Why did he do that? Free will, laws, and chaos

My friend has a new favorite movie: Snow White. He’s seen it seven times—once for each dwarf. Now he’s conflicted… should he go again? He finally decided: yes, he’ll see it an eighth time, this time for Snow White herself.

Watching all of this unfold, I turned to my friend Auggie and asked, “Why did Immus decide to do that?”

Auggie confidently replied, “Oh, he saw it as a political commentary on the collapse of the LGBTQ movement. That’s what motivated him.”

Makes sense—his choice followed from reasons even if I don’t agree with them.

But then Oved jumped in: “No, no. He had those reasons, sure, but the choice itself wasn’t caused by them. It just… arose, like the world emerging from chaos. If any laws were governing it, then it wouldn’t be free.”

Here’s the tension: when we ask why someone did something, we’re looking for reasons—the thought process behind the choice. We might even go deeper and ask why they think that way—maybe it’s their upbringing, education, or personality. But all of that still leads to an explanation, not randomness. We can do the psychoanalysis, but what we want to know is the person’s conscious reasons. That is what they are responsible for. 

Our choices follow law-like patterns. That’s why they’re our choices. If they came from chaos, then:

1. They’re no longer my choices, and
2. No one—not even I—could explain them.

It’s only because the world has order—laws and natures—that we can understand anything at all. When we ask, “What is this?” we’re really asking, “What is its nature? What laws does it follow?”

This is where the empiricist stumbles. If he’s consistent, he has to deny natures. He’s left with isolated moments of experience—and no reason a new moment couldn’t just pop up uncaused.

But of course he thinks that way. That conclusion follows, in law-like fashion, from his empirical assumptions. He can’t escape it. But it is specious reasoning.

Keep asking “why people do what they do.” You can know because what they do is caused. And keep asking “who formed me in my mother’s womb?”  You can know, it was God your creator. He knows you better than you know yourself. 

So here’s the question:

Do things have natures? Or are we just watching chaos pretend to have reasons?