At his blog, scientist and clergyman Kirk Durston takes on theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder on the topic of free will:

Hossenfelder argues that there cannot be free will in this universe: “The future is determined by the past except for random quantum jumps which no one can control.”

Durston responds in part,

Since Hossenfelder accepts scientific naturalism, then everything that ever happens in the universe, including the brain-state that produced her belief in scientific naturalism, is a consequence of something we shall symbolize as ‘N’ — where, N represents, according to Hossenfelder, the initial conditions of the universe at the moment it began to exist, plus the laws of physics, including quantum mechanics, that govern how space, time, matter, and energy interact.

According to scientific naturalism then, everything that ever happens in the universe is a consequence of N.

But there is a major flaw …

The problem is that there are also people who believe that scientific naturalism is false. So, if we grant Hossenfelder’s belief in scientific naturalism, then N produces two, mutually contradictory beliefs. To clarify, N produces the belief that scientific naturalism is true and the belief that scientific naturalism is false. Recall that N represents the initial conditions of the universe and the laws of physics which govern it. Therefore, given her belief in scientific naturalism, N produces beliefs that are mutually contradictory at the same time in history. Since both beliefs cannot be true at the same time, we are left with the following two options.

Option 1: It is false that N determines our beliefs.

Option 2: ‘N’ is indifferent to whether the brain states it produces are true or false.

Because of Hossenfelder’s belief in scientific naturalism, she must deny Option (1), leaving only Option (2). It logically follows that if N produces brain states that are mutually contradictory, then N is indifferent to truth. But if this is the case, then her basis for believing that scientific naturalism is true, crumbles – it is merely a brain state determined by N, which is indifferent to the truth or falsity of the brain states it produces.

“Free will and Sabine Hossenfelder: what should the default, starting position be for a scientist?” November 18, 2025

Durston draws on neuroscience in part, including The Immortal Mind (2025), and concludes,

As a result, the starting hypothesis that we have free will continues to be the only hypothesis that survives the testing of its predictions. Therefore, the most rational working hypothesis is that we have an immaterial mind that possesses the attribute of free will. If the mind is immaterial, then it exists and operates independent of the laws of nature, which suggests that you are not just a body that has a mind. Rather, you may in fact be a mind that is clothed in a material body … but that is an idea for another discussion.