Book Review: Afraid to Believe in Free Will by Carl Begley

Free will is a topic that evokes a myriad of responses in church world, so when I picked this book up I was fully expecting to be reading a theological treatise on the subject. It did not take long to realize that, while written by an author with a Christian lens, this book is about the effects a negative view of free will in psychology has had in the public square.

The modern trend in psychology is to deny that humans have free will. This deterministic view, asserts Begley, is the result of psychologists desiring to have their field of study viewed as a hard science, such as physics. Like any hard science, the objects being studied (in this case humans) must behave according to unbreakable laws of nature in order to produce consistent and predicted results. Hence, according to the deterministic view our behaviors are completely determined by the system and circumstances in which we find ourselves.

According to Begley, while we cannot prove free will, neither can we disprove it and it is essential that we adopt a belief in the idea of free will for the good of our culture. If our behavior is indeed determined, then that frees us from the responsibilities and consequences of our actions; a trend, which Begley notes with numerous examples, is already upon us.

My initial reaction was surprise to find that there was a free will conflict within the field of psychology, which is a subject with which I am just beginning to become familiar. But the more I read, I was fascinated by the origins and consequences of this one core belief. This book is not overly technical in its use of terminology and lays out a good historical foundation so that the reader can understand the origins and development of thinking in this area.

That, along with the applications, made this book worth the read for me as a member of a church staff. If you are looking for stars, I would give this book four out of five. I learned a lot and it caused me to reflect on my own philosophy in this area.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through theBookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.