Arminian Muslims

BOSSMANHAM SAID:

“Steve, we have to assume that there is a difference between our interpersonal relationships with each other and God's relationship with us as creator. Since God has sovereign rights over His creation, He can create free agents, allow them to sin (while not causing them to sin), and hold them accountable for their actions. He can also intervene at times if He so pleases. He has rights over His creation that we do not have over each other (i.e. it is not wrong for God to take a life, since He gave life, while it is wrong for us to take a life, etc.). So I think the analogy breaks down at this point.”

The point of the analogy is whether Arminians are entitled to launch moralistic attacks on predestination or reprobation when, by their own admission, God has the right to act in certain ways which would be culpable for his creatures to emulate. Once you grant that discontinuity, you lose any prima facie basis to attack Calvinism on moralistic grounds.

“But there is also a marked difference between God allowing the sin of His creatures and causing the sin of His creatures.”

i) First of all, you need to define what you mean by “cause.”

ii) Moreover, you can’t simply stipulate that permission is licit while causation is illicit–seeing as you’ve had to concede that even divine permission involves a dramatic discontinuity between divine and human obligations.

“The Bible shows us that our actions as creatures can change our destinies. There are countless examples. God was going to destroy Israel, then Moses interceded and God relented. God would have destroyed Nineveh if they had not responded to Jonah's teaching.”

That does nothing to harmonize Scripture with Arminianism. If God created the world he foresaw, then we can’t change our destiny in the world he knowingly made. Rather, any foreseeable thing we do is already exemplified in the world he made. The die is cast. God instantiates the plot he foresaw. The script isn’t edited once the world is made. Different script, different world–not the world he foresaw or made. That’s the implication of your position.

“God, as creator, has the right to do with His creation as He pleases.”

So you subscribe to voluntarism. God is ex lex.

“In determinism, we have to blame God for making us want to abdicate social obligations when we do.”

If, according to you, God has the right to do as he pleases with his creation, then he’s blameless irrespective of what he does.

“If this scientist were all powerful and all knowing and had created everything else as well, then he has the right to do what He wills with His creation.”

If a Calvinist said that, Billy Birch would claim that his God was indistinguishable from Allah.

“You're acting like I'm a Molinist.”

What you are is confused. Deeply confused.

“But, to answer like a Molinist would, there may not have been a possible world where that would happen.”

Once again, you’re unable to follow the logic of your own position. You define freewill as the ability to do otherwise. So that commits you to alternate possibilities. To be free to do otherwise assumes a possible world in which you do A, as well as a possible world in which you do non-A.

When you say there may be no possible world where that happens, you deny the freedom to do otherwise–since this or that possible world is what captures the alterity of doing either one or the other.

You have serious problem thinking through the ramifications of your own position.

“Furthermore, you are again assuming determinism since you are suggesting that God could create this world where people could not sin, therefore this world was determined to be sinless.”

Given your stunted grasp of your own position, it may be futile to explain it to you–but for the benefit of others, I’m arguing on your own assumptions, not mine. On libertarian assumptions.

If you define libertarian freedom as the ability to do otherwise, then there’s a possible world in which Judas betrays Christ, and another possible world in which Judas is faithful to Christ. That’s the way to cash out the counterfactual freedom which you attribute to human beings.

And since you presumably attribute libertarian freedom to God as well as man, God is free to choose which possible world to instantiate. Given that Arminianism claims to be more loving than Calvinism, why doesn’t your loving God instantiate the possible world where everyone freely chooses good and goes to heaven rather than a possible world in which some folks choose evil and go to hell?

To deny that there is such a possibility is to deny the possibility that people are free to consistently do good.

“You're assuming that. There very well could have been no possible way for that to happen.”

In which case you deny alternate possibilities. In that event, there’s nothing that stands for the “otherwise” in the freedom you attribute to human agents.

Take a deep breath and try for once in your life to think through the consequences of your own position.

“Again, Steve, you assume your determinism every step of the way, and again I will say that God did not create Adam and Eve in a state of sin.”

Try not to be dense. Did I say he created Adam and Eve in a state of sin? No.

“I dunno, I've been listening to Craig a lot lately and don't hear much we disagree on.”

He says the freedom to do otherwise is not a precondition of libertarian freedom. That’s a pretty fundamental disagreement.

“You again assume your determinism. It doesn't happen because He foresees it, He foresees it because it will happen.”

i) For purposes of this discussion, it matters not what grounds divine foreknowledge. If you want to say the future grounds foreknowledge, that makes no different to the fact that if God knows the future, then the future is inevitable. If the future is an object of divine knowledge, then it can’t be open-ended. It can’t turn out either way if it’s foreknown to turn out one way rather than another. Try to be logical, even if it hurts you.

ii) There is, however, another problem with your claim: For you also say that “God wouldn't have foreseen it if He didn't create it.”
So your claim that God foresees it because it will happen is shorthand for: God foresees it will happen because God foresees what he will to create.”

In that case, God foreknows the outcome because God makes it happen. So your position leads to determinism.

“That's philosophical gobbledy goop. This world isn't based on hypotheticals, it's based on reality. People have real choices that lead to real actions. These ‘hypothetical worlds’ you speak of don't exist.”

It’s a pity you have no comprehension of your own position. I shouldn’t have to explain it to you. But let’s try again and see if this time the little light bulb goes of in your head:

You define freewill as the freedom to do otherwise. By definition, that commits you to the notion of counterfactuals. “Otherwise” in relation to what? If you limit choices to “reality” (to the exclusion of hypotheticals), then there is only one reality. For the freedom to do otherwise involves the notion of contrasting outcomes. A contrast between two alternate timelines. An open-ended future. To do “otherwise” is to posit a hypothetical scenario which you regard as a live possibility.

“And again, even if there were, there may be no possible world where volition exists and there is no sin.”

Which means you deny the freedom to choose between good and evil.

“In selecting one world or another, God has in effect determined the choice you have made, making this just another form of your determinism.”

Unless you think human beings create the world rather than God, then that form of “determinism” is an inescapable consequence of your own position.

“You aren't representing my view in any of these examples, so your logic doesn't begin to follow mine…”

That’s because you’re befuddled.

“There quite possibly is no ‘possible world’ that could happen in. But again we're not dealing with the ‘possible worlds.’ We're dealing with the real one.”

If the real world is the only possible world, then no one can have the freedom to do otherwise–whether God, man, Lucifer, or Gabriel.

Funny how your libertarian freedom is indistinguishable from Spinozistic necessity.

“No I actually didn't. You're now just putting words in my mouth, which in essence makes this debate useless, since you're now just debating yourself.”

Let’s see. You said that God “necessarily does good because He is good.”

So, if you think God enjoys libertarian freedom, you also think it’s possible for a free agent to necessarily do good.

You can only escape this conclusion if you deny that God enjoys libertarian freedom. Is that your position?

“Free-will isn't the ability to do whatever you want.”

Non-issue. You define freewill as the freedom to do otherwise. So, unless we are free to do either good or evil, then we lack the freedom to do other good or other than evil. Do you now retract your definition of freewill?

“Not every choice is between good and evil.”

I never said it was. But if your only choices are good choices, then you lack the freedom to do other than good.

But you have now backed yourself into the incongruous position of saying, on the one hand, that God lacks the freedom to do other than what is good while, on the other hand, you also question of the freedom of man to do other than evil. For you question the possibility of a world in which man only does good.

“That conclusion doesn't become necessary.”

But you said, “just because God allows something doesn't mean He wants it to happen.”

If God doesn’t want it to happen, then why does it happen? Was God unable to stop it from happening? Was God forced to either make this world or no world at all? A forced option? Sounds pretty coercive to me.