They say free will is a myth — that you’re just neurons firing, desires rearranging, or code running in the dark. Philosophers like Alex O’Connor, neuroscientists like Sam Harris, even physics professors have lined up to call free will an illusion. But is it?
In this episode of The Shadow Network, Don James and Data pull the thread until the whole determinist sweater unravels. From Aristotle to Libet’s brain scans, from Calvin to Arminius, from Retrotheism to retrocausality, we follow the arguments where they lead — even into a garden called Gethsemane.
Along the way:
Why persuasion itself proves free will can’t be an illusion.
How determinism collapses morality, justice, and even rationality.
Why the strongest case for free will comes not from science, but from Christ Himself.
A surprise encounter with none other than Sam Harris, courtesy of our quantum tunnel.
And “Voices from the Other Side”: listeners who think Don’s theology is heresy, and aren’t shy about saying so.
By the end, one thing is clear: if the Cross wasn’t chosen, it wasn’t love. And if it wasn’t love, the Gospel collapses.