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Why Calvinism is the Least Rational Option
by C Michael PattonNovember 20th, 2008
204 Comments
One of the dozens of reasons I am a Calvinist has to do with the tension that is allowed within the Calvinistic system that is not allowed in other options. You see, the issues of Calvinism primarily center on one issue: predestination. While the sovereignty of God has its place, it does not ultimately determine where one lands. An Arminian can believe that God is sovereign to a similar degree as a Calvinist. But an Arminian cannot believe in predestination the same way as Calvinists.
Both Calvinists and Arminians believe in predestination. In other words, whether or not God predestines people is not the issue. All Bible believing Christians believe this doctrine. The issue has to do with the basis of this predestining.
The Calvinist says that God’s predestination has no founding in the predestined in any sense. God did not choose people based on any merit, intrinsic or foreseen. This is called unconditional predestination because there are no conditions in man that need to be met. It does not mean that God did not have any reason for choosing some and not others, but that the reason is not found in us.
The Arminian says that God’s predestination has a founding in the faith of the predestined. In other words, God looks ahead in time and discovers who will believe and who will not and chooses people based on their prior free-will choice of him.
The Arminian chooses this position because, for them, it is the only way to reconcile human freedom and God’s choice. Both are clearly taught in Scripture. Therefore, in order to have a reasonable and consistant theology, one or the other must be altered. If God unconditionally choose people, then people don’t have responsibility in their choice, good or ill. Therefore, it is not human choice that is nuanced, but God’s choice. To make sense out of this, the Arminian says that God’s choice is based on man’s choice. Therefore, we have consistency. The tension is solved. There is no tension.
However, the Calvinist is not satisfied with a redefining of God’s predestination. To the Calvinists, man is fully responsible for his choice, yet God’s election is unconditional. Therefore, there is a tension that is created between human responsibility and God’s election. This tension is left in tact since, according to the Calvinist, it is best understood this way in Scripture. To redefine predestination to suit one’s need to alleviate tension seems to be a very rationalistic approach to doctrine. While there is nothing wrong with using one’s reason to understand truth, there are problems when reason takes priority over revelation.
This is one of the mistakes that I believe the Arminian system of conditional election/predestination makes. There is no need to solve all tensions, especially when the solution comes at the expense of one’s interpretive integrity. There are many tensions in Scripture. There are many things that, while not irrational, just don’t make sense. The doctrine of the Trinity, the Hypostatic Union, creation out of nothing all fit this category. So does human responsibility and unconditional election. God’s sovereign unconditional election can stand side-by-side with man’s responsibility without creating a formal contradiction. We may not know how to reconcile these two issues, but that does not mean God does not know how. Their co-existence does not take away from their collective truthfulness.
I believe that the Arminian system sacrifices biblical integrity for the sake of intelligibility and doctrinal harmony. The Calvinistic system allows tension and mysteries to remain for the sake of Biblical fidelity.
I have had people say to me (often) that they are not Calvinists because the system attempts to be too systematic with all its points for the sake of the system itself. I think that it is just the opposite. The Calvinistic system creates more tensions than it solves, but seeks to remain faithful to God’s word rather than human intelligibility.
Now, I must admit. I am confused as to why most emergers that I know of are more attracted to the rationalistic approach of the Arminians than the tension filled approach of the Calvinists.
Fire away…
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204 Comments
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kangaroodort, I really like your nick.
I like this; you’re exactly on point and clearly stated. What you don’t do is interact with Calvinist’s explanations of their own positions, and if you’re going to claim a total contradiction, that’s an essential. Our arguments have exactly the same form as your non-contradiction defence of the Trinity!
See my post above for a brief look at some of the arguments. I won’t spend any more time on this here, because you make many other good points below.
I just don’t see how that’s true. The Bible is clear that there is a condition to salvation, but it never states that there’s a condition to election. You have to read that into the text. I understand that you reject unconditional election, and there are reasons for you to do so, but that rejection is based on the assumption that the conditions that apply to salvation also apply to election.
The problem with this assumption is that the Bible teaches that God saves us for His own good pleasure and based on his own eternal plan, not by works of righteousness that we have done; although our choice is crucial to salvation there’s also an aspect in which our choice has nothing to do with whether we will be saved.
I think this is an excellent rebuttal to his point. If he’d spent more time arguing from the Scriptures he could perhaps dodge this, but he didn’t.
Good argument.
One minor point before I address your detailed argument: the position that God only completely predetermines SOME things is not really a minority position; it’s not only common, it’s also supported by other positions, such as the agnostic position (we don’t know what He’s determined). Few Calvinists would say that God determines only salvational issues (arguably all of the prophecies are examples of His determination, and not all of them hinge on salvation), but the Bible leaves open the question of exactly what else is determined, mentioning only that God pays attention to tiny details, such as the number of hairs on your head or the fall of a sparrow. Taking note doesn’t mean He ordained those tiny issues from before the foundation of the world, but it does leave open the possibility.
I would find it perfectly reasonable to suppose that God ordained His regenerative power for each of His elect, and ordained His common grace to all the universe to bring about the existance of each of His elect, and no more than that. Some would take it farther, that God ordained every vibration of every molecule; but of course the Bible cannot tell us whether that’s true or even relevant.
There are two weaknesses in your argument. The first is that the argument is brittle because it claims a total contradiction, and thus can be rebutted simply by showing that there is a way to think about it without causing a contradiction. The second is more significant, since it actually addresses the content of your argument rather than the form.
The question you raise has to be settled by asking whether choices can be determined at all. It seems, by your argument, that free choices are absolutely never determined; in practice, this would imply that all free choices are entirely random. Thus, if I have a preexisting desire for Christ, and I choose Him, that is not a free choice, since it was at least partially determined by my preexisting desire.
But this leads to immediate absurdity. Surely I can freely choose something I desire; my desire makes the choice MORE mine, not less so. Therefore, we conclude that a free choice cannot usefully be defined by total nondeterminism. Free choices are at minimum determined by the subject’s desires.
But this is, of course, not enough to show that God can determine free choices. We have to go one short step further, and that is to show that God can determine the desires of a free person. And this is clearly the case; Gal 5:17 and 1Cor 2:17 make it clear that the desires “of the Spirit” are not available to the flesh, and that the “natural man” cannot even understand, much less desire, the things of the Spirit.
Once we see that there is a condition of man that is unregenerate, and that this condition does not include the desire for God or the things of God, then we see that it is sensible to speak of God being able to determine man’s free choices; since the natural (unregenerate) man freely follows his desires to reject God, and the Spiritual (regenerate) man freely follows his desires to accept God.
Here you do a quick survey of my points, but you completely fail to address them. Yes, free will can be determined; but since it cannot be otherwise, how is that a weakness? Doesn’t it make sense to you that a free man is free BECAUSE he is able to choose what he desires? The way the ‘libertarian’ definition works, it appears that a man would only be free if he could also choose what he does NOT desire. And that’s simply absurd. It would seem that choosing contrary to your own desire would imply a lack of freedom.
You also make the claim that most of the planet understands free will in your specific sense. I would certainly argue with that — most people don’t need to consider such abstract philosophy. In practical experience, most people are concerned with whether they can choose what they desire; they aren’t concerned with whether, all things being equal, they could choose something other than what they actually chose. Here’s what Wikipedia says about libertarian free will:
Now, are you sure you want to claim that most people worry about rewinding time? It would seem that the compatibilist definition of free will is not only sufficient for understanding free will (which it is), but the libertarian defintion actually goes too far by requiring a state of affairs which is impossible (rewinding time).
Can you distinguish “libertarian free will” from “compatibilist free will” without invoking an impossible state of affairs?
Praise God for our brotherhood in Christ, and thank you for teaching me.
-Wm
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Boy, was that puzzling… I had to read all my replies before I figured out what you were talking about. I never said that, and I recommend that you read more closely before lecturing. Suffice it to say that one’s view of the nature of time “matters”. What I was saying was that whether you accept or reject WLC’s view of time will not force you to accept or reject Calvinism.
Whether my logic has an actual contradiction doesn’t depend on your definitions. Actual contradictions require that no possible definitions allow the contradiction to be removed. If tensions became actual contradictions whenever the other side made a definition, the Trinity would be long since abandoned.
But let’s look at your evidences; this may be useful.
But first and most importantly, this isn’t what the text says. The text gives a simple counterfactual, something that we use in language all the time. At no point do most people assume that the conditional MUST be possible! Consider this: “If triangles had exactly five sides, then the sum of the angles of a triangle would equal 540 degrees.”
Second, this is beside the point. I’m not arguing that God must meticulously arrange every single event and detail in the world. I think a case can be made for that, but I’m not making it. Thus, even if God truly WAS caught by surprise by Saul’s failure, this wouldn’t affect our argument, because we’re discussing the Calvinistic doctrines of Grace, not the doctrine of sovereignty.
The question of whether God is caught by surprise or disappointed is a very important one, but we needn’t cover it here. Suffice it to say that Isa 46:9-10 is as true as all the stories you cite — except that Isa 46:9-10 is actually and directly making a statement of fact about God’s plans, while the stories are merely counterfactuals.
You’re not suggesting that God didn’t know how many righteous people were in Sodom, are you? I don’t see how else you could bring this up in this context. But that’s just plain silly; of course God knew how many righteous people there were.
What do you mean by this?
Yes, I’d read this “book” as being figurative; it appears that Moses meant it so, and there are no other Biblical references to it. Its meaning is sufficiently clear from Moses’ words; he’s either asking God to end his part in the story (to kill him), or to end his part with the people of God (to remove him from the tribe). He’s not asking God to take away his eternal salvation — nor would he, since he never refers to anything in that manner. If Moses were being literal, then perhaps there is an actual book that God “had written”, but if so, the verb tense would suggest that the book was already written before the events happened… an odd thing for an Arminian to claim.
It seems to me that you merely eisegete, or read more into these stories. The actual words the stories use don’t require the philosophical tenets you hold; they certainly accomodate them, but don’t require them. Meanwhile, explicit doctine teaches that God’s plans stand, and man’s heart is directed wherever God wills.
-Wm
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A counterfactual assumes the truth of its premise, a definition easily supported by an text on langauage or philosophy (as a quick check, one can go to the Stanford site and even Wikipedia is correct on this matter). Thus the reason that my citation oo the Saul and Samuel story is that God’s statement only makes sense if one assumes that the conditional premise is true in relation to the following proposition.
It is not necessary, in relation to the arguments I make, to infer or assume that God is the least beit surprised; and I do not so assume.
The difference between calvinists and arminians, which you make clear, is that they define free will differently. Arminians argue for a certain view of freewill as being correct. If that understanding of free will is correct, then the Calvinist position on free will is contradictory. That is, if there is a correct understanding of free will, and that correct understanding is the arminian one, and the Calvinists uses the correct (arminian) definition of free will, then the Calvinist will have to admit that she holds to a contradiction.
The calvinist only escapes the contradiction by using a different definition of free will. On that different definition she does not hold a contradiction. Perhaps I did not express it clearly enough, but those were my points on that topic.
Thus, given the importance of finding the correct definition of “free will” (is it the calviist or arminian definition), one then looks to the biblical text. And arminians claim that the text leads one to the arminiaan definition.
There is no indication in the text that either Moses or God are referring to a the book as a mere figure of speech. Rather, the narrative assumes the reality of such a book and the real possibility of being blotted out from it. God indicates to Moses that he will not blot out Moses’ name, but will, in fact, blot out others. God’s book is most likely the same book referred to in Revelation.
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Could you provide either link? My search of Wikipedia turns up this article, which says absolutely nothing about being required to assume the truth of the conditional.
The purpose of Samuel’s statement to Saul is completely obvious — he’s telling Saul that a specific great privilege is taken away, and why it was taken away. There’s nothing in the passage about God’s sovereign plan and man’s freedom; it gives us at most a hint that must be harmonized with texts that DO talk about God’s plan or man’s freedom and responsibility.
No, if the Arminian position on free will is correct, the Calvinist position is incorrect; not contradictory, but incorrect. A contradiction can only arise between two elements in the same logical system. But this is all circling the question, the REAL question: which view best fits the experiential and Biblical evidence, the Calvinist view or the Arminian view?
Well said. And Calvinists claim the same. The Calvinists bring forth verses that talk about God’s plan and power; Arminians bring forward verses that contain counterfactuals. Both positions can be defended, but I’m sticking with the direct doctrinal teaching rather than the inference from the wording in stories.
Yes. By not holding a contradiction at all, Calvinists narrowly evade holding a contradiction. Exactly. (That’s sarcasm.) Seriously, “not holding a contradiction” is a good thing. You don’t need to chide me about it, or accuse me of playing logical tricks by not holding to contradictory views.
Not true. Moses wasn’t asking God to literally blot him from a literal book. He was asking for something else, of which the blotting from a book was a symbol. Now, there may actually BE a book; but the book is secondary to what Moses was asking for.
I see why you’d think that; but I don’t think there’s any need to assume that, and there’s no ground for the assumption. The ONLY thing Moses and God make clear about God’s book is that God already wrote it, and that people can be wiped from it because of their sins. In Revelations we see multiple books (“and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life”), and no mention is made of wiping anyone.
Am I missing something?
And how do you address the passages I brought forth? You’re very willing to discuss your stories, but what about my doctrinal verses? Don’t you think a verse talking directly about the plans of God is more useful to establish truth about the plans of God than a story about the historical actions of God?
-Wm
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Wm,
I just noticed your comments above. It seems at one point that you think I am addressing something you wrote but my comments were directed to Mr. Patton and the OP. Anyway, I will address your comments. I really don’t have much time and you seem like a person who could really go on and on (and I tend to be the same sort of person) so I am not sure I will be responding further.
My computer is on the fritz and I just noticed that my copy and paste funtion isn’t working so my responses will be rather general.
First, I think I did demontstrate contradiction with the idea of predetermined choice. If a choice is predetermined then it is not a choice because there is nothing to choose from. One can only “act” in the predetermined way. The only way to avoid this is to empty “choice” of its normal meaning (which seems to be rather typical practice among determinists).
You mention desires predetermining our actions but that begs the question of determinism. I reject the idea that our desires have inherent weight and essentially cause us to make certain choices. Rather, we give weight to our desires and choose accordingly. That is what LFW essentially means. The agent is in control of his falculties given certain options (but if an option is not available then we do not in that case have the freedom to choose it, e.g. the depraved sinner cannot choose Christ without the Spirit intervening). His desires do not irresitibly control him. Rather, he controls his desires (i.e. decides which ones he will yield to or resist). This is biblically essential IMO when we consider basic biblical concepts like self-denial and self-sacrifice (really if God predetermines our desires and choices then sacrifice also quickly loses meaning IMO).
So I think the contradiction stands as real. Either the Calvinist ceases to use the language of choice (which contradicts Scripture as Scripture clearly speaks of choices) or adheres to real contradiction in positing predetermined choices. A predetermined choice (in the sense of God predetermining our every action from eternity) is as non-sensical as a square circle.
And I think you are in the minority in limiting God’s predetermining to only certain areas. I think most Calvinists would see this as a direct attack on God’s sovereignty since that is exactly how Calvinists typically define divine sovereignty (sovereignty=exhaustive determinism). It also conflicts with the typical (traditional) Calvinist view of foreknowledge which says that God can only foreknow what He decrees and will infallibly make happen. If you reject these features of Calvinism then I commend you, but you are certainly in the minority IMO.
You made a comment about people worrying about rewinding time. No, I don’t think that people worry about rewinding time since they realize that is impossible. But people do have regrets (even hard core determinists have them) which betrays an innate conviction that we truly could have made better choices than we actually did. If all of our actions are predetermined and in accord with God’s eternal decree then we should never have regrets. Why should I regret doing something God decreed for me to do and I had no power to do other than what I actually did?
So I do believe that based on the common experiences of regrets, deliberation, the use of persuasive language, and many others, most of the planet naturally concludes that we do have free will in the libertarian sense. And this comports perfectly with the Biblical data as well so there just is no reason to embrace determinism unless some theological system we are firmly commited to demands it. That’s how I see it, take it or leave it.
You also mentioned the possibility of salvation being conditional and not election. That seems rather strange to me as election is part of salvation. If salvation is conditonal then election is conditional. If election is unconditional then so is salvation. And just to clarify my position, I see election being primarily conditioned on being in Christ (i.e. being in union with Christ). The condition for being in Christ, however, is faith. Christ is the elect One and we share in His election and all the spiritual blessings that are found in Him through faith union with Him (Eph. 1:3, 4, 13).
And on a final note I just want to reinforce the point that Arminians do not believe we can choose against our greatest desire if greatest desire essentially equals the choice we make (which is tautological, don’t you think?). But we do sometimes choose against certain desires that we deem less important, and it is the God given ability to decide which desires are more important and to act accordingly which essentially defines LFW. Hope that at least helps to clarify things from the Arminian perspective.
God Bless,
Ben
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You’re smuggling in a definition of “choice”; one that you refer to as “its normal meaning”. But this reference begs the question of what the correct definition of the word “choice” is. No dictionary will help us here, of course, since the issue is hotly debated; and appeals to popular agreement won’t help because it’s a very deep philosophical issue. I propose that the proper thing to do is to keep an open mind and admit that both definitions are possibly valid, and then consider the big picture as it’s presented in Scripture.
No, Scripture won’t resolve the issue of what “choice” means, but it does address the questions of whether God is sovereign (He is, even over the small stuff and the choices of evil men) and whether man is responsible for all of his actions (he is, even for “every idle word”). We can argue about how to define words, but we can’t play balancing games: the two spheres of authority cover the exact same actions, so that for example both God and Saul are responsible in some meaning for the death of Saul.
Thus, any Biblically correct view must be — in some sense of the word — “compatibilist”. That’s not intended to say that the view historically known as “compatibilism” is correct, but the motivation behind it is.
I do claim that our desires determine our choices. If you disagree (and you do), I ask you to provide to me some explanation for “choice” that models your disagreement. I find it hard to reconcile with experience and Scripture to claim that our choices are entirely undetermined (i.e. random), and given that they seem determined, the most important determiner (on a moral level) would seem to be our desires.
This shouldn’t be confused with fatalistic or physicalistic determinism, where impersonal or external forces have exclusive control over a person’s actions. In Biblical compatibilism, it’s necessary to accept that a person’s actions stem from that person’s own desires (as James says), not any property of someone or something else.
But you do go into a bit more detail. Let’s look at that.
I do understand that, but it seems viciously circular. If our choices are determined entirely by our choice of which desire to favor, what determines our choices of what desires to favor? We are not eternal or necessary beings, so the regress cannot go on infinitely. In short, someone or something other than ourselves planted the desires we were born with and/or the desires thrust on us by our environment (we don’t need to argue nature versus nurture, since both are outside of “self”; I’m sure my current desires are a combination of both).
And yes, I can introspectively choose to act in order to cultivate new desires — but I do not GET the new desires simply because I want them, but rather because I choose to perform the actions that will build those desires in me instead of other actions which will accomplish something else. The time and effort I spend to develop those desires is time and effort I cannot spend on anything else.
Wait, are you admitting that the depraved sinner cannot choose Christ? It seems like you’re doing so, yet this is the entire core of the disagreement. Why do you say that the option of choosing Christ is not available to the depraved sinner? I agree with you, but I find it interesting that you would admit it. Do you also agree that the depraved sinner is failing morally when he does not choose Christ? If so, is it not true that God forced the depraved sinner to fail and not be saved, by your logic?
With that said: on what basis does a man control his desires? I agree that it’s possible to develop or suppress desires, but it seems that the actions required to carry out that development or suppressions would themselves be the result of choices earlier in time, which are also dictated by the desires at the time. It seems that if a man does not desire God, he would at least POSSIBLY not desire to develop the desires that would lead him to God; while if a man does desire God, even not knowing who He is, that man would desire to develop the desires that lead to God.
Sacrifice never loses meaning — it simply proves that you desire one thing more than another, even though that other thing is still worthy and good. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” God doesn’t ask for sacrifice because He’s a killjoy; He asks for it in order to give us that which will give us the most delight, Himself.
And we will find, I believe, that in most of our sacrifices we’ll find that not only did we gain something better than what we lost, we actually don’t lose that which we thought we sacrificed: “whoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.”
I’ve seen a lot on both sides, and a lot who don’t take sides. Clearly the Bible says that God concerns Himself with the little things, but the Bible doesn’t say whether He decreed all of them from before the foundations of the Earth — only our salvation is declared to be decreed in Scripture.
I’m not sure whether you’re concerned with God’s decree (which is documented in Scripture to concern the salvation of man), or with God’s providential sovereignty (which is documented to be meticulous, down to the hairs on our head and the fall of a sparrow). I’m talking about his decree, and I don’t know how meticulous it it; I’d be surprised to find that God decreed man’s salvation without also meticulously decreeing the means to that salvation, but since the Bible doesn’t say anything about a meticulous decree, we can’t declare anything specific.
My point was that “most people”, contrary to your claim, don’t use your definition of “free will”. They don’t do that because it’s impractical and specifically requires rewinding time.
And regret doesn’t tell us that we could have done better; it only tells us that we should have done better. It’s not infallible either way, of course. Christians have always insisted that “can” does not imply “should”. It’s time to point out that “should” does not obviously imply “can”.
You’ve only talked about regrets, which doesn’t prove anything at all, as I showed. I’d like to hear more about deliberation and the use of persuasive language from your perspective — I know what I think about them, but I’d like to hear how you think they bolster your case.
But that’s the problem — it doesn’t attempt to comport with the Bible. The Bible urges us to choose, but it also tells us that we can’t choose without the Spirit of God.
I apologize for my unclarity; that was entirely my fault. By “salvation” I meant the future aspect — perhaps I should have said something like “resurrection”. Biblically, the resurrection is conditional on being in Christ. Being in Christ is conditional on coming to Him. Coming to Him is conditional on being drawn to Him by the Father.
In an ultimate sense, yes. But in a logical (and temporal) sequence, and for all practical purposes, no. The resurrection is temporally dependent on calling on Christ, which is dependent on believing in Him, which is dependent on hearing about Him. A person who’s never heard of Christ may be reasonably doubted to be saved (although we cannot know that God may intend that person to be saved tomorrow). A person who disbelieves in Christ may also be doubted to be saved (although God may have saved that person thanks to his past belief and be bringing him back). The logic doesn’t save; Christ does. But He saves by means of the things He has created; amongst them the belief of the sinner in the spoken Gospel.
But Romans 9:11 (for example) seems to simply rule that interpretation out — there God’s choice of Jacob over Esau in the womb is used to explain that God’s purpose is what drives election, not our deeds; and 9:16 even adds our desires to the list of things that God does not consider when graciously granting mercy. Ruling that interpretation of election out seems to be the primary purpose for which those sentences were placed into the argument!
I’m not sure that it clarifies anything for me; it sounds like you’re simply shifting the locus of freedom into ‘deciding’ rather than ‘choosing’. I’m not sure if you want to declare that there’s a difference between the two.
And yes, how we decide what our greatest desire is certainly is an important topic, perhaps even central, and it’s a shame that we haven’t discussed it. You’re right that by that phrasing it’s a waste of time. A more clear phrasing requires careful definitions… This will take a while.
At any given moment, we have to choose what action we will take from the actions that are immediately possible to us, and by acting on that choice, one excludes for the moment all other possible actions. For example, right now I can press down on a key on the keyboard, or I can extend my arm. I obviously chose to press down on a key (as part of typing this), and I chose not to extend my arm. Why did I make that choice? Because I desired to finish the word I was typing more than I desired a nice, relaxing stretch. Why? Because I desire maintaining my train of thought more than I value a little immediate comfort.
Furthermore, if one keeps asking “why” for each of one’s desires, there’s an ultimate personal purpose to all choices, a thing they all point towards. I might be typing this reply because I desire to rebel against God, or I might be typing it because I desire God above all else. This desire is at the core of my being, and there is nothing deeper. Why is there nothing deeper? Because there is nothing greater to desire or to reject than God, and we all know about Him thanks to His general revelation.
Here’s the difference between Calvinist compatibilism and Arminian libertarian free will: compatibilism says that our core desire, the desire to seek or reject God, is totally depraved by the fall, and that we cannot desire to change it because it IS the core desire, animating all others but not animated by any of them. Libertarian free will says that this desire, like all desires, can be changed by a simple action of the human will at any time, without necessary reference to any other desire, reason, or cause.
Do you think that’s an unfair portrayal of either viewpoint? I’m not intending to be unfair; I’m trying to be strictly accurate and precise.
(Both Calvinism and Arminianism agree that we can legitimately talk about “my” desire; fatalism denies that my desires or actions influence outcomes, and materialism/physicalism denies that desires even exist, since only matter/physics exists.)
I hope you have the time and interest to reply; I’m enjoying this discussion. I do agree that I tend to ramble on, so if you freely choose not to reply I won’t assume it’s because you’re totally depraved
.
-Wm
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Wm,
Just noticed your response. I do intend to respond but I am not sure I will be able to get to it today. If not, then I will respond on Monday. Have a good weekend and God Bless,
Ben
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The Arminian system rejects the truth of unconditional election etc. simply because they do not have ears to hear.
They interpret “God is love” to mean God has no hatred toward mankind. The Cavinist system alone sets forth the truth of irresistable election of those loved of the Lord, as well as the eternal damnation of those hated by the thrice holy God. What it boils down to is this, God does not love the non-elect. He will torture them for all eternity in His wrath and holy hatred toward them. The squeemish Arminian can not bear these facts, nor can any who are infected with the idea that God loves everybody.
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“The Arminian system rejects the truth of unconditional election etc. simply because they do not have ears to hear. They interpret “God is love” to mean God has no hatred toward mankind. ”
That’s not really true. The primary Arminian doctrine is Atonement for All, because SCripture explicitly states that Christ died for the whole world. Do we understand “God is love” to mean God loves the whole world? No. We understand Scripture saying that God loved the world to mean that God loved the whole world.
But just because God possesses love for all, it doesn’t mean He bears no hatred. We always hate most that which we love because of our attachment. But God’s hatred is conditional on their rejection of Him.
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Will God torture, or is Hell a place of anguish and wailing, where those who rejected Christ’s salvation get to live out their eternity without Him, conscious ever of the great goodness that they chose to live without.
God’s hatred of sin, which is very real, and His hatred of sinners, which is also very real, is tempered by His great kindness which pours out rain on just and unjust alike.
Scripture does tell us that it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.
I’m glad I have no horse in this race.
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Doug you are referring to hyper-calvinism or something which isn’t to be confused with Calvinism. What is “irresistable election?”
Jeff, a Calvinist
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Wm,
I am tempted to respond to every one of your points but that would make for a very long response and with further responses from you it would quickly lead to this discussion becoming unmanageable. So I will just try to focus on a few issues.
First, I am a little troubled that you found it strange that I hold to total depravity and the need for divine enablement for us to believe. That is the classical Arminian position and the position that Arminius himself strongly defended. It makes me wonder how much you really know of Arminianism and how much you have interacted with actual Arminians (many claim to be Arminians who are just non-Calvinists and really have no clue what Arminianism entails).
So let me just affirm that I do hold to total depravity and the necessity of God’s grace with regards to the ability of any sinner to exercise saving faith in Christ. More on that later.
You’re smuggling in a definition of “choice”; one that you refer to as “its normal meaning”. But this reference begs the question of what the correct definition of the word “choice” is. No dictionary will help us here, of course, since the issue is hotly debated; and appeals to popular agreement won’t help because it’s a very deep philosophical issue. I propose that the proper thing to do is to keep an open mind and admit that both definitions are possibly valid, and then consider the big picture as it’s presented in Scripture.
How about we just work with the definition you provided later on in your response:
At any given moment, we have to choose what action we will take from the actions that are immediately possible to us, and by acting on that choice, one excludes for the moment all other possible actions.
So it seems that you see choice as acting on a certain course of action among various other possible courses of action. I agree, and that is exactly why predetermined choice is a contradiction in terms. If our actions are all predetermined by God then there is really only one possible course of action available to us- the one that God predetermined for us from eternity. So in the absence of legitimate options choice loses all meaning as you in fact seem to plainly recognize. So I think you have demonstrated the reality of the contradiction rather well. Thanks for making that so easy for me.
I do claim that our desires determine our choices. If you disagree (and you do), I ask you to provide to me some explanation for “choice” that models your disagreement.
See above.
I find it hard to reconcile with experience and Scripture to claim that our choices are entirely undetermined (i.e. random), and given that they seem determined, the most important determiner (on a moral level) would seem to be our desires.
I never claimed that our choices are undetermined or random. They are determined by the free agent who exercises his God given capacity/ability to choose among various possible options.
This shouldn’t be confused with fatalistic or physicalistic determinism, where impersonal or external forces have exclusive control over a person’s actions.
Well, since God determines our every thought and desire and God is external to us then I am not sure how your view differs significantly from what you describe here.
In Biblical compatibilism, it’s necessary to accept that a person’s actions stem from that person’s own desires (as James says), not any property of someone or something else.
They can certainly be said to stem from our desires when we willingly yield to those desires, but your view has those desires and thoughts originating with God which, God forbid, means that every sinful thought and desire originates from Him as well. This conflicts with what James says concerning God not tempting us. In fact, if exhaustive determinism is correct (which you seem to at least cautiously embrace) then God does worse than tempt us since temptation can at least be resisted (1 Cor. 10:13), while God’s control of our thoughts and desires (including prevailing desires) cannot be resisted. That would seem to dramatically weaken the obvious outrage James seems to think one should have at the thought of God tempting us to sin.
I do understand that, but it seems viciously circular. If our choices are determined entirely by our choice of which desire to favor, what determines our choices of what desires to favor?
Do you not see how you are again begging the question of determinism here? You are essentially saying, if nothing determines our desires then what determines our desires (which assumes what is yet to be proved, that our desires are determined)?
Desires and influences arise from many different places and some of those desires arise without us having any control over them. Yet, there is no reason to believe that those desires and influences hold irresistible sway over us once they present themselves. That is the point of contention. So again, the free agent, made in the image of God, with the God given capacity to make choices, is the one who determines which desires he will yield to and what desires he will resist. That is as far as it goes. There is no “well what determines…”, that is clearly begging the question.
And if you feel that these desires themselves have the power to irresistibly influence us where do you suppose they get that power? What basis do you have for assigning such power to desires that you deny to the person. If desires can determine things then why can’t we?
We are not eternal or necessary beings, so the regress cannot go on infinitely. In short, someone or something other than ourselves planted the desires we were born with and/or the desires thrust on us by our environment (we don’t need to argue nature versus nurture, since both are outside of “self”; I’m sure my current desires are a combination of both).
And this line of reasoning lays the blame for all sin and evil right at the foot of God Himself. And there is no infinite regress. It stops with the person. The person determines his/her choices because God created the person with that power/ability.
And yes, I can introspectively choose to act in order to cultivate new desires — but I do not GET the new desires simply because I want them, but rather because I choose to perform the actions that will build those desires in me instead of other actions which will accomplish something else. The time and effort I spend to develop those desires is time and effort I cannot spend on anything else.
And here you use the language of LFW to argue for determinism (notice you basically concede that we can direct and control our desires, my point exactly). Interesting. This just underscores how difficult it is to define and communicate compatibilistic determinism with normal language. One must really re-write the dictionary to get any traction.
Wait, are you admitting that the depraved sinner cannot choose Christ? It seems like you’re doing so, yet this is the entire core of the disagreement. Why do you say that the option of choosing Christ is not available to the depraved sinner? I agree with you, but I find it interesting that you would admit it. Do you also agree that the depraved sinner is failing morally when he does not choose Christ? If so, is it not true that God forced the depraved sinner to fail and not be saved, by your logic?
Remember when I said that choice has reference to available options? You seemed to agree as well. So quite simply, faith in Christ is not an available option for the sinner until the influence and empowering of the Spirit is brought to bear on him. Once his depravity is overcome by the Spirit of God then he is enabled to make a real choice, to yield to God in faith or resist Him in unbelief. None of this conflicts with anything I have said.
With that said: on what basis does a man control his desires?
On the basis of the God given ability to do so. Simple.
I agree that it’s possible to develop or suppress desires, but it seems that the actions required to carry out that development or suppressions would themselves be the result of choices earlier in time, which are also dictated by the desires at the time. It seems that if a man does not desire God, he would at least POSSIBLY not desire to develop the desires that would lead him to God; while if a man does desire God, even not knowing who He is, that man would desire to develop the desires that lead to God.
Which is exactly why we need God’s enabling power in order to even begin to desire a relationship with Him.
Sacrifice never loses meaning — it simply proves that you desire one thing more than another, even though that other thing is still worthy and good. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” God doesn’t ask for sacrifice because He’s a killjoy; He asks for it in order to give us that which will give us the most delight, Himself.
But this is a very man centered view of sacrifice. There is the perspective of God to consider. Why would God find pleasure in “sacrifice” if He controls our every thought and desire. It is in the submitting of our will to the will of God that sacrifice, self-denial, self-control, etc. have any meaning. If we do not control our wills then we cannot surrender them to the Lord which is the essence of sacrifice. And if we cannot control our desires then how can we control our “selfs”?
And we will find, I believe, that in most of our sacrifices we’ll find that not only did we gain something better than what we lost, we actually don’t lose that which we thought we sacrificed: “whoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find it.”
And it is because we have some control over the course of our lives that we are able to surrender ourselves to God. We cannot surrender that which we have no control over and I can’t imagine why God would find pleasure in “sacrifices” that He irresistibly causes His creatures to make.
I’ve seen a lot on both sides, and a lot who don’t take sides. Clearly the Bible says that God concerns Himself with the little things, but the Bible doesn’t say whether He decreed all of them from before the foundations of the Earth — only our salvation is declared to be decreed in Scripture.
I’m not sure whether you’re concerned with God’s decree (which is documented in Scripture to concern the salvation of man), or with God’s providential sovereignty (which is documented to be meticulous, down to the hairs on our head and the fall of a sparrow). I’m talking about his decree, and I don’t know how meticulous it it; I’d be surprised to find that God decreed man’s salvation without also meticulously decreeing the means to that salvation, but since the Bible doesn’t say anything about a meticulous decree, we can’t declare anything specific.
Actually, I can’t find where the Bible says anything about God’s “decrees” at all.
My point was that “most people”, contrary to your claim, don’t use your definition of “free will”. They don’t do that because it’s impractical and specifically requires rewinding time.
Well, I think you are quite obviously wrong about that but that is something that is very hard to “prove” from either side so I won’t dwell on it. But I will mention that you even conceded that choice involves available options (i.e. real possibilities) which I think further proves my point since most people understand choice that way which completely undermines exhaustive determinism as I explained above.
And regret doesn’t tell us that we could have done better; it only tells us that we should have done better. It’s not infallible either way, of course. Christians have always insisted that “can” does not imply “should”.
That is simply false. Calvinists/determinists might have always argued that way but the early Christians (before Augustine and most after) all argued that “should” implies “can” (Augustine also argued that way until his later years when he began to fall back upon his previous commitment to Gnostic determinism in debating the Pelagians). And appealing to our inability to fulfill the law is really invalid, but I won’t go there unless you do.
You’ve only talked about regrets, which doesn’t prove anything at all, as I showed. I’d like to hear more about deliberation and the use of persuasive language from your perspective — I know what I think about them, but I’d like to hear how you think they bolster your case.
I already explained it. If my every decision was predetermined by God according to His infallible decree then I should never regret anything I have done. Why on earth would I regret doing those things that God predetermined for me to do? I would like to hear your answer to that question.
But that’s the problem — it doesn’t attempt to comport with the Bible. The Bible urges us to choose, but it also tells us that we can’t choose without the Spirit of God.
Well, with regards to salvation this is the case but those who hear the gospel (what the Bible “urges” us to accept) are empowered by the Spirit and then they have a real choice to make among two available options- faith or unbelief. With regards to everyday choices that do not concern our faith response to God, we certainly have the power to make legitimate choices. BTW, are you suggesting that at least believers have LFW?
I apologize for my unclarity; that was entirely my fault. By “salvation” I meant the future aspect — perhaps I should have said something like “resurrection”. Biblically, the resurrection is conditional on being in Christ. Being in Christ is conditional on coming to Him. Coming to Him is conditional on being drawn to Him by the Father.
All spiritual blessings are conditioned on being in Christ (Eph. 1:3).
I wrote:
“If election is unconditional then so is salvation.”
You answered:
In an ultimate sense, yes. But in a logical (and temporal) sequence, and for all practical purposes, no. The resurrection is temporally dependent on calling on Christ, which is dependent on believing in Him, which is dependent on hearing about Him. A person who’s never heard of Christ may be reasonably doubted to be saved (although we cannot know that God may intend that person to be saved tomorrow). A person who disbelieves in Christ may also be doubted to be saved (although God may have saved that person thanks to his past belief and be bringing him back). The logic doesn’t save; Christ does. But He saves by means of the things He has created; amongst them the belief of the sinner in the spoken Gospel.
I agree with some of this but not all. It seems a little convoluted. I am trying to focus on the reality of the situation and not on how things may just seem from our temporal perspective. If you agree that the election we are discussing is an election to salvation then I don’t see how you can possibly escape the conclusion that if election is unconditional, so is salvation. I guess I see like it like this:
1) Election is unto salvation (i.e. chosen for salvation)
2) This election is unconditional and irrevocable
3) Therefore, salvation is unconditional
But Romans 9:11 (for example) seems to simply rule that interpretation out — there God’s choice of Jacob over Esau in the womb is used to explain that God’s purpose is what drives election, not our deeds; and 9:16 even adds our desires to the list of things that God does not consider when graciously granting mercy. Ruling that interpretation of election out seems to be the primary purpose for which those sentences were placed into the argument!
I hesitate to even get into this as I think it will take us in too many other directions. It does seem that there is a subtle concession concerning my understanding of Eph. 1:4 in your response since you immediately run to Rom. 9:11 rather than focusing on the context of Eph. 1:4.
The “good” or “bad” in the context of Romans 9-11 has reference to the works of the law and not to faith or unbelief. And the objection being addressed with regards to our desires/will has nothing to do with Arminianism vs. Calvinism. It has reference to the Jews’ belief that God had to save them according to their terms (i.e. unconditionally, based on the covenant promises made to the patriarchs). God is saying that He determines the condition for salvation and if He determines that the condition for salvation is faith in Christ (for both Jew and Gentile) then they have no right to object. Much more could be said on that but this post is already way too long.
Here’s the difference between Calvinist compatibilism and Arminian libertarian free will: compatibilism says that our core desire, the desire to seek or reject God, is totally depraved by the fall, and that we cannot desire to change it because it IS the core desire, animating all others but not animated by any of them. Libertarian free will says that this desire, like all desires, can be changed by a simple action of the human will at any time, without necessary reference to any other desire, reason, or cause.
Well, this is a total mischaracterization of LFW from the Arminian perspective. Arminians believe that no one can choose God prior to God’s intervention. God must graciously enable the depraved sinner to respond to the gospel. The real point of controversy resides in what happens after we are enabled to believe. The Arminian believes we are free to surrender to the truth of the gospel at that point and also free to resist it. The Calvinist believes that God overcomes depravity through irresistible regeneration and that this regeneration inevitably results in faith. So it really boils down to whether or not God’s grace is resistible or not. Arminians say yes and Calvinists say no.
Do you think that’s an unfair portrayal of either viewpoint? I’m not intending to be unfair; I’m trying to be strictly accurate and precise.
Yes, some of it is unfair as explained above.
God Bless,
Ben
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” What it boils down to is this, God does not love the non-elect. He will torture them for all eternity in His wrath and holy hatred toward them. The squeemish Arminian can not bear these facts, nor can any who are infected with the idea that God loves everybody.”
How is it squeemish to be morally, emotionally and intellectually appalled at that line of thinking? How is it great or good on the part of Calvinists to be proud of such a portrayal of God that they wear it like some badge of honour? Yes, the heroic and stoic Calvinist says, “yeah, only mature christians can accept that God will torture people in hell for ever and ever even though they were born in sin and so naturally rejected God and he decided not to rescue them.”
That “squeemishness” is something that most people feel when confronting that version of the doctrine because it is a reflection of the moral sense of God, the image of God, that still residiens in all humans. Yes, all are depraved, and depraved in every facet of their being, but not completelyand toatally depraved to the exclusion of any goodness at all. Even classic five-point Calvinists don’t believe in the complete depravitiy of human kind to the exclusion of any remainder at all of God’s original good creation. It is that residual–and proper–moral sense that must be (wrongly) overcome. We should be appalled; that’s how we were created, to recognize appalling immorality. Arminians are right to be squeenish; Calvinists are wrong not to be (I recognize that not all Calvinists take as extreme a position. However, I’m appaled by even some of their less rigourous and extreme formulations).
John C.
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On counterfactuals. As indicated below, a counterfactual makes no sense unless one can ascribe truth value to the antecedent part of the conditional (the “if” clause). Of course, in a historical sense it cannot be true since it did not come to pass, but there would not be any point in talking about the counterfactual unless it could have been true.
From the wikipedia article on “counterfactual conditional”: A counterfactual conditional, subjunctive conditional, or remote conditional, is a conditional (or “if-then”) statement indicating what would be the case if its antecedent were true. ” The following is given as an example: “The counterfactual conditional is the basis of experimental methods for establishing causality in medicine, natural and social sciences, e.g., whether taking antibiotics helps cure bacterial infection. For every individual, u, there is a function that specifies the state of u’s infection under two hypothetical conditions: had u taken antibiotic and had u not taken antibiotic. Only one of these states can be observed, since the other one is literally “counter factual.” The overall effect of antibiotic on infection is defined as the difference between these two states, averaged over the entire population. If the treatment and control groups are selected at random, the effect of antibiotic can be estimated by comparing the rates of recovery in the two groups.” That is, hwere a jdrug is found to be effective, then one could say about the person who did not take it, “he would have gotten better more quickly if he had taken the drug”.
In logic, of course, it is possible to construct conditionals that have no truth value, but that is not the sort of statement that I was pointing to in the Biblical text.
The SIL website defines a counterfactual conditional as: “A counterfactual conditional relation is a conditional relation in which the form of expression of the antecedent and consequent marks them as imagined, nonfactual states or events.”
What I meant by truth value is that in the type of text we encounter in the biblical story, the truth of the consequent can only make sense if it is possible for the antecedent to be true.
What counterfactuals engage, in their ordinary use in language, is a shared sest of facts or assumptions between the speaker and hearer regarding the two haves of the conditional. That is, there are things outside of the conditional statement itself that must be regarded. The formal reasoning grup at Stanford University site notes, “The truth of a counterfactual does not just depend on the state of the world the way a direct observation does. There is always a theory–in the above example, an implicit theory of driving shared by the passenger and the driver. The theory is based on their experience and what they have learned and been taught about driving. [referring to an example of a counterfactual used in the description of a car going over a hill]”
My point being that it renders the Biblical text nonsensical and irrelevant to say that God a(and we) regard the antecedent condition as impossible, and that the entire counterfactual is devoid of any truth. And, hence, if we are to give it any meaning at all, it must include the meaning that the choice was real and not merely apparent.
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In the interest of useful use of language: Since some of what is discussed in teh above responses involves the use of logic, it would be preferable if some care were taken with the use of expressions used by logicians. So, I quote from a web site to spare the trouble of much typing, “”Begging the question” is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.
A simple example would be “I think he is unattractive because he is ugly.” The adjective “ugly” does not explain why the subject is “unattractive” — they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.
What is it Not?
To beg the question does not mean “to raise the question.” (e.g. “It begs the question, why is he so dumb?”) This is a common error of usage made by those who mistake the word “question” in the phrase to refer to a literal question. Sadly, the error has grown more and more common with time, such that even journalists, advertisers, and major mass media entities have fallen prey to “BTQ Abuse.”"
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Kangaroodoort picked up an important point, that Arminians don’t believe that a freely exercised chouice must be random if it is not determined. To argue thusly is, in fact, to repeat a criticism of David Hume. According to David Hume, if a choice is not determined then it is simply a random event; nothing else is logically possible. Therefore, our experience of our own free will could be an illusion. However, libertarians could point out that people can’t experience things that are logically impossible. For example, people can’t imagine a perfect circle that’s also a perfect square. Therefore, if we experience our own free will, then it must be logically possible.
Compatiblists, such as Wm. T. above, respond to Arminian challenges by coming up with a determinism-friendly re-definition of “free choice” — typically, a choice that is not made under duress. and this is what I was responding to.
To use the easily available Wikipedia (which, though often biased and incorrect, is also often correct) rather than books, Arminians are metaphysical libertarians. That is, they subscribe to the position of incompatibilism which states that an action cannot be both free and physically predetermined in the commonly understood sense. Free actions for the libertarian are ones which could have been different. Traditionally, this has meant that there is no causal chain that necessitated the action prior to the agent freely choosing it; the agent is an originator of causal chains. Libertarianism is contrasted with determinism, which holds that all human actions are predetermined, and compatibilism, which argues determinism is compatible with free will.
In rejecting compatibilism, libertarians have developed alternative positions on the relationship between free will and determinism. One perspective is that humans have a special exemption from the determinism that applies to everything else—for example a soul or dualistically-conceived mind. This position is referred to as supernatural libertarianism. Alternatively, the libertarian may claim that the world in general is not strictly deterministic, and humans (and perhaps other entities) are able to exploit the resulting “elbow room” to make free decisions. This is naturalistic libertarianism.
Arminians start with an immediate advantage over Calvinists, in that it is the expereience of humans across cultures and throughout written literature and oral traditin, that a person “cold have done otherswise” ibn a specific situation. It is indeed quite abnormal for a person to think along compatibilist lines–unless one is a western philosopher (including Calvinism) or a materialist. The Arminian position is the intuitive one.
But of course, that does not settle the matter. One must look at how God revealos himslef and reveals facts about how we are and how the world is. The Biblical text naturally reads in an Arminian fashion, and one must bring into the text a compatiblist framework to reinterpret what otherwise asppears to be happening in the Biblical stories as related by God through his prophets.
This last point is what critics of Calvinism are referring to when they say that Calvinism lacks integrity in addressing the Biblical text and in forcing the texts to abide by a system (that starts with a “compatibilist” philosphical system based on an incorrect interpretation of a few verses). That is why Arminians say that they face the tension and that Calvinists dismiss the tension by using a system that has an answer for the tension, the answer being “compatibilism”. Compatiblism does not maintain or live with the tension; it res resolves the tension. It is “tidy”, and wraps up the loose ends.
Arminians, on the other hand, maintain several tensions. One being that they disagree that the understanding of the exercise of free will is limited to either randomness or determination. They don’t pretend to explain how it is that we can exercise our will freely without being memrely random. That is still a mystery (though neurology and quantum physics are starting to assist in understanding this). Scripture portrays free creatures as the final explanations of their own behavior, and thus as morally responsible for their own behavior. With a few exceptions that are limited to God’s direct interevention, Scripture’s final explanation for human behavior is to be found in the self-determining center of the human self.
How is it that we (from an Arminian perspective) can self-determine, have the origin of our decision lie within us–and potentially different each time the “film” of history were rerun–without that decision being random? That is indeed a real mystery.
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If I may be so bold to ask a question of John C. or any other Arminian that is still reading the comments, John C. wrote
How is it … the origin of our decision lie within us- and potentially different each time…
If you are correct and we can make choices different each time then how does God know what you will choose? If you are the self-determining agent then there is nothing to know UNTIL you instantiate a choice. That is why I see that Arminianism naturally leads to Open Theism if taken to its logical conclusion. Since you are the self-determining agent and the origin of the decision cannot be known until it is actualized, because it can be different until it is made according to LFW, what generally happens is you make God dependent on man. God waits to see what choice you will actualize and then I assume plan accordingly.
The way I see it- God determines all things and man still freely chooses what he wants is the best thing we can say given the biblical record. The only way it would be a contradiction is if God and man are the same, surely you are not implying that? We must remember that when we say that God determines all and man still freely chooses that that is not an apple to an apple comparison.
Grace & Peace
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If you are correct and we can make choices different each time then how does God know what you will choose? If you are the self-determining agent then there is nothing to know UNTIL you instantiate a choice. That is why I see that Arminianism naturally leads to Open Theism if taken to its logical conclusion. Since you are the self-determining agent and the origin of the decision cannot be known until it is actualized, because it can be different until it is made according to LFW, what generally happens is you make God dependent on man. God waits to see what choice you will actualize and then I assume plan accordingly.
The problem with this assessment though is that it is in direct contradiction to the traditional view of God in Christianity. Traditionally, Christians have stated that God exists outside of time and space. Indeed, recently Science has backed up this Christian claim by demonstrating that time is ans aspect of space.
We don’t believe God needs to wait for anything thing because He sees teh beginning and the end simulataneously. God doesn’t look into the future to see what we will do because for God the future is now. There is no difference to Him between the future and the present.
The way I see it- God determines all things and man still freely chooses what he wants is the best thing we can say given the biblical record. The only way it would be a contradiction is if God and man are the same, surely you are not implying that? We must remember that when we say that God determines all and man still freely chooses that that is not an apple to an apple comparison.
What you say here doesn’t really work. You are saying that an event can be determined by both God and man simultaneously. How is that not a contradiction?
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I see that you appeal to the Boethian method to answer; I will leave it to the reader to investigate on their own if this answers the question.
The problem of course is that there is nothing to know until a choice has been actualized. Since with LFW man has the power of contrary choice and seeing as he is the self-determining agent there is nothing to know until he actualizes a choice, so the claim that God then becomes dependent on man is still there. Furthermore, you ascribe to man the power of contrary choice and ability to contradict his nature while limiting God. So you not only make God dependent on you, but you also give yourself a power and ability that God does not have available to Himself.
As for the second part, the contradiction would be there if God and man were equal. Since God and man are not the same/equal then because God, our creator, can do something that man, His creation, cannot is not a contradiction. Just because we cannot wrap our little minds around the “how” does not make it a contradiction.
Grace & Peace
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There is more than one way to understand God’s relation to time. Currently, most philosphers discuss God as being outside of time (hence seeing the beginning and end at the same time and all the time), and God as being within time once he creates it.
There are several ways of holding to incompatibilist free will. Some Arminians accept simple foreknowledge, in which God simply knows the future, and our future actions, because he is God and there is no further detailed explanation of how he can do so. Some Arminians (and even Calvinists) hold that because God is outside of time, he can see our future choices in time even as he interacts with us in the present. Still others use the concept of “middle knowledge”. In each of these explanations, God’s independence from man is preserved while also still preserving incompatibilist free will (incompatibilist becasuse it is free will that is incompatible with determinism). Under these explanations there is someting to know before a person actualizes their choice in present time.
It is also important to note that Calvinists and Armininians define the term free will differently. Arminians define it in such a way that it is incompatible with determinism. Calvinists either accept determinism or, more typically, define free will in such a way that it is compatible with determinism. The point that I have made in some of my above comments, is that a Calvnist cannot work with or accept the Armininian’s definition of free will because that (the Armininian definition) is logically incompatible with the remainder of the Calvinist system. The Arminian also argues that the only type of free will depicted in the Bible, and the only type that is worth having, and the only type that actual permits moral responsibility, is the free will according to the Arminian definition. That is, free will that is not compatible with determinism.
Hence our Arminian complaint that the traditional Calvinist definition of free will is nonsensical and useless, and that the Calvinist is locked into a logical contradiction or incompatibility if she uses the only definition of free will that makes moral sense (the Arminian definition).
Rather than arguing solely in the abstract, let me again return to the Bible with yet another story. In Galations chapter 2 Paul writes that he “withstood him [Peter] face to face because he was to be BLAMED”. Paul notes that Peter ate with the Gentiles until representatives from James arrived, after which he withdrew from eating with Gentiles. Paul writes that Peter is morally blameworthy because he could have and should have continued to eat with the Gentiles, that is, he could have but did not. This is one of the crucial points of the Arminian view, that there are real alternatives, any of whichcould be chosen by a person, and that the reality of these choices is what makes someone morally
responsible. A foreordained choice is not a morally responsible choice because the alternaitves are not real; they never could have been chosen.
A Calvinist would say that Peter is morally blameworthy because he origin of the chosie lies within Peter; it is his choice; it is his response to or outworking of his dominant desires–desires that belong to him alone.,
What the Armininian is pointing out, however, is that the Biblical text does not assign blame and moral responsibility simply because the choice is sourced within Peter or is a result of following his desires (Peter did what he most desired, and nothing stopped him from acting on those desires). No, what Paul says is that Peter is blameworthy because he chose one path (separation) instead of the other (continuing to meet with Gentiles). Peter is blameworthy because he really could have chosen to meet with Gentiles, but instead chose to separate from them.
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Mitch,
you wrote:
Furthermore, you ascribe to man the power of contrary choice and ability to contradict his nature while limiting God. So you not only make God dependent on you, but you also give yourself a power and ability that God does not have available to Himself.
No one said anything about contradicting one’s nature. In fact, the power of contrary choice is inherent in our nature though it has been ruined, with regards to responding to God, in the fall. If you deny that man was created with the power of self-determinism then you have big trouble in explaining why Adam sinned in the garden despite that fact that his nature was declared by God to be “good”.
And I really hope you are not denying God the power of contrary choice. While God cannot contradict His moral nature (e.g. He cannot lie), God still has the power of contrary choice in many circumstances. God did not have to create the universe. God did not have to give us five fingers on each hand. God did not have to elect you to salvation (assuming the Calvinist account of unconditional election) and pass over your neighbor, for example. So God has real freedom and is not bound by necessity. He is truly free to do many things while He is not free to be anything other than God. I am not free to flap my arms and fly since that is impossible given my design. But I am free to make real decisions on a good many things. And when God’s grace intervenes I am free to receive Him or reject Him.
God Bless,
Ben
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John C,
You wrote:
A foreordained choice is not a morally responsible choice because the alternaitves are not real; they never could have been chosen.
A foreordained choice is not a choice at all. It is a contradiction in terms. Don’t concede the language of choice to the Calvinist. It is completely non-sensical given their determinism.
God Bless,
Ben
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Dear Ben,
The contradicting one’s nature is usually in the definition of LFW. If all you mean to say is that LFW gives one options to pick from and that one picks the one that is in accord with their nature then we can agree. I fail to see how having sinful choices to pick from is any better than compatibilism, but to each his own.
The way it usually is defended, LFW, it’s the ability to choose between good and evil. Yet it seems that you agree that an unregenerate man only has evil options to choose from until and unless the grace of God and the Spirit empower him to see the truth. We can surely agree on this, what happens after is where we would travel different paths.
I’m only inferring from what you wrote and previous interaction with you that you would agree that the unregenerate not under this enabling grace only have sinful options available. This again puzzles me about using LFW as a defense, usually people who use LFW action theory posit that man can choose between good and evil and that is the only way that God can be just. Yet you seem to agree that this is not the case at all and that unless man is under this enabling grace that the only options available for him to actualize are evil. Interesting!
Grace & Peace
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Mitch,
As I have mentioned before there is much more to the debate than the ability to choose between good and evil. It really gets to the heart of the proper definition of sovereignty as well. If sovereignty=exhaustive determinism (as most Calvinists assert) and our every action is predetermined as a result, then there can be no LFW in any circumstance (even choosing between evil options). This extends to the discussion of foreknowledge as well since Calvinists generally insist that God can only foreknow what He decrees to happen (predetermines and infallibly brings to pass). This would include our every thought and action which again leaves no room for LFW in any situation at all (before or after conversion).
If you want to focus only on the ability to believe or reject the gospel LFW is still important as the enabled sinner then has a real choice and will be held accountable for the choice he/she makes once enabled to make that choice. But if there is no LFW present in the one who rejects the gospel then God judges the unbeliever for rejecting something that was never an option for him, which is absurd. And when we add to that the doctrine of limited atonement, the sinner is also judged for rejecting an atonement (since we are justified by faith in His blood, Rom. 3:25) that was never intended for him nor provided for him, which is even more absurd.
So the discussion reaches into several areas and has significant ramifications regardless of the need for divne enablement for putting faith in Christ. And the fact remains that a predetermined choice is a contradiction in terms and as non-sensical as a square circle. So Calvinism is littered with absurdities due to its commitment to determinism.
God Bless,
Ben
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Dear Ben,
Besides railing against all things TULIP, I take it that you agree with me. That the unregenerate sinner that is not under enabling grace only has sinful choices that he can actualize, kind of takes the air out of LFW.
I have yet to see how God knows BEFORE we instantiate a choice if LFW is true. Again, there is absolutely nothing to know unless/until the agent actualizes the choice. Appealing to the Boethian solution brings its own problems and still does not resolve the question of how God knows before the choice is actualized. While an appeal to God being outside of time answers the HOW it does not answer the BEFORE since the self-determining agent is temporal. That is why God would become dependent on man.
I doubt we will end centuries of debate, but I thank you for the interaction. While we will agree to disagree again I wish you a Merry Christmas.
Grace & Peace
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Yes, kangaroodort, you are correct; I should have put “foreordained choice” in quotes to indicated is a term with a special meaning for Calvinists, and no meaning at all for Arminians.
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It does not take the air out of incompatibilism to concede (which I do not) that a sinnner can only make sinful choices. From an Arminian perspective, free will is not merely negative, that is, an absence of restraint or obstacles. For an Arminian free will is the ability to one of several courses of action in the future. This holds even if all the choices are sinful. So, let us take Bundy the serial killer for an example. He was free to choose to kill one of a large number of people. Of all those possibilities, he only chose a few. Had he chosen to kill even one diferent person, then history of our world would have been different than it in fact did turn out. An Arminian believes that Bundy really could have chosen different people than those he did. In the “garden of forking paths”, Bundy could have gone, had the ability to go, down a different path. A Calvinist would say that he did not have that ability, because a Calvinist is a determinist–though a determinist that insists that we still have a free will and that we are morally responsible.
However, I would also make the obvious observation that nonChristians do not only choose to do evil and to sin. The recent terrorist events in Mumbai include several examples of love and heroism and self sacrifice–all things that are not sins. However, those good and moral choices are not sufficient to save onesself eternally, nor do they count for anything in Christs present and future kingdom unless they are done in the love of Christ (being only tinkling cymbals and sounding brass).
Neither Wm. T. nor Mitch address what both Kangaroodort and I have raised: how can one be morally blameworthy if one does not have the ability to act / do differently at a certain point in history. That is, if a person could only act in one way based upon the laws of nature and history up to the point of her choice, then how can she be morally responsible for the consequences of her choice? She cannot. To reply taht she could have chosen differently if the history of the world to that point had been different (for examplle, she had different desires) does not avoid the adverse result of no moral responsibility. To argue that she is morally responsible is to argue that she is responsible for something that she does not have any control over (the pre-existing laws of nature and all the events prior to her present choice).
Furthermore, the Bible’s presentation of moral responsibility is that one is morally responsible for having done what one was able not to do, or for not doing what one was able to do. One of amy examples of this is the story of Peter in Galations. Paul finds him blameworthy for disassociating from the gentiles when he had the ability to continue to associate with them. The kind of free will that God possesses, and the kind of free will that He has given us, is not compatible with determinism. It is a will that is not determined by the laws of nature (i.e., the physical regularities that we observe). It is a will that is not determined by the history of the world (including of course ourselves) prior to our choice. It is a will that is not determined by our most dominant or strongest desire.
God’s knowledge of our choices is a separate, though related, issue. There are a number of proposed solutions that would work even if one asserts the validity of incompatibilism (i.e., the positino that free will is incompatible with determinism).
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It does not follow that to say that we can choose contrary to our natures gives us a power that God does not have, a power that God should have if he is God (i.e., an ultimate perfect being that possesses everything necessary to be God).
We sin, we make sinful choices, we are sinners–none of which can be ascribed to God. God’s inability to choose to sin does not make us greater than God; it makes us lesser.
God’s nature is what defines good and evil. God’s nature is such that he does not sin, is unable to sin.
God therefore is never in a situation where he would want to choose contrary to his nature.
We, on the other hand, often are. It is in our nature to lie, and we are tempted to lie, but we can choose to act contrary to that nature and tell the truth. Even unregenerate sinners can do that. It is why we hold sinners to be morally responsible. Or even take a non-sin issue. I have a desitre to eat the candy, in fact it is my favourite candy and I am very hungry and don’t expect to get any food for several more hours–however I can choose to act contrary to that desire and not eat the candy.
God also makes choices that are contrary to his desires. He desires that all should be saved, but he does not make choices that result in all being saved. He chooses not to irresistably save everyoine.
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Dear John C.,
It seems to me that you and Ben are not in full agreement and I would say that you are further away from “Classical Arminianism”, but that is neither here nor there. You say I have not answered you and I say you have not answered me, what to do???
Not having interacted with you before it seems to me that you are advocating for a more randomness in choices. I think you would say that if all things were exactly the same and nothing changed that you somehow would make a different choice. Please correct me if I am wrong, if that is what you believe then we will never see eye to eye. Not only does that not make any “real world sense”, but it is also un-biblical.
I will assume that you believe we are saved by grace alone through faith alone and count you as a dear brother in Christ. I wish you and your family, assuming you have one, a very Merry Christmas.
Grace & Peace
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I contend that the following statement does contain a contradiction: “The way I see it- God determines all things and man still freely chooses what he wants is the best thing we can say given the biblical record. The only way it would be a contradiction is if God and man are the same, surely you are not implying that? We must remember that when we say that God determines all and man still freely chooses that that is not an apple to an apple comparison.”
The issue, with respect to the contradiction, is not the nature of God and the nature of humans. It is, rather, the definition of the terms “determine” and “freely choose”.
To freely chose means, in the sense that most people use it and certainly in the sense that I use it, that we are sometimes in the following position with respect to a contemplated future act: we have the ability to do that act AND we also at the same time have the ability not to do that act. So, when faced with a piece of candy on a plate, I have the ability to pick it up and eat it, and also the ability to refrain from picking it up and eating it. The future is not unique and contains both possibilities.
Determinism is the position that the past and the laws of nature and God determine at every moment a unique future. That is, the future holds only my “choice” to pick up and eat the candy.
Those two definitions are contradictory, and I am using the terms with those definitions.
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Being able to choose differently under exactly the same historical circumstances does not entail randomness, though that is a complaint often thrown against those who believe in incompatibilism and indeterminism. Incompatiblism (free will is incompatible with determinism) is the natural intuition of people, which is why philosophers (who subscribe to determism) have to argue that this intuition is wrong. However, the fact that the intuition does exist, and the fact that some people do believe in incompatibilism and indeterminacy and construct competent arguments for it, means that that position cannot be dismissed as lacking real world sense.
The ability to choose either of two courses of action, and thus to be morally blameworthy for making the wrong choice, is in fact Biblical, as my example of Peter in Galatians illustrates. Those who argue for determinism must explain why the Biblical text does not mean what at face value it says. That is, they must explain why Peter’s choice was in fact determined when the Bible prima facie tells the story as if his choice were not determined.
Other than using some modern terminology, nothing I’ve written puts me outside traditional Arminian writings. Of course, it doesn’t exclude more modern variants either (such as open theism, which seems to be largely a theory of the nature of knowledge).
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There are passages in scripture such as God’s “now I know” statement to Abraham that suggest there is such a thing as God’s knowledge being dependent on our choices.
However He also knows the choice from outside time so He does indeed know it in advance of us.
If I pick up a history book I know what each person chose to do in that book. They had free will, but I know the outcome. If I traveled back in time with the book I could watch those events unfold, I would see every action played out, every man free to choose, but the knowledge of the outcome would be in my hands.
My knowledge does not determine their actions, their actions determine my knowledge.
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I see that you appeal to the Boethian method to answer; I will leave it to the reader to investigate on their own if this answers the question.
The problem of course is that there is nothing to know until a choice has been actualized. Since with LFW man has the power of contrary choice and seeing as he is the self-determining agent there is nothing to know until he actualizes a choice, so the claim that God then becomes dependent on man is still there. Furthermore, you ascribe to man the power of contrary choice and ability to contradict his nature while limiting God. So you not only make God dependent on you, but you also give yourself a power and ability that God does not have available to Himself.
There is a lot that you are assuming here that doesn’t follow. First of all, you say “Furthermore, you ascribe to man the power of contrary choice and ability to contradict his nature while limiting God.” This isn’t true. God has a free will and has granted man a free will. Both have the power of contrary choice, so I do not see how this is empowering man while limiting God. Second, man does not have the ability to contradict his own nature, and I do not even see where you believe that I am implying that.
Also, the idea that God is dependant on the human is also false because it is assuming the Calvinist presupposition that the way in which God saves is the way in which God must save. God’s method of saving is the way God choose to do it, and He could have done it another way. God is not dependant on man since God did not have to make salvation conditioned on faith, but choose to Himself.
Furthermore, it is not as if God is inactive until a person comes to saving faith. All Arminianism is consistant in saying that God is ever active in prevenient grace enabling a person to come to saving faith. God not only knows who will be saved, and when, but is there enabling the person from the moment they are born. Salvation is God from beginning to end, and in no way is He dependant on man, but man is completely and utterly dependant on Him. You’re argument is akin to saying that the potter is dependant on the clay because he won’t put it into the kiln until it is the right shape.
As for the second part, the contradiction would be there if God and man were equal. Since God and man are not the same/equal then because God, our creator, can do something that man, His creation, cannot is not a contradiction. Just because we cannot wrap our little minds around the “how” does not make it a contradiction.
Actually, I think I misread you the first time. I retract my statements here.
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This thread is quite interesting, and all the more so because the discussion has been peaceable and without rancor.
Before picking up on some recent comments, I’d like to return to CMP’s comment that started it all.
There are several things in his original post to which I disagree.
Indeed, I find a substantial one in the second paragraph, wherein he states that “Both Calvinists and Arminians believe in predestination. In other words, whether or not God predestines people is not the issue. All Bible believing Christians believe this doctrine. The issue has to do with the basis of this predestining.” That is only partly true, however, because although all Christians believe in predestination they disagree not only with respect to the basis but also with respect to its nature, content and scope. Arminians can put forward a valid and persuasive case that predestination as used in the New Testament refers to the predestination of groups and nations, and not to individuals.
The observation regarding the so-called “tension” (so-called because I don’t believe that it is so) must make sense only from a particular Calvinist view point. The Arminian certainly retains “tension” because it is difficult to explain how God can see the future content of someone’s free choice. The Arminian also retains a “tension” because it is difficult to explain how a decision can be indeterminate and also non-random.
The Calvinist, from my perspective, resolves and eliminates the tension by analysing predestination in an individual sense and by accepting the determinism of individual choices. The Calvinist defines free will in a manner that makes it compatible with determinism. There is no “tension” left.
It is not clear from the comment what CMP means by the word “tension”, how that term relates to “rational”, and whether he has put forward a valid criterion for truth. Initially, it seems that by “tension” he means “consistency” (see his 5th paragraph). He also seems to mean “pulling in two directions” when he discusses human freedom and God’s choice (he implies that they pull in opposite, or at least different, directions). He also seems to mean “lack of knowledge” and “make sense”. His concept of “tension” is too elastic to be useful for constructing a path to truth. Ultimately, however, he discards this concept; he doesn’t reject Arminianism because it lacks “tension” but because it favours human reasoning—the “rational”—over revelation when there is a real conflict between the two.
More problematic, however, is his equivocation in his use of “rational”. The catchiness of his title only works because typically a reader would believe that something that is more “rational” is truer, but CMP has written his title so that something that is irrational or non-rational is truer than the rational. Normally rational means based on sound logic and accurate observation and true propositions. However, it becomes clear that CMP is jamming another meaning into his use of that word: “rationalistic” or “rationalism”, by which I mean an illegitimate use of one’s “ration”, a continuance of belief in a system of thought or propositions even in the face of contrary evidence, or a system of thought that ignores or discounts the revelation of God.
The contrary evidence is, as CMP argues, the revelation of God. So what CMP really means is that Calvinism is less dependent on a system of thought that ignores the revelation of God when it is contrary to some propositions or beliefs that are part of that system of thought. And he views Arminianism as holding to beliefs or propositions that ignore the revelation of God.
But that is hardly a criterion at all because Arminianism is just as insistent that she accounts for the full revelation of God and that it is Calvinism that ignores or misconstrues important aspects of God’s revelation in the Bible. CMP’s entire paragraph only works because he equivocates in his use of “rational”. However, a belief is rational (in the proper, restricted sense of the term) only if it takes into account all available facts / evidence, or at least accounts for the available facts. If one believes that God’s revelation in the Bible is true (as do Arminians) then it would be irrational to ignore what God says.
Rationality is an appropriate criterion for truth when it is defined to include both formal logic (which deals with provable facts) and “uncertain but sensible” arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience and the like. When used with that definition (which is the usual definition of the term), then the most rational analysis and explanation of human’s freedom and God’s choice is the truer one because the most rational analysis will include and account for the totality of God’s revelation.
The Arminian will argue that the Arminian position is more rational, and thus truer, than the Calvinist position because it (the Arminian position) accounts better for the provable facts and for God’s revelation and for other, less certain, things. The Arminian would disagree that her position is “more rational” in CMP’s second sense of holding to a human system of thought that ignores God’s revelation. Indeed, she would counter that the Calvinist position is the “more rational” system (using this second meaning for rational).
CMP’s “tension” and “less rational” method for determining or describing truth is muddled and unhelpful, for which system has more “tension” and is “less rational” depends on which side of the fence one is standing.
If one is going to have to have any sort of engagement with the “other side”, one has to do what the 130+ posts above are doing: using God’s gift of mind and rationality to evaluate all the facts before us, both those of the natural world and those given to us through His revelation in the Bible. Furthermore, the revelation, the facts, in the Bible are given to us by means of human language. Disagreements about the proper understanding of the language used can only be handled by humans through their use of language. We don’t have Vulcan mind melds, we can’t interact directly from mind to mind.
Thus CMP’s comment is not helpful except in so far as it took a stick and stirred the pot or whacked the hornet’s nest to generate discussion (by use of a catchy title and the invitiation to “fire away”).
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Dear JC.Freak,
Forgive my lack of clarity and thank you for the thoughtful interaction. When you wrote-
Second, man does not have the ability to contradict his own nature…
I heartily say amen with you.
I will try now to clarify my thought on how LFW makes God dependent on man. I had in my mind the view that Jason C. wrote about in the comment above, let me excerpt the relevant part.
If I pick up a history book I know what each person chose to do in that book. They had free will, but I know the outcome. If I traveled back in time with the book I could watch those events unfold, I would see every action played out, every man free to choose, but the knowledge of the outcome would be in my hands.
My knowledge does not determine their actions, their actions determine my knowledge.
It is my belief that this view as stated by Jason C. makes God dependent on man. The reason God knows the future is because he has the “history book”. So with that knowledge God then can plan how best to implement his overall plan. I will try to rephrase my last sentence; God’s knowledge of future is dependent on man.
This view of course seems deterministic as well and runs counter some definitions of LFW that have the power of contrary choice.
More could be said, but I will leave it alone. Thank you again for the interaction and Merry Christmas!
Grace & Peace
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The obvious question is, what is unBiblical about God saving those
who freely choose him in faith? (where “freely” means they had the ability to either place their faith in God, or not place their faith in Him, and are not prevented from choosing one of those two options by the laws of nature, the history of the world to that point (including their own personal history) or God).
And what kind of dependency are you objecting to? If God’s grace is irresistable, then he can save whomever he wants to, merely by exercising his irresistable grace, apart from some free choice. That is, even an Arminian grants that God could (has the power or ability) to exercise his grace irresistably. However, the Arminian argues that God refrains from doing so. Hence the “dependence” (if that is what it is) does not relate to any lack in God’s power. That is, God is not “dependent” on a
human’s choice in the sense that the human choice is a necessary precondition for the exercise of God’s power, that God cannot exercise His power unless the person makes the choice.
Thus the relationship described in post 134 as “dependent” is not one in which the “dependency” necessarily prevents God from exercising his power. The control is all on God’s side: he has the poer to save via irrisistable grace but He chooses not to and His choice not to do so
is not dependent on anything in the human, but only dependent on His own nature and will.
A necessary dependency would be a limit on the omnipotence of God, but a voluntary dependency would not.
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Hey Mitch! Is it you?…. Larramore?
I see that you’ve been spreading holiday cheer
Merry Christmas to YOU!
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I completely understand. I hope I can be as restrained.
What I’m shocked about is that you appear to claim that the following points are true:
+ LFW is the only just way people can be held responsible for choices.
+ God is just.
+ God holds all people responsible for choosing Christ.
+ Some people lack LFW to choose Christ.
How can these propositions possibly be consistent? By your rules, God would only be just in judging people who have had their total depravity lifted, and yet rejected God anyhow. But the Bible condemns people who reject God when all they’ve heard is the testimony of nature; so clearly, God actually holds all people accountable, not just some non-depraved subset of people.
It seems to me that the only escape from the contradiction here is to claim that God grants his grace to everyone, thus removing any element of total depravity from human nature, making the term “total depravity” merely academic (some would call this “semi-Pelagian”). But this isn’t what you do; you affirm that total depravity applies to some people. Your version seems to contain an internal contradiction that the typical Arminian position lacks.
I hold those propositions to be true, except for the first one: LFW is not required for justice. All that’s required is that the allegedly guilty act be committed by the suspect, and be in accordance with the suspect’s desires. It doesn’t matter whether the suspect’s desires are a result of something else beyond the suspect; the buck stops at the desires of the person committing the sin.
Example of guilt: if someone forces me at gunpoint to rob a store, I have evidence of coercion and a defense in the eyes of the law. But if someone presents evidence that I’d planned to rob that store on that night and wanted to do it, and that I’d actually kept and used some or all of the proceeds of the robbery — then it’s clear that regardless of coercion, the robbery was my own desire (and intent), and I am guilty. The fact that I was threatened only adds guilt to the threatener, it doesn’t serve to remove it from me.
Now, God doesn’t threaten or force; He creates creatures who act entirely according to their own desires. He does so according to His own desires.
I think you’re basically right that my use of “immediately possible” is incorrect. I should have said “immediately obvious” instead; my error causes ambiguity, since you interpret it as “morally possible” when I meant it as “physically possible”. There are other problems with my wording — for example, an action may not be physically possible but may APPEAR to be physically possible, and thus be chosen.
So I must alter my definition. While I’m doing that I will also add a bit of text to refine it:
At any given moment, one has to choose what action one will take from the actions that are immediately obvious as means to accomplish some desire, and by acting on that choice, one excludes for the moment all other actions.
I also added some text to define our choices in terms of our desires.
If choices are not deterministic, they are not determined. This is very basic — there’s no room to make a finely nuanced definition; those words are inseparably linked. If they aren’t determined, then they aren’t determined by anyone, including a free agent.
You CAN say that the actions are “LFW-chosen” by a free agent (and that this is not the same as determining them), since that is different from saying that it’s “determined” by anyone. But something that’s not determined, i.e. undetermined, is by definition random.
Here we see at last a true contradiction: you claim that free choices cannot be determined, and that people determine their own free choices. This contradiction is absolute and intrinsic to the nature of your words. The only choices are to either admit that choices are determined, or to claim that the act of choosing does not require determination. The latter choice is popular, but has never been explained.
That’s a great question. In short, I’m claiming that God determines and plans at least some of our desires; but our desires are still truly ours; in fact, my desires are as much ME as my spirit and body are (and note that God also designed and maintains those as well!). Thus, when I desire evil or fail to desire good, that is a depravity in me, regardless of WHY my desires fail to measure up. When I fall short of the glory of God because I desired to do so, I am directly at fault, and no pointing at external sources can possibly excuse me.
A fatalistic view, in contrast, holds that God predetermines everything to the exclusion of our desires — we may WANT to love God or trust Christ, but He won’t allow us to, so we go to hell. That’s the error of fatalism, and that’s the reason you feel Calvinism is so unfair — because you know fatalism is unfair.
God’s creation cannot be resisted either. Is that unjust? The jar can’t resist the potter’s forming. Is that unjust, or unlike God?
James isn’t expressing outrage; he’s explaining who and what is to blame for temptation. My temptation is caused by my own desires. It’s part of me, part of my very existence; God thrust them on me in the same way He thrust existence itself on me, and it makes sense to rail against God for my innate desires as much as it makes sense to rail against Him for my existence — that is, it makes no sense at all.
By the way, 1 Cor. doesn’t say that temptation can be resisted; it says that it can be escaped. This is not God’s permission to “endure” the temptation while sitting right in its path; it’s a mandate to look for a way out of the temptation.
Prior to that, you conceded that choices are determined by desires; I’m merely pointing out a problem with your consequent logic when you attempt to claim that the desires can be chosen. I’m not begging the question; I’m pointing out the cycle in your reasoning. The desires that “cause” a given choice cannot themselves be the effect of the same choice!
If (as you conceded) each choice is determined at the moment of the choice by desires, then how can you go on to assume that the desires can be set by choice at the same time? Wouldn’t this require an infinite regress of choices? But in reality there is only one choice — the choice of what action to take — and there is one cause of the choice: the desires of the one making the choice.
How does the free agent make those choices between desires? Surely the way one chooses between desires is the same way one chooses between any other two things, correct? If not, don’t you have reason to suspect that your definition of “choose” is inadequate, since it doesn’t work for choosing desires?
Compatibilism proposes that when it’s possible to choose which desire to prefer above another desire, one chooses in accordance with one’s existing desires. The “mechanism” is exactly the same as it is for any other choice.
But that last sentence assumes a separation between myself and my desires. If my desires cannot determine things, then I can’t determine things. If my desires can determine things, they do so by means of my choices leading to actions.
My desires are the core of my being. God created me and them together. It’s not unjust to me to give me the just consequences of my desires, even when those desires were not entirely chosen by me. It is not wrong for God to create me with desires, even if the desires are not for Him. Nor is it unjust for God to change my desires so that they are for Him.
By your definitions, there is an infinite regress within the person, as they choose their desires so that they can choose their desires so that … so that they can choose their action. By my definitions it stops with the person acting in accordance with their own innate desires, no matter how those desires got there.
And if God is the one who created us, then He did indeed create us with desires.
The buck does indeed stop with God; it seems obviously reasonable for a human to cry out against God, “why have you made me thus!” It seems to have occurred to Paul in Romans 9, since he puts these words in an objector’s mouth. Unfortunately for the objector, God makes us the way He wants, and we are fit for the purpose He created us for, and when we fulfill that purpose — whether it leads to punishment or glory — we receive no injustice.
Not at all — it’s hard to discuss the concept of free will at all using ordinary language (LFW requires talk about rewinding time or trying the same thing again with all things being equal, or other such nonsense). And of course I concede that we can direct our desires; that’s been my point all along, that our direction of our desires is precisely the point at which LFW fails most painfully, because it requires that either a man’s desires do NOT affect his choices at all, OR that a man’s choices entirely determine his desires and vice versa at the same time.
A compatibilist reading makes this simple: a man can choose actions. All choices are based on the man’s desires. Some actions will result in building up desires. A man will choose those actions if that man’s current desires “want” that result.
Nobody can choose to develop a desire that they do not desire for some greater reason. If you want to develop a desire for prayer, you want it for a reason — perhaps because you love God, or perhaps because it’s a good focusing meditation to build yourself up.
It makes a mockery of the argument that God cannot hold man responsible without giving man LFW, because it has God holding unregenerate man responsible for not choosing Christ when they cannot desire Christ.
This is not a problem for compatibilism, because it claims that man should be held responsible for the actions that he performed because he desired them.
But which one gets chosen? There are a lot of desires… Which one to pick? By your axioms the answer can’t be “the God-given ability tells us which desire”, because that would give God the choice.
The answer could be “by flipping a coin”, but that seems like it’s not MY choice, but the coin’s choice.
My answer is “a man’s own desires”. Those ARE the God-given ability to choose — and they don’t come with anything mystical about them; they are exactly what they seem to be.
This again fails to ask why God would find any pleasure in sacrifice at all. You then assume that the purpose of sacrifice is submission of will — but submission of will is exactly the definition of sacrifice: it’s when I choose to give up something all my other desires want in order to gain God, Who is my greatest desire. The purpose of sacrifice isn’t the same as the means.
I really like your last sentence: “If we cannot control our desires then how can we control our selves?” I agree; our desires are a core part of ourselves. But we do not merely control them; we ARE them. We cannot choose what we do not desire, and we cannot choose to desire something that we do not desire for some greater reason.
It’s there. Try a topical concordance.
But my point isn’t too far from yours; the Bible doesn’t ever say that God elaborately planned out every detail of our lives in advance. All it says is that He set out a plan of salvation before the foundation of the world, to save specific people; and He also purposed to set aside others as vessels of wrath, both choices made before those people made any choices of their own and independently of their choices “in order that God’s purpose in election might stand”.
The Bible also does say that God exercises meticulous, sovereign providence over the tiniest details, including the fall of a sparrow and the hairs on our head; and it also promises that “to those who are called according to His purpose” all things will work together for good (“all things” includes all the tiny things). But this doesn’t require an advance planning of those details, even though it doesn’t exclude the possibility.
I find it quite plausible that God foreordained specific people to salvation, but didn’t foreordain the specific details of how they would be saved; rather, He works sovereignly to accomplish all of His purposes in that salvation (and none can thwart Him). I also find it plausible that God MIGHT have meticulously decreed all things, no matter how minute; the Bible doesn’t support or oppose that, so I can’t argue for or against it.
What do you think — do you think we “should” regret? You shouldn’t regret anything you can’t change, which is the entire contents of the past. You should consider the past to think how you were wrong and should do better, but that’s fixed on the future, not the unchangeable past.
I don’t think “regret” works very well. There’s repentance, there’s guilt, and there’s shame; but regret doesn’t seem to be useful. I wonder whether the word ‘regret’ means the same about the past as ‘worry’ does about the future — ‘worry’, as you know, is forbidden by Christ, on the grounds that we can’t change the important things about the future. If that’s true about the future, how much more about the past!
But let’s just assume you used the words “feel guilty” instead of “regret”. We both agree that feelings of guilt are real things, a product of conscience, and is very useful in discerning sin (although not infallible). What can we conclude from the presence of feelings of guilt? I don’t think that changing the past, or assuming the mutability of the past, or philosophy is appropriate; the right thing to do is to confess and repent. Repentance means turning from your old sin (and the desires that led to it) so that you will not repeat them in the future. It doesn’t mean speculating that you could have done differently!
None of this proves anything about how the past is mutable, or choices in the past might or might not have come out differently.
This still stuns me. You insist that people have LFW in everything except the most important decision. Why do you insist that LFW matters at all if it doesn’t matter in the truly important things?
With that said, because you reject LFW in the one case that it matters to Scripture (for salvation), your beliefs work perfectly with my understanding of the Scriptures — as far as I’m concerned, you’re a Scriptural compatibilist (even if you’re not a philosophical compatibilist).
I prefer a bit of philosophical consistency, but that’s merely a preference — philosophy is slippery and easy to get wrong. If you agree with the Bible, I agree with you. I do ask that you maintain the same reasonable standard by not demanding that I agree with LFW, when neither the Bible nor you requires it for all morally responsible choices.
Those things are all conditional on different things. Election is conditional on the council of God, not on our decisions or deeds; but salvation is conditional on our faith — but our faith is conditional upon God’s regenerating power, so although it’s perfectly true that salvation is directly conditional on our faith, it’s also true that it’s conditional on God’s plan (because our faith is conditional on God regenerating us so that we can have faith).
No, I’m allowed to reference the Bible too. I don’t think that counts as cowardice.
But Eph 1:3,4,13 (the reference you made) is completely compatible with a compatibilist view… I don’t see any sign of incompatibility. Yes, you’re certainly free to read the plural as meaning that only the group is predestined; but I’m also allowed to read the plural as referring to a group of individually predestined people. The passage is ambiguous due to the plurality, so the question must be resolved elsewhere.
There’s still a problem — God’s election precedes anything we do, works or even desire (don’t forget Romans 9:16, which excludes our desire from the list of things that God’s salvation depends on). Romans doesn’t say whether His election precedes our existence, but it does make the election an individual matter rather than a group issue (contra your reading of Ephesians 1).
Pardon, but that is what LFW means, so I’m not mischaracterizing LFW. I now understand that you don’t hold to LFW with respect to salvation; in your opinion we’re only free to choose Christ after God has regenerated us (to use the Calvinist term). I’m glad you see the same things in the Bible that I do, but I don’t see why you’re so insistent on LFW when you don’t believe it’s important to salvation in any way.
-Wm
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Well, Mitch, I would say that though Jason’s description isn’t necessarily wrong, it is over simplified. I see where your thoughts are coming from, but its based more on the metaphor Jason happened to use than the actual idea.
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It is simple only because you all have made it very complicated.
What is so difficult about understanding that whilst God knows what will happen, unless bringing it about requires His direct action, His knowledge does not necessarily cause what will happen?
I think that without God’s calling no one can come to Christ, however I think that God calls everyone who hears the message of Christ (and maybe some who don’t). He calls everyone, but He also knows that some will not answer the call. I think that the first motion to answer is the point at which, if necessary, God gives the gift of faith (trust/loyalty) so that a person can respond fully.
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Wm. T. states: “LFW is not required for justice. All that’s required is that the allegedly guilty act be committed by the suspect, and be in accordance with the suspect’s desires. It doesn’t matter whether the suspect’s desires are a result of something else beyond the suspect; the buck stops at the desires of the person committing the sin.”
That statement is only true for those that believe in determinism and compatibilism. Arminians would not agree with that statement, nor would other incompatibilists. We would assert to the contrary that Wm. T.’s position is not sufficient to create moral responsibility and that moral responsibility requiers that free will be understood in a incompatibilist framework. Since kangaroodort and I disagree fundamentally with Wm. t. at theis fundamental level, it renders much of his argument irrelevant to us.
Wm. T. states, “It seems to me that the only escape from the contradiction here is to claim that God grants his grace to everyone, thus removing any element of total depravity from human nature, making the term “total depravity” merely academic (some would call this “semi-Pelagian”). But this isn’t what you do; you affirm that total depravity applies to some people. Your version seems to contain an internal contradiction that the typical Arminian position lacks.”
However, that is not what Arminians believe. Since the council of Doort it has been alleged (wrongly) that Arminius and Arminians were semi-Pelagion. However Arminius, Wesley and others have always agreed with “total depravity”.
The Arminian belief regarding depravity is that although humans’ nature is infected ni every respect by sin–as poison mixed with wine is found in every part of the mixture–man is not so totally depraved that there is no goodness left, no remainder of the image of God. Moreover, Arminians also believe that God has sent both common grace and prevenient grace to all humans.
In “Original Sin and Christian Philosophy”, Philosophia Christi, Series 2, 5/2 (2003): 519-41, Paul Copan writes “Theologian Harold O.J. Brown comments on the Formula of Concord, which offered
much-needed philosophical precision on sin and human nature: “The sweeping Christological implications of Flacius’ view are apparent. If man is by nature a sinner, then in the incarnation either Jesus became a sinner or did not truly assume human nature. . . . If sin belongs to the very nature of man, then Christ cannot be consubstantial with us, as the Chalcedonian Creed affirms, unless sin also belongs to his nature, which the creed denies. . . . The mistake lies in thinking that the Fall has so altered human nature that sin is now an essential component of humanity, so that no one and nothing can be human without thereby partaking in error and even in sin.” The Council of Florence (1442) rightly affirmed: “The church asserts that there is no such thing as a nature of evil, because every nature insofar as it is a nature, is good.”25 Thus I would concur with Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest: “The imago Dei ontologically remains undestroyed in all persons. . . . However overtly depraved, all humans in their being remain constitutionally imagebearers.””
Tom Oden in his book The Transforming Power of Grace, writes “No one remains merely in an utterly ungraced, fallen state…. The good that is found in the unregenerate fallen human will is not due to nature, as the semi-Pelagians would have it, but grace. This explains why all men are not as bad as they could be. “Grace arrested man in his fall, and placed him in a salvable state, and endowed him with the gracious ability to meet all the conditions of personal salvation. Fallen man has never been without the benefits and influences of the atonement,” wrote Tillet. The benefits of Christ’s righteousness and atoning death are coextensive with the effects of Adam’s sin (Ps. 117, 120; Rom. 5:12-21″ [pp.44, 45])..
It seems to me that Wm. T.’s assertion is without warrant, and given that neither kangaroodort nor I subscribe to that position, Wm. T’s argument is irrelevant.
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Mitch,
You wrote:
Besides railing against all things TULIP, I take it that you agree with me. That the unregenerate sinner that is not under enabling grace only has sinful choices that he can actualize, kind of takes the air out of LFW.
This is wild. It is as if you didn’t read anything I said concerning the importance of LFW to so many facets of the theological discussion. You just ignore it and dismiss it with, “kind of takes the air out of LFW”. Such tactics make for a very frustrating discussion.
And this whole argument about God being dependent on man is equivocation. To say that God’s knowledge of our actions is dependant on our actions is not at all equal to saying God Himself is dependent on man. Let me ask you a few related questions. Do you believe that God loves you? If so, then isn’t God’s love for you dependent on you as a personal creation? Could God love you if He had never created you? Would you then say that God is dependent on you? What about knowledge? What if God had never created you? Could God know anything about you had He never created you? Could He have knowledge of your existence if, in fact, you never came to exist? Could He have knowledge of your actions if you never existed to act in any way? I should think not since that would falsify His knowledge. So it seems very reasonable to me to conclude that God’s knowledge of our actions is dependent on our actions or at least on our existence as real persons.
Would you say that God was free to either create or not create the universe? You seemed to affirm earlier that God has no power of contrary choice and I pointed out the problems that would create for your view. You ignored that portion of my post (as well as the portion dealing with Adam’s nature and choice in the garden). I would like you to declare yourself on this point as it is very important. If you deny God this power then you will have some very difficult questions to answer from your perspective regarding God’s independence (aseity) or lack thereof. Much bigger problems than the ones you perceive to be inherent in my position. If you concede that God has such power then you must prove that God cannot bestow this same power on His creatures, made in His image. I would be very interested to see you do that. I am anxious to hear how you will respond.
God Bless,
Ben
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Wm. T. conflates two aspects of the Arminian understanding of free will when he concludes, “Pardon, but that is what LFW means, so I’m not mischaracterizing LFW. I now understand that you don’t hold to LFW with respect to salvation; in your opinion we’re only free to choose Christ after God has regenerated us (to use the Calvinist term). I’m glad you see the same things in the Bible that I do, but I don’t see why you’re so insistent on LFW when you don’t believe it’s important to salvation in any way.”
With respect to many actions, incompatibilists such as kangaroodort and I would assert that our choices are not determined by our desires. However, the Bible is clear that apart fomr the intervention of Giod no one will ever exercise their free will to choose God. Our free will is damaged by sin, in in respct of the choice to follow God or not it is fatally damaged.
Consequently, in order to enable us to make a morally responsible / culpable choice (i.e. such a choice would require incompatibilist fee choice) for or against God he intervenes with prevenient grace.
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Wm,
Good grief that was a long response. I understand you wanting to deal with everything I said so I can’t fault you for that. However, it might be a while before I can find the time to respond. Till then…may God bless you as you continue to seek Him and His truth.
Ben
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Wm. T.: “If they aren’t determined, then they aren’t determined by anyone, including a free agent.”
??!
That statement entirely misses the point of the Arminian and icompatibilist argument. We are concerned with the factors prior to the exercise of the will in making a choice. If factors, including natural law, desries and God, limit the choice to one, then the will is determined; the future is unique.
However, when the will is exercised it obviously determines (and thereby limits) the possible futures.
Arminians draw a distinction between the determination of the will by factors outsdie of the, or other than, the will on the one hand, and the exercise of the will which necessarily determines what can happen in the future. The distinction, to put it another way, is whether the will itself is determined.
Since the distinction has been accepted as valid by philosophers and theologians for hundreds of years, i don’t think it warrants further discussion in this thread. Indeed, the complaint usually made is that an indeterminate will can never be exercised because it is never determined, or that it must therefore be random and beyond the control of the person.
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Wm. T. quoting kangaroodort and then making his own statement: “‘Spirit is brought to bear on him. Once his depravity is overcome by the Spirit of God then he is enabled to make a real choice, to yield to God in faith or resist Him in unbelief. None of this conflicts with anything I have said.’
[Wm.T.] It makes a mockery of the argument that God cannot hold man responsible without giving man LFW, because it has God holding unregenerate man responsible for not choosing Christ when they cannot desire Christ.”
??
God holds humans responsible for rejecting him AFTER he mad it possible for them to accept him. That is in fact what kangaroodort stated. Hence, once k’s statement is correctly understood, there is no mockery.
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Post #142 is v. good, kangaroodort.
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Dear Ben,
Please forgive me for the lack of clarity that has led to this “frustrating discussion”. I will try to be more precise.
When I say that God does not have contrary choice I am referring to good and evil only. And when I say that God is dependent on man I mean that God knows AFTER the LFW agent makes the choice. In essence it makes God learn because without the LFW agent actualizing the choice God does not know since there is nothing to know.
I am of the opinion that all God does is perfectly good and just. So if God does something it is because it is perfect. So was God free to create the universe? The answer is in the why? Why did God create the universe? I think we both know and since he did create I know that that was the perfect thing to do.
As for God loving before you were created, yes I believe that God loved before you were created.
Question for John C.T.- you wrote that God has sent two kinds of grace common and prevenient, what is the difference in common grace and prevenient grace? And is there another kind of grace when it comes to salvation?
Susan- I do not believe that I know you and apologies for any confusion, Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Grace & Peace
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That’s not an argument — all you’re doing is attempting to claim that I believe one thing and you believe another. We already knew that we disagree; the question is whether one of our positions is better supported than the other, either by philosophical consistency or by Biblical evidence. A statement such as mine is not “true for those who believe…”, it’s either _true_ or it’s _false_.
I gave a detailed example of how my statement plays out in criminal justice, in a situation which is only slightly contrived (I fabricated it, but it’s actually conceivably possible), and is intended to show that a natural sense of justice is satisfied when people are punished or rewarded simply according to their intent and desires; there’s no need to perform any deeper inspection to see whether the intent or desire was actually created ex nihilo by the person or whether it was taught to them by someone else.
I agree. I hate it when Calvinists use the term “semi-Pelagian” to refer to all Arminians. This is why I didn’t do that; I specifically identified the error that I would call semi-Pelagianism, and I pointed out that the poster doesn’t make this error; he chooses instead to grant a Calvinistic definition of Total Depravity to some people (he doesn’t identify who they are), which seems to contradict his insistance that LFW is required for justice.
“Total depravity” has never meant “there is no goodness left”. That’s a contradiction — existence is a good thing, so “no goodness” means “doesn’t exist”. Calvinists will sometimes speak of the distinction between “total depravity” (every faculty of the thing is is evil) and “utter depravity” (the thing is as evil as it could possibly be).
I’m confused. What Oden calls “semi-Pelagian” here I’d call “Pelagian”, since it would claim that every man is by nature capable of saving himself without divine help. I’d call the belief that God grants every man without exception the ability to save himself “semi-Pelagian” — with the note that it’s not a heresy, unlike full Pelagianism.
I don’t know Oden, but I suspect he’s a better scholar than I am. I wonder what I’m missing?
Calvinists such as myself would agree with most of what Oden says, since God does act graciously and mercifully toward all; but we’d part ways with the claim that grace gave all men all they needed to meet all the requirements of salvation. We agree in common grace; but we don’t think that common grace is exactly equal to saving grace, as this specifically claims.
-Wm
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I have a simple question, then. It’s not even rhetorical. If our choices are not determined by our desires, then do we find that our choices are correlated against our desires, correlated with our desires, or completely uncorrelated to our desires? How strong is the correlation?
I’m avoiding the “determined by” buzzword, of course.
My expectation would be that our choices are perfectly correlated with our desires — that we always choose the thing we desire.
(I obviously have to address Paul’s “oh wretched man that I am!” argument; I believe that the problem there is that the saved man has two natures warring within him, two sets of contrary desires, and either one coming out in action will utterly frustrate the other.)
-Wm
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