Sunday, February 08, 2009

The Arminian Comicals

Because I’ve had some other matters to attend to, I haven’t been following every twist and turn of Manata’s debate with Dan. I’ll just say that if Dan’s latest reply is at all representative, then the quality of his reasoning has certainly deteriorated since he and I last had our exchange (over God’s knowledge of the future, as I recall).

That’s a pity since, up till now, I think Dan had the reputation of being the most reasonable of Arminian epologists. Let’s look at his latest response:

http://www.arminianchronicles.com/2009/02/capstone-on-choice-debate-with-paul.html

Determinists require equivocation to survive. Since they don’t hold to common-sense meanings to terms like "choose", "alternative" and "possible", they develop slightly varied definitions to the terms, as opposed to getting rid of the words altogether.

One problem with Dan’s characterization is that he equivocates over equivocation.

i) To begin with, Manata would only be guilty of equivocation if he were inconsistent in his own usage. But the fact, if it is a fact, that Manata’s usage is inconsistent with someone else’s usage is not an equivocation on Manata’s part.

ii) In addition, Dan fails to distinguish between semantic equivocation and conceptual equivocation. Between the meaning of words and the meaning of ideas.

The compatibilist/incompatibilist debate is fundamentally a debate over the concept of freedom, not the meaning of words in a dictionary.

Here’s a few examples of how this works. They might say “you can choose to eat the ice cream”, but what they mean is only “you can choose to eat the ice cream, if it’s your strongest desire.”

Even if we accept Dan’s “common sense” criterion for the sake of argument, what makes Dan think that’s not a commonsensical qualification? Why does Dan assume the common man would reject the idea that he chooses according to his strongest desire?

When I buy ice cream, or when I select my favorite flavor, what other factor is there besides my strongest desire?

Consider the compatibility thesis that the ideas of determinism and freewill are compatible. Clearly they are not, if you must get rid of the determining factors to speak of freedom to choose the undetermined event.

Of course, that simply begs the question in favor of libertarian freedom. Dan needs a sound philosophical argument to justify that claim.

The past and decree are the causal forces at play. I stated “given the causal forces at play, but Paul must remove them and input different ones to talk about the possibility of counterfactuals.

Once again, even if we grant his “common sense” criterion for the sake of argument, why does Dan assume that’s not a commonsensical explanation?

Don’t counterfactual statements frequently have explicit deferential factors? “If only I knew then what I know how, I’d do things differently!”

With the benefit of hindsight, we tell ourselves that if we could do it all over again, we’d opt for non-X instead of X. Here, experience of the consequences is the differential factor.

My primary argument to Paul was that the common sense notion of “choose” includes the ability to choose non-X, so determinists can’t consistently use the common sense notion of choose.

Where does Dan come up with the claim that his definition of choice is the “common sense” notion?

His definition of choice involves the freedom to do otherwise, the principle of alternate possibilities.

How many common men have had the actual experience traveling back into the past and doing non-X instead of X this time around? Does Dan have some experimental or anecdotal evidence to document this “common sense” notion?

Why doesn’t he perform a little demo for you and me? Why doesn’t he show us a concrete example? Perform a successful feat of having done otherwise? That would be very impressive.

We can all go to Baskin-Robbins. He can choose an ice cream cone. We see him with his vanilla ice cream cone. Then, a moment later, we see him with a chocolate ice cream cone. Let’s see some tangible evidence that he can do otherwise by going back and changing the future. A trivial example will suffice.

I supported this based on several dictionaries.

Of course, this is naïve on several counts:

i) Dictionaries don’t go into the metaphysical machinery behind the use of words like “choose,” “alternative,” and “possible.”

ii) Indeed, dictionaries generally avoid taking sides in debates over controversial concepts. If a dictionary would to take sides in the way it defined words, its definitions would be tendentious.

iii) Imagine if Dan were a philosophy major at a topnotch phil. dept. like Notre Dame. Imagine if he wrote his term paper for Peter van Inwagen defending libertarian freedom. Imagine if he quoted the dictionary to prove libertarian freedom. Imagine what grade he would receive for that method of proof.

Dan does an unwitting favor to Manata when he resorts to this Hicksville appeal to prove Arminian theology. It’s an embarrassment to Arminian theology.

I responded that the compatibilist can’t really accept the dictionary definition of choice; they must hold the exotic counter-definition and simply equivocate.

Of course, when Dan resorts to this Hicksville appeal, he thereby forfeits any philosophical arguments for libertarian freedom by libertarian philosophers.

I also pointed out that the bible was written in common language, so using the exotic counter-definition was unbiblical.

Several problems:

i) Isn’t Dan a critic of open theism? But the open theist would say that he is merely taking the popular usage of Scripture at face-value. So would the Mormon. They would regard Dan’s own position as “exotic” and “unscriptural.”

ii) An open theist would also be critical of the scholastic formulations you find in a writer like Arminius.

iii) Ordinary language doesn’t attempt to draw fine philosophical distinctions. That’s the point. That’s what makes it ordinary language—in contrast to technical language.

Dan is assuming a level of ontological commitment to popular usage which is at odds with popular usage.

iv) Needless to say, Manata has biblical as well as extrabiblical reasons for affirming determinism.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks Steve. I wasn't aware of this post, since I wrote my final post in the "debate" I haven't been over to Dan's blog.

    It appears from what you say that he hasn't advanced the discussion past his first post.

    Of course I pointed out Dan's "common man" argument commits him to deny what all his Arminian-leaning apologists have said about Islam, i.e., it's a deterministic religion.

    I pointed out that Dan has taken no care to take into account the variagated nature of cultures. Reasoning from our American culture, which its fetish with libertarianism can be accounted for by various past theological and philosophical events, to other cultures is rife with problems. How would the "common man" in a stoic culture have viewed things?

    I also pointed out that libertarians have said that the "common man" has problems with "indeterminite" happenings. So it's a zero sum game, *at best*.

    Salvation by grace is contra common man.

    Indeed, a scathing idictment against defending your position by what the common man thinks might be:

    "Let God be true, though all men are liars."

    And,

    "The gospel is foolishness to the greeks and a stumbling block to Jews."

    Of course, resting your position on appeals to common men wouldn't be so popular assuming one has bothered to read any number of Barna-esk polls. take a read at what the "common man" believes about Christianity in said polls. It's nothing but a religion that is foreign to the Bible. Many sociologists have noted that the "common man" holds to a form of therapeutic moral deism that they confuse for Christianity.

    In fact, common man holds to a salvation by works. This is why all other religions teach a salvation by works.

    Christianity smashes many common man notions.

    Let me cite C.S. Lewis as well as Scripture:

    And C.S. Lewis' words: "Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have. So let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies--these over simple answers. The problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either."

    And the Apostle Paul: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 'Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?'"

    Or God through Isaiah: "'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD."

    Or Moses: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law."

    Would the common man come up with a three-in-one God? An incarnation where one and the same person both knows and does not know the same proposition?

    So, even though I have directly met the common man argument on its own terms, supplying my own dictionary quotes and rebutting the specifics of Dan's argument on his terms, I should also note that the whole common man argument is fraught with methodological problems from the start and indeed should be rejected by Christians.

    In fact, one could argue that if one's view is NOT the view of the common man, this is an argument that it is closer to biblical truth.

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  2. It seems that Dan is being a typical Arminian and overlooking the psychological details that most people are unaware of that go into making a choice.

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  3. You wrote, “Why does Dan assume the common man would reject the idea that he chooses according to his strongest desire?”

    How would you respond to the objection that the strongest desire argument is viciously circular. How do you know it’s the strongest desire? Because that’s what she chose. Why did she choose that option? Because it was her strongest desire.

    Perhaps someone could argue that a choice isn’t necessarily the strongest desire.

    Thanks.

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  4. JUST WONDERING SAID:

    “How would you respond to the objection that the strongest desire argument is viciously circular. How do you know it’s the strongest desire? Because that’s what she chose. Why did she choose that option? Because it was her strongest desire. Perhaps someone could argue that a choice isn’t necessarily the strongest desire.”

    i) The first problem with your objection is that it’s simply irrelevant to the issue at hand. I wasn’t discussing the validity of the principle. Rather, the question at issue is whether or not that principle is commonsensical.

    It’s possible for a commonsense intuition to be viciously circular. If so, your objection would undermine Dan’s “common sense” criterion.

    ii) In addition, it’s not as if we merely assign motives to actions based on the outcome. We do enjoy direct access to our own mental states. We know what we felt at the time. What we were thinking at the time. We’re conscious of our immediate motives (although it’s also possible to have subliminal motives).

    So it’s not as if we’re judging an action from the outside. From a third-person perspective.

    And when we analyze the actions others, we use our first-person perspective as a frame of reference. This is not merely an inference from an external phenomenon. Rather, it involves an insider’s understanding of human psychology.

    (It also assumes such a thing as human nature—which needs to be theologically grounded in a doctrine of divine creation.)

    To play along with Dan’s example, when I choose one flavor of ice cream over another, it’s because I like one flavor more than another. I find one flavor more desirable than another.

    Or I might opt for low-cal ice cream because I want to lose weight. And so on and so forth.

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  5. just wondering said:

    You wrote, “Why does Dan assume the common man would reject the idea that he chooses according to his strongest desire?”

    How would you respond to the objection that the strongest desire argument is viciously circular. How do you know it’s the strongest desire? Because that’s what she chose. Why did she choose that option? Because it was her strongest desire.

    Perhaps someone could argue that a choice isn’t necessarily the strongest desire.

    Thanks.

    2/10/2009 8:35 AM

    One needs to flesh out his position more, that's all.

    Just because one chooses according to a strongest desire isn't sufficient to make that choice free.

    Crazy people can choose according to their strongest desires.

    Also, we might ask what you think of Jesus' words in Luke 6

    "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."

    Would you say to Jesus:

    How do you know it is a bad fruit tree? By looking at its fruit. Why did it produce that fruit? Because it's a bad fruit tree.

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  6. Btw,

    I thought this:

    "i) Isn’t Dan a critic of open theism? But the open theist would say that he is merely taking the popular usage of Scripture at face-value. So would the Mormon. They would regard Dan’s own position as “exotic” and “unscriptural.”

    was particularly devastating.

    One simply needs to use Dan's method, viz., go to the dictionary, look up words like 'forgive' 'repent' 'remember,' etc., and see that they are at odds with some traditional conceptions of God that both classical Arminians and Reformed would accept.

    For Dan to be consistent, he needs to argue for open theism or various other unorthodox views of God.

    I see know way he could escape your counter here.

    I wish I would have thought of it. :-) I just used the dictionary definition of 'Jesus.'

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