Billiard Ball Controversy

Human beings can arguably be described as rational creatures made in the image of God that have the capacity for free will. This notion has been disputed over many centuries by countless philosophers and scientists and in relation, the controversy that humans possess free will or are subject to determinism has sparked debate. Some support the idea that humans are able to make decisions based on their own free will while others believe that humans are controlled under the idea of determinism where they are not able to make their own choices. I have chosen a photograph depicting a single pathway that splits into two as my non-philosophical source material because I think it sufficiently illustrates humans’ capability to choose one path over the

Newton presented that all vicissitudes in the natural world were elucidated by the doctrines of universal gravitation and the motion of bodies. Everything was thus administered by the same unbreakable laws, or mechanisms. Therefore, it is possible to compute every natural change with mathematical precision. A creation of Newtonian physics and advocate of newton’s previously mentioned, mechanistic world view, the "billiard ball" hypothesis, claims that once the preliminary conditions of the universe have been recognized, the rest of the history of the universe follows inexorably. The “billiard ball” hypothesis argues that the elementary particles of the universe function in the same manner as the rolling balls on a billiard table: moving and hitting each other in expectable ways to create anticipated outcomes. For example, if a man meets a woman and they fall in love, then according to the “billiard ball” hypothesis, their lives together will be predictable and prearranged; i.e. they will move in together, get married, and have kids, everything is already predetermined. In relation to the source, the “billiard ball” hypothesis provides a reason for the choosing of one path over the other: that, with knowledge of all the laws governing physical matter, it would be possible to calculate the time and place of the choosing of the