Free Will and Sovereignty: Responding to a Facebook Analogy

A friend of mine on Facebook posted a conundrum that had been shared with him (note: he disagreed with what the original poster was trying to imply, but was interested in my opinion too).  The post was simple: 

There are no tracks. There are no people. There is no trolley.

The Conductor lays the tracks, builds the trolley, and creates six androids.

He ties five of the androids to one track and one to other.

He drives the trolley and runs over the five.

He unties to sixth and says "I saved you from being run over!"

The sixth one is grateful, as he was programmed to be.

(Calvinist trolley problem)

Of course, my first reaction to this was “Great, another tired puppet metaphor dragged out by those who don’t understand anything about Calvinism.”  And it’s true.  Calvinists have been hearing variations of this for centuries.  It’s nothing but an analogy absent an argument, all intended to make you ignore what the Bible has actually said.

Furthermore, the above analogy does not represent Calvinist beliefs at all.  Calvinism does not argue that men are puppets, robots, androids, or marionettes, because the Bible does not say that.  Calvinists do say that God is sovereign over all things, because the Bible does say that.  Calvinists also typically are compatibilists (I know I am, as are most Calvinists I dialogue with), which means that we stipulate that there is compatibility between sovereignty and free will—again, because that’s what the Bible says.

Now it would be trivially easy to respond to the Arminian with another analogy.  Just take the fact that Colossians 1:16 - 17 tells us that “all things were created through” Christ, and furthermore that in Him “all things hold together.”  With that in mind: 

There are no tracks.  There are no people.  There is no trolley.

The Conductor lays the tracks, builds the trolley, and creates the people, giving them Libertarian Free Will.

One person the Conductor is holding together gets onto the trolley that the Conductor is holding together and runs it over the rails that the Conductor is holding together and runs over the other five that the Conductor is...um...no longer holding together.

The sixth one is happy that his will was not challenged.

(Arminian trolley problem)

So much for the persuasive power of analogies.  But again, that would just be an analogy minus an argument and I would never leave it at that.

The fact of the matter is that if we can show just one occurrence of God overriding the freedom of an individual without there being any moral qualms, then Libertarian Free Will has no leg to stand on.  So let me show two just from the book of Genesis. 

Look at Genesis 20, specifically verses 3-6, when Abraham lied about Sarah saying she wasn’t his wife but his sister so Abimelech took her to be his wife: 

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.”

Notice that Abimelech’s actions are described as being from “the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands.”  And furthermore, God concurred by saying “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart.”  This is Abimelech’s genuine mental disposition, his genuine decision—this is what he chose to do.  And yet: “It was I who kept you from sinning against me” says the LORD.  “Therefore I did not let you touch her.”

God did not let Abimelech touch Sarah.  Yet Abimelech also says he did not touch her from his own integrity, and God agreed with that assessment.  Libertarian Free Will can make no sense of this statement without concluding God is simply lying.

And what of the second illustration? Later on we read Joseph’s own declaration that he was sold into slavery because of the evil of his brothers, and yet also because God intended it.  “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).

Even as clear as that statement is, there is a lot packed into it that may be unobserved.  Consider what “it” was in the statement “God meant it for good.”  This is Joseph’s being sold into slavery.  Why did the brothers hate Joseph enough to sell him into slavery?  Genesis 37 tells us that too.  Joseph had a dream that his father and brothers would bow down to him, and Genesis 37:19 tells us what they had in mind: “Here comes this dreamer.”

And we know the rest of the story: The brothers sold him into slavery, and he was brought to Egypt.  Joseph worked for Potipher.  His wife then claimed Joseph had attacked her, and Joseph was thrown into jail.  And then, Joseph interpreted the dreams for two criminals, one who was killed and the other who was restored.  Then Pharaoh had dreams and the cup-bearer who was restored told him about Joseph.  And Joseph interpreted those dreams, such that when the famine came they had plenty of food, so that Joseph’s father and brothers were forced to visit Egypt and, seeing Joseph but not recognizing him, they bowed down to him exactly as Joseph’s original dream had foretold.

But wait, there’s even more.  Why was the famine coming?  When Pharaoh had his dream, he had two dreams.  Joseph interprets it by saying: “God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. … God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. …And the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream means that the thing is fixed by God, and God will shortly bring it about” (Genesis 41:25, 28, 32).

The famine itself is something that God did.  It is not a random famine that came out of nowhere.  It was God’s intention to bring about a famine.

One could obviously ask the question, then: if God sent it, then He was in control the whole time. He could decide who it would affect, when, and why. So, why did God go through the rather convoluted process of giving Joseph dreams that would cause his brothers to hate him so much that they would sell him into slavery where he would then be falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown in jail, so that he would be in the place where two officials of Egypt would be sent in order for Joseph to interpret their dreams, so that years later when Pharaoh had a dream Joseph would be brought out of prison, become the second in command of Egypt, save countless people, and finally to have his brothers and father bow down to him just as his dream had predicted at the very beginning?  I mean, have you thought about this yet?  If any single one of those items doesn't go exactly as it did, the whole thing collapses.

Yet even given all that, Joseph concludes that while his brothers meant it for evil, God meant it for good.  His brothers still intended evil—they chose to do evil.  And they knew it.  For instance, before this we read:

Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them (Genesis 42:21-23).

They admit they are guilty of what they did, and Reuben goes so far as to acknowledge what they did was a sin.  They knew they were responsible for all they had done and yet Joseph would still say: 

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 45:5-8).

What they did in sending Joseph to Egypt was evil; yet God sent him to Egypt.  “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”  How is this possible if Libertarian Free Will is correct?  But it makes perfect sense if one is a compatibilist and recognizes that men are morally responsible for their choices even when God is sovereign over them.

The passages could be increased exponentially throughout the rest of the Bible too, from the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to God’s actions during the trials of Job, to the statements of Paul outright saying in Romans 9:16 “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” illustrating that with the previously mentioned example of Pharaoh too.  The Bible is consistent and clear throughout that God is sovereign and does as He pleases even in circumstances where those who God uses for His own good purposes face moral judgment for the evil they have committed.

You might not like that that’s what the Bible says, but you’re not going to overturn those clear passages with a simplistic, inaccurate analogy.

Explaining evil, part 2

Now I'll comment on some aspects of Helm's presentation. 

An important feature of this contribution to the questions raised by evils is that such a theism is monistic….Some contrasting systems are dualistic, positing two equally ultimate sources of good and evil, Light and Darkness, engaged in an everlasting wrestling match, and so on. Judeo-Christianity is not like this. God is the creator and purposer of all that is. So the question, "Why evil?" when posed of this God, becomes at least two questions (50).

In that regard, freewill theism is dualistic. Although the forces of good and evil aren't equally ultimate, they are independent of each other. 

"What is God's purpose in permitting/ordaining evil?" The fulfilling of what end or ends required evil?…This  is a question that is teleological in character. I don't think an atheist has a place for this question, because any atheistic system has only one set of sources of evil, namely uncreated matter. A theist may reply to our question by recognizing that he does not have a clue as to why there is evil in God's world. But the question nevertheless makes sense: God must have a ground or grounds. The second question is, "Granted that God is the ordainer of evil, how does evil occur?" (50).

In this monism there are two categories of players: God the creator and human beings his creatures, with the use of their own minds and wills…In materialist atheism, there is only one set of players, configurations of matter more or less complicated. Some of these posses agency, others do not (50).

How such configurations get to ask anything is a major problem in such an outlook…Atheists, like theists, may resort to anthropomorphism. Perhaps these evils are bound up with the self-preservation of some species, or of species generally. Maybe evils and pains are spurs to good: to maternal care, or the development of clothing for a covering against heat and cold, or as a sign of the onset of serious sickness…They arise from our penchant for imputing functions or purposes to some of the natural order that does not having anything like human intentions a we experience these…And if we are thorough-going materialists, we also have the task of explaining how those arrangements of matter that are you and me come to have the capacity to impute good and evil to other chunks of matter. Good and evil are ultimately epiphenomena of physical changes (51).

Useful contrast. 

The fault, the incarnation, and the offering of the Incarnate One is needed, for the display of the glory of God in the redemption of men and women. The point here is not simply that the incarnation was necessary, but that an evil world in which God himself came and suffered for us is incommensurably better than one in which there was no evil, but also that there was no incarnation (53).

The problem is that Helm never gets around to explaining what makes a redeemed world incommensurably better than an unfallen world. He never gets much beyond the bare assertion. 

In fairness, he isn't presenting a full-blown theodicy since the topic of the book has a different emphasis than the problem of evil. Still, for a Christian, to ask why there's any evil at all is necessarily bound up with the problem of evil and theodical considerations.  

The theist must end his explanatory narrative by invoking the will of God; it was the good pleasure of God that this is so. Why is it the good pleasure of God that this is so? This is a question that cannot be answered, not because there is no answer, but that there is no answer apart from the will of God (55).

I don't know what that means. Sure, the answer can't be detached from God's will, but God has reasons for what he wills, so a Christian can explore the possible reasons. God's bare will is not the ultimate explanation. I don't think Helm is a theological voluntarist. God's will is characterized by his wisdom and benevolence. There's a rationale for whatever God wills. 

Given the immaculate and necessary perfection of God, moral evil can only arise from the creature. It is a logical consequence of the monistic character of the Creator-creature distinction that God is the only source of good and that moral evil has its source according to orthodox Christianity in the creature (55).

i) I don't think that's an option for a Calvinist. Predestination is the ultimate source of evil. 

Now there are different aspects to that. To take a comparison, in Perelandra, why doesn't the Queen succumb to the Un-man? At one level, that's because everything that happens was plotted by the novelist, who exists outside the narrative. At another level, the Un-man would eventually wear down her resistance but Ransom finally gives up on trying to outargue the Un-man and kills him. So there's an explanation within the narrative as well as an explanation outside the narrative.

By the same token, there was a plot in God's imagination. In the plot, Lucifer fell, then successfully tempted Adam and Eve to follow suit. God instantiates his mental narrative in real space and time, with conscious agents. Lucifer fell in the real world because that necessarily corresponds to the plot in God's mind. 

ii) However, that doesn't rule out factors or motivations within the plot. For instance, although Adam sinned, perhaps he didn't perceive his action as evil. Perhaps he misperceived his action as virtuous. 

There is about evil a deficiency or loss of negativity. Augustine, influenced somewhat by the neo-platonists at this point, called evil a privation. Hence it could not be the direct action of God who is only capable of creating not of destroying. Blindness (say) is not a positive property, but a negative property (56).

i) As I understand it, the motivation for the privative theory of evil is that if evil is nothing, then God didn't create evil–since nothing can't be a creative object. An agent, even an omnipotent agent, can't create nothing. Nothing isn't the effect or result of anything. So that let's God off the hook–or does it?

ii) Even if we grant that technical distinction, does it really hold up? For instance, suppose you say the empty spaces in a snowflake are nothing. Yet those specific empty spaces, those particular shapes, are caused by the lattice pattern of the snowflake. The configuration of the empty spaces wouldn't exist apart from the crystalline structure. So even though the empty spaces aren't directly created, they are caused. 

Likewise, even if we say blindness is a privative property, blindness is caused by certain factors. Even if you say blindness isn't directly created, it is indirectly created by whatever conditions give rise to blindness, viz. disease, accident, genetic defect. So I don't see how you get any theodical mileage out of that distinction.

In fairness, Helm isn't necessary trying to justify the ordination of evil at this juncture, but explain its origin. How rather than why. But it still reflects the limitations of that theodical strategy. 

Someone who is compatibilistically free may go through stages in which, until he makes up his mind, he is as ignorant of his future as is any open theist who hold that God is ignorant of some libertarian future (31).

Corrects the popular misconception that the experience of deliberation implies libertarian freedom. Also, useful comparison with open theism. 

Hard determinist on the outside–softie on the inside

http://www.proginosko.com/2014/07/determinism-soft-or-hard/

Is Compatibilism Unfounded?

The origin of this post is from a question I asked my friends on Facebook, but I figured it would be worth expanding the audience a bit.  I have heard a lot of people criticize compatibilism as being incoherent, self-contradictory, and the like, but I think it’s relatively easy to establish at least one type of compatibilism that is coherent and ought not be controversial, even.

But first, what do we mean by compatibilism?  I take the definition here as: “God’s determining of an action is compatible with man’s moral responsibility for having performed that action.”  And by “moral responsibility” I mean that man is praiseworthy or blameworthy for performing the action that was determined. 

It’s easy to see why this causes some surface level tension for most of us.  If God determines that something will happen, how can we be responsible for it when we are doing what He determined?  So let me put forth the question I asked on Facebook: 

“Suppose that there is an action (A) that God has determined you will do.  God intends A because He’s got a good reason for doing so.  But you decide to do A because of a sinful reason.  Are you morally responsible for doing A even though A itself was determined by someone other than you?”

Or to put it another way:

1. God determines you will (A) because of morally good reason (G).

2. You (A) because of morally evil reason (E).

Under this scenario, I conclude you are therefore held morally responsible for your actions even though you did what was determined for you to do.

The Bible gives us (at least) two full examples where this format happens, and makes several allusions that appear to back it up as well.  The first example is when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery; the second when God used Assyria to punish Israel.  So in the first case, we have:

1. God determines that Joseph’s brothers will sell Joseph into slavery because He intends to save lives.

2. Joseph’s brothers sell Joseph into slavery because they hate Joseph.

We can establish each part of these claims from Scripture.  First, we know that God determined that Joseph’s brothers would sell Joseph into slavery because of Genesis 45:8a, “So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”  We know He did so for a good reason because of Genesis 50:20b, “God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  Finally, we know that Joseph’s brothers did so for an evil reason from the first half of that verse: “As for you, you meant evil against me.”

In the second example with Assyria, we have this structure:

1. God determines that Assyria will conquer Israel in order to punish evil and bring her to repentance.

2. Assyria conquers Israel because Assyria wishes to plunder and destroy.

Each of these is established in Isaiah 10.  Verse 6 informs us what the determined action and a partial reason for it is: “Against a godless nation I send [Assyria], and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.”  Verse 7 gives us Assyria’s evil reason for doing so: “But he does not so intend, and his heart does not so think; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.”  Finally, the ultimate good reason for why God acts is found in verse 20: “In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.”

In addition to these full examples, we have a multitude of examples that show part of the structure and by which we can infer the same result, such as in Acts 4:27-28, “For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”  And we even have the inverse, where instead of being morally blamed for sinful actions, we are morally praised for doing good that was determined for us: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

So looking at this, I think it’s safe to say that there is plenty of Biblical evidence that God can determine an action and the person who does the action can still be held morally responsible for having done that action, which is all that compatibilism requires to be established.  But what are some possible rejoinders to this?

First, I can imagine someone saying that the person is not actually held morally responsible for the action itself, but rather for the intent of the action.  To that I would say that this just is the manner in which most, if not all, actions are judged.  Take a man who cuts open the abdomen of another man and removes an organ.  This is an immoral action if the original man intends to torture or kill the victim, but it’s a morally praiseworthy action if the original man is performing life-saving surgery on the patient (no longer a victim).  To look at it from a different angle, suppose someone is insane and therefore incapable of understanding his own actions.  We do not typically hold such a person responsible for his actions, not because the action itself is different but because of why the action was performed.

Secondly, I can also imagine someone objecting: “But God decreed that they should have the intent they did.”  But where does compatibilism require God decree intents?  Even looking at the broader subject of Calvinism, having God ordain the actions but not ordaining the intent is at least not inconsistent with WCF 3.1, “God from all eterinity, did…ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”  Ordaining what someone will do is distinct from ordaining the reason why someone will do what they will do.  It is certainly logically possible to hold to the belief that God ordains all actions without ordaining even a single intention and still be consistent with the WCF.  And this view would fit in with several Scriptures too.  For example, Proverbs 16:9, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”

But in reality, we do not need to counter any of these objections, because neither of them would overthrow the fact that all we need is one instance where God determines an action (A) while holding a moral agent responsible for (A)-ing in order to establish that compatibilism can occur.  And we have two definite examples, plus a multitude that are highly suggestive in reserve, to do that for us here.

Calvinism and hard determinism

I'm going to comment on an article by self-styled Calvinist Theodore Zachariades

https://www.reformingamericaministries.com/single-post/2017/11/20/Consistent-Theological-Determinism-A-Challenge-to-James-White

I have not met an Arminian that concedes this compatibilist view of freedom. To them only libertarian freedom is real.

Why should Calvinists use Arminian views as the standard of comparison? 

What is the point of using Arminian arguments about supposed freedom to plead for Calvinist conclusions?

Since, by his own admission, Arminians reject compatibilism, appealing to compatibilism is inimical using Arminian arguments about supposed freedom to plead for Calvinist conclusions.

God is a planning Agent.

Free will is thereby an illusion, as our lives have been scripted and planned before by God. 

At the end of the day, we live out a script that God has decreed. He asked no counsel or took anything into consideration but His own will in this eternal decree. Meticulous providence rules out free will. Calvinists that affirm their truncated version of free will do so to maintain human responsibility. But the Bible does not use free will as an explanatory category to sustain human responsibility. We are responsible or accountable because we are created beings. God’s character, as indicated in His prescriptive law for humans, is the standard by which human behavior will be judged. 

If predestination is true, and it cannot be doubted in face of so much evidence, it must follow that free will is false. There is no free will in a universe directed and upheld by the Lord God Almighty. There are those who wish to maintain a semi-Calvinist or hypo-Calvinist view that asserts that free will is compatible with determinism. That still leaves one as a determinist, an inconsistent one, however. I prefer to stress theological hard determinism.4 Take the fall of Adam. Was it a free action or was it determined? I believe you cannot have it both ways. If determined, then was Adam truly free? This problem has a long history. I side with God’s decree including the fall of Adam; indeed, even the fall of Lucifer! Free will in a compatibilist-determinist worldview is only free in name. 

Libertarians, of all stripes, renounce these arguments by compatibilists, and thereby they win the argument by the definition. If free will is compatible with determinism, why not claim that libertarian free will is compatible with determinism? The reason one cannot is that the determinism side weighs too heavily and truly precludes libertarianism or true free will. Compatibilists like to use the language of free will without having the substance.

i) Let's begin with some standard definitions of hard determinism (or theological hard determinism) from the philosophical literature:

Hard determinists (William James’s term) are also incompatibilists, but they accept determinism and deny that we have the sort of free will required for moral responsibility. Derk Pereboom, Living Without Free Will (Cambridge 2003), xiv.

Hard determinists are incompatibilists who take a harder line: since determinism is true, free will does not exist in the sense required for genuine responsibility, accountability, blameworthiness, or desert. Robert Kane, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Oxford 2002), 27. 

But another option, typically only hinted at, is to endorse theological hard determinism, according to which theological determinism is true, but as a result we are not morally responsible in the basic desert sense for our actions. Derk Pereboom, "Libertarianism and Theological Determinism," Kevin Timpe & Daniel Speak, eds. Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns (Oxford 2016), 116.

On that definition, Calvinism is antithetical to hard determinism. That humans are morally responsible agents whose actions are potentially blameworthy or liable to just desert is a Reformed essential. Zachariades is operating with an idiosyncratic definition of hard determinism that doesn't correspond to standard usage. He doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. Certainly his claim is uninformed. 

ii) When compatibilists say that human agents are "free" in some respects, what does that mean? The definition of "freedom" in the compatibilist sense depends on the point of contrast. "Free" compared to what? To take one representative example:

We typically make distinctions in the law and in morality between individuals who have been coerced and those who have not. Indeed, we distinguish between agents who have been manipulated (in certain ways), brainwashed, deceived, subject to clandestine subliminal advertising, and so forth, and those who are morally responsible. John Martin Fischer, "Semicompatibilism", Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith, & Neil Levy, eds. The Routledge Companion to Free Will (Routledge 2016), 5. 

On that definition, compatibilist freedom means freedom from certain types of manipulation, coercion, deception, brainwashing. So a compatibilist can specify the sense in which determinism is consistent with freedom. Does Zachariades deny that human agents are free in that sense? 

Likewise:

Semicompatibilism is the view that even though some freedoms–for instance, the ability to do otherwise–are incompatible with determinism, moral responsibility is compatible with determinism J. Campbell, Free Will (Polity 2011), 29-30.

Does Zachariades imagine that Calvinism is inconsistent with compatibililism (or semicompatibilism) in that sense? On the face of it, Zachariades appears to be ignorant of what hard determinism and compatibilism (or semicompatibilism) even mean. Yet these are terms of art. These are philosophical concepts. He needs to show some understanding of what they represent before he's in any position to assess them. As it stands, his discussion is incompetent. 

iii) Finally, determinism does not entail premeditation. For instance, the sequence of a randomly shuffled card deck is determinate, but unplanned. If you take a deck of cards, which has a preexisting sequence, bisect the deck, then randomly shuffle the cards so that a card from one half alternates with a card from the other half, the recombined deck has a determinate sequence even though the order of the cards is random rather than planned. 

Determinism is equally consistent with intended and unintended outcomes. Although determinism may be a necessary condition for premeditated events, it's not a sufficient condition. Zachariades needs a more discriminating category than determinism to articulate how everything happens according to a master plan. 

McCall on Theological Determinism & Compatibilism 1

"McCall on Theological Determinism & Compatibilism part 1"

More Compatibilism in Scripture

Most of us remember the stories of David in the Bible. We also have some recollection of Solomon. But after that, the names of the kings of Israel become somewhat of a mishmash of randomized consonants and vowels.

Even knowing the name of Solomon, however, many Christians do not realize that in 1 Kings 11, Solomon has turned away from the LORD. Because of that, we often miss an important story that shows once again that Libertarian Free Will cannot adequately explain what we read in Scripture while compatibilism does. Let us read the following:

And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen” (1 Kings 11:9-13, ESV).

And to further declare that this will happen, we read later on in the same chapter that the prophet Ahijah speaks to Jeroboam, a servant (see verse 26) of Solomon:

Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes...’” (1 Kings 11:30-31, ESV).

So we have two passages indicating that this will happen. Sure enough, in the next chapter, we read:

And when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only. (1 Kings 12:20, ESV).

Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, ended up being king of only Judah (and the remnants of Benjamin) while the ten other tribes formed their own nation under Solomon's servant, Jeroboam. But how did these events come about? We can see the primary cause is because Rehoboam did not listen to the people:

And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, David.” So Israel went to their tents (1 Kings 12:16, ESV).

But even before that, we read about the ultimate cause:

"So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat" (1 Kings 12:15, ESV).

Did you catch that? Rehoboam's refusal to listen to the people "was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word." And if that wasn't confirmation enough, when Rehoboam decided to go to war against Jeroboam, God said to the prophet Shemaiah:

“Say to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives the people of Israel. Every man return to his home, for this thing is from me’” (1 Kings 12:23-24, ESV).

Now consider these turn of events and trace the causality back. The kingdom was divided because Rehoboam didn't listen to the people, but God also clearly states multiple times that it is He who brought about those turn of events. God specifically says that Rehoboam didn't listen because God intended to fulfill His word. And not only that, but God's word was declared to Solomon about Solomon's actions, not to Rehoboam nor because of anything Rehoboam had done.

Now, if Libertarian Free Will is true, none of that makes sense. God did not tell Solomon, "Because you have sinned, I foresee that a consequence is that your son will choose of his own Libertarian Free Will not to listen to the people, and thus you will lose your kingdom." No, God said: "I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant." God declares that He will act. This is not something that just unfolds as a consequence of Solomon's sin. God engineers it.

But notice that Rehoboam didn't act contrary to his own will either. We read: "But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him" (1 Kings 12:8, ESV). Rehoboam abandoned the counsel. He chose to do what the young men had said instead of the old counselors who knew better. There is no mention of coercion here, nor is there any indication that Rehoboam ever said, "God, it isn't fair that you made me do this." Rehoboam clearly did as he wished. He was not compelled against his will.

Thus we see that the Bible clearly teaches both that Rehoboam acted as he willed and that his actions were precisely what God determined would happen to fulfill His word. That only makes sense in compatibilism, for this clearly just is man's freedom and God's determining working compatibly. And in fact, this gives a concrete illustration of the statement from the Westminster Confession of Faith: "God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established" (3:1).