Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Is It Even Possible?

With all the talk of robots and puppets, I wanted to take a moment to ask a basic question. Is it even possible for God to actually create a being that can make a non-determined choice, or does the brute fact of creation render that impossible?

Let’s consider an example of some choices I made today on my way home from work. I decided today that I would shave my head. The reasons I made this decision are plentiful, but just a few of them include the fact that I don’t like combing my hair when it gets too long, I am a warm-blooded person so having less hair keeps me cooler, and I like the way I look with a shaved head. Unfortunately for me, in order to shave my head, I needed to buy some new clippers. Why? Because my old clippers are worn out and now tend to try to rip clumps of hair off my scalp rather than cut hair. But why buy clippers in the first place? Because shaving one’s head requires no skill (thus I can do it) and it is about the same price to buy your own clippers, which have multiple uses, as it is to pay for a hair stylist to shave your head for you once. Therefore, it’s practical to buy my own clippers and shave my own head.

But this meant that I needed to stop somewhere to pick up these clippers. Thankfully, there is a Target store near my house, and its convenience made me decide to stop there on the way home. But today was payday and I was also a bit hungry after work, and next to the Target is an Arbys. So right now, between moments of typing, I am enjoying some Arbys dinner.

Now this is just one small set of choices I’ve made. Let’s examine them further. What did I decide to eat at Arbys? I picked a couple of sandwiches off their value menu. Today was payday and I had money that I could have splurged with, but I also know my rent check is going to hit soon and I already spend plenty of money on such things as my morning coffee and lunches, etc. But there were several options on the value menu which fit my budget.

I chose the junior roast beef. Why? Because I wanted beef. I could have picked chicken—in the past, I have picked their chicken. But today I wanted beef. Why?

Well, that was the mood I was in. But why should that be the case? I know in the past I’ve enjoyed both roast beef and chicken, and I could remember roughly my level of enjoyment with either option, and right now I preferred the roast beef. But why did I like roast beef in the first place?

A large portion of that has to do with body chemistry. People are omnivores and we get our nutrients from eating various types of food. This is why no one sells a gravel sandwich.

Additionally, various types of animals can also be quite tasty. This depends a great deal on individual tastes. But how does one develop one’s tastes? Given the abundance of ethnic food, it seems that people like to eat what they grew up eating. Different cultures prepare different foods, and people tend to like their own culture’s foods more than other cultures (this is by no means a 100% across the board thing though). So part of why I like roast beef is because I grew up in America and we consume a lot of beef here.

But in addition to cultural issues there are also such things as the way your specific parents prepared food. This can be either good or bad. As a kid, every Wednesday we would get spaghetti. And while my dad (who cooked it) is an excellent chef, having that every Wednesday eventually made it so that I don’t really care to eat much spaghetti. The same thing happened with Ramen soup when I was in college: it was really good until I had it every day for a semester.

But beyond even that, tastes are also determined by such things as what your mother ate while she was pregnant with you. That’s because, as you develop in the womb, you are adapting to your environment. And all your nutrients are coming, at that point, from what your mother eats. This helps to shape what your body will “crave” and what it won’t.

There’s a reason I’ve gone on this long explanation (and indeed, I could carry it even further—but the point, I believe, is already made). Our decisions are based on a long and complicated chain of seemingly unrelated events. Why should what my mother ate in the womb have any impact of the fact that I now decided to eat a roast beef sandwich? And yet it did have some influence.

Furthermore, very little of these events are under my control. I didn’t choose what my mother ate, I didn’t choose what my parents cooked as I grew up, I didn’t choose the country I was born in, I didn’t choose what agriculture would be happening here, etc. For that matter, I didn’t choose for my hair to grow requiring me to constantly have to shave my head!

Yet I doubt anyone would disagree that the choice was mine, despite all these things that combined to determine what that choice would be. So with all that complexity in mind, let us reexamine my opening question: Is it even possible for God to actually create a being that can make a non-determined choice, or does the brute fact of creation render that impossible?

Let’s think about this for a moment. If you tried to create a being that could make a non-determined choice, what would that entail? Well, if a choice is to pick between two or more available options, then you must first have a being that is capable of picking between two or more available options. So let us make a machine that can pick either an apple or an orange. How would we write the programming so that it could do so?

Well, we could hardwire it so that it prefers apples, or we can hardwire it so that it prefers oranges, or we can make it so it randomly picks between the two.

The problem is that none of those options allow us to have a non-determined choice. If we hardwire the machine, it’s obviously determined. If we have it pick randomly, then it cannot be considered a choice as the selection is done apart from the one who was supposed to do the selecting. The only way that we can avoid this is if we can somehow manage to make the machine hardwire itself to a specific preference.

But this only kicks us back one level into the same problem. It would once again require us to either hardwire the machine to pick a specific hardwiring scheme, or leave it up to chance. And thus the problem remains.

This is impossible to avoid. And it does no good to argue “God just can overcome this limitation.” This limitation is a logical limitation, and just as God cannot make a round square, so God cannot give us the ability to make a non-determined choice. Either the choice is determined or it is not a choice because it is random and arbitrary.

And this is at the very root of decision making. This is the primary choice, the one that kicks off everything else. And it must be determined or else arbitrary.

So let's think once again about my dinner. Why did I pick roast beef? Ultimately, we can trace back all the competing desires and past experiences and strip them down to say that I decided what to eat based on my evaluation of those options. But what made me evaluate those specific options in the way I did? Either it was because my "evaluation making" equipment (my reasoning ability) was determined in some manner such that the result occurred the way it did, or else it was a completely arbitrary choice, which means it wasn't a choice at all.

There is no escaping this. And therefore, since Arminians believe choices are real, they have to deal with robots and puppets just as much as they say Calvinists do. Determinism is a fact of creation.

108 comments:

  1. This was quite interesting. I haven't studied these issues in any great detail, but the idea that a non-determined choice is a logical impossibility (thus impossible for God) certainly has me now leaning in favor of Calvinism.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Which Arminian internet apologist made a sockpuppet named Tree?

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  5. Breastmilk tastes OK. I wouldn't down it by the gallon, but I know of mothers who've compared it to vanilla ice cream. Plus, children nursed until they're old enough to eat a wide variety of other foods still report enjoying the taste of breastmilk. Why should it taste any worse than cow's milk, which plenty of adults enjoy? It's sweeter.

    Also amniotic fluid - not "placental fluid" - can be flavoured by a mother's recent meals, and babies swallow that. There is evidence that taste preferences do, indeed, develop prenatally - here's a BBC article on the subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1098969.stm

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  6. Another, slightly more complete article about prenatal food preferences:

    http://www.parentingscience.com/prenatal-learning-about-food.html

    Peter: Good post! :) I've followed a similar line of though, using the analogy of falling in love (as a lot of people find the concept of "forced" love particularly abhorrent, both theologically and in terms of marriage). I usually go through the physical situations that led to me and my future husband being able to meet - being born in the same century, our parents' respective decisions to move to the same city, etc; coupled with the personality traits which made us inclined to fall in love. Obviously, neither the external nor internal factors were decided by us. I'd never thought to carry the argument through to the creator's "problem" though, so thanks for that.

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  7. Tree aka Theresa aka mom of six said:

    Sir, babies in the womb don't "taste" anything (except POSSIBLY, if the taste buds are at work, placental fluid which they suck and swallow). They get nutrients (directly to the belly, bypassing the mouth/tongue)from the mothers diet. Their first "taste" of anything is either breast milk or formula.

    Such firm pronouncements on gustatory development! But medical scientists and researchers are still trying to figure out how it all works. They're still trying to figure out "the embryonic relationship between placodes, papillae, and adult taste buds".

    So, your theory fails there.

    Actually, Peter's "theory" isn't entirely dependent on whether prenatal babies can taste.

    Also, even if we don't quite understand how taste develops, we know the development of taste buds and other related components (e.g. olfactory cells) are influenced by other things including various regulatory factors and this does occur in the womb. The development of the various taste buds will have an indirect influence on taste even if it's true the sense of taste itself hasn't developed in the womb. So, long story short, the sense of taste has been predetermined in one way or another, even if indirectly.

    Sorry, mom of six, but your theory fails.

    (I'm a mom of six and I think I've read enough to know)

    Well, the above links are from scientists and published in PubMed which is the central repository for nearly all academic medical science articles in the world. I think these scientists have read enough to know.

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  8. True, our impulses and desires are probably completely outside our realm of control.

    The question is whether we are capable of making a decision that does not conform to those impulses and desires.

    A Christian man may have a desire to fornicate. Yet, he may reluctantly refrain if he believes it's an egregious sin (even if he ends up with less overall happiness at the moment).

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  9. Unless we turn to the highly problematic and silly notion of open theism, I think this philosophical problem is unavoidable. If God seeks to create an agent, and knows precisely what actions said agent will enact if created, then God has effectively determined its actions. Because of God's exhaustive knowledge, nothing is left undetermined by him.

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  10. Tree said:
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    Sir, babies in the womb don't "taste" anything...
    ---

    Perhaps you should read what I actually wrote then. I mean, you quoted it and everything. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I said the nutrients that your mother ate "helps to shape what youre body will 'crave'." You know, in that section you quoted but ignored. None of that requires the unborn to taste anything.

    You also apparently misunderstand that our bodies "know" what nutrients we gain from foods, and it "knows" when it needs certain vitamins or minerals. (It's not foolproof, but enough of it goes on.) If you need potassium, for instance, you may start to crave food that's high in potassium content. Your body doesn't communicate this to you in words, you just suddenly want to eat a banana or something.

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  11. Rob said:
    ---
    The question is whether we are capable of making a decision that does not conform to those impulses and desires.

    A Christian man may have a desire to fornicate. Yet, he may reluctantly refrain if he believes it's an egregious sin (even if he ends up with less overall happiness at the moment).
    ---

    In which case, the Christian has a desire to please God and refrain from sin, right? So in that case, he has competing desires.

    Regardless, this doesn't address the issue at the point I'm examining. Namely, suppose a person is able to decide something regardless of desires and impulses. How does that ability come about?

    Not only that, but how does the person switch from following desires to rejecting them? At the point of the switch, the mind must make the decision because it's hardwired that way (determinism) or because it arbitrarily and randomly changes state (in which case, it's not a choice). Either way, you don't have a non-determined choice going on.

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  12. So what you are saying is that if man is a machine he is determined.

    This sounds very similar to arguments presented by atheists who are determinists. They simply leave God out the equation and suggests that we are products of our genetics and environment.

    It is a rather foolish argument. Did you notice how often you had to use the word "I" as the agent of the decision?

    And you also seem to be saying that you like both chicken and beef, so your decision simply is based on yourself. Right?

    The problem is you are ignoring the fact that the individual is a factor in the decision process. We are more than just the result of external stimuli. We are the ones who must decide between what is right and wrong. And that is why we are judged. If we are just machines, then the maker of the machine is judged as being incompetent.

    If you want it all to be mechanical, hence your machine analogy, you could easily eliminate God as a factor here. You are simply part of the greater machine of the universe.

    The problem with your argument is that God does not create human beings as machines. He creates beings in his image and likeness, moral agents who have to choose in situations where real moral choices are presented.

    You have limited God's work to a mechanical creation. That is too bad. That is a small god made in the image of man, perhaps a particular type of man - a programmer. You say, "God cannot" simply because you cannot.

    How foolish. You would make a fine atheist with such arguments. For example -

    http://www.iwishiknew.org/2007/09/atheism_determinism_and_free_will.html

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  13. How foolish. You would make a fine atheist with such arguments. For example -

    That is interesting since I read an article by Peter where he basically said that it was the arguments of an atheist that brought him to adopt determinism and reject free will.

    He wrote:

    It is not by accident that the first time my own Arminian ideas were questioned came at the hands of an atheist. (Yes, I was at one point in time an Arminian–as are all immature Christians; but the truth–the meat of the Bible–was presented as I grew.) You see, atheists, for all their incorrect assumptions about God, are not stupid people. They can see a fatal flaw in Christianity if ever there was one.

    Well, there isn’t one. But I found that as an Arminian, I could not defend Christianity. There is little surprise as to why I could not–I couldn’t defend Christianity because I was an Arminian and Arminianism is wrong! Since Arminianism is wrong, then it was impossible to defend it under close scrutiny of an atheist.


    The Illogical Arminian

    In the same article he seems to admit that the primary reason he abandoned belief in free will was not because of Scripture, but because of an atheist giving him an object lesson with a hamster:

    “If God is sovereign, then you cannot have free will.”

    These words were told to me one night during a school trip by one of my atheistic friends, Nate. I, like any other practical Arminian Christian, quickly jumped at him with the usual, “Yes there is!” But when asked how, I could only say, “Because there is!”

    So Nate offered an example. “Suppose that I have a hamster in my hand. I am completely sovereign because the hamster must do what I demand it to do. If I put it down on a table, it can now make free choices, but I am no longer sovereign, because I cannot determine what the hamster will do.”

    I was aghast. Could it be that there was no such thing as free will, or was God not sovereign? But didn’t all the preachers and writers of the time proclaim that we had free will and God was sovereign? After all, I heard of a sermon in the local community where I lived where the pastor said, “God will never violate your free will” yet he also said God was sovereign. So, how could I defend this position?

    The problem arose because I COULDN’T defend it. Here’s why. What I thought of as freedom was really autonomy. Such being the case, God had no sovereignty. It is precisely this confusion of terms that led Nate to his attack on Christianity. (Indeed, after I became a Calvinist, he actually realized that my arguments were more logical, and when I debated Arminians, he would side with me.)

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  14. The Illogical Arminian

    BTW, notice how Peter refers to Arminians as "immature Christians" who haven't yet accepted the "truth-the meat of the Scriptures". So just keep in mind that when Peter discusses these things with you he sees you as an immature Christian.

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  15. Bob Anderson said:

    So what you are saying is that if man is a machine he is determined.

    I think you've missed Peter's point. That's not at all what he said. Instead Peter is arguing against the possibility of human indeterminate or non-determined or arbitrary choices. As such he used a personal account to illustrate a point, and then a hypothetical about programming a machine to pick between apples and oranges. Again he's not at all arguing "if man is a machine he is determined." Also the talk about robots and puppets is in light of a previous post - a post you evidently didn't read let alone interact with. In any case, you might consider brushing up on your reading comprehension.

    This sounds very similar to arguments presented by atheists who are determinists. They simply leave God out the equation and suggests that we are products of our genetics and environment.

    Of course, "sounds very similar" is not an argument against what Peter has written. Rather it sounds more like you're trying to tar Peter's argument as guilty by association with your remark about his argument sounding similar to what some atheists might argue.

    Also, would you deny that we are in part products of our genetics and environment?

    It is a rather foolish argument. Did you notice how often you had to use the word "I" as the agent of the decision?

    So you say it's a foolish argument. But you don't argue how it's a foolish argument. How is using "'I' as the agent of the decision" foolish?

    The problem is you are ignoring the fact that the individual is a factor in the decision process.

    Well, if this is true, then doesn't it stand in contrast to your point that Peter uses the word "I" so often as "the agent of the decision"?

    We are more than just the result of external stimuli. We are the ones who must decide between what is right and wrong. And that is why we are judged. If we are just machines, then the maker of the machine is judged as being incompetent.

    Peter never said otherwise. You're burning a straw man.

    If you want it all to be mechanical, hence your machine analogy, you could easily eliminate God as a factor here.

    No, the reason Peter brought up the machine analogy isn't because he wants it all to be "mechanical". Once again he's arguing against non-determined choice.

    Also, you haven't argued for why "determined" needs to correlate to "mechanical".

    The problem with your argument is that God does not create human beings as machines.

    The problem with your statement is that Peter never said nor implied God created human beings as machines. Again, you're the one asserting that determinism implies human beings are machines.

    You have limited God's work to a mechanical creation. That is too bad. That is a small god made in the image of man, perhaps a particular type of man - a programmer. You say, "God cannot" simply because you cannot.

    You have limited your argument to a straw man. That is too bad. That is a big straw man made in the image of one's mind, perhaps a particular type of mind - yours. You say, "Burn it!" simply because you like burning straw men.

    How foolish. You would make a fine atheist with such arguments.

    How foolish. You would make a fine pyromaniac with such arguments.

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  16. arminianperspectives,

    Could you clarify something, you believe in what I would call a limited libertarian free will. By that I mean that you acknowledge that some things are determined, but not our choices. If this is not correct please let me know.

    Grace & peace

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  17. Mitch,

    We have had this conversation many times before at my blog and I have clarified this for you many times in those discussions. Feel free to revisit those discussions for your answer.

    God Bless,
    Ben

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  18. Wow. I mean, really. Wow.

    That's the best response you can come up with?

    Arminianism is worse off than I ever thought.

    Bob said:
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    So what you are saying is that if man is a machine he is determined.
    ---

    No, I said if man is created he cannot make a non-determined choice. Then I provided evidence for my statements, a key part of argumentation that you consistently lack.

    Bob said:
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    This sounds very similar to arguments presented by atheists who are determinists.
    ---

    Hey, did anyone notice Bob is using English here? Know who else uses English? MORMONS!!!

    Ph34r!!!1!

    Bob said:
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    Did you notice how often you had to use the word "I" as the agent of the decision?
    ---

    Did you notice how I offered an explanation as to how said agent made said decision, and the conclusion is that it is either determined or arbitrary, and that your scorn in no way refutes this conclusion?

    Bob said:
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    The problem is you are ignoring the fact that the individual is a factor in the decision process.
    ---

    How can I ignore the individual making a decision when I'm specifically discussion how an individual can make a decision? I mean, it's not like I was talking about the Battle of Hastings here.

    Bob said:
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    We are more than just the result of external stimuli.
    ---

    Yeah, and your name is more than just letters. So what? No one said otherwise.

    Bob said:
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    We are the ones who must decide between what is right and wrong.
    ---

    Again, HOW does one make these determinations? It is not enough to say that one does make them. It's like I'm talking about the internal combustion engine and your comeback is, "You have to put the key in the ignition or you can't drive." In short: Who cares?

    Bob said:
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    The problem with your argument is that God does not create human beings as machines. He creates beings in his image and likeness...
    ---

    So when you create your own universes, and when you become omnipotent, and when you become omniscient, then get back to me. Otherwise, simply saying "God could create something" doesn't answer the question. And if you would take five minutes to actually read what I wrote, you'd see I already addressed this point.

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  19. Arminianperspectives said:
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    BTW, notice how Peter refers to Arminians as "immature Christians" who haven't yet accepted the "truth-the meat of the Scriptures".
    ---

    Well, you certainly have never given me reason to doubt that view.

    By the way, I do love how you're so desperate that you pull out a ten-year-old essay that has nothing to do with the topic currently under discussion and then attempt to refute that. Shows great intellectual prowess on your part.

    In like spirit, hey did you guys know that Arminianperspectives once wrote:
    ---
    My Arminianism finally led to the inevitable Open Theist conclusion.
    ---

    And also he wrote this article once: http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/those-in-glass-ivory-towers-shouldnt-throw-stones/

    And if you don't find it relevant, then you're probably worse than Hitler.

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  20. Ben,

    At this time I do not have time to go back through your site, but i believe that this is the view you hold.

    I do not wish to deabte this issue as my thinking right now is closer to embracing that view then it is to reject that view.

    Grace & Peace

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  21. Well, I'm thinking it's one thing to create a machine that will make undetermined choices, but it's another thing to construct an agent, with a brain, body, etc.

    Maybe you can't make a machine with power of agency. But supposedly, the Arminian goes, machines are disanalogous with genuine agents, where there isn't anything like "coding" to do on them.

    But then again, that doesn't help the picture at all. This just brings up luck and randomness objections against libertarians--doesn't make it a logical impossibility, but it does make it a really unattractive view.

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  22. Steven said:
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    Maybe you can't make a machine with power of agency.
    ---

    Assuming agency means that one can have a non-determined choice, then what you say here is exactly the point that I'm getting at.

    Why couldn't you make a machine with the power of agency? It looks to me that such a thing is a logical impossibility. And the impossibility has nothing to do with what is created, it has to do with the creation process itself. It's a logical impossibility to CREATE such agency (as defined by non-determined choices).

    Thus, if it is logically impossible, then not even God could do it (for the same reasons that God cannot create a square circle).

    I would gladly entertain any Arminian theories that would show how it is possible (even in theory) to create something with the capability of making a non-determined choice.

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  23. Well, like I said above, an agent is not analogous to a computer. There's no "coding" involved with agents.

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  24. By the way, I do love how you're so desperate that you pull out a ten-year-old essay that has nothing to do with the topic currently under discussion and then attempt to refute that. Shows great intellectual prowess on your part.

    I wasn't trying to refute anything. I just thought it was interesting in light of Bob's comment that your arguments were similar to the arguments of atheists, and I still find it interesting. Obviously, you do not. That's OK. It was more directed to Bob than you.

    In like spirit, hey did you guys know that Arminianperspectives once wrote:
    ---
    My Arminianism finally led to the inevitable Open Theist conclusion.
    ---


    That was a joke. Were your ten year old comments about coming to accept determinism based on the arguments of an atheist a joke too?

    And also he wrote this article once: http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/those-in-glass-ivory-towers-shouldnt-throw-stones/

    And if you don't find it relevant, then you're probably worse than Hitler.


    That's all very cute. I actually appreciate your humor. For the issue of relevance, see again my first paragraph.

    God Bless,
    Ben

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  25. Arminianperspectives wrote -

    "That is interesting since I read an article by Peter where he basically said that it was the arguments of an atheist that brought him to adopt determinism and reject free will."

    The fundamental problem with his "hampster" argument is that it defines sovereignty as determinism.

    So to say that you cannot have free will if God is sovereign only works with the assumption that the two are contradictory.

    It appears he let his atheistic friend dictate the terms of the argument and then just embraced with a Christian veneer.

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  26. Oh, and as far as my comment about your view of Arminians as immature Christians, that was so Bob would realize that you wouldn't likely respect or take seriously anything he was saying, being that he is just an immature Christian and all. Your response to that would only seem to confirm my point.

    I actually hope to respond to this post at some point at my blog (though maybe not directly), but I have too much on my plate right now to debate it in this combox. I did read it and saved it for future reference.

    God Bless,
    Ben

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  27. Arminianperspectives wrote -

    "Oh, and as far as my comment about your view of Arminians as immature Christians, that was so Bob would realize that you wouldn't likely respect or take seriously anything he was saying, being that he is just an immature Christian and all. Your response to that would only seem to confirm my point."

    I always wonder why people try to use this argument when others disagree with them. It really is immature to say, "You do not agree with me so you must be an immature Christian." It is a fundamental denial of honest argument and is rather immature in its own right, allowing the individual to quietly run away.

    I have enough confidence in my views and my own study to stand by it. I do not need to pretend someone else is immature because they disagree. They just may not have thought certain things through adequately. (Kind of like adopting an argument from atheists because they were unable to refute it.)

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  28. Ben said:
    ---
    Oh, and as far as my comment about your view of Arminians as immature Christians, that was so Bob would realize that you wouldn't likely respect or take seriously anything he was saying, being that he is just an immature Christian and all.
    ---

    I don't take Bob's arguments "seriously" because he has never provided an argument. It has nothing to do with whether or not he's a mature Christian.

    I do enjoy your attempt at poisoning the well rather than dealing with the issue at hand though. It's duly noted.

    And when you do decide to actually respond, drop me a link. I'd be glad to read it. Until that response, though, all this is red herring.

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  29. Again, Ben, you have a lot to say about an old essay that's not relevant to the topic at hand.

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  30. Peter,

    You wrote,

    I don't take Bob's arguments "seriously" because he has never provided an argument. It has nothing to do with whether or not he's a mature Christian.

    He did provide an argument. You may not find it convincing, but it is wrong to say he did not provide and argument. Maybe your preconception that Arminians are immature Christians has colored your perception and your choice of rhetoric. That might explain why you chose to say, "he never provided an argument" instead of "I don't find his argument convincing."

    You also seem to make it sound like Bob might be a mature Christian after all, but your comments in your essay make it clear that you do not believe that is possible since all Arminians are "immature". Maybe you would like to just clear the air for us and tell us if you think we are mature Christians or not. That might not be fair since you do not know s personally. The better question would be: are we even capable, according to you, of being mature Christians while holding to Arminian perspectives? I for one would like to know.

    So I am not sure how you seeing Arminians as Christians who are less mature than you is irrelevant in the context of your discussions with Arminians, nor do I see how it is poisoning the well for me to bring it up in such a discussion. I think it is something important to keep in mind while discussing things with you, or in deciding whether or not to discuss things with you at all.

    If you disagree, then fine. No big deal. But I wasn't trying to refute your post based on your view of Arminians being less mature than you, nor would I suggest that anyone dismiss your arguments for such a reason.

    For the record, I do not see you as an immature Christian because you are a Calvinist. I just think you are mistaken.

    God Bless,
    Ben

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  31. Again, Ben, you have a lot to say about an old essay that's not relevant to the topic at hand.

    In your "old" essay you credit atheists for convincing you that determinism is true. Bob noted that your argument seemed like an argument an atheist would make. You don't see slightest bit of relevance between those two things?

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  32. Steven said:
    ---
    Well, like I said above, an agent is not analogous to a computer. There's no "coding" involved with agents.
    ---

    I think this is just semantics. You can call it "coding" or "instinct" or "reasoning ability" or whatever. It doesn't matter because the only thing that matters is A) it's the way that decisions are made and B) it is created.

    If both are true, I still maintain it cannot make non-determined choices for the reasons argued above. "[T]he impossibility has nothing to do with what is created, it has to do with the creation process itself."

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  33. So, Bob... according to what non-determined criteria do you choose your sandwich?

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  34. It seems to me, you are placing mans limitation on God. Surely God is more capable than human beings. God can create souls, man cannot.

    It's not a matter of something being created, but rather PHYSICAL creation. The physical laws of the universe operate deterministically, and then so would programmed machines (being physical).

    The difference is humans are not merely physical. We are not just the sum of DNA + our environment. Unlike machines we have a soul, and your argument can only be used to prove that objects without souls operate deterministically.

    Blessings,
    Dan

    ReplyDelete
  35. Hi Dan,

    First, it is not placing man's limitations on God if the limitations are logical limitations. After all, God cannot make a round square (as I've mentioned already) because such would be a lie and He cannot lie.

    As to the soul, I must warn you to avoid the gnostic trap of thinking that our physical bodies are somehow irrelevant in making us who we are. After all, there is a reason that there will be a resurrection. While God is spirit, man is not.

    In any case, saying it is a function of the soul doesn't answer the problem anyway. As I mentioned earlier to Steven, it doesn't matter what is created, this is a logical outcome of creation itself. The only way you can avoid the logic of the argument is to say that souls are not created by God, but rather that they have self-existence. Otherwise, you are stuck with the attributes of the soul being created by God. And you are still left with the logical conundrum I stated in my original article: how do you get a non-determined choice?

    So allow me to grant that it is the soul where this occurs. How, then, does the soul first decide what it wants? It must either form that choice from how the soul was created (determinism), or else it must be a random and arbitrary accident (not a choice), for there is nothing else that it could be.

    ReplyDelete
  36. It seems to me, you are placing mans limitation on God. Surely God is more capable than human beings. God can create souls, man cannot.

    It's not a matter of something being created, but rather PHYSICAL creation. The physical laws of the universe operate deterministically, and then so would programmed machines (being physical).

    The difference is humans are not merely physical. We are not just the sum of DNA + our environment. Unlike machines we have a soul, and your argument can only be used to prove that objects without souls operate deterministically.


    Even to state that the physical universe is deterministic in nature is highly debatable.

    This article shows how decisions can be influenced by many complex factors, but it offers no proof that they are determined by such factors, or that there's a logical impossibility between creation and non-determined choices. As far as I can see, that seems to be the point trying to be made, but is basically assumed to be true.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Oh, and I should also point out that according to quantum theory, the physical laws of the universe do not act deterministically. But that's a different topic. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  38. Anthony said:
    ---
    This article shows how decisions can be influenced by many complex factors, but it offers no proof that they are determined by such factors, or that there's a logical impossibility between creation and non-determined choices.
    ---

    Actually I think I'm on far stronger ground than you realize. Even most non-Calvinists will acknowledge that they believe the actions of men to be self-determined, or else not a choice. I suppose another way of stating my point would be that there can be no self-determination without self-existence, if that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  39. First, it is not placing man's limitations on God if the limitations are logical limitations. After all, God cannot make a round square (as I've mentioned already) because such would be a lie and He cannot lie.


    Peter, I don't see why it's a logical impossibility. The examples you showed, only show it's an impossibility for man to create something that isn't deterministic.


    I see you listed a whole lot of factors which "led" to the outcome, but that is still left to be proven that it was the only possible outcome. Non-determinists see that there is influence, but we argue that these influences on our nature are not irresistible (by God's grace, eg 1 Cor 10:13).

    Non-determinists don't say it's a "function" of the soul. We obviously reject it being
    f(environment,nature)=output.

    I don't think you have proven it isn't logically impossible, but rather told your theory of how it works.

    Oh, and I should also point out that according to quantum theory, the physical laws of the universe do not act deterministically. But that's a different topic. :-)

    lol. Let's not go there.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Is it possible for God to make libertarian free choices? If not, then how does he decide who to save?

    ReplyDelete
  41. Oh, and I should also point out that according to quantum theory, the physical laws of the universe do not act deterministically. But that's a different topic. :-)

    Thanks for the reply Peter!

    Though there are some that would contend that they are in fact deterministic on a level we do not yet comprehend--so, no worries--Calvinism and quantum theory are compatible! ;)

    Actually I think I'm on far stronger ground than you realize. Even most non-Calvinists will acknowledge that they believe the actions of men to be self-determined, or else not a choice. I suppose another way of stating my point would be that there can be no self-determination without self-existence, if that helps.

    I'm not clear on what you mean by "self-determination"? Your article seems to focus on outside factors determining the choice.

    ReplyDelete
  42. "Is it possible for God to make libertarian free choices? If not, then how does he decide who to save?"
    Is it possible for God to make choices that are not ultimately controlled by God, and/or determined by His own nature? Er, no.

    He decides according to His own counsel, which is bound to His character. Unlike man, God is the metaphysical end-point of the process of reasoning, so I'm not sure what you're getting at?

    ReplyDelete
  43. "I see you listed a whole lot of factors which "led" to the outcome, but that is still left to be proven that it was the only possible outcome. Non-determinists see that there is influence, but we argue that these influences on our nature are not irresistible (by God's grace, eg 1 Cor 10:13)."
    I've heard a lot of Arminians (and atheists) make this claim, but no-one has ever been able to explain what the mysterious other deciding factor is. If it isn't external influences (a man holding a gun to your head, the weather, the year you were born) or internal ones (manic-depression, a liking for chocolate, low seratonin levels), what is it that causes a choice to be "free"? If it is just randomness, it isn't really a choice in any meaningful way, and we'd surely have more instances of people deciding to go for a gunpowder sandwich instead of a chicken or beef one - after all, why not? But most people don't want to concede that the essence of free will is irrationality. So what is it? Any time a person has a reason for making a choice - even if it seems an unexpected choice to someone familiar with only some of the data - that reason will ultimately be based on a factor or factors outside that persons control. And even a seemingly random choice - "Let's take off our clothes and eat cheese straws on the Eiffel Tower!" doesn't truly come from out of the blue. A person couldn't choose it unless he was born in a position to know about and get to the Eiffel Tower; a native of an isolated African tribe wouldn't choose to do that. Similarly, the person choosing that must either have reasons for feeling public nudity is acceptable, or reasons for overriding the taboo against it (be they political, social or whatever). He wouldn't have those beliefs if it weren't for social influences - and nobody is in control of the cultural and sub-cultural influences that assail them from conception.

    So what is this "X-factor" of non-determined choosing? And how would it even be possible to prove its existence (aside from a theological defense of Arminianism, but that would still have to engage with the logical issues), given that no human can pretend to know how all internal and external factors affect someone's life?

    ReplyDelete
  44. Dan said:
    ---
    Peter, I don't see why it's a logical impossibility. The examples you showed, only show it's an impossibility for man to create something that isn't deterministic.
    ---

    It's true about the examples (that is, that they show what man can do), but the examples aren't my argument. They are illustrations of it, analogies to help clarify of what I speak.

    What I argue for is this: It is not possible to create something that can make a non-determined choice. The reason for it is that whatever choice occurs in the created object must be either a product of the act of creation (determinism) or else a random act (meaning it's not a choice).

    Or look at it this way: is it possible to create something in such a way that neither randomness nor your very creation of that object has an effect on what that object will do? Because that's what would have to happen. God would have to be able to create an agent in such a way that His act of creation is irrelevant to what the agent chooses. I have argued that the only way this is possible is if the agent does something random, and by definition a random action is not a choice. If you see another alternative, by all means present it!

    I don't really want to get into other points yet until we're both settled on this one.

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  45. Victor asked:
    ---
    Is it possible for God to make libertarian free choices? If not, then how does he decide who to save?
    ---

    I'm not sure what this has to do with anything I wrote. And my argument is specifically related to created objects. God, not being created, would not be subject to the limits that His creation is subject to.

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  46. Anthony wrote:
    ---
    I'm not clear on what you mean by "self-determination"? Your article seems to focus on outside factors determining the choice.
    ---

    That's because my article was focused on created objects. Self-determination means that the root factor that determines a choice is based solely in the agent him/herself. I would maintain that this is only true in a meaningful sense if the self-determining agent is self-existent. Otherwise, the "self" that is determining is itself determined by something that is not "self".

    (Yes, I realize that the language is a bit confusing there but I hope you can follow it! If not, I will try to clarify upon your statement of confusion.) :-)

    ReplyDelete
  47. What I argue for is this: It is not possible to create something that can make a non-determined choice. The reason for it is that whatever choice occurs in the created object must be either a product of the act of creation (determinism) or else a random act (meaning it's not a choice).

    Ahh ok.
    I don't think that "being a product of the act of creation" necessitates determinism. Rather, God decrees that we should be (to a limited extent, and only by His grace) self determining.

    You don't seem to have a problem with the concept with LFW, only with LFW in created objects. Why couldn't the creator decree to make [limited] self determining objects? This could very well be part of what it means to be created in God's image.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Victor Reppert said...

    Is it possible for God to make libertarian free choices? If not, then how does he decide who to save?

    4/08/2010 9:05 PM


    If God's freedom is neither compatibilistic or libertarian but rather sui generis, then no.

    Also, aren't you flirting with Open Theism (at least a bit, if not an outright affirmation)? How do Open Theists answer this question? If foreknowledge rules out libertarian freedom (defined with PAP), then either (a) God doesn't foreknow his actions or (b) God doesn't have libertarian freedom.

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  49. Dan said:
    ---
    I don't think that "being a product of the act of creation" necessitates determinism.
    ---

    Well, the way that I intended it I meant that everything that follows was a direct result of the act of creation, hence the creation itself is causative of everything that follows.

    You said:
    ---
    Rather, God decrees that we should be (to a limited extent, and only by His grace) self determining.
    ---

    But as I've argued, this seems to be impossible. That is, it would be like saying "God decrees that a square shall be round." But such a statement is absurd.

    In point of fact, it seems to me thus far that the only evidence being offered for the mind to be able to make non-determined choices is that it's necessary if Arminianism is to be true.

    You said:
    ---
    You don't seem to have a problem with the concept with LFW, only with LFW in created objects. Why couldn't the creator decree to make [limited] self determining objects? This could very well be part of what it means to be created in God's image.
    ---

    To me, this reads like "You don't seem to have a problem with self-existence, so why couldn't God have created another self-existent being?" The obvious response: "Because it's impossible."

    As to the reasons why it's impossible for God to create a being that can make a non-determined choice, well that's what I've been writing about this entire time. If you see a way that it's possible (aside from just saying "it could be possible") then feel free to present it.

    ReplyDelete
  50. I really shouldn't get involved as I don’t have the time, but I guess God has scripted me to do so ;-)

    If God's freedom is neither compatibilistic or libertarian but rather sui generis, then no.

    Sui generis works just as well for the Arminian who claims that the causative power in the human will is neither random nor necessitated. It is a unique category. That solves things rather well IMO.

    Likewise, God has the unique ability to create beings in His own image with the unique ability (in a category all its own) of making choices that are free and deliberate while being neither random nor necessitated.

    Pike's examples all speak of how people would program something. But God is unique and has unique abilities, as you note, so we have no reason to worry about whether or not we can conceive of a human programmer programming a person to be free in the libertarian sense. We are not talking about people but God, and to claim that such a feat is logically impossible is simply to deny that LFW can be sui generic.

    If we do that then we have no recourse to make such claims about God in order to avoid the problem of God being necessitated or random, and if God is either random or necessitated then we must either admit that all of His choices are arbitrary or that His choice to create and elect Paul Manata and Peter Pike was necessary. That threatens God’s aseity and undermines the Calvinist accounting of grace (that God didn’t have to “elect” anyone). Indeed, God did have to elect you. He had no choice.

    Anyway, that's how I see it and I don't find God creating persons with a unique category ability to be a problem at all. Indeed, who would ever venture to say that free will has a sufficient prallel in nature? The lack of a sufficient parallel does not make something irrational or impossible. It just makes it unique.

    Fallacy #3: We Choose by ‘Chance?’

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  51. Ben said:
    ---
    That solves things rather well IMO.
    ---

    The ONLY evidence you have that the will is that way is because otherwise you'd have to admit that Arminianism is false and you think that "solves things rather well"?

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  52. Ben said:
    ---
    But God is unique and has unique abilities, as you note, so we have no reason to worry about whether or not we can conceive of a human programmer programming a person to be free in the libertarian sense.
    ---

    This however misses the point. While I began with the analogy of a human trying to program something, I extended from the analogy to a logical argument. I've already been over this many times in the comments. Why do you ignore the actual argument?

    Sorry if I don't buy the "Ben said it was possible for God to do what has been demonstrated to be logically impossible, therefore it must be so" argument.

    I really am waiting for the "God is unique, and therefore He can make a round square" argument from you.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Tree aka Theresa said:

    Sir, babies in the womb don't "taste" anything (except POSSIBLY, if the taste buds are at work, placental fluid which they suck and swallow). They get nutrients (directly to the belly, bypassing the mouth/tongue)from the mothers diet. Their first "taste" of anything is either breast milk or formula. Why else would they like the taste of either? Because their little taste buds have FIRST tasted either. No adult likes the taste of breast milk or formula. But babies do. If I were an in-utero infant "tasting" beef and chicken and broccoli and corn, etc, etc. I would reject breast milk. And I would ESPECIALLY reject formula (ewwww!)after tasting such delicacies for nine months!

    So, your theory fails there.

    (I'm a mom of six and I think I've read enough to know)

    ~Theresa


    I realize this is nothing more than a minor curiosity at this point. But for what it's worth, I asked a scientist working in gustatory development who likewise co-authored this article if a fetus can taste in utero.

    Here's the response:

    "As for your question yes, human fetuses do seem to taste inutero [sic]. Taste organs are formed by 15 weeks and research does show taste sensation starts around that time with an increase in swallowing reflex with sweet tastes and a decrease with bitter and sour tastes in the amniotic fluid."

    ReplyDelete
  54. Sorry if I don't buy the "Ben said it was possible for God to do what has been demonstrated to be logically impossible, therefore it must be so" argument.

    Likewise, sorry if I don’t buy the “It’s logically impossible for God to create a unique category like free will” argument.

    I really am waiting for the "God is unique, and therefore He can make a round square" argument from you.

    But the point is that you have not shown it to be irrational. You have not shown how God creating people with self-determining power is analogous to God creating square circles. You have only asserted it and expressed in your post that you do not see how God could do such a thing. As has been pointed out, that is hardly the same as proving that it is logically impossible. So there is no need for me to say that because God is unique, He can make a round square.

    However, I would be interested in you addressing the nature of God's will and choices, as I mentioned above.

    God Bless,
    Ben

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  55. The ONLY evidence you have that the will is that way is because otherwise you'd have to admit that Arminianism is false...

    I am sorry you think that. I can only assure you that is not the case at all.

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  56. Ben said:
    ---
    But the point is that you have not shown it to be irrational.
    ---

    Demonstrate where I have failed in my argument then.

    Ben said:
    ---
    You have not shown how God creating people with self-determining power is analogous to God creating square circles.
    ---

    I have demonstrated why it is a logical impossibility, and you have not yet even touched my argument. You have simply dismissed it. And, ironically enough, your "evidence" that I'm wrong is: " I can only assure you that is not the case at all."

    Talk about making unargued assertions, Ben!

    Oh, and for the record, that's NOT the only thing you can do. YOU CAN PRESENT A COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR YOUR POSITION LIKE EVERY RATIONAL PERSON WOULD DO!

    I don't accept "Ben said it therefore it's true" arguments.

    Ben said:
    ---
    However, I would be interested in you addressing the nature of God's will and choices, as I mentioned above.
    ---

    Again, my argument is that this is a logical necessity of CREATED beings. What part of "created" do you not understand?

    God is not created.

    God's will, nature, being, or whatever else you choose to dodge the issue with has nothing to do with my argument.

    Show me how something can be created with the ability to make a non-determined choice. THAT is what you have to do, Ben.

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  57. Ben,

    I did not mention chance once in my comment to Reppert. I find your attempt to start a debate that has nothing to do with my comment to Reppert odd, not the least of which is because of the time constraints you keep letting everyone know about. Needless to say, I find luck objections to libertarianism persuasive and find the post you linked to largely ignorant of the literature on the subject (which works just the same with the uninteresting claim that we choose for reasons). But since I didn't argue from randomness, your comment is 100% a red herring vis-a-vis my response to Victor. My response, as you should have noted, was predicated upon position Victor holds (depending on the day), viz, Open Theism. I wondered how he could hold to God's libertarian freedom if God knows everything he thinks and does. If Victor defines LFW as needing PAP, and if he holds that omniscience is incompatible with LFW, then God either is ignorant regarding himself, or not libertarian free. This was an internal critiqued and is based on the foreknowledge argument and not on the luck objection. So, again, I must register my dumbfoundedness over why someone so chronically challeneged would jump into yet another debate on an issue that wasn't even brought up, which means you were trying to start another debate. I find the whole Western motif of the reluctant hero battling the wild Calvinist outlaws a tad bit melodramatic. As for me, since I really am constrained by time and so won't be back to respond to you (if you respond). This is because your comment to me had nothing to do with my response to Victor as well as my prescient belief that things will degenerate to accusations about sockpuppets (as they always do with you). So I'm sorry I can't oblige you, Ben.

    ReplyDelete
  58. I desperately want to believe in libertarian free will, but you bring up a great point that I just cannot answer. If God does give us this freedom we would in fact be autonomous and we are many things but not autonomous.

    For arguments sake say we are fully self-determining and autonomous beings, how could God know what we would do? At best we would reduce God to just peering into the future, but not able to do anything about it. Because if God were to change something then His knowledge would be different of the event and then we would have God’s knowledge being wrong. The worst case would be Open Theism.

    After all God cannot know what someone will do if they do not exist and since there is no self-determining agent in existence to know anything about it is hard to see what knowledge God would have at all.

    Perhaps this is an easy dilemma for a person that holds to libertarian free will, but I’ve not come across an answer to it. In the end, I have to believe that I’m responsible for my actions and that God is completely in control. To me that is easier to grasp and take hold of than libertarian free will.

    Grace & Peace

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  59. Yes, Patrick Chan, I realize it's something that is known, but news to me.

    But, I deleted the comment as it's really not the point of the OP anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Peter Pike said...
    ---
    That's because my article was focused on created objects. Self-determination means that the root factor that determines a choice is based solely in the agent him/herself. I would maintain that this is only true in a meaningful sense if the self-determining agent is self-existent. Otherwise, the "self" that is determining is itself determined by something that is not "self".

    (Yes, I realize that the language is a bit confusing there but I hope you can follow it! If not, I will try to clarify upon your statement of confusion.) :-)
    ---
    Thanks for clarifying! I appreciate the courteous tone you're taking with those may not follow and/or agree with your premise.


    Peter Pike said...
    ---
    What I argue for is this: It is not possible to create something that can make a non-determined choice. The reason for it is that whatever choice occurs in the created object must be either a product of the act of creation (determinism) or else a random act (meaning it's not a choice).

    Or look at it this way: is it possible to create something in such a way that neither randomness nor your very creation of that object has an effect on what that object will do? Because that's what would have to happen. God would have to be able to create an agent in such a way that His act of creation is irrelevant to what the agent chooses. I have argued that the only way this is possible is if the agent does something random, and by definition a random action is not a choice. If you see another alternative, by all means present it!
    ---

    I've put your critical question in bold above--and I would have to answer yes, but with the qualifier that I would not say that the act of creation or the Creator are "irrelevant" or without effect--they may heavily influence and even limit choices, but they do not completely determine choices. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think part of the debate here is regards to causality--I think you (and Jonathan Edwards, who I think put forward a very similar argument) are arguing that a created being cannot be the first cause of a choice, whereas those who believe in LFW believe that a created being can if the Creator so chooses. Does this lessen our dependence on the Creator? Absolutely not--our very existence is completely dependent on Him, but that doesn't necessitate that our choices do as well. I think that is part of what makes us different from the rest of creation, and could very well be part of being created in His image. I can't say I fully understand it, but none of us do, hence the discussion. :)

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  61. Mitch said...
    ---
    For arguments sake say we are fully self-determining and autonomous beings, how could God know what we would do? At best we would reduce God to just peering into the future, but not able to do anything about it. Because if God were to change something then His knowledge would be different of the event and then we would have God’s knowledge being wrong. The worst case would be Open Theism.
    ---

    I wouldn't argue that we're completely free or autonomous--we're limited in many ways. I do believe God does accomplish His purposes through history, but in such a way that He doesn't take away our freedom in the choices that we are responsible for. Could God limit our freedom and responsibility in some cases for His purposes? Certainly, but I do believe that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.

    I think we put God in box when it's asserted that God can't know the future choices of free beings--we might not know how He knows--for that matter, how do we know the manner in which He knows anything that He knows? Fact is if God is infinite, He's beyond our understanding.

    I also think the use of hypotheticals when talking of God's foreknowledge is very misleading (ie if I chose differently from what God knows, is God wrong?). If we have LFW, then we choose, and God knows (in terms of causality) despite that chronologically God knows, and we choose.

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  62. Anthony said:
    ---
    I've put your critical question in bold above--and I would have to answer yes, but with the qualifier that I would not say that the act of creation or the Creator are "irrelevant" or without effect--they may heavily influence and even limit choices, but they do not completely determine choices.
    ---

    First, I must point out that while you have said it to be the case, you have not shown it to be the case. Ultimately, then, this is really just a long way of saying "I disagree." (I don't mean any of this disrespectfully, mind you--I think most people simply assume that it must be the case that they can make non-determined choices and thus the simple act of disagreeing settles the issue in their mind and they don't even realize what they've done, or rather not done.)

    In any case, let's zero in on the subject here. You've acknowledge that the act of creation puts constraints and limitations on the will (that is, whatever it is that makes a choice), yet you say this does not completely determine the choices. In that case, what does determine the choice?

    If you say it's the will that determines the choice, then how do you avoid the fact that the will is completely designed by an outside agent (God)? That is, if the choice is made by the will, then it is subject to the design of the will, and if the will was designed differently then the will would choose differently.

    In other words, it is as you said, that a created being cannot be the first cause of a choice because the choice cannot arise except by the creation of the agent that makes the choice. But not only that, but if the choice is actually made by the agent, then the agent's design is what must determine the choice. Or, to state it in the opposite manner, if the choice is not dependent upon the design of the agent, then in what way can it be said the choice is the agent's? It seems to me that the choice would exist independent of the agent in such a scenario. The only way to "connect" the two is to have the choice be a result of the makeup of the agent, but that would immediately result in determinism because the agent is designed.

    I still don't see any way around this, and appealing to a mystery of God's greatness doesn't seem very appealing, especially given the fact that Calvinists have strong Biblical support for determinism already whereas the "mystery" is only needed if one embraces an Arminian-type philosophy.

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  63. Oh, and as to whether my philosophy is Edwardian, I would say it is, but with a caveat. I've only read bits and pieces of "The Freedom of the Will" and a few of his sermons, and thus if he said something similar or identical to what I presented here, I wouldn't know where to find it. The concept for the idea I've presented here in this post was one I came up with as independently as anything could be.

    I'm sure I've got lots of influences and it's quite possible that I actually read it in Edwards at some point but simply don't remember anymore. Regardless, given the fact that I share a good 99% of my theological presuppositions with Edwards, it's not surprising that we would both argue to the same conclusion even if my current argument is truly independent of anything I read from him before.

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  64. Anthony,

    Here is my stumbling block

    If we have LFW, then we choose, and God knows (in terms of causality) despite that chronologically God knows, and we choose.

    If we are the self determining or autonomous cause of what we do then there is nothing to know until we do it. Does that make sense?

    ReplyDelete
  65. Pike's argument seems fairly standard: if determinism is true, then there's no LFW; and if free choices involve indeterminism, then they are "random" or "chance." But why think the latter? What's the argument for thinking that if an event is undetermined, then it is a matter of chance?

    As far as I can tell, Pike thinks that the fact that an agent's character (the set of facts about her desires, beliefs, values, dispositions, etc.) is not up to an agent (if the agent is created), then the act that "depends on" that character cannot be up to the agent either. Why think this? Well, if by "depends on," (or "results from") we mean "determined by," then surely the libertarian will agree. Suppose it means "caused, but not determined by." That is, suppose that facts about the agent's character (C) cause a given decision, but given those very same facts about C, a different decision might have been caused. Where's the problem? Given the causal relation between the two, it's not uncaused or random or inexplicable.

    Pike might object: but if C doesn't determine the decision, then it's random. Well, what's the argument for this - an argument that doesn't simply beg the question against the libertarian, who all along has maintained that there is a third option between "determined" and "chance"? Does he think it's random because nothing explains the agent's decision? But that's false - we can both causally and rationally explain it by pointing to the reasons that (indeterministically) caused it.

    Other varieties of libertarians will insist that the agent does directly determine her intention, so that it is correct to say that the choice "depends on" the agent (in a deterministic sense). But they argue that the agent's so determining her intention isn't itself the deterministic outcome of previous events (including her reasons). Her reasons may incline or make probable certain decisions, but do not determine them - the agent still acts on the basis of reasons, but the choice is not determined by them. Now, there are well-known objections to such a view; and it's true that the libertarian has a burden to explain how this third option would work. But Pike thinks he's provided an argument demonstrating that such an option is logically impossible. I don't see that argument - or at least I don't see any new issues brought up by the fact of being created, issues that aren't already part of the on-going, long-standing debate between libertarians and their critics.

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  66. Brian said:
    ---
    That is, suppose that facts about the agent's character (C) cause a given decision, but given those very same facts about C, a different decision might have been caused.
    ---

    You are in essence saying:

    1. If A then B.
    2. A.
    3. ~B.

    Which is plainly illogical.

    If the set of all the factors that determine an agent's choice (whether they be external or internal) remains the same then the result of the agent's choice must be identical too. This is the definition of causality.

    So if that does not entail, then you have indeed claimed that decision are not caused by the Agent. And if they are not caused by the Agent, how can they be called the Agent's "choice"?

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  67. "Her reasons may incline or make probable certain decisions, but do not determine them - the agent still acts on the basis of reasons, but the choice is not determined by them."

    And I've already asked this: if those do not determine the choice, then what does? Whatever it is that does determine the choice must have either been created (in which case it is designed) or else it is some kind of random fluke. What other possibility is there?

    There's only so many black boxes you can push the deciding factor off into before your argument is hopelessly lost.

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  68. Pike said:
    "You are in essence saying:

    1. If A then B.
    2. A.
    3. ~B.

    Which is plainly illogical."


    If I were saying that, that would indeed be illogical. But if we take your 1 to be an entailment relation, then the libertarian simply denies that this is the proper way to understand the relation between reasons and decisions. The reasons do not entail or determine the actions; they merely cause them. (Or, on another libertarian view, the agent does determine the decision, but the antecedent reasons do not determine the agent.) The libertarian will take the relation in 1 to be an instance of causation, but not an entailment. And the libertarian does not assert 3; rather, she asserts "possibly ~B," which of course is not inconsistent with the conjunction of 1 and 2 (even if 1 expresses an entailment).

    You object to this line of reasoning:
    "If the set of all the factors that determine an agent's choice (whether they be external or internal) remains the same then the result of the agent's choice must be identical too. This is the definition of causality."

    But this isn't true, or at least, this is a controversial position, one not generally accepted, certainly not without a good argument. The coherence (and actuality) of indeterministic (or probabilistic) causation has long been recognized as at least plausible. I'd recommend Anscombe's "Causality and Determination," for instance, or a number of pieces by Christopher Hitchock, Wesley Salmon, Hans Reichenbach, and a host of others who have argued for this. Causation (on these views) is a matter of the cause producing or bringing about the effect; but that's consistent with a lack of determination between cause and effect, since, though the cause did in fact produce the effect, it might have failed to (keeping everything else fixed). Causation is not the same thing as necessitation.
    (A good, thorough overview of these issues can be found here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-probabilistic/)

    But furthermore, recall that the typical libertarian will either (a) deny that there is any set of "factors" which determines the choice (though that set of factors indeterministically causes it), or (b) argue that it is the agent who determines the choice, but nothing determines that the agent determines the choice in a particular way (though, again, there will be factors that constrain the possible choices and their probabilities).

    Later you say:
    And I've already asked this: if those do not determine the choice, then what does? Whatever it is that does determine the choice must have either been created (in which case it is designed) or else it is some kind of random fluke. What other possibility is there?

    As indicated above, the libertarian will typically say either that nothing determines the choice (though something may cause it), or that the agent does (though not some event involving the agent). On the latter view, the libertarian will surely grant that the agent has been created and designed, but point out that being designed - indeed, having every feature determined - doesn't entail that a given decision will be determined by those features. Again, distinguish the claim "the agent's existence and the characteristics of the agent have been causally determined" from the claim "the agent (qua substance, not qua event!) has been causally determined." The latter, it will be argued, is incoherent, for a substance cannot be caused (though, of course, many events involving the substance can be caused).

    It seems as if your argument (given your response) relies primarily on an understanding of causation as deterministic causation. Does that seem fair? If so, then I'd suggest that your argument relies on a premise that is far from obvious - indeed, if anything, it is more controversial than its denial.

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  69. Let's start with this then. Can you show me one thing (aside from the assumption that it's what happens in agency) where B is caused by A yet not determined by A?

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  70. Can you show me one thing (aside from the assumption that it's what happens in agency) where B is caused by A yet not determined by A?

    Fair enough. One of the examples Anscombe uses (she attributes it to Richard Feynman, the Nobel-winning physicist) is of a Geiger counter connected to a bomb. Suppose you place a lump of radioactive material (call it L) next to it. At time t, it is physically possible both that L emit a radioactive particle and that L fail to do so. It is genuinely undetermined (I will address an objection below). Suppose that, at t, L does emit a particle. Then L being near the bomb at t caused the subsequent explosion (via the Geiger counter trigger). But, given that at t L might have failed to emit a particle, L being near the bomb at t did not necessitate the subsequent explosion. Nevertheless, although L's proximity at t to the bomb didn't guarantee the subsequent explosion, it certainly caused it.

    (I should note: there are many ways of describing the events that caused the explosion: the Geiger counter's recording a particle; its subsequent triggering of the bomb; L's emitting a particle at t, and so on. But L's proximity to the bomb at t is one such cause - it's what was, in the circumstances, the thing that produced, via intermediary links, the explosion, though that very same "input" might have failed to do so.)

    Objection: but this assumes that radioactive decay is genuinely indeterministic. Perhaps that's incorrect (like David Bohm and others have argued).

    Reply: (a) the example shows at least that the concept of causation does not require the concept of determination. If radioactive decay were indeterministic, we would not withdraw our judgment that L at t caused the explosion. So, it's not the case that, "by definition," all causation must be deterministic. It requires only, as Anscombe put it, the derivativeness of the effect from its cause, not that the effect's being produced by its cause was necessary.

    (b) The standard, most widely-held interpretation of quantum mechanical phenomenon is that events like radioactive decay involve genuine, metaphysical indeterminism. So, in all likelihood, there are innumerable events that actually cause other events, but do not necessitate (i.e. determine) them.

    (c) Do you think the idea of God possessing libertarian freedom (e.g. holding fixed his nature and character, God really could have elected Susie to salvation, and really could have elected her to damnation) is logically possible? If so, then it looks like you're already committed to the idea that some act (of God's) can be caused (by God) and yet not determined by antecedent events. This, on its own, wouldn't show that created agents could have libertarian freedom (as you've argued), but it would answer your question - it would be a case of causation without determination, which would show that indeterministic causation is coherent (and, therefore, that a key premise in your argument is undermined).

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  71. As I've said (and you've acknowledged), what God can do isn't relevant to my argument, which is based on the act of creation.

    As to quantum theory, I think that gets us toward the issue of randomness again. Quantum decay happens in a process that can only be explained (at least as we currently understand it) with probabilities, and of course there are those who maintain that quantum decay is truly random (and not just apparently random).

    Secondly, even under quantum mechanics, quantum states are only indeterminate until observation has been made, at which point the waveform collapses (if you hold to that view) or the universe resolves (if you hold to that view) or the multiverse splits again (if you hold to that view) or...etc. While the individual result cannot be predicted (hence it is random), after observation (and what constitutes observation is also debated) the particle either did or did not decay and the bomb either did or did not explode.

    Finally, it would seem to me that your view of quantum mechanics also requires a specific view of time, which is that time is open-ended. And not just for the future. If there truly is a sense where the decay "could have" been otherwise--where that is a true, viable option impacting the future--then we are also unable to predict the past, and for the same reason we cannot predict the future. Mathematically, the arrow of time has no direction. And, indeed, there is much in quantum mechanics that requires time to go backwards.

    I think it is fair to say that as far as physics is concerned, the future is just as determined as the past is. If we can change the future, we can change the past; if we cannot change the past, we cannot change the future. There's nothing special about the moment that we call "now" that alters this. Indeed, there is no objective time in the first place, so there's no such thing as a "now."

    Given that, I would conclude: if it is right for us to say that the past is philosophically determined because it is unalterable, yet in quantum mechanics it would not be determined via your argument, then the philosophical concept of determinism is different from the quantum mechanic concept of determinism, and therefore your example would be apples to oranges.

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  72. "As I've said (and you've acknowledged), what God can do isn't relevant to my argument, which is based on the act of creation."

    Recall the dialectic: you asked for an example of causation without necessitation/determination. In that context, it's certainly relevant to talk about what is possible for God. Insofar as your argument relies on making a conceptual connection between causation and determination, the example of God does not beg any questions. I didn't use that example to try to defend the claim that created agents have free will; I used it to defend the claim that causation can be indeterministic. The fact that agents are created has no bearing on the conceptual possibility of indeterministic causation. (You'd claimed that by definition causation requires determination, so we're now talking about the conceptual analysis of those terms.)

    "As to quantum theory, I think that gets us toward the issue of randomness again"

    Distinguish between two dialectical steps. One is whether there can be - in principle - something like one event causing, but not necessitating, another event. Here, the possibility of randomness helps to make my case that an event can be "random" in the sense of undetermined, and yet not uncaused (after all, the bomb explosion wasn't determined by prior events, but it surely was caused).

    The next step is whether there can be - in principle - an event which is undetermined, caused, and yet not just chance, where the latter is taken to be incompatible with the sort of control required for acting freely. This is a distinct issue from the first one, and should be kept separate. Every libertarian acknowledges that an event's (e.g. a decision's) being undetermined is not sufficient for being free (or even an act). But let's not use this second question, (determined vs. controlled), as a way of addressing the first one, (determined vs. caused).

    (continued...)

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  73. "I think it is fair to say that as far as physics is concerned, the future is just as determined as the past is. If we can change the future, we can change the past; if we cannot change the past, we cannot change the future."

    It is standard in debates about free will to understand determinism to be something like the thesis that the conjunction of the laws of nature and the state of the universe in the past entail every future state of the universe. Sometimes the thesis is defined less restrictively: the state of the universe at any time, plus the laws of nature, entail the state of the universe at any other time (past or present). But on this understanding of (un)determined, it certainly does not follow that "if we can change the future, we can change the past." I must admit, though, that here I'm not sure what you mean by "change the future" or "change the past." Taken one way, it seems trivially true, but unthreatening to the libertarian. Taken another way, it is threatening to the libertarian, but there's no good reason to think it's true.

    There's a good bit of literature about so-called "accidental necessity," which is the sort of necessity that past events are supposed to have. Past events might have been contingent when they occurred; but now that they are "in the past," they cannot be altered (in the sense that they cannot now never have happened). But I don't see what the math-reversibility of physics equations tells us about the modal status of future events.

    "if it is right for us to say that the past is philosophically determined because it is unalterable, yet in quantum mechanics it would not be determined via your argument, then the philosophical concept of determinism is different from the quantum mechanic concept of determinism, and therefore your example would be apples to oranges."

    The libertarian will reject the inference from "the past is unalterable" to "the past is (philosophically) determined." This doesn't follow. That past events are "accidentally necessary" does not entail that they were, or are now, determined. So, they would agree that those events are undetermined, both physically and (therefore) philosophically. I don't think we are working with different concepts.

    But I fear we've gone too fast. I thought the immediate topic was whether causation as a concept requires determination. Physicists tell us that, as you said, there are only probabilities of certain kinds of events occurring. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that they can enter into causal relations. Doesn't that, therefore, settle that particular question? If not, what's the argument for thinking that, of logical necessity, all cases of causation feature a deterministic relation between cause and effect?

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  74. Brian said:
    ---
    Recall the dialectic: you asked for an example of causation without necessitation/determination.
    ---

    You are correct; I should have been more specific. I meant for a created example. I made an assumption based on the entirety of my post, but did not make it clear.

    So what I'm looking for would be an example of a non-determined action that is also non-random.

    I agree that we need to keep the two aspects of determinism separate. I think you would agree that the first example you gave is not inconsistent with my own position, which allows for non-determined random causation (although we might disagree as to whether that would properly be called a "choice").

    Your second example is going to be the key one for us, and it is here that I think the math is relevant. When it comes to quantum mechanics, you must keep in mind that it is almost entirely math-based. That is, there is very little actual experimentation that can be done. Of course, what can be done so far fits the mathematical theories.

    Now the reason that this is important is because the only difference between matter and antimatter mathematically is the sign for time. Thus, matter is + and antimatter is -.

    But here's the kicker. If you observe a positron and an electron and there is no external indication of time's arrow, it is impossible to tell which one is the positron and which one is the electron. You could only arbitrarily pick one. But this means that, in your limited universe of just one positron and one electron, time's arrow goes both ways equally. There is no way to differentiate between past and present.

    This renders past and present (at least at the sub-atomic level) equivalent mathematically. So if the past is necessary (accidentally or otherwise) at the sub-atomic level, then so too is the future.

    Einstein's relativity got rid of the concept of "simultaneous" events; quantum mechanics gets rid of time's direction at least at the sub-atomic level. And, of course, defining time is already difficult (and I don't think you can really progress much beyond Einstein's quip that time is what clocks measure).

    Be all that as it may, I think you would agree with me that if we set the universe back to a previous state where all the particles were exactly the same as what they had been and we let it play out again and everything repeated exactly the same way, then all the events in the universe are determined, right? Well, if there is no arrow of time, then it seems to me this is already happening. Particles go back in time (from one arbitrarily picked direction of time) and are seen as anti-particles and vice versa, yet the past is not altered.

    (As an aside, suppose the universe to be on a loop, and then suppose that each time through the reaction is different from the previous trip through. Given that there are a finite number of possible quantum arrangements, then every single possible quantum state will have attained at some point in this loop--indeed, since the loop is infinite they will have occurred an infinite number of times. Thus, even if the events are truly random, it is necessary that every single possible configuration will attain at some point. And thus, under those circumstances, I think one could even argue that a random action has become deterministic.)

    Forgive me for getting sidetracked on the quantum mechanics, but I love reading and thinking about it. Alas, I've stayed up way past my bedtime though so much end for the night.

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  75. Gaa, even while trying to clarify I left out the important part.

    I meant:
    ---
    So what I'm looking for would be an example of a non-determined action that is also non-random IN A CREATED OBJECT.
    ---

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  76. Hi Peter - thanks for your lengthy reply, I'm finding our discussion interesting and helpful. I hope to reply to it soon, but it might be later rather than sooner, given my schedule today...

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  77. Mitch said...

    If we are the self determining or autonomous cause of what we do then there is nothing to know until we do it. Does that make sense?


    I know what you're saying--God can't know something that is logically impossible to know. But because we assume there is a future, and we will do something, there is something to know, even if we have absolutely no way of knowing what it is (unless we were to invent a time machine). Whether it's that God is not bounded by time or some other theory, we don't need to understand the method of God's knowledge (and we can hardly expect to) to believe that He has it.

    I'm enjoyed the interchange between Brian and Peter--I think you're hitting on some good points.

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  78. Sorry for the delay in replying - busy week! Ok, back to our topic...

    "So what I'm looking for would be an example of a non-determined action that is also non-random IN A CREATED OBJECT."

    Suppose the libertarian cannot provide such an example: what follows? Not, it seems, that we should (for that reason) be suspicious of the existence of such a thing. After all, why should we think that the power to freely act will feature metaphysical or physical relations or properties found anywhere else but in free creatures? Metaphysical freedom might just be sui generis.

    So I'm not sure why the libertarian should feel the need to show that something else besides created free beings could be the subjects of events that are non-determined and yet non-random. Equally, I don't see why the libertarian couldn't insist that God could serve as a useful example of the coherence of the concept of non-determined, non-random activity. If one grants that God can act (libertarian) freely, this shows that LFW is coherent. So then what special challenge arises from the fact of being a creature, rather than God?

    Peter van Inwagen gives attention in a few places to the standard "indeterminism = chance" objection that your argument recapitulates, and argues that the objection is perfectly general, not depending for its force on details about the physicality of the objects involved, or on anything at all. It would equally count against the possibility, he argues, of angels or even God acting freely in this sense. Of course, he himself is a libertarian (or at least a "mysterian"), but his point is that the "chance" objection is an objection at the conceptual level of freedom itself, not "freedom-for-humans."

    You seem to part company with him on this point, and it's precisely here where I don't yet see what specific problem is added to the libertarian position by the assumption that some agent is created rather than not. In both cases, we can raise the same questions you do: what accounts for why God chooses to do A rather than B, given that it was within his power to do both, consistent with his nature. Does this show that his nature does not determine his actions, since, given that very same nature, God could have done otherwise? Does it show that his free actions are simply random?

    This is not to say that this is an easy problem, easily dismissed. It isn't. It's just to ask, again, how the problem becomes more acute when we add in "and the person is created."

    So, if you think it is conceptually coherent to suggest that God can act freely (in the libertarian sense), then you've granted that an event's being both undetermined and yet non-random is possible. But then where's the problem? (Then again, perhaps you don't grant that God does, or could, act freely in this sense. I would then wonder what the objection is: wouldn't it, whatever it is, serve at least as well in showing that human freedom is impossible too, without needing to refer to the fact that humans are created?)

    (cont'd...)

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  79. As for the time-reversibility of physics equations, I'm no expert in these matters, to say the least, so I'm not sure how intelligently I can engage your specific questions. But I worry about inferences that go from mathematical models to modal claims; and I worry about inferences that go from facts about phenomena at the quantum level to facts that apply to everything in the universe. (I say that, realizing that I put forward quantum phenomena as evidence for the conceptual coherence of indeterministic causation. But I could do that w/o necessarily referring to quantum events, if you'd like.) There are loads of tricky issues here. For instance, given what you've said, I don't see why a libertarian couldn't say this: if there's no privileging a given time as "present" (and same for "past" and "future"), then perhaps the events we've been calling "past" aren't really past in the sense necessary to underwrite the conditional if X is a past event, then X is accidentally necessary. So, it turns out (goes the argument) that the past is not accidentally necessary after all - and hence neither is the future. Or, similarly, why not just argue that, since the future is not accidentally necessary, neither is the past (or: things we take to be past aren't really past).

    I don't endorse such arguments, but take them to show the conceptual fuzziness of these matters - one can play too fast and loose, and lose one's way too quickly to put much weight on them.

    I'll try to address the following comment, though:
    I think you would agree with me that if we set the universe back to a previous state where all the particles were exactly the same as what they had been and we let it play out again and everything repeated exactly the same way, then all the events in the universe are determined, right?

    Given the standard understanding of determinism, no, it wouldn't follow that such a universe is deterministic (even holding fixed the laws), for two reasons. First, a universe could be indeterministic despite having large "swaths" (both spatially and temporally) be "locally" deterministic (in the sense that events within those space-time regions could not be otherwise, given the prior events within that space-time region). So, from the fact that setting the universe back to some previous state produces the same outcome doesn't show that the universe would play the same way if set back to any previous state.

    Second, determinism is a modal claim: from the fact that on a given "replay," things play out the same way as before, it does not follow that things had to play out that way, that it was impossible for them to play out differently. Pretend you flip an "indeterministic" coin 20 times, and get some sequence, H. Rewind the world, play it back: you might very well get H again. This would not prove that the world is deterministic. Of course, the greater the amount of indeterminism, and the greater the space-time region that is "replayed," the less likely such identical replays will be...

    As for the "looping universe," I'm still not sure this would show that random events are actually determined. You'd need to add that every single future state (token, not type!) is entailed by every prior state (plus the laws); what your scenario suggests is only that every event token that's possible will eventually occur at some time or other. Determinism requires more than that. But again, I'm having difficulty relating these matters to the argument for the impossibility of libertarian free will (where an essential part of the explanation for its impossibility concerns the createdness of the agent).

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  80. Hi Brian,

    I just noticed you'd responded here again. It might be easier if you drop me an e-mail at petedawg34@yahoo.com now that this is off the main page. I doubt there's sufficient interest to do a new post on the topic (although I could end up pleasantly surprised).

    The only thing I'll point out here is that it seems to me the distinguishing factor in why God can be sui generis but not any created being is precisely because of the creation aspect. That is, we know that God is self-existent, but man is not.

    Since God is not a created being, there is no design to His being. There is nothing that formed Him. He has simply always been as He is ("I am that I am"). Man cannot say the same, for we *are* created beings. We are designed.

    As it is, for someone to assert that men have a sui generis will seems to be nothing but special pleading. In the case of God, it logically follows given His nature, but because everything else about man is determined by his design as a created being, I see no reason (outside of the claims of Arminianism, which I of course believe to be error) to assert this type of will for man.

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  81. Pike seems to argue that humans cannot create something that has libertarian free will, therefore
    God can't either. That seems like an incredibly weak argument, the logic of which would lead to the obviously false conclusion that God could not create or do anything humans can't.

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  82. Peter Pike wrote:

    I just noticed you'd responded here again. It might be easier if you drop me an e-mail at petedawg34@yahoo.com now that this is off the main page. I doubt there's sufficient interest to do a new post on the topic (although I could end up pleasantly surprised).

    ------------

    Actually, I think I would like to see the discussion continue here. What Brian is very interesting.

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  83. I would also like to see the discussion continue.

    BTW, Arminian if you think that is Mr. Pike's argument and all there is to it then you need to re-read what has been written.

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  84. Actually, I think I would like to see the discussion continue here. What Brian is very interesting.

    I second that. I think it should remain public.

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  85. BTW, Arminian if you think that is Mr. Pike's argument and all there is to it then you need to re-read what has been written.

    I think Arminian's assessment is accurate. The only thing that might be added is that Pike has also asserted that it would be logically impossible to create a being with libertarian free will, but I do not see that he has proven that in the least. It doesn't help to use examples like, "God cannot create a self-existent being". He needs to go beyond that and show that God creating humans with a unique category ability of libertarian free will is analogous to "God cannot create a self-existent being" or "God cannot create a round square", etc. I haven't seen Pike do that yet, though he continues to assert that it is the case.

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  86. Mitch,

    I didn't say that was all there is to Peter's argument. It is a major aspect of it though, I and I thought it worth drawing attention to in light of the interchange between him and Brian.

    The other main aspect of his argument is just as weak. He runs through some choices he made and considers influneces on those choices with the assumption that
    those influences were irresistible, that they irresistibly caused him to make the specific choice he made, leading to the conclusion that the
    actions were determined/not of libertarian free will. I.e., he runs through a series of
    choices he made on the assumption that they were irresitibly
    caused, completely begging the question at issue.

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  87. As it is, for someone to assert that men have a sui generis will seems to be nothing but special pleading.

    No more so than saying God cannot create beings with such a capacity.

    In the case of God, it logically follows given His nature, but because everything else about man is determined by his design as a created being, I see no reason (outside of the claims of Arminianism, which I of course believe to be error) to assert this type of will for man.

    But this again just assumes that by virtue of being a created being, the creature cannot be designed with LFW. If all you have at this point is an assumption/assertion based on parallel with other features of man as a created being, you do not have much.

    Also, it seems to me that man being a unique creation (made in God's image) could furnish sufficient reason to believe that man has special abilities, like that of libertarian free will.

    God Bless,
    Ben

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  88. I have been eagerly reading this post. Thanks for keeping it public.

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  89. Here is where it gets murky, Arminian writes

    he runs through a series of
    choices he made on the assumption that they were irresitibly
    caused, completely begging the question at issue


    Don’t both sides continue to just beg the question when it comes to free will?

    If we have LFW then why do all persons pick evil in there natural state when it comes to pleasing God? Why does no one seek after God? Why does the Bible say that we are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ?

    I’m really asking to understand it better. They way I understand free will is that I do whatever I want to do. Yet in my natural state I could not bring forth good fruit even if I wanted too, but if we had LFW then that could not be a correct statement, right?

    If I had LFW and I wanted to bring forth good fruit or be righteous or whatever else then I could do it. Right???

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  90. Mitch,

    You say "If we have LFW then why do all persons pick evil in there natural state when it comes to pleasing God? Why does no one seek after God? Why does the Bible say that we are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ?"

    First of all, the question of free agency does not just apply to non-christians - it applies to all people from before the fall, to after the fall, to new life in Christ. Why do we all pick sin?

    I'll tell you why. It's not because we can't do right - it's because we don't want to. I mean, if you are honest with yourself, you know that you don't sin because you have no other choice, but because you don't want to take those other choices, and choose not to.

    Naturally we are slaves to something or the other. Free will does not imply that we are not slaves (for indeed we are) or that outside forces do not pressure us to do things, or that our own desires do no tempt us, but rather implies that our actions are internally determined. We determine our own actions, and are therefore responsible for them.

    "I’m really asking to understand it better. They way I understand free will is that I do whatever I want to do. Yet in my natural state I could not bring forth good fruit even if I wanted too, but if we had LFW then that could not be a correct statement, right?"

    That is a common misunderstanding of free will: that it teaches that free will means you can do whatever you want to do. You can't. Only God has the power to do whatever He wants. I cannot fly, even if I want to. I can choose to try - I can choose to jump off the roof - but I cannot choose to actually fly because I don't have the power to do that.

    In that same way, if a non-christians wants to please God without having faith, that's like wanting to be bulletproof - they can try all they want, but it simply isn't going to happen. Not because they can't make choices, but because they do not have the power to please God without faith and do not have the physical capacity to be bulletproof.

    "If I had LFW and I wanted to bring forth good fruit or be righteous or whatever else then I could do it. Right???"

    You would be free to choose to TRY. You would not succeed, of course, unless you are a christian and bring forth good fruit through the power and grace of the Spirit of God living within you.

    Free will does not mean that a person can fly. It does mean that a person can choose to try (and fail).

    Free will is not about power to make something happen, but is about the idea that our choices and actions are internally determined. Free will is why I can choose to say "please pass the mustard."

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  91. Skarlet,

    I agree with what you say here

    Free will is not about power to make something happen, but is about the idea that our choices and actions are internally determined. Free will is why I can choose to say "please pass the mustard."

    I believe that my choices are internally determined and that I alone am responsible for them. Yet I’ve been internally determined to be depraved before I was born and had no say on the matter. If one holds to total depravity, then I do not see how LFW helps in any way. That could be due by my own lack of reasoning on the subject, but if I in my natural state can only choose evil then it matters little whether I have no choice, 3 choices or an infinite amount of choices.

    I agree with you and most Arminians that say that we make choices and that they are internally determined, but what I take from Mr. Pikes post is that my internals have been fixed/created depraved.

    Hopefully that makes better sense of my position. Also, please forgive me if I came across as thinking that LFW means that you can choose whatever you want i.e. flying. That is not what I meant to convey. Only that if I have LFW it should be well within my power to be righteous and bring forth good fruit. Otherwise all you have is LFW to pick only sin and I believe most non-Calvinist hold to LFW because it gives one the power to actualize the other choice such as to sin or not sin and without the ability to do that we cannot be held responsible.

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  92. Mitch,

    Yet I’ve been internally determined to be depraved before I was born and had no say on the matter.

    As Skarlet says, LFW is about your decisions being causally determined by your own will. So you being depraved doesn't make all of your decisions necesary (causally determined). LFW also teaches that we are free to choose actual possible choices. For instance, I could not choose to sprout wings and fly because there are physical limitations that prevent that choice. So, if it were true that depraved people can only choose evil, that still doesn't show that determinism is true. All it would show is that there is a spiritual limitation that prohibits depraved people from choosing certain things. Depraved people could still freely choose from a list of evil choices. Likewise, it is not actually possible for people to seek after God without His grace, not because there is a causal determinate, but because there is a limitation in their freedom. Freedom exists nonetheless, they are just able to choose from a shorter list.

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  93. Bossmanham,

    I fail to see why the flying keeps coming up since I know that to be false and to my knowledge have never stated that LFW would entail that people can fly.

    My main stumbling block lies when you acknowledge that ”because there is a limitation in their freedom” how that meshes with LFW?

    Again if the point is that we can choose from a smorgasbord of evil options then I fail to see the value of LFW. If one holds to total depravity then LFW is useless. The only purpose I see for LFW is that the person can chose other than evil and that would mean that he could be righteous and bear good fruit. Yet the Bible seems to speak against such a view.

    So I agree that we make choices that are internally determined, but as Mr. Pike has stated the internals have been created by God.

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  94. Mitch,

    I fail to see why the flying keeps coming up since I know that to be false and to my knowledge have never stated that LFW would entail that people can fly.

    It's an example meant to clarify our position. I use the analogy to show that just because we can't do everything doesn't mean freedom doesn't exist.

    My main stumbling block lies when you acknowledge that ”because there is a limitation in their freedom” how that meshes with LFW?

    How doesn't it? Limited freedom != no freedom.

    Again if the point is that we can choose from a smorgasbord of evil options then I fail to see the value of LFW.

    Then you fail to understand LFW. It means our actions are causally separate from God. If determinism is true, then God is the one who has made all of your actions necessary. Just because we can't choose to do anything doesn't mean we don't choose freely.

    If one holds to total depravity then LFW is useless.

    How so? I hold to both. We cannot choose God without His intervention. What's the problem?

    Yet the Bible seems to speak against such a view.

    The Bible speaks against the straw man view you seem to be arguing against, maybe. It doesn't speak against what LFWers actually believe.

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  95. When I say "Just because we can't choose to do anything doesn't mean we don't choose freely." I mean Just because we can't choose to do everything we think of doesn't mean we don't choose freely.

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  96. Looks like it might be fun to continue our conversation here after all!

    Let me try framing an argument. Let N(P) mean, "P is the case, and S is not, and never was, free (in the LFW sense) with respect to whether P is the case" (I'm heavily borrowing, though slightly amending, from van Inwagen here). So N is a "no-freedom" operator. Let D = a proposition describing S's design (S's "nature," etc.). Let A = an arbitrarily chosen action of S's. You want to argue that:

    P1) Necessarily, If S is created/designed, then N(D)

    and (perhaps) that in this way creatures differ from God, since God is self-existent. I can agree with this. Your conclusion seems to be:

    C) Necessarily (If S is created/designed, then N(A))

    That's equivalent to saying: S's being created/designed entails that S is not free with respect to A, and since A was arbitrarily chosen, S would not be free at all. So, how do we get from P1 to C, since obviously C doesn't follow directly from P1? Here are two options:

    P2) Necessarily (If D, then A)

    This says: S's design, D, entails S's action(s), A. Another option:

    P2*) N(If D, then A)

    This says: D is followed by A, and the fact that D is followed by A is not something S has any choice about.

    We'll need one more premise to make either of these arguments valid, which is a "transfer principle" to the effect that if N(X), and N(If X then Y), then N(Y) (or for P2, we'll need only the weaker principle that if N(X) and Necessarily(If X then Y), then N(Y).) Van Inwagen calls the former principle "Rule Beta." Most libertarians will accept some (very similar) version of Rule Beta.

    So, your burden seems to be to either defend P2, defend P2*, or defend some other premise that together with P1 entails C. The libertarian denies P2 and P2*.
    (cont'd)

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  97. Against P2: it seems obviously logically possible for God to create creatures whose design does not entail every action (even, as I've been tacitly supposing, in conjunction with the circumstances, the past, and the laws of nature). Here's one way for God to do this: include in D a "deep chance" randomizing device which plays a crucial part in the production of S's action. Of course, S will not be a free creature in most such cases, but it shows that it's not logically impossible for God to create creatures such that their design does not entail every action. So, P2 is false.

    Against P2*: why think that it could not be up to S whether, given a certain design D, a certain action A follows? What's to (logically!) prevent God from including in S's design D a power of being able to choose from amongst more than one option? Facts about D might determine the scope of options available to S (both in general, and in a given set of circumstances) and the indeterministic propensities associated with S's choosing each possible outcome. Indeed, facts about D might even rationally explain S's choices (e.g. by citing the reasons - produced by D - on which S acted), but such rational explanation need not be deterministic in nature (some theorists have even argued that it need not be even causal in nature).

    At this point you seem to object: but if D doesn't determine A, then A's occurrence must be a mere matter of chance.

    But this has not been shown. Certainly the concept of determinism (or a deterministic relation) doesn't support such an inference - it's not like we define determinism or its contradictory in terms of chance. So "indeterminism = chance" is not analytic. And if we think that God can have LFW, then we already grant this, since God's actions could be indeterministic but not a matter of chance. The fact that creatures are designed doesn't help motivate this argument - how do facts about design entail anything about chanciness?

    Besides, the libertarian can grant that something determines the action - namely, the agent herself - without affirming that the agent's design determined that the agent do so. Where's the logical contradiction in any of this?

    So the libertarian has lots of resources here: they can point to indeterministic causal relations between D and A; or a deterministic relation between S and A, and an indeterministic relation between D and S; or a non-causal relation between S and A, and a teleological relation between D and A; or various other options. Being created means that S's options might be limited (where the limitations are something beyond S's control), but this doesn't show that God is unable to give creatures a fundamental power to choose from those limited alternatives.

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  98. Bossmanham,

    Then you fail to understand LFW.

    That may be true.

    It means our actions are causally separate from God.

    I agree that our actions are causally separate from God.

    If determinism is true, then God is the one who has made all of your actions necessary. Just because we can't choose to do anything doesn't mean we don't choose freely.

    I would only alter one word from what you said and say it this way

    If determinism is true, then God is the one who has made all of your actions CERTAIN.

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  99. Mitch,

    You say that "I believe that my choices are internally determined and that I alone am responsible for them."

    First of all, if you believe that, then you already believe in LFW. LFW is the idea that all of our choices are internally determined.

    You also say "if I in my natural state can only choose evil then it matters little whether I have no choice, 3 choices or an infinite amount of choices" and "If one holds to total depravity then LFW is useless."

    Now, naturally I do not believe that LFW is useless, but I will debate that separately. What I take exception to is the idea that is something is not "useful" it cannot be "true." It is of firstmost importance to find and believe truth, rather than to dismiss theories as untrue simply because they do not appear at first glance to be on any use.

    To answer the question "what use is it?" I actually wrote a blog about that, here: http://christiancompletely.blogspot.com/2009/09/why-does-it-matter-if-people-have-free.html

    "Yet I’ve been internally determined to be depraved before I was born and had no say on the matter."

    You were externally determined to be depraved. That is, you didn't choose to be born with a sin nature. You inherited that from Adam. But the choices you make with that nature are your own internally-determined choices. In your life now, as a christian, you still internally determine your own choices: what to eat, what to wear, whether to sin, which righteousnesses to pursue, what ministry to go into, etc. Anything good you do is by the grace of God, but your choices are your choices.

    "I agree with you and most Arminians that say that we make choices and that they are internally determined, but what I take from Mr. Pikes post is that my internals have been fixed/created depraved."

    Well, first of all, LFW is not mainly about total depravity or not. LFW mainly disagrees with the Reformed view of God's Sovereignty. We believe that God is Sovereign over free creatures who internally determine their own choices, and that God rules. The Reformed view is that God, and not us, causally determines our actions - foreordains them, not allowing them, but causing them. That is the view that the only way God can be sovereign is if He micro-manages everything. According to that view, we do not (interally) causally determine our own choices, but God (external to us) causally determines our choices.

    The main point of Pike's post is the idea that it would be impossible for people to determine their own choices - that a person's choice must be either externally determined, or else random. This, naturally, is an either/or fallacy. He gives the example of computers being programmed - that their choices are either externally determined, or else random. This would certainly prove his point IF people were no more than machines. However, he sadly fails to take into account the spirit and soul of man, which were made in the image of God, who (internally) causally determines his own moral choices. God's choices are neither externally determined, nor random. We, unlike computers, have a soul and a spirit and are also capable of internally determining our own moral choices. As non-believers, we will determine to sin, but that is another point altogether - one that we all agree upon, in fact.

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  100. (Mitch)

    You said "Also, please forgive me if I came across as thinking that LFW means that you can choose whatever you want i.e. flying. That is not what I meant to convey. Only that if I have LFW it should be well within my power to be righteous and bring forth good fruit."

    But you see, what we are trying to say is that those two examples deal with the same principle: the principle of power. You do not have the power to fly (therefore you can't choose to fly) and you do not have the power to please God without faith (therefore you can't choose to please God without faith. LFW does not teach that man has the POWER to do righteousness by his own strength, or to save himself, or to fly! LFW merely teaches that man can make his own choices, and internally determine his own actions.

    In reference to LFW, a man tied up in a dungeon is as free as a King - both internally determine their own chosen actions. It is not an issue of power. You misunderstand that when you say that if you have LFW, which you do since you internally causally determine your own choices, then you would have the "power" to bring forth good fruit. But will is not power. Just as you can will to fly, but not have the power to fly, you can also will to bring forth good fruit, but not have the power in yourself to bring forth good fruit. Christ is the vine - only through His power are we able to bring forth fruit. Bringing forth good fruit without Christ is even more impossible than flying.

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  101. Skarlet & Bossmanham,

    I’m glad I have LFW and would like to ask a simple question.

    If natural, unregenerate man can only do evil in the sight of God how is that better than the compatibilist that gives limited free will to man?

    I get that you do not think that God micro manages, but how does that square with all that God does manage. For example

    Weather today and all days
    Whether I’m rich or poor (no matter if I use LFW to try and prosper, God is the one who decides)
    Whether I eat today (no matter if I choose to eat, God is the one who provides me food each day)
    Whether I’m healthy or sick (no matter if I use LFW and make all the right choices when it comes to health, God is the one who decides)

    I could go on, but to me God does micro manage my life and I praise Him for that. Because I know that no matter what difficulties I face that God is in control and will provide all I need.

    It seems that what you are implying, forgive and correct me if I’m wrong, is that God does not micro manage my life and that in many ways I’m on my own, kind of like survival of the fittest. I would rather hold to the belief that is more Biblical to me, which is that I have some limited freedom and that God is in complete control.

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  102. Mitch,

    If natural, unregenerate man can only do evil in the sight of God how is that better than the compatibilist that gives limited free will to man?

    Well I don't think compatibilism is even a coherent idea. I don't think it's possible to be determined yet free. The two concepts are mutually exclusive. That is why I'm an incompatibilist. I think if determinism is true then it is either God who has necessitated every single action or God doesn't exist and naturalistic determinism is true. If it is God who has determined all events then, contrary to scripture, He has necessitated sin.

    Weather today and all days

    Weather doesn't have a will.

    Whether I’m rich or poor (no matter if I use LFW to try and prosper, God is the one who decides)

    I'm not sure this is the case, but even if God determined your income it doesn't follow that He determines all of your choices. He could alter other circumstances to keep you poor or rich.

    Whether I eat today (no matter if I choose to eat, God is the one who provides me food each day)

    I think you answered your own question. God can provide something that we choose to use or not.

    Whether I’m healthy or sick (no matter if I use LFW and make all the right choices when it comes to health, God is the one who decides)

    The will isn't able to choose if a person gets sick or not. That isn't someting that is within our power to control, beyond taking care of our bodies.

    I could go on, but to me God does micro manage my life and I praise Him for that

    No one says they are against God's "micro management" as you put it. I believe God has complete providential control over history and my life. I too praise Him for that.

    It seems that what you are implying, forgive and correct me if I’m wrong, is that God does not micro manage my life and that in many ways I’m on my own, kind of like survival of the fittest

    Nope. We do make our own choices, but it is God who provides. If we get ourselves into trouble by our own sins, we can't say that it is because God causally necessitated those sins. But God is still in control of what He allows.

    I would rather hold to the belief that is more Biblical to me, which is that I have some limited freedom and that God is in complete control.

    This is exactly what I believe.

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  103. Since this dropped off the main page, I haven't been able to follow it as much as I should. I will write a new post in the next couple of days addressing some of the issues here, since it is apparently of far more interest than I thought it would be.

    I will note that thus far the only alternative to my position has been the statement that man's will is sui generis. In other words, when I say that it is logically impossible for the will to be created in a non-determined and non-random manner, and the only response is the special pleading "the will is unique and isn't like anything else that's created" then that pretty much already proves my point.

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  104. “…it does no good to argue ‘God just can overcome this limitation.’ This limitation is a logical limitation, and just as God cannot make a round square, so God cannot give us the ability to make a non-determined choice. Either the choice is determined or it is not a choice because it is random and arbitrary.”

    I don't see a "logical limitation" at all. Instead, I see a design issue (the thing in which you are arguing against). Nevertheless, what law of logic is being violated. Without such a law, it seems rather easy to presume that an omniscient Being knows how to create a being with the capacity to render a non-determined choice, though within a given set of parameters, such parameters as evidenced by 1 Cor 10:13.

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  105. It's a logical violation because of the definition of the word "determined" for one thing. Just as it's a logical fallacy to talk about a married bachelor, so would it be a logical fallacy to talk about a non-determined choice that came about because it was determined.

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  106. so would it be a logical fallacy to talk about a non-determined choice that came about because it was determined.

    We mean undetermined by another being other than the being who makes the decision. It is certainly a person's will that determines what they will do, by their choice.

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  107. Bossmanham,

    Well I don't think compatibilism is even a coherent idea.

    That is how I feel about incompatilism.

    I don't think it's possible to be determined yet free.

    I do


    The two concepts are mutually exclusive. That is why I'm an incompatibilist. I think if determinism is true then it is either God who has necessitated every single action or God doesn't exist and naturalistic determinism is true. If it is God who has determined all events then, contrary to scripture, He has necessitated sin.

    I think that God has made everything certain to happen and nothing can change that or else the word certain loses meaning.

    Weather doesn't have a will.

    I never meant to imply that it does, only that God micro manages it.

    I'm not sure this is the case, but even if God determined your income it doesn't follow that He determines all of your choices. He could alter other circumstances to keep you poor or rich.

    I’m not sure how it cannot be the case.

    I think you answered your own question. God can provide something that we choose to use or not.

    Forgive the vagueness, what I was saying is that if I want to eat today that it is God that provides the food. So if God does not provide physical food to consume today then no matter if I wanted to eat I would have no food.

    The will isn't able to choose if a person gets sick or not. That isn't someting that is within our power to control, beyond taking care of our bodies.

    That is pretty much what I said, but it goes to show that this is just another feature that God micro manages.

    No one says they are against God's "micro management" as you put it. I believe God has complete providential control over history and my life. I too praise Him for that.
    Great! We agree and it is right to give our thanks and praise to God.

    Nope. We do make our own choices, but it is God who provides. If we get ourselves into trouble by our own sins, we can't say that it is because God causally necessitated those sins. But God is still in control of what He allows.

    I agree that we make our own choices. One more time, God does not causally necessitate those sins, but God does make those sins 100% certain.

    This is exactly what I believe.

    Glad to hear we agree on even more. And again the point that I take from this article is that we internally determine to make our choices, but that our internals have been created and therefore cannot be indeterministic.

    Seeing as I do not want to detract from the conversation between Peter and Brian I will bow out for now, my email is available on my profile. I will leave you the last word.

    God bless.

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  108. Wow! Peter you are losing this debate with Brian. He is simply using your logic against you this time.

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