The latest in free will

I recently read a newspaper article on the question of whether or not we, as humans, actually have free will. The article cited a scientific study that has been repeated over and over again ever since, in which volunteers' brains were wired up to an electroencephalogram to monitor their brain activity as they made several random choices and actions. The findings were that the brain signals associated with the random actions and choices occurred 0.5 seconds before the individual was conscious of making that decision to act. In other words, as the article states, "the conscious brain was only playing catch-up to what the unconscious brain was already doing."

I find this very interesting in light of the debate over free will and the two main views of free will--Co-operationism and Pre-motionism. Whereas Co-operationism says that God cooperates with human action and decision in bringing an event to pass (i.e., both God and man work independently but cooperatively to bring an event to pass), Pre-motionism says that God first "pre-moves" the human individual to act or to choose and then cooperates with that decision in bringing things to pass (i.e., man is dependent upon God's "premotion" before he wills or acts of his own free choice).

Although both the co-operationist and the pre-motionist claim to believe in God's sovereignty and in man's free will, the co-operationist position emphasizes human free will to a greater degree than God's sovereignty, whereas the pre-motionist emphasizes God's sovereignty to a greater degree than man's free will.

The interesting thing about the newspaper article is that the recent scientific findings would appear to favor the pre-motionist position over the co-operationist position. In other words, the study seems to support the Calvinist belief that even in mundane random actions and events, God is sovereign, and that NOTHING happens or is decided apart from God's sovereign "pre-moving." Or, as the Westminster Confession states, "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass."

Comments?