Contemporary Christian apologetics devotes massive attention to atheism, but ignores deism. In one respect, that makes sense. Historic deism is long gone. However, there's a version of deism that's fairly dominant in some intellectual circles, and that's deistic evolution. Much of what flies under the banner of theistic evolution is really deistic evolution. And many religious critics of intelligent design theory espouse deistic evolution. Even if they allow for divine intervention in human history, the disallow divine intervention in natural history. Moreover, I suspect some of them are just maintaining pious appearances.
There are basically two versions of deistic evolution:
i) Deterministic deistic evolution
This is planned evolution. A frontloaded process where the outcome is inevitable. It isn't necessarily that every detail is predetermined. It's more like general providence. But progress is built into the process. A means-ends relation.
ii) Indeterministic deistic evolution
This is unguided or undirected evolution. Like a stochastic, adaptive program that takes on a life of its own once the program is switched on.
In both versions you have a noninterventionist God who merely initiates the process. In the case of (i), God takes a personal interest in the ultimate outcome, although there may be multiple paths for arriving at that outcome. It's broadly teleological, but redundant.
In the case of (ii), God is indifferent to the outcome. It rejects human exceptionalism. Both versions are consistent with open theism, although (ii) leans more strongly in that direction.
iii) Deistic evolution raises questions about divine benevolence and rationality. Why would God create sentient beings if he had no concern for their welfare or destiny? Do individuals count?
In the case of (ii), God did not intend to create humans. He did not foresee their development. Yet once the process happens to produce in sentient beings, would he not take a subsequent interest in the result?
But perhaps, on this view, it's like a science experiment conducted by an alien. Our species is too insignificant to merit his concern. He's interested in the overall process more than any particular result. Humans are like disposable characters in a vast video game. It's the game, and not the fate of any specific character, that's the object of divine curiosity.
In the case of (i), God cares more about the end-result than how the process arrives at that solution. Rupert Sheldrake employs the metaphor of an attractor:
Dynamics is a branch of mathematical theory dealing with change, and a central concept in dynamics is that of the attractor. Instead of modelling what happens to a system by considering only the way it is pushed from behind, attractors in mathematical models provide an explanation in terms of a kind of pull from the future.
The principal metaphor is that of a basin of attraction, like a large basin into which small balls are thrown. It would be very complicated to work out the trajectory of each individual ball starting from its initial velocity and angle at which it hit the basin; but a simpler way of modelling the system is to treat the bottom of the basin as an attractor: balls thrown in from any angle and at any speed will end up at the bottom of the basin.
http://www.thebestschools.org/features/rupert-sheldrake-interview/
Simon Conway Morris toys with the same metaphor to model convergent evolution. Cf. The Runes of Evolution: How the Universe became Self-Aware.
This emphasis puts a premium on the desired outcome at the expense of individuals. After however many failed trials, the goal is eventually reached.
In natural theology, you first prove the existence of a Creator God. You then show that such a God would be likely to take a personal interest in the wellbeing of the sentient creatures he made. We'd expect him to be actively involved in human history. Reveal himself to humans. Act on their behalf.
An irony of deistic evolution is that it posits the existence of a powerful, rational Creator God. And as the either intended or unintended consequence of the process he put into motion, religious creatures arose. Creatures who believe in a Creator God. Creatures with detailed religious narratives about God's character and agency in human affairs. They believe in a Deity, and there is, in fact, a Deity. Yet what they believe about God bears little resemblance to what he is truly like. Their religious narratives don't correspond to world history. Not just Gen 1-2, but the entire story–from Genesis to Revelation–is a systematic mismatch for God's nature and behavior in deistic evolution. And the same holds true for other religious narratives.
Conversely, evidence for the religious narrative (e.g. argument from prophecy, argument from miracles, answered proper) will serve to undermine the deistic evolutionary narrative.
Most folks today are functional deists. God exists, but hasn't spoken, hasn't covenanted with his people, and hasn't given us hope in a world of death and despair.
ReplyDeleteMost aren't, obiously, deists out of an established philosophical movement, but by default. I will say however that, speaking personally, deism and (orthodox) Judaism have always seemed like the only respectable alternatives to Christianity. They are, dare I say, our most relevant conversation partners. Atheism is silly, as are eastern pantheistic and various polytheistic religions. I can take apart Islam and Mormonism in 2 and a half minutes.
All of that is to say that we ought to spend more time proving the Gospel. In the U.S. very few people are atheists. The Reformed have done a poor job here, partly because proving the Gospel involves dealing with the nitty gritty things of historical inquiry, which to some smacks of evidentialism. A Van Tilian feels more at home opening and shutting the case for Christianity on a priori grounds. But if I am betting my eternal soul on the gospel of Christ, I want to know that I have the real and only true God, and his real word, and that His messiah actually came and died for me, that I can be reconciled to Him and live with Him forever. We need to show that deism has no answers for this, and Judaism only has half an answer.
Good points, one and all.
DeleteI have trouble seeing much of a difference between Calvinism and deism, functionally. The Calvinist God created the world he created. End of story. How can the Calvinist God be meaningfully described as an "interventionist."
ReplyDelete"I have trouble seeing much of a difference between Calvinism and deism, functionally. The Calvinist God created the world he created. End of story. How can the Calvinist God be meaningfully described as an 'interventionist.'"
DeleteWell, for starters, God intervenes in time and history (e.g. the Exodus, the Incarnation). That's clear from the Bible. It's not as if Calvinists deny this.
In fact, if anything, wouldn't non-Calvinists tend to argue Reformed theology is too "interventionist" in the sense that God "intervenes" even to harden people's hearts, overcome their libertarian free will, etc.?
Delete"God intervenes in time and history (e.g. the Exodus, the Incarnation). That's clear from the Bible. It's not as if Calvinists deny this."
DeleteYou can say those words, and it is clear from the Bible that God intervenes in time and history, but it just baffles me that Calvinists don't deny it.
"God 'intervenes' even to harden people's hearts, overcome their libertarian free will, etc."
For example, if pressed, wouldn't a Calvinist say that if someone's heart was hard, it is because God created that person from all time with a heart with precisely that exact level of harness because he wanted it that way to predetermine historical events the way he wills?
It seems hard for God to intervene in a universe where God knows how the future will unfold is because he predetermined that is the way the future would unfold. What his intervening with, himself?
"You can say those words, and it is clear from the Bible that God intervenes in time and history, but it just baffles me that Calvinists don't deny it."
DeleteOf course, as I'm sure you know, the fact that someone is "baffle[d]" by a belief in and of itself doesn't necessarily imply the same belief is a false or inconsistent belief.
"For example, if pressed, wouldn't a Calvinist say that if someone's heart was hard, it is because God created that person from all time with a heart with precisely that exact level of harness because he wanted it that way to predetermine historical events the way he wills?"
Let's say (ad arguendo) what you say is true. It could also be true God directly intervenes to harden a person's heart. That is, these two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, it's possible Pharaoh could be a case of both what you say as well as God's direct intervention to harden his heart at a particular point in history i.e. the Exodus.
"It seems hard for God to intervene in a universe where God knows how the future will unfold is because he predetermined that is the way the future would unfold."
I think you may be confusing God's knowledge with God's actions. Just because God knows how the future will unfold (because he predetermined the future) doesn't preclude God from directly acting or intervening in history. Just because God knows Jesus Christ will be crucified (because he predetermined Jesus Christ would be crucified) doesn't preclude God from sending Jesus Christ in history as the Word made flesh to be crucified.
"What his intervening with, himself?"
I think you may be confusing God with God's creation i.e. the universe.
"What his intervening with, himself?"
DeleteOr perhaps you're confusing God's plan from before the beginning of spacetime with God's instantiated plan in spacetime (including spacetime itself).
Jeff D., the God of the Bible doesn't only ordain the ends, He ordains the means to those ends. The God of the Bible is utterly sovereign over all His creation and not one atom moves except as He wills it.
DeleteIn other words, the God of the Bible, Who is the God of Calvinism, is God.
And this God is extremely "interventionalist", since He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
1. Jeff, there's a difference between the divine determinism of Calvinism and materialistic determinism. Calvinists affirm the fact that human wills can overcome the determinism of the material world. Even Calvinists who affirm compatibilism affirm it. Human wills transcend the limitations of the physical world even though human personality and decisions are expressed only according to (and within) the decree of God.
ReplyDelete2. Contrary to what you appear to think Calvinism entails, God did NOT set the world in motion so that it will automatically turn out the way He decreed without His intervention. God's decree includes His planned interventions which bring about effects that would not have happened if He hadn't intervened (whether it be physical miracles, or changing the current course of a hardened heart of a sinner into a softened heart of a believer).
"The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes."- Prov. 21:1 NASB
For example, if pressed, wouldn't a Calvinist say that if someone's heart was hard, it is because God created that person from all time with a heart with precisely that exact level of harness because he wanted it that way to predetermine historical events the way he wills?
Calvinists would say that everyone is born with a hardened heart. With an unnaturally natural bent toward sin because of the total depravity that results from Original Sin. Yes, it is true that the degree of hardness varies from person to person (whether unregenerate or regenerate). Christians themselves have different levels of hardness and softness among ourselves because regeneration and sanctification is imperfect in this world. But Christians have been softened sufficiently enough that they are able to (and certainly will) accept the Gospel. Yes, it is also true that whatever degree of hardness or softness anyone has at any given time is by God's designed decree. However, that doesn't mean that God doesn't intervene to soften someone up more than they were (say, just 10 minutes ago). Since God's timeless, eternal and unchanging decree is distinct from God's actual activity in the world regardless of whether the A-theory or B-theory of time is correct. If the A-theory is true, then God's grace can flow to a person more or less through the passage of time. If the B-theory of time is correct, then God's grace affects people timelessly but nevertheless with a real causation such that if God didn't intervene then the the natural course of nature and human wills [as seen from within creation] would have been different.
Cont.
Regarding God actually and actively hardening sinners, different Calvinists have different views. Some deny it, while others affirm it. For example, R.C. Sproul denies that God actively and positively works to create fresh evil in the non-elect.
DeleteSproul wrote in his book Chosen by God:
QUOTE
Equal ultimacy is based on a concept of symmetry. It seeks a complete balance between election and reprobation. The key idea is this: Just as God intervenes in the lives of the elect to create faith in their hearts, so God equally intervenes in the lives of the reprobate [i.e. the non-elect] to create or work unbelief in their hearts. The idea of God's activity working unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate is drawn from biblical statements about God's hardening people's hearts.
Equal ultimacy is not [italics in the original] the Reformed or Calvinist view of predestination. Some have called it 'hyper-Calvinism." I prefer to call it "sub-Calvinism" or, better yet, "anti-Calvinism." Though Calvinism certainly has a view of double predestination, the double predestination it embraces is not one of equal ultimacy, which was condemned at the Second Council of Orange in 529.
END QUOTE
Sproul then goes on to distinguish between the positive-positive view of equal ultimacy and the positive-negative view which he considers orthodox Calvinism. The Calvinistic creeds do seem to line up with a denial of equal ultimacy, but nevertheless, there are some Calvinists who affirm equal ultimacy. I myself am open to it, but don't dogmatically hold it.
See also Sproul's article "Double" Predestination.
It seems hard for God to intervene in a universe where God knows how the future will unfold is because he predetermined that is the way the future would unfold. What his intervening with, himself?
God's extra-ordinary providence can contravene God's ordinary providence. For example, by God's ordinary providence an axe head that falls into a river would be lost in the bottom of the river. But by God's extra-ordinary providence the axe head can float to the top. Or think of a father who allows and plans his child to fail to teach the child a lesson about poor choices, and yet the father made provision in advance that would fix the mistake immediately after the lesson is learned. For example, a son thinks he fixed his favorite fishing rod using scotch tape and superglue contrary to what his father told him was possible. They go fishing and the rod breaks. He the learns his sad lesson that his father was right. Yet, his father knew it would break and bought a new rod in advance and hid it in the car and gave it to him after he learned his lesson. The father did and didn't want the rod to break in different senses. He made provision to correct the problem even though he planned and expected the problem to occur.
There's a difference between ordinary providence, extra-ordinary providence and special providence. See my blogpost: Three Kinds of Providence.
"God's decree includes His planned interventions which bring about effects that would not have happened if He hadn't intervened (whether it be physical miracles, or changing the current course of a hardened heart of a sinner into a softened heart of a believer)."
DeleteThat is interesting. God has two knowledges.
a) The knowledge of how events the actual world unfold which include his planned interventions.
b) The knowledge of how events would have unfolded had he not intervened.
That doesn't sound too far off from how I think about it.
God knows all counterfactuals. All that could happen, all that would happen under such and such circumstances, and all that actually will happen. If I understand correctly, Calvinists believe God's knowledge of what *could* and *would* happen falls under what's called God's necessary (AKA natural) knowledge. While God's knowledge of all that *will* (actually) happen falls under the category of God's free knowledge.
DeleteMolinists like William Lane Craig believe God's knowledge of subjunctives, what "would" happen, is not located in God's natural knowledge but God's middle knowledge. Calvinists have historically rejected the concept of middle knowledge, though some modern Calvinists entertain its possibility.
"God knows all counterfactuals. All that could happen, all that would happen under such and such circumstances, and all that actually will happen."
DeleteOK, now you are saying much more than you did before. If you stopped at saying that God knows both what will happen and what would have happened if he had not intervened, then I might be with you. I think you are piling on unnecessary baggage of omnisciently knowing the outcome of hypothetical alternate turn of events. Why do you think that baggage is necessary?
I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you objecting to God knowing all possible counterfactuals? If so, that's accepted by most Evangelical theologians whether Calvinist, Arminian, Lutheran, Molinists etc. I believe even Catholic theology (whether Augustinian, Thomistic, etc.) affirms it. It would be analogous to knowing all the possible games of chess that could be played. Except for Open Theists, most Christian groups also affirm God's exhaustive foreknowledge. The controversy is in HOW God knows the future and whether God's foreknowledge is dependent or based on God's foreordination (e.g. Calvinism), or whether God's foreordination is dependent or based on God's foreknowledge (e.g. Arminians). That's where the disagreement usually is located because it affects whether predestination is conditional or unconditional.
Delete"It would be analogous to knowing all the possible games of chess that could be played."
DeleteThe game of chess is a good analogy. I say that if two people sit down to play a game of chess, God knows what the outcome will be. He also knows what the outcome would have been if he hadn't intervened as planned on white's 10th move. So far so good.
The part I don't really get is that Calvinists insist it is vitally important to point out that God knows all the possible games of chess the two players could have theoretically played. I guess I agree that that is knowledge that God has, but why is that relevant? God knows that it is theoretically possible two people could sit down for chess and just move their knights back and forth over the same spaces until they die of old age. So what? Why does that matter? Like I said, I think the important thing is that God knows ahead of time what game of chess the two players will actually play and the game of chess they would have played if he had not intervened on white's 10th move.
Calvinism, as I am starting to get to understand it, is God knowing every knowing what the outcome will be of the chess game because he plans on intervening on every move.
I don't see how that is significantly different than God playing chess with himself—intervening with himself, that is. Not all that functionally different than deterministic deism.
"Calvinism, as I am starting to get to understand it, is God knowing every knowing what the outcome will be of the chess game because he plans on intervening on every move."
DeleteI'm afraid I don't think this is a fair assessment of what Calvinism is. In fact, I'm not quite sure how the one necessarily follows the other even on your own terms. The fact that God knows what the outcome will be isn't necessarily based on the fact that God plans to intervene (or vice versa).
Also, it's not necessarily true on Calvinism that God "plans on intervening on every move" if by "intervening" you're referring to some sort of direct intervention. Again, I'm not quite sure what you're basing this on.
"I don't see how that is significantly different than God playing chess with himself—intervening with himself, that is. Not all that functionally different than deterministic deism."
Calvinists don't deny human agency. It's likewise not necessarily logically implicit in Calvinism to deny human agency. At the very least, I don't see any reasons given for why Calvinism entails this.
Broadly speaking, Calvinists have traditionally subscribed to compatibilism. And, of course, there's a broader philosophical and theological debate between compatibilism and determinism (among other isms).
Given this, again, I'm not quite sure how what you say here necessarily follows.
It is how Calvanism was explained to me. God knows everything about the future because he predetermined everything in the future. So God knows what every chess move will be because he predetermined every chess move.
DeleteI'm pretty sure it would be out of bounds for a Calvinist to say that on some of the moves God foresees that the player would freely choose to move the way God already predetermined and therefore God doesn't intervene in that particular move.
For any given move, the Calvinist God either pre-determined for all time that his creation would make the move God predetermined would happen, or God would intervene in time to bring about the outcome he predetermined.
It is hard for me to see the distinction between those two scenarios, but it hardly matters. It amounts to God predetermining every move and pretty much playing chess with himself. When he is intervening, he is intervening with himself because he created a person to act one way, but finds it necessary to nevertheless intervene in time to bring about his predetermined outcomes.
It is all just weird, cumbersome, and completely unnecessary if you have the view that God knows what the future will be and what the future would have been if he had not intervened and stopped short of saying God has omnicient counterfactual foreknowledge (counterfactual foreknowledge meaning knowing the outcome of hypothetical events that did not happen in fact).
You might've already seen Steve Hays' reply, but just in case you haven't, here it is.
Delete