"Our system of justice should reflect an understanding that any of us could have been dealt a very different hand in life. In fact, it seems immoral not to recognize just how much luck is involved in morality itself." - Sam Harris
Sam Harris is one of many people who does not believe in free will. In his view, human beings are all a product of complex factors none of us chose. We didn't choose our genes, we didn't choose our families, we didn't choose our environments, therefore we don't really choose our actions. Even those in prison are there because of a number of factors beyond there control. Therefore, we ought to have compassion on them. To repeat his own words above, "it seems immoral not to recognize just how much luck is involved in morality itself."
And he doesn't see the irony in this. If there is that much luck involved in morality, so much so that those in prison are basically there because of "some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad environments, and bad ideas" (Harris again), is there not also luck involved in how we treat them? If these people do not have the freedom to choose whether or not they committed their crimes, are their prosecutors free to choose how they deal with them? Put it this way: Sam Harris, am I freely choosing to disagree with you? Or is that just luck also?
Obviously, the answer is yes, I am freely choosing to disagree with Sam Harris' assertion that free will does not exist and is mostly just luck. Now, there are obviously some things that open a variety of choices to me. I have full use of my legs, therefore I can choose to walk, whereas a person born lame, or even without legs, would of course not be able to choose to do so. And so ok, I can level with Sam on this: There are a lot of factors that open up a wider variety of choices. But beyond physical force or restraint, nothing turns human beings into actual robots. Therefore, free will exists. And every time Sam Harris makes moral claims, he acknowledges this fact.
See, if we have no free will, morality doesn't exist, period. There is no "should" and "should not". There is only "is". Try telling gravity who it should pull to the ground, or fire what it should burn. Try telling water what state it should exist in, or telling the Earth how fast it should revolve. Try telling your laptop to stop glitching out and work for a solid 5 minutes so you can get your work done and grab a coffee. Heck, tell the coffee to prepare itself while you wait, and not to dare go cold. You can't do any of these things. Nature is an example of something truly devoid of free will. The very body you inhabit, lacking a spirit, can do nothing freely.
Thus, the fact that we can operate freely is what enables us to make moral claims. "Murder is wrong" is a moral claim. If murder was not an action freely chosen, murderers cannot really be held morally accountable. Of course, we might hold them accountable anyway, because we have no freedom to avoid it, but let's not get into an endless logic circle. The point is, if a murderer has no free will, murder is not evil. This is why we do not prosecute rivers for drowning people, or rocks for falling on people, or fires for burning people etc. That which has no free will cannot logically be called evil.
"Ah, but he didn't choose to want to kill, did he?", Sam Harris might reply. Can he choose whether to act on those desires? Let's form an analogy. 2 + 2 = 4. Right? Now, let's suppose I really really want 2 + 2 to be 22. I didn't choose to want it to be 22, I just do. Can I still choose to write 2 + 2 = 4, or not to write 2 + 2 = 22? Of course! Just because I want something doesn't mean I have no choice about whether or not I do it. Similarly, a murderer, whatever may incline him to commit that murder, has the choice. He may not have the choice to want to murder, but he has the choice not to act on it.
In fact, we all live with desires we don't act on. Whether because we know it's wrong, or just because there are consequences we don't want to bring down on ourselves, we often choose to act in the exact opposite way we would if we didn't have free will. Unlike the natural things described earlier in this article, we not only have free will, but also act like we have it, and act like we know we have it. Including Sam Harris. Every time he makes a moral claim, whether he's saying we should treat criminals compassionately, or he's actively lying about the parable of the ten minas to pretend Jesus said we should kill people who don't worship Him, he is admitting free will exists.
The problem is, admitting free will exists involves admitting a certain amount of responsibility. If I can choose whether or not to do good or evil, I am accountable for the choices I make. If I choose good, I at the very least cannot be morally prosecuted for it. If I do evil, I certainly can. The power of choice demands accountability for those choices. It may involve reward for the good, but that is far outweighed by the punishment for the evil. This includes in God's eyes.
God is perfectly holy. All things proceed from Him, including every factor Sam Harris believes makes us basically robots who shouldn't act like robots. Because of His holiness, he has only two choices available to Him when it comes to dealing with sin: justice, or grace. All sin requires punishment, specifically death. But God has provided us with an option regarding who takes that punishment. Realistically, it should be us. We did the crime, we should do the time.
If, however, this is as unappealing to you as it really ought to be, praise God, there is another option! The Father sent His Son to live as a man, a life completely devoid of sin. Because He committed no sin, (and for clarification, Sam, He faced all the same temptations we do, yet chose not to sin), He deserved no punishment. Yet, He died. He died a sinner's death. Your death. Salvation is obtained by a simple choice: Repent, and confess Him as Lord, and believe He rose from the dead. To me, this seems like an easy choice to make.