# what is required for moral responsibility? - Galen Strawson's Basic Argument



## steven-nemes

Lately I have been thinking over the issue of what exactly is required for moral responsibility. 

It is said, I think by Jonathan Edwards, that was is required is being at liberty to what you please, and being able to do the thing you ought to do if you so desired. So, we cannot hold a paralyzed man responsible for running a race, because even if he is at liberty to do what he wants (no one is chaining him down, or whatever), he still is not able to do the thing, even if he wanted to (say he has no legs).

But these conditions don't seem enough to me. Imagine an evil neuroscientist who puts a chip in my brain such that he controls my desires and what I do. Suppose he makes me want to kill my worst enemy. Suppose then, after wanting to do so sufficiently strongly, that I do it. Now, I was at liberty to do what I wanted to do--no one chained me down, nor did anyone take me by the hand--and had I wanted to _not_ kill the man, I wouldn't have--after all, the neuroscientist could have made me to not want to kill him. Yet I am hardly responsible for doing the thing.

But then what are the conditions?

I have also read an article by philosopher Galen Strawson who argues that we cannot be _ultimately_, heaven-and-hell morally responsible for what we do. His argument is this:


1. Interested in free action, we are particularly interested in actions that are performed for a reason (as opposed to “reflex” actions or mindlessly habitual actions).
2. When one acts for a reason, what one does is a function of how one is, mentally speaking. (It is also a function of one's height, one's strength, one's place and time, and so on. But the mental factors are crucial when moral responsibility is in question.)
3. So if one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must be truly responsible for how is, mentally speaking—at least in certain respects.
4. But to be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must have brought it about that one is the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects. And it is not merely that one must have caused onself to be the way one is, mentally speaking. One must have consciously and explicitly chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, and one must have succeeded in bring it about that one is that way.
5. But one cannot really be said to choose, in a conscious, reasoned, fashion, to be the way one is mentally speaking, in any respect at all, unless one already exists, mentally speaking, already equipped with some principles of choice, “P1”—preferences, values, pro-attitudes, ideals—the light of which one chooses how to be.
6. But then to be truly responsible, on account of having chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects, one must be truly responsible for one's having the principles of choice P1 in the light of which one chose how to be.
7. But for this to be so one must have chosen P1, in a reasoned, conscious, intentional fashion.
8. But for this, i.e. 7, to be so one must already have had some principles of choice P2, in the light of which one chose P1.
9. And so on. Here we are setting out on a regress that we cannot stop. True self-determination is impossible because it requires the actual completion of an infinite series of choices of principles of choice.
10. So true moral responsibility is impossible, because it requries true self-determination, as noted in 3.

The problem with the argument is that it seems plausible and intuitive, but the conclusion is so obviously false, and dismal and depressing, that it cannot be true.

But then we have to offer some sort of conditions of responsibility, which would survive under attack! What exactly might these conditions look like?


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## Peairtach

The fact that man's inability to all true good is in his will rather than in his e.g. limbs, makes him morally responsible for e.g. his unbelief.

When he says that he can't believe, this is true because he won't believe.

When he says that he won't believe, this is true because he can't believe.

Nothing is preventing him from believing but his morally depraved will. If if was something else like his body or a chip in his brain he couldn't and shouldn't be held responsible by God or Man.

The chill is in the will.

Without the knowledge of God, Man couldn't be held morally responsible. Since all men have some knowledge of God and therefore of true moral norms, they are responsible for rebellion against them.

Those who have not had any intimation of the Gospel are not morally responsible for rejecting it, but are responsible for how they behave with the light they have.


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## au5t1n

steven-nemes said:


> But these conditions don't seem enough to me. Imagine an evil neuroscientist who *puts a chip in my brain such that he controls my desires* and what I do. Suppose he makes me want to kill my worst enemy. Suppose then, after wanting to do so sufficiently strongly, that I do it. Now, I was at liberty to do what I wanted to do--no one chained me down, nor did anyone take me by the hand--and had I wanted to _not_ kill the man, I wouldn't have--after all, the neuroscientist could have made me to not want to kill him. Yet I am hardly responsible for doing the thing.



The analogy doesn't work because the bolded part is impossible, even with technology that could control absolutely every physical part of your body down to the nano scale. The desires of your heart are immune to brain chips, and it is from the heart that evil springs.


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## Skyler

I would question 1. if it is possible for a scientist to actually control your will with a chip like that; and 2. if it would be different from a psychologist convincing you that you really do want to kill that person.


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## steven-nemes

If you have troubles with the brain chip analogy, though I think whether or not it is possible is besides the point, and I do think it is possible--despite all that, imagine a case like this.

My neighbor has been burning his garbage in his backyard for years, not knowing that most of the hazardous fumes find their way into my A/C and are pumped into my house, and me and my whole family breath them in. Now those fumes have a particularly strange psychological effect, namely, making a person who consumes them regularly and at great length to desire to kill their wife. So, I over time form the desire to kill my wife and eventually do so. 

In that case I was at liberty to do what I wanted, and had I wanted to not kill my wife, surely I would have, but I am still hardly free or morally responsible.


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## au5t1n

steven-nemes said:


> If you have troubles with the brain chip analogy, though I think whether or not it is possible is besides the point, and I do think it is possible--despite all that, imagine a case like this.
> 
> My neighbor has been burning his garbage in his backyard for years, not knowing that most of the hazardous fumes find their way into my A/C and are pumped into my house, and me and my whole family breath them in. Now those fumes have a particularly strange psychological effect, namely, making a person who consumes them regularly and at great length to desire to kill their wife. So, I over time form the desire to kill my wife and eventually do so.
> 
> In that case I was at liberty to do what I wanted, and had I wanted to not kill my wife, surely I would have, but I am still hardly free or morally responsible.



This is the same problem. How can your spirit, heart, or will be controlled by hazardous fumes? It is not what goes into the man that makes him unclean. Ultimately, your heart has to allow external things like this to stir you up in anger against your wife.


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## steven-nemes

I think it is plainly obvious that things external to me, in my environment, even chemicals, can cause me to desire things, especially bad things.

A woman with very little to wear can cause me to want to have sex with her. A particularly juicy-looking hamburger can cause me to want to eat it. Repeated time spent with friends speaking of spiritual things and matters can cause me to want to read my Bible more.

So also perhaps there could be some strange chemical which makes me want to kill my wife. It is a counterexample--it need not be true to life or realistic given the present laws of nature; it just has to be logically possible.


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## au5t1n

steven-nemes said:


> I think it is plainly obvious that things external to me, in my environment, even chemicals, can cause me to desire things, especially bad things.
> 
> A woman with very little to wear can cause me to want to have sex with her. A particularly juicy-looking hamburger can cause me to want to eat it. Repeated time spent with friends speaking of spiritual things and matters can cause me to want to read my Bible more.
> 
> So also perhaps there could be some strange chemical which makes me want to kill my wife. It is a counterexample--it need not be true to life or realistic given the present laws of nature; it just has to be logically possible.



It appears to us that external things affect our desires, and certainly the connection between body and spirit can at times be hard to distinguish. We are not gnostic - We know that a human is more than just a spirit: His mind makes use of his brain; and when he trembles in spirit, often he trembles in the flesh too! But nevertheless, Jesus tells us in [KJV]Mark 7:18-19[/KJV] that man's heart is not changed by external things. We have to be willing (read:"desiring") to accept any outside influence for it to become a snare to us.

I think Edwards has it right.


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## gene_mingo

steven-nemes said:


> I think it is plainly obvious that things external to me, in my environment, even chemicals, can cause me to desire things, especially bad things.
> 
> A woman with very little to wear can cause me to want to have sex with her. A particularly juicy-looking hamburger can cause me to want to eat it. Repeated time spent with friends speaking of spiritual things and matters can cause me to want to read my Bible more.
> 
> So also perhaps there could be some strange chemical which makes me want to kill my wife. It is a counterexample--it need not be true to life or realistic given the present laws of nature; it just has to be logically possible.



The chemicals only enhance a desire already within yourself. The same with lust and gluttony.


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## Peairtach

At the end of the day we are free and responsible creatures.

Your illustration of the fumes shows that a _sinful_ person when acted on by these fumes would want to kill someone.

On the other hand when someone without sin is acted on by the fumes what would He do?

We see this to an extent with mental illness. 

Although I agree that this area is poorly understood and shouldn't be used as a whipping boy against any poor people that suffer from mental troubles?

Some who suffer from e.g. depression, just go into themselves and don't get out of bed. On the other hand, others who suffer from depression harm themselves and others.

A similar scenario happens when people take drink. There is always a degree of responsibility whatever happens, and a distinction between the good and the bad.

The man in the dock who is guilty of murder could turn to the judge and say, I couldn't help it because I've been a dirty, rotten, scoundrel all my life! Please let me go free!, but no-one would take his plea seriously.

Even unbelievers have access to the common grace of the Holy Spirit, by which they can and often do, develop characters that are, as far as they go, admirable. The WCF indicates they have a responsibility to do so. Such are less likely to react badly to the fumes or to temptation.


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## steven-nemes

This is the problem, Richard:

in what way can our behavior sensibly be called free? I am inclined to think that, if Calvinism is true, then our behavior is not free, at least not in any meaningful sense of the term.

But of course we are morally responsible. But how is it that we are morally responsible? Being at liberty and doing what you want is not enough, (and this is my point!!!) because the person in the cases I outlined are at liberty and they do what they want, but they are hardly responsible for what they did.


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## au5t1n

steven-nemes said:


> This is the problem, Richard:
> 
> in what way can our behavior sensibly be called free? I am inclined to think that, if Calvinism is true, then our behavior is not free, at least not in any meaningful sense of the term.
> 
> But of course we are morally responsible. But how is it that we are morally responsible? Being at liberty and doing what you want is not enough, (and this is my point!!!) because the person in the cases I outlined are at liberty and they do what they want, but they are hardly responsible for what they did.



The Calvinist position is that we are free to do anything we desire. If we do not desire something, we do not do it, hence the bondage of the will to sin prior to conversion. External factors cannot create a desire in a person's heart (per Mark. 7:18-19), but we who already have these desires in some measure may allow external influence to exacerbate the heart condition from which we suffer.


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## steven-nemes

Yes, by "free to do anything we desire," I understand you mean something like liberty, like Jonathan Edwards uses the phrase (if I am not mistaken). 

But I am speaking of free, in terms of our will--and I think the only meaningful way to speak of having free will is being _causa sui_, yourself being the only cause of your actions, freedom to otherwise all things being the same, free will in the libertarian sense. 

If Calvinism is true, then we don't have free will (as I defined above). The trouble now is finding some way to define how it is we are morally responsible for our actions even if we are not _causa sui_.


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## gene_mingo

steven-nemes said:


> This is the problem, Richard:
> 
> in what way can our behavior sensibly be called free? I am inclined to think that, if Calvinism is true, then our behavior is not free, at least not in any meaningful sense of the term.
> 
> But of course we are morally responsible. But how is it that we are morally responsible? Being at liberty and doing what you want is not enough, (and this is my point!!!) because the person in the cases I outlined are at liberty and they do what they want, but they are hardly responsible for what they did.



What is freedom in regards to behavior? I would say that is is the ability to act on ones desires.
I fail to see in the cases you made that the people involved didn't act in accordance to their desires.

-----Added 11/15/2009 at 06:16:42 EST-----



steven-nemes said:


> Yes, by "free to do anything we desire," I understand you mean something like liberty, like Jonathan Edwards uses the phrase (if I am not mistaken).
> 
> But I am speaking of free, in terms of our will--and I think the only meaningful way to speak of having free will is being _causa sui_, yourself being the only cause of your actions, freedom to otherwise all things being the same, free will in the libertarian sense.
> 
> If Calvinism is true, then we don't have free will (as I defined above). The trouble now is finding some way to define how it is we are morally responsible for our actions even if we are not _causa sui_.



Your definition above fails with external causes against ones will. Like floods or earthquakes. It is an unrealistic idea of freedom.


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## MW

I prefer the exaplanation provided in the Westminster Confession, 4.2. Man is created with moral quality (reasonable and immortal souls), moral ability (having the law of God written in their hearts), and moral liberty (being left to the liberty of their own will). This is what makes man a capable moral agent, and as such is morally culpable for his actions.


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## ChristianTrader

steven-nemes said:


> Yes, by "free to do anything we desire," I understand you mean something like liberty, like Jonathan Edwards uses the phrase (if I am not mistaken).
> 
> But I am speaking of free, in terms of our will--and I think the only meaningful way to speak of having free will is being _causa sui_, yourself being the only cause of your actions, freedom to otherwise all things being the same, free will in the libertarian sense.
> 
> If Calvinism is true, then we don't have free will (as I defined above). The trouble now is finding some way to define how it is we are morally responsible for our actions even if we are not _causa sui_.



I think the free will of which you speak is meaningless or self contradictory

"Free Will and Responsibility" by John Byl

CT

-----Added 11/15/2009 at 07:23:48 EST-----



steven-nemes said:


> If you have troubles with the brain chip analogy, though I think whether or not it is possible is besides the point, and I do think it is possible--despite all that, imagine a case like this.
> 
> My neighbor has been burning his garbage in his backyard for years, not knowing that most of the hazardous fumes find their way into my A/C and are pumped into my house, and me and my whole family breath them in. Now those fumes have a particularly strange psychological effect, namely, making a person who consumes them regularly and at great length to desire to kill their wife. So, I over time form the desire to kill my wife and eventually do so.
> 
> In that case I was at liberty to do what I wanted, and had I wanted to not kill my wife, surely I would have, but I am still hardly free or morally responsible.



Are you imply that the man was "fatalistically forced" to kill his wife here?

CT


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## steven-nemes

Doing what you want to do is not enough for being free. I can do what I want to after being hypnotized and caused to want some thing, but that's not free behavior.

I will get back to you on that article, Hermonta. But I'm not implying the man was "fatalistically forced," whatever that means. I mean to say that man fulfilled the suggested conditions and was not responsible for his action.


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## cih1355

steven-nemes said:


> Doing what you want to do is not enough for being free. I can do what I want to after being hypnotized and caused to want some thing, but that's not free behavior.
> 
> I will get back to you on that article, Hermonta. But I'm not implying the man was "fatalistically forced," whatever that means. I mean to say that man fulfilled the suggested conditions and was not responsible for his action.



If I were to act according to my desires and my desires originated in the appropriate way, would I be free?


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## ChristianTrader

steven-nemes said:


> Doing what you want to do is not enough for being free. I can do what I want to after being hypnotized and caused to want some thing, but that's not free behavior.
> 
> I will get back to you on that article, Hermonta. But I'm not implying the man was "fatalistically forced," whatever that means. I mean to say that man fulfilled the suggested conditions and was not responsible for his action.



I'll put it this way, can God's law that is written in your heart be erased by hypnosis etc.? 

When I say fatalistically forced, I mean, can a person evaluate a scenario, see that a certain position is evil, and be unable to stop themselves from doing it?

CT


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## Tim

We always do what we want to do.


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## Ron

God holds us accountable for all our thoughts, words and deeds. That settles the matter for those who are Reformed, whose authority is God’s word and not _autonomous_ reason. 

The hypothetical absurdities that have been mentioned (like chips and fumes affecting the faculty of choice) really speaks to the _degree of guilt_ God will find with men as opposed to whether they are going to be held responsible. God will take all influences into account. 

Of course liberty is a sufficient condition for responsibility, which is not to say it is a necessary condition for responsibility. With respect to the former, if one has liberty to choose what he wants, he is responsible before God. If one due to his own sinful choices loses liberty, then of course he can still be held responsible for what he no longer has liberty to do. For instance, if one's sinful choice(s) prevents him from providing for his family, his lack of liberty to work due to having to serve prison time does not negate his responsibility to provide for his family. Accordingly, liberty is not always a necessary condition for moral responsibility but it is always a sufficient condition. 

Since it is my understanding that only Reformed folk are permitted to post on this site, I will not entertain musings dealing with chips, fumes or any other silly notion that is distinctly humanistic and not Reformed in any sense of the word. 

For a fuller treatment of the matter: Reformed Apologist: Liberty, the Seat of Moral Accountability

Ron


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## Skyler

steven-nemes said:


> I think it is plainly obvious that things external to me, in my environment, even chemicals, can cause me to desire things, especially bad things.
> 
> A woman with very little to wear can cause me to want to have sex with her. A particularly juicy-looking hamburger can cause me to want to eat it. Repeated time spent with friends speaking of spiritual things and matters can cause me to want to read my Bible more.
> 
> So also perhaps there could be some strange chemical which makes me want to kill my wife. It is a counterexample--it need not be true to life or realistic given the present laws of nature; it just has to be logically possible.



All of the above examples you just presented allow for moral responsibility. Why not the fumes/chip example?

edit: On a related and possibly helpful note, are we responsible for sin if we don't realize that it's sin when we do it?


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## Confessor

steven-nemes said:


> But these conditions don't seem enough to me. Imagine an evil neuroscientist who puts a chip in my brain such that he controls my desires and what I do. Suppose he makes me want to kill my worst enemy. Suppose then, after wanting to do so sufficiently strongly, that I do it. Now, I was at liberty to do what I wanted to do--no one chained me down, nor did anyone take me by the hand--and had I wanted to _not_ kill the man, I wouldn't have--after all, the neuroscientist could have made me to not want to kill him. Yet I am hardly responsible for doing the thing.



Assuming the brain chip example is legitimate, here is a relevant quote from Craig's and Moreland's _Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview_, p. 274:


> Advocates of the causal theory of action [i.e., compatibilism - BM] have responded to cases of causal deviance [e.g. the brain chip example - BM] by patching up the theory to include the idea that the act must be caused by the right mental states _in the appropriate way_. [...] The problem with this response is that advocates of the causal theory of action have had a hard time defining "in the appropriate way."



The gist of the matter is that it's sometimes difficult to classify when a cause of our actions is from within (conducive to moral responsibility) or from without (destructive of moral responsibility), because genetics affect our immaterial aspects, and body and soul can interact in other ways we do not understand. Therefore, we can usually acknowledge when certain acts are caused appropriately or inappropriately, but it's difficult to get "back of" that and see why the causality is appropriate or not.

But this doesn't mean that the two categories aren't distinct -- as you can _clearly_ place different examples in different categories without having the categories well-defined -- and thus Craig and Moreland are wrong if they imply that difficulty in assessing which causes are from within and which are from without is evidence for compatibilism's falsity.

As Ron said above, God recognizes which influences are conducive to moral responsibility and which are destructive. We don't need to be able to do that perfectly to have a Biblical philosophy of the will.

-----

As for Strawson's argument, he basically says that we cannot be responsible for our choices if our choices are efficiently caused by ultimately unchosen desires. But his argument begs the question in favor of libertarianism, and therefore carries no weight.


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## steven-nemes

To Ron:



Ron said:


> God holds us accountable for all our thoughts, words and deeds. That settles the matter for those who are Reformed, whose authority is God’s word and not _autonomous_ reason.



I think the Reformed/autonomous dichotomy you are putting up not only is false but plainly absurd. I think it is good and proper to ask what it is that are the necessary and sufficient conditions of our being held morally responsible, given the truth of determinism. If you don't think so, then you don't have to answer (even though I dealt with your suggestions above with counterexamples), but it's hardly conducive to discussion to use presuppositionalist buzz words and poison the well.



> The hypothetical absurdities that have been mentioned (like chips and fumes affecting the faculty of choice) really speaks to the _degree of guilt_ God will find with men as opposed to whether they are going to be held responsible. God will take all influences into account.



So you are saying people in those scenarios are morally responsible for what they did, it is just a matter of degree. Fine. I am thinking you would agree that the people in those circumstances have minimal responsibility for their actions, even if they have some.

Here's the clincher: something very much like those is the case, given the truth of Calvinism. God is the cause of our beliefs, desires, etc., if determinism is true--and it seems that if we have minimal moral responsibility in those cases (given the conditions you suggested), then we ought to have minimal moral responsibility in real life also. But that can't be the case. So those conditions are no good.

But I think the intuitive view is that those people are not responsible for what they did at all. 



> Of course liberty is a sufficient condition for responsibility, which is not to say it is a necessary condition for responsibility. With respect to the former, if one has liberty to choose what he wants, he is responsible before God. If one due to his own sinful choices loses liberty, then of course he can still be held responsible for what he no longer has liberty to do. For instance, if one's sinful choice(s) prevents him from providing for his family, his lack of liberty to work due to having to serve prison time does not negate his responsibility to provide for his family. Accordingly, liberty is not always a necessary condition for moral responsibility but it is always a sufficient condition.



Liberty is not sufficient because I could be under hypnosis and at liberty to do what I want and be forced to commit all kinds of atrocities. That hardly seems to be responsible behavior.



> Since it is my understanding that only Reformed folk are permitted to post on this site, I will not entertain musings dealing with chips, fumes or any other silly notion that is distinctly humanistic and not Reformed in any sense of the word.



If you mean to imply that I am not Reformed just by asking the questions, I hardly know what to say in response. My understanding was that you are a pretty smart guy and I was looking forward to dialoging with you over this issue, but you decided to take another route and simply assert the same things I already read in your blog post (which I looked over earlier in the week while I was still thinking over these issues), things which I already dealt with in the above posts. Fine by me.

*To Ben*: I hardly know what a proper way for desires to be brought about is. Is two billion years of blind cosmic evolution the right way? What makes that any different than me gradually gaining the desire to kill my wife by her annoying me for years and years?

If Calvinism is true, then something very much like the evil neuroscientist case is true to life, except with a few more links in the causal chain leading up to the evil act. I _know_ that compatibilists would say that for the most part, if a person's behavior is caused by another person's intentional manipulation of his desires and beliefs, then he can't really be held responsible for it. And if a person acts such that another person _will_ inevitably desire to do X, then the person could hardly be responsible for it. But this is the case in Calvinism.

But suppose the neuroscientist cases don't hold water. Even then, Strawson's argument _does_ seem to go through on compatibilism. So you have to deal with that, since you are not a libertarian.

-----Added 11/16/2009 at 05:01:33 EST-----



ChristianTrader said:


> I'll put it this way, can God's law that is written in your heart be erased by hypnosis etc.?
> 
> When I say fatalistically forced, I mean, can a person evaluate a scenario, see that a certain position is evil, and be unable to stop themselves from doing it?
> 
> CT



The person in those cases would not be reasoning freely (in a causa sui way), but then again no one does. 

So he would not be able to stop and think to himself about whether or not he ought to do it; it'd seem free to him.

But then again, _no one_ has the ability to stop and think about what they are doing, at least not in a causa sui way, which you seem to be suggesting.


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## Christusregnat

steven-nemes said:


> I think the Reformed/autonomous dichotomy you are putting up not only is false but plainly absurd.



Actually a youth who hold himself in high esteem correcting a lawfully elected elder in a Prebyterian Church is absurd.


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## steven-nemes

Fine by me. If I can be understood as being disrespectful, I apologize--that is definitely not what I wanted to get across, and I wasn't aware that that is how I sound. I also apologize if I come across as thinking highly of myself, though this charge is more mysterious to me than the other. I only wanted to discuss the issue and I think that Ron's response was unfair. I didn't know I'm not allowed to respond to other people when I disagree with them, if they are older than me or hold a position of authority in a denomination.


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## Christusregnat

steven-nemes said:


> Fine by me. If I can be understood as being disrespectful, I apologize--that is definitely not what I wanted to get across, and I wasn't aware that that is how I sound. I also apologize if I come across as thinking highly of myself, though this charge is more mysterious to me than the other. I only wanted to discuss the issue and I think that Ron's response was unfair. I didn't know I'm not allowed to respond to other people when I disagree with them, if they are older than me or hold a position of authority in a denomination.



It is the spirit with which one challenges, or carries oneself in discussions; I don't think that Ron would reject all challenges. But as a youth, your mind will tend to trust too much in its own wisdom, and be blinded to how you are perceived by others. This is nothing personal. I have been through this myself. If you told your father that his ideas were absurd, I hope he would give you a swift chastisement. Should this not apply with elders in Christ's church? Something to think about.

Cheers,

Adam


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## Confessor

steven-nemes said:


> *To Ben*: I hardly know what a proper way for desires to be brought about is. Is two billion years of blind cosmic evolution the right way? What makes that any different than me gradually gaining the desire to kill my wife by her annoying me for years and years?



I think you're going about it backwards. It's not that we conceive of the category and then determine which instances fit into the category (as Descartes and Clark do with epistemology); rather, we have clear instances of what are appropriate and what are inappropriate causal chains of action, and we can inductively proceed with those to discern a criterion.



steven-nemes said:


> If Calvinism is true, then something very much like the evil neuroscientist case is true to life, except with a few more links in the causal chain leading up to the evil act.



No, this is the case only if you presume that you have the correct category in the first place (backwards methodology again). As one way to describe the situations as different, consider the Creator-creature disparity. To say that a human cannot physically modify someone's desires and leave him morally responsible does not imply that God cannot.



steven-nemes said:


> But suppose the neuroscientist cases don't hold water. Even then, Strawson's argument _does_ seem to go through on compatibilism. So you have to deal with that, since you are not a libertarian.



Strawson argues that if we don't exhaustively choose everything that goes into making a decision, i.e. if we don't choose _what_ we please (rather than just choosing _as_ we please), then we don't have moral responsibility. But this is the thesis of libertarianism. He is just asserting what he wants to prove.


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## steven-nemes

Confessor said:


> I think you're going about it backwards. It's not that we conceive of the category and then determine which instances fit into the category (as Descartes and Clark do with epistemology); rather, we have clear instances of what are appropriate and what are inappropriate causal chains of action, and we can inductively proceed with those to discern a criterion.



Alright. You and I can think of some cases where it seems a person's desires came about the right way, and some cases where it seems a person's desires came about the wrong way, and that in the first case, they are morally responsible, and in the second case, they are not morally responsible. Now, my question is this: what do those cases where the person is morally responsible have in common with each other, and what do they commonly have distinct from those cases where the person is not morally responsible? After we come up with that, let's test those conditions and see if they are enough. That's my project.



> No, this is the case only if you presume that you have the correct category in the first place (backwards methodology again). As one way to describe the situations as different, consider the Creator-creature disparity. To say that a human cannot physically modify someone's desires and leave him morally responsible does not imply that God cannot.



Is it not true that something like the neuroscientist cases is true in real life? That's all I said--I said nothing as to whether or not people in real life are morally responsible (I think they are), I simply said that something like ns cases is true to life.

Now I was also getting at this: if they aren't morally responsible in the ns cases, how are they morally responsible when _God_ does it? You reply that there is a Creator-creature disparity and that God perhaps can justly hold us responsible whereas humans couldn't. 

But it seems that if we hold to that, then God could literally do anything with humans and still hold them responsible. God could've made the created order such that it was not clear that he exists, and he could've made us such that we do not clearly know what is right and what is wrong in such a way that we'd be blameworthy for doing what is wrong. Imagine he did do that. Are we still responsible for sinning and not believing in him?



> Strawson argues that if we don't exhaustively choose everything that goes into making a decision, i.e. if we don't choose _what_ we please (rather than just choosing _as_ we please), then we don't have moral responsibility. But this is the thesis of libertarianism. He is just asserting what he wants to prove.



Strawson doesn't try to prove libertarianism; he tries to prove moral responsibility as such is impossible.

He says that our choices are a consequence of the way we are in certain mental respects. He says that in order to be responsible for our choices, we'd have to be responsible for the way we are. 

That seems plausible enough. You would deny the jump in the second sentence there, that in order to be responsible for our choices, we'd have to be responsible for the way we are. If that is not true--if it is true that we can be responsible for our choices even if we are not responsible for our mental states--then what is needed for moral responsibility? That seems to be a plausible question to ask, and probably what Strawson would push you to answer.


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## Confessor

steven-nemes said:


> Alright. You and I can think of some cases where it seems a person's desires came about the right way, and some cases where it seems a person's desires came about the wrong way, and that in the first case, they are morally responsible, and in the second case, they are not morally responsible. Now, my question is this: what do those cases where the person is morally responsible have in common with each other, and what do they commonly have distinct from those cases where the person is not morally responsible? After we come up with that, let's test those conditions and see if they are enough. That's my project.



Do I have to do it now?  Really, I only entered the thread to ensure that you didn't throw out all causal determinism just because there exists such a concept as inappropriate causal chains. Presently I'm not too interested in discerning what the definitions are of appropriate and inappropriate causal chains. I find it interesting, but I just don't wish to do that now.

This stuff gets down to how body and soul interact, which might even be something that we are incapable of investigating. Deep stuff.



steven-nemes said:


> Now I was also getting at this: if they aren't morally responsible in the ns cases, how are they morally responsible when _God_ does it? You reply that there is a Creator-creature disparity and that God perhaps can justly hold us responsible whereas humans couldn't.



Yup.  That's it.



steven-nemes said:


> Strawson doesn't try to prove libertarianism; he tries to prove moral responsibility as such is impossible.



Well, yeah, but he does this on the grounds that only libertarianism could provide for moral responsibility. He takes the libertarian definition to be the right one from the outset, so you can't really expect compatibilists to have to interact with his stuff.



steven-nemes said:


> You would deny the jump in the second sentence there, that in order to be responsible for our choices, we'd have to be responsible for the way we are. If that is not true--if it is true that we can be responsible for our choices even if we are not responsible for our mental states--then what is needed for moral responsibility? That seems to be a plausible question to ask, and probably what Strawson would push you to answer.



I'd offer the typical compatibilsit answer: when our choices are appropriately caused by our mental states/desires.


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## steven-nemes

Fine by me. (You conveniently skip over my bit about God making revelation unclear and the moral law nebulous... )


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## Ron

I won't bother to address the arguments on this thread but I will not let this quote pass. It's too common to the Christian church and _we all _need to rid ourselves of such deception. 



> Fine by me. If I can be understood as being disrespectful, I apologize--that is definitely not what I wanted to get across, and I wasn't aware that that is how I sound. I also apologize if I come across as thinking highly of myself, though this charge is more mysterious to me than the other. I only wanted to discuss the issue and I think...



Concerning apologies that include "if", I've blogged:Reformed Apologist: Apologies With No Content

I won't paste the comments from that Blog post but some I recall are useful; they can be found through the link I provided. I will provide the thrust of the post though...

How many times have we heard “If I did x-and-so, I am truly sorry and ask your forgiveness”? Maybe we have said it ourselves. But what does it even mean after all? The “apology” is predicated upon an “if”, which suggests that the one extending the apology is not sorry for some _actual_ offence but rather for an offence that is not believed was committed; and worse, as demonstrated by _modus tollens_, an offence that is believed was not committed! Given the “if”, the _apology_ is disingenuous because the sorrow is as non-existent as the transgression is hypothetical. 

Maybe look at it this way:

*P1.* If I sinned against you, then I’m sorry for sinning against you
*P2. *I sinned against you
*Conlcusion:* I’m sorry for sinning against you

The one offering the conditional apology says that premise 1 is true. Premise 2 is not deemed true by the one offering the alleged apology. Consequently, the truth of the conclusion is not established. Therefore, it does not follow that the person is sorry for having sinned against the other person.

Applying _modus tollens_, things become a bit more glaring:

*p1.* If I sinned against you, then I’m sorry for sinning against you
*p2.* I’m not sorry for (actually) sinning against you
*Conclusion:* It is false that I sinned against you

In the second way at looking at this, both premise 1 and 2 are deemed true by the one offering the alleged apology. Accordingly, not only is the person not sorry (premise 2), he must also believe it is _false_ that he sinned against the other person because the negation of the consequent of P1, which is P2, necessitates the negation of the antecedent of P1, which is the conclusion of no sin against the other person. In other words, the one offering such a contingent apology implies that sorrow is a necessary condition for having sinned against the other person. Accordingly, if there is no sorrow, then the person is actually communicating that he did not sin against the person who believes he has been offended! By saying without having sorrow for actual sin: "If I sinned against you, then I'm sorry" does not imply that the person thinks he might have sinned. Rather, the statement actually underscores that the apology is being rendered by one who thinks he is innocent! 

The moral of the story is, don't extend contingent apologies and don't receive them for what they truly communicate. It does nobody any real good. At best, one might mean by such an apology that he would not want to hurt someone else unnecessarily and that had he believed he was wrong, then he would be sorry and apologize. But even that communicates that there is disagreement over the question of whether an offence was actually given or just received (without warrant)....

Ron


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## Philip

Steven,

I'm still trying to figure out what your argument is. While outside influences can affect you, you are still morally responsible.

You are falling into the (all-too-common) trap of reformed idealism. That is, you find a select group of axioms in Calvinism and you deduce all kinds of weird and wonderful things from them and you step back and say "It's beautiful and elegant therefore it must be true." Then, you reinterpret reality to fit your beautiful system. This is the mistake of Leibniz--it's a huge temptation to be so intent on constructing a beautiful system that you lose touch with the reality that this is supposed to be explaining. Instead of letting reality shape your philosophy, you force reality to fit your philosophy.

I'm not saying I don't do this, but any time a Calvinist comes close to saying that we're sock puppets in the hand of God, red flags go up.


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## ChristianTrader

Christusregnat said:


> steven-nemes said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think the Reformed/autonomous dichotomy you are putting up not only is false but plainly absurd.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually a youth who hold himself in high esteem correcting a lawfully elected elder in a Prebyterian Church is absurd.
Click to expand...


Who can correct a lawfully elected elder in a Presbyterian Church? Someone of a certain age? A person who is also an elder in a Presbyterian Church? Is there a written test that one must take first?

CT


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## Christusregnat

ChristianTrader said:


> Christusregnat said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> steven-nemes said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think the Reformed/autonomous dichotomy you are putting up not only is false but plainly absurd.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually a youth who hold himself in high esteem correcting a lawfully elected elder in a Prebyterian Church is absurd.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Who can correct a lawfully elected elder in a Presbyterian Church? Someone of a certain age? A person who is also an elder in a Presbyterian Church? Is there a written test that one must take first?
> 
> CT
Click to expand...


Why do you ask? Do you hold yourself in high esteem?


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## Philip

Christusregnat said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Christusregnat said:
> 
> 
> 
> Actually a youth who hold himself in high esteem correcting a lawfully elected elder in a Prebyterian Church is absurd.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Who can correct a lawfully elected elder in a Presbyterian Church? Someone of a certain age? A person who is also an elder in a Presbyterian Church? Is there a written test that one must take first?
> 
> CT
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Why do you ask? Do you hold yourself in high esteem?
Click to expand...


Job 32-33


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## ChristianTrader

Christusregnat said:


> ChristianTrader said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Christusregnat said:
> 
> 
> 
> Actually a youth who hold himself in high esteem correcting a lawfully elected elder in a Prebyterian Church is absurd.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Who can correct a lawfully elected elder in a Presbyterian Church? Someone of a certain age? A person who is also an elder in a Presbyterian Church? Is there a written test that one must take first?
> 
> CT
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Why do you ask? Do you hold yourself in high esteem?
Click to expand...


I ask because I would like to know the answer. Are you dodging the question?

CT


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## Ron

> I'm still trying to figure out what your argument is. While outside influences can affect you, you are still morally responsible.



Philip,

You might have missed something that this young man is trying to flesh out. At best, he would like to draw category distinctions for being enticed. One category has included hamburgers and scantily dressed woman as it were. Another category included fumes from the neighbor’s fire that affect the faculty of choice and chips that are implanted in the brain aimed to manipulate the strongest inclination at the moment of choice. He has even developed a third category of influence, positing that God could have “made us such that we do not clearly know what is right and what is wrong in such a way that we'd be blameworthy for doing what is wrong.” (In passing we might note that such a premise denies the basic Reformed doctrine that God can only do what is good and holy.)

God’s revealed civil and ecclesiastical sanctions do not take into account _environment, natural tendencies_ and _demonic influences _(let alone chips, fumes and an alleged deviant god). In Ephesians 2 where God addresses the _world_, the _flesh_ and the _devil_, he states that by Grace we are no longer enslaved to such influences. That we were once enslaved but have been released through conversion is a common Pauline theme, which he also employs in 1 Corinthians 6. James (chapter 3) speaks of _earthly_, _unspiritual_ and _demonic_ – same thing. Accordingly, practicing homosexuals are to be turned over to Satan and murderers are to be put to death, without regard to the influences! End of discussion. God holds men responsible in a very objective sense and he requires that his ordained servants, whether ecclesiastical or civil, carry out his prescribed sanctions according to the known transgression without consideration for hypothetical or unknown circumstantial influences. Pleading insanity, or “the devil made me do it!” is simply foreign to biblical justice. Reformed Apologist: More Muddled Musings & Flip Wilson's Geraldine How much more the case with fumes, chips and a deceiving god? Moreover, when God says that he will send a lying spirit, are we to suppose that those who are taken captive by such a spirit are somehow not culpable for what they might do under its influence? 

As I said before, at the judgment God will take into account all influences (both external and internal; artificial and natural), but to think that we will not be held responsible and found guilty to one degree or another for _all_ willful transgressions is simply to sit in judgment of God’s word...

Ron


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## Confessor

steven-nemes said:


> Fine by me. (You conveniently skip over my bit about God making revelation unclear and the moral law nebulous... )



Wait, what? I'm lost.

EDIT - I'm sorry; I really did just skip over that. That was foolish of me. I'll formulate a response now.
EDIT2 - Looking back on the email which I got on my phone when you initially responded, I see that the paragraph I skipped wasn't even there (likely a technical malfunction). So that would explain why I missed it.  In any case, here it is:



> But it seems that if we hold to that, then God could literally do anything with humans and still hold them responsible. God could've made the created order such that it was not clear that he exists, and he could've made us such that we do not clearly know what is right and what is wrong in such a way that we'd be blameworthy for doing what is wrong. Imagine he did do that. Are we still responsible for sinning and not believing in him?



How do you move from the premise that God has a more authoritative grasp over the human heart (such that He can manipulate as He pleases while retaining the responsibility of the second cause), to the premise that anything can be deemed as responsibility? My appeal to the Creator-creature distinction is not, "Yeah, it's the same category but I don't care; it's God"; it really is a qualitatively different relation.

-----Added 11/16/2009 at 08:15:34 EST-----



ChristianTrader said:


> Christusregnat said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> steven-nemes said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think the Reformed/autonomous dichotomy you are putting up not only is false but plainly absurd.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually a youth who hold himself in high esteem correcting a lawfully elected elder in a Prebyterian Church is absurd.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Who can correct a lawfully elected elder in a Presbyterian Church? Someone of a certain age? A person who is also an elder in a Presbyterian Church? Is there a written test that one must take first?
> 
> CT
Click to expand...


I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure Adam was aiming to correct not the content of Steven's statements, but the manner in which they were presented.


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## steven-nemes

P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm not saying I don't do this, but any time a Calvinist comes close to saying that we're sock puppets in the hand of God, red flags go up.



Sorry to say but this seems to plainly follow. Ask Ron, who argues that no one has free will, not even God, and everything which happens happens necessarily. That is an apparent consequence of Calvinism. Perhaps you ought to argue how it is that the thesis that God is the cause of our desires and actions doesn't follow?

*To Ben:* I am saying that it seems a slippery slope, applying the Creator-creature distinction as justification. It seems that if God can cause me to sin and hold me responsible for it, all the rest about me knowing what is wrong and so on doesn't even matter. Why bother adding that? I wasn't "able" _in a very real sense_ to take all that into consideration anyway, so it seems superfluous. But surely those things are _not_ superfluous...

And regarding the "manner in which" my response to Ron was presented, I didn't intend for it to come across the wrong way. I don't agree that an apology of the sort I made is meaningless or empty but I am not going to argue that.


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## Confessor

steven-nemes said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not saying I don't do this, but any time a Calvinist comes close to saying that we're sock puppets in the hand of God, red flags go up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry to say but this seems to plainly follow. Ask Ron, who argues that no one has free will, not even God, and everything which happens happens necessarily. That is an apparent consequence of Calvinism. Perhaps you ought to argue how it is that the thesis that God is the cause of our desires and actions doesn't follow?
Click to expand...


Just as with most other Biblical doctrines, we should expect this to be showing man as dust and God as glorious. There's a reason that Biblical doctrines (esp. predestination/divine sovereignty, justification by faith alone, complementarianism, Total Depravity) are hated by the world today. The world likes to think of man as genuinely free from any restraints ("You can do it if you put your mind to it!") and as possessing miniature creator-powers when it comes to determining the future, rather than saying that God has first decreed the future, and unveils it to us, who are ignorant of it. According to John Owen in his _The Mortification of Sin_, "Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world." To tell the world that the problem with us is in the very roots of our natures, and that we act only in accord with our natures (and therefore that any hope of assistance must come externally), is offensive. It casts man down to the dust.

What we need to do is follow what the Creator has Himself told us, to follow it faithfully, and then to modify our affections accordingly. Our philosophy must be delimited by Scripture. If Scripture tells us, if God Himself tells us, that we are entirely bound by His sovereignty and cannot act but how He decrees, and yet we are genuinely responsible for it -- then that is the case, period.

By sticking with this simple formula, grand results follow. A philosophy under the authority of Scripture, not catering to libertarianism, is a juggernaut. Philosophies stilted on libertarianism come crashing down to the ground. They are dreadfully inconsistent -- and rightfully so, for they attempt to posit man as a mini-creator and determiner of his own future, wishing to be as God (Gen. 3:5).



steven-nemes said:


> I am saying that it seems a slippery slope, applying the Creator-creature distinction as justification.



Again, you have to recognize that I'm not just throwing out the distinction as some arbitrary excuse. I am not saying that there is no distinction, but "I don't care; he's God." Rather, there is a genuine difference between God's dealing with the souls of men, and men's dealing with the souls of men. And this genuine difference comes from being the Creator. I may not be able to describe how it works, but nonetheless I know from the Bible that God is capable of altering men's hearts while fully retaining their responsibility. I use the distinction as justification only because Scripture advises me to do so. Scripture teaches that men imposing restraints on other men is destructive of freedom, whereas God can do so without destroying freedom at all. Scripture prevents such a justification from falling down a slippery slope, cf. Deut. 29:29.



steven-nemes said:


> It seems that if God can cause me to sin and hold me responsible for it, all the rest about me knowing what is wrong and so on doesn't even matter. Why bother adding that? I wasn't "able" _in a very real sense_ to take all that into consideration anyway, so it seems superfluous. But surely those things are _not_ superfluous...



I'm not sure what point you're making. Are you arguing that if God can ultimately cause others to sin and impute sin entirely to them, supposedly contrary to (libertarian) moral intuitions, then why doesn't He just impute people with sin right away and skip all the means?


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## Ron

steven-nemes said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not saying I don't do this, but any time a Calvinist comes close to saying that we're sock puppets in the hand of God, red flags go up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry to say but this seems to plainly follow. Ask Ron, who argues that no one has free will, not even God, and everything which happens happens necessarily. That is an apparent consequence of Calvinism. Perhaps you ought to argue how it is that the thesis that God is the cause of our desires and actions doesn't follow?
Click to expand...


Steve,

That you don't draw a distinction between the non-willful actions of puppets and the _willful _actions of men tells me that you have not reflected on these matters adequately - not even in the least. (That is not so bad in and of itself but that you correct so many people along your journey from _*Arminian*_ leanings is a bit puzzling to me. I hope you can receive that.) 

That morally relevant choices are not purely contingent and, therefore, _are _necessary is not to equate them with the actions of puppets; for puppets don't act according to an inclination, yet men do. Men choose what they want; puppets don't choose at all. Added to this, men make choices for which they are accountable. The only question is whether man has LFW or not. You might wish to look at it this way. Since LFW is a philosophical surd which actually would destroy moral accountability, the only thing left is necessity. Now prove that the necessity of willful choices contradicts moral accountability! Frankly, the Arminian sounds just like the one from Romans nine who questions God. "How can God find fault, for who can resisit his will?" One point of Romans nine is that God does find fault with those who act according to what he determines. There we have it - God's determination of man's morally releveant choices for which they will give an account. But keep in mind, man is responsible for the actions he _desires_ to make! Now if you have a problem with that, then you will certainly have a problem with God imputing Adam's sin to us and our being guilty of our sin nature, also called concupiscence. No personal choice of ours was even involved in those sins God credits to us. 

There are many ways to refute LFW. First off, God's omniscience necessarly implies that LFW is false simply because God cannot know a future contingency, for the outcome of a future contingency defies a truth value until it occurs. There would be nothing true for God to know in his prescience if our choices are purely contingent. That is why a _consistent _Arminian view of the will works its way out in Open Theism. 

Here is another refution:

*Establish the necessity of God’s belief about Tom’s choice:*

*1.* 100 years ago God believed that Tom will do x tomorrow
*2.* If x is believed in the past, it is now necessary that x was believed then
*3.* It is now necessary that 100 years ago God believed that Tom will do x tomorrow

*Establish the necessity of Tom’s choice, given the necessity of God’s belief:*

*4.* Necessarily, if 100 years ago God believed Tom will do x tomorrow, then Tom will do x tomorrow
*5.* If p {i.e. God's historical belief about Tom's choice} is now necessary (3), and necessarily if p, then q; then q {i.e. Tom's choice of x tomorrow: (consequent from 4)} is now necessary [transfer of necessity principle]
*6.* Therefore, it is now necessary that Tom will do x tomorrow [3, 4 and 5]

*Establish that Tom does not act freely, given the necessity of Tom’s choice:*

*7.* If it is now necessary that Tom will do x tomorrow, then Tom cannot do otherwise
*8.* Therefore, Tom cannot do otherwise than x tomorrow
*9.* If one cannot do otherwise, then one does not act freely
*10.* Therefore, when Tom does x tomorrow, he will not do it freely

Ron


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## Mushroom

The whole lump of clay is corrupt throughout.


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## Philip

There are three possible definitions of free will that have been used:

1. (Pre-1700) Free will is the moral ability to do what is right in the sight of God. The whole debate between Agustinianism/Thomism and Molinism is over whether man in his natural state has this ability.

2. (Edwards/Compatibilism) Morally significant free will is the ability to do what one wants. That is, the ability to have chosen differently, given a different set of circumstances/desires.

3. (Incompatibilism) Morally significant free will is the unconditioned ability to choose. That is, the ability to have chosen differently regardless of all factors.

Obviously, we agree that 3. has no connection to reality, in addition to making moral significance a meaningless term. Since Dordt, definition 1. has largely been superseded by the term "total depravity" in our theology and thus its primary usefulness is for understanding what the reformers meant.

Definition 2. is, I think, the proper definition of free will and certainly allows for human responsibility. In fact, it enhances our awareness of responsibility.

If a man holds a gun to my head and says, "your money or your life", the libertarian says, "Your will is constrained, therefore anything you do is not a free choice and therefore not responsible." The compatibilist says, "You still have the option to refuse or kick the man in the gut, therefore you are morally responsible."

Steven, consider this: if we are sock puppets in the hand of God, then we can say that He is the author of our sin. Again, you are failing a) to take the whole counsel of Scripture into account b) to let reality shape your system. Yes, it's nice and tight, compact, elegant, and beautiful. I can admire it for its pleasing aesthetic qualities. Unfortunately it has little connection to reality (I'll just call this "Leibniz' disease"). As I said, I am prone to do this as well.


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## Christusregnat

Confessor said:


> I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure Adam was aiming to correct not the content of Steven's statements, but the manner in which they were presented.



To use a litotes, you are not very incorrect.


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## Confessor

Christusregnat said:


> Confessor said:
> 
> 
> 
> I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure Adam was aiming to correct not the content of Steven's statements, but the manner in which they were presented.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To use a litotes, you are not very incorrect.
Click to expand...


 How about this:

Adam was aiming to correct not so much the content of Steven's statements as the manner in which they were presented.


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## Ron

P. F. Pugh said:


> If a man holds a gun to my head and says, "your money or your life", the libertarian says, "Your will is constrained, therefore anything you do is not a free choice and therefore not responsible." The compatibilist says, "You still have the option to refuse or kick the man in the gut, therefore you are morally responsible."



Philip,

I'm not sure I follow the point of the anecdote. If a libertarian were to say in such a case that the "will is constrained, therefore anything you do is not a free choice", then of course he would _not _be using the term "free choice" in a libertarian sense. If he is true to his philosophy, then all the libertarian could say is that the purely contingent, libertarian free will choice was being exercised under duress, but that would not make the choice in his estimation "not a free choice" as you suggest. So for example, let's assume the man gave up his wallet to the gunman. The libertarian would say that the man's choice to save his life would _not_ have been necessitated by the circumstances God provided (and also pre-interpreted) but rather it would have been a purely contingent choice _that could have just as easily been otherwise._ What is bedrock for the libertarian is that circumstances can _never _make a choice not free - even if those circumstances are life threatening. Accordingly, the libertarian is bound to agree that the man had an option to "refuse or kick the man in the gut" as it were. Though such circumstances would be dire indeed, it would be maintained by the libertarian that a libertarian free choice would have been made nonetheless. 

Cheers,

Ron


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## steven-nemes

I will respond to you, Ron, and you, Philip, tomorrow. I only got home around 11 tonight and don't think I'm in the perfect mental condition to offer a reply.

-----Added 11/18/2009 at 12:51:06 EST-----

Very briefly, however, Ron, your argument is about the same as Nelson Pike's argument for the incompatibility of omniscience (or more specifically, foreknowledge) and free will. This is also the argument that is dealt with in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on theological fatalism here.

I remember reading in Plantinga that (following Ockham) some propositions about the past are such that they are not necessary, and are actually contingent upon the choices of libertarian creatures, so that we some kind of power over what exactly it is that God believes. I would not be able to defend this view in detail because I'd have to reread the article but this is one of the proposed solutions on the SEP entry.

I am also thinking that there is some word play going on in the argument. What matters for freedom on a libertarian scheme is that I alone am the cause of my behavior. God's _knowing_ that I will do X is not _causing_ me to do X, so it seems to me that even if it is a matter of the necessity of the consequence that I do X, that's hardly enough to prove that I am not free.

I think it shows that it is late at night and I'm tired, but perhaps I can expand/explain that in the morning.


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## Confessor

steven-nemes said:


> I remember reading in Plantinga that (following Ockham) some propositions about the past are such that they are not necessary, and are actually contingent upon the choices of libertarian creatures, so that we some kind of power over what exactly it is that God believes.



The problem with this is that it would disallow propositions regarding our choices from being either true or false _before_ we actually make the choices. They would need to be some third category, which is floating around until the agent comes around and makes the choice. E.g. if it were true five minutes ago that I would be typing this presently, then I could not have done but this; it came about necessarily. (A distinction between absolutely necessary and decretally necessary would be helpful here, as it would better account for what you are trying to cover with "necessary" and "contingent.")



steven-nemes said:


> I am also thinking that there is some word play going on in the argument. What matters for freedom on a libertarian scheme is that I alone am the cause of my behavior. God's _knowing_ that I will do X is not _causing_ me to do X, so it seems to me that even if it is a matter of the necessity of the consequence that I do X, that's hardly enough to prove that I am not free.



That God's knowing our future actions is not identical to God's causing our actions is granted, but the former nonetheless implies the latter. For God to know we will do something in the future, the propositions He knows must already be true. And if it is true that we will do something before we do it, then clearly the ground of that proposition's truthfulness is entirely outside us (we're not creating truth when we make the choice), in which case at the point at which we make the choice we are not acting as genuinely new causes, but carrying out the effects of some external cause -- and therefore the causal chains of events in a world "pass through" us; we are not the genuine beginning of new causal chains, as in the libertarian sense. In other words,, that our actions are "set in stone" before we do them implies an exhaustively external locus of causation.

As implied in your sentence, "What matters for freedom on a libertarian scheme is that I alone am the cause of my behavior," libertarians make the mistake, perhaps in trying to utilize some rhetoric, of claiming a monopoly for agent-causation. The way they do this is by divorcing every morally relevant entity (e.g. desires, inclinations) from an agent, and then claiming that compatibilists aren't concerned with true agent-causation. No, on the contrary, I believe in agent-causation; I just don't deny that agents possess unchosen factors which necessarily bring about choices. For libertarians, agent-causation consists of some empty causal factor, because they falsely view things necessary for morality (desires etc.) as destructive of morality.

Seriously buddy, this is dangerous ground. Libertarianism implies open theism.


----------



## Ron

steven-nemes said:


> Very briefly, however, Ron, your argument is about the same as Nelson Pike's argument for the incompatibility of omniscience (or more specifically, foreknowledge) and free will. This is also the argument that is dealt with in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on theological fatalism here.



Such utterances are of very little use when wanting to deal with what _you _think.



> I remember reading in Plantinga that (following Ockham) some propositions about the past are such that they are not necessary, and are actually contingent upon the choices of libertarian creatures, so that we some kind of power over what exactly it is that God believes.



Well, even _if _Plantinga suggested that we can can have (in any sense) power over what God thinks, shouldn't such a philosophy give _you _reason to pause and think a bit more? Steve, it is clear that you do not embrace a Reformed view of God's determination of the choices of men. The way you have dealt with moral responsibility is to question whether God _determines_ all that comes to pass. Such questions have a place, but not on a board that requires members to be Reformed. That is not as bad as what I've seen you do in other places, like posit that God could be a deceiver of men and that maybe we know nothing at all. Such thinking is not even Arminian. It is pagan. 



> I would not be able to defend this view in detail because I'd have to reread the article but this is one of the proposed solutions on the SEP entry.



Steve, nobody wants you to try to defend a view that is not your own and if one is your own then you should not have to Google your thoughts to such an extent.



> I am also thinking that there is some word play going on in the argument. What matters for freedom on a libertarian scheme is that I alone am the cause of my behavior. God's _knowing_ that I will do X is not _causing_ me to do X,



I trust nobody would suggest that God's foreknowledge causes actions. Rather, God's foreknowledge presupposes that he has ensured the cause of actions. 



> so it seems to me that even if it is a matter of the necessity of the consequence that I do X, that's hardly enough to prove that I am not free.



That's an unintelligible remark. Nonetheless, if you are not convinced that LFW is false, then how can you call yourself Reformed? 



> I think it shows that it is late at night and I'm tired, but perhaps I can expand/explain that in the morning.



Nope, your post does not indicate that it is late at night. Your post is very representative of what you have said all along. 
*
Please address all inquiries to Confessor. He is more than capable on these matters*.

Ron

-----Added 11/18/2009 at 08:45:11 EST-----



Confessor said:


> Seriously buddy, this is dangerous ground. Libertarianism implies open theism.



Yes brother, Steven _is _on very dangerous ground. 

If I wanted to deal with Arminians, I'd go to the _Rapture Ready_ message board. I am not inclined to do that - nor am I inclined to deal with Arminians on Reformed boards.

Best of providence with Steven. My work is done.

Ron


----------



## Philip

> So for example, let's assume the man gave up his wallet to the gunman. The libertarian would say that the man's choice to save his life would not have been necessitated by the circumstances God provided (and also pre-interpreted) but rather it would have been a purely contingent choice that could have just as easily been otherwise.



I'm still trying to understand what the libertarian means by contingent--in metaphysics, contingency is a state of dependency or non-necessity. That is, a contingent being is a being that could have not existed without incurring a logical contradiction--all events and beings apart from God are contingent. To say that our choices are logically contingent is to state the obvious.

I can actually agree with the libertarian in all but one point: the man could have done otherwise _had he wanted to_. The trouble with the libertarian view of the will is that by taking away all factors, there is no motivation for action. Thus, when the choice is made, it is made on no basis whatsoever, being completely arbitrary. Thus, we might say that the choice is random and therefore a person cannot be held responsible for it.

The other problem is that, in reality, no one makes choices like this. We all have reasons (logical, emotional, physical, etc.) for what we do. I've never done anything I didn't want to do--naturally, there are things that, all things being equal, I would rather not have done, but all things aren't equal. The libertarian view not only destroys responsibility, but it contradicts the way we actually do make choices--we weigh pros and cons (sometimes rather hastily) and then we choose.


----------



## Ron

P. F. Pugh said:


> I'm still trying to understand what the libertarian means by contingent--in metaphysics, contingency is a state of dependency or non-necessity.



First off, good post! It's easy to understand. 

Also, I think we agree on all the majors.

Apart from necessity we’re left with chaos – mice coming from rags. 



> That is, a contingent being is a being that could have not existed without incurring a logical contradiction--all events and beings apart from God are contingent. To say that our choices are logically contingent is to state the obvious.



When you say “logically contingent” I’m not sure what you mean. In common parlance we say things like “I’ll come over to your house contingent upon my getting off work at a reasonable hour.” Contingency used in that sense simply means predicated upon. It is not a statement of metaphysical considerations. I would never say, let alone say it is “obvious”, that our choices are logically contingent. I know they can’t be metaphysically contingent. 



> I can actually agree with the libertarian in all but one point: the man could have done otherwise *had he wanted to*.



I find no place for “had he wanted to” in their philosophy. But even so, why would you take issue with that? That is very Edwardsian, is it not? Not only could one have acted differently had he wanted (i.e. had he been so inclined) – one indeed would have necessarily acted differently had he been so inclined. He could have done no other. 

The libertarian position is that given the identical state of affairs at the moment of choice, the choice can be other than what it ends up being. Accordingly, since the state of affairs that precedes the choice includes the strongest inclination that triggers the choice in reality, then for the choice to be other than what it ends up being would require that it be possible for a morally relevant choice to be contrary to what is intended! (You clearly affirm this below, which is very good). This is why I often say that libertarian free will does not save moral responsibility, it actually would destroy it, which again you affirm below. We’d have people intending to do x (i.e. their strongest inclination at the moment of choice would be to act _x_) and they’d end up doing _~ x _instead. Again, mice coming from rags. 



> The trouble with the libertarian view of the will is that by taking away all factors, there is no motivation for action. Thus, when the choice is made, it is made on no basis whatsoever, being completely arbitrary. Thus, we might say that the choice is random and therefore a person cannot be held responsible for it.



Precisely! I prefer “chaotic” to “random” because what we call random are really things that are caused; we just can’t capture and analyze the causes. But yes, your point is I believe very well taken.



> The other problem is that, in reality, no one makes choices like this. We all have reasons (logical, emotional, physical, etc.) for what we do. I've never done anything I didn't want to do--naturally, there are things that, all things being equal, I would rather not have done, but all things aren't equal.



Yes, and so many people try to use Romans 7 to defend LFW! Obviously the apostle is not given a discourse on the metaphysics of choosing. 



> The libertarian view not only destroys responsibility, but it contradicts the way we actually do make choices--we weigh pros and cons (sometimes rather hastily) and then we choose.



I agree. Also, I don't think the problem people have with the necessity of the will is an intellectual one. The problem is I believe a moral one. 

Ron


----------



## greenbaggins

Steven, do you advocate a libertarian free choice? If so, this is incompatible with God's sovereignty, and is contrary to our standards. God is not limited in ANY way by the creature. 

As to helpful ways of getting at the issues, I think that Frame has a great analogy here: Shakespeare and one of the characters of his play. Shakespeare and Iago, for instance, operate on different levels entirely. Can Iago actually do anything other than what Shakespeare wrote for him to do and say? Well, no. But when one enters the level of the play, everything is different and feels different. If you are Othello _in the play_, for instance, Iago's actions do not seem forced at all by Shakespeare. Now, of course, all analogies will break down somewhere, for Othello does not know about Shakespeare, whereas we know at least some things about God, and hopefully we know God Himself. However, the analogy of the different levels on which causality happens is, I think, a helpful way of thinking about this. But libertarian freedom (the ability to do A and the opposite of A in any and all circumstances) is contrary to the sovereignty of God and is Pelagian. Calvinists have always held to free will in the sense that any being can do whatever it is in his nature to do. God cannot sin, and sinful man cannot please God. But God wrote the script, even if the characters are not forced. The reason they are not forced is that God's causality and our free will operate on different levels.


----------



## VictorBravo

I only now came across this thread, and I think this portion pretty much sums up the issue:



steven-nemes said:


> But it seems that if we hold to that, then God could literally do anything with humans and still hold them responsible. God could've made the created order such that it was not clear that he exists, and he could've made us such that we do not clearly know what is right and what is wrong in such a way that we'd be blameworthy for doing what is wrong. Imagine he did do that. Are we still responsible for sinning and not believing in him?



To put it bluntly: what does it matter to created Man what God could hypothetically do? It is an impossibility to consider.

We do know what God has done. He has made us to be moral beings and he holds us to the moral law as he has revealed it. Judging God's motives by speculating on alternative universes that God could have created assumes a definition of moral responsibility that is higher than God. 

Shall we judge our Creator? We know the answer plainly: NO. And it is precisely because God has told us this is how it is to be.

The initial post was asking for how to deal with a long-winded argument that, in essence, denies sin. Nothing new or profound about the argument--Luther dealt with it long ago. Men are responsible because God made them that way. Men are dead, helpless, unable to run the race or meet their responsibility, because of sin. They need God not only to show what is right, but to redeem them from being unable to be and do what is right.

I doubt very much that one can come up with a philosophical argument to convince a person dead in sin that he is wrong because he is dead.


----------



## Christusregnat

VictorBravo said:


> I doubt very much that one can come up with a philosophical argument to convince a person dead in sin that he is wrong because he is dead.



Which is why our faith stands in God's power, and not the wisdom of man's words.

Cheers,

Adam


----------



## Philip

VictorBravo said:


> To put it bluntly: what does it matter to created Man what God could hypothetically do? It is an impossibility to consider.



There is some merit for possible worlds theory when considering "Why did God make things the way He did?" Impossibilities are just things that are logically self-contradictory. Anything that is logically consistent is possible.

I don't think I'm questioning God here: I'm merely trying to understand Him as He has presented Himself.



> I doubt very much that one can come up with a philosophical argument to convince a person dead in sin that he is wrong because he is dead.



The purpose of the argument is to confirm that he is dead.


----------



## Ron

greenbaggins said:


> Calvinists have always held to free will in the sense that any being can do whatever it is in his nature to do.



This is more food for thought for Confessor and Philip, though I'm addressing this to Lane since it has to do with something he and I discussed a while back, which his most recent post reminds me of for various reasons. I could imagine that Confessor and Philip might find this matter somewhat interesting. It has to do with the often claimed premise that Adam, prior to the fall, could have chosen contrary to how he chose.

Lane, 

The nature of man, whether pre-fall, post-fall and unconverted, post fall and converted, or glorified, does not affect this discussion in the least. LFW is simply the power of contrary choice and liberty is the ability to choose as we want. The nature, which you seem to like to bring up, does not determine the actual choice; it only determines the kinds (or category) of choices that will be made. This common mistake, which a quote from John Frame I employ below demonstrates, can lead to more serious mistakes. 

Your remarks remind me of an exchange we had quite some time ago. 

You and I have discussed this matter of LFW on GB. The gist of that discussion was put on my site: Reformed Apologist: Reformed Folk & The Power of Contrary Choice

You and I had an enormous disagreement on this subject of LFW. You even went so far to assert that I as_"outright denying that Adam was created righteous and innocent, contrary to all the Reformed confessions."_ The stakes were high we might say, for I was thought to have denied the Confession! 

I think it is worth rehearsing this discussion because discussions over LFW will eventually get back to the garden and even to God’s often time supposed freedom to choose contrary to how he has. If LFW was ever possible for any moral creature, then why not for all moral creatures, so the argument goes. Yet, if LFW is a philosophical surd, then neither God nor Adam has / had it, which gives heartburn to many. 

Libertarian free will (LFW) can simply be defined as the ability to choose something different than what will be chosen. My position on the matter is straightforward. LFW is a philosophical surd. If it is true that one can choose something different than he will, then the future God believes will come to pass might not come to pass; and even if the future does come to pass as God believes, he will not have been thoroughly justified in his belief. He would have just been lucky, or at best very insightful. 

John Frame once noted: “I don't know how many times I have asked candidates for licensure and ordination whether we are free from God's decree, and they have replied ‘No, because we are fallen.’ That is to confuse libertarianism (freedom from God's decree, ability to act without cause) with freedom from sin. *In the former case, the fall is entirely irrelevant.* Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense. But freedom from sin is something different. Adam had that before the fall, but lost it as a result of the fall.”

I resonated with John’s observation the very first time I read his lament. This is a very serious matter. These men to whom John refers may have very well been ordained and licensed in Reformed denominations (or have gone on to teach other men at seminary; or even have their own Blog!) - yet without any appreciation for the implications of their religious philosophy as it pertains to free will.

In our discussion, Lane, *you asserted that Adam could have chosen contrary to how he did*, which of course I denied (and in that instance challenged the notion). You went on to say to me that _“The pre-Fall and post-Fall distinction is what is completely escaping you.”_ On this matter I agree with John Frame... "_the fall is entirely irrelevant. Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense._"

I asked you: “Did the metaphysics surrounding LFW change with the fall?” 

You responded with: "The mechanics of how man chooses something are the same before and after: _he can always choose what his nature determines that he can choose.”_

Your response made me somewhat suspicious of a couple of things and I believe those suspicions were confirmed in what followed. As I pointed out to you then, the nature does not determine the choice; it only determines the kinds of choices that will be made. I said: “The nature determines no action of choice. The nature simply determines the moral quality of the particular choice that will necessarily occur according to the inclination at the moment of choice. So then, an unregenerate man will sin; his nature determines that he must. His nature, however, does not determine what sin he will choose.” Consequently, LFW is not concerned with the general category of choice (whether it is sinful or not), which is dictated by one’s nature, but rather, it is concerned with what the specific action will be. 

You ended up skipping over that part and went on to affirm what I believe to be a very common, philosophical contradiction. 

*You stated:* _“Let me state that again: Adam could NOT have thwarted God’s will in the garden.” _ Plus you stated: _“What I am saying is that Adam could have willed to do the right thing.” “Are you denying that Adam could have chosen to obey?”_

That is what I want to zero in on here. For if you are correct with regard to Adam in the garden, then there is no reason why we should think that today we do not have the freedom to choose contrary to how we do choose. Again, the issue is not a matter of whether we're convereted or not but whether we are able to choose something different than what we end up choosing. If Adam, as you say, truly could have chosen contrary to how he did (which would mean he could have truly thwarted God's decree), then his radical freedom would imply that he had LFW. The "pre-fall distinction" would have had no bearing on such radical freedom to choose something different than the specific _x_ he chose. The nature, in this case mutable, only speaks to the category of choices that can come from the strongest inclination. 

*The contradiction I found in your statement is that if Adam truly could have acted contrary to how he did (as you said), then Adam truly could have thwarted God’s will in the garden (which you denied).* No appeal to the pre-fall state can save such a logical contradiction, which was precisely John Frame’s point. Your position was indeed most clear: It was impossible for Adam to have acted contrary to God’s decree AND Adam could have chosen to obey, which would have been to act contrary to God's decree. That’s Molinism and not Calvinism, I'm afraid. 

You also asserted that I _“deny that Adam was created with the power to obey.”_

That, of course, is also false and cannot be logically deduced from my writings. As I clearly noted: “YES Adam prior to falling had the ‘power’ to perform spiritual good. I was most clear in my affirmation that Adam had the power to obey. Nonetheless, the power to obey does not imply that Adam could have chosen contrary to how he did anymore than a car’s power to run can direct the car in a direction contrary to the way in which it ends up moving! It was clear to me that you had confused the "power" the Confession speaks of with the "power of contrary choice". You assumed that Adam had the power to choose contrary to how he did, which is LFW, and not something the Confession affirms.

Toward the end of our discussion you stated this (just prior to locking the thread): _“you are using the term “molinist” as if it was all about Adam’s will before the Fall, and wasn’t about middle knowledge and man’s ability after the fall. You cannot project the one onto the other, like you are so obviously doing. I am very tired of this thread, and am therefore closing it.”_

I was hesitant to even try to address this remark on my Blog because of what I believed to be the lack of clarity of the statement. It actually seemed to me (at least at the time) to be more of an emotional outburst than anything else. Let me simply say that you are in 100% agreement with Alvin Plantinga and W.L. Craig in what you affirmed back then with regard to Adam’s will and God’s decree. In other words, you affirmed the tenets of Molinism when you said that Adam _could_ have acted differently (LFW) than he did, while also maintaining that God’s plan could not have been thwarted in the least (Exhaustive Foreknowledge). Those two tenets (LFW and EF) as an unbreakable unit are upheld by Molinists, not Calvinists. 

Now you might wish to say that Adam could have chosen differently had he wanted, just like you and I can choose differently should we want. However, that would undermine your underlying defense of Adam’s radical freedom, which you narrowly indexed to the “pre-fall distinction” (that I was thought to have been missing in your estimation). In other words, you bolstered you argument for Adam’s ability to choose contrary to how he chose by attributing Adam’s alleged radical freedom to choose (contrary to how he did) to the “pre-Fall distinction”, affirming my suspicion that you fall into the category of those examined by John Frame. I find no discernable difference between your philosophy and those to whom John made reference. Both you and they say that Adam, due to his pre-fall state, could have chosen other than he did. That is to affirm LFW, at least for Adam prior to the fall. If he had it then, why can’t we have it now? Again, LFW is a metaphysical concept that is not peculiar the four states of man. 

Cheers,

Ron


----------



## Christusregnat

P. F. Pugh said:


> The purpose of the argument is to confirm that he is dead.



Do you think that it is necessary for you to confirm this?


----------



## VictorBravo

P. F. Pugh said:


> VictorBravo said:
> 
> 
> 
> To put it bluntly: what does it matter to created Man what God could hypothetically do? It is an impossibility to consider.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is some merit for possible worlds theory when considering "Why did God make things the way He did?" Impossibilities are just things that are logically self-contradictory. Anything that is logically consistent is possible.
> 
> I don't think I'm questioning God here: I'm merely trying to understand Him as He has presented Himself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I doubt very much that one can come up with a philosophical argument to convince a person dead in sin that he is wrong because he is dead.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The purpose of the argument is to confirm that he is dead.
Click to expand...


I wasn't saying anything about you questioning God, I was commenting on the quoted portion.

But you do raise a couple of important issues:

"Why did God make things the way He did?" 

As we see in Job 38-41, the question has a dangerous aspect to it. If we go too far down the road of asking the "why" of God's purpose, we necessarily place ourselves in a position of judging the propriety of what he has done.

I grant that seeking to understand the unified purpose of God is a good thing. But God has also revealed to us that the answers to some why questions are beyond our ken.

"Impossibilities are just things that are logically self-contradictory. Anything that is logically consistent is possible."

Says who? 

Seriously, is the fact that created Man cannot comprehend the totality of God's workings logically self-contradictory? I don't see how. Yet we take it as an impossibility for us to do so because we take God at his word.


----------



## Confessor

VictorBravo said:


> Seriously, is the fact that created Man cannot comprehend the totality of God's workings logically self-contradictory? I don't see how. Yet we take it as an impossibility for us to do so because we take God at his word.



I'd say it is logically self-contradictory for man to comprehend the totality of God's workings, for man is finite and God infinite.

But this is a bit besides the point, I think, as Philip was attempting to discern a specific part of God's workings, certainly not the totality of it.


----------



## steven-nemes

I want to leave a brief comment before responding to some of the posts here.

I am inclined to think libertarianism about the will is true, and am leaning towards a Molinistic understanding of the reconciliation of divine providence/human freedom. Now Ron supposedly thinks that I am an Arminian, thereby, but I don't understand that all: (i) I don't believe any of the points of Arminianism, whereas I believe all the five points of Calvinism; (ii) J.I. Packer is Reformed and I remembering hearing that he believes in LFW. So I am hardly the first.

I'd be willing to argue LFW and in fact I will probably post later today in response to the various posts addressed at me above. (Ron says not to reply to him anymore; fine by me.)

I hope that adopting this view doesn't put me in any "trouble" with the admin, though I don't know why it is that it should--you could quote me a line from the WCF from the section on free will and I'd agree with it, assuredly. So it is not as if I became Arminian, despite what Ron says. I am just changing my understanding of predestination/sovereignty, etc.


----------



## JTB

steven-nemes said:


> I want to leave a brief comment before responding to some of the posts here.
> 
> I am inclined to think libertarianism about the will is true, and am leaning towards a Molinistic understanding of the reconciliation of divine providence/human freedom. Now Ron supposedly thinks that I am an Arminian, thereby, but I don't understand that all: (i) I don't believe any of the points of Arminianism, whereas I believe all the five points of Calvinism; (ii) J.I. Packer is Reformed and I remembering hearing that he believes in LFW. So I am hardly the first.
> 
> I'd be willing to argue LFW and in fact I will probably post later today in response to the various posts addressed at me above. (Ron says not to reply to him anymore; fine by me.)
> 
> I hope that adopting this view doesn't put me in any "trouble" with the admin, though I don't know why it is that it should--you could quote me a line from the WCF from the section on free will and I'd agree with it, assuredly. So it is not as if I became Arminian, despite what Ron says. I am just changing my understanding of predestination/sovereignty, etc.



Steven,

There is obvious confusion in your thinking, for otherwise you would be articulating a view and defending it as your own, rather than leaning one way or another. Also, confusion is revealed in the fact that you consider Calvinism or Reformed theology compatible with LFW. That some who claim the title of Reformed believe in LFW is not a legitimate argument. People, even relatively intelligent people, often believe contradictory claims are both true. Further, a blanket assertion to a clause in the WCF does not imply that you have grasped its truth against all contradictory claims. The PCUSA comes to mind as an entire denomination (though not including every individual church) that affirms the Confession while denying a great many of its doctrinal statements.

I cannot speak for the administrators here as to the consequences of your conduct according to their rules, but from what I've witnessed, your approach in this thread and others is not the posture of a novice or a student who seeks to learn from those with greater wisdom and acumen. Rather, your posture is that of one who has already mastered the arguments--despite your own admission that you are unsure of what exactly you believe to be true.

In my opinion, you are more deserving of rebuke than continued patience, for you have not demonstrated that you respect what others who outstrip you in knowledge and experience have been graciously offering you.


----------



## Philip

Seven,

LFW is incompatible with any sort of foreknowledge on God's part, which is why those philosophies which accept LFW are called _incompabilist_, whereas Calvinism has (apart from certain extreme positions--Gordon Clark comes awfully close) historically been compatibilist, which uses the Edwardsian definition.


----------



## greenbaggins

Ron said:


> greenbaggins said:
> 
> 
> 
> Calvinists have always held to free will in the sense that any being can do whatever it is in his nature to do.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is more food for thought for Confessor and Philip, though I'm addressing this to Lane since it has to do with something he and I discussed a while back, which his most recent post reminds me of for various reasons. I could imagine that Confessor and Philip might find this matter somewhat interesting. It has to do with the often claimed premise that Adam, prior to the fall, could have chosen contrary to how he chose.
> 
> Lane,
> 
> The nature of man, whether pre-fall, post-fall and unconverted, post fall and converted, or glorified, does not affect this discussion in the least. LFW is simply the power of contrary choice and liberty is the ability to choose as we want. The nature, which you seem to like to bring up, does not determine the actual choice; it only determines the kinds (or category) of choices that will be made. This common mistake, which a quote from John Frame I employ below demonstrates, can lead to more serious mistakes.
> 
> Your remarks remind me of an exchange we had quite some time ago.
> 
> You and I have discussed this matter of LFW on GB. The gist of that discussion was put on my site: Reformed Apologist: Reformed Folk & The Power of Contrary Choice
> 
> You and I had an enormous disagreement on this subject of LFW. You even went so far to assert that I as_"outright denying that Adam was created righteous and innocent, contrary to all the Reformed confessions."_ The stakes were high we might say, for I was thought to have denied the Confession!
> 
> I think it is worth rehearsing this discussion because discussions over LFW will eventually get back to the garden and even to God’s often time supposed freedom to choose contrary to how he has. If LFW was ever possible for any moral creature, then why not for all moral creatures, so the argument goes. Yet, if LFW is a philosophical surd, then neither God nor Adam has / had it, which gives heartburn to many.
> 
> Libertarian free will (LFW) can simply be defined as the ability to choose something different than what will be chosen. My position on the matter is straightforward. LFW is a philosophical surd. If it is true that one can choose something different than he will, then the future God believes will come to pass might not come to pass; and even if the future does come to pass as God believes, he will not have been thoroughly justified in his belief. He would have just been lucky, or at best very insightful.
> 
> John Frame once noted: “I don't know how many times I have asked candidates for licensure and ordination whether we are free from God's decree, and they have replied ‘No, because we are fallen.’ That is to confuse libertarianism (freedom from God's decree, ability to act without cause) with freedom from sin. *In the former case, the fall is entirely irrelevant.* Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense. But freedom from sin is something different. Adam had that before the fall, but lost it as a result of the fall.”
> 
> I resonated with John’s observation the very first time I read his lament. This is a very serious matter. These men to whom John refers may have very well been ordained and licensed in Reformed denominations (or have gone on to teach other men at seminary; or even have their own Blog!) - yet without any appreciation for the implications of their religious philosophy as it pertains to free will.
> 
> In our discussion, Lane, *you asserted that Adam could have chosen contrary to how he did*, which of course I denied (and in that instance challenged the notion). You went on to say to me that _“The pre-Fall and post-Fall distinction is what is completely escaping you.”_ On this matter I agree with John Frame... "_the fall is entirely irrelevant. Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense._"
> 
> I asked you: “Did the metaphysics surrounding LFW change with the fall?”
> 
> You responded with: "The mechanics of how man chooses something are the same before and after: _he can always choose what his nature determines that he can choose.”_
> 
> Your response made me somewhat suspicious of a couple of things and I believe those suspicions were confirmed in what followed. As I pointed out to you then, the nature does not determine the choice; it only determines the kinds of choices that will be made. I said: “The nature determines no action of choice. The nature simply determines the moral quality of the particular choice that will necessarily occur according to the inclination at the moment of choice. So then, an unregenerate man will sin; his nature determines that he must. His nature, however, does not determine what sin he will choose.” Consequently, LFW is not concerned with the general category of choice (whether it is sinful or not), which is dictated by one’s nature, but rather, it is concerned with what the specific action will be.
> 
> You ended up skipping over that part and went on to affirm what I believe to be a very common, philosophical contradiction.
> 
> *You stated:* _“Let me state that again: Adam could NOT have thwarted God’s will in the garden.” _ Plus you stated: _“What I am saying is that Adam could have willed to do the right thing.” “Are you denying that Adam could have chosen to obey?”_
> 
> That is what I want to zero in on here. For if you are correct with regard to Adam in the garden, then there is no reason why we should think that today we do not have the freedom to choose contrary to how we do choose. Again, the issue is not a matter of whether we're convereted or not but whether we are able to choose something different than what we end up choosing. If Adam, as you say, truly could have chosen contrary to how he did (which would mean he could have truly thwarted God's decree), then his radical freedom would imply that he had LFW. The "pre-fall distinction" would have had no bearing on such radical freedom to choose something different than the specific _x_ he chose. The nature, in this case mutable, only speaks to the category of choices that can come from the strongest inclination.
> 
> *The contradiction I found in your statement is that if Adam truly could have acted contrary to how he did (as you said), then Adam truly could have thwarted God’s will in the garden (which you denied).* No appeal to the pre-fall state can save such a logical contradiction, which was precisely John Frame’s point. Your position was indeed most clear: It was impossible for Adam to have acted contrary to God’s decree AND Adam could have chosen to obey, which would have been to act contrary to God's decree. That’s Molinism and not Calvinism, I'm afraid.
> 
> You also asserted that I _“deny that Adam was created with the power to obey.”_
> 
> That, of course, is also false and cannot be logically deduced from my writings. As I clearly noted: “YES Adam prior to falling had the ‘power’ to perform spiritual good. I was most clear in my affirmation that Adam had the power to obey. Nonetheless, the power to obey does not imply that Adam could have chosen contrary to how he did anymore than a car’s power to run can direct the car in a direction contrary to the way in which it ends up moving! It was clear to me that you had confused the "power" the Confession speaks of with the "power of contrary choice". You assumed that Adam had the power to choose contrary to how he did, which is LFW, and not something the Confession affirms.
> 
> Toward the end of our discussion you stated this (just prior to locking the thread): _“you are using the term “molinist” as if it was all about Adam’s will before the Fall, and wasn’t about middle knowledge and man’s ability after the fall. You cannot project the one onto the other, like you are so obviously doing. I am very tired of this thread, and am therefore closing it.”_
> 
> I was hesitant to even try to address this remark on my Blog because of what I believed to be the lack of clarity of the statement. It actually seemed to me (at least at the time) to be more of an emotional outburst than anything else. Let me simply say that you are in 100% agreement with Alvin Plantinga and W.L. Craig in what you affirmed back then with regard to Adam’s will and God’s decree. In other words, you affirmed the tenets of Molinism when you said that Adam _could_ have acted differently (LFW) than he did, while also maintaining that God’s plan could not have been thwarted in the least (Exhaustive Foreknowledge). Those two tenets (LFW and EF) as an unbreakable unit are upheld by Molinists, not Calvinists.
> 
> Now you might wish to say that Adam could have chosen differently had he wanted, just like you and I can choose differently should we want. However, that would undermine your underlying defense of Adam’s radical freedom, which you narrowly indexed to the “pre-fall distinction” (that I was thought to have been missing in your estimation). In other words, you bolstered you argument for Adam’s ability to choose contrary to how he chose by attributing Adam’s alleged radical freedom to choose (contrary to how he did) to the “pre-Fall distinction”, affirming my suspicion that you fall into the category of those examined by John Frame. I find no discernable difference between your philosophy and those to whom John made reference. Both you and they say that Adam, due to his pre-fall state, could have chosen other than he did. That is to affirm LFW, at least for Adam prior to the fall. If he had it then, why can’t we have it now? Again, LFW is a metaphysical concept that is not peculiar the four states of man.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ron
Click to expand...


Thank you, Ron, for such a detailed delineation of your position. I think I understand you a bit better now. Please forgive me for the blog thing. I think I was under the impression that you were simply hounding me, and I was getting tired of feeling that way, plus I didn't have the time to devote to the question. 

I honestly think we agree more than you seem to think we do. From the perspective of God's decree, Adam could not have done anything different than what he did, for it was God's will that the Fall should happen. 

All I was really trying to say was that Adam was created in a state of integrity. Therefore, from the perspective of Adam facing the choice before him, he had it in him to choose the right thing, since his nature was created as innocent. Otherwise, he could have fallen before the time of the actual Fall, could he not? He was innocent and upright up until the time he let Satan in the garden (which is what I believe was the first sin of Adam and Eve: they were priests of the Garden-temple, and were thus supposed to keep it holy). To go back to the play analogy I used earlier, the script for the Fall was written in eternity, and could not have played out any differently. The only thing I am trying to protect here is the integrity of Adam's created state, which, as Augustine puts it, was able either to sin or not to sin, _posse peccare et posse non peccare_. He was not created with a sin nature. You would agree with that, would you not? To say that does not feel like libertarian free will to me. The sinner who has been regenerated also has the God-given ability not to sin, at least in a relative sense. But he can also sin. He can't do anything other than what God has decreed. Of course, this must be modified by the fact that our sin nature is still operating, even in all our good works, such that they are always tainted, and thus we cannot offer anything to God that is unblemished. Nevertheless, there are still good works that a Christian can do by the grace of God that can be called good works. And I think we agree that people always choose what they want. 

Where I am still a little uncomfortable with your phrasing of things is that it still seems to me that you are denying the state of integrity that Adam had. He was without sin in any way shape or form before the Fall, was he not? If that is so, what are the implications of that for how Adam made his choice? And is it legitimate to posit different layers of causality here (my illustration also comes from Frame, by the way)?


----------



## Confessor

I think an important clarification might be that when perceiving Adam _over an interval_, e.g. from his creation through the Fall, there were instances both of sinning and of not sinning (obviously the latter outnumbering the former), and therefore he was able to sin and not to sin; but when we perceive Adam _at a particularity_, e.g. at the moment he chose to fall, there was nothing he could do but fall (for that is what God decreed).

Whenever we talk about man's moral ability, the only way to incorporate separate possibilities into it (_posse peccare et posse non peccare_), is to discuss separate instances, for we can never do except that which God decreed us to do. Otherwise, our inclinations must pinpoint us to a specific choice, whenever we are discussing a specific point in time rather than an interval.


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## Ron

To nobody in particular (or to all my brothers and sisters on the Puritian Board):

I said many years ago that one of the biggest threats to Reformed theology is the_ high_-Arminianism of _Molinism_. Many have been taken captive by its subtle charm, but in the final analyses it is nothing more than dressed-up Arminianism. There's really nothing new under the sun. 

Below I have tried to address, although briefly, Libertarian free will (LFW) and its implications with respect to what is commonly called the "five points". LFW is the pillar upon which Molinism stands or falls; so if LFW is not compatible with the five points, then neither can be Molinism. 

*To affirm libertarian freedom and all its implications is to deny the intentions of the “five points”. * 

I found it easier to discuss LFW as it comes to bear upon the five points in an unusual order of *ITPUL*.

*I*
For libertarians, men can choose between alternatives with equal ease - according to their own agent-causation, from a posture of neutrality. Accordingly, to affirm LFW is to deny that irresistible grace is _necessary_ for a dead man to repent and believe. 

Moreover, libertarians affirm that the only choices men can be held morally responsible for are choices that are libertarian in nature. The reason being, it is held by libertarians that choices that are caused by something other than the agent (such as in the case of irresistible grace) are deemed as robotic puppetry and consequently not morally relevant with respect to human responsibility. However, when man chooses according to irresistible grace, the choice made is indeed morally relevant with respect to human responsibility, which is contrary to the libertarian tenet that _only_ agent-caused choices are relevant in this way. Coming to Christ by irresistible grace is in fact _the _most morally relevant choice a man will ever make and one for which he will be held accountable to have made. Consequently, one may not affirm irresistible grace on the suppositions peculiar to LFW.

*T*
If man can come to Christ apart from irresistible grace, then he cannot be _totally_ depraved by definition.

*P* 
Sophisticated libertarians can affirm “eternal security” but NOT the grace required for the perseverance of the saints, which is nothing other than God’s _preservation_ of the saints. This is a bit nuanced (but not too bad) so bear with me. The bottom line is this: Perseverance of the saints entails _God’s keeping of the saints _throughout the Christian life by the sovereign and will-invading _power of the Holy Spirit"_. The doctrine of perseverance, therefore, presupposes that our persevering faith is not according to a will that is so free as to be able to reject Christ but rather our perseverance is according to a faith that is _sovereignly sustained_ by the Holy Spirit. 

The way in which some libertarians can hold onto "eternal security", which is not the same thing has upholding _perseverance _of the saints, is thusly:

For the libertarian, the reason God’s elect will not deny the faith is not because God will complete the work he has begun in men by _causing_ them to truly believe until the day of Jesus Christ. Rather, the reason one will not lose his salvation is merely because God has chosen to actualize a world in which those that come to Christ according to their LFW will also choose by that same LFW not to depart from Christ. Although tricky-Molinists can affirm eternal security in this way, they cannot do justice to the distinctly Calvinistic teaching that it is God who by his sovereign grace _causes_ men to persevere. What must be grasped is that perseverance is not only concerned with the final result of bringing many saints to glory, but rather it is concerned with God’s part in _how_ that end is achieved. Perseverance plainly teaches that man is _kept by God_. Whereas the tenets of LFW suggest that it is man - not God - who ultimately _causes_ himself (through agent-causation) to (a) differ from another, (b) come to Christ and (c) _remain in Christ_. In sum, for the libertarian who affirms eternal security (not all do), it is accomplished this way: God chose to actualize a world in which those who come to Christ will cooperate according to their LFW and choose to remain in Christ, but it is possible that they won’t (due to their LFW) even though they will (also due to their LFW). They do not persevere by the Calvinistic notion of sovereign grace, but rather they persevere by cooperating with the quality of grace that God offers all men. 

*U* 
Unconditional election entails that God chooses men without any consideration for foreseen faith. For the libertarian, the proposition, “Ron would believe in such a circumstance if presented the gospel” is not grounded in God’s determination but in man’s free agency. For the libertarian, whether one is elect-able unto salvation is dependent upon whether the man would believe (according to the _non_-gift of LFW) if presented the gospel, which is _conditional_ election. The doctrine of unconditional election presupposes that God could have elected unto salvation _any_ fallen man had we wanted. Given LFW, it was only feasible that God could have chosen in Christ those who would cooperate with _resistible_ grace. 

*L* 
The eternal design was that Christ's substitionary and vicarious death was on behalf of _ only_ those who were (a) unconditionally elected in Christ, (b) totally depraved and (c & d) needed irresistible and persevering grace both to come to Christ and remain in him. Accordingly, a philosophy that damages any of the other four points also undermines particular redemption. 

Unworthy but His,

Ron


----------



## JTB

greenbaggins said:


> All I was really trying to say was that Adam was created in a state of integrity. Therefore, from the perspective of Adam facing the choice before him, he had it in him to choose the right thing, since his nature was created as innocent. Otherwise, he could have fallen before the time of the actual Fall, could he not?



Lane, if I may be permitted to join in the discussion between you and Ron here. . .

Not being possessed by his plunge into sin, Adam, prior to his fall, was capable of choosing to obey. Indeed, in every moment that he did not desire to eat of the fruit of the tree, he was obeying. It does not follow that upon this ability he could not have sinned sooner than he did. Rather, it is solely upon God's decree that the time of the Fall occurred when it occurred. Why? Because Adam, being mutably righteous (able to sin), was only preserved in his righteousness by the grace of God (God's determination to keep Adam from circumstances wherein Adam would choose to disobey).

Even the fallen Adam, and thus all subsequent humans, are kept from sin or brought into sin by God's determination of circumstances (secondary means). For example, had God so desired, He would have arranged it so that David desired to go to war instead of remaining behind and committing adultery with Bathsheba. From the opposing side, it was by God's determination of circumstances that David was desirous to fight Goliath for the sake of God's own name.

Each of these examples demonstrate the combatibilism of Calvinist doctrine; namely, that God operates by secondary means to determine the actions of men, who freely choose to act according upon their strongest desire. Nothing within the states of men (pre-fall, fall, regenerate, glorified) changes the nature of man's choosing and God's determination.

The presence or lack of sin does not impinge upon the ability to make a choice according to one's strongest desire, as Ron has already said.



> Where I am still a little uncomfortable with your phrasing of things is that it still seems to me that you are denying the state of integrity that Adam had. He was without sin in any way shape or form before the Fall, was he not? If that is so, what are the implications of that for how Adam made his choice? And is it legitimate to posit different layers of causality here (my illustration also comes from Frame, by the way)?



Ron's point has no relevancy upon Adam's integrity, for Adam's integrity is irrelevant to the nature of choice in compatibilism, as expressed above. That Adam was without sin made absolutely no difference upon his ability to choose according to his strongest desire. The analogy is, in my opinion, more confusing than helpful. Analogies rely upon one or more points of similarity, while discarding all other possible similarities. Therefore, it is more helpful to simply identify the specific character of the idea than to risk misunderstanding or confusion that arises from irrelevant or even contradictory elements in the analogy.

Grace and peace,

~Joshua


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## greenbaggins

JTB said:


> greenbaggins said:
> 
> 
> 
> All I was really trying to say was that Adam was created in a state of integrity. Therefore, from the perspective of Adam facing the choice before him, he had it in him to choose the right thing, since his nature was created as innocent. Otherwise, he could have fallen before the time of the actual Fall, could he not?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lane, if I may be permitted to join in the discussion between you and Ron here. . .
> 
> Not being possessed by his plunge into sin, Adam, prior to his fall, was capable of choosing to obey. Indeed, in every moment that he did not desire to eat of the fruit of the tree, he was obeying. It does not follow that upon this ability he could not have sinned sooner than he did. Rather, it is solely upon God's decree that the time of the Fall occurred when it occurred. Why? Because Adam, being mutably righteous (able to sin), was only preserved in his righteousness by the grace of God (God's determination to keep Adam from circumstances wherein Adam would choose to disobey).
> 
> Even the fallen Adam, and thus all subsequent humans, are kept from sin or brought into sin by God's determination of circumstances (secondary means). For example, had God so desired, He would have arranged it so that David desired to go to war instead of remaining behind and committing adultery with Bathsheba. From the opposing side, it was by God's determination of circumstances that David was desirous to fight Goliath for the sake of God's own name.
> 
> Each of these examples demonstrate the combatibilism of Calvinist doctrine; namely, that God operates by secondary means to determine the actions of men, who freely choose to act according upon their strongest desire. Nothing within the states of men (pre-fall, fall, regenerate, glorified) changes the nature of man's choosing and God's determination.
> 
> The presence or lack of sin does not impinge upon the ability to make a choice according to one's strongest desire, as Ron has already said.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Where I am still a little uncomfortable with your phrasing of things is that it still seems to me that you are denying the state of integrity that Adam had. He was without sin in any way shape or form before the Fall, was he not? If that is so, what are the implications of that for how Adam made his choice? And is it legitimate to posit different layers of causality here (my illustration also comes from Frame, by the way)?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Ron's point has no relevancy upon Adam's integrity, for Adam's integrity is irrelevant to the nature of choice in compatibilism, as expressed above. That Adam was without sin made absolutely no difference upon his ability to choose according to his strongest desire. The analogy is, in my opinion, more confusing than helpful. Analogies rely upon one or more points of similarity, while discarding all other possible similarities. Therefore, it is more helpful to simply identify the specific character of the idea than to risk misunderstanding or confusion that arises from irrelevant or even contradictory elements in the analogy.
> 
> Grace and peace,
> 
> ~Joshua
Click to expand...


My argument was not that Adam _could_ not have sinned sooner than he did, but that he _did_ not sin sooner than he did. The point I was trying to draw from that is what you actually said, namely, that before the Fall Adam was capable of choosing to obey. It is a fallacious extension of my argument, therefore, to say that my position requires that Adam could not have sinned sooner. Ultimately speaking, Adam's fall was timed according to God's decree. From the perspective of the decree, there is no other time it could have happened. I think we are agreed on that. We are also agreed that God's decree is the ultimate cause of all things. We are further agreed that God uses secondary causation. 

I cannot agree with this statement: "That Adam was without sin made absolutely no difference upon his ability to choose according to his strongest desire." And the reason for that is that Adam's strongest desire changed drastically after the Fall from what it was before the Fall. There is an ability to obey that Adam completely lost in the Fall. This is why I am hesitant to say that in terms of our free will, there was no change in compatibilism from before to after in terms of the Fall. We agree that it was a compatibilist freedom both before and after the Fall. But the compatibilism changed due to Adam's changed nature. The desire changed, and so therefore did the entire direction of Adam's choice-making. 

You have not stated why you think the analogy I used is problematic. You only asserted that it was confusing. In what way is it confusing?


----------



## Ron

My dear brother Lane,

Thank you so much for your most kind post to me. It is quite an encouragement to me personally. You are more than forgiven. And I can certainly appreciate the circumstances of not having time, etc. to devote to things. Please don’t give that matter another thought.

Regarding the subject at hand, I most certainly agree that Adam was created without a sin nature. He was created upright, in innocence and without any inclination toward sin. Yet he was mutable, which means that had God wanted he could have decreed that Adam fall, which is what God wanted, hence the fall. It is also true as you say that Adam could not do anything other than what God had decreed. I’d like to interpret everything else you said through that one foundational premise, which is Adam (and presumably us after Adam) _could not / cannot_ do anything other than what God had / has decreed. That is to say that Adam could only do what God had decreed, and we can only do what God has decreed. 

With respect to the pre-fall nature of Adam, we can also agree that it would have been consistent with Adam’s _nature_ for God to have decreed (had He wanted) that Adam remain upright and innocent longer, or even indefinitely. Just as it would have been consistent with Adam’s nature (being mutable) for God to have decreed that Adam fall from innocence, which in God’s wisdom is the decree we live under. Notwithstanding, in neither scenario could Adam operate contrary to the decree, _just like we cannot act contrary to the decree today._ 
*
Prelapsarian considerations:*

Consistent with Adam’s _mutable_ pre-fall nature was his innocence; yet being mutable, he could fall from that innocence with utter consistency toward his mutable soul. Whereas after the fall, all we do must be tainted with sin and that cannot change outside of glorification. Therefore, it was available for God (had he wanted) to decree that Adam not sin, but given the fall it was not available to God to decree that we not sin since all our actions must be tainted with sin this side of glory. Notwithstanding, those are distinctions without a relevant difference. The pre-fall / post-fall ontology of man is not a relevant distinction _with respect to Adam being more free than we to act contrary to God’s decree._ Again, with respect to acting contrary to the divine decree, not even God can do that; it’s an impossibility. Consequently, introducing the pre-fall state of Adam only clouds the issue of _whether Adam could have chosen contrary to the decree._ There is simply no additional freedom that Adam had relevant to us _with respect to operating outside God’s decree_. 

*With all those agreements aside, and putting aside the pre-fall distinction:*

*If Adam in his pre-fall nature could not act contrary to the decree that he would fall, then how can it be logically maintained (without equivocation) that Adam could have not sinned? *

My brother, you're a literature guy. I'm not. So, if we’re going to progress in this discussion, I think we’re going to have to leave Shakespeare out of it and speak with very precise terms and phrases that I can understand. I’m not sure I can grasp phrases like “layers of causality”. I would take that to mean secondary causes, but that would not seem to fit well with what you have been suggesting. Also, I don't know what to make of statements like “that does not feel like libertarian free will to me”. Sometimes things don't feel the way they are. I bring these small matters to your attention not to be mean spirited but in an effort to give this matter the precision it will require if we hope to make progress. Also, I am going to do my best not to let this discussion morph into something other than a discussion that challenges this syllogism:

Adam could not act contrary to God’s decree
God decreed that Adam sin
Adam could not act contrary to God’s decree that Adam sin

You have both affirmed and denied the major premise and consequently the conclusion. 

If you are too busy to discuss this matter, I'll certainly understand. PLEASE do not feel any pressure to continue with me. 

Blessings,

Ron


----------



## JTB

greenbaggins said:


> My argument was not that Adam _could_ not have sinned sooner than he did, but that he _did_ not sin sooner than he did. The point I was trying to draw from that is what you actually said, namely, that before the Fall Adam was capable of choosing to obey. It is a fallacious extension of my argument, therefore, to say that my position requires that Adam could not have sinned sooner. Ultimately speaking, Adam's fall was timed according to God's decree. From the perspective of the decree, there is no other time it could have happened. I think we are agreed on that. We are also agreed that God's decree is the ultimate cause of all things. We are further agreed that God uses secondary causation.
> 
> I cannot agree with this statement: "That Adam was without sin made absolutely no difference upon his ability to choose according to his strongest desire." And the reason for that is that Adam's strongest desire changed drastically after the Fall from what it was before the Fall. There is an ability to obey that Adam completely lost in the Fall. This is why I am hesitant to say that in terms of our free will, there was no change in compatibilism from before to after in terms of the Fall. We agree that it was a compatibilist freedom both before and after the Fall. But the compatibilism changed due to Adam's changed nature. The desire changed, and so therefore did the entire direction of Adam's choice-making.
> 
> You have not stated why you think the analogy I used is problematic. You only asserted that it was confusing. In what way is it confusing?



Lane,

You have missed the point in the several points I pointed out above.

First, my point was that, from the consideration of Adam's nature alone (apart from considering God's decree), he could have sinned at any point. All that was lacking was the set of circumstances that would place Adam in a position favorable to the desire to sin. God withheld those circumstances, therefore Adam could not have sinned sooner. But from that standpoint of his ability to sin, he was always and at every point able to sin.

Second, you are still confused about the distinction between the ability to choose according to one's strongest desire (compatibilist free will) and what one's strongest desires may possibly be. At no point is an actual choice other than what is one's strongest desire. That one's strongest desire is always sinful (post-fall state) does not alter anything regarding the nature of choice itself. Choice is always strongest desire. Sinful choice or obedience choice are always choice that is the strongest desire within the individual. The metaphysical nature of choice is not changed.

Third, as for the analogy:



> Shakespeare and one of the characters of his play. Shakespeare and Iago, for instance, operate on different levels entirely. Can Iago actually do anything other than what Shakespeare wrote for him to do and say? Well, no. But when one enters the level of the play, everything is different and feels different. If you are Othello in the play, for instance, Iago's actions do not seem forced at all by Shakespeare. Now, of course, all analogies will break down somewhere, for Othello does not know about Shakespeare, whereas we know at least some things about God, and hopefully we know God Himself. However, the analogy of the different levels on which causality happens is, I think, a helpful way of thinking about this. But libertarian freedom (the ability to do A and the opposite of A in any and all circumstances) is contrary to the sovereignty of God and is Pelagian. Calvinists have always held to free will in the sense that any being can do whatever it is in his nature to do. God cannot sin, and sinful man cannot please God. But God wrote the script, even if the characters are not forced. The reason they are not forced is that God's causality and our free will operate on different levels.



The very fact that you admit the analogy breaks down seems enough to me to demonstrate that it can become confusing and is less helpful than a discreet definition of terms and relations. But let's consider some relevant aspects of the analogy anyway. An author often times rewrites a character according to a change of mind. The characters in the play are not aware of whether or not the story is complete. Therefore, by the same analogy, we could argue that God has not finished writing the play and is free to change his mind concerning the characters. The analogy doesn't prevent us from this argument, because, as characters in God's play, we cannot know if He has made up his mind yet. Obviously my use of the analogy contradicts the basic doctrine of God's immutability, but that exemplifies my point. Analogies don't give discreet definitions and relations, but assume whatever definitions and relations are in the mind of the one trying to interpret the analogy.


----------



## Confessor

JTB said:


> First, my point was that, from the consideration of Adam's nature alone (apart from considering God's decree), he could have sinned at any point. All that was lacking was the set of circumstances that would place Adam in a position favorable to the desire to sin. God withheld those circumstances, therefore Adam could not have sinned sooner. But from that standpoint of his ability to sin, he was always and at every point able to sin.



I don't want to presently divert the discussion, but I would very much like to discuss this later. Not necessarily that I disagree, but I find it interesting.


----------



## Ron

Confessor said:


> JTB said:
> 
> 
> 
> First, my point was that, from the consideration of Adam's nature alone (apart from considering God's decree), he could have sinned at any point. All that was lacking was the set of circumstances that would place Adam in a position favorable to the desire to sin. God withheld those circumstances, therefore Adam could not have sinned sooner. But from that standpoint of his ability to sin, he was always and at every point able to sin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to presently divert the discussion, but I would very much like to discuss this later. Not necessarily that I disagree, but I find it interesting.
Click to expand...


Brothers,

Especially in the realm of the human will, we must be careful not to index the necessity of occurrences to _particulars_ without reference to God’s pre-interpretation of those particulars. In other words, the inclination of the will is not necessitated by a set of circumstances alone. Therefore, we may not say that had the state of affairs been earlier, the resultant choice would have been the same. It is God who determines whether and how a set of circumstances (a state of affairs) will incline the will. We may not presume that God must apply the same resultant behavior to external states of affairs located at different points in time. Such thinking tends toward fate, not providence.

Best wishes,

Ron


----------



## Ron

Joshua said:


> Colossians 2:8 _Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ._​Steven,
> 
> Allow a simpleton to speak. I understand the good and necessary and required function of apologetics and philosophy in defense of the faith; however, they should be based on our presuppositional belief that what the Scriptures say are unequivocally true. When anti or extra biblical concepts start coming into the picture, we should be careful to not let it drive one to think through the heathen's eyes to the point of obsession that we are being "spoil[ed] through philosophy ... not after Christ." At such a time, it's time to get grounded again. Let God be true and every man a liar, no matter how enticing, intrigue-inducing, or intellectually stimulating a philosophical speculation might seem. I say answer not a fool according to his folly.



You are *no* simpleton brother (as I'm sure you know). That was *sound *advice. 

Thank you for that!

Ron


----------



## greenbaggins

Ron said:


> My dear brother Lane,
> 
> Thank you so much for your most kind post to me. It is quite an encouragement to me personally. You are more than forgiven. And I can certainly appreciate the circumstances of not having time, etc. to devote to things. Please don’t give that matter another thought.
> 
> Regarding the subject at hand, I most certainly agree that Adam was created without a sin nature. He was created upright, in innocence and without any inclination toward sin. Yet he was mutable, which means that had God wanted he could have decreed that Adam fall, which is what God wanted, hence the fall. It is also true as you say that Adam could not do anything other than what God had decreed. I’d like to interpret everything else you said through that one foundational premise, which is Adam (and presumably us after Adam) _could not / cannot_ do anything other than what God had / has decreed. That is to say that Adam could only do what God had decreed, and we can only do what God has decreed.
> 
> With respect to the pre-fall nature of Adam, we can also agree that it would have been consistent with Adam’s _nature_ for God to have decreed (had He wanted) that Adam remain upright and innocent longer, or even indefinitely. Just as it would have been consistent with Adam’s nature (being mutable) for God to have decreed that Adam fall from innocence, which in God’s wisdom is the decree we live under. Notwithstanding, in neither scenario could Adam operate contrary to the decree, _just like we cannot act contrary to the decree today._
> *
> Prelapsarian considerations:*
> 
> Consistent with Adam’s _mutable_ pre-fall nature was his innocence; yet being mutable, he could fall from that innocence with utter consistency toward his mutable soul. Whereas after the fall, all we do must be tainted with sin and that cannot change outside of glorification. Therefore, it was available for God (had he wanted) to decree that Adam not sin, but given the fall it was not available to God to decree that we not sin since all our actions must be tainted with sin this side of glory. Notwithstanding, those are distinctions without a relevant difference. The pre-fall / post-fall ontology of man is not a relevant distinction _with respect to Adam being more free than we to act contrary to God’s decree._ Again, with respect to acting contrary to the divine decree, not even God can do that; it’s an impossibility. Consequently, introducing the pre-fall state of Adam only clouds the issue of _whether Adam could have chosen contrary to the decree._ There is simply no additional freedom that Adam had relevant to us _with respect to operating outside God’s decree_.
> 
> *With all those agreements aside, and putting aside the pre-fall distinction:*
> 
> *If Adam in his pre-fall nature could not act contrary to the decree that he would fall, then how can it be logically maintained (without equivocation) that Adam could have not sinned? *
> 
> My brother, you're a literature guy. I'm not. So, if we’re going to progress in this discussion, I think we’re going to have to leave Shakespeare out of it and speak with very precise terms and phrases that I can understand. I’m not sure I can grasp phrases like “layers of causality”. I would take that to mean secondary causes, but that would not seem to fit well with what you have been suggesting. Also, I don't know what to make of statements like “that does not feel like libertarian free will to me”. Sometimes things don't feel the way they are. I bring these small matters to your attention not to be mean spirited but in an effort to give this matter the precision it will require if we hope to make progress. Also, I am going to do my best not to let this discussion morph into something other than a discussion that challenges this syllogism:
> 
> Adam could not act contrary to God’s decree
> God decreed that Adam sin
> Adam could not act contrary to God’s decree that Adam sin
> 
> You have both affirmed and denied the major premise and consequently the conclusion.
> 
> If you are too busy to discuss this matter, I'll certainly understand. PLEASE do not feel any pressure to continue with me.
> 
> Blessings,
> 
> Ron



I honestly do not feel that I would disagree with any of what you've written here. You affirmed what I was desiring to protect, which is the innocence of Adam (I totally agree that it was a mutable innocence). I agree also with the syllogism. I am content to leave it at that. One could profitably go on to talk about the difference between God's perspective and our perspective, but that, I feel is a discussion for another time.


----------



## greenbaggins

JTB said:


> greenbaggins said:
> 
> 
> 
> My argument was not that Adam _could_ not have sinned sooner than he did, but that he _did_ not sin sooner than he did. The point I was trying to draw from that is what you actually said, namely, that before the Fall Adam was capable of choosing to obey. It is a fallacious extension of my argument, therefore, to say that my position requires that Adam could not have sinned sooner. Ultimately speaking, Adam's fall was timed according to God's decree. From the perspective of the decree, there is no other time it could have happened. I think we are agreed on that. We are also agreed that God's decree is the ultimate cause of all things. We are further agreed that God uses secondary causation.
> 
> I cannot agree with this statement: "That Adam was without sin made absolutely no difference upon his ability to choose according to his strongest desire." And the reason for that is that Adam's strongest desire changed drastically after the Fall from what it was before the Fall. There is an ability to obey that Adam completely lost in the Fall. This is why I am hesitant to say that in terms of our free will, there was no change in compatibilism from before to after in terms of the Fall. We agree that it was a compatibilist freedom both before and after the Fall. But the compatibilism changed due to Adam's changed nature. The desire changed, and so therefore did the entire direction of Adam's choice-making.
> 
> You have not stated why you think the analogy I used is problematic. You only asserted that it was confusing. In what way is it confusing?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lane,
> 
> You have missed the point in the several points I pointed out above.
> 
> First, my point was that, from the consideration of Adam's nature alone (apart from considering God's decree), he could have sinned at any point. All that was lacking was the set of circumstances that would place Adam in a position favorable to the desire to sin. God withheld those circumstances, therefore Adam could not have sinned sooner. But from that standpoint of his ability to sin, he was always and at every point able to sin.
> 
> Second, you are still confused about the distinction between the ability to choose according to one's strongest desire (compatibilist free will) and what one's strongest desires may possibly be. At no point is an actual choice other than what is one's strongest desire. That one's strongest desire is always sinful (post-fall state) does not alter anything regarding the nature of choice itself. Choice is always strongest desire. Sinful choice or obedience choice are always choice that is the strongest desire within the individual. The metaphysical nature of choice is not changed.
> 
> Third, as for the analogy:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shakespeare and one of the characters of his play. Shakespeare and Iago, for instance, operate on different levels entirely. Can Iago actually do anything other than what Shakespeare wrote for him to do and say? Well, no. But when one enters the level of the play, everything is different and feels different. If you are Othello in the play, for instance, Iago's actions do not seem forced at all by Shakespeare. Now, of course, all analogies will break down somewhere, for Othello does not know about Shakespeare, whereas we know at least some things about God, and hopefully we know God Himself. However, the analogy of the different levels on which causality happens is, I think, a helpful way of thinking about this. But libertarian freedom (the ability to do A and the opposite of A in any and all circumstances) is contrary to the sovereignty of God and is Pelagian. Calvinists have always held to free will in the sense that any being can do whatever it is in his nature to do. God cannot sin, and sinful man cannot please God. But God wrote the script, even if the characters are not forced. The reason they are not forced is that God's causality and our free will operate on different levels.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The very fact that you admit the analogy breaks down seems enough to me to demonstrate that it can become confusing and is less helpful than a discreet definition of terms and relations. But let's consider some relevant aspects of the analogy anyway. An author often times rewrites a character according to a change of mind. The characters in the play are not aware of whether or not the story is complete. Therefore, by the same analogy, we could argue that God has not finished writing the play and is free to change his mind concerning the characters. The analogy doesn't prevent us from this argument, because, as characters in God's play, we cannot know if He has made up his mind yet. Obviously my use of the analogy contradicts the basic doctrine of God's immutability, but that exemplifies my point. Analogies don't give discreet definitions and relations, but assume whatever definitions and relations are in the mind of the one trying to interpret the analogy.
Click to expand...


I do not feel that I missed your point at all with regard to the first part. My point is that, before the Fall, Adam's strongest desire could have been sin or not sin. After the Fall, Adam's strongest desire was always sin (though, of course, which sin that would be was undetermined, humanly speaking, and completely determined, from the perspective of the decree). Thus, both before the Fall and after, it is a compatibilist free will, but the Fall altered the compatibilist free will in the sense that it was no longer free to choose the good, or even to desire the good. I agree that the definition of of CFW is that the will will always choose what it wants the most. Of course, what it wants the most is always defined by the nature of the person. The structure of that CFW remains the same both before and after the fall. However, the directions in which it could head were severely limited after the Fall. The problem I had was that your statement was not qualified in terms of the thing which was desired. I cannot think that the thing desired is a completely separate item from the structure of CFW. CFW is hampered by the Fall in terms of the range of choices. This is what I was trying to say. 

As to the analogy, any analogy can look ridiculous if pressed too far. The _only_ thing the analogy was meant to show was a possible model for how God's sovereignty and man's responsibility co-exist. The nature of the whole picture of what actually happens introduces us into much murkier waters. If understood only concerning this one point, then I think the analogy is still helpful. Your critique of it does not address the precise point which it was meant to illustrate, but rather goes into other areas which it was not meant to touch in the first place.


----------



## MW

We can accept that a sinner might choose one sin over another. He might choose to be covetous instead of a glutton, for example, and therefore make choices which reflect a covetous character. He might have chosen to be either, might he not? Either way, he chooses to sin by necessity, but the sin he chooses is a matter of liberty.

I raise this for the sake of helping us to clearly locate where the bondage of the will comes to be applied in reformed theology, i.e., in the moral rather than the natural ability of the one who exercises free agency. I recommend William Cunningham's "Calvinism and the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity," in his volume on the Reformers, for a helpful discussion of this subject. His thesis is (p. 483), 1) "There is nothing in the Calvinistic system of theology, or in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which _precludes_ men from holding the doctrine of philosophical necessity." 2) "There is nothing in the Calvinistic system of theology, or in the Westminster Confession, which _requires_ men to hold the doctrine of philosophical necessity." I believe he has made a convincing case for his thesis.


----------



## Confessor

Ron said:


> Confessor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> JTB said:
> 
> 
> 
> First, my point was that, from the consideration of Adam's nature alone (apart from considering God's decree), he could have sinned at any point. All that was lacking was the set of circumstances that would place Adam in a position favorable to the desire to sin. God withheld those circumstances, therefore Adam could not have sinned sooner. But from that standpoint of his ability to sin, he was always and at every point able to sin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to presently divert the discussion, but I would very much like to discuss this later. Not necessarily that I disagree, but I find it interesting.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Brothers,
> 
> Especially in the realm of the human will, we must be careful not to index the necessity of occurrences to _particulars_ without reference to God’s pre-interpretation of those particulars. In other words, the inclination of the will is not necessitated by a set of circumstances alone. Therefore, we may not say that had the state of affairs been earlier, the resultant choice would have been the same. It is God who determines whether and how a set of circumstances (a state of affairs) will incline the will. We may not presume that God must apply the same resultant behavior to external states of affairs located at different points in time. Such thinking tends toward fate, not providence.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Ron
Click to expand...


Ron,

Do you think it would be safe to say that if God had a person with a certain inner/mental state of X (consisting of all their inner workings: inclinations etc.) in a certain external state of affairs Y, then the same result would occur as if X and Y were conjoined at another point in time?

It seems that you're guarding against the mentality that external affairs alone guide our behavior. Is that correct?


----------



## charliejunfan

God caused and I have no right to ask why


----------



## JTB

greenbaggins said:


> I do not feel that I missed your point at all with regard to the first part. My point is that, before the Fall, Adam's strongest desire could have been sin or not sin. After the Fall, Adam's strongest desire was always sin (though, of course, which sin that would be was undetermined, humanly speaking, and completely determined, from the perspective of the decree). Thus, both before the Fall and after, it is a compatibilist free will, but the Fall altered the compatibilist free will in the sense that it was no longer free to choose the good, or even to desire the good. I agree that the definition of of CFW is that the will will always choose what it wants the most. Of course, what it wants the most is always defined by the nature of the person. The structure of that CFW remains the same both before and after the fall. However, the directions in which it could head were severely limited after the Fall. The problem I had was that your statement was not qualified in terms of the thing which was desired. I cannot think that the thing desired is a completely separate item from the structure of CFW. CFW is hampered by the Fall in terms of the range of choices. This is what I was trying to say.
> 
> As to the analogy, any analogy can look ridiculous if pressed too far. The _only_ thing the analogy was meant to show was a possible model for how God's sovereignty and man's responsibility co-exist. The nature of the whole picture of what actually happens introduces us into much murkier waters. If understood only concerning this one point, then I think the analogy is still helpful. Your critique of it does not address the precise point which it was meant to illustrate, but rather goes into other areas which it was not meant to touch in the first place.



Thanks for the clarification. Your first paragraph is exactly what I was trying to express. I'm not arguing that we ought to separate the ability to choose from the inclination of any choice, but rather that they need to be distinguished (not unlike distinguishing God's attributes, though God is a most simple and inseparable unity).

As for the analogy, you may have it if you wish. Many people find benefit from analogies. I find them less definite than most people seem to assume.

Grace and peace,

~Joshua

-----Added 11/19/2009 at 07:55:50 EST-----



Ron said:


> Brothers,
> 
> Especially in the realm of the human will, we must be careful not to index the necessity of occurrences to _particulars_ without reference to God’s pre-interpretation of those particulars. In other words, the inclination of the will is not necessitated by a set of circumstances alone. Therefore, we may not say that had the state of affairs been earlier, the resultant choice would have been the same. It is God who determines whether and how a set of circumstances (a state of affairs) will incline the will. We may not presume that God must apply the same resultant behavior to external states of affairs located at different points in time. Such thinking tends toward fate, not providence.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Ron



Point well taken Ron. My aim was simply to identify that Adam's mutability made him capable of sinning at any point that God so desired Adam to sin. That God used one set of circumstances does not imply that He was bound to those circumstances by something in the circumstances themselves, but rather, because they were according to His own desire, as you said.


----------



## py3ak

armourbearer said:


> I recommend William Cunningham's "Calvinism and the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity," in his volume on the Reformers, for a helpful discussion of this subject. His thesis is (p. 483), 1) "There is nothing in the Calvinistic system of theology, or in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which _precludes_ men from holding the doctrine of philosophical necessity." 2) "There is nothing in the Calvinistic system of theology, or in the Westminster Confession, which _requires_ men to hold the doctrine of philosophical necessity." I believe he has made a convincing case for his thesis.



Available here.


----------



## JTB

Confessor said:


> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Confessor said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to presently divert the discussion, but I would very much like to discuss this later. Not necessarily that I disagree, but I find it interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brothers,
> 
> Especially in the realm of the human will, we must be careful not to index the necessity of occurrences to _particulars_ without reference to God’s pre-interpretation of those particulars. In other words, the inclination of the will is not necessitated by a set of circumstances alone. Therefore, we may not say that had the state of affairs been earlier, the resultant choice would have been the same. It is God who determines whether and how a set of circumstances (a state of affairs) will incline the will. We may not presume that God must apply the same resultant behavior to external states of affairs located at different points in time. Such thinking tends toward fate, not providence.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Ron
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Ron,
> 
> Do you think it would be safe to say that if God had a person with a certain inner/mental state of X (consisting of all their inner workings: inclinations etc.) in a certain external state of affairs Y, then the same result would occur as if X and Y were conjoined at another point in time?
> 
> It seems that you're guarding against the mentality that external affairs alone guide our behavior. Is that correct?
Click to expand...


I believe Ron is reminding us of what he articulated in his post to Lane, namely, that all considerations of determination must inevitably and finally trace back to God's sovereign will, and not anything in the particulars being examined (e.g., human will, circumstances). It is not simply the combination of circumstances and mental states and willing of the human that accomplishes x in y. Rather, it is simply that God determines that x shall occur in y, therefore x indeed occurs in y.


----------



## Ron

Confessor said:


> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Confessor said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to presently divert the discussion, but I would very much like to discuss this later. Not necessarily that I disagree, but I find it interesting.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brothers,
> 
> Especially in the realm of the human will, we must be careful not to index the necessity of occurrences to _particulars_ without reference to God’s pre-interpretation of those particulars. In other words, the inclination of the will is not necessitated by a set of circumstances alone. Therefore, we may not say that had the state of affairs been earlier, the resultant choice would have been the same. It is God who determines whether and how a set of circumstances (a state of affairs) will incline the will. We may not presume that God must apply the same resultant behavior to external states of affairs located at different points in time. Such thinking tends toward fate, not providence.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Ron
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Ron,
> 
> Do you think it would be safe to say that if God had a person with a certain inner/mental state of X (consisting of all their inner workings: inclinations etc.) in a certain external state of affairs Y, then the same result would occur as if X and Y were conjoined at another point in time?
> 
> It seems that you're guarding against the mentality that external affairs alone guide our behavior. Is that correct?
Click to expand...


Ben,

Working backwards, yes, I am guarding against the notion that external affairs alone incline the will. 

As for your first question, no, I cannot go along with that either. Given two different points of time, which are two different points in history, which are two different points in redemptive history, God’s purposes can be different. Given different purposes, God might not want to give the increase that he might otherwise give at another point in redemptive history. So for example, if it were possible for the same relevant state of affairs that were present at the moment of your conversion to be transported to A.D. 70, why would it be necessary that God convert you under those same circumstances at a different point in redemptive history? That would be to make God a slave to externals as opposed to the externals working God’s purposes. Now I’m not suggesting that God doesn’t truly respond to externals. He indeed responds to the movements he brings to pass according to his divine decree, which he _purposed_ in himself. But notwithstanding, God’s purposes can be vastly different under similar, or in our hypothetical discussion even identical, relevant circumstances. For instance, God is using you now over the internet as a vessel of honor. Maybe he would have preferred (had he desired another world) to use you at another point in history as a vessel of destruction, even under the same relevant circumstances that he was pleased convert you in this world. Who can know the mind of the Lord on these matters? God responded to the circumstances surrounding your conversion with the divine _volitional_ act of regenerating you. God responded to your circumstances according to his good pleasure alone, which was according to the time and season he had ordained for his own glory. Under a different time and season, who knows?! 

Best wishes,

Ron

-----Added 11/19/2009 at 09:53:15 EST-----



greenbaggins said:


> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> My dear brother Lane,
> 
> Thank you so much for your most kind post to me. It is quite an encouragement to me personally. You are more than forgiven. And I can certainly appreciate the circumstances of not having time, etc. to devote to things. Please don’t give that matter another thought.
> 
> Regarding the subject at hand, I most certainly agree that Adam was created without a sin nature. He was created upright, in innocence and without any inclination toward sin. Yet he was mutable, which means that had God wanted he could have decreed that Adam fall, which is what God wanted, hence the fall. It is also true as you say that Adam could not do anything other than what God had decreed. I’d like to interpret everything else you said through that one foundational premise, which is Adam (and presumably us after Adam) _could not / cannot_ do anything other than what God had / has decreed. That is to say that Adam could only do what God had decreed, and we can only do what God has decreed.
> 
> With respect to the pre-fall nature of Adam, we can also agree that it would have been consistent with Adam’s _nature_ for God to have decreed (had He wanted) that Adam remain upright and innocent longer, or even indefinitely. Just as it would have been consistent with Adam’s nature (being mutable) for God to have decreed that Adam fall from innocence, which in God’s wisdom is the decree we live under. Notwithstanding, in neither scenario could Adam operate contrary to the decree, _just like we cannot act contrary to the decree today._
> *
> Prelapsarian considerations:*
> 
> Consistent with Adam’s _mutable_ pre-fall nature was his innocence; yet being mutable, he could fall from that innocence with utter consistency toward his mutable soul. Whereas after the fall, all we do must be tainted with sin and that cannot change outside of glorification. Therefore, it was available for God (had he wanted) to decree that Adam not sin, but given the fall it was not available to God to decree that we not sin since all our actions must be tainted with sin this side of glory. Notwithstanding, those are distinctions without a relevant difference. The pre-fall / post-fall ontology of man is not a relevant distinction _with respect to Adam being more free than we to act contrary to God’s decree._ Again, with respect to acting contrary to the divine decree, not even God can do that; it’s an impossibility. Consequently, introducing the pre-fall state of Adam only clouds the issue of _whether Adam could have chosen contrary to the decree._ There is simply no additional freedom that Adam had relevant to us _with respect to operating outside God’s decree_.
> 
> *With all those agreements aside, and putting aside the pre-fall distinction:*
> 
> *If Adam in his pre-fall nature could not act contrary to the decree that he would fall, then how can it be logically maintained (without equivocation) that Adam could have not sinned? *
> 
> My brother, you're a literature guy. I'm not. So, if we’re going to progress in this discussion, I think we’re going to have to leave Shakespeare out of it and speak with very precise terms and phrases that I can understand. I’m not sure I can grasp phrases like “layers of causality”. I would take that to mean secondary causes, but that would not seem to fit well with what you have been suggesting. Also, I don't know what to make of statements like “that does not feel like libertarian free will to me”. Sometimes things don't feel the way they are. I bring these small matters to your attention not to be mean spirited but in an effort to give this matter the precision it will require if we hope to make progress. Also, I am going to do my best not to let this discussion morph into something other than a discussion that challenges this syllogism:
> 
> Adam could not act contrary to God’s decree
> God decreed that Adam sin
> Adam could not act contrary to God’s decree that Adam sin
> 
> You have both affirmed and denied the major premise and consequently the conclusion.
> 
> If you are too busy to discuss this matter, I'll certainly understand. PLEASE do not feel any pressure to continue with me.
> 
> Blessings,
> 
> Ron
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I honestly do not feel that I would disagree with any of what you've written here. You affirmed what I was desiring to protect, which is the innocence of Adam (I totally agree that it was a mutable innocence). I agree also with the syllogism. I am content to leave it at that. One could profitably go on to talk about the difference between God's perspective and our perspective, but that, I feel is a discussion for another time.
Click to expand...


Excellent, Lane! 

Warmly,

Ron

-----Added 11/19/2009 at 10:21:52 EST-----

Let’s ratchet up a bit… 

*God is not a legalist, a reductio:*

If Adam intended to act sinfully and was tackled prior to acting upon his intention, wouldn't he have sinned just the same? Moreover, had Eve abstained from eating the forbidden fruit solely because she was concerned for her figure, would she not have sinned just the same in the eyes of God? Certainly God is not a legalist who overlooks the intentions of the heart! Consequently, the sin of eating came from a sinful _intention_ that had occurred prior to the visible _act_ that followed from that intention.

*Mystery, mystery when there is no mystery:*

The reason people call the first sin a mystery is because they begin their reasoning with the false premise that the act of taking and eating the forbidden fruit was the first sin. If we get back to first principles and focus on what precedes any volitional act, whether sinful or not, we can begin to recognize that the first sin was the desire to be like God and not the act that proceeded from that desire. Accordingly, the first sin was Adam’s nature upon becoming fallen, which correlates with his desire to be like God. Adam, in other words, had concupiscence prior to acting sinfully. To deny that Adam's first sinful _act_ came from a nature that had already fallen is to affirm that a sinful act came from a non-sinful nature, a monstrosity indeed.

The question that we should be concerned with is not how did an unrighteous act spring from an upright being (which is a question that proceeds from a false premise), but rather how did an upright being acquire a sinful intention to act sinfully? The answer is no different than the answer to the question of how does any intention and subsequent act come into existence. Doesn’t God providentially orchestrate circumstances that come before the souls of men thereby moving them by secondary causes to act in accordance with _new _inclinations that are brought into existence according to God’s providence that He decrees? By God's pre-interpretation of the otherwise brute particulars of providence, the intentions of men and their subsequent acts fall out as God so determines. 

For Calvinists to argue that an act of sin proceeded from an upright nature is to assert a contradiction – and no amount of mystery can save a contradiction! The only thing I find mysterious is that so many Calvinists find the entrance of sin into humanity so mysterious. Note well that I am not pretending to know how God pre-interprets particulars or how the mind of man relates to the movement of the body. That’s not in view at all. My simple point is that Calvinists do not generally find it mysterious that volitional acts necessarily follow from intentions and that God’s orchestrating of circumstances are an ordained means by which intentions _that never existed before_ come into being. Why, therefore, should we not apply the same theological reasoning to the first sin as we do to God’s sovereignty over the intentions of fallen men? The mystery is the same. We don't know the details of how God brings to pass the intentions of the heart, but that is not peculiar to the first sin. It pertains to all intentions. 

Again, had Adam been tackled prior to eating the fruit, wouldn't his intention to eat have been sin? And wouldn't that intention have come from a fallen nature? Now did his intention to eat somehow not become sin because he was not tackled and actually did act according to his intention? Of course not. His sin was the intention of his heart (which could have only come from a nature that could produce such an intention), and he also sinned by acting on that intention. So the first sin was the fallen nature and the desire to be like God, then the intention to act and then the subsequent actions. Now is any good Calvinist going to say that we choose our intentions or our nature? No, but we are certainly responsible for them, for they are ours! 

Ron


----------



## MW

Ron said:


> Doesn’t God providentially orchestrate circumstances that come before the souls of men thereby moving them by secondary causes to act in accordance with _new _inclinations that are brought into existence according to God’s providence that He decrees?



The word "moving" is quite unecessary, and can only be interpreted so as to make God the author of the act of sin. God moves no man to sin.

As for your reference to mystery, Calvinists require no mystery to explain how an upright man became a sinner. It lies in the fact that the upright man was yet to be confirmed in his uprightness. The probation was set before him on the understanding that man was mutable and could sin. His nature therefore possessed the possibility of sinning. There is no mystery in this. The first man is of the earth, earthy. He already had an earthy nature. Eating the forbidden fruit involved choosing earthly happiness at the expense of heavenly fellowship with God, something which his mutably upright yet earthly nature was quite capable of doing by itself without any secondary influence from God.


----------



## Knight

An often under-emphasized point when considering from whence Adam's desire to sin sprung is the fact that if Adam's desire - in fact, if any desire - is the result of autonomy, this would contradict the eternal omniscience of God. Ron has already made this point, it seems, but I think it is useful to make it again: for God's knowledge to be contingent on a contingent creature necessarily implies God is not eternally omniscient (given that we not eternal).

The question becomes, then, in what way one can be morally responsible in a deterministic setting. What is or are the precondition(s) of moral responsibility if not autonomy? The answer is given by Paul in Romans 9:18-21. God's sovereignty is the precondition of our moral responsibility to Him. Responsibility implies an authority: that authority is God. That God must have hardened Adam such that rebelliousness was effected does not imply Adam was not morally responsible for his rebellion; it implies God is sovereign and confirms God has a right to do with his creatures as He pleases.


----------



## MW

Knight said:


> Responsibility implies an authority: that authority is God.



God is sovereign over plants and animals; sure I am that plants and animals do not have moral responsibility.

As noted in an earlier post, moral responsibility requires moral quality, moral ability, and moral liberty. The Sovereign must have endowed man with such moral capacity in order to make him culpable for his actions.


----------



## Knight

armourbearer said:


> Knight said:
> 
> 
> 
> Responsibility implies an authority: that authority is God.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> God is sovereign over plants and animals; sure I am that plants and animals do not have moral responsibility.
Click to expand...


My allusion to "authority" presupposes agency:

Authority: the power of him whose will and commands must be submitted to by others and obeyed

In any case, if you wished to clarify my statement, you have.


----------



## Ron

armourbearer said:


> The word "moving" is quite unecessary, and can only be interpreted so as to make God the author of the act of sin. God moves no man to sin.



Matthew,

I find the word "moving" most approprite because nothing changes apart from God upholding, sustaining and directing the occurrence. If God is not the ultimate cause of all _movement_, then I don't know what is. He is, after all, the _First Mover_. I qualified "moving" by the use of the phrase secondary causes, which I would think clearly takes God out of the realm of being a sinner.



armourbearer said:


> As for your reference to mystery, Calvinists require no mystery to explain how an upright man became a sinner. It lies in the fact that the upright man was yet to be confirmed in his uprightness. The probation was set before him on the understanding that man was mutable and could sin. His nature therefore possessed the possibility of sinning. There is no mystery in this.



You begin by saying that there is no mystery in how an upright man _became_ a sinner and you close with telling us that he possessed the _possibility_ of sinning due to his nature. That much is true. However, I do not see how you address what so many have found so mysterious, which his _how _sin came from a non-sinful person. My previous post makes an attempt at that, whereas your post would only seem to set up the question by stating the facts which both Arminians and Calvinist agree upon. 



> The first man is of the earth, earthy. He already had an earthy nature. Eating the forbidden fruit involved choosing earthly happiness at the expense of heavenly fellowship with God, something which his mutably upright yet earthly nature was quite capable of doing by itself without any secondary influence from God.



Matthew, Adam was certainly influenced - that is without dispute lest choices occur without influence. Moreover God decreed that Adam would be influenced in the manner that he was. The totality of that influence, which God determined, was in some proportion the flesh, the devil and the world. Those are secondary causes. Can you not agree with this simple statement: Adam's choice was influenced by secondary causes, which God was pleased to direct according to his purposes. 



> something which his mutably upright yet earthly nature was quite capable of doing by itself without any secondary influence from God.



If nobody makes choices without influence, then Adam made a choice under influence. Influences are _causes_ because without influence the _effect_ is gone. Therefore, the only question is whether there are any causes that cannot be traced back to God. If not, then secondary causes are _God's_ secondary causes.

Best,

Ron

-----Added 11/20/2009 at 07:55:47 EST-----



Knight said:


> armourbearer said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Knight said:
> 
> 
> 
> Responsibility implies an authority: that authority is God.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> God is sovereign over plants and animals; sure I am that plants and animals do not have moral responsibility.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My allusion to "authority" presupposes agency:
Click to expand...


Of course it did. It was quite clear.

Ron


----------



## Confessor

Ron said:


> Knight said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> armourbearer said:
> 
> 
> 
> God is sovereign over plants and animals; sure I am that plants and animals do not have moral responsibility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My allusion to "authority" presupposes agency:
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Of course it did. It was quite clear.
> 
> Ron
Click to expand...


And if I can chime in, Ryan said that responsibility implies authority and sovereignty, not necessarily that sovereignty implies responsibility.


----------



## Knight

Confessor said:


> And if I can chime in, Ryan said that responsibility implies authority and sovereignty, not necessarily that sovereignty implies responsibility.



Exactly. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent


----------



## Ron

> God's sovereignty is the precondition of our moral responsibility to Him. Responsibility implies an authority: that authority is God.



The first sentence means that God is the necessary condition for moral responsibility. 

The second sentence (even lifted out of context, which is what was done) means that responsibility is a sufficient condition the authority of God. 

Both sentences, therefore, logically imply the same thing. 

They can be written thusly:

If X is responsible, then God has the authority over X
X is responsible
Therefore, God has the authority over X

Ryan’s sentences do _not_ mean:

If God has the authority over X, then X is responsible
God has the authority over X
Therefore, X is responsible

Accordingly, Ryan was indeed clear, even redundantly so. He never came close to suggesting that God’s authority over X is a sufficient condition for X to be responsible. Therefore, he made no allusion to plants and animals. 

That he linked us to affirming the consequent was too clever!

Ron


----------



## a mere housewife

Personally, I thought Ryan was saying that the preconditionfor moral responsibility was God's sovereignty. But if 'even the wind and the waves' obey Him, then the precondition for moral responsibility can't be wholly covered by 'authority' (is 'agency' implied in the wind and the waves?). 

The clarification was helpful to an onlooker


----------



## MW

Ron said:


> He is, after all, the _First Mover_. I qualified "moving" by the use of the phrase secondary causes, which I would think clearly takes God out of the realm of being a sinner.



No, it doesn't. When you explain that God moves second causes in the mere sense of causing movement, that is neutral. This is the very same action by which He moves all things; it cannot therefore be a specific action which can explain how Adam sinned. It is always the second cause which brings in the element of sin. God moves to action; He never moves to sinful action. Yet you have stated God is "*moving them* by secondary causes to act in accordance with *new inclinations*." This makes God the author of Adam's sin.



Ron said:


> You begin by saying that there is no mystery in how an upright man _became_ a sinner and you close with telling us that he possessed the _possibility_ of sinning due to his nature. That much is true. However, I do not see how you address what so many have found so mysterious, which his _how _sin came from a non-sinful person. My previous post makes an attempt at that, whereas your post would only seem to set up the question by stating the facts which both Arminians and Calvinist agree upon.



I stated that Adam was "mutable" and "earthy." That is all that is needed to explain Adam's actions and it doesn't involve making God the author of sin. 



Ron said:


> Moreover God decreed that Adam would be influenced in the manner that he was.



Divines distingush between the absolute decree and its execution by means of secondary causation for the very purpose of showing how God is not an agent in human acts of sin. You would do well to learn and imitate that distinction.


----------



## MW

Knight said:


> Confessor said:
> 
> 
> 
> And if I can chime in, Ryan said that responsibility implies authority and sovereignty, not necessarily that sovereignty implies responsibility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly.
Click to expand...


I thought you were trying to explain moral responsibility within a deterministic view, not simply to prove determinism. I apologise if I misunderstood the nature of your statement.


----------



## Ron

armourbearer said:


> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> He is, after all, the _First Mover_. I qualified "moving" by the use of the phrase secondary causes, which I would think clearly takes God out of the realm of being a sinner.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, it doesn't. When you explain that God moves second causes in the mere sense of causing movement, that is neutral. This is the very same action by which He moves all things; it cannot therefore be a specific action which can explain how Adam sinned. It is always the second cause which brings in the element of sin. God moves to action; He never moves to sinful action. Yet you have stated God is "*moving them* by secondary causes to act in accordance with *new inclinations*." This makes God the author of Adam's sin.
> 
> 
> 
> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> You begin by saying that there is no mystery in how an upright man _became_ a sinner and you close with telling us that he possessed the _possibility_ of sinning due to his nature. That much is true. However, I do not see how you address what so many have found so mysterious, which his _how _sin came from a non-sinful person. My previous post makes an attempt at that, whereas your post would only seem to set up the question by stating the facts which both Arminians and Calvinist agree upon.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I stated that Adam was "mutable" and "earthy." That is all that is needed to explain Adam's actions and it doesn't involve making God the author of sin.
> 
> 
> 
> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> Moreover God decreed that Adam would be influenced in the manner that he was.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Divines distingush between the absolute decree and its execution by means of secondary causation for the very purpose of showing how God is not an agent in human acts of sin. You would do well to learn and imitate that distinction.
Click to expand...


Matthew,

I think at times I could say the sky is blue and you would deny it. The distinctions you think I should learn are throughout my posts. For some reason you aren't willing to see them but so many others do. 

Take care,

Ron


----------



## MW

Ron said:


> I think at times I could say the sky is blue and you would deny it. The distinctions you think I should learn are throughout my posts. For some reason you aren't willing to see them but so many others do.



If you say the sky is blue when in fact it appears black, yes, I would deny it. Please concentrate on the specific statements I have addressed and leave personal innuendo at the door. You have alleged that God moves men by secondary causes to act in accordance with new inclinations. Either defend the statement or repudiate it, but please do not make this personal.


----------



## Knight

armourbearer said:


> I thought you were trying to explain moral responsibility within a deterministic view, not simply to prove determinism. I apologise if I misunderstood the nature of your statement.



If an indeterminate position is incompatible with God's eternal omniscience, would you not agree determinism is necessary? And if determinism is necessary, would you not agree that autonomy is unnecessary to be morally responsible? I was under the impression we both submitted to logic and Scripture.


----------



## JTB

armourbearer said:


> Ron said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think at times I could say the sky is blue and you would deny it. The distinctions you think I should learn are throughout my posts. For some reason you aren't willing to see them but so many others do.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you say the sky is blue when in fact it appears black, yes, I would deny it. Please concentrate on the specific statements I have addressed and leave personal innuendo at the door. You have alleged that God moves men by secondary causes to act in accordance with new inclinations. Either defend the statement or repudiate it, but please do not make this personal.
Click to expand...


If God is not using secondary means to cause men to change/move from an inclination to obey (Adam prior to the Fall) to an inclination to disobey (Adam during the Fall), then you must posit a cause external to God's determination.

That God uses means that cause man's inclinations toward sin does not imply that God is the proximate cause of sin, nor does it imply that God is morally culpable for sin. The inclination still arises from within the man, according to his willingness. The point Ron is making is simply that man's willingness cannot occur apart from God's sovereign determination of it.

If God is the sole determination of all things, what can escape His determination/causation?


----------



## MW

Knight said:


> If an indeterminate position is incompatible with God's eternal omniscience, would you not agree determinism is necessary?



What is "an indeterminate position?" To what position does "indeterminate refer?"


----------



## MW

JTB said:


> If God is not using secondary means to cause men to change/move from an inclination to obey (Adam prior to the Fall) to an inclination to disobey (Adam during the Fall), then you must posit a cause external to God's determination.



This language is completely foreign to discussions on the sovereignty of God with respect to the fall of man. First, Adam was made upright but mutable. The fact that he was mutable meant that he could disobey God. There was no need to "change/move" an inclination in Adam. Secondly, no orthodox theologian says that God changes/moves men to sin as a First Cause. We do not say He commits sin, but reject the very notion as blasphemy. We say He "permits" sin. It is a decreed permission, but it is permission nonetheless, which removes His agency from the act of sin.



JTB said:


> If God is the sole determination of all things, what can escape His determination/causation?



I believe that God has decreed all things that shall come to pass. I also maintain that God offers no violence to the freedom of the will but men act in full accord with their own choices. I don't see a contradiction in those two views because I can distinguish betwen the decree and its execution (Shorter Catechism answer 8). The decree is absolute while the execution takes contingency and conditionality into account as things which God has also decreed. We can speak of ultimate causality so far as the decree of all things is concerned. But in terms of the execution of the decree we only allow active influence in relation to grace and redemption; we must deny active influence in relation to sin and damnation because the Bible rejects all thought that God sins or tempts to sin, or damns men for any reason other than their own voluntary choice to sin.


----------



## JTB

armourbearer said:


> This language is completely foreign to discussions on the sovereignty of God with respect to the fall of man. First, Adam was made upright but mutable. The fact that he was mutable meant that he could disobey God. There was no need to "change/move" an inclination in Adam. Secondly, no orthodox theologian says that God changes/moves men to sin as a First Cause. We do not say He commits sin, but reject the very notion as blasphemy. We say He "permits" sin. It is a decreed permission, but it is permission nonetheless, which removes His agency from the act of sin.



If Adam had no inclination to sin because he was created upright, then his inclination would have to change in order for Adam to commit sin. The only way in which Adam's inclination could occur apart from God's sovereign determination is by recourse to LFW. Do you affirm LFW? The language of "permission" and "passive" rather than "active" don't explain God's determination. How does God "permit" and what does it mean for God to act "passively"? It is in your explanation of these terms where we will see whether or not we agree or disagree with the definition of God's determination.



> I believe that God has decreed all things that shall come to pass. I also maintain that God offers no violence to the freedom of the will but men act in full accord with their own choices. I don't see a contradiction in those two views because I can distinguish betwen the decree and its execution (Shorter Catechism answer 8). The decree is absolute while the execution takes contingency and conditionality into account as things which God has also decreed. We can speak of ultimate causality so far as the decree of all things is concerned. But in terms of the execution of the decree we only allow active influence in relation to grace and redemption; we must deny active influence in relation to sin and damnation because the Bible rejects all thought that God sins or tempts to sin, or damns men for any reason other than their own voluntary choice to sin.



I don't understand what you mean by "takes contingency and conditionality into account." Do you mean that God uses secondary means to ensure that the sins that He has decreed to occur will necessarily occur, or do you mean something else?

I also do not understand what you mean by "allow active influence. . .deny active influence." What is the difference between "active influence" and "passive influence" as you understand it?

I recognize your affirmation of patently Reformed phrases, but subscription to certain language is not the same as explaining what is understood by that language. From your posts, I am not able to discern what is your understanding of the language. The fault may be mine, or perhaps you are merely tagging terms apart from definite explanation. Either way, I'd appreciate it if you would provide (or repeat) your definitions.


----------



## MW

JTB said:


> If Adam had no inclination to sin because he was created upright, then his inclination would have to change in order for Adam to commit sin.



Again, you are failing to understand the "upright" condition of Adam. He was not confirmed upright. He was made with the possibility of sinning. Therefore no new inclination was introduced in order to "move" him to sin. Free agency chose to receive the error of the serpent and subsequently to partake of the forbidden fruit. There is nothing libertarian about this because God did not creat Adam with a "necessity" to obey.

Turretin discusses this with biblical sensitivity in his Institutes, 1:606-611. It is folly for an individual to continue defending a radically curious and potentially dangerous theory when he has been instructed otherwise. Why don't you take some time to digest what has been introduced to you. It might just open the door to a fuller understanding of the subject.


----------



## JTB

armourbearer said:


> JTB said:
> 
> 
> 
> If Adam had no inclination to sin because he was created upright, then his inclination would have to change in order for Adam to commit sin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, you are failing to understand the "upright" condition of Adam. He was not confirmed upright. He was made with the possibility of sinning. Therefore no new inclination was introduced in order to "move" him to sin. Free agency chose to receive the error of the serpent and subsequently to partake of the forbidden fruit. There is nothing libertarian about this because God did not creat Adam with a "necessity" to obey.
> 
> Turretin discusses this with biblical sensitivity in his Institutes, 1:606-611. It is folly for an individual to continue defending a radically curious and potentially dangerous theory when he has been instructed otherwise. Why don't you take some time to digest what has been introduced to you. It might just open the door to a fuller understanding of the subject.
Click to expand...


Possibility does not equal actuality. In an upright and morally blameless condition, it is just as possible for Adam to avoid sin as to commit it. That is the meaning of Augustine's own dictum posse non peccare - able not to sin. If one is able, then the possibility is affirmed, but not the actuality. I'm afraid you haven't yet dealt with the central matter.

As for Turretin, I have not read the passage, and I do not have the book, but perhaps there is a place online I might read it (or you could reproduce it for me)? I am aware, however, that R.L. Dabney argued against Turretin's view on this very issue, so the citing of an authority here hardly solves the matter. As you say, free agency made the choice, but how free agency operates within God's sovereign determination has not been explained by anyone other than Ron. If you are going to disagree in a substantial way rather than quibbling with language, you have the burden to refute the argument and also assert an alternative definition. I haven't seen either.

Furthermore, I see no grounds for you considering what has been set forth as a "radically curious and potentially dangerous theory." God's exhaustive determination of all things does not imply moral culpability for sin on His part. We both affirm that, but you have yet to explain a definite view of how determination and the inclination to sin are compatible. You have affirmed that they are, but have not provided any demonstration. Ron, much earlier in the thread, provided both affirmation and demonstration.

I would like to digest your view, and perhaps even gain fuller understanding from it, but as yet it is still indistinguishable to me what exactly your view explains with regard to Adam's liberty and God's determination. I will remind everyone watching again: to affirm the language of Scripture, the Confession, and the Catechisms is not the same as providing an explanation of what those affirmations mean.


----------



## MW

JTB said:


> As you say, free agency made the choice, but how free agency operates within God's sovereign determination has not been explained by anyone other than Ron. If you are going to disagree in a substantial way rather than quibbling with language, you have the burden to refute the argument and also assert an alternative definition. I haven't seen either.



I did refute the argument -- God is not the author of sin; Ron's explanation makes God the author (mover) of Adam's "new inclination" to sin. Nothing more need be said. Your defence of this kind of language which Ron has used only demonstrates that you have been infected with the same disease. You would do well to read Turretin for an antidote before proceeding any further.

The importation of philosophical concepts like libertarian or necessitarian views of the will is unnecessary for understanding the subject. Such views pertain to "natural" choice, not "moral" choice. Anyone who has studied the philosophical question will understand this. The philosophical question is no part of the "moral" choice which Adam made. Should one avail himself of the Cunningham article which I have referenced he will soon see that philosophical necessity is not an intrinsic part of the Calvinist system.


----------



## Philip

armourbearer said:


> The importation of philosophical concepts like libertarian or necessitarian views of the will is unnecessary for understanding the subject. Such views pertain to "natural" choice, not "moral" choice. Anyone who has studied the philosophical question will understand this. The philosophical question is no part of the "moral" choice which Adam made.



Actually, Matthew, libertarian choice vs. compatibilist choice seems to be precisely the debate here--the question is one of moral ability.

Libertarianism would state that the will is morally free whereas compatibilism says that it is bound by desires. This is precisely what the discussion turns on: is Edwards' definition the proper one?

This is probably the single hardest question that Calvinism has to deal with: how do we explain the metaphysical necessity of Adam's choice to sin without implicating God? We have to say that God ordained the choice--though that does not implicate God. The question is how Adam came to have the desire to sin when He was created perfect.


----------



## JTB

armourbearer said:


> JTB said:
> 
> 
> 
> As you say, free agency made the choice, but how free agency operates within God's sovereign determination has not been explained by anyone other than Ron. If you are going to disagree in a substantial way rather than quibbling with language, you have the burden to refute the argument and also assert an alternative definition. I haven't seen either.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I did refute the argument -- God is not the author of sin; Ron's explanation makes God the author (mover) of Adam's "new inclination" to sin. Nothing more need be said. Your defence of this kind of language which Ron has used only demonstrates that you have been infected with the same disease. You would do well to read Turretin for an antidote before proceeding any further.
> 
> The importation of philosophical concepts like libertarian or necessitarian views of the will is unnecessary for understanding the subject. Such views pertain to "natural" choice, not "moral" choice. Anyone who has studied the philosophical question will understand this. The philosophical question is no part of the "moral" choice which Adam made. Should one avail himself of the Cunningham article which I have referenced he will soon see that philosophical necessity is not an intrinsic part of the Calvinist system.
Click to expand...


Reverend Winzer,

You did not demonstrate, but rather asserted, that Ron made God the "author" of sin. One is quite puzzled as to what exactly is meant by God being the "author" of sin. Lane, in an earlier post, made use of an analogy that compared God's determination to Shakespeare's "authorship" of his plays. To me such language seems entirely too ambiguous for clear understanding.

Also, you have now provided two citations for me to read, but if their arguments are so indispensable, one would expect that you could provide the relevant arguments that pertain to the discussion. As for your comments regarding the language of philosophy, I find them entirely irrelevant to the current matter. I did not ask you to provide a philosophical justification with regard to natural or moral categories. The very fact that you introduce a distinction between "natural" and "moral" abilities leads me to believe that you are confused as to what exactly is being asked.

I simply want you to explain how it is that God exhaustively determines all things according to his eternal decrees, and yet Adam's liberty to choose according to his strongest desire remains un-coerced. As much as you say that this "natural" ability does not pertain to Adam's "moral" choice, we must still know what you think about how Adam's moral choice to sin arose from a nature that had no original inclination to sin, being that Adam was created morally upright.

On a final point, you say that "philosophical necessity is not an intrinsic part of the Calvinist system," and while it is true that not all views of determinism are compatible with Calvinism, it does not alter the fact that Calvinism is a system that affirms determinism, namely, God's Sovereign and Providential determination. Unless you wish to deny such a view, it would be expected that you could provide an explanation of the salient points of determinism within the Calvinist system that are being asked of you.

Recall that I'm not especially concerned with what Turretin or Cunningham have to say, although I would find their views interesting to be sure. I am primarily interested in your understanding; your explanation. How is it that I may know that what Turretin and Cunningham say is what you understand them to mean, unless you articulate to me what you understand their meaning to be?

If you wish to provide a refutation using the salient arguments from Turretin and/or Cunningham, by all means do so. But telling me to read them gives me nothing at all of what you yourself understand. And lest there be confusion as to my repetitiveness, I assure you that it stems from an earnest desire to meet with your mind, and not as an attempt to avert the issue or feign ignorance. I promise you that I will give my hearty thanks and rejoicing when I am able to discern what exactly your view is--even if I find myself in complete disagreement with that view. As yet I remain in the dark as to what exactly it is you understand when you affirm the language you have been affirming.

~Joshua


----------



## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> Actually, Matthew, libertarian choice vs. compatibilist choice seems to be precisely the debate here--the question is one of moral ability.



No, everyone agrees that Adam had moral ability. As per WCF 9.1, we are working with the definition of free will that "God hath endued the will of man with that natural ability, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil." Combatibilism seeks to show how this freedom accords with a deterministic worldview. It stresses that the will is free to choose according to inclination and understanding. It has nothing to do with an ability of the will with respect to good or evil per se. Hence non Calvinists and even non Christians can incorporate it into their systems.

Our discussion is in the realm of WCF 9.2. We are asking how Adam, having freedom to do what is good (moral), nevertheless chose what is evil (moral). As this section of the Confession states, Adam had this ability, but was mutable; and because he was mutable, he might fall. The answer therefore does not lie in philosophical theories as to the natural power of the will, for these only concern the power of the will to choose to act in accord with the determinate counsel of God, and do not pertain to the will towards good or evil in particular.


----------



## JTB

armourbearer said:


> P. F. Pugh said:
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, Matthew, libertarian choice vs. compatibilist choice seems to be precisely the debate here--the question is one of moral ability.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No, everyone agrees that Adam had moral ability. As per WCF 9.1, we are working with the definition of free will that "God hath endued the will of man with that natural ability, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil." Combatibilism seeks to show how this freedom accords with a deterministic worldview. It stresses that the will is free to choose according to inclination and understanding. It has nothing to do with an ability of the will with respect to good or evil per se. Hence non Calvinists and even non Christians can incorporate it into their systems.
> 
> Our discussion is in the realm of WCF 9.2. We are asking how Adam, having freedom to do what is good (moral), nevertheless chose what is evil (moral). As this section of the Confession states, Adam had this ability, but was mutable; and because he was mutable, he might fall. The answer therefore does not lie in philosophical theories as to the natural power of the will, for these only concern the power of the will to choose to act in accord with the determinate counsel of God, and do not pertain to the will towards good or evil in particular.
Click to expand...


The Confession uses "natural" in conjunction with moral ability in sections 9.3 and 9.4 without the assumption of their being entirely unrelated. Indeed, to make a distinction between what man has by nature and what man has morally is to set up a distinction whereby morality is either unnatural, or nonnatural--that is, having nothing to do with nature--despite the Confession (and Scripture) distinctly discussing our moral abilities in terms of our nature (pre-fall, fall, redeemed, and glorified).


----------



## Philip

What these definitions do mean, though, is that Adam could not have sinned unless he had the desire to sin. Unless you want to maintain that Adam's will was undetermined (and I think we have to say that it was determined), then we have to ask how Adam could have had a desire to sin, being made perfect.

When I speak of "moral ability" I am speaking of desires. Right now, I have the moral ability to type this response--how do I know this? Because I am doing it. In this sense, every choice is a moral one. Adam could not do what he was not inclined to do.


----------



## MW

JTB said:


> You did not demonstrate, but rather asserted, that Ron made God the "author" of sin. One is quite puzzled as to what exactly is meant by God being the "author" of sin. Lane, in an earlier post, made use of an analogy that compared God's determination to Shakespeare's "authorship" of his plays. To me such language seems entirely too ambiguous for clear understanding.



The language is in the Confession and has been stated with the clear intent to preserve the integrity of God's holiness in relation to sin and reprobation. I do not need to rehearse all the exegetical, historical, dogmatic, and pastoral steps which lead up to the conclusion in order to substantiate it as an essential point of reformed theology. It is a boundary marker for discussion on the sovereignty of God, and any explanation of causality which goes beyond that boundary marker is not an explanation of reformed theology but a corruption of it.



armourbearer said:


> Also, you have now provided two citations for me to read, but if their arguments are so indispensable, one would expect that you could provide the relevant arguments that pertain to the discussion.



I could, but I don't have time to do your work for you. Read the sources for yourself, become knowlegeable about how such points are discussed WITHIN the boundaries of reformed orthodoxy, and then I believe we will be able to have a profitable discussion. I really can't understand the mindset which refuses to learn more in order to discuss a subject more intelligibly. A refusal to learn more simply turns into a share your ignorance session. Why would I or any sensible person want to participate in such a discussion?



JTB said:


> I simply want you to explain how it is that God exhaustively determines all things according to his eternal decrees, and yet Adam's liberty to choose according to his strongest desire remains un-coerced.



The use of the word "move" has nothing to do with the language of "determination." As noted, you are out of the realm of the decree and into the realm of its execution when you are discussing how Adam received "new inclinations." Again, I ask you to become acquainted with the way the subject is usually discussed.



JTB said:


> As much as you say that this "natural" ability does not pertain to Adam's "moral" choice, we must still know what you think about how Adam's moral choice to sin arose from a nature that had no original inclination to sin, being that Adam was created morally upright.



It has already been explained. Mutability, probation, and earthiness. If you would like to know more then why don't you ask a question pertaining to the explanation provided; denying that it is an explanation is ridiculous seeing as it has been used by reformed theologians for generations.



JTB said:


> On a final point, you say that "philosophical necessity is not an intrinsic part of the Calvinist system," and while it is true that not all views of determinism are compatible with Calvinism, it does not alter the fact that Calvinism is a system that affirms determinism, namely, God's Sovereign and Providential determination. Unless you wish to deny such a view, it would be expected that you could provide an explanation of the salient points of determinism within the Calvinist system that are being asked of you.



As stated, there is nothing salient here. Philosophical necessity pertains to the will as will. It can explain the will's determination to this or that action, but it cannot explain the will's choice of good or evil in themselves.


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## MW

P. F. Pugh said:


> What these definitions do mean, though, is that Adam could not have sinned unless he had the desire to sin.



"Sin" is a moral relation. It is not an action in and of itself. "Desire to sin" is a relative value, not a physical quality. If a man has intercourse with a woman the action is not sin in itself. It the woman is his wife, it is good. If the woman is not his wife, it is evil. Eating from the tree was an action indifferent in itself. It became morally evil when God prohibited it. Hence the "sin" was not in the action, but in the prohibition. Philosophical necessity can explain why Adam might choose one action over another. It cannot explain why he would choose "sin" over "righteousness." WCF 9.2, following holy Scripture, provides the explanation; the answer is not to be found in the philosophy of men.


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## Confessor

This brings to mind for me a vague conception of choice as defined in three parts: the action in itself, the motive for an action, and some third thing which I cannot remember. (And I'm not positive if there are three total, either.) Can anyone provide the correct view of this? I think it would be fruitful to the discussion.


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## Semper Fidelis

JTB,

Re-read the Board rules you agreed to. 

Also, read some posts about the nature of the Confessions or about how to perform hermeneutics altogether. While it has become popular, in recent years, to push authorial intent from written documents in order to make a text a playground for the reader, this is destructive to not only Christian thought but to human thought.

Matthew has given you some historical background to the use of words in the Confession. You may not like his explanation but you cannot simply respond in a "seems to my bare reading of how I use natural or understand philosophy" to state that the explanation is wrong.

You would do well to pick up Mueller's work _Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics_. You may not think it much cares what stream the Reformed tradition is standing in but this board very much cares. If you don't like to discuss issues within that tradition then this is a free country but the boundaries of this board were clearly spelled out when you clicked "I Agree" to them. I ask you let your Yes be Yes to that agreement whether you read it fully or not.


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## JTB

armourbearer said:


> The language is in the Confession and has been stated with the clear intent to preserve the integrity of God's holiness in relation to sin and reprobation. I do not need to rehearse all the exegetical, historical, dogmatic, and pastoral steps which lead up to the conclusion in order to substantiate it as an essential point of reformed theology. It is a boundary marker for discussion on the sovereignty of God, and any explanation of causality which goes beyond that boundary marker is not an explanation of reformed theology but a corruption of it.



I haven't questioned the language of the confession. I have affirmed it. I have simply asked you to explain what you think is the meaning. If one cannot explain the meaning of terms, one does not know the terms. If one refuses to explain the meaning of terms, one is not being charitable to one's interlocutor.



armourbearer said:


> I could, but I don't have time to do your work for you. Read the sources for yourself, become knowlegeable about how such points are discussed WITHIN the boundaries of reformed orthodoxy, and then I believe we will be able to have a profitable discussion. I really can't understand the mindset which refuses to learn more in order to discuss a subject more intelligibly. A refusal to learn more simply turns into a share your ignorance session. Why would I or any sensible person want to participate in such a discussion?



You have yet to prove where I have crossed any boundaries. You have made several assertions, but an assertion isn't proof. I am sure that if I made an assertion regarding your views, you would require me to provide substantial reasoning to demonstrate that the assertion is valid rather than just an opinion. I only expect what I would expect others to hold me accountabel for. Also, I think it is a gross misunderstanding to complain that I am unwilling to learn. I have asked you, at least three times now, to interact directly with me, and not send me after readings that you should be capable of using yourself in your own arguments. My ignorance of what Turretin or Cunningham have to say does not mean I am ignorant of the chief matters being discussed. Why would any sensible person refuse to provide arguments that he says he has read elsewhere?



armourbearer said:


> The use of the word "move" has nothing to do with the language of "determination." As noted, you are out of the realm of the decree and into the realm of its execution when you are discussing how Adam received "new inclinations." Again, I ask you to become acquainted with the way the subject is usually discussed.



I don't think you have grasped Ron's meaning expressed in the term "move." You have not established what is the relation between God's decree and His execution of it. You have used words like, "active" and "not active," but you haven't defined what you mean by those terms. Language policing only makes sense when you have definitions to mark your terms. I don't mind dropping "move" if you can give me what you think is the definition of the terms you are using. Otherwise, to affirm your terms is to affirm something, the meaning of which has not been given. Such an affirmation on my part would be made in ignorance, which I can hardly believe you would want from any concientious person. Mind you, the ignorance has nothing to do with ignorance of the Confession or its terms, but rather ignorance of what you, yourself mean when you use the terms.



armourbearer said:


> It has already been explained. Mutability, probation, and earthiness. If you would like to know more then why don't you ask a question pertaining to the explanation provided; denying that it is an explanation is ridiculous seeing as it has been used by reformed theologians for generations.



It has not been explain, sir. I have asked you how it is that Adam, whose inclination in Creation was to obey, for he was created morally upright, could change to an inclination to disobey. That he was mutable does not explain the change itself, but rather the possibility of change. I have argued that possibility is not the same as actuality, which I cannot believe anyone would disagree with, although they are free to do so if they can. Furthermore, my denial that YOU have explained anything is NOT a denial that OTHERS have explained something. Just because I argue that you haven't given me an explanation of your own thoughts does not mean that I'm denying other Reformers. A man can only speak for himself, as to what he thinks, and you have not yet clearly articulated the definitions of your terms. I assure you that my concern is with you, and not with the Reformed tradition, the Confession, or any particular Reformer.



armourbearer said:


> As stated, there is nothing salient here. Philosophical necessity pertains to the will as will. It can explain the will's determination to this or that action, but it cannot explain the will's choice of good or evil in themselves.



Could you provide more than an assertion here, please? It is my understanding that nothing occurs "in and of itself" apart from its relation to God's decrees. Otherwise, things would have independent existence. Now, you may wish to bracket consideration of relations in order to elucidate a particular aspect of the idea under consideration, but it still remains a requirement to place it once more in relation to the decree, since the decree determines all things. You have yet to demonstrate the relationship between the decree and its execution. You have asserted several things, which I have pointed out above, but you have not given me the meaning of your terms, or arguments producing validity that your assertions are correct in your understanding.



semper fi said:


> Re-read the Board rules you agreed to.



I am aware of the rules, and thank you for the reminder. I am not denying the Confessional language. I am only unclear as to Mr. Winzer's own understanding of the meaning of the Confession, and more particularly his view on the matters immediately above. If you believe I have behaved disrespectfully, I would be pleased if you would point it out, and I will repent of my error in conduct, if it be so.

[quote"semper fi"]Also, read some posts about the nature of the Confessions or about how to perform hermeneutics altogether. While it has become popular, in recent years, to push authorial intent from written documents in order to make a text a playground for the reader, this is destructive to not only Christian thought but to human thought.[/quote]

I don't understand why you would even mention this at all. Do you suspect me of playing fast and loose with language? All I have done is asked for a definition of terms. That is hardly out of the question I would think.



semper fi said:


> Matthew has given you some historical background to the use of words in the Confession. You may not like his explanation but you cannot simply respond in a "seems to my bare reading of how I use natural or understand philosophy" to state that the explanation is wrong.



Historical background is not the same as the definition of terms. I am satisfied with Rev. Winzer's historical background. I am unclear as to what he thinks the terms in this discussion mean. If you can show me where he has explained his terms by way of definition, I would be very thankful. Also, I think you have mischaracterized my replies to Rev. Winzer. I have not produced a novel interpretation of natural or philosophy. I have cited where the Confession uses the terms natural in conjunction with moral, where Rev. Winzer has asserted that they are entirely separate. That seems to me like a discrepancy that requires more argumentation than bald assertions.



semper fi said:


> You would do well to pick up Mueller's work Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics. You may not think it much cares what stream the Reformed tradition is standing in but this board very much cares. If you don't like to discuss issues within that tradition then this is a free country but the boundaries of this board were clearly spelled out when you clicked "I Agree" to them. I ask you let your Yes be Yes to that agreement whether you read it fully or not.



I appreciate your zeal to defend the Confessions, but I am quite puzzled as to why you or Rev. Winzer have seen me deny the language or meaning of the Confession. I have repeatedly pointed out that affirming the language of the Confession is not the same as having explained its meaning. Liberal Reformed denominations often affirm the language of the Confession while denying the meaning. I would think it would be encouraged for folks here to ask one another to explain what they think the language means, rather than simply accept that they confess whatever is stated to be true.


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## Knight

armourbearer said:


> Knight said:
> 
> 
> 
> If an indeterminate position is incompatible with God's eternal omniscience, would you not agree determinism is necessary?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What is "an indeterminate position?" To what position does "indeterminate refer?"
Click to expand...


The position that - due to creaturely autonomy - God is ultimately not the cause of all things.


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## Prufrock

As has been stated several times, the question is not a philosophical question, but a theological question; thus, it does not properly concern the issues of determinism, compatiblism, libertarianism, etc. And though I am perhaps least able to present a convincing or thorough defense or explanation of the Reformed position, I will nevertheless attempt one that may be considered somewhat satisfactory.

Since you (JTB) have been referred to Turretin above, I will do you the favor of explicating the distinctions which he makes, and which the content of your posts suggests would be useful to you. After dismissing the monstrous Pelagian/Socinian/Arminian notion that the explanation for man's fall must be sought in a certain inborn inclination to sin, he proceeds to state matter-of-factly (as has been done above):
No other [explanation] more suitable can be granted than by returning to the mutability and liberty of the first man, as one who was created indeed just and holy, but mutably. _Institutes, IX.vii.iv_​Now, as you have indeed stated, mutability itself is not sufficient as an explanation of the _cause_, as it simply "indicates the possibility of the fall and is the cause _sine qua non_." And for this reason, the theologian introduces the distinction of mutability itself and the *act* of mutability, with "the former denot[ing] a power which could be inclined to evil, but was not yet inclined; the latter, however, designat[ing] the actual inclination to evil itself (condemned by the law of God) and the fountain of all sin."

Thus, the mutability and free-will of man is taken in conjunction with the false idea implanted in his mind by the Serpent, which now begins to serve as a satisfactory explanation (since the issue at hand is not philosophical, but theological). Since the help or assistance given to Adam can be bifurcated into 1.) The Power of Not sinning (which he always had, even in the moment of his first sin); and, 2.) The Efficacious grace, which was undeserved, which served as "an action or efficacious motion to good." Thus, when this actual motion to good was withheld, and man was (though retaining his _ability_ not to sin) left, as it were, to his own mutability, he willingly succumbed most freely to the false idea of the Devil, without receiving any impelling action or motion from God toward a new inclination. And thus, theologically, we are able to prevent God from being the author or "incliner" of man's sin: he has not given to him a new desire, he has not taken away his liberty to not sin, etc.


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## JTB

First off, let me say thank you very much Prufrock for providing the relevant arguments from Turretin. I am pleased to interact with them, as well as your own comments.



Prufrock said:


> As has been stated several times, the question is not a philosophical question, but a theological question; thus, it does not properly concern the issues of determinism, compatiblism, libertarianism, etc. And though I am perhaps least able to present a convincing or thorough defense or explanation of the Reformed position, I will nevertheless attempt one that may be considered somewhat satisfactory.



To separate theology and philosophy is to divide knowledge unnecessarily. Surely God's Word provides sufficient information to determine of what nature was Adam's inclination to sin, and how that inclination occurred within the sovereign determination of God. To argue that determinism is not a theological matter seems more destructive than helpful.



Prufrock said:


> Since you (JTB) have been referred to Turretin above, I will do you the favor of explicating the distinctions which he makes, and which the content of your posts suggests would be useful to you. After dismissing the monstrous Pelagian/Socinian/Arminian notion that the explanation for man's fall must be sought in a certain inborn inclination to sin, he proceeds to state matter-of-factly (as has been done above):
> No other [explanation] more suitable can be granted than by returning to the mutability and liberty of the first man, as one who was created indeed just and holy, but mutably. _Institutes, IX.vii.iv_​Now, as you have indeed stated, mutability itself is not sufficient as an explanation of the _cause_, as it simply "indicates the possibility of the fall and is the cause _sine qua non_." And for this reason, the theologian introduces the distinction of mutability itself and the *act* of mutability, with "the former denot[ing] a power which could be inclined to evil, but was not yet inclined; the latter, however, designat[ing] the actual inclination to evil itself (condemned by the law of God) and the fountain of all sin."



I have no disagreements at all with the above.



Prufrock said:


> Thus, the mutability and free-will of man is taken in conjunction with the false idea implanted in his mind by the Serpent, which now begins to serve as a satisfactory explanation (since the issue at hand is not philosophical, but theological). Since the help or assistance given to Adam can be bifurcated into 1.) The Power of Not sinning (which he always had, even in the moment of his first sin); and, 2.) The Efficacious grace, which was undeserved, which served as "an action or efficacious motion to good." Thus, when this actual motion to good was withheld, and man was (though retaining his _ability_ not to sin) left, as it were, to his own mutability, he willingly succumbed most freely to the false idea of the Devil, without receiving any impelling action or motion from God toward a new inclination. And thus, theologically, we are able to prevent God from being the author or "incliner" of man's sin: he has not given to him a new desire, he has not taken away his liberty to not sin, etc.



Ignoring the distinction between philosophy and theology (a distinction that remains unclear to me by the way you use it), it does not seem that Turretin has answered the question at issue, and even the best reading inclines him to what I'm advocating. If it required the removal of efficacious grace in order for Adam to, of his own willing, incline to sin, then we see that in terms of the decree and its effect God's determination has ensured the result. Turretin does not specific in particular what the withholding of grace entails, but we must surley agree that while Adam was sinless, it was due to God's preserving grace, keeping Adam from a situation wherein his inclination to sin should arise.

That Adam sinned according to his strongest desire, and that the inclination to sin arose from within himself is not disputed. What is disputed, which Rev. Winzer asserted (but I don't see Turretin arguing at all) is that Adam's inclination did not need to change in order for Adam to be inclined to sin. 

Here is one of his relevant quotes:


armourbearer said:


> Again, you are failing to understand the "upright" condition of Adam. He was not confirmed upright. He was made with the possibility of sinning. Therefore no new inclination was introduced in order to "move" him to sin. Free agency chose to receive the error of the serpent and subsequently to partake of the forbidden fruit. There is nothing libertarian about this because God did not creat Adam with a "necessity" to obey.



To put his argument into an easier to see form:

1. Adam was created mutable and upright.
2. Mutability implies the possibility of sin.
3. To possess the possibility of sinning requires no new inclination to actually sin (unstated premise)
4. Therefore no new inclination was introduced in order to incline Adam to sin.

The problem is that Adam, by virtue of being created upright, *even in his mutable state*, was inclined to be upright. So then, the possibility of sinning, not being sufficient for actual sin, requires a *new inclination * to arise within Adam toward sin. Ron's point, which is the point I've been laboring to affirm as not only Reformed, but true, is that the inclination is ultimately indexed to God's determination, *without God being culpable for Adam's own inclination and willing sin*.

Inclinations do not arise in a vacuum, but require cirumstances in which they arise. God is the one who determines the situations in which inclinations arise, and therefore knows precisely what will in fact incline any man to sin. Why else do we pray in the Lord's prayer "lead us not into temptation," unless we know that God is able to keep us from situations where we would be inclined to sin rather than to obey?

For God, there are no truly contingent effects, therefore Adam could not have chosen otherwise than Adam did, for God decreed that Adam should sin. Dabney couldn't have been more right when he commented: "But in a metaphysical point of view, I cannot but think that Turretin has made unnecessary and erroneous concessions. The future acts of free agents fall under the class of contingent effects: i.e., as Turretin concedes the definition, of effects such as that the cause being in existence, the effect may, or may not follow. (For instance: the dice box being shaken and inverted, the dice may or may not fall with their first faces uppermost.)... But let me ask: Has this distinction of contingent effects any place at all, in God's mind?"


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## Philip

As a point of context, the position that JTB is defending is within the sphere of Reformed orthodoxy, being advocated in Calvin as well as by Dabney and Gordon Clark. If you consider these thinkers to be unconfessional on this point, then please just state it.

That said, I do tend to think that the authorial perspective on God's determination is helpful.

One memorable villain from literature is Uriah Heep from _David Copperfield_. We can say that Charles Dickens indeed was the ultimate cause of Uriah Heep's dishonesty and crimes in the sense that he conceived of and wrote the character of Uriah Heep--nonetheless, we do not blame Charles Dickens for the evil: we blame Uriah Heep. We don't blame Shakespeare for the murder of Duncan: we blame Macbeth. Why? Because it was Macbeth who did it. We analyze not Shakespeare's motive for wanting Duncan dead, but Macbeth's motive for murdering Duncan.


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## Semper Fidelis

JTB said:


> Semper Fidelis said:
> 
> 
> 
> Also, read some posts about the nature of the Confessions or about how to perform hermeneutics altogether. While it has become popular, in recent years, to push authorial intent from written documents in order to make a text a playground for the reader, this is destructive to not only Christian thought but to human thought.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't understand why you would even mention this at all. Do you suspect me of playing fast and loose with language? All I have done is asked for a definition of terms. That is hardly out of the question I would think.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do. When you say:


JTB said:


> The Confession uses "natural" in conjunction with moral ability in sections 9.3 and 9.4 without the assumption of their being entirely unrelated. Indeed, to make a distinction between what man has by nature and what man has morally is to set up a distinction whereby morality is either unnatural, or nonnatural--that is, having nothing to do with nature--despite the Confession (and Scripture) distinctly discussing our moral abilities in terms of our nature (pre-fall, fall, redeemed, and glorified).


You are divorcing the WCF from it's original intent (how the author's used the terms) and drawing your own conclusions about what you believe the WCF states based on how you read it.

If you truly want to understand then creating a dilemma in Matthew's presentation based on your a-historical reading of terms is not the way to go about it.

You're skating on thin ice.

I'm not asking you to interact with my warning. It is a warning. Heed it.


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## MW

This is my final response.



JTB said:


> I haven't questioned the language of the confession. I have affirmed it.



Your words were, "One is quite puzzled as to what exactly is meant by God being the "author" of sin." "To me such language seems entirely too ambiguous for clear understanding." That is not affirmation. As pointed out, the Confession makes the statement denying authorship of sin in order to set a boundary to discussions on God's sovereignty. Finding the statement puzzling merely blurs that bondary line.



JTB said:


> You have yet to prove where I have crossed any boundaries.



If you support Ron's use of "move" then you have crossed the boundary line. God moves no man to sin. God moves all things to action. "Sin" is entirely the responsibility of the sinner.



JTB said:


> I don't think you have grasped Ron's meaning expressed in the term "move."





JTB said:


> You have asserted several things, which I have pointed out above, but you have not given me the meaning of your terms, or arguments producing validity that your assertions are correct in your understanding.



Discussion presupposes shared language. I use terms as they are commonly used in reformed theology. Seeing as you have presented yourself as knowing this subject to such an extent that you can dogmatise about it, and have undertaken to criticise my explanation of the subject, one would expect you to know these words without having to have somebody define them for you.

In summary. God is not the author of sin. God moves no man to sin. To suggest otherwise is to impugn the holiness of God. It suffices to explain the first sin that Adam, although upright, was *mutable*, which means he was able to sin; that the *probation* placed him in a situation where sin could be presented to him; and that his *earthiness* made him susceptible to desire that which was forbidden him. "Sin" is a moral relation, not a natural act; therefore the determination of the will was a moral consideration, not a natural consideration. Philosophical necessity might explain why men choose to act in one way over another but it cannot account for "moral" values. The theological answer -- mutability, probation, earthiness -- suffices to explain the first sin without impugning the holiness of God or having recourse to human speculation.

The maxim of the Bible is, I believe therefore I speak, not, I speculate therefore I speak.


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