JL: One more time. If you cannot know the secretive will of God, and the revealed will of God is undercut by the secretive will of God, such that the Calvinistic God is known to be duplicitous, revealing one thing and secretively decreeing opposites, then how do you know your God is pleased with you and that you will go to heaven and that I won't when we both die? That's the question, and you have failed to answer it. Go ahead answer this problem for your Clavinistic theology once and for all. Don't throw out any more red herrings; don't sidetrack the issue. Deal with it head on.
SH: This is loaded with faulty, question-begging assumptions:
1.Part of the problem is due to semantic equivocation. The decretive will is not the same thing as a secret will.
We wouldn’t know about a decretive will in the first place if God kept it a secret.
So, to set up a dichotomy between his decretive will and his revealed will is a false dichotomy.
2.We know a couple of things about God’s decretive will:
i) God has revealed that he has a plan.
ii) And up to a point, God has also revealed the contents of his plan.
God has not revealed his decretive will exhaustively, but broadly speaking, he has revealed his decretive will as it bears on the big picture questions.
3.God’s decretive will does not undercut his revealed will. Just the opposite.
To the extent that his decretive will remains a secret, that ensures the fulfillment of his decretive will consistent with his revealed will.
For if God were to reveal his decretive will exhaustively, then this would tip people off, and with that advance knowledge they would then be in a position to thwart the plan.
So far from undercutting his revealed will, the partial secrecy of his decretive will underwrites the revealed will of God.
3.The only way for the decretive will to undercut the revealed will is if God absolutely said he was going to do something (or have something done), and secretly decree to do otherwise.
You have given no examples of this. If you have in mind something like the case of the rich young man, then this hardly supports your contention.
Jesus didn’t say he was going to make the rich young ruler sell everything and follow him. So the fact that the rich young ruler did not sell everything and follow Jesus is no evidence that the decretive will of God undercuts the revealed will of God.
For that matter, Jesus didn’t even say that he wanted the rich young ruler to sell everything. Rather, he made a conditional statement: If you do this, then that will be the result.
The fact that the rich young ruler did not take his advice doesn’t in any way falsify the terms of a conditional statement.
JL: How do you know that what you believe will gain you access into heaven based upon the evidence which God decrees you to believe that conclusion? It could be the exact reverse of what you think.
You cannot quote to me from the Bible to support what you believe here, nor to any particular evidences, since the Bible is merely the revealed will of God, and the evidences you believe are accepted by you because of God's secretive will. How do you know God is pleased with you and you'll be in heaven when you die?
SH: Of course I can quote from the Bible. If you can cite the Bible as part of your argument, then I can cite the Bible as part of my counterargument.
When you claim that God’s secret will undercuts his revealed will, you yourself are alluding to something you think you find in Scripture—even though this represents a customary confusion on your part.
And when you refer to the case of the rich young ruler, you are citing the Bible.
So if you can cite the Bible to establish your putative dilemma, then I can cite the Bible to disprove your putative dilemma.
The concept of God’s decretive will is a revealed category. So I can certainly appeal to Scripture to accurately define the terms which you misdefine.
If you misuse Scripture to establish your argument, then I can use Scripture to correct the faulty assumptions which underlie your argument.
JL: The answer: You don't. Admit it for all to see. You D-O-N-'-T! It could all be reversed. And if this is the case you could have faith against the evidence...you could think your reasons are intelligent when it is exactly the reverse...you think my objections are stupid whereas it is your objections that could be stupid, because God is secretively decreeing you to accept absudities and stupidities as the truth.
SH:
1.Even if this were a valid argument, it proceeds from a false premise (see above).
2.And if it were a sound argument, it would falsify atheism, for the operating premise is theistic rather than atheistic.
JL: And as far as the atheist dilemna goes, I've already written about it here, and you've never answered what I said there either.
SH: I can’t “answer” something that isn’t directed at me. You were not asking me a question. Rather, this was a debate between you and Manata.
Unless you can explain where you think Manata’s answer fell short, there is no need for me to intervene in that particular shoot-out.
Thus far, you continue to be mired in a tar-pit of your own contrivance.
If I had a penny for every time John W. Loftus used the term "red herring" I'd be rich.
ReplyDeleteSteve:
ReplyDeleteThis is John H. from Monergism. Here are two Scriptural examples of God's decretive will and revealed will being contrary, yet the Scripture seems to have no problem whatsoever holding them in tension. Both of the following passages show that Jesus is to be crucified by lawless men (against God's revealed will), yet the text plainly says that Jesus was delivered up by God's predetermined plan (decretive will. In other words, this is not just what Calvinists think, this is the plain reading of Scripture. The same event is both against God's revealed will and part of his will of decree.
Acts: 23this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Acts 4:27 "for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."
Steve,
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion, of course. You did say something, though, upon which I would appreciate some discussion:
For if God were to reveal his decretive will exhaustively, then this would tip people off, and with that advance knowledge they would then be in a position to thwart the plan.
Are you stating, that as humans we have the capability of thwarting God’s plan, and simply lack the knowledge? How? How could a human mess up God’s plan merely by obtaining more knowledge?
Secondly, doesn’t this introduce a reason for God to be deceptive? If the only thing preventing us from causing God to not be able to do what God wants to do is knowledge, and the only way in which God can prevent us from obtaining that knowledge is by deliberately withholding it, in the event someone DID discover such knowledge, God would be inclined to deceive the person?
This makes knowledge the ultimate weapon (poor choice of words, but still…) against God. Making secrets and deceit the tools by which God could achieve his plan.
Thanks, in advance, for your explanation.
John H:
ReplyDeleteGood to see you here, man! :-)
I think there is some confusion over the decretive/revealed distinction here. The fact is, I can name off of the top of my head 10 or so theological names for the will(s) of God (decretive will, preceptive will, revealed will, secret will, sovereign will, moral will, efficient will, permissive will, voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti, etc).
Most of these distinctions overlap into two categories. But the difficulty with all of this technical terminology is that we see these terms used by different people in different ways. Confusion is inevitable.
I certainly agree with you (and I believe Steve would too) that the occasion comes often for there to be a 'contradiction' between the preceptive and decretive will of God (e.g., murder is against God’s [moral/perceptive] will and yet God [sovereignly] willed the cross of Christ).
But I think, in the terminology of his post above, Steve envisions the 'revealed will' of God as encompassing both the preceptive and (some of) the decretive will of God. That may not be the normative usage, but that is clearly how he used it above. In other words, God has a decretive will and a perceptive will. All of the preceptive will is revealed (revealed will) and some of the decretive will is revealed (revealed will). The part of the decretive will that is not revealed encompasses the “secret will.”
Anyway, this is more technical theology than exegetical theology, and I believe Steve would agree with your exegesis of the passages you presented.
John Loftus:
ReplyDeleteWhat if God is secretively decreeing that I should reject your theology?
If that is the case, then atheism is false, Christian theism is true, and you are a reprobate heretic :-)
According to you he is.
At least for now. We don't know the future.
Then I am glorifying God.
As CS Lewis said, "A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling 'darkness' on the wall of his cell." I like that quote.
What if God decreed that superstitious people wrote the Bible with absolutely no evidence behind their folk tales? Then what they did is glorifying God. Therefore you believe because of than less than adequate evidence, and I may be right in my objections.
1. You’re just raising the same objection with new words, and you’re committing the same old errors.
2. If you’re posing a scenario where the human biblical authors simply wrote absurdities down on paper, and the result was nevertheless God’s infallible Word of God, then… let’s not confuse the mode of revelation with the result of revelation. Even if the mode of revelation involved superstitious people who wrote the bible without the warrant for their beliefs, but the result of revelation was, nevertheless, God’s infallible Word, then so what? Of course, as an internal critique, this would pose some problems because Scripture portrays a different mode of revelation. But, in any case, if the result is God’s infallible Word, then I still have great reason to believe it, whether or not the mode involved looney tunes.
3. But if you’re posing some scenario where the Bible isn’t God’s Word, then this isn’t an internal critique, since that isn’t a principle of my worldview. You can’t use one principle of my worldview in your argument (the sovereignty of God) but deny others (the inspiration of Scripture). If this is what you are arguing, then you are merely positing some third worldview which neither one of us believes.
And what if this God of yours secretly desires to reward those who see this as it is, since duplicity between his wills is granted by you?
This would simply contradict divine revelation (Scripture), which means it fails to continue to be a scenario involving the Christian worldview. Instead, you pose a worldview that we both reject.
The truth is you do not know.
The truth is that this is irrelevant. Either Scripture is true, or it isn’t. Period. If it’s true, then your posited worldview is false, and your own worldview (atheism) is false as well. If Scripture is false, then why does it matter if some other hypothetical worldview is the case? If that hypothetical worldview is the case, then we need not ask “what if” to argue against Scripture. Scripture is either true or false. Let’s not get distracted from that fact.
So why not critically evaluate the evidence rather than presuppose it?
This sentence seems like one of your knee-jerk statements (like your favorite phrase “logical gerrymandering”) that you like to add in any interaction, regardless of the topic or flow of the discussion. In any case, it is irrelevant to this discussion that you yourself posited!
That's why I challenge you to take the Outsider Test for your faith here.
And again the “Outsider Test” is advertised, no matter what the topic at hand.
Evan May has done a good job of capturing the salient distinction. While the preceptive will of God is part of God’s revealed will, the revealed will of God is broader than his preceptive will. God has revealed far more than his moral law for man.
ReplyDeleteLoftus needs a different category to prove his point. The fact that human beings violate the law of God is irrelevant to his contention.
To take the two examples cited by Hendryx, this is a case where the decretive and preceptive aspects are, from a divine viewpoint, harmonious rather than disharmonious, for in this case (and others), the violation of God’s law was instrumental to the fulfillment of his plan. So the preceptive will facilitates the decretive will.
As I said before, what Loftus would need to prove his point is not a conflict between the divine decree and a divine command, but a conflict between what God has said he will do, or make happen—and what he actually does, or causes to occur.
When God forbids adultery, he is not claiming that he will prevent adultery, even though he secret intends to permit adultery.
The prohibition is not a prediction or promise of what God intends to do.
So there is no conflict between his private resolve and his publicly stated intentions.
A prescription or proscription is not a statement of intent regarding God’s plan of action for the future, which is “undercut” by his “secret” will.
I’d add in passing that it’s a linguistic convention to use the same noun (“will”) with different adjectives.
Unfortunately, this usage can give rise to semantic equivocations, as if we’re predicating contradictory properties of the same object.
Some atheists may ask question’s concerning certitude in a spirit of frivolity, but, as a theist, I consider them central. The problem of certitude is, for me, the greatest roadblock to genuine belief.
ReplyDeleteIf I invoke principles of science, historiography, sound hermeneutics, etc. to ground belief, then those beliefs are all falsifiable (subject to qualification, revision, or wholesale rejection at a later date if new evidence warrants it) and, therefore, not the kind of belief that attends to certainty…at least not the kind of certainty I long for.
There are many things of which I’m certain “for all intents and purposes”, not because I have ontological access to them but because those beliefs are useful. Most of what I believe about the sensible world falls into this category. For most of my day-to-day existence I don’t find it problematic that I can’t know the “essence” of objects of knowledge; life mostly works out just fine in the absence of “God knowledge”. Yet, I suffer bouts of philosophical/spiritual angst when I consider the question of God’s existence and my place in His kingdom. To my mind, the only cure is something akin to infallible certainty. Not saying that it exists or that I have it, just that it seems like the only way out of what would otherwise be an intractable epistemological dilemma.
Infallible certainty, or whatever you want to call it, is unlike certainty we have that, say, the General Theory of Relativity is true, or that Churchill was Prime Minister during WWII, since either/both of these examples could, however improbable it may be, turn out to be untrue. Don’t we need to have more certainty of God’s existence than Churchill’s (or your own mother’s, for that matter) if we are to have anything at all? If we can’t convince ourselves that we do, than doesn’t J.L. have a point?
If we do have perfect certainty, then we don’t need arguments at all, since, if we did, they’d be fallible ones (even if brilliant), and, therefore, our certainty would be fallible too. Right? And since infallible certainty can’t be mediated by rational or evidentiary means, it must be that it is gifted to the elect by God directly. Yes? If in answer to this, one posits a kind of synergistic relationship between the Holy Spirit’s witness and our rational means of inquiry, that doesn’t help, even if it is true, since such a phenomenon would not be open to rational inquiry and would still have to result in infallible certainty; it would simply be the mysterious means by which God instills certainty.
I can’t avoid the conclusion that either J.L. is right and Christians don’t have complete certainty, or Steve and others like him have to admit that they possess a God given imperturbable certainty of His existence and their regeneration. In the latter case I’m forced to conclude that any and all arguments in defense of faith are incidental to faith. If all the best evidence favored those opposed to Christianity, the regenerate would remain unimpressed by virtue of their God given certainty, certainty that stands in no demonstrable causal relationship to any evidence.
If this kind of certainty is possible, I’d sure like to get it.
Stuart
Stuart,
ReplyDeleteWhile I can empathize with you, I think your logic is flawed when it comes to the idea of certainty.
If by the idea of "infallible certainty" you mean something that no one can possibly ever deny, then there is no such thing as infallible certainty in anything. Someone, somewhere, will always be able to deny any particular fact. Whether they can do so reasonablly or not is irrelevant: someone can still deny that which is blindingly obvious simply because he does not want it to be true.
When you say:
---
Don’t we need to have more certainty of God’s existence than Churchill’s (or your own mother’s, for that matter) if we are to have anything at all?
---
this brings up far more questions than you may realize.
For starters, how do you know this principle? How certain are you that you need to have more certainty in the existence of God than in the existence of Churchill?
After all, could Churchill exist apart from God?
This last question brings my own method of certainty to bear. My argument for the existence of God, for instance, does not depend on the existence of Churchill (for Churchill does not exist necessarily); but my argument for the existence of Churchill does, indeed, depend on the existence of God (since God's existence must be presupposed before the existence of anything else becomes possible).
How can I be "certain" of this? I am certain because of the impossiblity of the contrary.
The existence of anything requires certain things to be true; namely, there must be something that causes the existence of whatever it is that exists. This "thing" that causes the existence of an object must be either derrived from previous existence, or else self-existent. But even if a specific object is not itself self-existent, in order to avoid infinite regress there must be some "thing" out there there that is self-existent.
I've argued this elsewhere so I won't go into great detail on it now in this limited comment repsonse. Needless to say, however, if anything exists, then there must be something that exists with all the necessary attributes the Christian God is said to have. Since something exists (at the very least, I must exist to perceive all these other object--even if they turn out to be illusions), then this presupposes the necessity of some kind of divine being.
Of that, I am as certain as I am that I exist.
I also suppose that does mean that I am more certain of God's existence than I am of Churchill's.... :-)
ReplyDeleteIf anyone asks you what God wants us to refrain from doing, you will quote the Bible which purportedly tells us what God wants us to do, like not commiting adultery. "Thou Shalt Not..." you'll say. Does God want us to refrain from adultery or not? Let's say he does, but then he doesn't. Let's say he doesn't, but then he does.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you preach your true theology? Why not just say that you don't know whether or not God wants someone to refrain from adultery, because that's the truth.
Notice how Loftus jumps from argument to argument after each one is refuted, getting to the next argument by an endless chain of equivocation of terms.
In his last comment, he was pitting what God says he will do against what God does. Now he is pitting what God commands us to do against what God foreordains us to do. This is a new day, a new argument, apparently.
Indeed, Loftus does exactly what Steve predicted. He uses the conventional term “will” or “want” in order to open the door for his equivocations in order to establish his premises.
So, does God want me to refrain from adultery? Why? Why not?
1. What is most important to you is that God has commanded you to refrain from adultery. All other things aside, that is good enough reason for you to no commit adultery.
2. God my have foreordained that you commit adultery in order that his greater and glorious sovereign purpose might be fulfilled. But that does not release you from your responsibility to obey his commands. Indeed, moral responsibility presupposes someone holding you responsible, which presupposes divine judgment, which presupposes a sovereign God. Were God not absolutely sovereign, there would be no basis for moral responsibility. So the argument that God’s decrees undercut moral responsibility fails.
You could say you believe God wants you to tell me that I should refrain from adultery, but that whether or not he does want me to refrain is something you just don't know. So just say, "I don't know."
1. This is an equivocation.
2. No, I don’t know the secret aspects of the decretive will of God. And never have Christians claimed to. But is this some weakness? You phrase it as if not knowing is somehow disparaging to the Christian life, or to the defense of Christian theism. But you would have to argue for this, not just assume that your opponent gets your point.
The next time a man comes to you for counseling who is considering an affair, tell him the truth: "I don't know what God wants you to do."
1. More equivocation.
2. To fail to care for the man on the basis of God’s law would be for me myself to violate God’s commands.
You see, there is no ethical guidance in such a theology if you tell people the whole story.
This is demonstrably false, as I have shown above that absolute sovereignty does not undercut moral responsibility, but actually enforces it.
But at a deeper level you could say that God has decreed your answers to his question about adultery, and that's all you can say in response to his question.
Calvinism isn’t fatalism. I’m not sure why you have yet to understand that.
As far as the truth goes, God could've revealed that he wants all married people to commit adultery, because whatever he reveals has no bearing on what he wants us to do.
Oh my, oh my. You’re using the word “revealed,” but you’re leaving out a word that is essential to this discussion: command. THAT is what should determine our actions. What has God commanded?
This goes for all of the Bible verses too, including those that describe who God is, that he is loving, truthful, and will reward those who believe he is loving and truthful.
This is perhaps your biggest equivocation yet. Now you move from the category of the precepts of God to the revelation of his character. What God ‘wants’ (in whatever vague sense you are using the term) is not the same thing as who God is.
Why not just admit this?
Why not just admit that your argument is stacked high on a large mound of false premises?
Calvindude:
ReplyDeleteThese are thoughtful comments and I appreciate them. While we may one day find God at the end of a logical syllogism, we’ll never find certainty of our salvation there. Certainty belongs to another category entirely, one not open to rational inquiry. Your argument, while impressive, does not, for me, constitute a demonstration of God’s existence by strict implication, since the assumptions that feed into them are not demonstrably true. They are presupposed. I have no idea if God’s existence needs to be prior to Churchill’s until it is demonstrated, or, better yet, given directly by God. By the way, I not saying I know I need to have more certainty in God’s existence than Churchill. I’m actually saying that I don’t know that I do…and that is the problem.
Thanks,
Stuart
Stuart,
ReplyDeleteWell, first I will suggest you read what Steve just posted too.
That said, I'm not quite sure where you are going with your ideas, as they appear to be contradictory as I look at them.
On the one hand, you are appealing to infallible certainty; on the other hand you are saying you can't know that you need infallible certainty.
Is your problem due to lack of knowledge or doubt of what you know?
The only thing I intended to appeal to is my overwhelming sense of finititude. You, I’m guessing, have something akin to perfect certainty, since you maintain you believe in God as firmly as your own existence, despite the fallible means by which we humans attempt to shore up such beliefs. Your certainty is exactly the kind I want. I don’t see how it can ever follow from what you or Steve has posted thus far. Though I do admit these arguments are good ones, I don’t regard them as definitive enough to warrant the kind of certainty you claim for yourself. In fact, I don’t think Steve is even claiming they are. Thanks for your patience…Stuart
ReplyDeleteStuart,
ReplyDeleteI understand. Unfortunately, comment sections aren't the greatest of places to try to develop complex philosophical arguments! I'm working on some posts that I'll put on my blog next week (Lord willing) that will go into it in more detail.