Freewill theists frequently distinguish between "determining" (or "causing") evil and permitting evil. They regard the latter as exculpatory.
Suppose I buy a set of steak knives as a wedding present. A few years later, the couple's 5-year-old son stabs his 3-year-old brother to death with one of the knives. Had I not give the couple that particular wedding present, that tragedy would not have happened. Am I culpable?
We'd say no, because I had no idea my gift would be used that way. Had I known, I would have given them a different (harmless) wedding present instead.
But suppose, when I was in the cutlery store, looking for a wedding present, I had a premonition that if I gave the couple a set of steak knives as a wedding present, that would be the outcome. Would I then be culpable?
Presumably, we'd say yes. Given advance knowledge, that tragedy was easily avoidable, and it's not as if my choosing to buy them a different (harmless) wedding present would violate anyone's libertarian freedom, or destabilize the natural order.
If we acknowledge that God knew what was going to happen and allowed you to buy the cutlery knives, then we might say that he was culpable as well. If I understand them correctly, this is part of what motivates freewill theists: their desire is to protect God from culpability. But I believe this is also why James White says that the only consistent Arminian is an Open Theist.
ReplyDeleteIsn't libertarian freewill God's steak knife gift to every human being given Arminianism? A gift God knows will cause some people to spiritually murder others as well as themselves. A consistent Arminian view of God's love might better have been demonstrated by God withholding libertarian free will and instead giving everyone a compatibilist will that lead to everyone's salvation (i.e. universalism/apocatastasis). In which case, those types of Arminians who hold God's love as His supreme attribute would best switch to the minority position of compatibilistic Calvinistic Universalism. Though, I wouldn't call that position a genuinely Calvinist theology despite the fact that there have nearly always been some small pockets of Universalists in Reformed circles.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteCan [sinners] be restored through the merit of their own works? God forbid. For what good work can a lost man perform, except so far as he has been delivered from perdition? Can they do anything by the free determination of their own will? Again I say, God forbid. For it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live, and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost. - Augustine. Enchiridion in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, trans. J.F. Shaw, ed. Philip Schaff, (1887), 30
DeleteWhat is the analogue of the knife set supposed to be as between God and man? Or as between God and some particular man?
ReplyDeleteA very likely analogue would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
DeleteIf that's it, then we can ask what valuable goods God intended in as a result of giving Adam and Eve a specific command (that or any other) to obey, even knowing that they would not. After all, we assume there is no _strong positive reason_ for you to give the couple the knife set as opposed to the "more harmless gift."
DeleteBut I'm curious as to whether that is what Steve intends it to be an analogy for, since he doesn't say in the main post.
"If that's it, then we can ask what valuable goods God intended in as a result of giving Adam and Eve a specific command (that or any other) to obey, even knowing that they would not."
DeleteNo doubt. However, that's an admission that permission alone is insufficient to exonerate the agent. There must be some additional "morally sufficient reason" (as the saying goes) to justify permission of the evil in question.
"But suppose, when I was in the cutlery store, looking for a wedding present, I had a premonition that if I gave the couple a set of steak knives as a wedding present, that would be the outcome."
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting thought problem, one that is much deeper than it seems at first take.
The first thing to realize is that the thing you are having a premonition of is not the future. In the future, the boy either does or does not stab his brother. The thing you are having a premonition of is the end result of a hypothetical scenario. What if... you gave that knife set as a gift. Those are two very different things.
Knowing an event in the future is pretty easy. I can imagine that. If we were in a sci-fi movie, maybe someone went to the future through a wormhole and came back and told you.
The superpower to be able to prognosticate the result of a hypothetical situation involving human beings is far, far, more impressive than being able to prognosticate the actual future. If someone had the superpower to foretell the future, maybe he can create a mental wormhole and extract the information where the information is, which is in the future.
What is the theoretical mechanic that would make the much more impressive superpower work? From where is the information being retrieved that answers the question, "what if... I gave a knife set as a gift"? Where does that information live?
The answer to your question "Would I then be culpable?" Is yes, you would be, but perhaps not in quite the same way as if you determined the outcome of the event. But I reject the premise of your thought problem until it is explained to me where this information regarding hypothetical outcomes of the choices of human beings is coming from.
The premonition is about a future that will eventuate if I give them the set of steak knives, in contrast to a future in which I give them an alternative gift.
DeleteA thought experiment needn't be realistic to establish a point of principle. As usual, your objection is a red herring.
As I said above, the sense of responsibility in the story works only because there is no overwhelmingly important reason for me to give the couple the steak knife set. It's trivial to switch to something else.
ReplyDeleteBut if we really *in general* made no distinction between a) permitting evil and doing evil and b) the indirect consequences of our actions and actions we are directly carrying out, then all sorts of incorrect conclusions would follow. For example, it could easily be the case that no one should have children, and the human race should be voluntarily extinguished, because everyone who has children has at least one descendant who goes to hell. What if you knew this specifically concerning yourself--that if you had any children, at least one of your descendants would go to hell, perhaps hundreds of years later? Would you in fact be responsible not to conceive any offspring, as the person in the story is responsible not to give the steak knives? Not only is that not obvious, it seems absurd.
What if you were told that, if you don't stay sitting in your home and taking no action outside your home for the rest of your life, some negative indirect consequence will occur? Should you never do anything ever again?
Virtually any good and valuable action has a host of indirect consequences, both good and bad. We aren't responsible for all of these, and this isn't just because we don't know them. It can be the case that the importance of _doing_ the good thing with our own power and strength is the relevant thing, precisely because we are _not_ responsible for a highly indirect consequence or for someone else's freely chosen action in anything like the same sense that we are responsible for our own actions.
Moreover, it is actually extremely important to distinguish doing evil from permitting evil in ethical reasoning generally. Without that distinction, one is forced into all sorts of utilitarian dilemmas: If you don't shoot this one baby to death, a million people will be killed. There is no distinction between doing evil and permitting evil. You are responsible for both. Hence, either you will be responsible for the death of one innocent person or a million. Obviously, you are obligated to shoot the baby.
And so forth. What is wrong with that reasoning is _precisely_ the incorrect premise that there is no difference between doing evil and permitting evil.
Hello Lydia,
DeleteYou make some good points above. Ultimately, I think that the reason I would still disagree with your conclusions have to do with the end of your first paragraph: "It's trivial to switch to something else."
Just as it is trivial to switch the steak knives, it is also trivial for God to switch things around without violating free will or culpability or any of that. In fact, it's even more trivial for God than it is for the hypothetical man giving the steak knives, for if God was giving the steak knives He could just dissolve the blades before the five-year-old can stab his brother with them, or any other number of things that would not violate anyone's free will and yet would still be trivially easy for God to accomplish.
For us, we have to permit some evil because we lack the ability to stop it all, but it seems to me that that is precisely what God does *NOT* lack. But if I *can* stop an evil action and I do not do so, I must have some moral justification for doing so or else it seems very much to me that that is equivalent in moral standing to actually doing the evil myself.
To tweak your example a little, it's not a question of "Kill this baby or millions die" but more like "Clap your hands together once or millions die." If you know for a fact that millions will die if you don't clap your hands, and you know clapping your hands is trivially easy and that it legitimately would save everyone else and there would be no downside at all for you doing so, then I think that refusing to clap your hands does make you culpable in that scenario.
Lydia:
Delete"As I said above, the sense of responsibility in the story works only because there is no overwhelmingly important reason for me to give the couple the steak knife set. It's trivial to switch to something else."
True. However, many internet Arminians, including prominent figures like Roger Olson, routinely act as though permission is ipso facto exculpatory. So long as the agent (i.e. God) merely "permitted" evil rather than "causing" or "determining" evil, then he's off the hook. But as you yourself point out, that's simplistic.
My post had a single point: to challenge that simplistic principle with a counterexample that reasonable people would grant.
"But if we really *in general* made no distinction between a) permitting evil and doing evil and b) the indirect consequences of our actions and actions we are directly carrying out, then all sorts of incorrect conclusions would follow."
True. However, we make allowance for the limitations of human agents because human agents don't get to choose what the options are. Rather, they must choose between one or more preexisting options. They are confronted with certain options. Forced options.
By contrast, God creates options. So he's not in the same bind.
"Virtually any good and valuable action has a host of indirect consequences, both good and bad."
True, and a Calvinist can invoke the same principle when constructing his own theodicy.
"Moreover, it is actually extremely important to distinguish doing evil from permitting evil in ethical reasoning generally."
Sometimes they're morally different and sometimes they're morally equivalent. Permitting my baby to starve to death isn't the same action as drowning him, but there's no moral distinction. Not feeding him and drowning him are both murder.
PP, since I haven't been told _precisely_ what it is that God is "giving" people, I have no reason to accept that it would be trivial for God to switch things around so no sin occurs. In fact, I deny that. I think that any scenario in which God "switches things around" so no evil consequences follow, man doesn't sin, etc., is _far_ from a trivial change, and in fact involves forgoing important goods that creation, free will, divine commands to Adam and Eve, etc., instantiated.
DeleteSteve, I actually do not see the distinction between permitting and doing evil as being very closely bound up with limitations of human agents. I see it as more fundamental than that.
DeleteAs far as God's getting to "choose what the options are," if one takes free will seriously, that is not strictly true. In fact, it's importantly false.
Hello Lydia,
DeleteThank you for your response. I agree with much of what you ended with, in terms of goods that come about from creation, etc. (In fact, I hold to the Greater Good Defense (GGD) myself--namely the greatest possible good being Christ's death for us).
But I don't see how that affects anything here. To be more precise, I think that GGD works equally well whether evil is determined or whether it is permitted. If that is the case, then GGD offers no basis for us to assert that all evil is permitted instead of determined; there must be some other factor in play.
But when I examine the other factors involved, the claims of people who say that God is "merely" permitting evil do not get Him off the hook. That is, if we applied those same claims to other human beings we would hold those human being culpable *just as if* they had determined the evil. In fact, it happens in our legal system all the time (e.g., if I knowingly sell you a defective product that causes your death, I'm held responsible for your death just as if I had directly caused it). And I just think that if we hold other human beings to that standard, despite the fact that we are fallible and ignorant of all future possibilities, why would God get a pass on it despite the fact that He is more powerful and more knowledgeable than we ever would be?
Or put it another way. If we allowed our children to play with handguns knowing full well the risk of them killing one another with it, we'd be charged with child endangerment, negligence, and so forth. The difference between our abilities, reasoning, and strengths to that of our children is a minuscule fraction compared to the difference between God's abilities, reasoning, and strengths and that of our own. Yet we are somehow held to a higher standard than God in that scenario?
It is for those types of reasons that I remain unconvinced that GDD helps one pick between determined evils and permitted evils. Adding on that the Bible constantly speaks about God determining the future, and I have no Biblical warrant to pick permission over determinism either.
"Sometimes they're morally different and sometimes they're morally equivalent. Permitting my baby to starve to death isn't the same action as drowning him, but there's no moral distinction. Not feeding him and drowning him are both murder."
ReplyDeleteYes, perhaps one can think of analogies where permitting others to do evil and doing the same evil ourselves is morally equivalent, but your example would not be one of them. Permitting your baby to starve to death would not be a fair example of true permission because you aren't permitting your baby to do anything to itself as a free agent. Your baby can do nothing on its own to feed itself. Rather you are merely permitting YOURSELF to not feed your baby. That is to say you are giving permission to yourself to follow through with your own determination--which is to kill your child. In that sense determining to not feed your baby and determining to drown your baby are morally equivalent--but that is because both speak of determination and neither speaks to a fundamental understanding of permission as it relates to free agents. This also why Calvinists who speak of God permitting the very evils of the world he has unilaterally determined is absurd. Does God need to get permission from himself? But perhaps that is a matter for another day. The point is Lydia McGrew is correct in her criticism. There is a moral difference. All the best.
Matt B
Delete"Yes, perhaps one can think of analogies where permitting others to do evil and doing the same evil ourselves is morally equivalent, but your example would not be one of them. Permitting your baby to starve to death would not be a fair example of true permission because you aren't permitting your baby to do anything to itself as a free agent. Your baby can do nothing on its own to feed itself. Rather you are merely permitting YOURSELF to not feed your baby. That is to say you are giving permission to yourself to follow through with your own determination--which is to kill your child. In that sense determining to not feed your baby and determining to drown your baby are morally equivalent--but that is because both speak of determination and neither speaks to a fundamental understanding of permission as it relates to free agents. This also why Calvinists who speak of God permitting the very evils of the world he has unilaterally determined is absurd. Does God need to get permission from himself? But perhaps that is a matter for another day. The point is Lydia McGrew is correct in her criticism. There is a moral difference. All the best."
It sounds like you're quite confused. The parent's moral choice (or lack thereof) is what's under consideration, not the baby's. It's presumed the baby is dependent on the parent. That should be obvious.
No confusion. The difference between permitting another to do evil and doing the evil yourself is what is under consideration. Steve's analogy is not a credible example of how they are morally equivalent.
DeleteMatt,
DeleteThe baby wasn't my example. That was Lydia's example. I merely played along with her example. If you don't like that example, it's easy to come up with others.
Suppose I know the location of a viper pit that's hidden in the grass. I see a classmate approaching the location, oblivious to the danger he's in. He walks right into the viper pit, and dies from snakebite. I could easily prevent his death, either by warning him or tackling him, but I simply let it happen. How is that morally different than planting a rattlesnake in his locker?
An agent permits what he can prevent. Calvinists can meaningfully speak of divine permission, for those are divinely preventable events, had God so decreed. Nothing absurd.
Yet God did provide just such a warning. His command in the Garden, followed later by His appeal to Cain, His prophets constantly warning and exhorting, and even God using unusual "prophets" like Balaam, along with conscience, etc. So God does indeed warn people away from danger.
DeleteI think a better example would be that you put a viper pit hidden in the grass, knowing that your friend always walks that way because you have spent weeks conditioning him to do so, and then watch passively as he falls into it. You planned it, wanted it to happen, and ensured it would happen -but you didn't push your friend in. This is what a deterministic view of 'permission' would truly hold, for it is God who - not mere weeks ago through fallible conditioning, but from eternity past and undefeatably - ordained every temptation and fall into sin that anyone ever has or will engage in. The other view would be that you know there is a viper pit there, you have told your friend not to go that way because there is a viper pit there, but you aren't going to dictate his every movement. You see him walking toward the pit and scream at him to not go that way, but he puts his fingers in his ears...
This is the universal consensus of the early church, that God gave free will and warning and counsel to accompany it. Irenaeus (170AD) hits on these points, writing,
"This expression, "How often would I have gathered your children together, and you would not," set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all.".
Tertullian (200AD) addresses these issues at length in Against Marcion. Space doesn't permit his whole argument, but basically he says God made man free so that man might know God better by having an experiential understanding of God's own freedom of self. God guided and gave man rules by which to guide their freedom properly. Tertullian, echoing the church consensus, is strident against an assault on God's goodness, foreknowledge, and power, and equally strident against the idea that God is the originator of sin and that man is not created as a truly free agent. (See "Against Marcion", starting with the phrase "Come now ye dogs, who yelp against the God of truth...")
Everybody in the church is totally in agreement with these points until Augustine (400AD) goes overboard in his later years. And the arguments both biblical and philosophical, are laid out. Determinism is very different from permission, and the first few centuries of the church bear strong witness to this truth.
"Yet God did provide just such a warning. His command in the Garden, followed later by His appeal to Cain, His prophets constantly warning and exhorting, and even God using unusual 'prophets' like Balaam, along with conscience, etc. So God does indeed warn people away from danger."
Deletei) In most situations, God doesn't warn us about the consequences of choices we make. So your argument either proves too little or too much.
ii) Are you admitting that permission alone is insufficient to exonerate God? That permission must include other conditions, like divine warnings?
"I think a better example would be that you put a viper pit hidden in the grass, knowing that your friend always walks that way because you have spent weeks conditioning him to do so, and then watch passively as he falls into it. You planned it, wanted it to happen, and ensured it would happen -but you didn't push your friend in. This is what a deterministic view of 'permission' would truly hold"
i) The God of freewill theism ensures that outcome by creating a world with that foreseen outcome. The God of freewill theism ensures the outcome by failing to intervene. If I don't intervene to stop a baby stroller from rolling down the hill, I ensure the outcome.
ii) Are you saying evil events are divinely unplanned? If God foreknew the consequences of making a world with that forseeable outcome, how did he not plan for that eventuality?
The other view would be that you know there is a viper pit there, you have told your friend not to go that way because there is a viper pit there…
The Arminian/Molinist God doesn't merely know the outcome, but causes the outcome. His creative fiat is a necessary condition for that to eventuate.
"…but you aren't going to dictate his every movement. You see him walking toward the pit and scream at him to not go that way, but he puts his fingers in his ears…"
A real friend would tackle him to prevent him from walking into the viper pit.
"This is the universal consensus of the early church, that God gave free will and warning and counsel to accompany it."
I take it that you exclude the NT church from your definition of universal consensus of the earth church.
The purpose of the steak-knife gift is *not* the same purpose for God in creating men and angels.
ReplyDeleteAny reasonable person who has a premonition that a certain arbitrary wedding gift would go awry, would certainly give a different gift instead. However, God can know that certain men and angels would misuse the gift of life and perish, and yet God would still desire to create them anyway, because the purpose for God in creating men and angels is for them to both *have* and *make* choices, and thus establishing a kingdom of people who chose to love and be with God under otherwise adverse circumstances, for which God could reasonably have a level of fellowship.
This sometimes results in a follow-up question of why God didn't simply use His foreknowledge to predetermine to prevent the birth of all of those who would ultimately reject God and perish, and just keep the rest, and the answer is found in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares of Matthew 13:29, in which people are interconnected. In other words, *what if* God knows that a particular person will someday grow up and become a father and reject God, but whose son grows up to love the Lord and become a Christian? If God were to prevent the birth of the father, then *how* can the Christian son be born? In Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares, He states that an “enemy” sowed the tares in the field (not God), and the parable instructs the angel not to uproot the tares, because it would otherwise disturb the wheat, and that things will ultimately get sorted out in the final harvest. So the purpose of the gift in the steak-knife analogy does not logically align with the purpose of God's gift of life to men and angels, as God can know the results and very much desire to proceed anyway.
"The purpose of the steak-knife gift is *not* the same purpose for God in creating men and angels. Any reasonable person who has a premonition that a certain arbitrary wedding gift would go awry, would certainly give a different gift instead."
DeleteThanks for conceding my argument. You admit that mere permission is not a sufficient condition to exonerate the agent. Always nice when Arminians prove my point.
"This sometimes results in a follow-up question of why God didn't simply use His foreknowledge to predetermine to prevent the birth of all of those who would ultimately reject God and perish, and just keep the rest, and the answer is found in the parable of the Wheat and the Tares."
So you're asserting that according to Arminianism, there's no feasible world in which all free agents only do right. Rather, it's inevitable that some people will always do wrong. If so, how is the inevitability of sin different from necessity?
Steve, you are missing the distinctions two key thoughts present in Richards comment above:
Delete1) The word "Arbitrary." Is free will an arbitrary gift? No indeed. This this is not a concession in the least.
2) There is a difference between what has happened (and thus was foreknown), and what was inevitable. Since we reject a materialistic, mechanical, and dare I say atheistic view of the human being as cause-and-effect machine, we do not believe that the way things unfolded was in fact inevitable. God cannot decide to create, know the outcomes of everyone's life, and then just change it so that everything will be perfect. Tertullian addresses this matter in Against Marcion, as well. These arguments from the determinism side aren't fresh philosophical challenges to the orthodox Christian view, and they have been answered at length by even the persecuted early church.
"Steve, you are missing the distinctions two key thoughts present in Richards comment above: 1) The word 'Arbitrary.' Is free will an arbitrary gift? No indeed. This this is not a concession in the least."
DeleteHis distinction is a concession to the fact that permission alone isn't ipso facto exculpatory. Funny how you freewill theists keep collaborating my post in the very process of objecting to my post.
"There is a difference between what has happened (and thus was foreknown), and what was inevitable."
Not surprisingly, you fail to explain how something can be foreknown, but not inevitable.
"Since we reject a materialistic, mechanical, and dare I say atheistic view of the human being as cause-and-effect machine, we do not believe that the way things unfolded was in fact inevitable."
You need to provide an actual argument to show how the inevitability of a given outcome presupposes a materialistic, mechanical, atheistic view of human beings. Indeed, you need to provide three separate arguments to justify each adjective.
"God cannot decide to create, know the outcomes of everyone's life, and then just change it so that everything will be perfect."
Unfortunately for you, assertions can't do the work of arguments.
"These arguments from the determinism side aren't fresh philosophical challenge…"
And libertarian freedom isn't a new idea, either. Consider pagan philosopher Aristotle's celebrated analysis of the sea battle tomorrow, which inspired so much medieval debate.
Finally, the argument hasn't been at a standstill since the patristic era. You need to keep up with the actual state of the argument.
"The baby wasn't my example. That was Lydia's example. I merely played along with her example."
ReplyDeleteNo, Steve it was your example. Lydia's mentioning of a baby being shot to save others was to show the morally bankrupt, utilitarian ethic your view faces in not conceding a difference between permitting evil and doing evil. You didn't just "play along" with her example. You avoided the main thrust of her point about utilitarian dilemmas and made up an entirely new example of a mother drowning baby vs. purposely not feeding her baby to press your point further. I was just pointing out why it was invalid.
Now lets examine your next example:
"Suppose I know the location of a viper pit that's hidden in the grass. I see a classmate approaching the location, oblivious to the danger he's in. He walks right into the viper pit, and dies from snakebite. I could easily prevent his death, either by warning him or tackling him, but I simply let it happen. How is that morally different than planting a rattlesnake in his locker?"
A few points bear mentioning. Despite the fact that he fails or refuses to warn his classmate about the pit of vipers no court of law would find him guilty of pre-mediated murder as they would if you concocted a plan to put a deadly rattlesnake in his locker. So there is a difference.
Now if he dug the pit himself, put the vipers in and then coaxed his classmate to the concealed pit, that would be a different story because of pre-meditated action. And Steve, given your divine determinism, in which EVERYTHING people do has been pre-determined (pre-meditated) by an unconditional, irresistible divine decree then there is no sense whatsoever that a Calvinist can suggest God permits evils--the very evils he determined. As I mentioned above, since a Calvinist holds God had pre-determined everything humans choose to do, it is in indeed absurd to suggest God permits what humans choose to do. Any sense of divine permission would be God giving permission to himself to follow through with his own determined will. That is why your follow up point doesn't work either.
"Calvinists can meaningfully speak of divine permission, for those are divinely preventable events, had God so decreed."
Right--things only occur because God did not divinely prevent them to occur. But why did he not divinely prevent them to occur, Steve? Because he already divinely decreed and determined they must occur! You are using the words "permission" and "prevention" as synonyms for determinism. Sorry, but that is not meaningful at all. I don't believe you have come to grips with the underlying implications inherent to your commitment to theological determinism over all human agency.
Lastly, your response to Coords above is rather unfortunate in that you seem to want to avoid the main thrust of his argument. God can create a world of free agency in which certain evils are rendered possible, yet still be moral in doing so if he knows it is the only way to obtain other, overriding goods--such as meaningful worship, obedience and love. For worship, obedience and love to mean anything, it means the choice to not worship, to not obey and to not love must be also be possible. The steak knife analogy would only be a comparable example with God if the giver of the steak knives knew other, overriding goods could only be obtained through the giving of the steak knives. But since you haven't provided such a premise the analogy fails to be comparable to God creating a free world and permitting individuals to disobey him.
All the best.
"No, Steve it was your example."
DeleteNo, Matt, it was her example. I was riffing off of her example.
"Lydia's mentioning of a baby being shot to save others was to show the morally bankrupt, utilitarian ethic your view faces in not conceding a difference between permitting evil and doing evil."
i) You haven't begun to demonstrate that I don't concede a difference between permitting evil and doing evil. Moreover, your statement is simpleminded. What I've actually said is that sometimes there's a morally relevant difference and sometimes not. That's easy to illustrate.
ii) Moreover, I never conceded that a baby should be shot to save others. Either you're confused or malicious. Maybe both.
"You didn't just 'play along' with her example. You avoided the main thrust of her point about utilitarian dilemmas and made up an entirely new example of a mother drowning baby vs. purposely not feeding her baby to press your point further. I was just pointing out why it was invalid."
Both Lydia and I are making up new examples. That's the natural dialectic of live debate.
"A few points bear mentioning. Despite the fact that he fails or refuses to warn his classmate about the pit of vipers no court of law would find him guilty of pre-mediated murder as they would if you concocted a plan to put a deadly rattlesnake in his locker. So there is a difference."
So you default to legal conventions because you can't offer a philosophical rebuttal. Thanks for the backdoor admission of defeat. Where should I go to collect my prize money?
"And Steve, given your divine determinism, in which EVERYTHING people do has been pre-determined (pre-meditated) by an unconditional, irresistible divine decree then there is no sense whatsoever that a Calvinist can suggest God permits evils--the very evils he determined."
And Matt, I just explained to you how permission is consistent with "determinism."
"Right--things only occur because God did not divinely prevent them to occur. But why did he not divinely prevent them to occur, Steve? Because he already divinely decreed and determined they must occur!"
That's confused. Nothing prevented God from foreordaining a different outcome, had he so chosen. Given predestination, the outcome must occur, but it's not as if God must have predestined that outcome. You need to learn how to think clearly. Glad to be of assistance.
"You are using the words 'permission' and 'prevention' as synonyms for determinism."
That's not what I said or implied.
"Sorry, but that is not meaningful at all."
It's true that your mischaracterization isn't meaningful at all.
"I don't believe you have come to grips with the underlying implications inherent to your commitment to theological determinism over all human agency."
It's always amusing when callow intellectual lightweights make pompous statements like that.
"Lastly, your response to Coords above is rather unfortunate in that you seem to want to avoid the main thrust of his argument."
Actually, the "main thrust of his argument" unwittingly conceded the main thrust of my argument. Unfortunate for him, not for me.
"God can create a world of free agency in which certain evils are rendered possible…"
No. What his argument actually implies is that it's impossible for "free agents" not to sin. There's no possible world in which everyone freely does right.
"For worship, obedience and love to mean anything, it means the choice to not worship, to not obey and to not love must be also be possible."
Because begging the question is the best you can do.
"The steak knife analogy would only be a comparable example with God if…"
Thanks for proving my point: the distinction between causing/determining evil and permitting evil is insufficient to exculpate God. You must supplement that with additional justifications.
Fallen man has the free will to choose whatever type of sin he prefers from the options available to him.
ReplyDeleteActually CR, that is not correct in theological determinism. Even your choice between a range of possible sins has been determined for you. If all our choices have been unconditionally and unilaterally determined by God, one doesn't even have free will to choose to view porn site A or porn site B. The range of possible sinful options has been reduced to one--the one God determined for you. Peace.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you're unfamiliar with compatibalism.
DeleteNo, very familiar with it--and it changes nothing in regards to the extent of what God has determined. You seem to think it does. So are you saying our individual sinful choices are not individually determined by God's prior decree?
DeleteCan you explain how my prior comment is incompatible with compatibalism?
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DeleteThanks for the reply Steve. I do appreciate it, but I have to confess brother I don't understand the deteriorating tone of your reply. I'm sure we have both been involved in discussions such as this where the other side seeks to score points through ad hominem and sarcasm. Perhaps we can refrain from referring to each other as a "callow, pompous, intellectual lightweights" as if we are in a pissing match of words for "prize money." I have only encountered your blog in passing before and this is the first time I have dialogued with you. I consider you incredibly intelligent and concede your brilliant I.Q. outshines my own--so no need to go further in proving that to yourself or me. You win that "prize money."
ReplyDeleteHowever that doesn't mean your arguments are sound, so I'm going to push back on some of your more substantive comments and pass on the ones where I believe there is more avoidance that argument.
1) Lydia McGrew rightly noted that any view that assumes permitting evil and doing evil is morally equivalent collapses into numerous utilitarian dilemmas. She stated, "it is actually extremely important to distinguish doing evil from permitting evil in ethical reasoning generally. Without that distinction, one is forced into all sorts of utilitarian dilemmas...What is wrong with that [your] reasoning is precisely the incorrect premise that there is no difference between doing evil and permitting evil." She then presented you with an example of a utilitarian dilemma that confronts your fundamental insistence there is no moral difference between permitting evil and doing evil. You then concede that in some cases there could be a moral difference, but then offered an invalid example to prove they can also be morally equivalent.
Furthermore I never accused you of saying one should shoot the baby (but of course you would have to concede that all babies that are murdered are murdered because God determined it be so). What I did accuse you of was not responding to her charge that utilitarian, ethical dilemmas confront your view more than you may realize. I apologize if you feel that is too "malicious" of me.
2) "So you default to legal conventions because you can't offer a philosophical rebuttal. Thanks for the backdoor admission of defeat. Where should I go to collect my prize money?"
The sarcasm notwithstanding, my point stands. In your view wherein God causally determined all evil events, God doesn't just allow people to fall into snake pits by failing to warn them. God digs all the pits, fills them with vipers and then engineers ingenious, calculated plots to render it certain people fall into them. In your view all evil is pre-meditated by God. My point about the legal system was to simply point out the culpability inherent in pre-meditation over against negligence and failing to warn others of possible dangers. The courts recognize this because they do understand there to be a moral and philosophical difference between permitting certain evils and causing them. But feel free to keep the "prize money."
Matt B
Delete"Thanks for the reply Steve. I do appreciate it, but I have to confess brother I don't understand the deteriorating tone of your reply. I'm sure we have both been involved in discussions such as this where the other side seeks to score points through ad hominem and sarcasm."
Just in passing, ad hominem is not necessarily wrong. For example, see Ed Feser's post here. See some of what philosopher and logician Peter Geach has written on the topic as well.
Matt B
Delete"In your view wherein God causally determined all evil events, God doesn't just allow people to fall into snake pits by failing to warn them. God digs all the pits, fills them with vipers and then engineers ingenious, calculated plots to render it certain people fall into them. In your view all evil is pre-meditated by God."
Of course, with comments like this, you're committing ad hominem against God.
You're also poisoning the well with your language.
"She then presented you with an example of a utilitarian dilemma that confronts your fundamental insistence there is no moral difference between permitting evil and doing evil."
DeleteThat was never my fundamental insistence.
"You then concede that in some cases there could be a moral difference…"
I never denied that in the first place.
"…but then offered an invalid example to prove they can also be morally equivalent."
Calling it invalid doesn't make it so.
"Furthermore I never accused you of saying one should shoot the baby (but of course you would have to concede that all babies that are murdered are murdered because God determined it be so)."
Actually, all babies that are murdered are murdered because the God of freewill theism determined it to be so. If a mother loses control of a babystroller, which begins to roll downhill, if I'm in a position to stop it, but step aside and let gravity do the rest, my inaction determines the outcome.
"What I did accuse you of was not responding to her charge that utilitarian ethical dilemmas confront your view more than you may realize."
Since my position isn't utilitarian, there's nothing for me to respond to.
"In your view wherein God causally determined all evil events…"
The same could be said for freewill theism. As philosopher David Lewis defines it, “We think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes must be a difference from what would have happened without it. Had it been absent, its effects — some of them, at least, and usually all — would have been absent as well.”
In that case, God causes evil events by not intervening to prevent them. And causation is a deterministic concept.
"God digs all the pits, fills them with vipers…"
You're confusing predestination with occasionalism. You have a lot to learn.
"In your view all evil is premeditated by God."
And in your view God is ignorant?
"My point about the legal system was to simply point out the culpability inherent in premeditation over against negligence and failing to warn others of possible dangers."
You're conceding that to let him fall into the snake pit is culpable.
3) Now allow me to break down where I see your argument as really incoherent--no offense meant. On the one hand you concede God has unconditionally determined every moral choice humans make, such that it is not within our control to do other than that which God determined. You concede the "outcome must" occur. On the other hand you want to adopt the language of "permission" and say God permits humans to commit the very evils he determined they "must" commit.
ReplyDeleteYou argue this is not an invalid usage of the word "permission" because it is consistent with determinism, insofar as one understands "permission" as meaning nothing can obligate or prevent God from determining one outcome over another.
Steve, it is undeniable that your utilization of the word "permission" is simply a meaningless, empty formality in the outworking of God's exhaustive determinations that "must occur." It is meaningless as it relates to the agent because no agent is free to do other than what God determined, and meaningless as it relates to God because it is absurd to think God must receive permission from himself to follow through with his own predeterminations.
I ask you again, do you think God needs to get permission from himself to achieve the predetermined end of his own will? It really is a "yes" or "no" question. I'm not trying to trap you.
4) Lastly you stated, "Thanks for proving my point: the distinction between causing/determining evil and permitting evil is insufficient to exculpate God. You must supplement that with additional justifications."
Not so fast, brother. I do admit I could have been more clear in referencing your steak knife analogy. Allow me to do so now. Obviously I would agree God is not obligated to anyone in allowing them to do anything. Rather in permitting people to disobey him, God is choosing not to abort his own sovereign, creational intention to create a world of genuine freedom and possible goods. The Arminian position is that divine permission of evil is grounded in such a sovereign, creational context. That is the only "supplemental...additional justification" God needs in permitting evil, such that his holy character is not buried under the confusing rubble of pre-meditating and causally determining all evil.
For in your view God's holy mind is the ultimate, origin of conception for the very evils that oppose his holy character. To assume that the divine will could simultaneously be the ultimate source for one's oppression by evil and one's deliverance from the same evil is absurd. Let's remember it was Christ who rebuked such a theodicy as a house divided against itself.
So as it concerns your steak knife analogy, the analogy fails to relate to the an Arminian context of divine permission of evil because the giver of the knives either doesn't care how people use the gift of knives (freedom) or desires they use their knives (freedom) for evil. Neither one accurately captures God's sovereign intention in giving people freedom--that can admittedly cut like a knife or heal like a scalpel.
In short the backdrop as to why God created free agents and refuses to abort his sovereign, creational intention whenever men or woman misuse their freedom is paramount to these discussions.
All the best Steve.
"On the other hand you want to adopt the language of 'permission'…"
DeleteI've given no indication that I want to adopt the language of permission. I used the word because I was discussing Arminian theodicy, which clings to that distinction.
Then, when you said a Calvinist can't meaningfully use that word, I corrected you. None of which implies that I want to use the language of permission, much less "adopt" that language. BTW, is permission an orphan? Must I apply to an adoption agency to use that word?
"You argue this is not an invalid usage of the word 'permission' because it is consistent with determinism, insofar as one understands 'permission' as meaning nothing can obligate or prevent God from determining one outcome over another."
Wrong, I said permission and determinism are consistent because an agent permits what he can prevent.
My additional explanation was in response to your muddleheaded objection about "why did he not divinely prevent them to occur, Steve? Because he already divinely decreed and determined they must occur!"
"It is meaningless as it relates to the agent because no agent is free to do other than what God determined…"
It is meaningful because God permits what he doesn't prevent. What happens and what doesn't happen are equally predestined.
"and meaningless as it relates to God because it is absurd to think God must receive permission from himself to follow through with his own predeterminations."
So your objective was to demonstrate that you don't know idiomatic English. Very well. "Permission" can mean more than one thing.
a) It can be used in the sense of an action that requires authorization or consent.
b) It can be used as a synonym for allowing or letting something happen.
Your statement suffers from a fatal equivocation, because you are now using "permission" in the sense if (b), whereas, in theological usage, it carries the sense of (a).
Perhaps when you graduate from elementary school, you will appreciate the difference.
"I ask you again, do you think God needs to get permission from himself to achieve the predetermined end of his own will? It really is a 'yes' or 'no' question. I'm not trying to trap you."
I think you need an English tutor to bring you up to speed. Maybe flash cards would help.
"For in your view God's holy mind is the ultimate, origin of conception for the very evils that oppose his holy character."
"Conception" in the sense of what? The original idea of evil? Are you suggesting God's mind was a blank with respect to the very notion of evil until the Fall gave God that concept for the first time?
"To assume that the divine will could simultaneously be the ultimate source for one's oppression by evil and one's deliverance from the same evil is absurd."
It is? God is simultaneously the source of Pharaoh's opposition to liberating the Israelites (by hardening Pharaoh) as well as the source of their liberation (by plagues that wear down Pharaoh's resistance).
It's like the definition of drama: conflict resolution. Shakespeare creates conflict in order to create resolution.
"Let's remember it was Christ who rebuked such a theodicy as a house divided against itself."
Christ wasn't rebuking a theodicy.
"So as it concerns your steak knife analogy, the analogy fails…"
Actually, every critical commenter has validated the analogy by admitting that mere permission is not ipso facto exculpatory.
Hello Matt B,
ReplyDeleteYou seem like you could be a nice enough person if we met over lunch or something, but I gotta say you come across as someone who isn't interested in interacting with anyone because you've just got an axe to grind. Changing the subject, asserting that those you disagree with must believe something they've said they don't, and posting walls of text about your own pet theories doesn't endear you to the average reader. In fact, I stopped reading you about halfway through because it was such a turnoff.
You can feel free to dismiss what I say or apply it or whatever. No skin off my teeth, as the saying goes.
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ReplyDeleteMatt B
Delete"Is that possible for you to do Steve?"
1. Ironically Matt B doesn't realize how "arrogan[t]" and patronizing he sounds. He comes off like he's a school teacher talking down to little children. And this is hardly the first time Matt B has behaved like this. Just see his previous comments.
2. I've documented an instance where Matt B has behaved less than respectfully. See the second half of my comment here. Matt B subsequently apologized. But has he actually changed? That remains to be seen.
When Matt says that each on of our choices were "unconditionally" determined by God, this entails that not even one choice was determined on the condition of a prior choice being made (even if that prior choice was itself determined). So, Matt, what's the argument look like that concludes "on theological determinism, not one choice was determined given that a prior choice had been made."
ReplyDelete