Is there a ‘me’ in me? The freewill debate and why I don’t think I’m entirely determined by genes, hormones and experiences.

I was annoyed and fascinated in equal measure by an interview I heard last Saturday on Radio 4’s Today programme. So much so I’ve been thinking about it all week.

Robert Sapolsky has just published a book this month called Determined: Life without Free Will. He is a very well known behavioural scientist. Okay, I admit I haven’t read the book. I’m only going to write about his big idea not the book’s content but here is a link to a review of the book which will give you more information theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/24/determined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions

His big idea is that there is no space at all for a ‘me’ in me. There is in each human being only their nervous system, their environment, their hormones, their life experience, their genes and their culture. Everything we do he says is dictated by these factors and these factors alone. It is as if each of us has been dealt a set of cards and if you were dealt a poor hand in terms of these factors above then possibly you are in prison, you are uneducated and you are a low achiever and none of that is your fault, you could have done nothing to avoid that situation.

I find this deeply disturbing and to be fair so does Robert Sapolsky! In the interview he spoke about his own theory as being “disconcerting as hell” and flinging us into “an existential void”. As you can read in the review in the Guardian he even didn’t like writing about his own theory. He admits ‘it sucks’.

If you take this idea that human beings have no ability to determine their own actions to its logical conclusion, then there is no reason for blame and punishment of criminals and no reason for praise or reward for those who live lives dedicated to the improvement of themselves or the world.

The only positive spin that he can take from this argument is that we should be compassionate to those who did not receive as good a set of life chances as we ourselves. Whilst this is a good outcome, believing that people are the way they are and that they can’t do anything about it and that change is impossible seems a very bleak outlook. I can think of better reasons for being compassionate. Simply saying “they can’t help it” offers no hope of change.

I would rather have hope and I believe there is a source of power for change. I used to be a prison chaplain, and very often listening to the stories of young illiterate men who had ended up in prison I reflected on my own privilege and wondered ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. Yet some young men were changed, some did find the power to live a transformed life and very often this was connected to finding God.

If all we are is as a result of what happens to us and if all that happens to us is beyond our control and if we have no power for self-determination (in other words no free will) to rise above those circumstances, then quite frankly we may as well all give up now.

I believe human beings can change and they can rise above appalling circumstances. According to Sapolsky’s interview we are only alert because we have drunk coffee, we are only ‘happy’ because we have taken a painkiller so that we don’t have a headache. These are the ways in which he says we affect the ‘me in me’. So how does that account for my friend Ed who endured years of horrendous cancer treatment and all its ghastly side-effects (way beyond the reach of an aspirin) and yet managed to stay (for the most part) contented, accepting and compassionate. She even experienced moments of pure joy.

The ‘me-ness’ of me and the ‘you-ness’ of you has to be one of the strongest arguments as to the existence of something about ourselves which is beyond neurons and hormones. If you have had the unbearable privilege of watching a loved one die you cannot escape the sense that something has left them and it is not merely breath.

And if there is something about human beings that is beyond the purely physical then, for me at least, that is a very clear pointer to the reality of God who created me, who formed me in my mother’s womb, who calls me by name, who knows even the number of hairs on my head.

Being a being beyond the purely physical might also be called being a spiritual being. And if I am a spiritual being and that is because I was created by a spiritual being who desired connection with me: relationship.

And when I come into that relationship I am offered the gift of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God to live within me and to bear what are known as the fruits of the spirit. These fruits or qualities in any human life are what allow us to transcend the set of circumstances that we have been dealt.

And when ever we observe these moments of transcendence we are in awe. Enemies shaking hands and saying ‘shalom’ to one another, unknown individuals putting their own lives at risk to save others. We admire self-sacrifice above all other qualities. Jesus said, “greater love has no man than this and he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13) and yet when Jesus laid down his life he didn’t just lay it down for his friends he also laid it down for his enemies, for those who hammered in the nails he would say “Father forgive them, they know not what they do”.

If all we are is the sum of all those things that Robert Sapolsky points to then when we make choices about how we behave all we are essentially doing is reacting to a set of circumstances. The difference between that position and the Christian understanding of human beings is that Christians believe that human beings have the choice not to react but instead to respond.

Responding creates those diamond moments of ‘grace’ when an expected act of retaliation, self protection or outrage does NOT happen. Instead the ‘me in me’ emerges when I exercise the free will to remain loving, accepting, compassionate or kind in spite of unacceptable or outrageous circumstances. This is the story of Oskar Schindler and of Corrie Ten Boom. It is the story of countless others who have risen above their circumstances, choosing to display those fruits of the spirit. These fruits are not uniquely Christian: who could argue against love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and suggest that they were not desirable human traits.

So do not despair, change is possible and even when we do not do what we know we want to do ( see Romans 7) there is a God who loves us, forgives us, and can empower us to be more than the results of all our circumstances.