Philosophical discussion about free will

If we presume that what God chose is the best, then yes.

No.

 

I wouldn't mistake Feinberg to represent all Calvinists on free will past or present. He presents an argument that coheres with calvinistic soteriology and to critique it is fine, but I would recommend limiting your conclusions to Feinberg and those who advocate his position instead of all "calvinists."

Historically, those in the Reformed tradition discussed these matters under God's providence, and it's difficult to view their thoughts on freedom without using our anachronistic lens of analytic philosophical accounts of freedom (i.e., libertarian vs. compatibilism), which those in the past did not use.

Furthermore, today, there are many Calvinists who hold to libertarian free will regarding the vast majority of decisions (if not all) and would not want Feinberg to speak for them. Perhaps you can say they are inconsistent, but when you critique Feinberg you are not critiquing their view.

This subject has come up recently at a site that is frequented by quite a few analytic philosophers, and for some good discussion on calvinism and philosophy (with a little emphasis on the freedom issue) click here and scroll down a little. You'll see some contributions by Keith DeRose, James K. A. Smith and in the comments George Hunsinger and Dean Zimmerman. BTW "saints Al and Nick" are Alvin Plantinga and Nick Wolterstorff respectively if you do visit there and see some of the inside baseball lingo.

BJ

PS-The blurring of environment and agent is a double-edged sword that can be wielded against the libertarian too. For instance, did Paul freely accept Christ after the stunning display on the road to Damascus? If one relies on contra-causal agency, it's plausibility is hindered by miraculous events like the one in Acts 9. This blurring that you mention above, IMO, is indicative of the paradox of sovereignty and freedom of which neither side has the tools to overcome satisfactorily. If you plug the dam in one spot, the water just breaks through in another spot. Both the libertarian and compatibilist gets out the buckets but just puts them in different spots.

(I'm not picking an argument but just giving one example since I've been over this before. I would recommend getting to know "heavenly pilgrim" in the "other denominations forum" since he/she is an avid defender of libertarian freedom).

 

Please allow the "hit and run."

However, you should watch yourself because you're making quite the case for divine providence, which in the past was the mother of the determinism that you seek to avoid. If you allow God to break libertarian freedom on these special occasions in order to meet his "ultimate purposes" in miraculous events that are (like Paul's conversion) and are not empirically detectable (like the inspiration of Scripture), then regarding the latter you've got no epistemological foundation to think that other events where people act on their desires in accord with "decrees" may also not be determined for "ultimate purposes."

The only difference between the compatabilistic blurring of the environment and agent in Feinberg's arguments above and your own arguments over the inspiration of Scripture and other miraculous events is your limiting of it to special occasions. Unfortunately, this begs the question: how do you know God doesn't need to determine ALL events for His "ultimate purposes" when you've conceded that He needs to determine some? My guess is you don't, but you intuitively feel it to be the case. Scripture is unclear on this debate, so we'll just have to limp along with our buckets at the dam. You could argue that this takes the "miraculous" out of everything or vice versa, but I think that either is a tenuous claim at best when viewing God's interaction with His creation.

Let me hit and run and have fun checking out the other site. One thing I like about Christian philosophers is their sense of humour.

 

I can't seem to be able to get the "other site". There seems to be a fee?

 

If 'best' is defined as 'that which brings Him the most glory', then He chose it because it was best.

No i dont see the problem with the answer...although i am sure you will let me know

First of all, let me deal with the 'other worlds' concept. "I" am defined by this particular world. If God had created another world/reality then any dwmoeller in that reality would no longer be "I". Thus, if we allow other realities, then the question of whether God was free to save me or not becomes moot as there would no longer be any "me" to speak of.

So, the question can only have meaning within the context of this present reality. Whether or not God could have created a different reality is a seperate question.

So, if we presume that this reality is the 'best' (ie. it is best fit to bring Him the most glory), then there is no real possibility that God could have not saved me. This is not because something constrains Him but because He constrains Himself - He has a purpose and my being saved best fits His purpose - my not being saved would be contrary to His purpose. So, it is not something outside of God which constrains Him, but it is His determined purpose which 'constrains' Him.

In fact, its not that it fits His purpose best that I be saved, but instead it is that He created me to be saved in line with His purpose. I was never considered in His mind apart from His purpose to save me. It was not in His mind that "here I create dwmoeller...I will save Him". Instead it was "here I create dwmoeller-one-whom-I-will-save". The purpose to create and the purpose to save were never seperate things. So again, it is impossible that He would not choose to save me as "dwmoeller-whom-I-will-not-save" would be a different being than "dwmoeller-whom-I-will-save".

So in the end, it is the same as not being able to lie - it extends from God's nature. God's nature 'constains' Him to create what best accomplishes His holy purpose, thus I exist and am saved - any other possibility would be contrary to His purpose and thus to His nature.

 

I checked the link and it works for me. However, you can type it the old-fashioned way.

www.generousorthodoxy.net/thinktank

 

Yeah you are right....lol. I was trying to get the hyperlink at the article you mentioned about this.... it sounds interesting. “Evil: A Challenge to Philosophy and Theology”

 

You take my argument further than I would ever. I already realize that compatibalism can only take one so far. In the end, the ultimate resolution (ie. how one can be legitimately culpable for sin) is a mystery. Ultimately Scripture does not resolve the paradox. My desire though, is to define the paradox in Scriptural terms as best as I can. You resort to mystery, and I resort to mystery - my goal is to, as closely as I am able, determine what is truly the Scripturally sound mystery.

Ultimately I think the definition of freewill as I give it is not a solution to the mystery, but is simply the most Scripturally sound definition (which is assuming that the concept of freewill is even a Scriptural one to begin with).

 

ugggh, alright my last point. Your post presumes a mechanistic view of the world where God's "tinkering" is disruptive and usually empirically detectable. I mentioned the lack of an epistemological foundation because since you believe in the divine inspiration of Scripture that I presume is organic as opposed to dictated, you don't know whether God works likewise in other matters. How could you know? You also don't know for sure if God really does need to decree every choice in order to fulfill His ultimate plans. How could you know? That's the lack of an epistemological foundation that I am talking about. I don't have one either; we're both dealing with cloudy Scripture and going on hunches here.

I think the Scriptures reveal a God whose interaction with His creation is far more sophisticated than resorting to the "miraculous" every now and then to reach His goals. You may think that there's nothing miraculous without your framework and I disagree. God can include unique and miraculous things as part of his providential dealings with His creation. The determinist would simply speak of ordained means and ends including ordained, miraculous, unique means as wells as ordinary ones without relegating God's activity to only one or the other.

This mindset reminds me of Gordon Fee's big book on the Holy Spirit. He seems to think that the Church put the Spirit "in the creedal box" because it downplayed the empirically detectable charismata through the years. However, the tradition (especially the Christian platonists) appealed to the Spirit's working in the miraculous and the ordinary, especially in the Reformed tradition. People like Fee (not lumping you with him, but he's an example to use) with their empiricist bent perhaps are guilty of putting God in the "methodological naturalism box." Unless I think it's miraculous, then it's not fully divine. If God works through ordinary means, then nothing or everything is miraculous and/or divine.

I will say that you have a friend in Friedrich Schleiermacher because he denied the existence of miracles since they were already part of God's plan, so at least someone agrees with your mindset on this matter. I think he just had a bad definition of what constitutes a miracle.

Okay, surely I've written enough to avoid the hit and run charge, but this topic bores me so my hearts not in this stuff.

BJ

 

Not 'intervention' Skandelon but everything comes to pass by the immediate hand of God.

I understand what you are saying but you do it without regard to the cause and effect nature God has created. The laws of nature are not natural but determined to be as they are by God. It is into this natural world that God operates on the whole. Occassionally He dispenses with cause and effect and brings fish sandwhiches out of thin air. That is a miracle but no more so than the sun coming up in the morning.

I don't look at creation has if it runs on it's own but ...all events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God. With regard to inanimate objects again we must hold that though each is possessed of its peculiar properties, yet all of them exert their force only in so far as directed by the immediate hand of God. (John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion Book Book I Chapter 16. http://www.mbrem.com/calvinism/calprov.htm )

Acts 17:28 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.'
RO 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

I see no difference between a miraculous event and a baby or flower. The curtain was torn in two we are now face to Face with Him. In fact, the miraculous must be a breeze compared to keeping the universe ticking over continuously in a cause and effect kind of way. Every single partical has to be moved to the next place according to the laws that govern it's movement. John 5:17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

The ultimate understatement.

Heb 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word...
He never ceased sustaining creation even as He gave His life for me. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Whatcha think?

john.

 

Skandelon.

But we are not created in His image we are created in the image of Adam even if I ignore the contradiction in more than One having free agency.
GE 5:3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.
And:
2 Cor 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

If we were in His image and likeness we would not need transforming.

john.

 

Thanks for the brief discussion, and I wish there were many more posters on here like you. Do check out the generousorthodoxy discussion sometime soon. There's some good posts on there by pros instead of mere students like me.

 

By insisting that God must be in control you visualize exactly the opposite. Isn't God all powerful and free to do as He chooses? Can't He choose to create a being with free will? Of course He can and the Bible says He did.

Luk 18:18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Luk 18:19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none [is] good, save one, [that is], God.
Luk 18:20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
Luk 18:21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
Luk 18:22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
Luk 18:23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.

The rich young ruler made his choice. He rejected Christ's offer of eternal life because money was his god.

 

I must be dense cause I don't see the infinite regression. In all cases the answer stops at God's choices being determined by who He is - His nature if you will. What determined God's nature? God has always been who He is, unchanging and unchangable, eternally existent. So, as I see it, any possibility of infinite regression runs aground on that fact.

I have no problem with believers being able to choose other than what they end up choosing (in one sense, at least). God definitely never lets the believer be tempted beyond what they are able to bear. It is the natural man in and of his own which I would deny that for...or even the Christian in and of his own. The Christian in and of his own has no more power to resist sin than does the natural man. In the end it all comes down to dependence on Christ and His power.

Again, His nature. What determines His nature? Nothing because He has always been what He is.

 

Free Will

16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

18. "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Seems to me that someone (ALL) Those believing and not believing are freely doing one or the other.

Here is how simple it is = if God were a Puppet Master the word believe would not be in the Bible. If man did not have free will he would not be ask to obey or believe.

It really is not complicated unless you "get philosophical" about it. So it is with Calvinism - Tulip philosophy.

Are you folks trying to do the same as Charles T. Russell? Seems to me that is exactly what you are doing.

Man has free will.