The title of this talk is free will, its nature and possibility, in light of the natural and

supernatural. Due to time constraints, I'm going to mainly focus on a so-called natural approach

to free will, as well as some common criticisms of it, and we'll touch on free will as it

relates to divine providence at the end.

So free will is a valuable and intuitive notion.

What are some common assumptions that many of us have about free will?

One, we have the ability to actualize distinct possibilities.

Two, we have some meaningful degree of autonomy.

And three, we are responsible for our choices.

I think all of these are fairly recognizable by us.

In fact, you often hear the view espoused by those prone to pathological behavior,

say your Ted Bundy's or your Marquis de Sods, that they do not believe they

are free in some fundamental way, that they have no personal freedom. As philosopher P. F.

Strassen has pointed out, we tend to depersonalize when impacted by non-free action. For example,

let's say that, you know, you're walking down the hall and

someone comes up to you and pushes you violently against the wall. At first, you start thinking,

you know, what is wrong with this person? Why would they do this to me? No, that's no way to

treat me. But after finding out, let's say, that a person has a mental

disorder or is under some sort of influence, one immediately sort of changes their attitude towards

that person to a more depersonalized position and start thinking about that person as a product

of certain influence, physical influences upon their behavior.

So this idea of free will is, in fact, a very basic way through which we understand the world around us and those people that we interact with on a day-to-day basis.

...