Indeed, dear r9etb. And what would that "direction" be?
I think (hope!) I'm following you here: If there is no free will in the universe, then everything that exists must be utterly determined. Which begs the question of who or what is doing the "determining," or as you say providing the "direction" of events, the sum total of which is the Universe at any "point" of its evolution.
Again that slippery word "random" rears its ugly head. How can a "random" process produce, not only the diversity that we see all around us, but also the unity and order of all things — which I think we also can see all around us, provided we have the eyes to "look" and see, and the minds to understand what we observe.
There are theological implications to the idea of a determined universe. A Calvinist is put into the position of having to blame God directly for all the suffering in the world — which is to conceive of God as a monster.... (At least I read this line of reasoning somewhere recently.)
Another famous determinist had a different problem. Sir Isaac Newton conceived of God as "the Lord of Life with His creatures," the cause that eternally determines everything that happens in the natural world, including the world of men. Newton's monotheist conception of divine action in the world is facilitated via the sensorium Deum, a sort of field-like interface between the divine and natural orders.
There is no evident support for the doctrine of free will in Newton's mechanistic, deterministic science, to put it mildly. What we have instead is a remarkably beautiful, intellectually satisfying formalism; i.e., something entirely abstracted away from the world of phenomena.
Case in point: the Newtonian "particle" is a perfect abstraction, a purely formal (mathematical) entity. Newton's theory doesn't regard whether the "particle" in question is a subatomic particle, an atom, a planet, a star, or a galaxy. All problems of scale are irrelevant to the operation of Newton's Laws. And evidently, these Laws are the expressions of divine will and thus cannot be evaded in Nature.
But then along came relativity and quantum theory. And the problem of "free will" became highly topical again, as summed up in "the observer problem" implicit in both the relativistic and quantum theories.
What Calvin and Newton agree about is that the universe is lawful. That is, whatever its fundamental nature, Nature is definitely not "random." Ontologically, it is persistently the way it is, and not some other way. Its order cannot be the "accident" of random causes on logical grounds.
On the other hand, neither is the Universe in any way "static." It is constantly involved in the flux of change which we denote by the term "evolution."
And this flux of change constantly introduces new elements into the world. Still, these "new elements" are subject to "direction." Or to put it another way, to universal "guides to the system" that did not arise from within the system.
Truth is built into the very foundation of the world. It utterly transcends the world — but at the same time it is immanent within it, lawfully "informing" (in multiple senses) its development.
At least, this is my belief FWIW.
Your last really set me off into "wool-gathering mode." :^) Thank you so very much for writing, dear r9etb! I hope my reply was in some way responsive to the issues you raised....
It is.
Speaking as one who believes in God, I have no difficulty in saying that the universe has a "direction." And speaking as a Christian, I have no difficulty in saying what that direction might be.
I do have a problem with what is usually called "Calvinism," which is perhaps just a particular type of the more general idea of predestination. The case for free will is not only simple, it's quite a bit stronger than the rather contrived explanations for why free will does not exist .... and, of course, the need to create those explanations, and the ability to do so, makes it that much harder to sell the case against free will.
Religious or scientific debates about free will tend to focus on the big stuff -- it's so much more tractable and, as such, so much more easily used to construct strawmen. But really, free will is nothing more or less than the freedom to recognize options and make choices ... chocolate vs. vanilla; turn right or left; take the harder trail, or the easier one ... even fashions, whether clothing or the way we decorate a kitchen, are examples of free will. It's pretty difficult to create a scientific or theological explanation for Avacado or Harvest Gold, that doesn't include free will....
But your mention of Newton brings to mind another line of thought, that's evident in this thread. There seems to be a tendency among all of us, to posit math and science as the only real means available to understand reality. Certainly they're very good ways .... but are they really the only standard by which we can properly address the questions of truth and reality?
Truly, there are always guides to the system.
Betty, as you said regarding "randomness", I say, "suffering" compared to what? As far as the atheist goes, by what standard does one who says the material universe is all there is judge that the materialist universe is not as it ought to be? What foundation does the atheist have for this notion that the universe is not as it ought to be? None. Atheism renders evil and suffering as meaningless and unintelligible.
Regarding someone's allegation that the Calvinist is put into the position of having to blame God directly for all the suffering in the world — which is to conceive of God as a monster.., it shoud be noted that the judgment of God by His putative critic, who presumes to make the finite human mind the ultimate criterion of truth, is self-vitiating in a way similar to that of the atheist. By what moral or epistemological standard does the finite, subjective man judge the infinite God? God's standard? As the Scripture says concerning such arrogant foolishnes of man presuming to have the abilities of God in order to blame God in some fashion:
You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Cordially,