How Arminians think Calvinists think

(via 22 Words)

Sorry, Arminians, but free will may just be the brain's 'background noise'

OK, so the title is tongue-in-cheek. Mostly. But consider this report from Live Science:

It's a question that has plagued philosophers and scientists for thousands of years: Is free will an illusion?

Now, a new study suggests that free will may arise from a hidden signal buried in the "background noise" of chaotic electrical activity in the brain, and that this activity occurs almost a second before people consciously decide to do something.

Though "purposeful intentions, desires and goals drive our decisions in a linear cause-and-effect kind of way, our finding shows that our decisions are also influenced by neural noise within any given moment," study co-author Jesse Bengson, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis, wrote in an email to Live Science. "This random firing, or noise, may even be the carrier upon which our consciousness rides, in the same way that radio static is used to carry a radio station."

So it would seem Calvinism is backed up by scripture and science! :)

Free Will: A Matter of Physics?

Arminians and Calvinists don't have a monopoly on the debate over free will. Philosophers have wrestled with the issue for millennia.

The following clip is from the movie Waking Life. I found it rather interesting, and thought you might as well: