"Regarding pushing agenda’s you are extremely naïve if you do not know that every body has got agendas, no one is neutral."
I don't think he understands. See, he also says things like this:
So I find it interesting that you would claim that he is the most intelligent defender of semi-compatibilism which you take to be the Calvinist position [...] Which goes to show that Calvinism is determinism, a non-Christian philosophy read into scripture by persons like yourself.
He refers me to these libertarian philosophers:
e.g., Plantinga, Craig, Hunt, Timpe, etc. etc
I assume J.P. Moreland is one of the "etc. etc's?"
So let’s go to some of his favorite libertarian thinkers. Let's look at what Craig and Moreland have to say about why Calvinists accept some form of compatibilism:
"This is not to say that all compatibilists are naturalists. Many Christians embrace compatibilism for a number of reasons, including certain views of election and predestination." -- Moreland & Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 2003, p280, emphasis supplied.
So, yes, all men have biases. Moreland and Craig do. But, they do not butcher the facts and aim to impute the worst motives onto others - so as to make your job of arguing a more easier one. Moreland and Craig, libertarians Roberthenrytheanonymous lurker cites, are honest enough, even with their biases, to admit that the Calvinist sees his position in Scripture, and this is what determines his motivations elsewhere. They are not "personal agenda pushers," Roberthenrytheanonymous is. Dialogue would be beneficial with them, but not with Roberthenrytheanonymous. Roberthenrytheanonymous is useful for fodder. For showing the absurdities of Arminianism. For making an example of. He wonders why he gets a sarcastic attitude. It's because he, like a Loftus or a Babinski, brings it upon himself. Now, I'm not saying that he is an atheist, that takes my analogy too far. But, it does show that we are equal opportunity advocates here. Acting disingenuous, refusing to answer arguments, repeating refuted arguments, and ignoring some basic context required to not attack a straw man gets you the T-blog red carpet treatment.
I just wanted to let you know you did an excellent job during the baptism debate. Sorry it took me a while to get through it.
ReplyDeleteI thought Plantinga was a compatibilist.
ReplyDeleteIn "God, Freedom, and Evil" among other of Plantinga's writings and lectures, Plantinga explicitly relies on an incompatibilist account of freedom in order to construct a theodicy.
ReplyDeletePlantinga is not a compatibilist.
ReplyDeleteBut, in regards to his theodicy, he relies on an incompatibilist view of free will to offer a *possible* answer to the *logical* problem of evil. His answer *does not* require that incompatibilism be *true,* just *possible.* And that is all one needs to refute the charge of *logical* inconsistency. So, he, and those like Kelly James Clark, have pointed out that his theodicy does *not* require one to accept incompatibilism. That is, the theodicy doesn't presuppose the *actuality* of LFW.
But, nevertheless, he is an incompatibilist. See his 'On Ockham's Way Out,' which seems to rely on LFW.
i do recall Plantinga arguing for supralapsarianism at one point, though i have not read the article, how does he reconcile these?
ReplyDeleteAlvin Plantinga is a libertarian and makes it clear that he finds compatibilism, the determinism as espoused here to be an extremely weak position. He spoke about this in a famous lecture called ADVICE TO CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS. Here is section 4 in which he directly speaks about determinism/compatibilism:
ReplyDeleteIV.Theism and Persons
My third example has to do with philosophical anthropology: how should we think about human persons? What sorts of things, fundamentally, are they? What is it to be a person, what is it to be a human person, and how shall we think about personhood? How, in particular, should Christians, Christian philosophers, think about these things? The first point to note is that on the Christian scheme of things, God is the premier person, the first and chief exemplar of personhood. God, furthermore, has created man in his own image; we men and women are image bearers of God, and the properties most important for an understanding of our personhood are properties we share with him. How we think about God, then, will have an immediate and direct bearing on how we think about humankind. Of course we learn much about ourselves from other sources-from everyday observation, from introspection and self-observation, from scientific investigation and the like. But it is also perfectly proper to start from what we know as Christians. It is not the case that rationality, or proper philosophical method, or intellectual responsibility, or the new scientific morality, or whatever, require that we start from beliefs we share with everyone else-what common sense and current science teach, e.g.-and attempt to reason to or justify those beliefs we hold as Christians. In trying to give a satisfying philosophical account of some area or phenomenon, we may properly appeal, in our account or explanation, to anything else we already rationally believe- whether it be current science or Christian doctrine.
Let me proceed again to specific examples. There is a fundamental watershed, in philosophical anthropology, between those who think of human beings as free-free in the libertarian sense-and those who espouse determinism. According to determinists, every human action is a consequence of initial conditions outside our control by way of causal laws that are also outside our control. Sometimes underlying this claim is a picture of the universe as a vast machine where, at any rate at the macroscopic level, all events, including human actions, are determined by previous events and causal laws. On this view every action I have in fact performed was such that it wasn't within my power to refrain from performing it; and if, on a given occasion I did not perform a given action, then it wasn't then within my power to perform it. If I now raise my arm, then, on the view in question, it wasn't within my power just then not to raise it. Now the Christian thinker has a stake in this controversy just by virtue of being a Christian. For she will no doubt believe that God holds us human beings responsible for much of what we do-responsible, and thus properly subject to praise or blame, approval or disapproval. But how can I be responsible for my actions, if it was never within my power to perform any actions I didn't in fact perform, and never within my power to refrain from performing any I did perform? If my actions are thus determined, then I am not rightly or justly held accountable for them; but God does nothing improper or unjust, and he holds me accountable for some of my actions; hence it is not the case that all of my actions are thus determined. The Christian has an initially strong reason to reject the claim that all of our actions are causally determined-a reason much stronger than the meager and anemic arguments the determinist can muster on the other side. Of course if there were powerful arguments on the other side, then there might be a problem here. But there aren't; so there isn't.
Now the determinist may reply that freedom and causal determinism are, contrary to initial appearances, in fact compatible. He may argue that my being free with respect to an action I performed at a time t for example, doesn't entail that it was then within my power to refrain from performing it, but only something weaker-perhaps something like if I had chosen not to perform it, I would not have performed it. Indeed, the clearheaded compatibilist will go further. He will maintain, not merely that freedom is compatible with determinism, but that freedom requires determinism. He will hold with Hume that the proposition S is free with respect to action A or S does A freely entails that S is causally determined with respect to A-that there are causal laws and antecedent conditions that together entail either that S performs A or that S does not perform A. And he will back up this claim by insisting that if S is not thus determined with respect to A, then it's merely a matter of chance-due, perhaps, to quantum effects in S's brain- that S does A. But if it is just a matter of chance that S does A then either S doesn't really do A at all, or at any rate S is not responsible for doing A. If S's doing A is just a matter of chance, then S's doing A is something that just happens to him; but then it is not really the case that he performs A-at any rate it is not the case that he is responsible for performing A. And hence freedom, in the sense that is required for responsibility, itself requires determinism.
But the Christian thinker will find this claim monumentally implausible. Presumably the determinist means to hold that what he says characterizes actions generally, not just those of human beings. He will hold that it is a necessary truth that if an agent isn't caused to perform an action then it is a mere matter of chance that the agent in question performs the action in question. From a Christian perspective, however, this is wholly incredible. For God performs actions, and performs free actions; and surely it is not the case that there are causal laws and antecedent conditions outside his control that determine what he does. On the contrary: God is the author of the causal laws that do in fact obtain; indeed, perhaps the best way to think of these causal laws is as records of the ways in which God ordinarily treats the beings he has created. But of course it is not simply a matter of chance that God does what he does-creates and upholds the world, let's say, and offers redemption and renewal to his children. So a Christian philosopher has an extremely good reason for rejecting this premise, along with the determinism and compatibilism it supports.
What is really at stake in this discussion is the notion of agent causation: the notion of a person as an ultimate source of action. According to the friends of agent causation, some events are caused, not by other events, but by substances, objects-typically personal agents. And at least since the time of David Hume, the idea of agent causation has been languishing. It is fair to say, I think, that most contemporary philosophers who work in this area either reject agent causation outright or are at the least extremely suspicious of it. They see causation as a relation among events; they can understand how one event can cause another event, or how events of one kind can cause events of another kind. But the idea of a person, say, causing an event, seems to them unintelligible, unless it can be analyzed, somehow, in terms of event causation. It is this devotion to event causation, of course, that explains the claim that if you perform an action but are not caused to do so, then your performing that action is a matter of chance. For if I hold that all causation is ultimately event causation, then I will suppose that if you perform an action but are not caused to do so by previous events, then your performing that action isn't caused at all and is therefore a mere matter of chance. The devotee of event causation, furthermore, will perhaps argue for his position as follows. If such agents as persons cause effects that take place in the physical world-my body's moving in a certain way, for example-then these effects must ultimately be caused by volitions or undertakings-which, apparently, are immaterial, unphysical events. He will then claim that the idea of an immaterial event's having causal efficacy in the physical world is puzzling or dubious or worse.
But a Christian philosopher will find this argument unimpressive and this devotion to event causation uncongenial. As for the argument, the Christian already and independently believes that acts of volition have causal efficacy; he believes indeed, that the physical universe owes its very existence to just such volitional acts-God's undertaking to create it. And as for the devotion to event causation, the Christian will be, initially, at any rate, strongly inclined to reject the idea that event causation is primary and agent causation to be explained in terms of it. For he believes that God does and has done many things: he has created the world; he sustains it in being; he communicates with his children. But it is extraordinarily hard to see how these truths can be analyzed in terms of causal relations among events. What events could possibly cause God's creating the world or his undertaking to create the world? God himself institutes or establishes the causal laws that do in fact hold; how, then, can we see all the events constituted by his actions as related to causal laws to earlier events? How could it be that propositions ascribing actions to him are to be explained in terms of event causation?
Note especially the words: The Christian has an initially strong reason to reject the claim that all of our actions are causally determined-a reason much stronger than the meager and anemic arguments the determinist can muster on the other side. Of course if there were powerful arguments on the other side, then there might be a problem here. But there aren't; so there isn't.
Robert
yeah, we already settled that, Robert.
ReplyDeleteDear Paul,
ReplyDeleteExactly what did I "bring on myself," especially when I have repeated questions that Christian scholars, including Evangelicals, have raised?
I'm speaking of such things as the flat earth beliefs of ancient Near Easterners including the way the Bible's own speech about the cosmos mirrors the same ancient Near Eastern belief about the shape of the cosmos as professors such as John Walton at Wheaton point out, and other Evangelicals besides him have pointed out in commentaries and articles on Genesis.
I'm also speaking about verses in the Bible concerning how Christians are commanded to act (when I mentioned such verses at Theology Web, Walton and Holding ignored them, and pointed me instead to verses in which various prophets cursed and railed, which only brought to my mind that one can find some rather different instructions in the Bible, from loving one's enemies and how blessed are the peacemakers and how one ought not rejoice when one's enemy falls, to how much a Christian can rail if they want, and Holding even read into Scripture his interpretation to the effect that "doves" can be quite "vicious." Ah, Vicious Doves for Christ. All in all I see a quite similar enjoyment of wit and of gaining knowledge in people of all sorts from Voltaire and Twain to Holding and yourself. Such a similar enjoyment means that anyone engaged in such bon mot one-upmanship is bringing it on themselves. And just as things I may write or that Loftus may write, inspires you or Hays or Holding to reply, your replies inspire us as well. Holding has helped inspired Loftus so much his first book is being republished by Prometheus in expanded form, and he's working on a second book as well, and his book had even been used in a Christian class last I heard, and Loftus was invited to various debates. So two cheers to Holding for having inspired Loftus. Meanwhile I'm sure that the writings of Loftus and others like him are one reason Holding himself is seeking a career in apologetics. Ah, we're all pretty human in that respect, competitiveness.
And of course such competitiveness exists within Evangelicalism itself. There's a series of books being published by both Zondervan and Intervarsity that keeps adding titles that covers the range of divergencies in Evangelical opinions on soteriological, eschatological, ethical, and other theological matters.
One might also note the debates between seemingly tireless and prolific blog-pologists, some of whom are Catholic (often converts from Protestantism to Catholicism, like Dave Armstrong), or blog-pologists who are Protestant (Hays vs. Armstrong, and, James White vs. Armstrong for instance). Which makes me wonder when J.P. Holding is going to throw his hat into the ring and explain why he is not a Catholic. (After all, Holding spent a lot of time telling us why he is not a Mormon, but Catholics remain the single biggest church, nearly outnumbering all Protestants combined.)
As for the Baptism question that has recently drawn you into a Christian fray, I agree Baptism is quite a good thing (with a bit of soap).
Sincerely,
Ed Babinski
Edward T. Babinski said...
ReplyDelete"I'm speaking of such things as the flat earth beliefs of ancient Near Easterners including the way the Bible's own speech about the cosmos mirrors the same ancient Near Eastern belief about the shape of the cosmos as professors such as John Walton at Wheaton point out, and other Evangelicals besides him have pointed out in commentaries and articles on Genesis."
I dealt with that objection a long time ago, Ed. You have a lazy habit of repeating the same stock objections time and again as if no one had ever dealt with them before.
If your objections are sincere, then you should acknowledge and address the counterargument. If you refuse to do that, then your objections are disingenuous.
"I'm also speaking about verses in the Bible concerning how Christians are commanded to act (when I mentioned such verses at Theology Web, Walton and Holding ignored them."
I'm not responsible for Holding.
"One can find some rather different instructions in the Bible, from loving one's enemies ."
You're trivializing the notion of an "enemy." Are you my "enemy"? No. And, for the record, I've been pretty nice to you.
"And of course such competitiveness exists within Evangelicalism itself. There's a series of books being published by both Zondervan and Intervarsity that keeps adding titles that covers the range of divergencies in Evangelical opinions on soteriological, eschatological, ethical, and other theological matters."
Once more, I addressed that objection a long time ago. You're repeating yourself without advancing the argument.
"Which makes me wonder when J.P. Holding is going to throw his hat into the ring and explain why he is not a Catholic."
Why are you asking *us* that question. Shouldn't you redirect that question to Holding?