Arminian 4 eva

Dan is a dyed-in-the-wool Arminian and seemingly can't ever admit that any case for Arminianism, or LFW, no matter how bad, is faulty. Can't even so much as concede even the slightest point. Not much I can do about that. You definitely can't have much of a dialogue with people of this stripe. Not only that, if I wanted this kind of behavior, I could watch Sean Hannity, and at least receive some entertainment for my troubles. :-)

Anyway, in response to my post, which a majority of libertarians who specialize in the metaphysics of free will agree with me over against Dan BTW, Dan simply digs a deeper hole, leaving me not much work to do by way of response.

We can first note that all three of the points in my post defeated Dan's argument, he only dealt with one point, leaving his argument still with undefeated defeaters.

Secondly, his argument has been subtly changed, and I'm unsure whether even he is aware of what he is now implicitly arguing. Dan tried to use Kane to show that Kane agreed with Dan over me, when he doesn't, and I've emailed Kane extensively enough to verify this. He now cites Kane arguing what some choices need to be free or morally responsible. But of course I already anticipated this move (cf. my discussion with Timpe). The further points Dan cites from Kane argue that a free or morally responsible choice cannot be made on determinism. This is not a definitional issue anymore but, rather, involves us in a substantive philosophical discussion about the details of the metaphysics of free will and moral responsibility. Kane flatly and obviously grants that we can choose on determinism, he denies that we can do so freely or responsibly. By moving the debate into the highly contentious and detailed and sophisticated realm of the variegated views on free will and moral responsibility, Dan has completely undermined his initial argument! What's worse, we've just shown the massive question begging nature of his argument. He is assuming a contentious and hotly debated metaphysical position. Dan wants to get a free pass on the tough part of the debate. I've shown that when just sticking with "choice," then there is no problem. Now, if one wants to say that a free or morally responsible "choice" is unintelligible, one is free to make that argument, but not assume it. Furthermore, it is wide of the mark of trying to claim one is just making a "common man" argument. Dan's reply, unbeknownst to him, to be sure, only served to further weaken his initial argument.

Dan ignores wide swaths of my post and hopes his Arminian readers will too. I have severely paralyzed his dictionary argument by pointing out that it is silent as to whether the ability to do otherwise is to be read counter factually. Even if we both think this is the wrong analysis, the point is, you don't get its false truth value from the dictionary. Dan totally ignores my rebutting defeater which his entire claim rests on. His view of what any and all common man believes just seems, well, false.He therefore has been shown to make empirically dubious announcements about what 'common man' (whatever that is) believes. I also subjected his view to some serious reductions, and those were not addressed either. All in all, it must be admitted that his response wis underwhelming, and unable to meet the challenges set for him.

There is nothing to Dan's argument, and I'll let readers decide which case is more persuasive. If Dan can't admit the defeated status of his argument from my last post, I'm unsure of what would, or could, possibly convince Dan. It seems that he is so bent on his pet argument that he isn't even bothered by the fact that it could (a) possibly prove determinism (since it's possible all the dictionaries could write very deterministic sounding definitions) and (b) prove the errancy of Scripture because, without begging the question, Dan must admit that common men and dictionaries (grating Dan's interpretation of the empirical data for sake of argument, which I don't in reality) could be wrong, thus making the Bible assert falsehoods. I guess he could say that this could not be the case since LFW is true, but then if we're going to argue that way, why bother will all the posting and posturing?