Jumping from a burning building

Freewill theists often contend that allowing evil is distinct from causing evil. Suppose someone must jump from the fifth story of an apartment building to the parking lot below. Suppose there's a bystander underneath who's watching. Suppose there's a trampoline which the jumper will just miss, and the bystander can see that. Suppose the bystander can push the trampoline over so that the jumper will fall into the trampoline, but the bystander does nothing. Is there no sense in which the bystander caused the death of the jumper? Sure, freewill theists can resort to a stipulative definition of causation to deny that implication, but that's an ad hoc definition.

The card you draw

Debates over Calvinism and freewill theism often revolve around the allegation that Calvinism is committed to "causal determinism". In my experience, freewill theists rarely if ever define either term. 

It's interesting to compare determinism to causation. What does it mean to cause something? Suppose I'm in a poker game. If the deck is randomly shuffled one way, I'll draw a particular card, and if it's randomly shuffled another way, I'll draw a different card. If we keep all the other variables the same, there's a sense in which changing that one variable makes the difference. Depending on the card I draw, I will bet, bluff, call, raise, or fold. 

But in a larger sense, that's not the only thing that causes me to play my hand a particular way. Depends on the other cards in my hand. Depends on how I read the other players, which in turn depends on the composition of the players. Depends on whether I'm in a good mood because I'm savoring a nice bourbon, or whether I'm in a bad mood because I just broke up with my girlfriends. Depends on how much money I can afford to lose. 

We might say they don't make the difference in the sense that if we just change one variable, then that's what makes the difference. But we could change one of those variables, instead.

So there's no one variable that causes the outcome, but the combination. They all make a difference to the outcome.

The origin of life

Jonathan McLatchie recently did a webinar with Intelligent design theorist and young-earth creationist Paul Nelson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1b5kW-ioeo

Between about about the 1 hr 46 min mark until about 2 hr 18 min, Nelson had an impromptu debate with Darwinian biologist and militant atheist Zachary Moore.

i) I believe Moore's impediment is the assumption that direct causation is impossible. For X to cause Y, there must be an intervening physical medium.

That, however, exhumes the ancient conundrum of infinite divisibility. Take particle physics. You can keep down down lower scales of matter and energy, but if you insist that cause-effect transactions require an intervening medium, then there's no ultimate explanatory terminus, for there must always be some physical medium in-between the cause and effect to facilitate the transaction.

ii) Another one of Zach's impediments, which Nelson kept returning to, is Zach's failure to distinguish what constitutes a scientific explanation given an ongoing cyclical process from what constitutes a scientific explanation of how that cyclical process originated. The fact that we may commonly require identification of a natural "mechanism" given the existence of a cyclical process does not imply that such a demand is reasonable to account for the given itself.

iii) Zach also missed the point of Nelson's SETI illustration. The point is that we'd be justified in inferring that signals from outer space transmitting Pi are the product of an advanced alien civilization even if we didn't an inkling about the technology by which they were able to transmit a signal that distant. You don't require the identification of a mechanism before you're warranted in inferring design or intelligent agency.

Miracles, motion pictures, and body-swapping

One way to define and classify miracles is by causality. 

i) Providence is like an automated machine that does whatever it's programmed to do, nothing more and nothing less. Physical causes are unintelligent. Providence operates on the principle of internal causality. When nature operates as a closed system. 

Providence is like a game of pool. The cue stick strikes the cue ball, which strikes the 8-ball, which rebounds against the cushion, in a series of unbroken cause and effect. 

ii) Classical miracles bypass natural processes. At that point nature becomes an open system, subject to external agency. The miracle is causally discontinuous with antecedent states.

A classical miracle is like motion pictures. Motion pictures generate the illusion of causal continuity, but in reality, preceding and succeeding images are causally discontinuous with each other. In a classic miracle, there's a causal gap between the preceding chain of events and the miracle. The chain of events will resume after the miracle, because the miracle establishes a new antecedent state, and which point second causes kick in.  

We might also compare classical miracles to body-swapping in science fiction. Transferring consciousness to a different body. Under that scenario, mind and body are discontinuous with each other inasmuch as that mind has no prior history with that body. 

That has a real-world analogue with the resurrection of the body. On one model, God will create a duplicate body for the soul. It may be very similar to his former body, although this body will be immortal rather than mortal. But even if the new duplicate body was indistinguishable from his former body, his mind has no prior history with the new duplicate body. In that respect, it's like motion pictures.  

iii) Coincidence miracles are in-between. They are like ordinary providence insofar as they utilize physical causes. They are causally continuous with the chain of events. Continuous with antecedent states. 

But they are unlike ordinary providence inasmuch as they are more discriminating and specific. They reflect rational discretion. Both classical miracles and coincidence miracles involve an external agent who overrides the automatic setting. 

A coincidence miracle is like loaded dice or stacked decks. It doesn't circumvent natural processes. But it requires the intelligent manipulation of natural processes by an agent outside the system. 

BTW, "coincidence miracle" doesn't mean it's a coincidence. Rather, it means that independent chains of events coincide at that juncture, in a way that's too naturally improbable and opportune to be fortuitous.

Causation and dualism

Traditionally, many Christians subscribe to substance dualism. That is to say, they think humans have an immortal, incorporeal soul. That's largely based on Biblical passages which indicate an intermediate state between death and the general resurrection. That when you die, you don't cease to exist. Consciousness survives brain death. And I think that's correct. 

A stock objection to dualism is that it's hard to see how one kind of substance (matter) can act on another kind of substance (mind) or vice versa. 

This is based almost entirely on the intuition that causation involves a point of contact. It can be direct contact between cause and effect, or it can be energy transfer that's transmitted through an intervening medium. A physical chain of cause and effect–like a game of pool or dominoes.  

Let's consider some comparisons. Alcohol is a mood-altering chemical. At least in theory, it's not hard to grasp how ingesting or imbibing a chemical substance can affect brain chemistry. Beer and brain are both physical substances.

Compare that to a hug. Hugs are mood altering gestures. But it's harder to explain how gentle, momentary pressure on the sternum can affect one's mood.

The stock explanation is appeal to oxytocin. A hug releases oxytocin, which has a chemical effect on the brain. 

And that may be true to some degree. However, to explain the effect of a hug by reference to oxytocin only pushes the question back a step, for you must then explain how a neuropeptide have that effect. Is a neuropeptide really responsible for all the varied dispositions that people attribute to it? For many people, a hug is deeply meaningful in a way that seems to be irreducible to stimulating one neuropeptide. 

It seems more plausible to explain the mood-altering effect of a hug as innate code language. We've been designed to interpret a hug as a social signal. 

In any case, the effect seems to be further removed from the physical cause in that instance than alcohol consumption. 

Be that as it may, let's consider one further example, which is even more detached from a point of contact: watching a movie or a game can be a mood-altering experience. It can make the viewer happy, sad, or mad. It can be exciting. 

What the viewer sees causes a mood in the viewer. But what is the nature of the cause? It doesn't act on the brain in any direct sense. 

Rather, certain images hold personal significance for the viewer. In a movie, he may relate to some characters. He cares about them. He becomes invested in what happens to them.

He can related to their situation. So he is drawn into the story, as if it was happening to him. 

It has an emotional effect on him, but that's a purely intellectual, interpretive exercise. Things we see can affect our mental states, not because there's a point of physical contact, but because they are significant to the viewer. That's a cause/effect relation between two disparate substances. 

Tug-of-war

Freewill theists typically act as though the distinction between God "causing" evil and God "permitting" evil is morally crucial. I'm going to develop an illustration by philosopher Stephen Mumford which a friend shared with me. Ironically, I like his illustration, but disagree with his interpretation.

Take a tug-of-war. Suppose you begin with two evenly-matched teams. They may be evenly matched because both sides have an equal number of teammates, and each teammate is equal in size and strength to his fellow teammates, as well as the opposing teammates. They are numerically and individually equally matched.

Or they may be aggregately evenly matched. Maybe one side has fewer teammates than the other, but its teammates are bigger and stronger than the opposing side, as a result of which each team pulls with the same amount of force. The qualitative advantages balance out the quantitative disadvantages, or vice versa. 

This results in a stalemate. Neither team can win.

So what would it take for one team to win? There are two ways that could happen.

i) By adding another teammate to one side. That would tip the balance of power in its favor. 

ii) By subtracting a teammate from one side. That, too, would shift the balance of power.

We might say adding a teammate causes that team to win the tug of war. Just enough extra force. 

But by converse logic, we might say subtracting a teammate causes that team to lose. Indeed, it's hard to see how that inference can be avoided. As philosopher David Lewis once said: "We think of a cause as something that makes a difference."

If a teammate decided to quit, he'd naturally be blamed for causing his team to lose. His team lost when he stopped pulling the rope. It was a group effort which could not afford a single defection. 

The opposing team won because his team lost, and his team lost because he gave up. In that respect, he caused the opposing team to win. It couldn't win unless his team lost. His team losing was a necessary and sufficient condition of their winning. He made it happen. His action was the differential factor. The tipping point. 

Furthermore, we could recast the issue in terms of rendering an outcome certain. In this case, not pulling ensured defeat. Just as adding a teammate guaranteed (or determined) victory for one side, subtracting a teammate guaranteed (or determined) defeat for the other side. 

A will to damn

I'm going to comment on this:

https://ochuk.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/two-wills-yes-a-will-to-damn-no-a-response-to-piper/

i) It may be a mistake for me to respond. I disagree with Piper's position. Someone like Bnonn Dominic Tennant, who's more sympathetic to Piper's position, might be better equipped to defend it. 

Likewise, I'm not deeply conversant with Piper's theology. My reading of Piper is quite limited. I can't vouch for the accuracy of Adam's interpretation, or whether Piper has said things elsewhere which would bolster his position.

ii) One initial problem is that Adam is basically operating with philosophical theology whereas Piper is basically operating with exegetical theology. For Piper, the two wills of God is a revealed truth. For him it doesn't ultimately matter if that appears to be inconsistent to our finite minds. 

iii) Jeremy Pierce has been critical of how Piper parses God's self-glorification:

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2006/05/jealousy.html

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2008/05/regret_in_heave.html

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2009/11/priorities-phil1.html

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2010/03/for-zions-sake.html#more

iv) Conversely, I've argued that it's not ipso facto incoherent for the Calvinist God to have unrequited desires:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/12/divine-frustration.html

So with those caveats duly register, let's proceed:

1. If the doctrine of Unconditional Election is true, then God prefers that not all be saved.

1. But the Bible says that God prefers that all be saved (1 Tim 2:4, 2 Pet 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23, 32).

1. Therefore, the doctrine of Unconditional Election is false.

How might the the defender of Unconditional Election respond? One might deny [2] by some method of interpretation that concludes that the verses in question do not really say God prefers that all be saved. 

That's my own position.

Piper’s response is simple: the argument equivocates the meaning of the word “prefers.” In [1] God prefers to actualize states of affairs that do not entail the salvation of everyone; in [2] God prefers that the states of affairs in which everyone is saved were actual. In the first sense, God prefers to actualizes something; in the second, God prefers that something else were actual. A nice way of putting it (borrowed from Steven Cowan) is that all things being equal, God prefers to save everyone, but all things considered, God prefers not to save everyone. Think of a physician who intends to help people overseas ward off a deadly disease, but upon hearing that his homeland is being impacted by the disease, he decides to stay and help his own people. It is perfectly coherent to understand his conflicting preferences in this way. And it is this sort of “two wills” theology that is unavoidable when trying to answer the problem of evil.

On the face of it, that's a coherent position. 

Let us suppose this is right. Then, we have to answer this: what sort of consideration is it that so constrains God from saving everyone? What is at stake for God if he fails to save everyone? Piper’s answer is that God’s glory is at stake: God would fail to maximize the revelation of his glory to the elect by virtue of failing to send some sinners to hell so that they might bear, and in so doing reveal, the full weight of divine wrath. Piper believes that a world where this sort of wrath is not actualized is on the whole less preferable than a world in which it is actualized (alongside a display of mercy), because it fails to exemplify the sternness of God’s wrath.

Hovering in the background of this discussion is the assumption that there's one best possible world. That one possible world is simply preferable to another possible world. 

And no doubt there are cases where that is true. Some possible worlds are clearly worse than others.

But in other cases, that's simplistic. One possible world may be preferable to another in some respects, but less preferable in other respects. Among the better possible worlds, each has a unique package of goods that isn't captured by the alternative. 

I have three objections to this consideration. First, it imposes a rather strong limitation on God’s freedom in that He is not really free to show mercy to whomever He likes. Piper elsewhere assumes that the failure to uphold God’s glory is a moral failure  (see The Future of Justification, 64).

i) There's a potential equivocation here. Does Adam mean a moral failure on God's part, or on the part of humans?

If the former, then I agree with him that Piper's understanding is flawed in this respect. If the latter, then Adam's conclusion is fallacious.

ii) Keep in mind, too, that if God has a goal that's inconsistent with universal salvation, then God can't save everyone consistent with that goal. That's a contingent limitation. God can save everyone minus the goal. Or God can achieve his goal. It's the combination that's impossible. 

To put this in reverse: if it's God's goal to save everyone, then God can't damn anyone. But that's not a strong limitation on God's freedom. That just means God can't perform a pseudotask. Not all possibilities are compossible. God can't pursue contradictory goals, that's all. 

A second objection grants the truth of the penal substitution theory of the atonement and argues that the fullness of God’s wrath could be sufficiently displayed (if it must be displayed) in the work of Christ. The elect would need nothing more than the cross of Christ to understand the depths of their sin and the severity of God’s response to it. But if a populated hell is required to sufficiently display God’s wrath to the elect, then the cross of Christ is insufficient to display God’s wrath to the elect. 

i) That's equivocal. The primary purpose of penal substitution is to make atonement for the sins of the elect. The main purpose is not illustrative. It's not like the moral influence theory, governmental theory, or declaratory theory of the atonement. Penal substitution is mainly about what it does, not what it shows. Its demonstrative value is a beneficial side-effect. 

ii) In addition, to say God's wrath is sufficiently demonstrated at the cross renders all historical and eschatological judgments in Scripture gratuitous. 

Third, given the sort of sovereignty Piper affirms, it is hard to understand what could be glorious about God’s wrath if it is meted out for sins that were causally brought about by God.

That's not self-evident. Suppose a Latin American gov't is attempting to wipe out a drug cartel. To do that, it ambushes the cartel's roving death squads. It lures them into an exposed position, where they fire on gov't soldiers, who return fire. 

In a sense, the Latin American gov't "causally brought about" that confrontation. It provoked the confrontation, through a ruse de guerre. Yet the death squads deserved to be mowed down. 

The doctrine of divine wrath contains two components. The first is a sense of righteous indignation towards a wrong; the second is a just punishment brought to bear on the wrongdoer. But how does one wrong God and thereby merit his wrath by doing exactly what God determines one to do?

i) There's another potential equivocation here. Notice how Adam elides wrong into wronging God. But must one wrong God to be a wrongdoer? Must one wrong God to do wrong?

ii) Even in freewill theism, in what sense does a human wrong God? A human is in no position to harm God. So it must mean something else. 

The picture we are left with is a God who frustrates himself by ordaining states of affairs that he judges to be bad. God’s anger and punishment are irrational as they are directed towards objects that do exactly what they are supposed to do.

i) To begin with, there's the danger of framing this in overly anthropomorphic terms. One needn't assume that God is literally angry or becomes angry. We could better recast this in terms of divine disapproval for evil qua evil. 

ii) God can disapprove of something considered in isolation, but approve of the contribution it makes to the ultimate outcome. God can disapprove of something that's evil in its own right, but which facilitates a greater good or second-order good.

iii) This doesn't mean God frustrates himself by ordaining events he judges to be bad. To the contrary, these are his appointed means to the appointed end. There's an equivocation here:

a) These are good means in the sense that they facilitate the objective.

b) These are bad means in the sense that they are wicked in their own right.

It's not as if God's means are at cross-purposes with his ends. The means are perfectly adapted to the ends. 

We need to differentiate a teleological evaluation of the means from an ethical evaluation of the means, taken in isolation.

For instance, an evil man is evil whether or not he is put in the service of a good goal. It's just that some people are put into arrangements which make them unwitting allies in a cause that's better and greater than themselves.  

Adam's animosity towards Calvinism prevents him from exploring or anticipating counterarguments. 

How much more irrational and stupid is God’s wrath on sinners for sins God causes them to commit? 

i) To begin with, there's the question of how Adam defines causation. Take the counterfactual theory of causation:

We think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes must be a difference from what would have happened without it. Had it been absent, its effects — some of them, at least, and usually all — would have been absent as well. 

e causally depends on c if and only if, if c were to occur e would occur; and if c were not to occur e would not occur. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/#CouCauDep

On that definition, God causes sin whether it's Calvinism, Thomism, Molinism, classical Arminianism, or open theism. 

Perhaps Adam would take issue with that definition. It is not, however, a Calvinistic theory of causation. It's not special pleading for a Calvinist define causation that way.

Moreover, does Adam have a better theory of causation to offer? Every philosophical theory of causation is open to criticism.

ii) Moreover, Molinism falls prey to parallel objections. Although there are infeasible worlds which God cannot instantiate,  God didn't choose to instantiate our word at gunpoint. He had a free hand. He was at liberty to instantiate a different feasible world. So why is he mad at the end-result of his own actions? He initiated this chain of events. He knew what was coming.

Ex nihilo nihil fit

One presupposition of cosmological arguments for God's existence is the axiom that nothing comes from nothing. 

Unsurprisingly, in order to attack cosmological arguments, some atheists deny the axiom. 

However, to deny the axiom is to deny causality. If something can come from nothing, then you have uncaused effects. 

But that instantly dissolves many things that atheists typically hold dear, like induction, the uniformity of nature, and scientific explanation.

Can we cheat fate?

Nowadays, fate is generally reserved for fantasy and science fiction movies. On one scenario, the protagonist has a dream about the future. But that poses a dilemma. If he can truly foresee the future, then that seems to mean the future was written in advance, in which case there's nothing he can do to alter the future. Usually, though, the protagonist is defiant. He views the premonition as a challenge or opportunity to deflect the foreseen outcome.

But what about real life? Is there such a thing as fate in real life? 

i) Epistemological fate

Some events are inevitable due to our ignorance of the future. Our ignorance of the causes leading up to the outcome. Take a fatal traffic accident. In principle, that's easily avoidable. Usually, a traffic accident is all about timing. Change a single variable in the chain of events, and you escape. If the driver leaves the house a minute sooner or a minute later, he avoids the accident. If he stops at the yellow light rather than speeding through the yellow light, at the intersection three blocks from the scene of the impending accident, he avoids the accident. If he turns left instead of right, he avoids the accident. If he stops to buy his wife flowers, he avoids the accident. He never crossed a line of no return. Every step of the way there was an out. 

Starting with the accident, we can systematically trace it back through a series of links in the chain. From the moment he left home (or left work for the return trip), he was fated to die in the traffic accident. But that's something we can only see after the fact. Because he can't see it coming, it's too late for him to step out of the way. 

ii) Ontologial fate

Some events are inevitable despite our knowledge of the future. Medical science may be close to telling you ahead of time if you will develop an incurable degenerative illness, like Parkinson's, Huntington's, or multiple sclerosis. That's very much like fate in the Classical sense. You are doomed. You know you are doomed. And there's nothing you can do, short of suicide, to avoid it. 

This also raises the question of whether it's better to know your medical fate, or remain in blissful ignorance. That's a dilemma, for there are tradeoffs on both scenarios. 

On the one hand, if you knew that you were going to develop a degenerative illness, then you might well make better use of your time. Make the most of your opportunities. Not take friends and family for granted. Not fritter away your best years on trivia. 

On the other hand, knowing how the story ends, if it ends badly, casts a shadow over your life long before you develop the disease. It robs you of hope. It's hard to enjoy the present when you know what awaits you just around the corner.  Lurking in the shadows.

Nonevents

Aliens abducted Ted when he was 13. Only Ted never knew he’d been abducted because the aliens immediately placed him in a replica of the world he left behind. They abducted him in his sleep. When he awoke, everything seemed to be exactly the same. The aliens then continued his life-story within the simulated world.

The aliens wanted to study human behavior. So they created an artificial environment in which everything Ted did was in response to a series of meticulously prearranged nonevents. 

In his simulated reality, Ted became an atheist because his parents didn’t take him to church. He married Jennifer instead of Genevieve because Genevieve didn’t ask him to be her prom date. He attended Texas Tech instead of Caltech because Texas Tech offered him a scholarship while Caltech did not. He bought a Welsh Corgi because he and Jennifer couldn’t have a child. He had pancakes instead of scrambled eggs for breakfast because the supermarket was out of brown eggs the day he went shopping. He bought the blue model rather than the red model because the dealer was out of stock the day he took a stroll around the car lot. He went to work by an alternate route yesterday because there was a pile up on the main drag. He had one roofer reroof the house rather than another roofer because the lower bid by the other roofer was lost in the mail.  

Noncausal determinism

i) Critics of Calvinism attribute “causal determinism” to Calvinism. And they’re positive that’s a really bad thing. Some Calvinists also attribute causal determinism to Calvinism.

However, the ascription is murky since definitions of causality and determinism vary widely in the philosophical literature.

ii) In addition, one thing this framework overlooks is the possibility of noncausal determination. Take the following scenario:

If, at a 4-way intersection, a malfunctioning green light stays green (i.e. doesn’t turn red when it’s supposed to) while the red light turns green, you have the same effect as if both lights turned green.

In both scenarios you have cars ramming into each other, but in one case, that was due to a positive cause (both lights turning green at the same time), while in the other case, that was due to something that didn’t happen (the green light didn’t turn red when the red light turned green). A nonevent resulting in an event.

If B happens because A didn't happen, is that a case of causal determinism or noncausal determinism? 

Some philosophers don’t think a nonoccurence can be the cause of a positive event. Yet the aforesaid scenario is still deterministic. For if certain cars are traveling at a certain time and place due to the malfunctioning light, then a collision is inevitable.

(A collision is not inherently inevitable. It depends on the details of the hypothetical. The number of cars, the timing of events. But in my hypothetical, that’s bound to happen.)

iii) This, in turn, raises the question of whether Calvinistic predestination or providence could be still be deterministic, but noncausally deterministic rather than causally deterministic.

Keep in mind that the Bible doesn’t reveal a theory of causation. So different theoretical models are available.

iv) Finally, this raises a further question: do critics of Calvinism object to causal determinism because it’s causal, deterministic, or the combination?

Is noncausal determinism subject to the same ethical objections as causal determinism?

For instance, it’s seems counterintuitive to say a man was “forced” to do something, or that his liberty was “violated,” by something else that didn’t happen to him.  

Petitionary prayer and accidental necessity

Victor Reppert said...

“What sense do you make of petitionary prayer on Calvinist assumptions? Wouldn't any petitionary prayer be an attempt to change a past state of affairs?”

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/irresistible-grace-or-total-depravity.html#c4034284965302925368

1.Assuming, for the sake of argument, that it did entail changing the past, I’m not sure why Reppert rules that out. After all, there are philosophers and physicists who toy with retrocausation, time-travel, and backtracking counterfactuals.

Not that I myself subscribe to that.

2.It’s also not clear to me why he’s cast the question in terms of changing the past. If he’s alluding to predestination, then the decree is timeless. Strictly speaking, the decree doesn’t lie in the past.

Perhaps, though, he’s treating a timeless decree as functionally equivalent to an accidentally necessary past.

3.For discussion purposes, let’s assume they’re equivalent. Some philosophers of time distinguish between changing the past and affecting the past. Even if the past is unalterable, that doesn’t mean the past can’t be affected by the present.

In addition, if we apply the counterfactual theory of causation to this distinction, then there’s a perfectly coherent sense in which timebound supplicants could affect the past.

God has decreed that certain outcomes are contingent on answered prayers. And God has decreed the prayers. Therefore, answered prayers effect corresponding outcomes which wouldn’t otherwise obtain absent the predestined prayers.

Is God the cause of evil?

A persistent problem with Arminians, when they attack Calvinism, is a failure to define basic terms and concepts. The Arminian faces a challenge. He heeds to find concepts which include Calvinism while excluding his own.

Take the concept of causation. It’s very difficult to formulate a general definition of causation which captures all our pretheoretical notions of causation. A definition that covers all genuine cases while excluding spurious cases.

And even if you succeed in defining the concept, that’s only half the job, for you also need to distinguish your own position from the unacceptable consequences you impute to the opposing position.

Arminian epologists show no awareness of just how complex the issue is. Since they ignore the obvious, I’ll have to cite some examples.

Here's the challenge for the Arminian:

i) Pick a definition of causation

ii) Show, on that definition, how Calvinism inculpates God while Arminianism exculpates God

*******************************

According to David Hume, causes are invariably followed by their effects: “We may define a cause to be an object, followed by another, and where all the objects similar to the first, are followed by objects similar to the second.” (1748, section VII.) Attempts to analyze causation in terms of invariable patterns of succession are referred to as “regularity theories” of causation. There are a number of well-known difficulties with regularity theories, and these may be used to motivate probabilistic approaches to causation.

The first difficulty is that most causes are not invariably followed by their effects. For example, it is widely accepted that smoking is a cause of lung cancer, but it is also recognized that not all smokers develop lung cancer. (Likewise, not all non-smokers are spared the ravages of that disease.) By contrast, the central idea behind probabilistic theories of causation is that causes raise the probability of their effects; an effect may still occur in the absence of a cause or fail to occur in its presence. Thus smoking is a cause of lung cancer, not because all smokers develop lung cancer, but because smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. This is entirely consistent with there being some smokers who avoid lung cancer, and some non-smokers who succumb.

Many philosophers find the idea of indeterministic causation counterintuitive. Indeed, the word “causality” is sometimes used as a synonym for determinism. A strong case for indeterministic causation can be made by considering the epistemic warrant for causal claims. There is now very strong empirical evidence that smoking causes lung cancer. Yet the question of whether there is a deterministic relationship between smoking and lung cancer is wide open. The formation of cancer cells depends upon mutation, which is a strong candidate for being an indeterministic process. Moreover, whether an individual smoker develops lung cancer or not depends upon a host of additional factors, such as whether or not she is hit by a bus before cancer cells begin to form. Thus the price of preserving the intuition that causation presupposes determinism is agnosticism about even our best supported causal claims. Since probabilistic theories of causation require only that a cause raise the probability of its effect, these theories are compatible with indeterminism.

If A causes B, then, typically, B will not also cause A. Smoking causes lung cancer, but lung cancer does not cause one to smoke. In other words, causation is usually asymmetric. This may pose a problem for regularity theories, for it seems quite plausible that if smoking is an inus condition for lung cancer, then lung cancer will be an inus condition for smoking. One way of enforcing the asymmetry of causation is to stipulate that causes precede their effects in time. Both Hume and Mill explicitly adopt this strategy. This has several systematic disadvantages. First, it rules out the possibility of backwards-in-time causation a priori, whereas many believe that it is only a contingent fact that causes precede their effects in time. Second, this approach rules out the possibility of developing a causal theory of temporal order (on pain of vicious circularity), a theory that has seemed attractive to some philosophers. Third, it would be nice if a theory of causation could to provide some explanation of the directionality of causation, rather than merely stipulate it.

Suppose that a cause is regularly followed by two effects. For instance, suppose that whenever the barometric pressure in a certain region drops below a certain level, two things happen. First, the height of the column of mercury in a particular barometer drops below a certain level. Shortly afterwards, a storm occurs. This situation is shown schemaatically in Figure 1. Then, it may well also be the case that whenever the column of mercury drops, there will be a storm. (More plausibly, the dropping of the barometer will be an inus condition for the storm.) Then it appears that a regularity theory would have to rule that the drop of the mercury column causes the storm. In fact, however, the regularity relating these two events is spurious; it does not reflect the causal influence of one on the other.

A leading approach to the study of causation has been to analyze causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals. A counterfactual conditional is a subjunctive conditional sentence, whose antecedent is contrary-to-fact. Here is an example: “if the butterfly ballot had not been used in West Palm Beach, then Albert Gore would be the president on the United States.” In the case of indeterministic outcomes, it may be appropriate to use probabilistic consequents: “if the butterfly ballot had not been used in West Palm Beach, then Albert Gore would have had a .7 chance of being elected president.” A probabilistic counterfactual theory of causation (PC) aims to analyze causation in terms of these probabilistic counterfactuals. The event B is said to causally depend upon the distinct event A just in case both occur and the probability that B would occur, at the time of As occurrence, was much higher than it would have been at the corresponding time if A had not occurred. This counterfactual is to be understood in terms of possible worlds: it is true if, in the nearest possible world(s) where A does not occur, the probability of B is much lower than it was in the actual world. On this account, the relevant notion of `probability-raising' is not understood in terms of conditional probabilities, but in terms of unconditional probabilities in different possible worlds.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-probabilistic/

Taking their point of departure from what science tells us about the world rather than from our everyday concept of a ‘process’, philosophers interested in analysing causal processes have tended to see the chief task to be to distinguish causal processes such as atoms decaying and billiard balls moving across the table from pseudo processes such as moving shadows and spots of light. These philosophers claim to have found, in the notion of a causal process, a key to understanding causation in general.

In this section we consider Wesley Salmon's theory of causality as presented in his book Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (1984). Although it draws on the work of Reichenbach and Russell, Salmon's theory is highly original and contains many innovative contributions. Salmon's broad objective is to offer a theory which is consistent with the following assumptions: (a) causality is an objective feature of the world; (b) causality is a contingent feature of the world; (c) a theory of causality must be consistent with the possibility of indeterminism; (d) the theory should be (in principle) time-independent so that it is consistent with a causal theory of time; (e) the theory should not violate Hume's strictures concerning ‘hidden powers’.

Salmon treats causality as primarily a characteristic of continuous processes rather than as a relation between events. His theory involves two elements, the production and the propagation of causal influence.

The major objection against Samon's account of causal processes concerns the adequacy of the mark theory (Dowe, 1992a; 1992b; Kitcher, 1989).
1. MT excludes causal processes. Firstly, the principle requires that processes display a degree of uniformity over a time period. This distinguishes processes (causal and pseudo) from ‘spatiotemporal junk’, to use Kitcher's term. One problem with this is that it seems to exclude many causal effects which are short lived.

More seriously, the MT principle requires that causal processes would remain uniform in the absence of interactions and that marks can be transmitted in the absence of additional interventions. However, in real situations processes are continuously involved in interactions of one sort or another.(Kitcher, 1989, p. 464). Even in the most idealised of situations interactions of sorts occur.

2. MT fails to exclude pseudo processes. Salmon's explicit intention in employing the MT principle is to show how pseudo processes are different from causal processes. If MT fails here then it fails its major test. However, a strong case can be made for saying that it does indeed fail this test.

If causation must involve a physical connection between a cause and its effect, than many everyday causal claims will not count as causation. ‘I killed the plant by not watering it’ (Beebee 2004). If this is a case of causation then process theories are in trouble, because neither my not watering nor whatever I did instead are connected by a physical process to the plant's dying. The same is true for ‘my failure to check the oil caused my engine to seize’. Cases of causation by omission, absence, preventing (ie causing to not happen) and double prevention (e.g., I prevent someone preventing an accident, Hall 2004) all raise the same difficulty. If these are cases of causation then the process theory cannot be right (Hausman 1998, pp. 15-16, Schaffer 2000, 2004).

Salmon and Dowe claim that they are offering a theory of causation, yet each acknowledge one way or another that the definitions above at best give just a necessary condition for two events to be related as cause and effect. As Woodward notes ‘we still face the problem that the feature that makes a process causal (transmission of some conserved quantity or other) tells us nothing about which features of the process are causally or explanatorily relevant to the outcome we want to explain.’ (2003, p. 357.) For example, putting a chalk mark on the white ball is a causal interaction linked by causal processes and interactions to the black ball's sinking (after the white ball strikes the black ball), yet it doesn't cause the black ball's sinking (Woodward 2003, p. 351).

Suppose a rolling steel ball is charged at a certain point along its trajectory. Suppose its trajectory is unaffected, and the ball subsequently hits another ball. The account should tell us that the fact that the ball gets charged not causally relevant to the fact that it hits the second ball. It does, since although on the Salmon-Dowe theory the ball's rolling is a causal process and the charging and the collision are causal interactions, and further, a change in ball's charge and the change in the ball's momentum are both the kinds of changes envisaged in (1), nevertheless there is no causal interaction linking the ball's having charge to the ball's having momentum as required in (1). Hence there is no causal thread as defined in (1) linking the two facts.

The Conserved Quantity theory is claimed by both Salmon and Dowe to be an empirical analysis, by which they mean that it concerns an objective feature of the actual world, and that it draws its primary justification from our best scientific theories. ‘Empirical analysis’ is to be contrasted with conceptual analysis, the approach that says in offering a theory of causation we seek to give an account of the concept as revealed in the way we (i.e. folk) think and speak. Conceptual analysis respects as primary data intuitions about causation; empirical analysis has no such commitment (Dowe 2000, ch. 1).
This construal of the task of delivering an account of causation has drawn criticism from a number of commentators. According to Koons, it threatens ‘to turn [the] metaphysical account into a watered-down version of more-or-less contemporary physical theory’. (Koons 2003, p. 244). But Hausman notes that since causation is not a technical concept in science, ‘[w]ithout some plausible connection to what ordinary people and scientists take to be causation, the conserved quantity theory would float free of both physics and philosophy.’ (Hausman 2002, p. 718, see also Garcia-Encinas 2004, p. 45) And McDaniel asks what could justify one in believing a putative ‘empirical analysis’? He adds that if an empirical analysis is not at least extensionally equivalent (in the actual world) to the true conceptual analysis, then what would be the point? (2002, p. 259).

Despite their denial of a primary need to respect common sense intuitions about the concept of causation, Salmon and Dowe do still want to say their account deals with everyday cases of causation. This again raises the question of translation. As Kim puts it, there is the ‘question of whether the [Dowe-Salmon] theory provides a way to “translate” causality understood in the [Dowe-Salmon] theory into ordinary causal talk and vice versa.’ (Kim 2001, p. 242, and see especially Hausman 1998, pp. 14–17, 2002, p. 719).

According to Dowe the relata in true ‘manifest’ (common sense) claims of causation must be translated to physical states of the sort discussed above (‘object a has a value q of a conserved quantity’) such that the manifest causal claim supervenes on some physical causation. Even for purely physical cases such as ‘chalking the ball’ this is a complicated matter, and it is not obvious that it can be carried through.
Even if this could be made to work in purely physical cases, there remain questions about mental causation, causation in history, and causation in other branches of science besides physics (Woodward 2003, pp. 355-6, Machamer, Darden and Craver 2000, p. 7, Cartwright 2004, p. 812). In any case, to suppose that the conserved quantity theory will deal with causation in other branches of science also requires commitment to a fairly thorough going reductionism, since clearly there is nothing in economics or psychology that could pass for a conservation law.

An alternative to such reductionism is the view developed by Nancy Cartwright, which we might call causal pluralism After rejecting the conserved quantity theory (along with a range of major theories of causation) as an account of a ‘monolithic’ causal concept, on the grounds that it cannot deal with cases in economics, Cartwright summarises her position:

1. There is a variety of different kinds of causal laws that operate in a variety of different ways and a variety of different kinds of causal questions that we can ask.
2. Each of these can have its own characteristic markers; but there are no interesting features that they all share in common. (2004, p. 814, see also Hausman 2002, p. 723)

There are a number of notable and related theories of causation which space unfortunately forbids us to deal with in detail. The reader is encouraged to consult the references for details.

On Castaneda's (1980) transference theory of causation, ‘causity’, is the transmission of a physical element: energy, movement, charge. According to Bigelow, Ellis and Pargetter (1988) causation is the action of forces (see also Bigelow and Pargetter 1990), while for Heathcote (1989) causation is an interaction (as defined by a suitable quantum field theory). Collier (1999) develops the notion that causation is the transfer of information. Krajewski (1997) outlines several causal concepts including transfer of energy and the transfer of information. Kistler (1998, 2006) develops the trope persistence view in terms of conserved quantities. Reiber (2002) provides a conceptual analysis of causation in terms of property acquisition and transfer, and also gives references to many historical figures who hold a similar view. Finally, Chakravartty (2005) defines causal processes as systems of continuously manifesting relations between objects with causal properties and concomitant dispositions.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-process/

This definition not only ensures the transitivity of causation, but it also appears to solve an additional problem to do with preemption that is illustrated by the following example. Suppose that two crack marksmen conspire to assassinate a hated dictator, agreeing that one or other will shoot the dictator on a public occasion. Acting side-by-side, assassins A and B find a good vantage point, and, when the dictator appears, both take aim. A pulls his trigger and fires a shot that hits its mark, but B desists from firing when he sees A pull his trigger. Here assassin A's actions are the actual cause of the dictator's death, while B's actions are a preempted potential cause. (Lewis distinguishes such cases of preemption from cases of symmetrical overdetermination in which two processes terminate in the effect, with neither process preempting the other. Lewis believes that these cases are not suitable test cases for a theory of causation since they do not elicit clear judgements.) The problem raised by this example of preemption is that both actions are on a par from the point of view of causal dependence: if neither A nor B acted, then the dictator would not have died; and if either had acted without the other, the dictator would have died.

To take a familiar example (Lewis 1986c): suppose that you mischievously hook up a bomb to a radioactive source and geiger counter in such a way that the bomb explodes when the counter registers a certain number of clicks. If it happens that the counter registers the required number of clicks and the bomb explodes, your act caused the explosion, even though there is no deterministic connection between them.

Thus, in the example of the Indian famine, we contrast the actual situation in which a famine occurs with another situation in which normal conditions prevail and a famine does not occur. A cause is then thought of as a factor that makes the difference between these situations; and the background conditions are thought of as those factors that are common to the two situations. In different contexts of enquiry, the contrast situation is framed in different terms. A farmer may take the contrast situation to be the normal situation in which the government does not stockpile food reserves but there is no famine. In this case it would be reasonable for the farmer to identify the drought as the factor that makes the difference between this contrast situation and the actual situation in which there is famine. On the other hand, an official of the World Food Authority with a different conception of what normally happens may take the contrast situation to be one in which governments build up food reserves as a precaution against droughts. Consequently, it would be reasonable for the official to see the failure of the government to build up food reserves as the factor that makes the difference between the contrast situation and the actual situation in which there is a famine. (For discussion of the relevance of contrastive explanation to the causes/conditions distinction see Menzies 2004a; 2007.)

For example, suppose a camper lights a fire, a sudden gust of wind fans the fire, the fire gets out of control and the forest burns down. It is true that if the camper had not lit the fire, the forest fire would not have occurred. But it is also true that the forest fire would not have occurred if any of a vast number of contingencies, including the camper's birth and his failure to be struck down by a meteor before striking the match, had not occurred. But commonsense draws a distinction between causes and background conditions, ranking the camper's lighting of the fire among the former, and his birth and his failure to be struck down by a meteor, among the latter.

First, an example due to Michael McDermott (1995). A and B each have a switch in front of them, which they can move to the left or right. If both switches are thrown into the same position, a third person C receives a shock. A does not want to shock C. Seeing B's switch in the left position, A moves her switch to the right. B does want to shock C. Seeing A's switch thrown to the right, she now moves her switch to the right as well. C receives a shock. Clearly, A's throwing her switch to the right causes B to throw her switch to the right, which in turn causes C to receive the shock. But A attempted to prevent the shock so that it seems unreasonable to say that A's move causes C to be shocked.

Second, an example due to Ned Hall (2004). A person is walking along a mountain trail, when a boulder high above is dislodged and comes careering down the mountain slopes. The walker notices the boulder and ducks at the appropriate time. The careering boulder causes the walker to duck and this, in turn, causes his continued stride. (This second causal link involves double prevention: the duck prevents the collision between walker and boulder which, had it occurred, would have prevented the walker's continued stride.) However, the careering boulder is the sort of thing that would prevent the walker's continued stride and so it seems counterintuitive to say that it causes the stride.

Third, an example due to Douglas Ehring (1987). Jones puts some potassium salts into a hot fire. Because potassium compounds produce a purple flame when heated, the flame changes to a purple colour, though everything else remains the same. The purple flame ignites some flammable material nearby. Here we judge that putting the potassium salts in the fire caused the purple flame, which in turn caused the flammable material to ignite. But it seems implausible to judge that putting the potassium salts in the fire caused the flammable material to ignite.

One of the points Lewis advances in favour of this new theory is that it handles cases of late as well as early pre-emption. (The theory is restricted to deterministic causation and so does not address the example of probabilistic preemption described in section 3.4.) Reconsider, for instance, the example of late preemption involving Billy and Suzy throwing rocks at a bottle. The theory is supposed to explain why Suzy's throw, and not Billy's throw, is the cause of the shattering of the bottle. If we take an alteration in which Suzy's throw is slightly different (the rock is lighter, or she throws sooner), while holding fixed Billy's throw, we find that the shattering is different too. But if we make similar alterations to Billy's throw while holding Suzy's throw fixed, we find that the shattering is unchanged.

Another point in favour of the new theory is that it handles a type of preemption Lewis that have come to be called trumping. (Trumping was first described by Jonathan Schaffer: see his (2000).) Lewis gives an example involving a major and a sergeant who are shouting orders at the soldiers. The major and sergeant simultaneously shout “Advance”; the soldiers hear them both and advance. Since the soldiers obey the superior officer, they advance because the major orders them to, not because the sergeant does. So the major's command preempts or trumps the sergeant's. Where other theories have difficulty with trumping cases, Lewis's argues his new theory handles them with ease. Altering the major's command while holding fixed the sergeant's, the soldier's response would be correspondingly altered. In contrast, altering the sergeant's command, while holding fixed the major's, would make no difference at all.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/#Lew200The

Calvinism & determinism

I recently had a longish discussion about Calvinism and determinism in the combox. I'm going to rescue it from the combox and post it here.


STEVE SAID:
JASON SAID:

“Steve, but of course those billions of people make millions of decisions each and therefore have a very good chance of doing wrong over the course of their lifetimes.”

i) Not a single exception? And the human lifespan varies considerably from one individual to the next.

ii) Why do you think sinning is a matter of chance? The sheer odds of sinning?

If you think that, like a game of dice, the outcome of one throw is unrelated to the outcome of another throw, then why do you think a particular outcome is more likely the more often you throw the dice? Isn’t that committing the Monte Carlo fallacy?

Dropping the metaphor, if you think that human decisions are indeterminate, then there’s no causal relation between one decision and another. In that case, each decision is like starting from scratch. A series of decisions doesn’t have a cumulative effect on the relative probabilities down the line. Each decision is a discrete, self-contained event–like a throw of the dice.

Certain combinations may be more probable or improbable than others, but if you take them serially, one at a time, then one decision is no more likely than another.

iii) Likewise, if you’re serious about the freedom to do otherwise, then you need to discount any bias that would load the dice.

“The main problem I have with Calvinism is that it doesn't have the honesty to call God what He is: The Author of Sin.”

Of course, authorship is a literary metaphor. You’ve called God a metaphor.

That accusation doesn’t amount to much unless you can specify what you mean by that metaphor in application to God. How do you delimit the range of the metaphor?

“By the time omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are ascribed to God.”

Those attributes are scarcely distinctive to Calvinism.

“And it is said that He sustains the very physical laws such that the world disappears if He stops thinking about us.”

Who says that? You seem to be describing a form of idealism or occasionalism. But that’s hardly mainstream Calvinism. Mainstream Calvinism believes in second-causes.

“And it is also stated that He determines our actions and intentions, you are describing a world that resides in the imagination of God.”

That conclusion only follows (if at all) from objective idealism or occasionalism, not from divine determinism alone.

You also have yet to put your own cards on the table? What is your alternative?

I was responding to an Arminian. Very well, then, how does Arminianism avoid the same charge?

According to Arminianism, God foresaw that if he made this world, it would include moral and natural evils. It was within God’s power to prevent that outcome by not making this world.

Yet God went ahead and made this world in full knowledge of the outcome. At a minimum, then, that makes God partly responsible for the outcome, since he put into place all of the necessary and sufficient conditions which resulted in the moral and natural evils we see in this world.

If you fall back on open theism, you turn God into a mad scientist.

And if you fall back on atheism, you lose the argument from evil since atheism cannot underwrite moral absolutes.

Since you pride yourself on your intellectual honestly, how do you escape from your own dilemma?

4/18/2009 2:04 PM

STEVE SAID:
JASON SAID:

“If by sinner, you mean someone who has sinned even once, and there is a non-zero probability of them sinning at every decision point, then the likely-hood of someone sinning is quite high. Suppose that someone has to make a decision that will be either moral or immoral 10 times a day with a 1% chance of making the immoral decision. They would have a 10% chance of sinning on any given day. There is a 1 in a billion chance of not sinning over 206 days. :)”

i) You are still in the clutches of the Monte Carlo fallacy. If, a la libertarianism, you treat each human decision as indeterminate, then there is no cumulative increase in the probability of a particular outcome. Each indeterminate decision is causally unrelated to the preceding or succeeding decision.

The sum total doesn’t raise the probability of any particular outcome in any particular case.

ii) You’re also acting as if every decision is a choice between good and evil. But many decisions involve a choice between alternate goods.

“Realize, doing one bad thing over any extended period would be quite easy.”

I’ve already pointed out one problem with that claim. Now I’ll point out another.

I’ve treated people like dice for the sake of argument, since that’s a way of modeling the libertarian position. However, real people aren’t like dice. With a pair of dice, you have a fixed set of physical variables. The outcome is random.

With humans, by contrast, there are many internal and external variables that figure in our decisions. There’s no way you can quantify the outcome of a human decision the way you quantify the outcome of throwing dice. That’s a fictitious mathematical abstraction.

“Why would we expect to find examples of sinless people? Why would a person subscribing to libertarian free will expect sinlessness?”

Because the freedom to do otherwise implies that you can either be a sinful or sinless. So, if people have the freedom to go in either direction, we wouldn’t expect every single human being to go in the same direction.

“The Author of Sin: because God determines all things, and sinful acts are a subset of all things, then God determines that sin occurs. This is if determinism is true (current events are determined by prior events all the way back to the moment of creation) and that God sets the whole thing up and determines who goes where, etc.”

i) You’re equivocating–probably due to your ignorance of Reformed theology. Predestination is not the same thing as casual determinism, where you have a chain of cause-and-effect from the first cause through a series of second causes to an end-result.

Predestination has reference to God’s plan for the world. A plan doesn’t cause anything–in the sense of a chain reaction. Just as a blueprint of a skyscraper doesn’t build a skyscraper.

Everything happens according to plan, but how it happens is a separate issue. There are different theories of causality. And one can postulate different causal mechanisms. That goes beyond Calvinism. That takes us into the realm of philosophy.

ii) In addition, you’ve tripped yourself up. If you take the position that sin is statistically inevitable, then an indeterminate outcome could be–and, in this case, would be–identical with a determinate outcome.

Sooner or later, according to your own calculations, the chances are that a series of indeterminate decisions will yield the same result as a determinate decision would.

In that event, what difference does it make if God’s plan happens to coincide with what would happen anyway, even if the end-result were random rather than predetermined?

iii) Apropos (ii), your objection only makes sense if, given the chance to do otherwise (i.e. not sin), a human being would do otherwise by not sinning.

For if, even when given the chance to do otherwise, a human being would refrain from doing otherwise; if, instead, a human being would sin, then the abstract freedom to do otherwise is morally irrelevant to the concrete outcome. What’s the point of giving him a choice if he’s not going to take it?

“Since Calvinism does not subscribe to idealism, what is meant by God sustaining the universe?”

It doesn’t mean that God sustains the universe by continually thinking it into existence. Indeed, Calvinism traditionally regards God as timeless, so no continuous creation is possible.

But God created natural cycles and forces that effect physical outcomes.

You make a few other remarks which are predicated on erroneous assumptions I already addressed.

4/18/2009 5:31 PM

STEVE SAID:
JASON SAID:

“I have always thought that the libertarian position was focused on particular acts and not necessarily whether someone might hypothetically avoid sinning throughout their entire lives.”

If you define libertarian freedom as the freedom to do otherwise, then that hypothetical ought to be a live possibility.

“We do indeed have different (and opposing) desires within us and that influence our decision. My understanding of free will is that we can have within us competing desires and choose to take the action that comports with one but not the other.”

Competing or opposing desires are not the same thing as desiring to do either good or evil. I look at a menu. I have conflicting desires about which entrée to order. That’s not a choice between good and evil.

“My understanding was that Calvinism implied determinism (but not causal determinism as you say?) Is this correct?”

Calvinism is deterministic, but determinism isn’t Calvinistic. There are different versions of determinism.

“Of course, we have very few examples of people leading sinless lives. :)”

That’s irrelevant to libertarianism. You’re grafting a theological position onto a philosophical position.

“Moreover our desires do influence our decisions, so I don't think we always act as though we are flipping a coin.”

In which case your way of calculating the odds of sinning is fallacious.

“We can choose to do right (and do) some of the time, but do not always do so. So it would seem that some right choices are made.”

If you do right some of the time, then why do you need the freedom to do otherwise (wrong) in those situations where you’re going to do right? Why do you need the freedom to do something you were never going to do? What’s the point?

Why is it necessary to have a long corridor of unlocked doors if there is only one door you were ever going to go through? What would it matter if, unbeknownst to you, the other doors were locked!

“Why give us the freedom to make choices?…The reason we are given for this is that God ‘so loved the world’.”

Where does Jn 3:16 assert libertarian freedom?

“I don't know why God so loved the world that He would do as He has done.”

That’s too vague to respond to.

4/19/2009 3:12 PM

STEVE SAID:
JASON SAID:

“I am trying to understand what you mean by determinism.”

Since you’re the one who chose to cast the issue in terms of determinism, the onus is actually on you to define your choice of terms.

For myself, I’m inclined to use more specific words like predestination or foreordination.

“Are only moral choices determined, or also ‘neutral’ ones like making choices from a menu?”

All events are predestined, including mental events (e.g. human volitions) as well as human actions.

“How does Calvinistic determinism differ from, say, causal determinism?”

God has a comprehensive plan for the world. Everything happens according to plan.

You’re confusing certainty with causality.

“So all choices are determined?”

God has “predetermined” all human choices. But determinism doesn’t single out a particular model or theory of causation.

“How, other than via determinism at all points, would it be possible that I would only be able to choose to go through one particular door after a long sequence of choices? You were careful earlier to distinguish predestination from causal determinism. What role, if any, does/did God play in the determination of our choices? What ‘locks’ the other doors?”

It begins with possible human beings. God’s idea of human beings. A hypothetical person.

What would a hypothetical person do? There’s no antecedent course of action that a hypothetical person would take. It all depends on how you construct the hypothetical. If you hypothesize that a possible person will turn left, then he’ll turn left. If you hypothesize that a possible person will turn right, then he’ll turn right.

In creating the world, God actualizes one hypothetical rather than another. That’s not making a possible person do something contrary to what he would otherwise do. That’s not robbing him of a choice.

There’s nothing a hypothetical person would or wouldn’t do apart from the hypothetical itself. It all depends on how you vary the hypothetical. Many different permutations may be possible. Creation locks in one particular permutation.

4/19/2009 5:07 PM
STEVE SAID:
Put another way, a possible person has as many possible choices as you can hypothesize–although there are limits to counterfactual identity. There needs to be an element of continuity to keep in the same person who is doing this or that.

In that sense, a possible person could do otherwise. At a hypothetical level, he could do A or B or C. After all, a possible person is, himself, a possibility.

It’s not that a possible person has too few choices, but too many. He can be developed in so many different directions.

But not all possibilities are compossible. The act of creation actualizes one possibility out of many. One possible choice.

4/19/2009 7:47 PM

STEVE SAID:
JASON SAID:

“If I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a difference between a chain of causation leading to a choice and God predestining and actualizing all events in that chain as well as the choice itself.”

Predestination ensures the outcome. However, predestination doesn’t cause the outcome. How God actualizes the decree is a separate question. The Bible doesn’t offer any particular theory of causation. Different models are available. That’s a philosophical question over which we can speculate.

It’s not cause-and-effect in the sense that God is the cue, which hits the cue-ball, which strikes the 8-ball, &c.

That’s the kind of mental image which I think many people have in mind when they think of casual relations.

“I take it that blameworthiness for an immoral choice attaches to the choice (or the intent of the chooser?), but not to the planning or actualizing of it.”

Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. That all depends.

If a Mafia Don orders a hit, then he’s as culpable as the hit-man.

On the other hand, suppose that organized crime is out of control. To deal with the problem, the police infiltrate the rival crime families, and instigate a battle between the rival crime families. The police then sit back and watch the rival crime families annihilate each other.

While it’s immoral for the mobsters to murder each other, it’s not immoral for the authorities to turn them against each other. The authorities have a different motives than the mobsters.

“We seem to have two entities involved in a choice: the person making it and God actualizing the reality of the choice per plan.__God is only actualizing that which the chooser would choose, as predestined by God. I'm confused about to the boundary between the chooser's agency and God's.”

Actualizing a possible agent and his possible choice is what makes him an actual agent.

Again, there’s no one thing a possible agent qua possible would choose. God instantiates one out of various possible choices.

“Predestination strikes me as verging on a causal mechanism, rather than just a descriptive certainty. Predestination suggests a positive decision to ensure a result, while foreknowledge could just be certain knowledge.”

Predestination ensures the end-result. True.

That, of itself, doesn’t select for a particular mechanism. And it’s possible for an indeterminate outcome to be identical with a determinate outcome.

By stacking the deck, you can cause a royal flush to be dealt. However, if the deck is randomly shuffled, then the odds are that sooner or later a royal flush will be dealt.

Same result, different process. In cases where the results coincide, how would the process be morally significant?

On a related note, God isn’t causing a possible agent to do one thing rather than another, for it’s not as if there was one thing (rather than another) which a possible agent was going to do. A hypothetical person has a range of hypothetical choices. God decides which alternative to instantiate.

“Even so, a God outside of our time line may be able to see our future with perfect clarity without determining it.”

That move has been tried before. It doesn’t work.

http://philofreligion.homestead.com/files/Foreknowledgefreedom.html

4/20/2009 9:39 AM

STEVE SAID:
JASON SAID:

“I'm having a hard time understanding the differences between ‘predestine’, ‘actualize’, and ‘cause’. ‘Predestine’ seems to be a decision made by God that some event should occur. ‘Actualize’ seems to be God making a hypothetical real. ‘Cause’ seems to be the means by which a hypothetical is made real.”

Predestination refers to God’s timeless plan for the world. God actualizes his plan through a timeless act.

A “cause” can take different referents. It can include second-causes, such as rain from rain clouds.

“Does God ever ‘cause’ anything?”

Depends on how you define “cause.” You defined cause in terms of a chain reaction.

Suppose we use the counterfactual theory of causation: “If A did not obtain, then B would not have obtain”.

In that sense, the predestination causes things. In that sense, God causes things.

But on that definition, it’s equally true that natural forces cause things. That human beings cause things.

So God would not be the sole cause.

“But what if the authorities instantiated the mobsters in the first place? We are sinners and God instantiates this, but I'm not sure why. In heaven there will not be instantiation of sinful acts. What are your thoughts on what God ‘gains’ by His instantiation of the events of this world and not just skipping to the ‘good part’?”

God has nothing to gain. The elect have something to gain. It’s for the sake of the elect.

For example, apart from the fall, St. Peter would never go to heaven. Apart from the fall, St. Peter would never exist. Other people would exist apart from the fall. But Peter would not exist since his existence depends on a multitude of preceding variables in a fallen world which eventually give rise to his parents. So Peter is a beneficiary of the fall.

One could discuss other aspects of this issue, but for now I’m confining myself to your immediate objection.

“The way I am thinking about all this makes ‘God isn't causing...’ and ‘God decides...’ direct contradictions. In short, God isn't causing an agent to do one thing over another, he is merely deciding which thing or another he is going to instantiate. What's the difference? My guess is I am thinking about your terms in a way quite different from the way you are.”

I didn’t deny that God causes things to happen. I denied your model of causation. And I distinguished between causation and certainty.

“My thought is that God is not 'timeless’ but in another time line. C.S. Lewis has a nice analogy of Shakespeare and the characters of his plays. Shakespeare can ‘observe’ any point in the time line of his plays, but is himself in his own time line. For my own part, I am skeptical of the notion of a timeless mind. I don't have any trouble with the notion of God being ‘acted upon’.”

Since you offer no supporting arguments for your claims here, there’s nothing for me to respond to.

4/21/2009 8:16 AM