PETER PIKE SAID:
If you choose something because you think there's more than one option available, yet there is really only one option available and it just so happens to be the one you picked, is that still classified as a choice? An example given would be such things as: You're put in a maze and come to a fork in the road and you can go either left or right, and you go left, unaware that a sheet of plexiglass actually barred you from going right if you had chosen that path.
In this example, you really don't have another option, but you never knew you didn't have that other option. The existence or non-existence of a piece of plexiglass does not seem capable of determining whether a choice does or does not occur, yet if you must have actual viable options then its existence would be the determining factor. If the plexiglass exists, no choice; if it does not exist, choice.
PAUL MANATA SAID:
I would add you have to distinguish between making a choice and having choices where the latter implies that each is a live option.
We certainly make choices. The pheonomenology is the same for both of us. We have a pile in front of us, and we pick up one thing over another. Therefore, inability to choose the other doesn't mean that I didn't choose the one. I did.
PERSIFLAGE SAID:
Can a person be duped into thinking that they have a choice when they don’t have one? Yes. In fact, maybe that’s me. Again only thinking you have free will to choose (when you don’t have more than one options to choose from) is not really free will. It’s also my contention that God is not interested in tricking us into thinking we have a choice (to believe in the gospel or not for example) when He has predetermined everything all along. I don’t think we just think we’re making a choice when God really has put up a plexiglass barrier limiting us to only one option all along.
This seems absurd on the face of it.
DOMINIC BNONN TENNANT SAID:
As Paul has pointed out, choice does not presuppose PAP. So representing the compatibilist view as God "tricking" us into thinking we have a choice is yet another case of you begging the question in favor of your own position—which Paul refuted—while attacking a strawman.
STEVE SAID:
To piggyback on Manata’s distinction between having choices and making choices, as well as Pike’s illustration of the maze with an invisible barrier, I’d like to address the charge that, under that scenario, God is tricking us.
It’s really quite commonplace for men, women, and children to make choices on the basis of the choices they mistakenly think they have. To take a mundane example, many is the 17 or 18 year old who, on the day of his high school graduation, was filled with plans for his future. He makes various career choices on the basis of his ambitions, like the choice of college, college major, &c.
And many is the 40 or 50 year old who has come to the humbling realization that he must scale back his plans. He didn’t have the time or talent to realize all of his lofty ambitions.
And yet he made many choices on the basis of those illusory outcomes. He did A with a view to C. He thought that doing A would enable him to do C. Instead, it only got him to B.
Is this divine trickery? Is it not a pretty universal experience to make choices on the basis of choices we thought were at our disposal, but, in fact, were never within reach? That, with the benefit of hindsight, we now see that these choices were never in the cards? Even if some of them were live options in isolation, they were not live options in combination.
Many goal-oriented individuals have had to adjust their grand plans to a sobering and unyielding reality. Setting goals got them to certain point where they wouldn’t be absent the goal. Yet they frequently fall short of the mark. To put the same point more simply, do people who overestimate their abilities still make real choices?
Useful illusions
ReplyDeletePETER PIKE SAID:
If you choose something because you think there's more than one option available, yet there is really only one option available and it just so happens to be the one you picked, is that still classified as a choice?
------------
Speaking of Useful Illusions, let me invert this example a little bit to touch upon something that gets some airtime on Triablogue.
(I'll probably butcher this up in my exposition, but try to be patient.)
Useful Illusion. Monergism vs. Synergism. Calvinism vs. Arminianism. God's Sovereignty and Man's Free Will.
Okay, so here's the slight variation of Peter's hypothetical: Suppose there's really only one option and you (mistakenly) think there's two options, and you choose the option that doesn't really exist, but eventually you end up in the only real and true option that you didn't pick in the first place!
Okay, let me put some live meat on my generalization here. Steve Hays once said that John Wesley and some other Arminians are in Heaven. (Which I happen to agree with too.)
So let's say that you have a Synergist who thinks he's choosing Synergism for a part of his theology, but he's really mistaken, and there's really only Monergism, and God is choosing this errant Synergist, and the Synergist won't know his mistake until he's monergistically in Heaven!
Egads, I think I'm confusing myself!
Maybe what I'm saying is that Monergists have a duty and obligation to teach the *real* truth about monergism to unbelievers and Synergists, but if Synergists refuse Monergism, then as long as they don't stray too far down the road towards heresy and apostasy, then let's all sing "Happy, happy, joy, joy" together when get to bask together in God's presence in Heaven.
So what if the Synergist chooses wrongly and believes wrongly, he still ended up rightly! (And the Monergists all smiled sweetly and serenely and never once said, "I told you so.")
P.S. Here's my official rewording of Peter Pike:
If you choose something because you think there's more than one option available, yet there is really only one option available and it just so happens to be the one that's not really available to you, is that still classified as a choice?
TUAD,
ReplyDeleteActually, my illustration is dealing with something more basic than yours is (by "basic" I mean "foundational" rather than "easy"). As a result, it wouldn't apply to such things as synergism vs. monergism.
Also the point of my illustration was to show that there really is a choice made as long as someone thinks there are options, even if the options he thinks are there actually aren't (this is why the option itself is illusory). Thus, in my example, if one chooses against the open path, he is immediately forced (i.e. against his will) to turn around. In the instance of synergism, however, the choice made to follow the path of synergism is still a choice--it isn't restricted (except way far down the line, at which point I would say the synergist changes his mind because he sees the obvious, not because he's forced to change his mind).
That's not to say that your course of thought isn't worth persuing, just that I wouldn't use my illustration to do so (and I don't think I could possibly put another negative in this sentence neither, not no how, not no way) :-)
And I guess to try to explain further for those who weren't following the original discussion, here's the implications that I originally wrote for Persiflage too.
ReplyDelete---
Let's keep the example of the maze in mind. Let's say that God has put that plexiglass door up.
You still chose to go left, not right.
That is, your mind selected left. The fact that going right was not actually possible is irrelevant to your mind's selection. You did not know that going right was barred, and therefore your choice was to do--for whatever reasons you thought--the only possible option you had. You selected this based on your own mental understanding, not because you knew the other way was blocked. You selected. If your mind's selection is what constitutes a choice, then you made a choice even though the reality was such that you could not have done otherwise.
God is not "tricking" us at all, in other words. Our mind's select what we want. The perception of having a choice means that when we pick to go left instead of right, we have made a moral decision to go left. If, in fact, we had chosen to go right, we would have run into the plexiglass and then been COMPELLED to go left--but this would not have been a choice to go left. There is no longer a perception of options.
The reason this is critical is because that perception of choice means that men are still responsible for their foreordained actions. God didn't compell them to do anything; they selected it of their own wills. That they could do no other does not alter the fact that it was their mind that selected the direction they would go. In other words, they were never compelled because they did not choose the other way and find it blocked.
This is compatiblism. Our minds select what we do; it happens that we could have done no other; we are still responsible because we did not choose based on the inability to do other, but based instead on our mind's reasoning.
---
Persiflage: It’s also my contention that God is not interested in tricking us into thinking we have a choice (to believe in the gospel or not for example) when He has predetermined everything all along.
ReplyDeleteApostle Paul: 2 Thess 2:11For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
God alone saves those whom He will and unrepentant men (women) are also free to choose to be forever apart from God (in Heaven) for eternity.
ReplyDeleteWorks for me. Next!
Substituting convoluted philosophical arguments for scripture isn't a great idea.
ReplyDeleteBOSSMANHAM SAID:
ReplyDelete"Substituting convoluted philosophical arguments for scripture isn't a great idea."
Are you trying to be dishonest? It's not as if I and others haven't addressed the exegetical arguments.
But since Arminians also raise philosophical objections to Calvinism, we're entitled to respond to them on their own philosophical grounds.
It is true that God alone saves whom he wills, but it is written that God, "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." And it is also true that human beings may say no to God even when "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men."
ReplyDeleteRuby Red said...
ReplyDeleteIt is true that God alone saves whom he wills, but it is written that God, "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." And it is also true that human beings may say no to God even when "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men."
**********************
But your two prooftexts don't state or imply that man can say no to God.
Ruby Red said...
ReplyDelete"It is true that God alone saves whom he wills, but it is written that God, "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."
If all means all why does God "send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie?"
"And it is also true that human beings may say no to God even when "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men."
Our Lord taught us: "All that the Father gives me will come to me. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.'Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me "
Steve said:
ReplyDelete"But your two prooftexts don't state or imply that man can say no to God."
Truth Unites already made that assertion without prooftexts, and I don't like to ramble in my posts. But I shall supply one if you wish.
2 John 1:8-9 - Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
Paul Manata said, "If all means all why does God "send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie?""
ReplyDeleteGod willed that Abraham become the father of the Hebrews, yet he sent a powerful delusion in the form of a request for a human sacrifice in order to test him. At the very last minute God stayed his hand with the line, "Hang on Abraham I was just kidding." And in both cases, by the way, the argument for an omniscient God is weakened.
"For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Amen, but that is a narrower and more specific set of desires on the part of the Father. We know that God desires all men to be saved (John 12:32 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me"), but he will not force men to love him. For those who do choose to love him by believing on his son, God desires that they attain to the second life. This is the gospel.
RR,
ReplyDeleteYou've overstayed your welcome here. If you had honest questions, that would be one thing. But when you pose as something you're not to make unsuspecting Christians lower their guard, then you cross a line of no return.
I will leave. You don't have the bible chops to answer any of my objections so it would be a waste of my time in any case.
ReplyDelete"You don't have the bible chops to answer any of my objections"
ReplyDeleteDo you actually read this blog? Not if you can write that without blushing.
Yet another demonstration that you aren't serious. The charge is validated.
steve said...
ReplyDeleteOn JT’s blog, RR poses as a Christian:
“Jesus alone is both the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2). Faith is solely the gift of God. While prayer and scripture reading is always good, if you ‘battle’ doubt, you are attempting to attain or re-establish saving faith by your own efforts. This itself is a sign of wavering faith.”
“That is a false gospel. Salvation does not come by knowing secret things revealed by men, but by grace through faith.”
“Nifty, we can't impose our own sense of fairness on God. We know the character of God by examining the scriptures.”
But over at my blog, RR says things like this:
“God willed that Abraham become the father of the Hebrews, yet he sent a powerful delusion in the form of a request for a human sacrifice in order to test him. At the very last minute God stayed his hand with the line, ‘Hang on Abraham I was just kidding.’ And in both cases, by the way, the argument for an omniscient God is weakened.”
“Yes. The book of Jonah was written in the southern kingdom centuries after the death of the real Jonah of Ammitai and the destruction of Ninevah. In this way it resembles Daniel, which was written during the Hellenstic period, but retroactively set in the period of the Babylonian captivity.”
“No, but the king of Ninevah did (and by the way, there never was a king of Ninevah, a historical error which suggests the book was written well after the events).”
So RR is trying to mess with the minds of Christians, and he/she is going about it in a double-faced manner.
http://theologica.blogspot.com/2009/01/battling-doubt.html#6007195888487411250
Great discussion. In the meta of the original post, Perciflage seemed to make an odd distinction between influence and cause. I didn't catch up on everyone's comments and perhaps someone responded to this, but influences ARE causes. Otherwise, influences aren't influential.
ReplyDeleteFrom that point I started writing this and checked to see if the discussion was continued in a more recent post. It certainly is here and some of my further observations follow:
There is nothing outside of God's created order that contributes to our decision-making process. As such, God, as Creator, determines all that influences us. In this respect, God's will is not on par with ours. His will is creative and ours is reactive.
There must be some clarification as to the difference between will, choice and resulting action. Since human will is informed by a variety of influences, it is not typical that we choose one option monolithically over another. As such human choice is weighted, albeit subjectively rather than quantitatively. So it cannot be said that choice results in one action over another to the exclusion of the other choice.
Another thing. Despite the speculations of extreme theoretical physics, we observe that only one action will ever occur. It is perhaps a bit of common sophistry to suppose that other actions were actually ever possible. What causes the action that actually occurs is done according to the pattern of influenced human will that God has created. In this sense we say that we have free will because God has ordained that our will, limited as such, is a determining factor in our actions. The stuff of our will is sufficiently complex enough to make the sum of all influences on our will far beyond our comprehension. But we can know that all influences were placed there by God.
The problem of evil has also been mentined. As for evil, Joseph observed that his being sold into slavery was intended by his brothers as evil, but God intended it for good. Only one event happened. Joseph was sold into slavery. The difference between good and evil from this account seems to be intent. It is possible, if not normal, for God to have a good intent regarding our actions where we have an evil intent regarding the same actions. My 12-year-old son likes to remind me that evil is merely the absence of God. Where God created something that was not Himself, he did not create evil because it's not a created thing, but merely withdrew so that his intrinsic eternality would make a place for temporality. Therein is where evil has been manifested, not as a created thing, but that God is Holy, set apart from his creation. Not that he is not present, but that intent is a spiritual matter where the influences of primary and secondary causes has resulted in a denial of the will or intent of God in the presuppositional heart of a man.
At least that's my understanding of it all.
Ruby lies just like Michelle had a penchant for lying. God didn't deceive Abraham. He gave him a *command*. A *command* isn't a *proposition* that can be true or false. If Ruby wasn't engaging in deception, then she lacks the requite thinking skills to participate in conversations with grownups.
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth are you talking about? I don't see how on earth you would think I'm being dishonest. And I've never seen an Arminian present such a ridiculously convoluted argument. I have, however, seen them use a lot more scripture. I hope you don't expect any preachers to use this in the pulpit.
BOSSMANHAM SAID:
ReplyDelete“Steve,__What on earth are you talking about? I don't see how on earth you would think I'm being dishonest.”
Of course, I wouldn’t expect a dishonest commenter to perceive his own dishonesty, since it demands a modicum of honesty to perceive dishonesty.
“And I've never seen an Arminian present such a ridiculously convoluted argument.”
i) Of course, you haven’t even begun to show that it’s a “ridiculously convoluted” argument. That’s just your tendentious assertion. You’re substituting adjectives for arguments.
ii) More to the point, you’re not paying attention. What is this argument in response to? To an argument by Persiflage.
He is arguing that “real” choice involves the principle of alternate possibilities. Guess what—that’s a “philosophical” argument for freewill!
That is what Pike and Manata and Bnonn and I are responding to. Are you even dimly aware of the context of this exchange?
iii) Moreover, I myself didn’t use a philosophical argument. I used a real life argument. I pointed out that people often make short-term choices on the basis of long term outcomes which they mistakenly think are obtainable goals. They thought they had choices they didn’t have.
It would behoove you to think more and react less.
“I have, however, seen them use a lot more scripture.”
i) Use a lot more Scripture than whom? Than Calvinists? What Calvinists have you read, exactly? Do you think Carson and Currid and Beale and Piper and Schreiner and Waltke (to name a few) don’t make an exegetical case for their Reformed beliefs?
I myself “use a lot of Scripture” when I defend Calvinism.
ii) And, of course, anyone can “use” Scripture. Jehovah’s Witnesses “use” Scripture.
whoa, I had some family late holiday family stuff occupying me the last couple days, and then today the NFL playoffs basically took my whole day
ReplyDeleteI get distracted for just a couple days and look what happens.
Very interesting stuff, I hope to continue to engage with some more comments and questions very soon (although there are two more playoff games tomorrow). Finished on the outside reading I was looking up on the subject, now I just have to catch up on the reading here.
Bossmann said...
ReplyDelete“I have, however, seen them use a lot more scripture.”
Steve, you querried about this. Let me explain.
See, when they try to show that they are right they "use a lot of Scriptures."
When we come back and "use a lot of Scriptures," then Arminians, like Wesley, say things like this: "Whatever the Scriptures mean, they cannot mean this!"
So, they have the perfect world.
Oh, btw, every verse, every scripture, assumes determinism. Otherwise, from whence does the belief that the Bible is in an infallible and inerrant message from God arise?
So, how's that for "using Scripture?" ;-)
1 - First, to respond to this whole topic, I want to look closely at Paul’s luck/chance argument against the idea of “libertarian free will” -
ReplyDeleteI granted that the agent was the cause. He self-caused it. Say the agent had two options, A and B. He indeterministically self-caused A over B as his choice. I then asked, why the agent went with A over B? … Suppose we rewound the "tape of life" back to one second before he chose A … Obviously we can't say that given the same reasons and desires he will necessarily choose A. That would imply determinism. You don't want that.
There’s something about this God rewinding time thing that bothers me. It is interesting. But I wouldn’t want to base any conclusions off of my speculation about it. From a purely speculative viewpoint, if a free agent made a free choice between two options, I don’t see how, if God rewinds time, the free agent wouldn’t just make the same free choice. That doesn’t necessarily imply determinism. Why? Because he’s still actually free to choose either A or B. He used his mind to make a rational decision and to will to do one thing over another thing. God did not exert any power on his mind to force him to do one or the other. Why would rewinding time result in different choices? I don’t see that it would, but that doesn’t worry me. The fact that free agent made one actual choice does not imply determinism simply because we imagine rewinding time and him choosing differently in the exact same circumstances.
Neither does the fact that God knew what choice the agent was going to make mean that the agent was not free to do the opposite. The very fact is that God foreknew both the fact that he was free to do either, and the fact that he willed to do one.
Paul said - So, what accounts for A in some cases and B in others - remember that all the reasons, desires, motives, etc., are the same each and every time. It seems you'll have to say, "The self just chose to go that way over the other." But why? You don't know. It just did. But the worry we have is that your choices look like a chance happening. It looks to be a matter of luck that the agent goes one way over another. Notice I am not saying anything outside the agent caused him to choose one way over the other. This means that the agent does not have the ability or control to go one way over the next. You don't have control over happenings of chance or luck. So even on libertarianism it seems that you don't have the power to choose A over B.
So if the idea of “libertarian free will” is true, then the choices of free agents are determined by chance? Free moral action, by definition, is determined by nothing but the self. To then ask, “well why did the self exert his will in such a way” is the same thing as asking “well what caused the self to self-cause his own moral actions?” So you ask “but why?” Ask any self the reasons why he made a free choice and he’ll tell you. Either he let his desires overcome his reason and chose to go with this passions, good or bad, OR he carefully, rationally thought through his decision, weighed the pros and cons, and willed which of his desires he valued the most, OR he made a quick, gut instinct decision, OR … there are a number of reasons you make the free choices that you make. Nothing forced/caused you to make them. You made them yourself. And that is precisely why God holds you accountable for them.
Paul said - Obviously, this isn't enough to ground ascriptions of moral. Therefore, ironically, libertarian free will isn't enough for the moral responsibility needed to justify condemning sinners for their sins.
So it is not just a matter of luck, that a free moral agent chooses to go one way or another. You can keep asking why on into infinity. But there is an end to causation with self-caused actions and that end is the self. It is pure logical nonsense to ask what caused a free moral agent to exert his will towards a particular action. The answer is in the definition - himself. Just as it is pure logical nonsense to ask what caused God to exert his will towards a particular action. Was it just a matter of pure chance, if God was free to either create the world or not create the world, whether God created the world or not? Wasn’t God’s free action of creation simply determined by chance because of the fact that God was really truly free to go either way? No. God acts based on who He is - his character - and through His character, He is not arbitrary. Everything God does is for a reason. Everything God does not do is for a reason. These “reasons” did not cause/force/determine God’s free actions.
I’m not saying that man is a omnipotent being like God. But I believe, probably along with a large majority of Christians, that when God created man in “his own image” this involved giving man some traits and faculties like God. One of these included the power of thought. One of these included the power of will. I think God left man free to think and to will as he pleases. The fact that man can reason his way through decisions, or choose to ignore reason in making decisions, does not mean that man is omnipotent. It just means man has the small, finite, power to freely exert his will either towards good or towards evil. Not a faculty to boast about, particularly since we all seem to use it so badly.
2 - On the logical idea of “Free Will”
ReplyDeletePaul,
You’ve spent some time arguing against how I think about free will, (which apparently is already labeled by philosophers as the “principle of alternative possibility” (PAP). The problem I had though is I kept finding myself agreeing with your abstract arguments. In your example of the assassin who wants to kill Jones, Mr. Black installs a chip in the assassin’s brain that will make sure that he will kill Jones. The assassin freely kills Jones without Mr. Black having to resort to the chip. So in this example, it is possible to imagine scenarios where a free moral agent can be held responsible for freely choosing to do what he ultimately had not choice but to do.
I agree that it is logically possible to imagine this. I do not think that the “principle of alternative possibility” means that you are not still morally responsible, at least in some imagined logical scenarios. It’d be possible to simply be held responsible for willingly transgressing the law, even though God has installed something in our brains that would have made us transgress the law even if we didn’t willingly do so on our own.
So far I agree with all your arguments that PAP is not necessary in order to hold man morally accountable for his actions. But I don’t see these arguments as proving the nonexistence of PAP. Or more simply, this idea I’ve got a hold of, that free will means being free to choose from more than one option.
Bonn,
You made a good distinction between these two ways of looking at free will
& moral responsibility -
(R) A man is responsible if he willingly transgresses the law.
or
(R*) A man is responsible if he willingly transgresses the law and could have chosen to do otherwise.
You said that free will simply means being “free from coercion,” and if that’s all it means then one can affirm R but deny R*. You are correct that I think free will & moral responsibility include R*. This is because willingly doing A is one thing if you could only have done only A regardless, and willingly doing A is another if you could also have done B. Being free to exert one’s will between different decisions is precisely how I think God created us. The problem is only R being true and R* being false is that is exactly a form of coercion. God is the one who created you. God is the one who created the universe and all its laws. God creating man with such a nature where man can only choose to do one thing, even if doing so willingly, is God decreeing/ordaining/forcing/using his power to get man to choose one decision and only one decision. Man is not free to exert his will to make a choice if there is only one choice he is allowed by the nature of the universe to make.
So yes, I agree that God could have created everyone to do precisely everything that they do. God could have created a world where every action of man is predestined from the beginning of time. God could have created a world where no man would willingly sin because the only option man could “choose” was obedience. God could have created a world where every man would willingly sin because the only option man could “choose” was sin. I agree with pretty much everyone’s logical possibilities here.
It is possible to imagine universes like this. But I do not think that any of this is precisely what the Bible says that God does. I agree with Paul that PAP is not necessary for moral responsibility. I agree that God can hold man morally responsible for anything, ordained or freely chosen (although how exactly God treats his creation does say something about who God is). I agree that it is logically possible to think of scenarios where free will compatibilism could be true (where man only does what it is predetermined that he will do, mistakenly thinking that he’s choosing between two options, when there is really a God-placed plexiglass barrier that just makes it look like there is more than one option). Logically possible to think of? Absolutely. What Scripture says exists? No.
Bonn asked “But where is R* to be found in Scripture, whether implicitly or explicitly? Is it not, in fact, denied, as per the examples already given? This seriously undermines the libertarian view, since (R) does not necessitate libertarianism, and R* seems unbiblical and superfluous. Unless you can show that (R) is false, from Scripture, there seems no reason that we must hold to libertarian free will.”
Where is R* found in Scripture? Everywhere. Adam and Eve are the very best example. The angels and the rebellion in heaven is another. And then, even though it doesn’t align with the strict total depravity “dead corpse” analogy, I could use other examples like King Saul, or the rich young ruler. The story makes it very clear that King Saul could have chosen to obey God’s instructions, that he did follow God’s will for a while, but then He made the choice to start doing what he wanted instead. There are numerous stories like this, but I can stick to Adam and Eve if that’s easier (since we don’t have differences about the sin nature of man in this example). Either you believe (A) that Adam and Eve really could have exerted their wills to either obey God or to disobey God, or you believe (B) that God told Adam and Eve not to do precisely what He had foreordained for them to do in the first place, and then held them responsible for it.
I’m not arguing that God couldn’t have done (B) if he had wanted to. I am arguing that, according to Scripture, God did (A).
3 - Further Reflections on More Recent Comments
ReplyDeleteIs it possible, simply within your mind, to exert your will in order to make a choice between two options, when you are mistaken - and you really only had one option all along? Yes, I agree with Peter that this is possible. I’ll also agree with Paul that there is a difference between making a choice and actually having a choice. It’s possible to make a choice mentally, when you didn’t actually have one in reality. And then finally, I agree with Bnonn, that the very idea of choice does not necessarily presuppose the “principle of alternative possibility” (PAP).
Steve pointed out that people fool themselves into making choices all the time when they didn’t really have any. Career choices, college choices, marriage choices are made all the time in our minds. We consider our desires and ambitions and decide between imagined options. This is a part of real life. It is indeed a pretty universal experience. So do mistaken people, overestimating their abilities, still make real choices? Yes, they do - in the sense that they are exerting their will to choose between two imagined options.
However,
This does not mean that therefore there are no real choices between real existing options that really exist in the reality that God created. TUAD made some good hypotheticals about differences in theology - and yes, it’s perfectly possible that if hyper-Calvinism is true, and free will does not exist, then a bunch of Christians will have mentally thought they were choosing Christ when they never actually did have a choice to either believe or disbelieve in the gospel at all. TUAD then asked -
If you choose something because you think there's more than one option available, yet there is really only one option available and it just so happens to be the one that's not really available to you, is that still classified as a choice?
Sorry man, you totally lost me on this one. If you choose something when there is really only one option available and it’s the one that’s not really available, is that still a choice? If the only one option available is the one that is not really available, and you chose it … well, you’re basically f____d, aren’t you? (Apologies, not sure if even edited curse words are offensive to anyone here. I won’t keep using them. I don’t mean to offend, but sometimes it’s the only word I can think of - the army desensitizes you and you start thinking that some bad words are funny if used properly.)
I guess what I mean, TUAD, is that unless you reword that, no - that isn’t a choice (and you’re hurting my brain).
And Peter, I agree with/concede your point that “there really is a choice made as long as someone thinks there are options”. A mental choice made at least, inside my own head. But the point here being, the fact that the person is mistakenly exerting his will mentally to make a choice, when in reality there aren’t different options to choose from - is irrelevant to the fact that, in physical reality, there is nothing to choose between.
Can God make the universe this way? Yes. Did He. I doubt it. Can our sin nature fool us really often about this sort of thing? Yes. Does this whole only in the mind but not reality choice take place regarding the presentation of the gospel? Absolutely not. Why would God make the gospel a choice or decision you have to make - to have faith - if it’s not, in reality a choice anyone makes because their destiny (even to hell) has been preordained before the beginning of time.
Paul, you brought up 2 Thess. 2:11 - If you guys want to go through the Scripture verses, let’s do it - I’ve been looking at all of them in detail over at Saint and Sinner’s website.
I would prefer that we always keep things in context though, so it might be better to look at 2 Thess. 2:1-12. We are not to let ourselves be deceived by false teaching about Christ’s second coming (1-3). Jesus will put an end to Satan’s (the one who opposes God) deception on earth with His second coming (4-8). Why does God allow some of “the perishing” to be deceived by the devil? “Because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (9-10). So, because of this, God helps unbelievers be deluded by the devil as a punishment “in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth” (12).
I’ve looked at different proof texts that are used to say things like God prevents some men from coming to repentance. But I just don’t see it. The beginning of II Thess 2 says that God uses the delusions of the devil in order to punish the wicked who have refused to believe in Him. To say from this, that God has predestined these people to hell is to say more than the passage is saying. Why?
TUAD said -
“God alone saves those whom He will and unrepentant men (women) are also free to choose to be forever apart from God (in Heaven) for eternity. Works for me. Next!”
This is basically saying that God saves whomever He wills to save (obvious). And the reprobate are only free to choose one possibility - eternal separation from God. They only have one option - hell, but they are free to choose it. Well, according to determinism, they were determined to choose it - but maybe we can say they were determined to be free to choose the only option they were given - hell.
On the contrary, I believe Jesus died to give them an alternative to hell - this is the gospel - that whoever confesses Christ is Lord and believes that God raised Him from the dead will be saved (Rom. 10:9). I don’t believe the gospel is presented to everyone as an invitation, simply because it’s physically impossible to distinguish the predetermined reprobate from the predetermined elect.
And just a quick note to Jim who said -
ReplyDelete"... but influences ARE causes. Otherwise, influences aren't influential."
As I understand it, this much is clear - there are only 3 options here.
Option 1 - Indeterminism
Actions are uncaused.
We've all rejected this one.
Option 2 - Determinism
All actions are ultimately caused by an outside force.
If both outside and inside influences in the universe that God has set up are what ultimately cause our actions, then determinism is true.
Option 3 - Self-Determinism
The moral agent is causing, at least some, of his own actions.
If on the other hand, a free agent can rationally look at influences on his behavior, outside temptations, his desires, instincts, habits, etc - and use reason to value/will one desire or instinct over another, then self-determinism is true.
I'm under the impression that we've all chosen (jn) Option 3. But the problem discussion seems to be how 2 and 3 can both be true at the same time.
I personally think they are both true at different times, but I just doubt that 2 is always true all the time, according to Scripture at least.
I’m not saying that man is a omnipotent being like God. But I believe, probably along with a large majority of Christians, that when God created man in “his own image” this involved giving man some traits and faculties like God. One of these included the power of thought. One of these included the power of will. I think God left man free to think and to will as he pleases.
ReplyDeleteThe Bible doesn't say this. Ask of the Bible, "In what way are we made in the image of God?" The best answer is, "I don't know; the Bible doesn't say." It's not that there isn't an answer, but that what God wants us to focus on isn't what we want to focus on. the question the Bible does answer is, "Why were we made in the image of God." Without going into great detail, the reason is to glorify God (hint - search eikon in the NT). To say, "I have free will over and against God because God wanted me to have free will," doesn't particularly accomplish His glorification in the hearts of people particularly well.
Neither does sole determinism.
You elucidated the difference between determinism and self-determinism. I thought that by pointing out the fact that we each possess a reactive will and God possesses a creative will answered the question, but perhaps some expounding on this will help it to make sense.
First, God gave us this wonderful system of bivalent logic. We need objective differentiation as temporal creatures to function. God, however, as the eternal being is inherently univalent. There is no false value as far as God is concerned.
We see choices as either/or and equate this with our will. God doesn't make choices per se between one thing or another. Anything He conceives is created absolutely. He is not subject to either/or. He created either/or as a function of a creation that is not himself, which is temporal by definition.
We have a bad habit as temporal creatures of subjecting our considerations of God to our limited temporal logic. But God is not so contained. He is on both sides of any equation yet not to balance the equation but rather because he created the equation. For this principle is true: there is NOTHING God did not create. (And evil as I have pointed out is not a created thing.)
Ok, this is all fine and dandy and most people, even believers, do not particularly understand these things. But what we are called to understand is that there is a spiritual world that determines this existential world and we are part of it having been granted spiritual essence. Inasmuch as our bodies are moved by our minds, our existence is determined by our spirit. Inasmuch as our spirit determines our existence, God sustains our spirit. Since we have been spiritually dead, that is separated from God, He gives His Holy Spirit to make us alive because of the work of Jesus Christ, and we are his gift from the Father.
As such, we glorify God, not that we exalt our will, but that our will is conformed to the will of God. So we may say as Christ said, "I have not come to do my will, but the will of him who sent me." As members of the Body of Christ, we must do the same.
And it must inform our philosophy, not the other way around.
Another quick note -
ReplyDeleteJohn Locke may end up being a major influence in my having to disagree with both ideas of "libertarian free will" (along with all of your help) and my disagreeing with "compatibilist free will." In reading Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I came across him quoting Jonathan Edwards to disagree with him. Here's the quote, it almost made my head explode, but it's relevant to what we're discussing.
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Locke writes - … the next thing demanded is, - Whether a man be at liberty to will which of the two he pleases, motion or rest? This question carries the absurdity of it so manifestly in itself, that one might thereby sufficiently be convinced that liberty concerns not the will. For, to ask whether a man be at liberty to will either motion or rest, speaking or silence, which he pleases, is to ask whether a man can will what he wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with? A question which, I think, needs no answer: and they who can make a question of it must suppose one will to determine the acts of another, and another to determine that, and so on in infinitum.
Locke then notes -
That volition cannot be free, in the sense of being self-determined in all cases by a preceding volition, in the order of natural sequence, is thus argued by Jonathan Edwards: -
Edwards argues -
‘If the will determines all its own acts, then every free act of choice is determined by a preceding act of choice, choosing that act. And if that preceding act of the will be also a free act, then, by these principles, in this act too the will is self-determined, or is an act determined still by a preceding act of the will choosing that. And the like may again be observed of the last mentioned act, which brings us directly to a contradiction; for it supposes an act of the will preceding the first act in the whole train, directing the rest; - or a free act of the will before the first free act of the will. Or else we must come at last to an act of the will determining the consequent acts, wherein the will is not self-determined [i.e. by a preceding volition], and so is not free, in this notion of freedom. But if the first act in the train determining and fixing the next, be not free, none of them all can be free.’ (Inquiry respecting that Freedom of Will which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency, pt. ii. Section I.)
Locke replies -
This argument proceeds on the unwarranted assumption, that ‘free will’ is volition naturally caused by preceding volition, instead of being itself a first cause.
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Whoa. Just whoa. As I'm understanding John Locke so far, he is saying that is is imprecise to speak of "free will" the way the term is commonly used. The will is not itself a free moral agent. The will is a power possessed by man, just like freedom is a power possessed by man. Volition or "choice" is the exercise of the will. Freedom is the ability to act or not to act. The power of freedom does not "will" anymore than the power of the will is "free." It is man, or the mind of man that is said to will and is said to be free.
It's taking me a while to think this through, but it seems (A) that I haven't been using the idea of "free will" precisely enough, and (B) there is still a fundamental disagreement between John Locke and Jonathan Edwards.
btw, has anyone here read Jonathan Edwards' "Inquiry respecting that Freedom of Will which is supposed to be essential to Moral Agency"? That sounds like it would be pretty mind blowing to read. It's exactly what we're discussing, and I'll have to look and see if I could use it to counterpoint what I'm reading in Locke.
Persiflage,
ReplyDelete"From a purely speculative viewpoint, if a free agent made a free choice between two options, I don’t see how, if God rewinds time, the free agent wouldn’t just make the same free choice. That doesn’t necessarily imply determinism. Why?"
So you're saying that I could take antecedant evets and therfefore predict what the agent was going to do? But that's what determinist's argue! If we knew all the prior causal inputs we could reliably predict an agents choices.
Settle down and do some reading on all this. It doesn't bode well for conversation when you shoot from the hip and say things libertarians wouldn't say or don't say on this subject.
If a choice is guaranteed because of reasons and desires then we don't have "ability to do otherwise."
Kane's requirement that the causation of a choice that is an SFW [pm: self-forming wills] be nondeterministic has drawn the objection that indeterminism located here would diminish the agent's control over the making of the choice. The objection is often couched in terms of luck. (It is so developed by Almeida and Bernstein [2003], Ekstrom [2000: 105], Haji [1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, and 2001], Mele [1998, 1999a, 1999b, and forthcoming], and Strawson [1994].) If the agent's effort of will nondeterministically causes her choice, then, whichever choice the agent makes, there was, until the occurrence of that choice, a chance that it would not occur. If the agent's effort to chose in accord with her moral judgment happens to succeed, the objection goes, then her choice is at least partly due to good luck. In another possible world with exactly the same laws of nature and exactly the same history up until the occurrence of the choice, the agent's (or her counterpart's) effort fails; there, but for good luck, goes she. And analogously, if, in the actual world, the agent's effort fails, then her choice is at least partly due to bad luck. Either way, the choice is to some degree due to luck. And to that degree, the objection concludes, the control that the agent exercises in making the choice is diminished.
Kane's claim that indeterminacy precludes exact sameness has been contested (see Clarke [1999 and 2003b: 86-87] and O'Connor [1996]). And Haji (1999a) and Mele (1999a and 1999b) contend that the argument from luck is just as effective if we consider an agent and her counterpart who are as similar as can be, given the indeterminacy of their efforts. Indeed, the argument might be advanced without any appeal to other worlds or counterparts: given that there is a chance that the effort will fail, the agent is lucky, it may be said, if it succeeds.
A further reply from Kane to the argument from luck appeals to the active nature of efforts of will. When an agent makes an effort to choose to do what she believes she ought to do, she actively tries to bring about a certain choice. When the agent makes that choice, she succeeds, despite the indeterminism, at doing what she was (actively) trying to do. And Kane points out that typically, when this is so, the indeterminism does not undermine responsibility (and hence it does not so diminish active control that there is not enough for responsibility). He describes a case (1999b: 227) in which a man hits a glass tabletop attempting to shatter it. Even though it is undetermined whether his effort will succeed, Kane notes, if the man does succeed, he may well be responsible for breaking the tabletop.
If left here, the reply would fail to address the problem of luck in a case where the agent chooses to do what she is tempted to do rather than what she believes she ought to do. In response to this shortcoming, Kane (1999a, 1999b, 2000b, 2000c, and 2002) has recently proposed a "doubling" of effort in cases of moral conflict. In such a case, he now holds, the agent makes two, simultaneous efforts of will, both indeterminate in strength. The agent tries to make the moral choice, and at the same time she tries to make the self-interested choice. Whichever choice she makes, then, she succeeds, despite the indeterminism, at doing something that she was actively trying to do.
This doubling of efforts of will introduces a troubling incoherence into cases of moral conflict. If an agent is actively trying, at one time, to make each of two obviously incompatible choices, that fact raises a serious question about the agent's rationality.
A final difficulty for agent-causal views accepts that all they require might be possible. The objection may still be raised that actions produced as required by such an account would be too subject to luck to be free actions. Van Inwagen has raised a similar objection to agent-causal accounts—though without referring to luck—on several occasions (see his 1983: 145 and 2000). Haji (2004) and Mele (forthcoming) present the objection in terms of luck as follows. Recall Leo's decision (section 3.1) to tell the truth. Until he makes the decision, there remains a chance that he will not decide to tell the truth, but will instead decide to lie. Likewise, until he makes the decision, there remains a chance that he will not cause a decision to tell the truth, but will instead cause a decision to lie. Then, in some possible world W with the same laws as those in the actual world, and with the same history up to the time of the decision, Leo decides at that time to lie, and he causes that decision to lie. The actual world, where Leo decides to tell the truth (and causes that decision), and world W, where he decides to lie (and causes that decision), do not differ in any respect until the time at which Leo makes the decision (which is also the time at which Leo causes the decision). There is, then, no difference between these two worlds to account for the difference in the decision, and likewise no difference to account for the difference in Leo's agent causings. Hence the difference between these two worlds is just a matter of luck. But if the difference between these two worlds is just a matter of luck, then Leo does not freely make his decision in the actual world.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/
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Basically, control of action is required for moral responsibility and free will. If the action is due to luck, i.e., nothing determines wether an agent will A or B, and if he A'ed then he is worthy of prase but if he had B'ed he'd be worthy of blame, then it seems the control required for freedom and moral responsibility is only to be found in determinism and a compatibilism.
**QUOTE**
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His philosophical task, then, is to show that a choice may be free, in the sense that it is something for which its agent is morally responsible, even though it was not guaranteed by antecedent mental processes. He must explain how the taking of a decision can be free while not the necessary outcome of the reasoning from which it issues. One might think, however, that I am responsible for choosing, e.g., to support a certain cause only if that mental act is secured by the exercise of my reasoning ability. Moreover, having weighed the cause’s pros and cons as I did, unless I was rationally bound to decide in its favor the outcome of this reasoning process seems inexplicable and, thus, not something for which I should be held accountable: praised or blamed. My decision must be rational if praiseworthy or blameworthy, but (unless I am in a situation like that of Buridan’s ass) how could it be rational if the reasons motivating it are consistent with the opposite choice? A mechanism that could take a set of reasons as the basis for more than one course of action appears erratic. Its exercise, thus, would fail to insure a rational result redounding to my credit or discredit.3 Kane, therefore, faces a dilemma: either some actions are undetermined, in which cases the control and rationality requirements of free agency are not satisfied, or a free agent’s conduct is always determined and explicable in terms of reasons that render irrational all but one course of action, in which case the alternative rational possibilities requirement of libertarian free agency can not be met.4 Alternatively, Kane must respond to the following chain argument:
1. If an act is free, then its agent has control over its performance
2. If an act’s performance is controlled by its agent, then it is the product of a reliable mechanism.
3. If an act is free, then it is rational.
4. If an act is rational, then it is the product of a reliable mechanism.
5. If an act is the product of a reliable mechanism, then it is the necessary outcome of the mechanism’s processing of its antecedents (specifically, the reasons arising in its favor).
6. If an act is the necessary outcome of a mechanism’s processing of its antecedents, then it is produced deterministically.
7. Thus, if an act is free, it is produced deterministically.
- Robert Allen
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/inpc/4th-2001/Papers/kane.htm
"I’ve looked at different proof texts that are used to say things like God prevents some men from coming to repentance. But I just don’t see it. The beginning of II Thess 2 says that God uses the delusions of the devil in order to punish the wicked who have refused to believe in Him. To say from this, that God has predestined these people to hell is to say more than the passage is saying. Why?"
ReplyDeleteThe passage says God caused them to believe a lie *SO THAT* they will believe the lie.
The