Lyons states:
The jist of the story [...] was that the elephant was too big for any one man to comprehend, and that the collective view of the elephant was much closer to right than the individual viewpoints of the elephant.
The collective view was closer to the right (or, true) view. Note four things:
1) This assumes one has the truth and so can say when something is closer to the truth, or not. The story actually presupposes, for its force to work, that one has the entire truth. If this were not stated then the story wouldn't be all that interesting. Let's re-tell it without revealing the whole truth: 6 Indian men were told to report what they were holding. One said a snake. The other, a spear. The other, well he felt a wall. One said he was holding a rope. Another reported that he was feeling a large fan. And the last one said he felt a bush. Now, is there anything here problematic? No(!), it's only when we know the whole entire truth that the story makes an impression.
2) The collective view was not closer to being right than any one particular view. Put the above together and you have a single entity made of wall, spear, rope, snake, bush, and a fan! Call this being a whatchamacallit. I dare say that if any of us saw an elephant standing next to a whatchamacallit there would be no mistaking one for the other. Or, stated another way, say that there was a math test. The teacher only asked one question to his students. That question was, "What does 2 x 2 =?" Now, say he received 6 answers: 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, and 22. Would anyone say that these combined answers were collectively closer to the truth that one wrong answer? (There were some similarities, just like with the elephant. For instance, all the answers were even - so was the correct answer, etc.)
3) Another option has not been presented, namely, they were all wrong. Now, one could say that they were correct metaphorically, but then this would remove the critique against truth and objectivity, which this argument serves to attack. But, I doubt even this move. At best, they were correct metaphorically about part of the elephant. If they were to say that their metaphor was in line with the whole enchilada, they'd be mistaken.
4) This is the moral attempted to be drawn from this poem:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
But notice that the author can only make this critique (about others being wrong, etc.,) because he has knowledge (or has seen) the entire elephant. So, it is he who has the entire truth. If the moral is intended to critique those who say that they have the whole truth, it is self-refuting. Or, perhaps it is the critique of a man who believes that only he possesses the whole truth of the matter and all of the other people (theologians) in the world are blind to the truth, merely acting a fool. In this case, the one who uses the critique is something of a megalomaniac. A narcissist.
In other words, systematic theology asks what the entire Bible has to say about the various loci. That is, the systematic theologian asks, "What does the entire Bible teach about X," where X is a biblical concept: God, man, ethics, salvation, eschatology, etc. Thus the elephant story only makes sense because one has the whole picture and can put the facts together and see how each one makes sense and fits together within the whole. And so it appears that an appeal to this story is actually self-refuting!
Moving along...
"Each of us can interact with the elephant to feel and experience it, but we also have a very limited frame of reference. Unfortunately, like the blind men in the story, we treat our frame of reference as the only valid frame, where everyone else is mistaken and must be feeling something other than the real elephant.
The key mistakes that each of us tend to make are 1) assuming we have the only valid frame of reference, and more importantly; 2) we place the entire elephant inside our frame of reference! We then build our entire systems of theology around our single view of the elephant, all the while mocking/cajoling/condemning the other blind men who are busy doing the same thing with their limited view."
Here we see that Lyons just misunderstands what the systematic theologian is doing. Systematicians do not say that they know the entire truth of the matter. Rather, they take only what the Bible says about a matter and seek to show what the whole Bible says about the matter. Surely Lyons doesn't disagree that we do have Bibles! So we take them (our Bibles) and seek to see what it teaches us about the loci presented therein. Also, note my point above: The story works because we do have access to the whole. If we didn't, the story wouldn't work. So for Lyons' critique to be consistent, he must say that he has access to the whole of the matter! I should also point out that there are Reformed theologians who agree that we need to make sure we are looking at doctrine from all angles. Vern Poythress' Symphonic Theology is case in point. Men like Poythress and Frame have sought to point out that Arminians, Dispensationalists, etc., make some valid points that we would do well to incorporate into our system. Similarly, I, as a Presbyterian, have learned much from my Reformed Baptist brothers. Some of their ideas have been invaluable to my theological development. So Lyons is simply inconsistent with the facts, here.
Continuing...
"Some of us, primarily of the Calvinist persuasion, read parts of scripture which emphasize God having foreknowledge and predestining people or events. Everything else about God and time is then forced through this filter of ‘preknowing’. This ends up ignoring or reinterpreting other wide swaths of scripture which make it evident that God allows man to choose certain things, or that show that God has changed His mind (I guess He was just fakin’ it), or - worse yet - having a man, be it Abraham, Moses, Hezekiah or other prophets/kings, convince Him to change his mind. It also puts Jesus in a bizarre kabuki dance in the garden of Gathsemene, in which Jesus is God but he prays to God to change His mind, but He does not. In the end, God comes out being something much less than God, where fatalism trumps love."
I'll end with this one since I'm not here to defend Arminianism or Open Theism (his next targets).
For someone who rails on making sure the whole truth is represented Lyons sure revels in his ability to misrepresent a position. No Calvinist I know would give Lyons' characterization of our position their seal of approval. We don't recognize ourselves in this critique. Perhaps rather than railing against systematic theology (which he has clearly misrepresented their project), he should spend time studying his opponents' position. Surely proper representation is just as important at not putting the facts of the Bible into a "box?"
Furthermore, having read countless books by Reformed theologians, I have not noted that "everything is filtered through this preknowing." Now, it may be true that everything is filtered in though soli Deo gloria. Or sola Christo.
I also have no clue why he believes that Calvinists think men don't choose things. We don't believe men are forced, against their will, to select the options that they do. It's not as if the Calvinist thinks that, say, a man really wants an apple pie but as he reaches his hand for it an invisible hand comes down and forces his hand towards the rhubarb pie, a brief struggle ensures, the mans hand shakes, but ultimately it is forced to grab (and eat!) the rhubarb pie.
As far as God changing his mind, that would depend on what Lyons means by that claim. We certainly allow for and can explain the biblical data that represents God as "changing his mind." One example can be found in Pratt: Historical Contingencies and Biblical Predictions. Another sense can be found in judicial categories. Many times "forgetting" and "remembering" have reference to God delaying or fulfilling the terms of his covenant (whether blessings or curses). Much of the so-called "Divine ignorance" passages appear in judicial contexts. When God asked Adam and Eve, "Where are you?" he was not admitting ignorance, as if he couldn't see them hiding behind that bush (or was it an elephant leg!?), he was asking for an admission of guilt.
It seems that Lyons thinks he can just assert that some passage which teaches ignorance should be taken literally (for that's the only way we have a problem). But then if this is his approach, then why stop with Christian theologies? What about Christian heresies like Mormonism? Maybe they have a corner on truth too. When Genesis 11:5 teaches us that "the Lord came down to see" the building of the tower of Babel, why not take this as Scripture teaching that God bodily descended to earth? Walked down from heaven. Perhaps if Lyons wasn't so reticent or hostile towards systematics, he wouldn't make these blunders? And, yes, Jesus, the Son, prayed to the Father. Lyons' critiques are based on lazy reports of half-truths which aspire to draw a whole-truth contradiction.
Moreover, fatalism teaches that the ends happen regardless of the means. This is not the Calvinist position. To call it Greek fatalism is to simply slander a fellow Christian.
Lastly, let me point out a main error in Lyon's thought. People cannot both be right about contradictory things (save the dialetheism discussion fo another time!). So, it is not as if we deny choice qua selection from options, we deny libertarian choice. Thus it cannot be that the libertarians and the Calvinist each have a corner on the truth in this instance. If the Calvinist holds to something that contradicts, say, PAP, then it cannot be true. If ~PAP is the case, then PAP is not the case. What sense would it be to say that we have libertarian free will, and that we never have it too, at the same time and in the same sense, and both are true? If that is possible, then why won't God send us to both heaven and hell at the same time and in the same sense?
I thus judge that Lyons' critique fails miserably.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteIs an electron a particle or a wave? Or is the contradictory theory that is both (that collective whatchamacallit) we call a wave function closer to the truth?
That isn't to say that saying a thing is both is necessarily right ... but it's not necessarily wrong either.
Mark, That's disanalogous. We don't know for sure, and so all the options are open. With he elephant, WE KNOW that it isn't a tangled mass of spears, mortor wall, fans, and the like. So, the make the analogy proper, you'd have to say that we know that six scientists are looking at a particle that has charachteristic(s) PW. One says the whole truth of the matter is that PW is like a a fly, another says that it is a blade of grass, another says that it is a penut, another says it is a ripple in a tide pool, another says....
ReplyDeleteNext, note that you're saying that if it is TRUE that an elecron is both a particle and a wave, then the combination is correct. Okay, fine. But I had said that a combination of FALSE characteristics doesn't make the whole thing cloer to being true. To move to metaphor is stultifying since the bliond man would say that this *trunk* is *like* a snake. This shows he knew the truth in order to give it a metaphorical expression.
I also didn't say that it was *necessarily* wrong. I wasn't speaking in the abstract here, Mark. I was speaking specifically about the elephant story. I was taking the other option that is usually left out - namely, rather than them all being right, perhaps they are all wrong.
It is noteworthy that the perspectival critique of those who think one perspective is the whole truth, is aimed at theologians, not theology.
ReplyDeletePaul,
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your piece and picked it up to hopefully bring some additional attention to it in the little part of the Lord's Vineyard where I labor.
Incidentally I added this Update to my original lead-in posts, which may be of interest to you:
*UPDATE* For those who may not know, Chris Lyons is the leader of the self-proclaimed "Watcher of the Watchdogs" website CRN.Info.
Christian Research Net contributor Jim Luppachino of Watcher’s Lamp has asked Lyons if he had seen the Triablogue piece. Here is his response:
Comment from Chris L
Time: December 6, 2007, 2:57 pm
I saw it, though I would suggest that (per a Calvinist tendency), they have run with it to make it
a) say/suppose things not said/supposed; and
b) they ignored the basis of my thesis of the non-contradictory nature between free will and predestination, that being the “box” we place God in is the one made of uni-dimentional [sic], uni-directional time…
As for misrepresenting Clavinism [sic], I know a good number of Calvinists who have argued about the things mentioned in that paragraph.
Additionally, I was not trying to write a doctoral thesis, but a paper using commen [sic] terminology, as much as possible, so it is obvious that I could not be as complete as the subject would require for a thorough discussion on the issue…(Online source - http://christianresearchnetwork.info/2007/12/05/another-example-of-where-labels-and-systems-fail/#comment-32996
As to 1 and 2, saying that is so and demonstrating it are not convertible.
ReplyDeleteAs to 3 we deal with representative theologians, so "Calvinists I know" is non-responsive.
Further, I'd add that he's simply charging Calvinism with "rationalism," building a theological system around a particular principle. That is quite a charge to sustain against Reformed theology, though I believe it is easily sustainable vs. Arminianism and, to a certain extent Amyraldianism. I'd like to see his thorough rebuttal of historical theologians / church historians like Klauber, Clark, Trueman, Muller, etc.
Manata makes some comments about choice and Calvinism that are mistaken.
ReplyDelete“I also have no clue why he believes that Calvinists think men don't choose things. We don't believe men are forced, against their will, to select the options that they do. It's not as if the Calvinist thinks that, say, a man really wants an apple pie but as he reaches his hand for it an invisible hand comes down and forces his hand towards the rhubarb pie, a brief struggle ensures, the mans hand shakes, but ultimately it is forced to grab (and eat!) the rhubarb pie.”
In talking with John Martin Fischer (who is not a Christian, but is a prominent compatibilist that Manata likes to cite as espousing Manata’s form of compatibilism). John says that a good word for the Calvinist position is that God constrains all actions. He does not coerce or force people to choose or act against their will, rather, he controls their will so completely so they do only and always what God wants them to do. John does not believe that we have regulative control, or alternative possibilities (or what people ordinarily mean when they speak of choices). John likens the constraint present in Calvinism to a puppet master who completely constrains every action of a conscious puppet. The puppet has a will and really does what it wants to do, which is always and only what the puppet master dictates.
Here is an illustration of “constraint” that a friend of mine uses. I think it makes the point clearly, what constraint looks like and also why it is a problem. Imagine a guy named Joe who is playing chess with a neurosurgeon named Black. Joe does not know that Black has secretly and without Joe’s knowledge placed a device in Joe’s brain which controls Joe’s thinking when “needed” (when Black desires for something to happen a certain way, he turns on the device which then ensures that Joe does what Black wants Joe to do; but since it occurs in Joe’s thinking and without his conscious awareness, from Joe’s perspective he is doing exactly what he wants to do). So about midway through the chess game, Joe is considering a couple of moves, one of which if he makes the move, Black will then very shortly take his queen. Joe is considering the move which will quickly lose the queen and some other moves other than the queen losing move. Joe at first wants to make one of these other moves, but then Black activates the device so that Joe “willingly” makes the move that loses the queen. Was Joe coerced or forced to do the move that resulted in him quickly losing the queen and then the game shortly after? NO, because he did the move that he wanted to do. No force or coercion was involved and Joe was not forced to act against his will. Joe freely (according to the compatibilist understanding of free will) made the move because he wanted to make that move. If afterwards it were to get out that Black had in fact intervened and constrained Joe’s chess move, would onlookers conclude that Joe had acted freely? Most people would find something wrong with this picture. Yes Joe did the exact move that he wanted to do, but it does not seem that he had a real choice, it does not seem that he was acting freely. Now if you want to get a picture of Calvinism, just extrapolate from this single chess move by Joe to every action ever performed by all human beings. Imagine that Black had constrained every human action ever performed. That is what exhaustive determinism would look like. And in such a world, choice as ordinarily understood would not and could not exist on the part of human persons. In each and every case we would be doing the actions which God had desired for us to do.
Fischer himself advocates a form of compatibilism without God’s involvement whatsoever and John believes that we ought to hold compatibilism because someday science might in fact prove causal determinism to be true. But John is wrong here as the claim that if science proves causal determinism to be true, then free will is precluded, operates from a naturalistic assumption that human persons are completely physical beings (the reality, usually called substance dualism is that we have a physical aspect and a nonphysical aspect to our being, and our choices arise out of our nonphysical aspect, or soul). Science will never disprove the soul’s existence or that the soul engages in free will choices because free will choices are not physical and science deals exclusively with physical and measurable realities.
”So, it is not as if we deny choice qua selection from options, we deny libertarian choice. Thus it cannot be that the libertarians and the Calvinist each have a corner on the truth in this instance.”
What Manata fails to understand is that his belief, exhaustive determinism, precludes the reality of choices period. He likes to play semantic games arguing that compatibilism allows for the reality of choices. This shows a real misunderstanding of the nature of choice. If I have a choice in a situation that means that I can make either selection of alternative possibilities that is before me. Staying with Bernabe’s illustration of choosing between chocolate or carrot cake in the cafeteria lunch line. Having a choice means that when we get to the end of the line and are faced with the choice between choosing either chocolate or carrot cake as the opportunity presents itself: we can choose either one. If I am in the mood for chocolate I can choose chocolate and vice versa. Contrast this situation where I have a choice, with a situation where my action is predetermined. If my actions are completely predetermined then either I take some chocolate cake (if that is the predetermined action) or I take some carrot cake (if that is the predetermined action), [or some other particular action that is predetermined for me] but I cannot take either one, I am necessitated in taking the one which was predetermined for me to take. Now if we extrapolate from this one action to all human actions, then we see what the total or exhaustive determination of all actions entails. It entails that in each and ever situation, I never have a choice. The reality of choice is excluded. Choice in any situation is illusory (though I may believe in my mind that I could take either chocolate or carrot cake, in reality I can only take the one which was predetermined that I take).
I discussed this with Fischer and he said a useful distinction from his compatibilistic perspective is to distinguish between making a choice (i.e., committing oneself to a particular action) and having a choice (alternative possibilities either of which may be chosen). John also says that if causal determinism is true, we make choices but do not have choices. And John is absolutely correct. Unfortunately, Calvinists such as Manata seem incapable of seeing this entailment that is logically necessitated by their view. This is where I wish the Calvinists could be as honest and direct as Fischer: if causal determinism is true, then we never have choices (or alternative possibilities or regulative control, or however you want to put it). What is also disturbing is that Manata will point to Fischer as advocating what Manata believes about compatibilism when Fischer is not a Christian and believes that determinism rules out the reality of choices. If Manata agrees with Fischer then he should also agree with Fischer that Manata’s exhaustive determinism rules out the reality and possibility of choices as ordinarily understood.
Robert
"What Manata fails to understand is that his belief, exhaustive determinism, precludes the reality of choices period. He likes to play semantic games arguing that compatibilism allows for the reality of choices."
ReplyDeleteTo the contrary, it's Robert who plays semantic games by acting as though, if he can just use "real" or "reality" or "actual" five times in every sentence (preferably in caps), he has thereby disproven Calvinism.
"Manata’s exhaustive determinism rules out the reality and possibility of choices as ordinarily understood."
ReplyDeleteRobert is playing semantic games again. Philosophy is hardly committed to the "ordinary understanding" of choice. Philosophy typically challenges many common sense notions.
Just as an aside, and not to divert this excellent discussion: I'd be interested in knowing if Robert believes in the inspiration and inerrancy of the bible, and if so - according to his non-calvinist view, how is it that God was able to inspire the bible, word for word, while not making "robots" out of the human authors of the bible.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, thank you for your efforts in writing this post Paul. Well done indeed.
Jim writes: “Just as an aside, and not to divert this excellent discussion: I'd be interested in knowing if Robert believes in the inspiration and inerrancy of the bible,”
ReplyDeleteYes most definitely.
“and if so - according to his non-calvinist view, how is it that God was able to inspire the bible, word for word, while not making "robots" out of the human authors of the bible.”
The key word in your question here is that little three syllable word “how”. Now I don’t know about you Jim, but there are certain realities that while I have no doubt that they are real, true, actually occurred. Nevertheless, if you ask me HOW they happened I have no answer for you. Some quick examples - did Jesus walk on the water as recorded in scripture? Yes. How? Don’t know it was a miracle. Seems to me that as believers we can affirm certain realities to be true, but if they involve the supernatural actions of God or miracles then our how explanations disappear. Did God come in the flesh in the form of Jesus Christ? Yes. How? No explanation. Is Jesus both God and Man at the same time? Yes. But how? Don’t know.
The examples could be multiplied, but I believe the reality of inspiration of scripture falls into this category of being something that bible believing Christians affirm and yet we do not know exactly how it happened. And those who claim to know how supernatural events and/or miracles occur, are boasting about things they really don’t understand. Now I admit that I don’t know how it happened though I believe that it happened. Perhaps you are a Calvinist determinist, a non-libertarian on the free will issue, Jim, how exactly do you believe that inspiration occurred? And if you cannot answer that question, how do you expect me to be able to answer that question? As “Dirty Harry” put it: “a man’s got to know his limitations . . .”
Robert
I debated responding to Robert's post. We've been around the block on this a few times and I see no headway in sight. So, I'll just offer a coupe, of brief comments and that'll be it. Robert can have the last word, er, tome.
ReplyDeleteBesides his circumstantial ad hominem remarks and his guilt by association comments, Robert simply assumes libertarianism and then chastises me for not adhering to it. Unfortunately, this is not a very persuasive technique.
I should point out that there are atheist libertarians. There are atheist dualists. And, there are Christian physicalists who are libertarians. So, fingers could be pointed all around.
Since Fischer isn't a theoligian, nor a Calvinist, I'd not be running to him to get my information on Calvinism (yes, I know Robert tries to say that I do exactly that, but this is a misrepresentation. I'm happy to keep the debate at the level of exegsis and biblical material, but when Robert wants me to give philosophical explanations of my position, i.e., when he wants to leave the real of debating the texts, I'll meet him on those grounds too. Many libertarian arguments have been developed by atheists. That they are *used* and *incorporated* by Christian libertarians doesn't mean that Robert is arguing from a specifically Christian position. I could just as easily point out reformed theologians who would say the things Fischer says. I also happen to thgink that if someone is right, it doesn't matter if they are an atheist. Would Robert balk at mathematical therom that helped us solve equations if it were developed by an atheist?)
Having said that, Robert cites Fischer saying that God "does not coerce or force people to choose or act against their will, rather, he controls their will so completely so they do only and always what God wants them to do." Let's note that this is ambiguous. Calvinists hold that we can find two-wills of God expressed in Scripture. So, that God determines what we will do, does not mean that we do what he wants us to do, depending on which perspective you're speaking about.
Let's also note that what is not included in the above is that we do what we want to do as well. Robert is of the opinion that a choice cannot be a choice unless the cognitive agent can genuinely actualize alternative possibilities. Well, I just don't itch where Robert does. I don't accept that constraint, at all.
Say there is X, Y, and Z options on the table. I pick X. I wanted to pick X. I did not want Y and Z. No one forced me to pick X. I had reasons for picking X. I desired X and did not desire Y and Z. So on and so forth. That I couldn't (contrary to God's actual decree) pick Y and Z doesn't bother me in the least. I still chose X.
I too can play the games Robert does. Assuming compatibilist (actually, this was brought forth by van Inwagen, a libertarian at the time!) arguments, I could mount an argument that states that Robert didn't "choose" anything since his picking X was accidental, or due to luck, or for no reason at all. A libertarian agent doesn't seem to have the control required to make choices and be accountable for them. To appeal to agent causation doesn't help. If we kept going back to the moment before the choice, the libertarian agent might have picked X, do it again: Y, do it again: Z, do it again: X, again: Y, etc. I pointed this out here:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/todays-your-lucky-day.html
and here:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/agent-causation.html
So, yes, Calvinists make choices. That they don't make *libertarian* choices isn't bothersome to me. Why? Well, for one, I'm not a libertarian! To chastise a non-libertarian for not adhering to libertarianism seems to be a ridiculous constraint. That's all Robert's verbose comment was. Boiled down to its essentials: Manata is wrong for thinking that given Calvinism we can make choices. Choices *just are* libertarian PAPs in action.
Sorry: (a) that's not a philosophical consensus and (b) its not derivable via exegesis from the Bible.
So, (c) Robert can save his mere *announcing* of libertarianism for the libertarians. It doesn't work to simply *announce* libertarianism to a bunch of Calvinists. Just like it doesn't justify utilitarianism to *announce* that the right *just is* the greatest happiness for the greatest number in a room filled with deontologists. They'd rightly laugh the Benthamite out the door.
Robert wrote:
ReplyDelete"What is also disturbing is that Manata will point to Fischer as advocating what Manata believes about compatibilism when Fischer is not a Christian and believes that determinism rules out the reality of choices. If Manata agrees with Fischer then he should also agree with Fischer that Manata’s exhaustive determinism rules out the reality and possibility of choices as ordinarily understood."
I can't see how the application of John's position with respect to agency and theism is relevant to whether John himself is a Christian. After all, John is also concerned about free will and responsibility if God does exist. When you say that John believes determinism rules out the reality of choices, you make this in a qualified sense. I grant the distinction John makes (as opposed to Steve who calls this semantic game-playing). You should ask John what he thinks about Kapitan's work on alternate possibilites in the epistemically open sense. What is at issue is the sort of choice that is made when an agent performs an action that grounds ascriptions of responsibility. The sense you are pushing John with is based on the following reasoning: by "choice," I mean x, which is incompatible with John's view of what grounds ascriptions of responsibility. So you say, "Having a choice means..." and you illustrate that sense with an example. And you infer from determinism that that sense of choice is ruled out. Yes. But so what? Frankfurt cases, John would point out, exclude that sort of sense of choice (stipulated as relevant by linguistic fiat) as relevant to grounding responsibility.
Furthermore, the "sense ordinarily understood" by "choices" is unclear, even if the way you use it is clear to you. Perhaps a brief tour into experimental philosophy and the debates therein will correct the armchair sociology (c.f. Nahmias and co.) about what the folk believe about choice? And even if you did get it right, there isn't any reason why it couldn't be revised. Ordinary interpretations have been revised into more defendable interpretations over and over again, such as in the history of science.
You also neglected to mention that John sees God's exhaustive foreknowledge as ruling out the sort of freedom libertarians want to have. Surely, John is a friend to the Calvinists there.
From one personal friend of John's to another,
James Gibson
Robert 1: How could someone make choices if all their decisions and actions were determined.
ReplyDeleteRobert 2: The key word in your question here is that little three syllable word “how”. Now I don’t know about you Robert, but there are certain realities that while I have no doubt that they are real, true, actually occurred.
Thus, EVEN IF we couldn't defend our position philosophically (which we can, and quite ably I might add!), it wouldn't matter diddly IF THE BIBLE taught that God determines/is sovereign over all (and I mean "all" the way Robert means "all" in the atonement) things, including the choices of men, and IF THE BIBLE taught that all men were responsible for their actions, then we would have the FUNCTIONAL EQUIVOLENT of something like semi-compatibilism.
So, perhaps Robert would just like to debate the TEXT of Scripture since he grants that if we could demonstrate our position from the Bible, the "how" wouldn't matter.
We should also add that PAP, ought implies can, libertarian freedom, agent causation, a theory of causation, etc., etc., etc., cannot be derived, exegetically, from the Bible.
Perhaps this is why Robert can only take the debate to the halls of the Lyceum?
Robert:
ReplyDeleteI actually like your answer about inspiration and that three letter word "how". You asked me:
Jim, how exactly do you believe that inspiration occurred?
I don't know either, and here is where I'm willing to accept mystery where mystery is due. I am however willing to believe the necessary facts about inerrant inspiration of scripture which include:
1) God got His way. All of the words of the bible are just the way God wanted them.
2) Man is free to do what he desires. If inspiration works the way so many other things do in scripture, the human authors of the bible never felt like they had a gun to their head or strings on their hands. (How the desires got there is a matter that we could debate, but you probably agree with me that they were influenced by God in some way).
I think, perhaps without realizing it, you (Robert) attack #2 above. If you were consistent with your other comments on this page, you should argue that the human authors really had no real freedom, no real choice, no free will, and were simply robots. But, do you say that about (for example) Peter in writing his two epistles? Either that, or you could deny that scripture is inspired (which you don't).
So to sum-up my belief, God gives man freedom within certain bounds, while making man's will secondary to His own. We can't just decide to fly to the moon (sorry Benny Hinn). Although there is mystery in much of this, mystery doesn't make squares round and elephants a bunch of stuff that elephants aren't. Therein is where Chris Lyons goes off the rails.
Robert:
ReplyDeleteHello Jim, I think we may be similar in our thinking.
You wrote: “I actually like your answer about inspiration and that three letter word "how". You asked me:
Jim, how exactly do you believe that inspiration occurred?
I don't know either, and here is where I'm willing to accept mystery where mystery is due. I am however willing to believe the necessary facts about inerrant inspiration of scripture which include:”
You got my point: some things do involve some mystery. As Mortimer Adler put it, those mysteries also just happen to be some of the most crucial Christian beliefs.
”1) God got His way. All of the words of the bible are just the way God wanted them.”
Right, the finished product, in the original autographs is what He wanted.
”2) Man is free to do what he desires. If inspiration works the way so many other things do in scripture, the human authors of the bible never felt like they had a gun to their head or strings on their hands. (How the desires got there is a matter that we could debate, but you probably agree with me that they were influenced by God in some way).”
Right again. People freely choose to write exactly what God wanted as the outcome. Without coercion and without the dictation theory of inspiration where people had no choices.
”I think, perhaps without realizing it, you (Robert) attack #2 above. If you were consistent with your other comments on this page, you should argue that the human authors really had no real freedom, no real choice, no free will, and were simply robots.”
Actually in my post when I spoke about God constraining actions I was speaking of the Calvinist determinist view of free will. I hold to agent causation where a person freely chooses to do their actions based upon reasons.
“But, do you say that about (for example) Peter in writing his two epistles? Either that, or you could deny that scripture is inspired (which you don't).”
People do their actions for reasons. And God foreknows everything so if he leads someone like Peter to write about certain problems that are on Peter’s heart. Then what Peter writes will be freely chosen and based on reasons that Peter has and will simultaneously end up being what God intended for the people to hear. In a similar way, but I believe to a much lesser extent, when we preach a good sermon, we preach what is on our heart, we have reasons for saying what we are saying, and God then uses our words to “speak” to someone who hears us. I have many times had the experience of saying something or even thinking of something in the midst of a message and sharing it and then afterwards someone coming up and saying “God was really speaking through you when you said (X)”.
”So to sum-up my belief, God gives man freedom within certain bounds, while making man's will secondary to His own.”
Right we have limited freedom, we have choices ordinarily but if God wants something to go a certain way and He intervenes then our plans, thoughts, do not stop Him from doing what He wants to do in a particular situation.
“We can't just decide to fly to the moon (sorry Benny Hinn). Although there is mystery in much of this, mystery doesn't make squares round and elephants a bunch of stuff that elephants aren't. Therein is where Chris Lyons goes off the rails.”
I do not believe that the bible contradicts itself. The bible presents some events where God puts His foot down so to speak and no one restrains or stops Him or prevents Him from doing what He wants to do (that is the sovereignty of God). The bible also presents people having and making choices. The calvinists tend to emphasize the sovereignty of God while negating the reality of choices. The Arminians tend to emphasize the reality of choice while deemphasizing or limiting God’s sovereignty. I do neither, God is sovereign and sometimes we have choices. Some of the greatest Christian truths involve both/and situations (Jesus is both God and Man; Scripture is both God’s word and inspired and written by men freely choosing their words; God is one being in three persons; God is a purely spiritual being who also became flesh; human persons are a soul that has a body and the soul and body work together when we do actions, etc. etc.) rather than either/or. Most heresies occur when one aspect is left out or deemphasized while another is pushed in the forefront. If our views are biblical we affirm whatever the bible presents, which again will involve some both/and types of beliefs.
Robert
One of the problems with taking the "both/and" idea too far is that by necessity, it gives us grounds to owe our salvation to both God and ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you to a point that there are a great many "both/and's" in scripture, but where we may differ is in the cause and effect. So I would maintain that God AND man both wrote scripture, but it was within God's confines, under his inspiration, and precisely the way He wanted it. You have not convinced me that this could be so under libertarianism. Peter might have decided to go off in his own direction with the epistles that he wrote, acting entirely independent of God on parts or the whole of it. That's why I brought up inspiration, because I don't believe it's compatible (no pun intended) with libertarianism.
Indeed, it isn't. The deniers of inerrancy in theological circles aren't Calvinists, which should signal something. The Neo-Orthodox had to abandon their Calvinism in order to reach their theological conclusions.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, as soon as you affirm inerrancy but try to hold to libertarianism, you have introduced an ad hoc restriction into libertarianism, but then that's not surprising coming from Robert.
What Robert does not seem to get here is that, for example, "irresistible grace" and "inspiration" of an "inerrant" text all turn on the same principle. To say that one of them renders men "robots" and the other does not is simply ad hocery.
The argument seems to be that since one relates to the eternal salvation of men, anything other than a libertarian choice would be out of bounds and ruled "coercive." However, since the other relates to the inspiration of an inerrant autograph, the other is within bounds and is not coercive. So, where can I find the criterion in the Bible by which these two conclusions might be reached? In other words, why does one make a man a robot and the other not - according to the Bible?
James wrote:
ReplyDelete“When you say that John believes determinism rules out the reality of choices, you make this in a qualified sense.”
John makes it clear that if we mean by choices what is ordinarily understood by that word (what he refers to as regulative control), then exhaustive determinism eliminates choices from ever being present.
“I grant the distinction John makes (as opposed to Steve who calls this semantic game-playing).”
I think that John’s distinction between having a choice (which involves alternative possibilities that can be actualized) and making a choice (which involves committing to a certain course of action) is a very useful distinction. Calvinists, those who espouse exhaustive determinism rule out having choices though they speak of making choices. The game playing is by compatibilists when they speak about **having choices** when their view precludes this possibility.
“What is at issue is the sort of choice that is made when an agent performs an action that grounds ascriptions of responsibility.”
I would distinguish between two areas of investigation, or subject areas. One area which is John’s expertise,is determining the grounds for responsibility. The question here is: what are the grounds for ascribing responsibility to a person? The other area of investigation, and the one I am interested in is this: do choices as ordinarily understood ever occur in reality? Or does the common sense notion of having a choice correspond with reality or not?
“The sense you are pushing John with is based on the following reasoning: by "choice," I mean x, which is incompatible with John's view of what grounds ascriptions of responsibility.”
John grounds responsibility in what he calls guidance control. What I believe to be the case, having a choice, refers to what John calls regulative control. John rules out regulative control as a ground for responsibility. And he may be right about this. But my concern is not determining the grounds of responsibility but whether or not choices as ordinarily understood corresponds with reality.
“So you say, "Having a choice means..." and you illustrate that sense with an example. And you infer from determinism that that sense of choice is ruled out. Yes. But so what?”
So James you believe that exhaustive determinism rules out the possibility of choices as ordinarily understood?
“Frankfurt cases, John would point out, exclude that sort of sense of choice (stipulated as relevant by linguistic fiat) as relevant to grounding responsibility.”
James you are going to the grounding of responsibility subject again. I will even grant that Frankfurt cases demonstrate that responsibility is not grounded in alternative possibilities, or PAP. But so what? That is not my concern. My concern is whether or not choices as ordinarily understood exist in reality or not. Frankfurt cases may show that responsibility does not involve having choices. But Frankfurt cases do not rule out the reality of having choices. When Black implants the device in the brain of another person, did Black have a choice between putting the device in the person’s brain or refraining from putting the device in their brain? Or speaking of responsibility. Are we not making a choice when we hold someone responsible for an action? Are there not also situations where a choice is made not to hold someone responsible for some action they committed (and this choice of “looking the other way” is itself then ascribed to be blameworthy?). So the reality or nonreality of choices as ordinarily understood and the grounds of responsibility are two different issues.
“Furthermore, the "sense ordinarily understood" by "choices" is unclear, even if the way you use it is clear to you. Perhaps a brief tour into experimental philosophy and the debates therein will correct the armchair sociology (c.f. Nahmias and co.) about what the folk believe about choice? And even if you did get it right, there isn't any reason why it couldn't be revised. Ordinary interpretations have been revised into more defendable interpretations over and over again, such as in the history of science.”
James I do not believe that you understand what I am suggesting. I am suggesting an abductive argument. We treat the ordinary meaning of choice as a hypothesis. We then test reality to see whether or not we find this hypotheses to be confirmed or disconfirmed (with the competing hypothesis being that everything is exhaustively determined). Which hypothesis provides the best explanation of reality (and that reality being our daily experiences and the situations presented in the bible). Does the ordinary conception of having choices correspond to reality or not? Which hypothesis better explains the available data?
“You also neglected to mention that John sees God's exhaustive foreknowledge as ruling out the sort of freedom libertarians want to have. Surely, John is a friend to the Calvinists there.”
I have John’s book GOD, FOREKNOWLEDGE AND FREEDOM where he discusses how he believes that if God exists and has exhaustive foreknowledge then libertarian freedom is ruled out. That book also contains Plantinga’s essay “On Ockham’s way out” which I believe comes very close to showing how God could know all future events and yet libertarian free will would not be ruled out. I believe there is a solution to this, but that is a different topic than we are discussing here. I have seen some calvinists appeal to this argument but John did not invent this argument Pike and others have ran with it first. It is interesting that Plantinga in his little book deals with this argument and describes this argument as an atheology argument.
Robert
Manata begins his post with a line clearly indicating that he had a choice:
ReplyDelete“I debated responding to Robert's post. We've been around the block on this a few times and I see no headway in sight.”
So he was “debating” between responding to me or not responding to me. If both of those options were real he was deliberating about a choice he was facing. This experience is itself an indication that in contrast to his espoused philosophizing (in his philosophy and theology he argues for exhaustive determinism) he operates in his daily life as if choices are real. And he does so because choice are real, and his philosophy/theology of determinism is false.
“Since Fischer isn't a theoligian, nor a Calvinist, I'd not be running to him to get my information on Calvinism”.
I did not claim that Manata ran to enlist Fischer for information on calvinism, Manata instead tries to use Fischer for his determinism his compatibilism (without realizing that Fischer’s thinking on determinism includes some scientism [that perhaps science will someday prove causal determinism but this could only occur if everything including human persons is just physical] which contradicts Manata’s Christianity, sort of taking in a Trojan philosophical horse into your city unwittingly).
“Having said that, Robert cites Fischer saying that God "does not coerce or force people to choose or act against their will, rather, he controls their will so completely so they do only and always what God wants them to do." Let's note that this is ambiguous.”
I was explaining the concept of constraint, an external agent controlling another agent in such a way that the second agent is doing what he wants to do which is precisely what the first agent wants him to do. This is not coercion nor is it acting freely, I believe a good term for it and Fischer agrees is constraint. Theological determinists believe not that human actions are coerced, or done against their wills, rather they believe in constraint that God completely controls and dictates the will of each person.
“Let's also note that what is not included in the above is that we do what we want to do as well.”
Manata must not have read what I had said carefully enough. When actions are constrained the agent does exactly what he wants to do (remember the chess player Joe making the move that he wanted to make though Black had caused him to make the bad move that would quickly lead to the lose of his queen?), because the external agent controls his desires and will. Compatibilists like Manata want to limit acting freely to doing what we want to do. OK, but if your actions are constrained you have no choices and you are no different from a conscious robot or puppet whose every action is dictated by an external agent.
“Robert is of the opinion that a choice cannot be a choice unless the cognitive agent can genuinely actualize alternative possibilities. Well, I just don't itch where Robert does. I don't accept that constraint, at all.”
At least Manata seems to understand what I mean by having a choice. You cannot have a choice unless you can genuinely actualize alternative possibilities. The issue then becomes does this notion correspond with reality. I say it does sometimes, Manata’s exhaustive determinism precludes it completely.
Next Manata provides an interesting discussion of making a choice:
“Say there is X, Y, and Z options on the table. I pick X. I wanted to pick X. I did not want Y and Z. No one forced me to pick X. I had reasons for picking X. I desired X and did not desire Y and Z. So on and so forth. That I couldn't (contrary to God's actual decree) pick Y and Z doesn't bother me in the least. I still chose X.”
This description provided by Manata shows where some of the problems are. He starts speaking of X, Y and Z as “options”. But these actions are not really “options” unless each of them can be actualized by the person. Running as fast as a cheetah is not an option for me because it is not an option that I can actualize. Only actions which I can actualize are (or should be designated as) options for me. It is misleading and goes against the way we speak of “options” when in fact they are impossibilities for us to actualize. When the ordinary person on the street speaks of his options he means not only that he believes these options exist but that each one can be actualized by him. If he cannot actualize it he does not call it an option.
Manata then says that he picked X. But you can only “pick” one option if other options are present and you are making a choice. If I go to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors and because of some equipment malfunction only one flavor is available most of us would not say that I “picked” it, we would say something like “I was stuck with X,” or “I had no choice so I had to take X.”
Then Manata says that due to God’s decree in reality he could only have done X and that that does not bother him. Well it may not bother him if the selection is just ice cream. But let’s up the stakes a bit. According to Manata it does not bother him that he has to do the one thing decreed by God. So I guess when he commits a serious sin, that does not bother him nor does he express remorse as he is only doing what God decreed and that does not bother him. It bothers me and many other Christians to have a view that results in every evil that occurs being decreed by God and being the only thing we could do, with it being impossible that we do otherwise. God predetermining my every sin so that I had to sin and could not do otherwise is not the God of the bible. It also means that our deliberating and planning and thinking about various “options” is all illusory. We think we have “options” but if everything is decreed then we never have “options” nor do we have choices as ordinarily understood. That may not bother Manata but that bothers a whole lot of other people. I do not believe that God created a world where our actions are decreed and options and choices are all illusory. That would make God into something more like Descartes demon than the God of the bible.
“I too can play the games Robert does.”
I have not played games I have been very direct in my assertions and my claims about the reality of choices and options. I am not the one who uses the terms in a different way than their ordinary usage in order to protect my system of determinism. For Manata it is all about protecting his determinism. For me it is about dealing with reality as it presents itself to us. Reality seems (unless it is all illusory) to present us with real choices involving multiple options that we can actualize.
“Assuming compatibilist (actually, this was brought forth by van Inwagen, a libertarian at the time!) arguments, I could mount an argument that states that Robert didn't "choose" anything since his picking X was accidental, or due to luck, or for no reason at all. A libertarian agent doesn't seem to have the control required to make choices and be accountable for them. To appeal to agent causation doesn't help.”
Actually Manata parroted van Inwagen and Henry dismantled it. But Manata couldn’t see it, over on our end his efforts were quite laughable.
“If we kept going back to the moment before the choice, the libertarian agent might have picked X, do it again: Y, do it again: Z, do it again: X, again: Y, etc.”
If God kept going back to the moment before the choice to create the world, could God have picked to not create the world? Or was God’s action of creating the world necessitated? He had to do it? If His action of creating the world was not necessitated then Manata’s little game of going back to the moment before the choice does not look so foolish. And again God provides the best illustration of agent causation, of actions being done for reasons, though the choice is not necessitated.
“So, yes, Calvinists make choices. That they don't make *libertarian* choices isn't bothersome to me. Why? Well, for one, I'm not a libertarian! To chastise a non-libertarian for not adhering to libertarianism seems to be a ridiculous constraint.”
I don’t chastise a compatibilist for being a compatibilist. I chastise them when they take words from ordinary usage and then use them with very different meanings attached. Wittgenstein made this point very well, about how philosophers use ordinary terms with different meanings and it leads to all sorts of nonsense. That is misleading and deceptive, similar to what some groups do when they take Christian terms and operate according to a different meaning. If the compatibilists were direct and honest and said things like: “well choices as ordinarily understood do not cannot exist”, fine. But to speak of choices, options, alternatives, of having a choice, and so on, when you don’t believe in these things deserves to be chastised. And if you do believe in the reality of choices as ordinarily understood, in options, in alternatives, then why would you then be espousing exhaustive determinism?
“Boiled down to its essentials: Manata is wrong for thinking that given Calvinism we can make choices. Choices *just are* libertarian PAPs in action.
Sorry: (a) that's not a philosophical consensus and (b) its not derivable via exegesis from the Bible.”
Note Manata does not seem to understand the problem that I have with him speaking of choices and believing calvinism to be true. And here is yet another illustration of this misleading use of language. If we are operating according to the ordinary meaning of choice, then yes in fact calvinism/exhaustive determinism eliminates choice, choice cannot be possible in a completely predetermined world. But Manata wants to use the word choices even though his determinism precludes its existence. And that is highly misleading. What Wittgenstein called language on holiday.
Then Manata appeals to philosophical consensus. Actually the consensus among Christian philosophers is that libertarianism is to be preferred over compatibilism. The key Christian philosophers in this area are Plantinga, Flint, Van Inwagen, Moreland, Craig, Hunt, etc. and they are libertarians. If you go outside the christian philosophical community, the consensus among Christians is clearly in favor of the libertarian view (just check out Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and the many Protestants that are not calvinists). In fact, the exhaustive determinism of Manata is the extremely small minority position throughout church history.
He then speaks of it not being derivable from exegesis. Again, he is mistaken. There are some texts that interpreted/exegeted properly clearly present the reality of choices as ordinarily understood. A text discussed here recently was 1 Cor. 10 and the nature of temptation. The bible says that God provides a way of escape from temptation. So the believer facing temptation is also facing the reality of choice (he can choose to resist the temptation or choose to give into the temptation). Since exhaustive determinism precludes all choices, it amounts to a universal negative against the reality of choices. But if the bible presents the reality of choice which it clearly does then exhaustive determinism is false. So we have tons of evidence both from our own experience and from the bible that sometimes we face choices as ordinarily understood.
“So, (c) Robert can save his mere *announcing* of libertarianism for the libertarians. It doesn't work to simply *announce* libertarianism to a bunch of Calvinists.”
I don’t merely announce it (truth by stipulation). I have presented a simple argument. Exhaustive determinism/calvinism precludes the reality of choices as ordinarily understood from ever occurring. And yet in spite of this logically necessary entailment from exhaustive determinism, both the bible and our daily experience provides evidence of choices. Either our experiences and the bible are true or exhaustive determinism is true. That is not simply announcing libertarianism to be true.
Robert
Gene wrote: "Indeed, it isn't. The deniers of inerrancy in theological circles aren't Calvinists, which should signal something. The Neo-Orthodox had to abandon their Calvinism in order to reach their theological conclusions."
ReplyDeleteAs I recall A.W. Pink made a similar argument (with much greater detail). I'm not crazy about that particular argument, but it has seemed to be a statistical reality.
-Turretinfan
Robert's entire argumnent hinges on "can." Well, that's the debate, isn't it? How does he mean "can?" Here:
ReplyDelete==========
"This description provided by Manata shows where some of the problems are. He starts speaking of X, Y and Z as “options”. But these actions are not really “options” unless each of them can be actualized by the person. Running as fast as a cheetah is not an option for me because it is not an option that I can actualize."
==========
He does so *physically.*
Okay, well, then I "can" pick X, Y, or Z pie. My arms are not broke such that my range of motion "can" only move towards X.
Robert says that choices can't be choices unless you can genuinely actualize the other options. Not one of them is determined, that is.
But the Biblical writers assume otherwise. Let's read from Matthew 27:
15 Now it was the governor's custom at the Feast to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" 18 For he knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him.
19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge's seat, his wife sent him this message: "Don't have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him."
20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
21"Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" asked the governor.
"Barabbas," they answered.
22 "What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?" Pilate asked.
They all answered, "Crucify him!"
Here we can see that the writers of the Bible clearly indicate that the crowd made a choice.
But, unfortunately for Robert, the Bible tells us that Jesus was "slain from the foundation of the word." Jesus came to die for his people, if he were let off, salvation wouldn't have been accomplished.
This "choosing" was DETERMINED by God, for we read:
Acts 2:22 "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
Thus we see that Jesus was "handed over to the Jews" by God's set foreknowledge, plan, purpose, counsel, etc., and we read that this "handing over" was a "choice" that the Jews made.
So, here, we have not only proven moral responsibility but we have proven that it is perfectly acceptable that the determined actions and events of cognitive agents may be referred to as a choice.
We should also note that Robert's use of 1 Cor. doesn't show libertarian freedom. One can have a way out of a situation yet still be determined to not take that way out. The way was still there.
We should also note that it says that there is NO (universal language for the universal atonementist) temptation that "man" (all of them) cannot have a way out. This would apply to gthe crowd. They were tempted to put Jesus to death. they had a way out - Barabas. They were determined to chose Jesus.
You see, if Robert were living back in the 1st century, he'd chastise Matthew for using the word "choice." And, since it was inspired, perhaps he can take up his beef with God in heaven. Robert's position is floundering since his only way out is to say that God's set plan and purpose could have been thwarted, or that Matthew made a wrong choice of words.
My oh my, there is a lot of name dropping.
ReplyDelete"So James you believe that exhaustive determinism rules out the possibility of choices as ordinarily understood?"
Just because we lose regulative control does not mean that we lose a sense of choice under guidance significant work on this; I suggest adding him to your library.
Does determinism rule out choices as "ordinarily understood"? I do not know what choice as "ordinarily understood" is. A lot of libertarians throw this sort of "everyone thinks this" without actually doing any empirical tests to see whether in fact everyone does. This is why I pointed you to the recent work by experimental philosophers who have evidence that challenge your claim. Instead, you briskly ignored that.
But, to my surprise, Robert, you say that we think of choice as a "hypothesis." That doesn't strike me as correct at all. I almost never hypothesis whether I can do an action, except unless my abilities are being challenged, e.g., "I hypothesize I can make a basket from half court". But even then, the choice itself is not a hypothesis.
Since I have pointed you to work that talks about choice without a commitment to determinism or indeterminism, the phenomenon would be equally explained if either were true. Time to go wider in the argument if anything significant will come in favor of the libertarian or compatibilist.
I also realize that John Fischer did not write Nelson Pike's paper, nor was that argument unique to Pike. Why are you telling me that? I never implied John made it up first. You probably could save a lot of time in your posts by not trying to educate me about the history of the free will debate, but by just giving the arguments.
JG
THE LAST POST BY JILL IS BY ME, JAMES GIBSON. I did not realize my wife's email account was open and it changed the blogger account to her name.
ReplyDeleteWow. That post came out incomplete from what I typed. I said, "Just because we lose regulative control does not mean that we lose a sense of choice under guidance significant work on this; I suggest adding him to your library." That does not make any sense. In between those two statements, I wrote that Kapitan has done work on freedom, which in turn has to do with the phenomenology of choice. I could have recommended David Velleman's piece, epistemic freedom, in his work, The Possibility of Practical Reason. All of their work is compatible with explicating a more minimal concept of choice under the assumption that we have at least guidance control.
ReplyDeleteThat should make a little more sense of the giant gap in that post.
I should add that Robert has been disengenuous. Robert claims that he'll allow that compatibilists *make* choices, we just don't *have* choices.
ReplyDeleteSo why did he bother to come here and "comment" on what I said as if he were correcting me?
Here's what he quoted from me which caused him to rant on and on about the nasty, sinful Fischer, and having vs. making choices:
==========
Manata makes some comments about choice and Calvinism that are mistaken.
“I also have no clue why he believes that Calvinists think men don't choose things. We don't believe men are forced, against their will, to select the options that they do. It's not as if the Calvinist thinks that, say, a man really wants an apple pie but as he reaches his hand for it an invisible hand comes down and forces his hand towards the rhubarb pie, a brief struggle ensures, the mans hand shakes, but ultimately it is forced to grab (and eat!) the rhubarb pie.”
==========
And that was in response to what Lyons satted:
==========
" Everything else about God and time is then forced through this filter of ‘preknowing’. This ends up ignoring or reinterpreting other wide swaths of scripture which make it evident that God allows man to choose certain things..."
==========
So it is obvious that I was saying that men *do* chose. We *make* choices.
Thus, Robert tried to springboard off something I said into the deep pool of my problems, but then he argued that he shouldn't have commented at all.
James wrote:
ReplyDelete“My oh my, there is a lot of name dropping.”
Wrong James. I understand name dropping to be when someone tries to unduly promote themselves by referring to famous persons. I did not refer to people in order to promote myself. Manata had said there is no consensus with regard to libertarianism among philosophers. I corrected this claim by suggesting that among Christian philosophers such as so and so and so and so, the majority are libertarians. That is not name dropping that is rebutting Manata’s claim.
I had asked James directly:
"So James you believe that exhaustive determinism rules out the possibility of choices as ordinarily understood?"
He responded with:
“Just because we lose regulative control does not mean that we lose a sense of choice under guidance significant work on this; I suggest adding him to your library.”
James just couldn’t directly answer so he responds using Fischer’s distinction between regulative and guidance control. If we “lose regulative control” (the term John uses to refer to choices as ordinarily understood), then Yes we do lose the
Possibility of choices as ordinarily understood. So why couldn’t you just say Yes James?
“Does determinism rule out choices as "ordinarily understood"? I do not know what choice as "ordinarily understood" is. A lot of libertarians throw this sort of "everyone thinks this" without actually doing any empirical tests to see whether in fact everyone does. This is why I pointed you to the recent work by experimental philosophers who have evidence that challenge your claim. Instead, you briskly ignored that.”
I am familiar with the work of the experimental philosophers. I also know that there is a common understanding a majority position that people across cultures and millennia have held (what I refer to as “choice as ordinarily understood”; what the sophisticated philosophers like to call “folk views of free will”) why so evasive James?
“to my surprise, Robert, you say that we think of choice as a "hypothesis." That doesn't strike me as correct at all. I almost never hypothesis whether I can do an action, except unless my abilities are being challenged, e.g., "I hypothesize I can make a basket from half court". But even then, the choice itself is not a hypothesis.”
You have completely misunderstood my point James. I said I was suggesting an abductive argument which means we take some hypotheses and test them against reality to see which one is the best explanation. I said take the ordinary understanding and then subject it to reality. That is a fair test. Your comments about when you do something entirely miss my point.
“ also realize that John Fischer did not write Nelson Pike's paper, nor was that argument unique to Pike. Why are you telling me that? I never implied John made it up first. You probably could save a lot of time in your posts by not trying to educate me about the history of the free will debate, but by just giving the arguments.”
I sense some defensiveness here James. I was not trying to educate you about the history of the free will debate. You mentioned that Fischer may be a friend to calvinists in arguing that if God has exhaustive foreknowledge then people would not have free will as ordinarily understood. I simply pointed out that Pike and others had made this argument earlier. And significantly that Plantinga in his little book describes this argument as an argument from atheology. It is interesting that Atheists and Calvinists will use this argument (the atheist uses it and then concludes well since we know we have free will, therefore a God who has exhaustive foreknowledge must not exist; the calvinist uses it to argue that if God has foreknowledge then people cannot have libertarian free will; we can add open theists as people fond of this argument as well as they argue that since we do have libertarian free will then God must not have exhaustive foreknowledge; strange bedfellows indeed).
“In between those two statements, I wrote that Kapitan has done work on freedom, which in turn has to do with the phenomenology of choice.”
I have read some of Kapitan, isn’t he a compatibilist?
Robert
I do not have much time, but Manata’s comments merit refutation:
ReplyDelete“I should add that Robert has been disengenuous. Robert claims that he'll allow that compatibilists *make* choices, we just don't *have* choices.”
How am I being disingenuous when I claim that compatibilists {make} choices but do not {have} choices? Especially when I am agreeing with John Fischer a prominent compatibilist who is the one who distinguishes between making a choice versus having a choice? (i.e., John says that if things are determined then one does not have a choice though one makes a choice).
Manata then presented something completely off base:
“Here's what he quoted from me which caused him to rant on and on about the nasty, sinful Fischer, and having vs. making choices:”
I never ever said or suggested that John is “nasty, sinful Fischer.” Actually John is a very nice guy, very gracious person. I enjoy interacting with him very much. It is ironic that John is the nonbeliever and he is nice and gracious, and his conduct is better than that of the Triablogers who profess to be Christians. It is the Triablogers who are often “nasty, sinful” in their interactions with other people. That is very sad that the nonbeliever displays better character than the professing believers.
And again, it is John who makes the distinction between having a choice and making a choice.
Paul, is John wrong in making this distinction? You claim that John’s semicompatibilism represents your Calvinist view, so which of you is right about the having a choice/making a choice distinction? Is it John or Paul Manata?
Robert
Robert said: "It is ironic that John is the nonbeliever and he is nice and gracious, and his conduct is better than that of the Triablogers who profess to be Christians."
ReplyDeleteI'll bet he would start to loose patients if he had someone trolling his blog on a regular basis for the purpose of providing a "counter point" to everything. I don't have tons of time to read blogs but from what I've noticed of your time here Robert, you seem to come in here loaded for bear. From my outside point of view (no connection with this blog), the Triablogue guys seem to be very patient with you. Honestly, if you showed up on my blog, after about the 5th straight time of doing nothing other than supplying "correction" to whatever gets posted, I'd send you packing. Looking back on the comments of this thread; it's a testament to how one or two people can hijack a whole thread. I would have preferred to read the Triablogue guys comment more about Chris Lyon's theology (the point of this post), but instead they needed to address your points which only tangentially related to the topic at hand. This is an unfortunate thing with blogging; it always seems to come down to a choice between "hijack" and accusations of comment "censorship".