I see that Billy Birch has done a new post on Calvinism and the “authorship of sin.” At some point I may post a specific response. But for now I wish to make a general observation.
Arminians like Birch seem to think that as long as the human agent enjoys libertarian freedom, that’s a sufficient solution to the argument from evil. That’s all the theodicy they need.
Let’s think about that for a moment. Suppose I’m a mad scientist. If I create Frankenstein, I shall endow him with libertarian freedom. At the same time, I foresee that if I create Frankenstein, he will go on a killing spree.
Now, on Arminian assumptions, Frankenstein is responsible for his own actions. He was (we shall stipulate) free to do otherwise, and that’s sufficient to render him culpable for his crimes.
Does that exculpate the mad scientist? Hardly. Even though Frankenstein is a responsible moral agent, that scarcely relieves the mad scientist of responsibility for creating a homicidal monster even though he knew in advance that by doing so, Frankenstein would be a mass murderer.
This is not a case in which Frankenstein is merely hurting himself. This isn’t a victimless crime.
The mad scientist has social responsibilities for the safety and wellbeing of the innocent victims. The mad scientist is directly complicit in the crimes of Frankenstein.
Another problem: So "author of sin" just means "ordainer of whatsoever comes to pass." That's all Birch argued. Now, this is obviously not what, say, the London or Westminster divines had in mind when they used the term. Nor, I suspect, what most Arminians have meant. But if they have meant thus, then Arminian theologians and philosophers have been very unsophisticated. They frequently say things like, "God cannot ordain whatsoever comes to pass for that would make him the author of sin." On Birch's view, this is just a tautology. So, "author of sin" means "ordains whatsoever comes to pass" and "ordains whatsoever comes" means "author of sin." So Birch is unhelpful to his own cause since if his post is what Arminians have always meant by charging God as the author of sin then they have got nowhere since the the question of what the problem is supposed to be applies at the level of the explanans and the explanandum.
ReplyDeleteNo, all Birch has done is play a word game and declare that "ordainer of whatsoever comes to pass" can also be called "author of sin." This is now an argument by political smear campaign. Birch has simply tried to bypass the harder job of showing that there is anything wrong with "ordainer of sin." Of course no Calvinist would have a problem with "author of sin" if it only meant "God ordains whatsoever comes to pass." And the Arminian would still be at square one since what originally needed to be shown is still unshown; namely, that "ordaines whatsoever comes to pass" is *immoral*.
So, for all Birch does he could have done it in one sentence. Calvinism makes God the "author of sin" because Calvinism makes God the "ordainer of whatsoever comes to pass." This is to simply wage a smear campaign against your opponent. Once you see you cannot win at the level of rational argumentation, Rules for Radicals suggests you smear your opponent and try to simply define his position as immoral, e.g., capitalism just is uncompassionate.
This is disappointing, I was expecting a challenge from Birch and all we got was a few thousand words that progressed the discussion foreword not an inch. Perhaps Birch will make it around one day to doing what I asked him to do: present a formal argument for his position showing that ordainer of whatsoever comes implies something immoral. So far Birch's argument, thus analyzed, is simply this:
1. Ordaining whatsoever comes to pass is immoral because it makes God the author of sin.
_________
2. Therefore, being the author of sin is immoral because it makes God the ordainer of whatsoever comes to pass.
As a highly sarcastic Darth Vader might say: "Impressive. Most impressive."
Bingo!
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Stephen
Birch says,
ReplyDelete"but he made it certain that the man would fall down the flight of stairs because that is what God wanted. God did not force the man and woman to commit adultery, but he made it certain that they would commit adultery because that is what God wanted"
But of course, as sophisticated Arminians do not tire of pointing out, certainty is not to be confused with necessity. Birch seems unfamiliar with his side of the argument and the important terms used.
For example, William Lane Craig states:
"By confusing certainty with necessity, the fatalist makes his logically fallacious argument deceptively appealing . . . [I]t is muddle-headed to think that because x will certainly happen, then x will happen necessarily." (Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, 127).
Either in virtue of God's foreknowledge, or his choice to instantiate a world where he saw certain outcomes that would happen, the bottom line is that Classical Arminianism makes events certain.
This means that Birch, again, makes God the author of sin. Familiarizing oneself with the important terms in this debate would seem to be a prudent course of action that Birch should avail himself of.
I'm surprised that you actually used this argument, Steve. I will rebuff it in two ways.
ReplyDeleteFirst I want to stress that knowledge of an event in no way makes someone culpable for an event.
Second, I want to show your example is faulty because it ignores the relational aspect of God's interaction with man (as do most of these Calvinist logic games). I will use a slightly more realistic example to show why yours is faulty:
Parents know that when they conceive, their child will sin. Their child will do things that dishonor them and others and God. But this doesn't make the parents culpable for the child's sin for if it did, perhaps pro-aborts aren't so bad, since they're stopping any sins those children will commit. Sure it's by committing another sin, but doesn't God want to bring the best good out of the bad He causes? Remember Steve, this practice that we decry as evil, in your theology, has its origin with God. He wants it, He causes those who do it to do it, and it supposedly glorifies Him, since everything He does glorifies Him. But I digress.
Not only are the parents not culpable for the free will decisions of their offspring even though they know their offspring will sin, the parents still, if they are godly, love their children and want the best for them, just as God has, "thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give [us] a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11). They want to guide their children in correct paths.
In like manner, God wants to save us. But to be able to show His great love and justice to us, He had to create us. But He is not culpable for free will decisions He knows about, for He didn't necessitate those decisions. Man's sin originates in his heart due to his own selfish desires.
Furthermore, if determinism of sin is true, then God's relationship with us is no more a relationship than Sherri Lewis' was with Lamb Chops. Looked convincing, but was a farce.
God bless
"First I want to stress that knowledge of an event in no way makes someone culpable for an event."
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand how someone could believe this. I find this notion pop up repeatedly among Arminian epologists. The point is knowledge of an event that you originated and could have prevented. If I somehow knew that if I had sex on January 2, 2010, at 10:15 pm, I would propigate the worst mass murderer and child molester the world has ever known, would I not be morally responsibe for having sex at that moment?
If I knew that my neighbor would murder his wife at 2:15 am unless I intervened, and I could intervene and stop it with no harm to myself, would I not be culpable for allowing the event to happen?
Surely the answer to both of these is a resounding "Yes".
This rebuffs Bossmanham's counter-analogy. But his analogy is off for other reasons. If I knew that my child would use my gun when I was gone if it were not locked up, and I did not lock the case, I would be responsible for the free choice of my child. If I knew my child would kill all boys named Charlie, and I sent him to school anyway, I would be morally responsible if he killed all the Charlies. Examples could be multiplied easily. If I knew that a man's breaks were out and just kept it to myself, could I tell people, "But my knowledge doesn't make me responsible"? No. The answer is no. And it seems just so obvious that one is perplexed at how people could miss something that seems so blindingly obvious.
Now, maybe Bossmanham is struggling to make another point, if so he wasn't clear. But given the natural reading of his statements, it is clear that his counter-argument is invalid and unsound from start to finish.
Then he finishes with some vague comment about relationships seemingly unaware that problems pop up on almost any model of divine-human relationship given the sui generous nature of that relationship. For instance, omniscience throws quite the kink into the relationship if we conceive as the relationship as just another token of an abstract relationship-type that all relationships exemplify. Part of what makes my relationships with all the humans I know so meaningful is that neither I nor they know every single thing I will ever do, including thoughts I will think. Again, as with this whole "author of evil" business, Arminian apologists repeatedly self-except themselves from their own critiques.