einstein and free will

I read some things today on Albert Einstein and what his exact thoughts were on God. Einstein believed in causal determinism, the belief that every physical event in the universe has a direct physical cause, and this strict causation is brought about by the physical laws that govern the universe. God, Einstein believed, is the creator of these laws. To directly quote him, he believed in a "God who reveals Himself in the harmony of all that exists", "but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." It is clear that Einstein believed in an impersonal Creator.

Einstein also expressed clear beliefs on the topic of free will. As he said himself, "I am a determinist. I do not believe in free will." In other words, Einstein believed that free will was truly an impossible commodity in the scientifically predictable universe which we live in. To a determinist, any argument for free will must somehow disprove the physical causality of our universe; the strict causality that is so often used to make valuable predictions, and on which most of modern science depends on. (I say most of modern science because the relatively recent field of quantum mechanics allows for unpredictability and true randomness, but at a level so small that its effects are completely negligible in arguments concerning human free will and brain function. And yet even if this randomness were to effect the universe at the level of human brain cells, it most certainly would not result in free will, only randomness. Free will is not about randomness. So while quantum mechanics does allow for a kind of break in the cause and effect process, it does not then follow that free will exists.)

On Einstein's beliefs, one writer put it best. "For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence. For Einstein it was the absence of miracles that reflected divine providence. The fact that the world was comprehensible, that it followed laws, was worthy of awe."

Most, if not all, believers in free will believe that the mind, or soul, or consciousness is non-physical. But how can something non-physical affect something physical (your body) in a predictable universe? Is belief in free will any more logical than belief in the paranormal? Both claim that non-physical entities can affect physical ones. And if you believe it's very reasonable and rational to believe in paranormal activity, than maybe you belong in the Middle Ages.

by the way, the writer I mentioned is named Walter Isaacson. He wrote a book about Einstein entitled "Einstein"