Does Calvinism commit the no-true-Scotsman fallacy?

BJ77 SAID:

Steve,

You pointed out a major contention with Arminians defense of Heb.6, but I don't remember reading how you dismiss the "No True Scotsman" fallacy charged against Calvinist. I think, at best, you showed both camps commit the fallacy. Although I could have misread you. Could you please clarify?

Thanks,

B.J.

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That’s a good question. And it can be answered on different levels:

1. There’s an asymmetry between Calvinism and Arminianism at this point, even if both were guilty of the NTS fallacy. For Arminianism needs to Heb 6 prove Arminianism and disprove Calvinism, whereas Calvinism doesn’t need Heb 6 to prove Calvinism or disprove Arminianism.

Simply put, Heb 6 is an Arminian prooftext, not a Reformed prooftext. So even if the Reformed interpretation were guilty of the NTS fallacy on this particular passage, that wouldn’t falsify Calvinism in case the Arminian interpretation is guilty of the very same fallacy.

If Heb 6 is an Arminian prooftext, and if these two, opposing interpretations (Arminian and Reformed) cancel each other out, then that’s a net loss for Arminianism, not for Calvinism. In would leave Calvinism intact and unscathed, whereas the case for Arminianism would be drastically weakened since Heb 6 is far and away the most (apparently) promising passage of Scripture that an Arminian can muster to disprove the Reformed doctrine of perseverance.

2. In what sense is Calvinism falsifiable?

i) A Reformed interpretation of Scripture should be falsifiable on exegetical grounds.

ii) Should a Reformed interpretation be falsifiable on extrascriptural grounds? Depends on what you mean. If Scripture is true, and if the Reformed interpretation of Scripture is true, then no extrascriptural evidence could falsify that interpretation, for whatever is true cannot be falsified.

iii) Calvinism is a form of determinism. Theistic determinism.

The logical alternative to Calvinism would be some form of indeterminism. But indeterminism tends to be self-refuting. It’s like one of those SF movies in which a scientist creates an adaptive, AI program. Once he activates the program, it takes on a life of its own. It evolves in a direction which he cannot predict or control. He can switch it on, but he can’t switch it off.

Indeterminism subverts our basic truth-conditions. Without providence, there’s no way to ground induction. Unless human reason is operating in the way it was designed to perform, there’s no reason to trust it. Indeterminism undermines the reliability of memory, testimony, and sensory perception. There is no self-correcting mechanism to arrest cumulative error or malfunction.

So, even if Calvinism were false, you would need something like Calvinism to anchor our basic truth-conditions.

3. In principle, what extrascriptural evidence, if any, would count against the Reformed interpretation of Heb 6?

According to Calvinism, the elect or regenerate cannot commit apostasy. But election and regeneration aren’t evident or self-evident properties. These are not directly detectable. We can’t perceive or intuit if someone is elect or regenerate.

We can only form a probable judgment on the basis of their behavior. Regeneration will generally have a public manifestation in terms of faith and conduct.

But Christians are still sinners. Calvinism denies perfectionism.

So all we ever had was a presumption. There was prima facie evidence that someone was a Christian. But that always fell well short of compelling evidence. For all we can observe is the effect, not the cause.

And the relation between cause and effect, regeneration and faith, is somewhat opaque—due to the fact that every Christian is still a sinner.

Therefore, nothing would ever count as evidence that one of the elect committed apostasy. There are no counterexamples.

And that’s because there are no examples to counter. Calvinism never reasoned from faith to regeneration as a necessary inference. Hence, one cannot reason from faith to the loss of faith as a necessary (or even probable) inference regarding the apostate’s initial state of grace.

BTW, I not talking about whether the elect can enjoy self-knowledge of their own election. We enjoy privileged access to our own mental states. So the assurance of salvation is possible.

4. Does this mean a Calvinist is guilty of the NTS fallacy? If the considerations I just adduced were ad hoc, ex post facto considerations introduced as a face-saving device to deflect evidence to the contrary, then Calvinism would be guilty of the NTS fallacy.

But that is not the case. Calvinism didn’t formulate election or regeneration to evade the Arminian interpretation of Heb 6. Calvinism believes in election and regeneration on grounds independent of that particular debate. And the Reformed denial of perfectionism isn’t even a Reformed distinctive.

In reconciling apostasy and perseverance, Calvinism is drawing on preexisting resources. It applies to this case certain doctrines which it holds for reasons irrespective of this case.

It’s not as if we’re reinterpreting the evidence to accommodate our theological system. Since we never regarded faith as a transparent sign of regeneration, we never regarded the loss of faith as evidence against the doctrine of perseverance. And, indeed, we believe that a true child of God can suffer a crisis of faith or temporary lapse of faith. Become a backslider.

I’ve applied these considerations to Heb 6. I’ve not devised these considerations with a view to Heb 6. And it’s a plus for Calvinism that it has these internal resources.

5. Does this render the Reformed interpretation of Heb 6 unfalsifiable? At one level, yes.

So what? Unless we subscribe to radical scepticism, which is implicit irrational, there’s no reason to make falsifiability a universal criterion.

Falsifiable beliefs are beliefs that fall short of knowledge. Does every belief fall short of knowledge? Do we know nothing at all?

But even uncertainty is parasitic on certainty. You can’t be uncertain of everything, for in that event you have no standard by which to probabilify various claims.

6. Finally, the NTS fallacy runs the ironic risk of begging the question. To use the illustration which Anthony Flew originally proposed, it’s only if we stipulate to the impeccable Scottish pedigree of the suspect that it would be special pleading to deny his Scottish pedigree in the face of probative counterevidence.

And since Flew’s illustration is hypothetical, he is free to stipulate the minor premise (i.e. no true Scotsman would commit a sex crime).

Yet when we move the fallacy out of the hypothetical realm and into the real world, then the parallel breaks down. To say that the Reformed reading of Heb 6 is analogous to Flew’s illustration merely assumes what it needs to prove: just as the suspect is a true Scotsman, the apostate is a true Christian.

But that’s tendentious. A critic of Calvinism needs to establish his operating assumption before he can invoke the NTS fallacy against Calvinism.