The Arminian lifeboat

BOSSMANHAM SAID:

“Gee Steve, that seems awful obtuse. Is the scientist responsible for what the monster does with its own free will? Just because the scientist knew what would happen doesn't mean he is responsible for decisions the monster made.”

If the consequences are foreseeable, then he shares responsibility with the monster.

Once again, you keep acting as though, if one party to a transaction is responsible, then that automatically absolves the other party.

Is it your position that if a mobster hires a hitman, only the hitman is responsible, and not the mobster?

“Perhaps the scientist knows the only way to have a real relationship with said monster is to grant it free will so that it can choose or choose otherwise.”

Yeah, I can just hear the defendant use that at trial: “Yes, I knew that if I made Frankenstein, he would go on a rampage, killing 50 innocent men, women, and children. But I wanted to have a relationship with Frankenstein, and that’s the unfortunate consequence which others had to pay for my relationship.”

“Upon doing this, the creator scientist abdicates any reponsibility of that monster's will when he gives it over to its own will.”

So you think people can knowingly set a chain-reaction in motion, then wash their hands of the consequences. Is that what Arminian morality amounts to? Do you think our social obligations are something we can abdicate whenever we please?

If our cruise ship ever hits an iceberg, remind me not to hop into the same lifeboat you occupy. You might slit my throat while I’m sleep and toss me overboard to make the rations go further.

“It seems like you're also stuck in the thinking that God had to have a temporal thought process before creation.”

Show where my argument depends on that assumption.

“Yet not responsible for the action, because the monster is the one who formulated and performed the action.”

False dichotomy. The mad scientist was a collaborator. He aided and abetted the crime when he knowingly created the monster.

“I never said there was, however, in the creation of volitional wills He created beings that could perform evil.”

To say they “could” perform evil doesn’t mean they “will” perform evil. If they truly have the freedom to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which they choose good over evil. So explain, on libertarian grounds, why God didn’t instantiate that world instead. God could have prevented evil without “violating” their libertarian freewill.

By the same token, if agents enjoy libertarian freedom, then having a genuine “relationship” with his creatures doesn’t require God to create sinners.

“Your two points don't change the fact that he uses the same argument as I do.”

Your selective appeal to Craig backfires since he takes other positions which undermine yours. You’d have to argue him down on those other points.

“That's not an accurate description of Molinism. It is the free wills of the agents that determine the way each possible world acts. God does choose which world to initiate, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still the human agent that has free will. To say their free will is taken away because God chooses only one possible world is ridiculous.”

They lack the freedom to do otherwise in the actual world. For an actual world actualizes one possibility to the exclusion of other possibilities. To say that’s “ridiculous” merely betrays your deficient powers of analysis.

“Like in Arminianism, God knows the actions of free agents because he foresees the action, not because Him foreseeing determines the action.”

If he foresees the outcome, then the outcome is inevitable.

“WLC certainly affirms free-will, although he may not be a full fledged LWF-er.”

But he doesn’t define freewill as the freedom to do otherwise, which is the definition that Arminians typically deploy against Calvinism. Indeed, that’s the definition you yourself continue to use.

“I never said God created sinners. In fact I specifically spoke against that notion.”

Once again, you’re being obtuse. If God creates a world containing sinners, he creates sinners in the process of making that world. Absent his creative fiat, sinners wouldn’t exist. They are the end-result of his creative fiat.

“That is determinism, Steve! If He creates agents who choose good over evil then those choices have been determined. He has created agents who only choose good. That isn't volition.”

I see that you have problems following the logic of your own position. So let’s walk you through it.

If you believe in libertarian freedom, and you define that freedom as the power to do otherwise (alternate possibilities), then there’s a possible world corresponding to each hypothetical outcome. There’s a possible world in which Brennon makes the right choice, and a possible world in which Brennon makes the wrong choice.

God can select which possible world to instantiate without “violating” your freewill. If you think the mere act of creating a world determines the outcome, and you reject that outcome, then you must deny that God was the Creator of the world.

Try to be logical, even if it hurts.

“God is good. His nature is what defines good. He is the objective good. He necessarily does good because He is good.”

If you think freewill is consistent with doing the right thing every time, then there’s a possible world in which human agents freely and invariably do the right thing. So God could prevent evil by instantiating that possible world without “violating” their freewill.

In fact, you’ve staked out an even stronger position. You’ve now said freewill is consistent with necessarily doing the right thing. In that case, freedom is consistent with determinism.

“This question is also loaded, since doing good or evil is not what makes us free, but the ability to do or do otherwise.”

Which would involve the ability to either do good or evil. If you can only do good, then you lack the freedom to do other than good, right?

“And I said knowing something will happen and allowing it to take place do not make you the cause of the actions of free creatures.”

God didn’t merely allow the outcome to happen, as if the world is self-existent.

“God is not the cause because He foresaw and created anyway. He is only the cause of the free agent.”

Which makes him a cofactor.

“So this makes God culpable for the acts of free agents how? God is the first cause of everything. Therefore He did create the potentiality for evil, in that without anything there would be no evil.”

In Arminian theology, God does more that merely create the potentiality for evil. He creates a world in which evil occurs. By creating a world with that foreseeable outcome, he makes the outcome inevitable.

“But God is not culpable for that evil because it originates outside of Him. It was not present at creation, it entered through the volitional wills of His creatures.”

Which he foresaw. But rather than prevent it, although he was free to do so, he brought it to pass.

“I never argued sin was inevitable. That's part of volitional will. Nothing made the Devil's sin inevitable. Nothing made Adam's sin inevitable. I haven't decided whether Adam's sin makes ours inevitable.”

If God sees a possible world containing evil, and he creates a possible world containing evil, then it’s inevitable that everything will happen in that world exactly as God saw (or foresaw) it happening. By actualizing that timeline, it’s certain to occur.

“In the very sentence you are responding to I specifically say God created things good. That means He created a world without a curse and cursed it because of the actions of Adam and Eve.”

God didn’t have to create an accursed world. Appealing to the curse fails to explain why God ever made such a world in the first place. Given the fall, God curses the fallen world. But the fall is not a given unless God chooses to create a world in which that takes place. The curse is contingent on the fall. The fall is a contingent event. Arminian theology doesn’t require God to make a world in which the fall occurs. So your explanation has no explanatory power. Try again.

“No I just think there are objectively good and bad things and how you feel about it when you do it doesn't matter.”

Motives are not synonymous with feelings. I take it that you’ve never studied ethics.

“But I stated two different actions. The similarity of a knife makes no difference. One action is healing, one is killing. One brings restored life, the other death. Healing is an action, killing is another action. I'm surprised at you, Steve, really. I never took you for a moral relativist before.”

You yourself distinguish the morality of the actions based on the motives of the agents. One intends to do good while the other intends to do harm. Try to be logical, even if it hurts.

“Nice attempt to put words in my mouth. I cited the reasoning Hitler used. Getting imperfections out of the gene pool is a good motive. The action of killing Jews is bad.”

So you think Jews are genetically defective?

“Your interpretation was maladroit. Just because you post on something doesn't mean the final infallible interpretation has been reached.”

Since you haven’t even dealt with the exegesis I posted, you’re blowing hot air.

“They weren't determined beforehand to be damned. God allowed them the choice.”

How is it more loving to allow them to damn themselves? According to the Bible, it’s better to never be born than to wind up in hell. And since, according to Arminianism, God didn’t need to create any hellbound sinners, why would a loving God produce that avoidable outcome?

“Just because God allows something doesn't mean He wants it to happen.”

How far are you prepared to take that principle? Are you saying that God didn’t want to make the world, but his hands were tied? He had no choice?

“Puppets give the appearance of animate objects when a puppeteer sticks their hand in it. Similar to what Calvinism has God doing with us. My point is this world is a farce if determinism is true.”

So, if determinism is true, then human beings are inanimate objects? That’s a very idiosyncratic definition of “inanimate.”

“You can't seem to get it into your head that God foreknows things because they will happen.”

Show where my argument depends on that assumption.