# Free Will



## Justified (Jan 7, 2016)

To what extent do you believe we have free will (not in regards to salvation). I know the some of your Reformed Orthodox thought we had freedom of contradiction and contrareity. Do you think this is so? What about spontaneity?


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## Philip (Jan 7, 2016)

The simplest _philosophical_ definition of freedom of will is those conditions which are necessary for meaningful moral choices. And most would agree that at some level, there must be a power of contrary choice (i.e. I cannot be held morally responsible for an inability to fly around the room, as I have no wings--I am incapable of choosing to do so even if I want to). The disagreements are over the details of this.

Most Calvinists before Edwards were not causal determinists, but Edwards changed the discussion significantly, at least in the English-speaking world.


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## Ed Walsh (Jan 7, 2016)

*Man Has no Free Will*



Justified said:


> To what extent do you believe we have free will



From: Gordon Clark in God and Evil: Problem Solved​ 
The idea that God is above law can be explained in another particular. The laws that God imposes on men do not apply to the divine nature. They are applicable only to human conditions. For example, God cannot steal, not only because whatever he does is right, but also because he owns everything: There is no one to steal from. Thus the law that defines sin envisages human conditions and has no relevance to a sovereign creator. 

As God cannot sin, so in the next place, God is not responsible for sin, even though he decrees it. Perhaps it would be well, before we conclude, to give a little more Scriptural evidence that God indeed decrees and causes sin. 2 Chronicles 18:20-22 read: “Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ The Lord said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You shall persuade him and also prevail; go out and do so.’ Now, therefore, look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.” This passage definitely says that the Lord caused the prophets to lie. Other similar passages ought easily to come to one’s remembrance. But that God is not responsible for the sin he causes is a conclusion closely connected with the preceding argument.

Another aspect of the human conditions presupposed by the laws God imposes on man is that they carry with them a penalty that cannot be inflicted on God. Man is responsible because God calls him to account; man is responsible because the supreme power can punish him for disobedience. God, on the contrary, cannot be responsible for the plain reason that there is no power superior to him; no grater being can hold him accountable; no one can punish him; there is no one to whom God is responsible; there are no laws which he could disobey. The sinner, therefore, and not God, is responsible; the sinner alone is the author of sin. _*Man*__* has no free will*_, for salvation is purely of grace; and God is sovereign.

Excerpt from: God and Evilroblem Solved by Gordon Clark
============= 

A few more excerpts from an Amazon review:

Gordon Haddon Clark (1902-1985) was an American philosopher and Calvinist theologian, who was chairman of the Philosophy Department at Butler University for 28 years. He wrote many books, such as A Christian View of men and Things (A Treatise Showing that Social Stability Demands a Christian Society), Thales to Dewey, An Introduction to Christian Philosophy, Religion, Reason and Revelation (Trinity Papers), God's Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics, etc. This booklet is actually chapter 5 of Clark's 'Religion, Reason and Revelation' book.

Clark argues that "Free will was put forward to relieve God of responsibility for sin. But this it does not do... if God merely permits men to be engulfed in sin of their own free wills, the original objections ... are not thereby met. This is what the Arminian fails to notice." (Pg. 17-18) He adds, "free will is not only futile but false. Certainly, if the Bible is the Word of God, free will is false; for the Bible consistently denies free will." (Pg. 19)

He quotes Georgia Harkness's Conflict in religious thought, "But not many, even of the most rigorous of Calvinists, would now say that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it is the will of God that he should do so." But Clark then clearly states, "I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so. The Scriptures leave no room for doubt... that it was God's will for Herod, Pilate, and the Jews to crucify Christ." (Pg. 34-35) He asserts that "Choice and necessity are therefore not incompatible... Choice then may be defined ... as a mental act that consciously initiates and determines a further action... A choice is still a deliberate volition even if it could not have been different." (Pg. 41)

He adds, "God is sovereign. Whatever he does is just, for this very reason: Because he does it. If he punishes a man, the man is justly punished; and hence the man is responsible." (Pg. 46) He states that God "cannot be responsible for the plain reason that there is no power superior to him; no greater being can hold him accountable... The sinner, therefore, and not God, is responsible; the sinner alone is the author of sin." (Pg. 54-55)
=============

While many Christians will disagree with Clark's opinions and reasoning, this book is a very clear statement of his views.


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## Toasty (Jan 7, 2016)

Philip said:


> The simplest _philosophical_ definition of freedom of will is those conditions which are necessary for meaningful moral choices. And most would agree that at some level, there must be a power of contrary choice (i.e. I cannot be held morally responsible for an inability to fly around the room, as I have no wings--I am incapable of choosing to do so even if I want to). The disagreements are over the details of this.
> 
> Most Calvinists before Edwards were not causal determinists, but Edwards changed the discussion significantly, at least in the English-speaking world.



Suppose someone has the ability to do A or B. However, he has the desire to do A, but no desire to do B. He cannot conceive of having any desire to do B. Does this mean he lacks the power of contrary choice?


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## Justified (Jan 7, 2016)

Toasty said:


> Philip said:
> 
> 
> > The simplest _philosophical_ definition of freedom of will is those conditions which are necessary for meaningful moral choices. And most would agree that at some level, there must be a power of contrary choice (i.e. I cannot be held morally responsible for an inability to fly around the room, as I have no wings--I am incapable of choosing to do so even if I want to). The disagreements are over the details of this.
> ...


This assumes we have no ability to do something that we do not desire, an opinion that many people hold, but not all.


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## KMK (Jan 7, 2016)

Justified said:


> To what extent do you believe we have free will (not in regards to salvation).



It seems to me, the only important question is whether mankind has the free will to do good. It is self-evident that mankind has the freedom to will evil. As for the free will to do good, it depends upon whether we are talking about mankind in the Garden, In Sin, In Regeneration, or in Glory. I assume you aren't talking about mankind in the Garden or in Glory. As to mankind in Sin or in Regeneration, there is a big difference.



> LBC Chapter 9: Paragraph 3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, *has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good*...
> 
> LBC Chapter 9: Paragraph 4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin,7 and by His grace alone *enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;8 yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he does not perfectly, nor only will, that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.*


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## Paul1976 (Jan 7, 2016)

I hesitate to jump in as I am not NEARLY as well-read as many on here on this subject. But hopefully I can put my thoughts out there and at least learn something.

I do believe a key question is whether a person has the ability to do what they do not desire. As I understand Edwards, one does not. Every decision is a process of our minds weighting a host of factors and reaching a decision on which choice has the most going for it. We don't necessarily weight factors correctly, of course!

Choosing to order (say) vanilla ice cream when I prefer chocolate ice cream wouldn't prove I have the free will to choose what I desire less. It would only prove that I desire to prove my free will more than I prefer chocolate to vanilla. And so, I'd have to suffer through a serving of vanilla ice cream without the satisfaction of proving my will could chose what it desired less. I'll stick to chocolate.

A big part of our depravity may well be simply having messed up desires because we are blind to the supreme majesty, goodness, and desirability of God over any created thing, especially ourselves. Someone blind to the reality of God will never choose rightly because they will always incorrectly weight other things as more important in a decision. In reality, God is so infinitely important He should be the only consideration in any rational decision.


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## Philip (Jan 7, 2016)

Toasty said:


> Suppose someone has the ability to do A or B. However, he has the desire to do A, but no desire to do B. He cannot conceive of having any desire to do B. Does this mean he lacks the power of contrary choice?



No. He is free to do so. Nothing prevents him except himself.



KMK said:


> It seems to me, the only important question is whether mankind has the free will to do good.



And that brings up Anselm's definition of freedom of will, which Luther and Erasmus both assumed, which is that freedom is only freedom to do the Good. For Anselm, the ability to sin was not included in the definition of freedom, otherwise God would not be free.



Paul1976 said:


> I do believe a key question is whether a person has the ability to do what they do not desire. As I understand Edwards, one does not. Every decision is a process of our minds weighting a host of factors and reaching a decision on which choice has the most going for it.



Certainly Edwards is a psychological determinist. However, the confessions don't speak to that particular issue, and a number of reformed theologians have disagreed on that point. In our own time I would tend to think it unwise to espouse psychological determinism as a solution because of the way it has been used by behaviorists and other physicalist psychologists.



Paul1976 said:


> A big part of our depravity may well be simply having messed up desires because we are blind to the supreme majesty, goodness, and desirability of God over any created thing, especially ourselves.



Sure, but unless it is we ourselves who have gotten ourselves into this mess, how are we culpable?


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 8, 2016)

Toasty said:


> Philip said:
> 
> 
> > The simplest _philosophical_ definition of freedom of will is those conditions which are necessary for meaningful moral choices. And most would agree that at some level, there must be a power of contrary choice (i.e. I cannot be held morally responsible for an inability to fly around the room, as I have no wings--I am incapable of choosing to do so even if I want to). The disagreements are over the details of this.
> ...



Isn't this the premise behind Dostoyevsky's _Crime and Punishment?_ I have that in possession now but haven't organized myself to read it. It's a thick little book.


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## MW (Jan 8, 2016)

Justified said:


> I know the some of your Reformed Orthodox thought we had freedom of contradiction and contrareity.



This is difficult to answer because terms are used which mean different things to different people. The Reformed Orthodox were careful to guard against the idea that the will had some kind of freedom to contradict the person exercising the will. The will, afterall, is the person willing. At the same time they maintained the will was free from internal constraint, and that the divine predetermination of specific events did not create an internal necessity or act as a mechanical precondition for human willing. This has recently been labelled "synchronic contingency."

"Synchronicity" requires some specification because the scholastics defined "will" as something more than the power of choice. The will is the power to choose "the good," not simply to choose; just as the intellect is the power to know "the true," not simply to know. There is no moral indifference or neutrality. This means that the will is limited by its constitution to incline towards the thing that is regarded as "good" by the person willing. In a fallen condition it does not cease to incline towards the good from the subjective point of view; it rather has a different belief of the good than what is really good; and this is a "wilful" and "determined" exchange of beliefs, as Scripture teaches.


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## Vox Oculi (Jan 8, 2016)

I can infer what these words mean, but I'm aware they might have a more meaningful technical definition, so could anyone define the terms contradiction, contrareity and spontaneity with respect to freedom?


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