On Facebook, Christian philosopher Jeremy Pierce commented on a post by (or hosted by) Arminian/Anabaptist NT scholar Scot McKnight:
Pierce responded:
This is utterly weird. Scot McKnight issues a challenge to a view he keeps calling Calvinism, but it's a particular version of divine command theory that he turns out to be criticizing, not anything to do with Calvinism.
The issues are not tied together in any way. They're about different things. One is about God's relationship with the events that take place in creation. The other is about God's relationship with moral truths. Calvinists hold that God is sovereign over every event that occurs, even our free choices. Divine command theorists hold that God's commands are what make moral truths true. You can be a divine command theorist without being a Calvinist (as John Locke was), and you can be a Calvinist without being a divine command theorist (as Gottfried Leibniz was).
And not even every version of divine command theory would be subject to McKnight's objection. Robert Adams and Bill Alston's versions of divine command theory wouldn't be, since they ground God's commands ultimately in God's nature and not in arbitrary, groundless commands. So it's just a mistake to think that these are arguments that are even about Calvinism, never mind serious criticisms of it.
I wasn't aware that Leibniz was a calvinist; learn something new everyday!
ReplyDeleteLeibniz was a Lutheran, and Luther held a view on issues of divine sovereignty and salvation that was pretty close to Calvin's. He is pretty clear that God picks among the various complete concepts there are for people, which amounts to everything you will ever do. By picking which complete concepts to actualize, God thereby determines which course of events will happen. Certainly not an Arminian.
ReplyDeleteThese issues aren't so easily separated if one holds to the omnibenevolence of God. I think what he's driving at, though he does not mention it explicitly, is the similarity in how each category adopts immanence. The pantheist outright says that God and nature are coterminous. The Calvinist, in the Edwardian/Piper mold (who are simply following Calvin and Perkins), makes creation an extension of God. If God exists outside of nature, and everything inside of nature is under the active control and command of God, then what isn't God at that point? The distinction is obliterated in any rational sense.
ReplyDeleteIf the universe is God's painting (I've heard Calvinists use the metaphor), then God must have intended to paint evil. Then I'd want to ask, how is the intent to paint evil different from the evil itself? How can we say that an act is evil, but the intention and process by which it was devised by an all-knowing being is purely good? Pantheists do not have to explain the problem, because they are fine with holding that evil can exist within God. Christians, orthodox ones anyway, refrain from saying that God is in any sense evil.
Divine command theory becomes irrelevant, because the entire universe is an expression of God's will if both obeying or disobeying His commands are so consistent with His will that he determines obedience/disobedience.
Jacob:
ReplyDelete"These issues aren't so easily separated if one holds to the omnibenevolence of God."
What does "omnibenevolence" even mean? That's become a popular buzzword. You need to define your terms. It's not traditional theological usage.
Paul Helm has argued that omnibenevolence is incoherent in chap. 8 of Nothing Greater, Nothing Better: Theological Essays on the Love of God.
"The Calvinist, in the Edwardian/Piper mold (who are simply following Calvin and Perkins), makes creation an extension of God. If God exists outside of nature, and everything inside of nature is under the active control and command of God, then what isn't God at that point? The distinction is obliterated in any rational sense."
There are fundamental metaphysical distinctions. The creation is categorically different than God. God objectives his idea of creation in time and space. God himself is not temporal or spatial. God is a se, the creation is contingent. In addition, you have a doctrine of second causes.
It's an "extension" of God in the sense that any artwork is an extension of the artist's conception.
"If the universe is God's painting (I've heard Calvinists use the metaphor), then God must have intended to paint evil. Then I'd want to ask, how is the intent to paint evil different from the evil itself? How can we say that an act is evil, but the intention and process by which it was devised by an all-knowing being is purely good?"
That's like saying, if Christopher Noland intended to create a villain, if the Joker is an extension of Nolland's imagination, then how is the intent to create an evil character different than the evil itself? Well, that's a pretty obtuse question. The intention of a director or screenwriter to create a villain can clearly diverge from the intentions of the villain. The villain is a foil character. In a morality play, you need a villain to expose the nature of evil, in contrast to the nature of good.
The Dark Knight Trilogy is an expression of Nollan's will. The presence of heroes and villains alike is consistent with his moral vision. But that hardly makes them equivalent to each other or identical to the director. It depends on the dramatic function of in the story.
Jacob wrote:
ReplyDeleteIf God exists outside of nature, and everything inside of nature is under the active control and command of God, then what isn't God at that point? The distinction is obliterated in any rational sense.
Maybe you can make more explicit how absolute control over everything entails either pantheism or panentheism. I personally don't see it.
If the universe is God's painting (I've heard Calvinists use the metaphor), then God must have intended to paint evil.
Yes, Calvinism teaches that God intended/planned every and all evil (and sin) that does come to pass. As Steve succinctly put it, "According to Calvinism, God does will sin [and evil]. He doesn’t will sin [and evil] for its own sake. He doesn’t will sin [and evil] in isolation. But he wills sin [and evil] to achieve certain second-order goods."
How can we say that an act is evil, but the intention and process by which it was devised by an all-knowing being is purely good?
This is the heart of the matter. The issue that's most difficult and troubling for the Calvinist position. I'm still not fully satisfied with the Calvinist answers I've encountered. But in general Calvinists (like myself) would argue that the intentions and plans of God are comprehensive and all-encompassing interweaving into intricate good designs. While the intentions of creatures are finite and limited to their own selves and selfish interests. It would be analogous to people don't their arithmetic to always end up with negative or odd numbers and with the intention being that they end up odd. Whereas God's arithmetic always end up positive or even numbers and His intention always being even. Of course this is an analogy since there's nothing intrinsically wrong/evil with odd numbers or intrinsically right/good with even numbers. The point being that God's plans encompass all of reality and creation as a whole as well as all creatures individually. The whole is not conceived of apart from the parts, nor are the parts conceived of apart from the whole.
CONT.
John Piper wrote:
DeleteEdwards did not claim to exhaust the mystery here. But he does help us find a possible way of avoiding outright contradiction while being faithful to the Scriptures. To put it in my own words, he said that the infinite complexity of the divine mind is such that God has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses. He can look through a narrow lens or through a wideangle lens.
When God looks at a painful or wicked event through His narrow lens, He sees the tragedy of the sin for what it is in itself, and He is angered and grieved: “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 18:32).
But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through His wide-angle lens, He sees the tragedy of the sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything flowing out from it. He sees it in relation to all the connections and effects that form a pattern, or mosaic, stretching into eternity. This mosaic in all its parts—good and evil—brings Him delight.
- Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist
Divine command theory becomes irrelevant, because the entire universe is an expression of God's will if both obeying or disobeying His commands are so consistent with His will that he determines obedience/disobedience.
There are different senses in God's will or to the term God's will. Most Calvinists are willing to grant at least two senses of God's will: 1. God's decretive will and 2. God's prescriptive will. Some Calvinists even argue for a third type of God's will; 3. God's dispositional will. In order to preserve the doctrine of God's simplicity some Calvinists argue that these distinctions don't actually exist in God but are only modes in which we creatures can see things from our finite perspective, while others are willing to say such distinctions do exist in God. I don't take a side on whether these distinctions are internal or external to God. However, I do think such distinctions can make sense of how some things are and are not God's will. I myself see see 6 types of God's will.
1. God's WILL OF DECREE [also known as "sovereign will" or "decretive will of God"]
2. God's WILL OF DEVICE
3. God's WILL OF DEMAND [AKA God's "preceptive will" or "prescriptive will"]
4. God's WILL OF DELIGHT [AKA God's "dispositional will," "will of disposition" or "will of desire"]
5. God's WILL OF DIRECTION
6. God's WILL OF DESIGN
I've outlined my views on God's 6 types of wills at my blogpost:
Distinctions in God's Will from a Calvinist Perspective
http://misclane.blogspot.com/2013/11/distinctions-in-gods-will-from.html
Regarding Divine Command Theory, I've outlined my views on Divine Command Essentialism at my blogpost:
God in Relation to Law: Ex Lex, Sub Lego or Sibi Ipsi Lex
http://misclane.blogspot.com/2014/05/god-in-relation-to-law-ex-lex-sub-lego.html
TYPO CORRECTION:
DeleteIt would be analogous to people don't ["DOING", not "don't"] their arithmetic to always end up with negative or odd numbers and with the intention being that they end up odd.
“There are fundamental metaphysical distinctions. The creation is categorically different than God. God objectives his idea of creation in time and space. God himself is not temporal or spatial. God is a se, the creation is contingent. In addition, you have a doctrine of second causes.”
ReplyDeleteBut, as Helm asks, “Precisely what is the primary causal power from which my action issues? ‘Issue’ in what sense?” The Providence of God, p. 181
And as he further notes, “[I]t is hard to see that there can be two separate sets of necessary and sufficient conditions for the same action, even if one of these sets is a set of primary conditions, and the other a set of secondary conditions. Calling certain conditions ‘primary’ and others ‘secondary’, does not by itself solve anything.” The Providence of God, p. 182
What's your point in those quotations from Helm's book? Are you agreeing or disagreeing with Calvinism? I get the sense that you're disagreeing, but I'm not sure.
DeleteThe distinction between primary and secondary causation is certainly adequate to distinguish God from what's not God.
DeleteI've discussed this in more detail:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/09/artificial-reality.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-divine-video-game.html
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ReplyDeleteGood analysis and execution by dissection of McKnight's attempted hatchet job Jeremy. The Dark Lord Calvin will be pleased.
ReplyDeleteBwah ha ha ha ha ha!!!
Sorry, just got back from watching The Force Awakens (again). But seriously, nice work.
Make that Walker's attempted hatchet job, but it's McKnight's place, so he's culpable.
Delete