Is physical determinism reality?

Prophets, Precogs, and the Purposes of God

James Anderson reviews Minority Report in "Prophets, Precogs, and the Purposes of God". It's one of the best movie reviews I've ever read. (And I'd say the movie is better than the present television show! Although I've only seen the first few episodes.)

How Biblical is Molinism? (Part 2)

http://www.proginosko.com/2015/11/how-biblical-is-molinism-part-2/

Freedom to victimize?

I remember once pointing out in a debate with some Arminians that there was nothing that required God to allow someone to commit evil on another person, even under the auspices of the necessity of free will. God could always make a murderer’s bullet disappear mid-flight. He didn’t have to allow the killer to succeed.

I tried to find the conversation, but was unable to locate it given how frequently those subjects are talked about over here. But as I recall, the person I was debating with responded along the lines that if God stopped us every time there would be a victim to our sin, then we wouldn’t really be “free” because we’d never face the consequences of our evil, and we’d have to be free in order to have genuine love toward God.

Whether this summary of that argument is completely accurate or not, similar arguments have been put forth by other Arminians and non-Calvinists. That is, that somehow it is necessary for God to allow bad things to happen if He wants us to have freedom to choose Him. For instance, this blog post says:

On this proposal, God values free will--and the quality of the choices that flow from it (e.g., real love)--and thus tolerates the bad choices that can also result from it (i.e., sin and the suffering it causes).

He couldn't wipe out the latter without wiping out the former as well.

He thus tolerates evil for the sake of allowing good to be freely chosen.

For an even more “respectable” source, C.S. Lewis in The Case for Christianity wrote:

If a thing is free to be good it's also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Careful readers will see that this does not answer the problem I put forth. Suppose for the sake of argument that all of what Lewis and the other Arminians argue is true: God needs to allow the possibility of evil to exist in order for there to be “genuine” love, as defined by Arminians. This still does not mean that God is required to allow victims of sin to be victimized. Sin occurs the moment someone intends to engage in sin. This is why Christ said, “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28, ESV). God does not need to actually allow the adultery to occur in order to permit men the option to be good or evil. If they intend evil, they have already made their choice.

This was all brought back to mind as last night I re-read the passage in Exodus 16, when God gave manna to His people. If you recall, God gave a command regarding manna: they were to only gather a single day’s use at a time, except for the sixth day (when they were to gather double the amount, since they would not be permitted to gather any manna on the Sabbath). Sure enough, people being who they are, we read: “On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none” (Exodus 16:27, ESV). And what was God’s response? “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?’” (Exodus 16:28, ESV).

Now the “you” in the passage refers to those who went out to gather manna, not Moses (God was speaking to Moses as the representative of Israel). But note what we have here.

1) It is unlawful for the Hebrews to gather manna on the Sabbath.
2) God does not give any manna on the Sabbath.
3) Some people still went looking for manna.

Now, because God had not given any manna, it was impossible for them to gather any manna. Indeed, it says “they found none.” Yet:

4) God says they broke His commandments and laws.

The people did not need to gather any manna to break the command not to gather manna on the Sabbath. In fact, they did not even need to be able to gather the manna—it was literally impossible for them to gather manna!—yet they intended to do so, and thus were lawbreakers.

This stands as clear evidence that it is not necessary that there actually be victims to a sinful act in order for the sinner to have a) made the choice to sin, and b) to be justly labeled a lawbreaker. After all, none of God’s manna was “stolen” or kept from someone by these people collecting it early. They literally harmed no one, as it was impossible for them to harm others since God withheld the manna that day. Yet they intended evil, and that was sufficient for God to label them as lawbreakers.

Given this, the “free will defense” against the problem of evil is shown to be the hollow shell that it is. For even if we fully grant the premises that writers like Lewis have put forth, the free will defense fails to account for this obvious rejoinder. Even if a free choice is needed in order for one to be able to “genuinely” love God, when an evil person chooses to harm another, that choice does not need to be allowed to be enacted. The intention alone is sufficient to establish the free relationship, ensuring that we are not “robots” under that scenario. Adding a victim to the process does not help anything.

Because we can accept for the sake of argument that God needed to give free will in order for Him to have loving followers, but we see that does not require God to allow any man to be murdered or woman to be raped or child to be starved, then clearly this view is insufficient to resolve the problem of evil (and this doesn't even begin to touch why "natural evils" like famines and earthquakes would need to exist lest we have no genuine love toward God). Ultimately, the freedom to choose does not require the freedom to act on those choices. And we can see that even in our own daily lives: If you see a man raise a weapon to strike another person, you are justly allowed to intervene—even using lethal force, if required. We do not first have to allow the victim to be struck before we can intervene.

Free Will: Pagan and Unbiblical (a short film)

This is not perfect, I don't think, but very useful for showing where the notion of Arminian "free will" comes from; and there is an excellent scriptural summary of the Sovereignty of God at the end.



More here.

Was Judas free?

Was Jesus Complicit in Judas' Betrayal and Death?
If Judas wasn't consciously following prophecy could we claim that Jesus was? Here is what we see in the gospel accounts:

First, Jesus appears to pick Judas as one of the Twelve knowing that Judas will betray him:

John 6.68-71
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)

Second, on the night of his betrayal Jesus orchestrates the events of the betrayal. He gives Judas his instructions and then goes to meet him at the appointed place:

John 13.26-30; 18.1-4
Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

"What you are about to do, do quickly," Jesus told him, but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night...

When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it.

Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.

Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want?"

It appears, from John's account, that Jesus did know what was going to happen long before it happened. Jesus picks Judas knowing he has selected his betrayer. And, on the evening of the betrayal, Jesus cues Judas ("Go and do what you must do.") and then meets Judas at the appointed spot. Judas seems clueless about what is going on. Jesus, however, "knows all that was going to happen to him."

Some Uncomfortable Questions
At no point in the gospel narratives is Judas given any sympathy for his actions. Despite all the prophecy and Jesus' orchestration Judas is roundly condemned and cursed. However, I expect modern readers are disturbed by Judas' story. The ancients tended to believe in fate, even tragic fate. "Free will" and "moral responsibility" weren't things the ancients worried about or recognized. Judas' life followed the path of his cursed fate, tragically so. But was Judas "free to do otherwise"? If not, can he be held morally accountable for his actions? These questions simply bounce off the gospel accounts.

And what about Jesus? Of all the characters involved Jesus seems to control his own fate. More, he seems to control the fates of others, Judas' in particular. So it makes one wonder, should Jesus have picked Judas to be one of the Twelve? Should Jesus have saved Judas from his fate? Could Jesus have figured out an alternative plan to meet the soldiers in the garden that night that didn't involve the fall of one of his inner circle?

I don't have answers to any of these questions. But what I do know is this. Of all the stories in the bible that run up against modern prejudices regarding freedom and moral responsibility the story of Judas Iscariot takes pride of place.

This entry was posted by Richard Beck. 

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/03/reflections-on-judas-part-4-was-judas.html

Karma and free will

From the IEP:

Another difficulty for the karma/rebirth solution has to do with free will. An initial advantage of this solution to the problem of evil is that real moral agency is preserved. In fact, moral agency is central to the karma/rebirth solution: our moral decisions self-determine our future experiences, making us responsible for our own destiny. Upon further reflection, the view seems to run contrary to free moral agency. Consider the example of a man contemplating the rape and murder of a woman. Suppose he has done so before, and has thus far not been caught. He is considering redirecting his life by turning himself in to the authorities and receiving the consequences of his actions. But just as he is pondering this option, a woman strolls by and his mad passions for rape and murder begin to burn within him. He now has the choice to continue down the path of destruction or put a stop to it. If he decides to attack the woman and does so, then on the karmic account the woman was not completely innocent after all; she is paying the price for her former evil actions. In that case, the rapist is not truly free to act as he does, for he is simply following mechanistically the effects of karmic justice. He is merely the instrumental means for meting out the justice requisite for this woman’s previous moral failings. If, however, the woman does not deserve such moral recompense, then karmic justice will ensure that she does not receive it. In that case, the rapist will be unable to engage in the attack.

The problem that arises has to do with locating the moral freedom in this system. If the rapist is deterministically carrying out justice on his victim, then it seems that he is not truly a free moral agent after all. He is simply a cog in the karmic justice machine. It is disconcerting to affirm a moral system in which we understand raped and murdered victims to be themselves morally culpable for such acts of brutality against them. On the other hand, suppose the rapist really is free to attack the woman. If she was not deserving of such an act, this would be a serious violation of the law of karma whereby suffering occurs only because of one’s previous evil actions. If in attempting to justify such actions, the defender of the karmic system replied that the woman would in a future life receive a reward for such a morally gratuitous act, this does not appear to be consistent with karma, for this would run counter to the central principle of karma in which evil and suffering are the effects of one's previous deeds.

(Source)

"The Fallible God of Molinism"

Prof. James Anderson has weighed in on the recent radio debate or discussion between Craig and Helm.

"Calvinism and the First Sin (Again)"

"Calvinism and the First Sin (Again)" by Prof. James Anderson.

You don't have free will

According to atheist evolutionist Jerry Coyne:

...this sort of free will is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics. Your brain and body, the vehicles that make "choices," are composed of molecules, and the arrangement of those molecules is entirely determined by your genes and your environment. Your decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transmitted from one brain cell to another. These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our "choices"—are dictated by those laws. (It's possible, though improbable, that the indeterminacy of quantum physics may tweak behavior a bit, but such random effects can't be part of free will.) And deliberating about your choices in advance doesn't help matters, for that deliberation also reflects brain activity that must obey physical laws.

Read the rest here.

What is freewill?

Freewill theists, especially Arminian bloggers and their ilk, speak of freewill as if that's a transparent, self-evident concept. They in turn accuse Calvinists of either denying freewill or redefining freewill in some ad hoc fashion.

As a matter of fact, the concept of freewill is a very complex and hotly contested issue in contemporary philosophy. Here's an overview:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

Plantinga's point

Paul Helm's latest post is worth a read.

Phil on Phreedom

Phil decided to write a response I guess to me, however he never once quotes any of my views on the matter. Ponter chimed in with, "Yeah, you tell him, God doesn't will sin directly, so there!"

Unfortunately, the response was unresponsive to anything I've argued. It is comprised of going on pop-Calvinist auto-pilot and throwing out a few vague terms as if they're really doing serious philosophical or theological work.

The first issue is that it was assumed that the distinction between "moral and natural ability" somehow provided a workhorse of a conceptual tool, the mere mentioning of which, without direct reference to anything I wrote, sufficed to settle the matter. I see neither of them read my essay on free will. I'll plug it again. One problem from the start is that we're talking about determinism, and the above conceptual distinction, while maybe stating a vague truth, does not address the issue raised. For libertarianism is compatible with the distinction between moral and natural in/ability. I went over this in the above mentioned paper.

Phil writes, "There are two sink holes to fall into regarding the idea of a God who is so sovereign that He determines all things ahead of time, denying his sovereignty . . . and denying his goodness." Phil thinks I've done the latter, but cannot demonstrate it from anything I've said. In any case, see that he admits that God "determines all things ahead of time." So, if X determines that S will Φ at t, then S cannot do otherwise than Φ at t, given the determinism (whether it's laws of physics, the fates, laws of logic, or God's decrees). So, per Phil's statement, if God decrees that Phil will eat pizza at noon tomorrow, then given that decree Phil cannot do otherwise than eat the pizza at noon tomorrow.

Now, let's get one thing straight from the start. Phil claimed that a necessary constraint for a sincere offer is: Necessarily, if S sincerely offers Φ to S′, then S can give Φ to S′. Call this Phil's Principle, PP. My counterexample was simple. Suppose Phil offered a slice of pizza to his neighbor, David. David accepts. This looks like a sincere offer. However, suppose God decrees from eternity that Phil will be overtaken by ravenous hunger the moment the pizza arrives (perhaps he was vigorously playing pirate in his backyard tree house). Given Reformed theology and the meaning of "determines," Phil could not have given what was offered to David. There, counterexample, so the constraint has been falsified. Interestingly, Phil thought if he changed subjects about reprobation, positive and negative determining, natural and moral in/ability, etc., that that would somehow save him. No, I'm afraid he's wrong. My counterexample shows that PP is false. Thus, it's not a necessary condition. Phil can qualify, move goal posts, etc., but as stands, I refuted PP.

However, Phil really thinks his points should be taken seriously. And even though they're off topic and unresponsive to my argument, I suppose I can answer him further. Aside from his moral/natural in/ability distinction not doing the compatibilistic work Phil intends for it to do, there's general problems. To say that S has the natural ability to Φ is to say that there's nothing coercing or forcing S to Φ. S does what S does unimpeded by external or constraints. Nothing is forcing or stoping S from Φ-ing. For example, suppose S gets on a bus. To say he has the natural ability to refrain from this, means that there was nothing forcing or coercing S from getting on the bus. His body-parts and the movements thereof worked sufficiently normal to be able to move his body down the street the Chuck E. Cheeze's rather than on the bus. Calvin gives the example of the bones of Jesus. Were they breakable? In one sense, yes; in another, no. In the first sense, they were normal bones, which had the property of breakability if hit with sufficient force, just like all normal bones. In more contemporary terms, Jesus didn't have Wolverine's skeleton. In the latter sense, however, since God had decreed that no bones would break, and since the negation of one of God's decree is impossible to bring about, then the bones couldn't be broken.

Now, those who employ the natural in/ability distinction will use it to argue for compatibilism in classical compatibilist fashion (classical compatibilism is the compatibilism of Hume, Locke, etc.) Since they affirm theological determinism, and they feel the push from questions about how it is just to hold a man responsible if he could not do otherwise, they will claim that man is naturally able to do otherwise, just not morally. The former is what it needed to ground ascriptions of responsibility. So the argument will run like this: S was responsible for Φ-ing because S could have done otherwise than Φ. This 'could have done otherwise' means that S had the natural ability to do otherwise in that nothing coerced or forced S to Φ; and, had S wanted to Ψ instead of Φ, then S would have. This last part is crucial. it invokes the notion of hypothetical ability. That is, we have an ability or power such that were we to want to do otherwise, then we could or would do otherwise, nothing prevented us from doing otherwise in the sense of forcing or coercing.

However, note a couple problems. First, if S did want to do otherwise, and so would do otherwise, this requires another decree. S cannot do otherwise given identical decrees. This brings in possible worlds semantics, but David Ponter taught us that this was strictly forbidden. Second, notice that the move works only if we are able to want to do otherwise. Are we? Well, how does 'ability' get cached out on classical compatibilst terms? Recall that it gets cashed out this way: S is able to do otherwise means that if S were to want to do otherwise, then S could or would. It gets cashed out hypothetically. S is free to Φ if and only if (i) if S chooses Φ then S would Φ and (ii), if S were not to choose to do Φ then S would not do Φ. The bottom line here is that what S chooses to do results from S's will, volition, desires, wants, whatever. So, it's not enough to say that S would have done otherwise had S wanted to, for S also needs to be able to want to. The problem brought out here is that the hypothetical account isn't enough. We need more than just, S could have done otherwise if S had wanted to do otherwise. But this pushes the question back to whether the agent could have wanted to do otherwise. To answer that requires another 'could' statement: S could have wanted or chosen to do otherwise. This requires another hypothetical analysis: S could (or was 'able' to) have wanted or chosen to do otherwise, if S had wanted or chosen to want or choose otherwise. The same question would arise about this analysis, needing another 'could' statement to be analyzed, and so on ad infinitum.

There's other worries too about the sufficiency of the above kind of position. Take cases of mental illness. Clearly a mental patient can do what she wants, or may want to do what she can; say, shoot all the giant elephants walking around New York city (actually, they're people but she hallucinates), but we clearly wouldn't call her free, this is why we send her to a hospital rather than a jail. We need rather more than mere natural ability and doing what we want to do.

In any event, Phil offers a response:

And with that we're ready to address Mr. Manata's question: if God has foreordained that Mr. Bob would spend eternity in Hell, then how can He make a genuine offer of salvation to Bob? The answer is easily found: God happens to know that man left alone will choose hell, but even so He is not condemning man to hell with His decrees. Man is given the empty space to make His own decision, and chooses himself.

Note that this does nothing to undermine my use of an arbitrary example of an offering which refuted Phil's necessary constraint. Second, God doesn't just "happen to know" that man left alone will choose hell, for God has decreed all of man's choices, since he decrees "whatsoever comes to pass." As Berkhof has pointed out,"The execution of the plan may require means or be dependent on certain conditions, but then these means or conditions have also been determined in the decree. God did not simply decree to save sinners without determining the means to effectuate the decree. The means leading to the pre-determined end were also decreed." Third, God condemns man to hell for his sins, which he determined, by the way. If this is rejected, then we must deny that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. That God did not directly cause the man to sin is of no consequence, for that simply means that God is the actor. And yes, man makes his own decisions and choices, which of course were decreed before the foundation of the world. Moreover, responsibility and inability to do otherwise is fully compatible with determinism. So, there is a sense in which man makes his own choices, yet he could not have done otherwise. And aside from these objections come objections from the foreknowledge argument. I ask Phil again, what Reformed answer will he give to the foreknowledge argument, which concludes that we cannot do other than we do?

So again, the problem is clear. Phil thinks that there not being any atonement available precludes a sincere offer. I have of course refuted this constraint, and also conjectured that if per impossible a reprobate were to come to Christ, God would send again Jesus to die just for him. This would need to be shown to be impossible. Aside from this, however, is that Phil is faced with a similar problem, and it's the one all non-Calvinists give. Since man cannot accept the gospel, then it looks as if God is insincere to offer it. It's akin to offering a man in a wheelchair a treat if he will come and get it. This is not avoided by saying that you have enough of whatever it is such that you could give it to him if he came. And the appeal to natural ability is not relevant here, that's an accidental detail of the situation. The problem lies in the inability in general. If saying, "Well if the man could walk, then he'd come" doesn't mean anything since he's unable to walk in this world. Similarly the reprobate. Given God's decree that a man will not want to come to Christ, and the positive decree is a necessary condition for coming to Christ, that man cannot come to Christ. He's unable. To say he is able in the sense that if he wanted to come he could invites questions about whether he's able to want. Etc.

Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology: A Contemporary Introduction

http://analytictheologye4c5.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/free-will-moral-responsibility-and-reformed-theology-a-contemporary-introduction/

The Adjustment Bureau

I recently watched The Adjustment Bureau. I like a lot of movies which are based on Philip K. Dick's scifi. But I didn't think too much of this movie. Well, I didn't think badly of it. I just mean I thought it was pretty good overall, and probably a cut above most scifi movies Hollywood churns out, but it's nowhere near as good as, say, Minority Report or Blade Runner.

Spoilers ahead, so please don't read the rest of this if you don't want to read spoilers.

Also, apologies since this is more rambling and disorganized than I'd normally like.

Molinism and moral responsibility

From Steven Nemes.

It's Still Not Possible

I will be the first to acknowledge that I didn’t expect my previous post entitled Is It Even Possible? to have anywhere near the responses it did have. When it dropped off the main page, I was only interacting with two other people and didn’t think it was worth doing a follow-up post. However, when I suggested moving the conversation to e-mail, several others jumped in expressing their desire that the topic remain public.

If anyone has not read the previous post, I would recommend it; however, I will also give an overview of my argument as well as the counterarguments below.

The original question I looked at was simple: “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?” To shorten it a bit, we can ask: “Is it possible for God to create a being capable of a non-determined yet also non-random choice?” I argued that it is impossible, and in the comments went so far as to say that the only type of being capable of making a non-determined, non-random choice is one that is self-existent (namely, if it is possible, only God can do it).

The reasoning is fairly simple and since you can read the original argument, which used an illustration and more laymen language, I will present it here in a more precise way than I originally did. (Also, please note this argument assumes Christianity to be true.)

1. Let the faculty that produces a choice in an agent (whether that be the will, the mind, the soul, or whatever) be X.

2. Let X be created (that is, X is not self-existent).

3. Let C be a choice of X such that the statement “X chose C” is true.

Given the above:

4. If X is created, then X was created by something other than X (definition of “created”).

5. X could not create itself (implications of 4)

6. X has properties that enable X to produce choices (per 1).

7. The properties of X that produce choices are either a direct result of creation or they are accidental features.

8. If the properties of X that produce choices are accidental features, then X was not created with the intention of X producing choices.

9. If X was not created with the intention of X producing choices, then the ability of X to make choices cannot be ascribed to the creator.

10. Christians do ascribe the ability of X to make choices to the creator.

11. Therefore, Christians cannot hold that the properties of X that produce choices are accidental features.

12. Therefore, the properties of X that produce choices are a direct result of creation (from 7 & 11).

13. Since C is a choice of X, then either C originates in some fashion in the properties of X, or C is accidental to the properties of X.

14. If C is accidental to the properties of X, then X did not intend for C to occur.

15. If X did not intend for C to occur, then X did not choose C.

16. Premise 15 contradicts 3.

17. Therefore, C must originate in some fashion due to the properties of X.

18. The properties of X are a direct result of creation (restatement of 12).

19. Therefore, if X chose C, then C is made, in some fashion, due to a direct result of creation.

There have only been three counterarguments presented to me thus far (well, four if you count “You’re wrong” statements as an argument, which apparently some people do). The first is to insist that just because we can’t do it doesn’t mean God can’t do it; the second is to say that there is some feature of the soul that gets around this problem; the third is to fall back to quantum mechanics.

To examine these in reverse order: Quantum mechanics does take away the determinism of physics, but only by adding an element of randomness into the equations. Yet my argument has never claimed that choices couldn’t have arisen from random behavior—yet if they did arise from random behavior, then the will wouldn’t properly be considered to have been making the choice. (In my above argument, this would be premises 14-16.)

Secondly, to say that there is some property of the soul that gets around the problem is wishful thinking. As I’ve demonstrated above, it doesn’t matter what X is composed of. There are only two relevant issues: 1) was X created and 2) did X make the choice? If X did make the choice (that is, C is not random) and X was created, then it follows that the choice is, in some fashion, a direct result of the creation of X, no matter what X is.

This is true, mind you, even if the human will is sui generis (which it is not), which leads us to the first objection. Just because man cannot do something obviously doesn’t mean God cannot do something; but there are certain things that are simply impossible to do by definition. A bachelor cannot be married, a square cannot be round, and a created will cannot make choices independent of the properties of its creation.

So the counter that “God has sui generis will, so why can’t humans?” fails because even if we embrace the contradiction and stipulate that man has sui generis will, it is must be a sui generis will that is created. Again, the only way to avoid the logic of the situation is to assert that man’s will is self-existent. If it is created, no matter what physical or immaterial properties are created, then my argument stands.

And with that, I open up the comments once more for continued discussion.

The Classical Ockhamist Response to the Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge

Previously I argued that there is a powerful argument against the claim that libertarian free action (defined in the last post) is compatible with God's infallible foreknowledge (or belief) of those actions, roughly, with God's omniscience (S is omniscient = df S knows every true proposition that is logically possible to know and S believes no false proposition). I will repeat the bare bones of the argument for convenience:

The TI Argument

Following William Hasker, I will use the incompatibilist argument offered by Linda Zagzebski, though names and actions will be different. With the contemporary emphasis on “going green,” it seems best to retire poor Jones and his ever-running lawnmower. Hasker opted for one “Cuthbert” and his iguana. I find it unnecessarily cruel to name people Cuthbert, and so will modify Hasker’s modification of Zagzebski’s argument with Al Dente and his plate of Fettuccini Alfredo.

Let three moments of time be ordered such that t1 < t2 < t3

1. Suppose that God infallibly believes at time t1 that Al dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3. (premise)

2. The proposition God believes at t1 that Al dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3is accidentally necessary at t2. (from the principle of the necessity of the past)

3. If a proposition p is accidentally necessary at t and p strictly implies q, then q is accidentally necessary at t. (transfer of necessity principle)

4. God believes at t1 that Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3 entails Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3. (from the definition of infallibility)

5. So the proposition Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3 is accidentally necessary at t2. (from 2-4)

6. If the proposition Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3 is accidentally necessary at t2, it is true at t2 that Al Dente cannot do otherwise than to eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3. (premise)

7. If when Al Dente does act he cannot do otherwise, he does not do it freely. (principle of alternative possibilities)

8. Therefore, Al Dente does not act at t3 freely. (from 5-7)

This argument gives us a powerful formal argument against the compatibility of God’s foreknowledge of the (libertarian) free actions of human beings. I will refer to the above argument as the TI argument (the argument for Theological Incompatibilism).


The Ockhamist solution

The Ockhamist view denies the accidental necessity of God’s past beliefs about future free actions, and so denies premise (2) of the argument. The Ockhamist denies the accidental necessity of God’s past beliefs by making use of the hard/soft fact distinction. Though this distinction is notoriously difficult to explicate, it can be explained adequately enough to understand the gist.

A “hard fact” about the past is a fact that is entirely about the past.¹ For example, take the fact about the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. That fact is entirely about the past. On the other hand, a “soft fact” is not entirely about the past. God’s belief in September 2009, that Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo for dinner on December 25, 2009, expresses a fact that is not entirely about the past. Part of the belief refers to what will happen in the future and its truth is capable of being affected by as of yet to occur free choices. Thus, if the hard/soft fact distinction can be explicated, and if God’s past belief is indeed a soft fact, then God’s past beliefs about the future free actions of humans is not accidentally necessary, and therefore premise (2) is false.

Another popular Ockhamist response, given by Alvin Plantinga, is to argue that we do have power to change the past, but this power is not causal power it is “counterfactual power.” It is “counterfactual” since Plantinga admits that, if God knows Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo for dinner, then Al will eat Fettuccini Alfredo.² But, Plantinga argues, Al has the power to act such that if Al so acted, then God would have had a different belief. So, even though God may have in fact believed a certain proposition P, Al Dente still has the power to do something such that if he were to do it, God would not have believed P. The explication just given is why this Ockhamist solution is dubbed “counterfactual power over the past.” This argument looks like it denies the accidental necessity of God’s past belief, and so premise (2) of the TI argument denied.

In this post I will not deal with Plantinga's Ockhamist answer but only with what I'm calling the "classical Ockhamist" answer, viz., the claim that God's past belief is a soft fact about the past.

Some problems with the Ockhamist solution

Recall the claim made above regarding God’s belief about a paradigm case of free action: God infallibly believed on September 1, 2009, that Alvin Dente would eat a plate of Fettuccini Alfredo for dinner on December 25, 2009. We can put this more rigorously as:

(G) God believed at t1 that Al Dente would eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3.

We then asked whether, given (G), Al Dente was free to refrain from eating at t3. A reason for giving a negative answer to this question is based on the principle of the fixity of the past (PFP, hereafter).³ Our argument has been that:

(G) is a fact about the past relative to t2, so it is not within Al Dente’s power to bring it about that ~ (G); i.e., (G) is outside of the control of Al’s power.⁴ However, (G) entails that Al Dente will eat at t3. Whatever is entailed by something outside of someone, S’s, control is itself outside of S’s control. Therefore, whether Al Dente can refrain or do other than eat at t3 is outside of his control.⁵

Recall that the Ockhamist denies the accidental necessity of God’s past beliefs, and so denies premise (2) of the TI argument. The Ockhamist denies that God’s past beliefs about the future free actions of agents are accidentally necessary by claiming that God’s past beliefs in this area are not hard facts; rather, they are soft facts. This means, Ockhamists tell us, that God’s past beliefs are not subject to PFP.

To see why the Ockhamist makes this claim, and why the move does not work, it will serve us to look at some putative examples of hard facts and soft facts vis-à-vis (G). Here are three paradigm cases of hard facts, cases all Ockhamists would count as hard facts:

(1) In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

(2) Jones uttered the sentence, “Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009,” on September 1, 2009.

(3) Jones believed that, “Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009,” on September 1, 2009.

These facts about the past are contrasted with another type of fact, facts called soft facts. Paradigm cases of these facts might be examples like:

(4) In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, 517 years before Al Dente at Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009.

(5) Jones uttered the true sentence, “Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009,” on September 1, 2009,

(6) Jones correctly believed that, “Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009,” on September 1, 2009,

Ockhamists want to say that (G) is similar to (4) – (6), and so (G) should be classified as a soft fact about the past. But this way lies trouble. First, there is no accepted explication of the hard/soft fact distinction. This makes progress difficult, to say the least. But, despite this hurdle, the explication on offer must at least do two things. As Widerker points out,⁶ the Ockhamist must (i) make explicit the property P that (G) and (4) – (6) have in common; and (ii), they must show that it is in virtue of having P that makes them soft facts. But the various explications have had trouble doing just that. In other words, the property soft facts are said to have do not show that it is because of this property or feature that facts like (4) – (6) are not subject to PFP.

We can illuminate this point by briefly looking at some features soft facts are said to have that hard facts do not have and which make them not subject to PFP.⁷ One view is that soft facts entail facts about the future. This is of course true of facts like (4) – (6). But is it because of this property that (4) – (6) are not subject to PFP? No; and here is why: Many hard facts (facts subject to PFP) entail facts about the future. Here are two:

(7) Walter Payton scores his first touchdown at t1 entails the future fact, relative to t2, that Walter Payton does not score his first touchdown at t3.

(8) God delivered the Israelites from Egypt at t1 entails that God exists at t2 – tn (this assumes that God is eternal).

Another view is that a soft fact entails the obtaining of a future state of affairs. Again, (4) – (6) share this feature (the future state of affairs that obtains is Al Dente eating his pasta dinner). But certainly it is not because of this property that (4) – (6) are not subject to PFP. Again, some ostensible hard facts (facts subject to PFP) entail future facts. Here is a plausible assumption for the theist to make: Necessarily, if God decrees that X will occur at t3, then X will occur at t3. Therefore, if God decrees at t1 that Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3, then Al will eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3. Certainly, God’s decree at t1 is a hard fact about the past relative to t2, yet God’s decree at t1 entails the future state of affairs at t3.⁸ The basic problem these accounts face, as Widerker points out, is that there certainly seem to be cases where one temporally distinct event E1 is necessarily connected, either metaphysically or logically, to another temporally distinct event E2 that obtains later than E1. Yet, in these cases, E1 is considered, on most analyses, to be a hard fact about the past, and thus subject to PFP.

The Ockhamist, not surprisingly, still wants to call (G) a soft fact; and they beg our patience as they work on explicating the hard/soft fact distinction. After all, they tell us, (4) – (6) certainly look like soft facts in that they are not subject to the fixity of the past. At this juncture, we should make more explicit what is meant by the past being fixed. Hasker claims that a hard fact, one subject to PFP, is a fact that is really about the past and also not within anyone’s power to make false.⁹ Widerker concurs, offering the following account of PFP:

(PFP) If a given event occurs at time t, then no one has it within his power at a time later than t to bring it about that the event did not occur at t.

Given this view of PFP, we can see why there is the intuition that (4) – (6) are not subject to PFP, and are thus soft facts. Given this view of PFP, we see that although we do not have the power to bring about¹⁰ the nonoccurrence of the past event, we do have the power (on LFW) to bring it about that an event does or does not exemplify the contingent proposition it refers to, e.g., Al Dente eats Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009. Applying this to one of our putative soft facts:

(6) Jones correctly believed that, “Al Dente will eat Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009,” on September 1, 2009,

we can see that, on LFW, Al Dente can bring it about that he refrains from eating Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009. In doing so he does not cause the event of Jones’ believing to not occur, he merely and harmlessly causes the non-obtaining of the contingent property expressed in (6).¹¹ Furthermore, on this analysis of PFP, we see why (6)’s counterpart, (3), is subject to PFP.

Given our work up to this point we are now in a position to show why (G) is disanlagous to (4) – (6) in at least one relevant area. Take our definition of Omniscience:

O: S is omniscient = df S knows every true proposition that is logically possible to know and S believes no false proposition.

O entails that God Infallibly Believes (GIB) every true proposition, thus:

GIB: S infallibly believes = df S believes every true proposition that is logically possible to believe and S believes no false proposition.

Now, take (G):

(G) God believed at t1 that Al Dente would eat Fettuccini Alfredo at t3.

Given GIB and (G), we can see that if Al Dente refrained from eating the plate of Fettuccini Alfredo on December 25, 2009, then God would have held a different belief than the one he in fact held. That is, the event described in (G) would have been different, not simply the exemplification of the contingent proposition referred to. But this violates PFP, and thus it attributes to Al Dente the causal power over the past. Since no one has causal power over the past, a claim Ockhamists do not wish to deny, then Al Dente cannot refrain from eating his plate of pasta, and therefore, Al Dente does not act freely when he so eats.

Of course, the Ockhamist is free to present an account of the hard/soft fact distinction where facts like (3) do not express hard facts, but this seems unlikely. Certainly, as many have pointed out: the past beliefs of people seem to be as good an example as any of something that is fully past, and it would be an ad hoc move, invoked to save a theory, to claim that the past beliefs of a divine person are not fully past. It certainly seems that my belief at 6:00 am this morning is, at 6:01, something completely in the past, and thus unalterable. Yet, there is another way out. The Ockhamist may affirm that we do not have causal power over the past, but we do have another kind of power over the past: counterfactual power. I will take up this objection in a later post, Lord willing.


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¹ One view is that the fact’s grammar points to the past (using past tense) while its content is not entirely about the past (cf. David Hunt, “The Simple Foreknowledge View,” in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, 77).

² Of course, since Al Dente and his dinner is my illustration, Plantinga does not refer to that example specifically.

³ One reason to think that the past is accidentally necessary is that it is fixed and lies outside our control.

⁴ The kind of power and control spoken of here is assumed to be the kind desired by libertarianism, i.e., the power to refrain from doing some action, or to do otherwise.

⁵ Widerker (2002) claims that this argument is given by Jonathan Edwards. Plantinga also presents this argument as a “powerful” expression of the incompatibilist’s worry (Ockham’s Way Out, 181). This argument is also expressed in Hasker (1998) and Linville (1995).

⁶ David Widerker, “Troubles With Ockhamism,” The Journal of Philosophy, v. 87, 9 (Sept. 1990), 465.

⁷ I’m using Widerker as a rough guide, ibid, 465-470.

⁸ Of course, libertarians would not say Al Dente ate freely, but that point is irrelevant to my example. Similar points could be made in light of God promising X. Suppose God promises at t1 to allow into heaven all those who trust in Jesus Christ, and Jones trusts in Jesus Christ at t3. Given the plausible assumption that “If God promises that X, then X,” this fact entails that Jones will be in heaven at t4, where t4 > t3.

⁹ William Hasker, God, Time, and Foreknowledge, 82, though he goes on to offer a more salient and rigorous account, pp. 88-90.

¹⁰ S “brings about” Y iff: There exists an X such that S causes X to be the case and (X&H) => Y and ~ (H=>Y), where ‘H’ represents the history of the world prior to it coming to be the case that X (Hasker, “A New Anti-Molinist Argument,” Religious Studies, 35 (1999) 291.)

¹¹ Though agents do not always have this power, see Widerker, Troubles, 471.

Heaping Another Coal on the Arminian Fire

Arminians have often claimed that if God did not allow people the freedom to sin, then we would be in a forced relationship with Him and would be little more than robots. Thus the Freewill Defense is used to get God "off the hook" for the evil that exists. Namely, God must allow evil to occur in order for Him to have the chance to have a real relationship with His creation. Let us assume this is true for the sake of argument.

Jesus said: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28). Additionally, it can be argued that while 9 of the 10 commandments deal with external behavior, the 10th commandment ("You shall not covet…") internalizes all of the previous commandments as well, such that sin is not simply acts that are committed but also includes evil thoughts.

This means that sin need not be acted out in order to be sin.

This causes an immediate problem for the Arminian's Freewill Defense. Namely, evil occurs even without the actualization of that evil. Thus, when a murderer decides to kill someone, he has already sinned. If a rapist decides to attack a woman, he has already sinned.

But if sin already exists, then God has no need to allow the actual behavior to occur in order to keep people from being robots. Simply put, God could cause the knife the murder holds to dematerialize, or He could cause the rapist to become neutered. This would stop the behavior from occurring, but would not in any way violate the will of the one who would have engaged in such a behavior. The evildoer would have still wanted to do evil and sin would still have occurred, but there would be no other human victims involved. The sin would remain solely between the sinner and God.

Add to the fact that if we see someone trying to murder or rape another person, we are morally obligated to intervene to the best of our abilities to save the victim (and note, when we do intervene successfully, the guilt of the person who attacked the victim is not mitigated), then it becomes obvious that the Freewill Defense is sorely lacking. There must be some other reason for God to decree/permit/allow evil actions to occur.

[Note: A Helmet, we know you'll just say "it's not the greater good defense" without giving anything else, and since I could practically write your comments already, although with better grammar than you use, you don't need to respond here.]

Kaput

Dan has been furiously beating his wings, attempting to get out of the webs I've spun for him. The bad news for Dan is that things are only going to get worse.

So, here's some crucial Assumptions Dan's argument makes:

[A1] The "common man" is a libertarian and defines choice in libertarian fashion.

[A2] The dictionary is the repository of "common mans'" definition of choice, the dictionary defines "choice" assuming the rubric of libertarian metaphysics.

[A3] The Bible was written by and to the "common man".

[A4] For any word, x, that the Bible uses, the Bible means x however the "common man" understands that word at any time, t.

These crucial assumptions somehow are supposed to get to the Conclusion:

[C] The Bible uses the word choice, the "common man" understands choice under the rubric of libertarian metaphysics, and therefore the Bible asserts that libertarian metaphysics is the case when it uses the word "choice."

Now, in response I (as well as Steve Hays) have offered literally dozens of Objections to Dan's argument, not all of them have been dealt with. Here's a few:

[O1] We don't know what the referent of "common man" is supposed to be, and don't have necessary and sufficient conditions to demarcate "common man" from "uncommon man". Just what is a "common man".

[O2] There is empirical evidence which suggests that, especially considering Dan has offered absolutely zero empirical evidence of his own to support his assumption, the "common man" is not libertarian, head for head. The evidence I brought forth makes it, at the very least, far from obvious that all "common men" whoever are dyed-in-the-wool libertarians. Besides that, I pointed out that there have been many human societies that have been fatalists. So Dan's assumption about all "common men" whoever are just false, and obviously so.

[O3] Some (many?) "comon men" hold thatan indeterminate action is random or a lucky happening. So this is a massive problem for Dan, it makes his argument prove too much. Surely we aren't going to attribute some sort of sophisticated, technical, philosophical understanding of (one of the many forms of) "agent causation" to "common man."

[O4] It is demonstrably false the the Bible was written only by and to the "common man."

[O5] Dictionaries and "common men" can be wrong; therefore, Dan's argument could be used to support the errancy of Scripture.

[O6] It is possible that dictionaries and "common men" could take a "determinist turn", which means that freedom is at least compatible with determinism. Dan's argument allows for the compatibility since it allows for the possibility that the Bible could mean certain words in a sense compatible with determinism and choice.

[O7] There is a way that "alternative possibilities" could be read in compatibilist terms, e.g., hypothetically. Dan simply ignores this, forcing his square-peg argument through the round hole.

So far, these objections have gone unanswered.

Now, to be fair, Dan doesn't like the word "choice". Dan makes it clear that his argument depends on the word "choose" and not "choice." Dan writes,

In our debate, I argued that the dictionary definition of choose rules out determinism. In Paul's recent rejoinder he states: “I cited numerous dictionaries that didn’t include a PAP (Principle of Alternate Possibilities) element”. (link) This is true, but misleading. Paul defined choice, but not choose. My argument was based on the verb choose, not the noun choice. In this post I would like to revisit the dictionaries, and explain why it's important to distinguish between choice and choose.

Using the word "choose" is important for Dan argument because:

...the 'dictionary definition' of choose includes at least two possibilities. But determinism prohibits twofold possibilities, so the dictionary rules out determinism.

Dan has already admitted that I found definitions of choice which were compatible with determinism, that's why he won't use "choice" but only sticks with "choose." Therefore, if I offer definitions of "choose" which are neutral with respect to determinism, then Dan must admit, to be intellectually honest, that I have indeed fully, finally, and completely driven the last nail in the coffin that houses his (bad to begin with) argument against Calvinism. I will supply such definitions shortly.

Before I do, however, it is important to note that more than a couple dictionaries have, as part of their definition of "choose," this: "to make a choice" (cf. Merriam-Webster's Intermediate Dictionary, p.133; The Princeton Review Essential High School Dictionary. 91, etc.). Thus it seems clear to me that if "choosing" is "to make a choice", and if "to make a choice" is consistent with determinism, then choosing is so consistent.

But given Dan's refusal to admit that his argument was bad, especially when I cited numerous libertarian philosophers who opposed Dan's argument, the above point will not be enough. Neither will this next point, I suppose.

Dan has indicated on his blog that he has learned the most about LFW and how to defend it in its strongest theistic form (Molinism) from William Lane Craig. Now, Dan claims that it is essential to the definition of choice that we be able to choose alternative possibilities. Yet his guru states: "So long as a person's choice is causally undetermined, it is a free choice even if the person is unable to choose the opposite of that choice" (Craig, "The Middle-Knowledge View," in, Foreknowledge: Four Views, IVP, 130). So, even Craig disagrees with Dan.

But as I said, this won't be enough. Over all of the libertarian philosophers who specialize in the field Dan is incompetently dabbling in, Dan trusts the dictionary. So I will now fillet Dan's argument, leaving it dead once and for all.

Dan self-servingly cited some dictionaries that he thinks (remember, even the definitions he pushes can be read in a way that has been friendly to compatibilism) makes his case that "the dictionary" (there's no such thing) defines "choose" strictly in libertarian terms. When he finishes listing them, he confidentially asserts:

I could go on, but you get the point.

Well, no, Dan, we don't "get the point." And not least of all because at least two of his definitions are compatible with "choosing" in a divinely-determined world. For example, Dan cited these two:

1. Merriam-Webster's defines choose as: to select freely and after consideration

2. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: to decide what you want from a range of things or possibilities:

The first obviously does allow for compatibilism, unless Dan begs the question. The second does because it is in the form of a disjunction and not a conjunction, thus the "possibilities" is not required (again, this is to grant Dan his "possibilities" point).

But for some reason I think that Dan will not even be convinced by the fact that some of his own cherry-picked dictionaries allow for a "choosing" in a determined world. So let me quote a lot more. Because I like Dan and want to save him from the embarrassment that has become his argument, I went to the bookstore and rounded up a whole bunch of dictionaries. Before I give these definitions it is crucial to recall that when I defined "choice" in similar ways as we will see below, Dan granted their consistency with determinism, he must therefore grant that "choose" is likewise compatible. Before you read these, remember that absolutely crucial to Dan's argument is that all dictionaries, or all reputable ones (I guess), include the ability to actually instantiate an alternative possibility as essential (contrary to libertarian William Lane Craig, as well as most others, but let's noth let that bother us) to the (dictionary?) definition of choose. Keep that in mind.

Below I cite the entire definition (and any second or third or so on, definitions). I have left nothing out, and all sources are docummented.

choose v. (vt) 1. Pick out, select; take by preference. (vt) decide, think fit. (Collins Pocket Dictionary, New York: Harper Collins, 2007, 91)

choose v. 1. Select out of a greater number 2. select one or another 3. decide 4. select as. (The American Century Dictionary, New York: Warner Books, Oxford University Press, 1997, 102)

choose v. 1. Select out of a greater number of things, 2. decide, to prefer, to desire. (Oxford American Dictionary, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 147)

choose v. 1. to pick. (that was all, cited in, Spell it Right Dictionary, New York: Berlitz Publishing, 2007, 63)

choose v. 1. To pick out one or more from a greater number or group, 2. to make up one's mind; decide or prefer. (Webster's New World Basic Dictionary of American English, Cleveland: Wiley Publishing, 1988, 146)

choose v. 1. To pick out by preference; select 2. to decide or desire 3. to make a choice (The Princeton Review Essential High School Dictionary, New York: Random House, 2002, 91).

choose v. 1. To select freely after consideration 2. to make a choice 3. to see fit (Merriam-Webster's Intermediate Dictionary, Springfield Mass.: Merriam-Webster's Inc., 2004, 133)

choose v. 1. Decide which you are going to take from among a number of people or things. (Barron's Dictionary and Thesaurus, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 111).

choose v. 1. To select according to preference especially after consideration 2.a. to decide b. to prefer 3. to see fit 4. to make a choice (Merriam-Webster's School Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster's Inc., 2004, 165)

I could keep going, but I trust you get the point. ;-)

And with that, Dan must retract his argument. Not only have I shown that it is far from obvious that all "common men" whoever are libertarian (and bear in mind that Dan has done nothing to substantiate his crucial assumption about all "common men" whoever), I have just refuted the other major crucial assumption of Dan's argument, viz. that "the dictionary" has (actually) "possible" as an essential component to the definition of "choose," which is what makes it (according to him) affirm a libertarian metaphysic. I cited numerous well-respected dictionaries, gathered from the shelves of a "common man" bookstore, Barnes & Noble, that all define choice in a way fully compatible with determinism, as well as two definitions chosen by Dan (for a total of eleven respected dictionaries all coming down on my side of the argument). None of them included te word "possible," a curious fact considering that if Dan is right, these well-respected dictionaries all leave out the "essential" component of "choose"! What hubris.

Not only that, a few of these definitions are so similar to Robert Kane's definitions that this has the effect of refuting another one of Dan's many unargued assumptions: Kane is offering a "technical, philosophical definition" of choice/choose. To see that, let's recall Kane's definition:

Robert Kane: “A choice is the formation of an intention or purpose to do something. It resolves uncertainty and indecision in the mind about what to do” (Robert Kane, “Libertarian Perspectives on Free Agency and Free Will.” Oxford Handbook of Free Will, p.423).

So, not only has Dan's argument been previously refuted by both Hays and I, I have now refuted Dan's argument solely from premises Dan accepts, and has admitted show that dictionary definitions of "choice" are consistent with determinism. On pain of irrationality, and general avoidance of pig-headedness, Dan the Arminian has been compelled to admit that I have defeated his argument.









QED