Richard N. Williams<\/a> in 2013<\/span><\/p>\nAlmost all conceptions of human agency are rooted in libertarianism and grounded in a set of assumptions about the nature of the non-human world, the nature of causality, and the nature of determinism. The effect of this is that agency is always understood around two mutually exclusive positions, compatibilism and incompatibilism. Within this intellectual context, human agency is always impossible, trivial, or illusory. Human agency is drawn into discussions of science and religion because most traditional \u201cscientific\u201d notions of causality and determination are understood in ways that make agency impossible, and most religious positions try to reconcile themselves to the classical libertarian position, which is self-contradictory. The presentation proposed here argues for a new understanding of human agency which requires a rethinking of causality and determinism that is compatible with science. And a refutation of agency that most religious positions unwisely endorse. Agency turns out to be not so much a matter of free choice, but of a deeper matter of the nature of the human world, human ontology, and truth. The lack of clarity on issues of science, religion, and agency comes not from science or religion, but from a faulty dogmatic scientism and the naturalistic metaphysic it always imposes on intellectual discourse.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few weeks ago, I was approached by someone from the management of Patheos about being December\u2019s \u201cfeatured writer\u201d for the platform.\u00a0 It involved answering two questions (see below).\u00a0 The audience for the little \u201cfeatured writer\u201d item is the other writers at Patheos, across all of the faith positions (and unfaith positions) represented on the site.\u00a0 Below, I append what I wrote.\u00a0 I was trying to be short, but I wasn\u2019t quite sure about the desired length, so my answers below ended up being somewhat abbreviated.\u00a0 Which is fine.\u00a0 Here, though, on my own blog, I can be every bit as prolix as I\u2019m inclined to be:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
What do you enjoy about writing for Patheos?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nI had a difficult time as an undergraduate student.\u00a0 I always enrolled in too many classes but, even then, had a hard time focusing on them because . . . well, because there were just too many other interesting classes to sit in on, and too many lectures and concerts, and too many books in the library.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u201cMaybe I should be an economist, or a mathematician.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOr a philosopher.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOr an astronomer.\u201d\u00a0 College and what my college campus regularly offered were, for me, an enormous and enormously tempting sm\u00f6rg\u00e5sbord.<\/em>\u00a0 My grades weren\u2019t always what they should have been.\u00a0 Still, I managed somehow not only to graduate (in classical Greek and philosophy) but to go on to a doctorate (in Near Eastern languages and cultures) and, thereafter, to a university faculty appointment.<\/span><\/p>\nBut the Wanderlust<\/em> or catholicity (or, perhaps, the mere lack of disciplined focus) persists.\u00a0 Which is probably a major reason why I find blogging so gratifying:\u00a0 No editor.\u00a0 No giver of grades.\u00a0 I can spout off on any topic that interests me, from theological and philosophical questions through ancient history and scriptural interpretations to current events and controversies and even restaurant, travel, and movie recommendations.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been a teacher for most of my adult life, not only in higher education and in church but in scores and scores of public lectures on every inhabited continent.\u00a0 In recent years, I\u2019ve frequently led tours in the Near East and Europe. \u00a0I love sharing and discussing ideas.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd there are no ideas more important than those connected with God, religion, faith, and the meaning of it all.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always loved the eighteenth-century lyrics of Isaac Watts:<\/span><\/p>\nSweet is the work, my God, my King,<\/span><\/p>\nTo praise thy name, give thanks and sing,<\/span><\/p>\nTo show thy love by morning light,<\/span><\/p>\nAnd talk of all thy truths at night.<\/span><\/p>\nOr, to borrow words from a much more recent song, it\u2019s \u201ca good life, all in all,\u201d to \u201ctalk of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believe in.\u201d\u00a0 And that, more than anything else, is what attracted me to the conversations that were possible at Patheos.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
What advice do you offer to other Patheos writers?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nI don\u2019t know that I\u2019m a particular success at blogging, such that I can advise others.\u00a0 But I can say what I myself do, and how I conceive the \u201cmission\u201d of my blog.<\/span><\/p>\nI had actually already launched my blog when a graduated former student who worked for Patheos at the time approached me about bringing it over to this location.\u00a0 I had declined a previous invitation to align my blog with a Latter-day Saint apologetics organization; I wanted to preserve my freedom to write on non-religious topics as well as on religious ones.\u00a0 This representative of Patheos told me that such writing would be acceptable.<\/span><\/p>\nSo I\u2019ve always felt entirely free to mix things up, to vary my topics.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ve been deliberately committed to doing that.\u00a0 I write on what interests me; I really care about the subjects that I discuss.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t imagine that my writing would be very interesting if I didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\nThere is, surely, a bit of egotism in any writer\u2019s motivating assumption that other people might be interested in what she has to say.\u00a0 But my supposition is that blogs attract continuing audiences not only because of the ideas they discuss but because, to some greater or lesser degree, at least a few people out there are curious about the mind and personality of their authors.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve also felt free to be personal and open, sometimes even to the point, I suppose, of being \u201cvulnerable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the recent death of Kirstie Alley, I think it\u2019s an appropriate time to call people\u2019s attention once again to a classic scene from the old sitcom Cheers<\/em>, of which she was one of the principal stars:\u00a0 \u201cWhy can\u2019t Mormons send flowers?<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a perennial question.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Newly posted today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 Conference Talks: \u201cScience, Religion, and Agency,\u201d originally delivered by Richard N. Williams in 2013 Almost all conceptions of human agency are rooted in libertarianism and grounded in a set of assumptions about the nature of the non-human world, the nature of causality, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5634,32481,32493,19823,19826,19829,936,909,32490,32478,8735,2505,32472,32499,32496,32475,1667,29318,2532,1230,743,32487,32484,243,5000],"class_list":["post-97809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agency","tag-cheers","tag-compatibilism","tag-dan-peterson","tag-daniel-c-peterson","tag-daniel-carl-peterson","tag-daniel-peterson","tag-faith","tag-featured-writer","tag-flowers","tag-free-will","tag-freedom","tag-freewill","tag-human-agency","tag-incompatibilism","tag-kirstie-alley","tag-mormons","tag-patheos","tag-peterson","tag-reason","tag-religion","tag-richard-n-williams","tag-richard-williams","tag-science","tag-will"],"yoast_head":"\n
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