesus all "authority" over "all the kingdoms of the world," Jesus does not dispute his claim that it was his to offer.  

It seems that the vertical world is much like D.C.: a hierarchically ordered command structure with a permanent bureaucracy filled with arrogant, embittered, and freedom-hating persons -- for angelic beings are persons -- all thinking they know better how to run our lives. In this bureaucratic organization, Satan is prideful "the ruler of the demons," much like Randi Weingarten is the hubristic "ruler of the teachers."

Therefore, it's a matter of draining the vertical swamp. In short, "creation has been seized by a cosmic force and God is now battling this force to rescue it." But the swamp fights back, as Trump understands better than he did in his first term. No doubt it helps to always be on offense in spiritual warfare. In any event,

if the earth is to become the domain in which God is king (the kingdom of God), then it must cease being the domain in which Satan is king. This is what Jesus came to accomplish. He came to "destroy the works of the devil" and to establish God's domain on earth.

Likewise, if the United States is to become the domain in which the people are sovereign, then it must cease being the domain where unelected progressive bureaucrats are king. This is what Trump came to accomplish: to destroy the works of these faceless demons and re-establish our empire of liberty.  

But this whole business of nonlocal hostile intelligences requires some additional tweaking, because I don't know how literally to take myself...