Mutant-X Arminians

One of the most telling signs of the fallacious nature of Calvinist apologetics in general is its heavy reliance upon caricatures and misrepresentation of the beliefs of other Christians. There are few things more frustrating than trying to explain a concept to someone who simply takes one aspect of what is being said, and runs with it in a half-baked attempt to disprove it, heedless of any details or qualifications, yet this very tactic is something of a staple among Calvinism’s more vocal proponents.

I’ve posted before on a proper Christian description of libertarian free will, as have numerous other writers. Of note is the fact that libertarian free will, in the context of orthodox Christian theology, allows one to freely choose within a range of available options. Therefore depending upon individual contexts, the possible choices may be limited, and some options may not be possible.

Nonetheless, no matter how often or how clearly it’s repeated, many Calvinist writers either aren’t grasping the concept, or just continue to dishonestly distort it. One of the usual tactics is to frame libertarian free will as some imaginary power that lets one do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with no restraint whatsoever.

http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/the-fallacies-of-calvinist-apologetics-–-fallacy-4-free-will-is-the-power-to-do-anything/

There are several problems with this contention:

1.There’s a potential discrepancy between what people say or think, and the logical consequences of what they say or think. This is not an issue of what Arminians say they believe. Rather, this is an issue of what their position logically commits them to.

2.Arminians believe in libertarian freedom, defined as the freedom to do otherwise (or choose otherwise).

But one problem with this belief is the total absence of any empirical evidence to substantiate their belief. For we only make one choice at a time.

Arminians think freedom of choice entails the freedom to choose between two or more options. But we have no experience in choosing each option. Therefore, we have no evidence that the options we didn’t choose were ever in play.

3.Since there’s no empirical evidence for their position, Arminians must fall back on intuition. They infer that if I can contemplate different hypothetical alternatives, and decide on one course of action rather than another, then this, of itself, is evidence of the freedom to do otherwise.

But there’s a problem with that inference. The inference would only be valid if there were a one-to-one correspondence between conceivable choices and actionable choices.

Yet many things are conceivable which are not realistic. I can imagine what it’s like to be Superman. But that’s not a live possibility–much to the chagrin of every five-year-old boy.

4.Then there’s a further problem. Arminians gloss the freedom to do otherwise in terms of alternate possibilities.

But if we have the freedom to choose between alternate possibilities, and realize one possibility or another, then what, if anything, would be the upper limit on that freedom?

What’s actual doesn’t circumscribe what’s possible, for the actual has reference to the past and the present. For Arminians, the past is unalterable, but the future is wide open. The future is the realm of possibilities.

The future imposes no limit on what we can do in the future, for the future is the result of our choices. We realize the future by our choices. There is no future apart from our choices. We create the future by the choices we make.

Therefore, the only restriction on the freedom to do otherwise would be what’s logically possible or logically compossible. There is no concrete restriction on our field of action.

We can’t do something that’s logically impossible or incompossible, but as long as we don’t choose a logically contradictory state of affairs, then we should be able to make anything happen. Wish it into being. There are no natural impediments to our field of action beyond logical coherence.

But, of course, real life doesn’t corroborate that claim.

5.To briefly take stock: there is no empirical evidence for Arminian freedom. And there is no intuitive evidence for Arminian freedom. The complete lack of evidence would, itself, be sufficient to deny Arminian freedom.

But beyond the lack of evidence there is also evidence to the contrary. So the Arminian presupposition suffers from both an absence of any positive evidence as well as positive counterevidence.

6.At best, the Arminian can only harmonize his position with the lack of evidence and contrary evidence by postulating that God imposes an arbitrary restriction on our freedom of opportunity. Our freedom of action is not constrained by any inherent lack of power on our part, but by God suppressing our latent abilities.

According to Arminian theology, a human being is like the Dark Phoenix, when left to its own devices. God must install a series of psychic circuit breakers to contain the Phoenix Force and thereby prevent the psionic powers of the Class-5 mutant from running amok.