Much theological debate centers around the doctrine of election. No one debates whether election is biblical, but they do debate the meaning of election. I believe in what is called unconditional individual election (the Calvinistic understanding). Those who oppose my understanding normally believe in some sort of conditional election or corporate election (or a combination of the two; the Arminian understanding). Corporate election is the belief that God elects nations to take part in his plan, not individuals to salvation. So, when Romans 9 speaks of God’s election of Jacob over Esau, Paul is speaking of God’s choosing the nation of Israel to have a special place in salvation history. They will go on to interpret all of Romans 9-11 in light of this assumption.
However, I don’t believe that Romans 9-11 is talking about corporate election, but individual election. Here are eleven reason why:
1. The whole section (9-11) is about the security of individuals. Election of nations would not make any contextual sense. Paul has just told the Roman Christians that nothing could separate them from God’s love (Rom. 8:31-39). The objection that gives rise to chapters 9-11 is: “How do we know that these promises from God are secure considering the current (unbelieving) state of Israel. They had promises too and they don’t look too secure.” Referring to corporate election would not fit the context. But if Paul were to respond by saying that it is only the elect individuals within Israel that are secure (true Israel), then this would make sense. We are secure because all elect individuals have always been secure.
2. In the election of Jacob over Esau (Rom. 9:10-13), while having national implications, starts with individuals. We cannot miss this fact.
3. Jacob was elected and Esau rejected before the twins had done anything good or bad. There is no mention of the nations having done anything good or bad. If one were to say this is nations that Paul is talking about, it would seem that they are reading their theology into the text.
4. Rom. 9:15 emphasizes God’s sovereignty about choosing individuals. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” The pronoun hon (whom) is a masculine singular. If we were talking about nations, a plural pronoun would have been used.
5. Rom. 9:16 is dealing with individuals, not nations. “So, it does not depend on the one who desires or makes effort, but on the mercy of God” (my translation). theolontos (desire) and trechontos (effort) are both masculine singulars that is why it is translated “the one” rather than “those.” (BTW: I don’t like ESV’s translation of this (man’s) as it is misleading and, ironically(!) supporting of corporate election). It is hard to see national implications at all here. It is about individual desire and effort. The acquisition of God’s mercy transcends the ability of man.
6. Once again, Rom. 9:18, speaking in the context of the hardening of Pharaoh, Paul summaries what he is trying to say using masculine singular pronouns: “Therefore, the one God wishes to have mercy on, he has mercy on. The one he wishes to harden, he hardens” (my translation). It would seem that if Paul was merely speaking about national or corporate election, the summary statement would change from Pharaoh to nations (plural), but the summary here emphasizes the sovereignty of God’s will (theleo) over individuals (singular).
7. The objection in Rom. 9:14 makes little sense if Paul were speaking about corporate or national election. The charge of injustice (adikia), which much of the book of Romans is seeking to vindicate God of, is not only out of place, but could easily be answered if Paul was saying that the election of God is only with respect to nations and has no salvific intent.
8. The objection in Rom. 9:18 is even more out of place if Paul is not speaking about individual election. “Why does he still blame people since no one can resist his will.” The verb anthesteken, “to oppose or resist,” is third person singular. The problem the objector has is that it seems unfair to individuals, not corporations of people.
9. The rhetoric of a diatribe or apostrophe being used by Paul is very telling. An apostrophe is a literary devise that is used where an imaginary objector is brought in to challenge the thesis on behalf of an audience. It is introduced with “What shall we say…” (Rom. 9:14) and “You will say to me…” (Rom. 9:19). It is an effective teaching tool. However, if the imaginary objector is misunderstanding Paul, the apostrophe fails to accomplish its rhetorical purpose unless Paul corrects the misunderstanding. Paul does not correct the misunderstanding, only the conclusion. If corporate election were what Paul was speaking of, the rhetoric demands that Paul steer his readers in the right direction by way of the diatribe. Paul sticks to his guns even though the teaching of individual election does most certainly give rise to such objections.
10. Rom. 9:24 speaks about God calling the elect “out of” (ek) the Jews and the Gentiles. Therefore, it is hard to see national election since God calls people “out of” all nations, ek Ioudaion (from Jews) ek ethnon (from Gentiles).
11. In Paul’s specific return the the election theme in the first part of Romans 11, he illustrates those who were called (elect) out of the Jewish nation by referencing Elijah who believed he was the only one still following the Lord. The response from God to Elijah’s lament is referenced by Paul in Rom. 11:4 where God says, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” This tells us two things: 1) these are seven thousand individuals that God has kept, not a new nation. 2) These individuals are kept by God in belief as the characteristic of their “keeping” is their not bowing to Baal (i.e. they remained loyal to God).
12. Using the Elijah illustration in Rom. 11:5, Paul argues that “in the same way,” God has preserved a remnant of believing Israel of which he (as an individual) is a part (Rom. 11:1). This “keeping” in belief of individuals is according to “God’s gracious choice” (11:5).
438 replies to "Twelve Reasons Why Romans 9 is About Individual Election, Not Corporate Election"
Daniel,
The argument primarily made by Arminians about this passage is that it is about God electing nations, i.e., groups; and hence, they apply that to mean that God elects the church as a faceless group. So your claim that Michael is not presenting the position correctly is inaccurate.
Hodge,
I simply fail to see how God giving man a particular nature that will cause him to choose a sinful act is not God being the cause of that act. Well, to one degree I understand what you are saying. But there is certainly a fine line here. If his nature is so “programmed” that he will only make the one choice, is that choice still not being orchestrated by God who gave that nature?
If parents could choose to give their children a certain nature before they were conceived, wouldn’t this be rather like a parent saying, “I am going to make this child love cookies so much that they simply will not be able to resist taking and eating a cookie if it is put before them.” And then saying that the child could of chosen to leave the cookies alone and walk away when a plate of them was set before him?
Cheryl,
By “nature” I’m talking about what gives man the ability to do X or Y. What man is inclined to choose given a particular situation is based upon his nature. For instance, if man is not given omniscience, he will be susceptible to fall for misinformation, i.e., so the man and woman fall for the serpent’s misinformation. We all believe that if the woman was given omniscience enough to know that the serpent was telling lies, then she wouldn’t have fallen for it. So her decision is a result of her nature to some degree. If God is to be blamed for what we do because He gives us a particular nature rather than another one, then one would have to blame Him for the Fall, but we don’t do that because He is not directly responsible for it. That’s overly simplistic, of course, but I’m just bringing that up for an example.
If God knows man has a fallen nature, and is inclined to do evil, then can He not choose to orchestrate things so that man chooses X instead of Y without forcing the man choose X instead of Y? How is He responsible for directly doing the action? And how is any system free from this?
BTW, I just wanted to point out that we’ve strayed from the text yet again, and this is a common occurrence in discussing this issue. This is why Arminians were often accused of being sophists. Instead of discussing the passage, the main objections are that this interpretation could not be true because it smacks against the Arminian’s philosophical objections. We need to discuss what the passage says and submit to it, rather than be thinking how it could not be true, so it must mean something completely different. Our finite philosophy will not bring us to the truth. Otherwise, we are not fallen, there is nothing wrong with our minds and finite experience, and we should have no need of revelation for the purpose of contradicting experience.
But Hodge, if you don’t consider the text within the whole Biblical context of it and the implications of understanding it in any particular way within the context of the whole, some pretty strange conclusions can be reached, correct?
To those of us that question the Calvinist understanding of these chapters and other verses in the Bible, it is because they raise some serious issues with our understanding of the rest of the Biblical context.
Now I know that it is not true for the Calvinist because he understands much of the Bible, (such as the issue of God’s love, for instance), in a different way.
But that doesn’t make his understanding of the whole context automatically correct any more then it makes any other understanding of it automatically correct.
I found Dr. Dan Wallace’s brief article on the subject helpful too.
Hodge,
I disagree that the text is all we should look at. If one’s interpretation of the text creates a logical contradiction or requires one to hold to a metaphysical position that is a logical contradiction then that interpretation of the text is wrong. Basically the argument is that compatibilism is really just hard determinism given another name.
On what you said earlier. I think we are fundamentally robots.
1. God controls all the variables (i.e. the past events) which shape our desires and nature and therefore our behavior.
2. We have absolutely no control over those past events or how those events shape us.
3. Given a set of circumstances we will inevidibly and uncontrollably act in a manner consistent with our desires and nature which have been shaped by past events over which we had no control.
Compare to my robot.
1. I control all the variables (i.e. the programming) which shapes my robots behavior
2. The robot has absolutely no control over these variable or how it shapes it’s behavior.
3. Given a set of circumstances the robot will inevidibly and uncontrollably act in a manner consistent with it’s programming which has been shaped by me over which the robot has no control.
Michael,
I’m sorry, but where did you present that there is a logical contradiction? You’re presenting a contradiction with your philosophy, not a logical contradiction.
Your number 2 is false. The person has control because he chooses, using his own will, X instead of Y. He can choose something else, but he won’t given a certain set of circumstances. He will choose according to what he loves, what he wants to do. How is your system different? I don’t get it. Do you believe man is infinite and exists beyond space and time when he makes a decision? If not, man cannot have the freedom you want him to have, and you end up with him being determined in some way but his environment, nature, etc.
“To those of us that question the Calvinist understanding of these chapters and other verses in the Bible, it is because they raise some serious issues with our understanding of the rest of the Biblical context.”
Then why not bring up other texts to discuss, rather than philosophical objections that “I think God is like A. Therefore, God cannot be like B”? I have no problem with the desire to see Rom 9 in its canonical context, but its immediate context should not be ignored. I believe the immediate context of a Scripture is in harmony with the rest of Scripture, so if one has to ignore or distort it in order to harmonize with one’s view gained from other texts, then the view supposedly gained from the larger canon is false.
Michael,
BTW, I reject number 1 as well. Past events and current events are not the only thing that shape our desires.
And while we’re at it, number 3 is also false. Man does not uncontrollably do anything.
All the ones I found fell to the same basic problems I listed above (excluding the Beta problem, which many didn’t mention). The fundamental error is that they _all_ begin by assuming that free will must be libertarian free will in the sense that it operates independently of causation (i.e. that it’s possible to act independently of one’s history). The next problem is that they all assume that it’s possible to select a rule-based subset from an infinite set, which requires assuming the axiom of choice, which (again) is problematic in a proof (although it’s possibly true, it leads to seemingly absurd conclusions).
Compatibilism does not assume that it’s possible to act independently of one’s history. On the contrary, one’s acts are based on one’s history.
-Wm
Hodge,
1. The argument I made earlier to be clear is that compatibilism is a logical contradiction. One must either admit LFW or Hard Determinism. Here I am attempting to show that your understanding is really a form of Hard Determinism. Now if you admit Hard Determinism then fine.
2. “The person has control because he chooses, using his own will, X instead of Y”
This statement wants to take any given decision in a vacuum ignoring what lead to that decision. The persons desires and will which determine the choice were all pre-programmed in the first place. If one wants to separate these they can – but the separation is artificial. The desires were determined by programming and the “will” will “will” one to do whatever the individual desires. There still is no intervenor here to get God off the hook. The individual only has a independent “will” from that individuals perspective, just like from the perspective of the individual we appear to have LFW. From the outside perspective though the will and thus the decision were simply programmed. My robot could, in the sense that there is a range of possibilities, choose to not plant the bomb, but it won’t because I have ensured that it lacks the programming (the “will” if you will) to ever make that decision.
3. Without going through an entire textbook on the philsophy of quantum mechanics quantum indeterminency appears to allow for free will. Simply put at the quantum level cause and effect completely break down such that only probability exists.
Here’s what it should look like:
1. God controls all the variables (i.e. the past and current circumstances) which work on our desires that are produced from our nature and therefore indirectly can control the outcome of our behavior.
2. We have absolutely no control over those circumstances, but we do over how those events shape us.
3. Given a set of circumstances we will inevidibly and act in a manner consistent with our desires and nature which have been shaped by both internal and external factors over which we have control in our response to them; but what we will always choose is in accordance with what God has chosen to occur (cf. 1 Sam 26:12).
My question to you is how your system explains John 12:39-40? Why could they not exercise their LFW and believe?
Hodge,
Over the past years when this very issue has been raised repeatedly here on this blog covering slightly different aspects of Calvinism, I and others have gone into great detail about other Scriptures we think Calvinism to be in conflict with. Think back just a bit–is this not so??
Every time we bring one up, you and other Calvinists simply offer your understanding of the verses which in your minds utterly refutes our understanding. Sometimes the disucssions on one simple point of Scriputure have gone on for days–like issues regarding God’s love for instance. I simply do not have the time or energy to go there again.
I believe the immediate context of a Scripture is in harmony with the rest of Scripture, so if one has to ignore or distort it in order to harmonize with one’s view gained from other texts, then the view supposedly gained from the larger canon is false.
Or perhaps one’s view of the immdediate context is incorrect if one has to distort their view of the whole rest of the Bible to make it fit???
When it comes to a person having free will, it seems to me that your understanding is kind of like reacting by instinct only arrording to nature, circumstances, etc. If that is correct, it sounds a whole lot like the way we expect animals to deal with situations.
On the other hand, are human beings not creatures that are capable of rational thought and making rational decisions and choices of how to act in any situation? Certainly they may make wrong choices due to misunderstandings etc, but do they not have intellectual powers at all that enable them to truly make choices based on known facts, and not simply doing what they do because of their nature and circumstances? (Like the little girl with the cookie illustration I used earlier). Or do you simply think that their nature and circumstances, etc will make them only choose one way no matter how they think things through?
“The persons desires and will which determine the choice were all pre-programmed in the first place.”
What? This is your problem, Michael. You don’t understand the position. The desires and will of a person are not pre-programmed. The events are determined and God knowing what a person will choose brings about those events by orchestrating circumstances and thoughts that work on a person’s will to choose X instead of Y.
I second Wm’s response. The only thing you’ve proven is that the adoption of LFW within a compatiblist system would be contradictory. Surprise, surprise. That has nothing to do with man making a non-forced willful decision. You seem to be arguing that either man lives in a vacuum and is not influenced to make decisions one way or the other or he must be programmed like a robot to do what he does. That’s simply a false dichotomy.
WM,
I think you are missing the point of the argument perhaps. What the Argument from Consequence is attempting to show is that Compatibilism is impossible because it is in fact Hard Determinism. If Determinism is true, determinism is true and no form of free will can be true.
As to free will do me a favor and define it how you would define free will. You might have done this earlier, but I couldn’t find it.
Cheryl,
“Or perhaps one’s view of the immdediate context is incorrect if one has to distort their view of the whole rest of the Bible to make it fit???”
The problem is that most Arminians bring up texts that are notoriously taken out of context and ignore the grammar, etc. So the Calvinist giving his “take” on the text is usually just correcting its misuse. That’s a big difference than simply interpreting something one way that could go either way. And I said that if one “has to distort or ignore” the current passage in order to harmonize it, then his or her view of the current passage is false. I don’t see any serious interactions with the text at hand by the Arminians here. I just see philosophical objections based on a vague understanding of other texts in Scripture, and for Michael, quantum mechanics! LOL. 🙂
I have a question for Michael or Cheryl. Do you guys believe that man is determined by his sin nature? Does he have free will now, where he can choose and is not a slave to sin who must obey it and cannot choose otherwise because of his love for it?
2. We have absolutely no control over those circumstances, but we do over how those events shape us.
Ha, that is the first admission I have seen from you Hodge that anything that happens to us any way under our control!
For anyone interested, Tur8infan has a nice chart I thought on the order of decrees.
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=4216
Cheryl,
We’re under the control of ourselves in regard to sin. That’s why we’re responsible for it. We choose to do it. God simply directs that choice to His purposes. But what of my question to you? Is man a slave to sin because he loves it or can he obey another in his fallen state?
Hodge,
re comment # 68:
Of course man has a sin nature and of course it controls him. BUT and that is a big BUT, if he can not make any decisions at all except according to his sin nature and to sin because he loves it, it would follow that every time a temptation is put in front of someone, he would completely follow it. Men would never restrain their anger and hatred for someone and would kill them if they desired. Unless of course, their fear of the courts was just too great. If a man lusted after another man’s wife he would always follow through on it and have an affair with her because there would be nothing at all to stop him because he was totally controlled by his sin nature and love for sin. If he wanted something in the store and didn’t have the money for it, he would steal it because there would be nothing to stop him.
He CAN and DOES make decisions contrary to his sin nature every day.
So your view of the sin nature is in terms of individual sins rather than the one big sin of ruling himself instead of letting God rule him? Is a man who refrains from being really, really angry no longer a slave to sin in that moment? So what has freed him is his free will, not the cross? I’m trying to understand this in terms of the theology of Romans that discusses this. Do you believe Paul is simply saying that man is more like an employee who can quit and rejoin his employment at any time? Isn’t a slave someone who is under the control of a master? Wouldn’t he only have freedom if his master let him go? Does sin let people go or must it be conquered by Christ in one’s life?
Hodge,
If you want people talking to you about the Greek you are probalby on the wrong forum – maybe Sue will show up here, but outside of that it is unlikely. If you want to debate the Greek go over to Olson’s blog or Geisler or Witherington. We all have different areas of expertise. No one here doubts that you are well educated in the original languages etc. etc. (also we are all aware that there are many individuals equally well educated who disagree with you vehemently on the meaning of the text). I’m speaking to you from a place where I have at least some level of understanding and which raise questions about you’re system. On LFW for instance you asked how it could be that any system would exist where things aren’t simply a matter of cause and effect and I answered that at the quantum level cause and effect break down and thus the world isn’t simply cause and effect as it is traditionally understood – seems a reasonable answer. In fact unlike the Arminian-Calvinism debate in Christian Theology you will find exceptionally few individuals in the field of Christian Philosophy who think that compatibilism is a logically valid belief (I’m actually not aware of any that do presently – if you know any I’d love to read their work because I’ve actually been looking for a good defense of why compatibilism isn’t a logically incoherent doctrine). The vast majority now accept LFW of some sort (William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, Alvin Plantinga, etc.), even if a very conservative form of it (WLC’s Molinism).
Now going back to your syllogism in 63 you said “We have absolutely no control over those circumstances, but we do over how those events shape us.” In what sense do we have control over how events shape us? I don’t see how it is possible in a cause and effect universe for us to have any control over this. Our past experiences going back to our very genetic makeup will deterministically interpret these events and thus shape our desires.
“We need to discuss what the passage says and submit to it, rather than be thinking how it could not be true, so it must mean something completely different.”
Yes, like how Calvinists deal with passages that clearly contradict limited atonement. 🙂
Re: 68
Without going into too terribly much detail (since you’ll know what I’m talking about) I’m convinced more and more all the time that the EO got original sin right and Augustine messed up.
It seems to me that Romans 9 is saying that God will have mercy on whomever he chooses. It also seems clear from other passages of the Bible that He chooses to have mercy on those have humbled themselves before him in faith – Psalm 32:10. MCP’s quote from Dueteronomy seems to inidcate that God is angry at a nation because he has not given them the ability to obey Him. Does that make sense from a holy and intelligent God’s perspective? Maybe Moses is acknowledging that God could make them understand, but he would rather they obey from the heart. It seems this could be against election. Yes, men will not seek God, but God seeks men and will hold them accountable for responding or not responding. Christ wept over Israel because she did not recognize the time of his coming. Why would he weep if they could not recognize the time of his coming? He knew they would reject him but he seems to assume that it is by their choice, not Gods. It also seems to me men will be judged by what they did with God/Jesus. Is it fair to judge a man for something he could not do? Is that true justice? Also, it seems that love has to involve some degree of choice.
Relevant comments by William Lane Craig can be found here
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8111
That article by Craig certainly did a good job of putting my problems and objections to Calvinism into words. The whole determinism issue he talks about is the one that I think flys in the face of the rest of Scripture and for the same reasons that he lists in that article.
Hodge,
What is your take on that ariticle?
By the way Hodge, you asked us above why we aren’t bringing up other Scriptures that bear upon this discussion. And then later you tell us that usually when other texts are brought up they are taken out of context or grammar is ignored! Great dismissal of all our efforts and hurray for your side!
So what is the use? According to you, we can’t win anyway ’cause we just can’t get anything right, so why even try? 🙂 Seems we are wrong no matter what we do.
Cherylu,
Couldn’t agree with you more. “You are taking Scripture or our position out of context” is the universal trump card it seems. Just saying it makes it so. The odd thing is that individuals who are every bit the equal of Hodge and his ilk seem to not think it is taking things out of context at all (i.e. Dr. Craig who has a M.A in Church History from Trinity, and M.A. in the philsophy of religion from Trinity, a Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham (England), and a D.Theol. from the University of Munich has stated more then once in a debate the Arminian understanding of 2 Peter 3:9 among other verses as well as the collective understanding of predestination which this post addreses). So one is left deciding who to believe. One position seems to fit nicely with both Scripture (at least the Arminian understanding of it), philosophy and the general human experience of reality while the other introduces all sorts of logical absurdities.
The debate to which I refer can be found here btw. The topic of the debate is whether or not the Christian God exists and Craig’s atheist opponent basically spends his entire first talk railing against the Calvinist God. Rather then disagreeing with his objections Craig agrees to an extent but then goes on to point out that neither he, nor the majority of Christians hold to Calvinism.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5283
Hodge,
Going back up the thread here a bit. Of course I don’t believe that the sin nature is conquered by any one’s free will. It is conquered only in Jesus. I was speaking of specific acts of sin which I said people choose to do or not choose to do even if they have a sin nature.
But back to people being “robots” or not, to use Michael T’s analogy.
It seems we have heard over and over from Calvinist’s in the past that God is sovereign over every detail that happens in this world. There is not one minute thing that happens in this universe that He has not ordained will happen in exactly that way at that time in that place with that person. Am I remembering correctly? Is that or is that not your understanding of things?
If it is your understanding, how can you get away from the fact that God is ultimately the cause of every evil thing that happens too and every sin that every person commits? If he has determined that it will happen just the way it does, how can anyone make a decision or act to the contrary?
Under that understanding, you can say all you want to that George made the decision himself to get mad at his wife today or whatever sin you want to put in that place, but how was it really George’s decision any way if God determined that it was going to take place and set in motion everything from the beginning of time to see that it would take place? Can he really resist the edict of God from before time began and make another choice?
Michael T,
Just a note of clarification here. While I agreed with the reason’s Craig gave for having problems with Calvinism, I am not at all sure that I really agree with or even understand the whole concept of Molinism.
Cherylu,
Most don’t understand Molinism and I’m not sure I agree with it either (though I certainly find it an attractive middle ground – just not sure it answers the questions). I would suggest the book Craig mentions on Divine Foreknowledge as this is probably the best non-scholarly exposition of the position.
http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Foreknowledge-James-K-Beilby/dp/0830826521
Otherwise some articles on his site can be found here
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5220
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5222
Yikes, we’ve all been very busy today, haven’t we? 🙂 Michael, please explain how what I have explained here is different in a Molinistic system where God orchestrates the universe so that men respond the way they would with their LFW so as to have His desired outcome. If God creates the best possible universe where men will make the decisions that bring events to turn in the way He wants them, I fail to see any difference whatsoever in terms of what you are saying.
Second to this, I don’t really care if I can find a philosopher that holds to compatiblism, since most Christian philosophers I know are Arminian/believe in LFW, not because they are philosophers, but because that is their preset tradition. It’s frankly irrelevant to allude to special authority, which is a logical fallacy, as most philosophers will point out to you. You might as well ask Elijah if he knows any prophets of Baal who believe in YHWH. His answer might be the same as mine, “Who cares?” Philosophers aren’t my authority. You have proven no logical contradiction except for you FEEL like what we are saying is the same as hard determinism. There is no reason for me to doubt the Scriptures which clearly indicate otherwise.
Third, I wasn’t asking you a question about Augustinian or Pelagian views of man. I was asking you about Paul. Paul says we are slaves to sin and that we are only freed by Christ. How can an unregenerate man be free from sin and choose to do otherwise if he must obey sin? So has Paul got it all wrong too because he doesn’t accord with William Lane Craig?
CMP,
Thanks for laying out your case in an orderly fashion. Unless I missed it, you failed to address the fact that most of Romans 11 does speak in plural nouns. For example, how do you read Romans 11:29?
Best,
YL
Cheryl,
“If it is your understanding, how can you get away from the fact that God is ultimately the cause of every evil thing that happens too and every sin that every person commits?”
God is not the primary cause of a human sinning. The human is. The human is going to sin. He always sins. God simply directs it to specific acts and purposes because He is Lord of all things, not just some things.
” If he has determined that it will happen just the way it does, how can anyone make a decision or act to the contrary?”
Or we can say it this way, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”
To which we should all reply, “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?”
BTW, did we miss this?
“God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and UNCHANGABLY ORDAINED WHATEVER COMES TO PASS; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Now this is precisely what the Molinist believes!” (WLC)
BTW, is the Craig article meant to be a serious offering of refutation? I found it to be a bit of a joke. Apart from the fact that a determinist has to be determined, which of course isn’t an argument against anything, and most of his arguments have no weight. This, for example, does not understand the position:
“In contrast to the Molinist view, on the deterministic view even the movement of the human will is caused by God. God moves people to choose evil, and they cannot do otherwise. God determines their choices and makes them do wrong. If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but becomes evil Himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been removed. For our choices are not really up to us: God causes us to make them. We cannot be responsible for our actions, for nothing we think or do is up to us.”
No Calvinist believes God causes the movement of the human will directly to sin. Man is already sinning continually. God directs it toward a good purpose. People can physically do otherwise. They don’t because they are determined by their enslavement to sin, i.e., their love for self worship. God does not MAKE another person do wrong. They are already doing wrong. God controls the actions their wrong does in order to bring about His good purposes. That is an important point. Human responsibility for sin remains primary because he is the primary cause of his sin. This removes the individual as one of the main factors for a sin taking place. Craig presents it as though the person doesn’t exist in compatiblism and only causation from God and events exist. That is not the case.
Calling your debate opponent dishonest is an unpleasant tactic which should be reserved for strong situations.
That’s an interesting question. I’ve never seen the word ‘invent’ used in this connection before. You seem to think it’s bad for God to invent sin. Why? We already know that He creates sinners, and sustains them, and permits them to sin; those aren’t bad for Him to do. We know that it WOULD be bad for Him to force people to sin, or to authorize sin, or to commit sin; we agree that He doesn’t do that. So what does ‘invent’ mean that makes you think particular election makes God do it, and makes it wrong?
Why?
That question applies to all Christians, not just Calvinists. “Why doesn’t God just forgive, instead of having someone die and then people believe in Him? How strange!”
-Wm
Hodge,
1. I am not sure about Molinism. Though I have more knowledge of it then most who have none, I am not sure if it avoids the problems or not.
2. While you may not care about philosophy apparently philosophy cares about theology. When theology makes metaphysical claims about the nature of reality those claims are either logically plausible or not. If they are logically contradictory (not merely paradoxical) they cannot be.
3. There is a difference between what the Calvinist claims and what is logically demanded by what they claim. It’s a matter of semantics ultimately. Philosophy looks at Calvinistic beliefs and says that they logically entail hard determinism to which the Calvinist says “no they don’t” and the tail chasing begins.
4. In Calvinism what shapes the man’s will? It is ultimately cause and effect going all the way back to the fall of man. I’m sorry you don’t escape the charge of determinism simply by stating that in the present state of affairs it “appears” that man is willing to sin. That only raises the question of why that man’s will is the way it is. Eventually one gets back to causal determinism with no independent intervenor being the reason for why things are the way they are. Here let me put it this way. Could Eve have chosen (and I mean in a contrary choice manner) to not take the Apple?? I don’t mean just was it physically possible, but was it metaphysically possible for her to choose to do otherwise when presented by the Serpent with the Apple.
Furthermore if God simply present situations to man knowing how man will react and that man will respond in sin isn’t God essentially tempting man. Essentially it seems like a case of entrapment.
Hodge,
” If he has determined that it will happen just the way it does, how can anyone make a decision or act to the contrary?”
Or we can say it this way, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” (Remember, Paul never contradicts that anyone could resist His will).
If you are going to equate those two situations, it seems to me you have just conceded that God is indeed the cause of man’s sin–He determined something involving sin was going to happen just the way it did and no one can resist His will!
This is one of the very interesting things I find about talking about Calvinism with a Calvinist–you sometimes seem to talk in circles. You seem to deny something on the one hand and affirm it on the other.
Michael,
“Eventually one gets back to causal determinism with no independent intervenor being the reason for why things are the way they are.”
You do realize that Calvinists believe Adam and Eve to have had free will, right? That they were independent “intervenors”? The difference is that I don’t assume that man has transcendence in his decisions. He is determined by three things (this is a bit overly simplistic, but it will suffice): 1. his nature, 2. his environment, and 3. his decisions based upon his nature and environment. God has control over all three, but does not commandeer them like a man programming a robot. If I can offer one more analogy:
A man is starving to death. He desires to eat more than anything else. God convinces a man to place a plate of his favorite food in front of him. The hungry man eats. Is God programming him like a robot, or is the man acting according to his own free will? I say that God has determined that he will eat and thus moves to send food to the man so that he accomplishes that choice by his own free will. Now, if you wish to say he is bound by his desires. I agree. The difference is that you may see that as something you want to reject, and I see it as completely biblical and a good thing that our God is so powerful that even the willful actions of man, good or bad, are ruled by Him and brought to His own good purposes.
Molinism has always struck me as an odd thing for a believer in LFW to assert. The short reason is that Molinism requires total determinism of human will, equal only to the “meticulous decree” branch of Calvinism.
The long explanation:
Molinism says that God knows (by middle knowledge) every possible outcome of every possible world prior to creating any. But this means that all people’s actions (or at least the outcomes of all their actions) are entirely determined prior to creation, beyond the possibility of anyone, even God, of altering them. And this total determinism is true of all possible worlds.
One might imagine that this is a philosophical possibility, even though there’s no evidence for it in the Bible. But one can’t possibly imagine that it helps the argument for libertarian free will.
-Wm
Finally, I think you’re confusing philosophy and philosophers, as well as philosophy and logic. Logic is used within philosophy for the most part, but they are not identical, nor are the dictates of logic to be confused with what most philosophers believe. Compatiblism may run counter to philosophers because they have traditions they seek to uphold as well. Many philosophers are trained in either Arminian or liberal programs. Why wouldn’t they come out that way (not to mention that most believe it before they go in)? Compatiblism may run counter to their philosophies. Of course it will; but I have yet to see the logical contradiction. It has not been presented here, nor in the papers you provided. If someone can take the argument as we present it and show a logical contradiction, I’d be happy to look at it; but caricatures aren’t going to convince us.
“This is one of the very interesting things I find about talking about Calvinism with a Calvinist–you sometimes seem to talk in circles. You seem to deny something on the one hand and affirm it on the other.”
That’s because you don’t understand what we’re saying, Cheryl. It’s confusing because you have a set of definitions from which we do not work. Case in point, you think to say that God determines a person to commit a sin, e.g., Pharaoh to disobey Him, that God has MADE him sin. God is determining with knowledge of the man as a sinner already. The man is constantly in sin. I don’t think you’re getting that important point. For God to do ANYTHING with a sinner, He must use the sinner’s actions, i.e., sin in some way; but using it in a predetermined plan, and MAKING the person sin are two completely different things.
Well, it certainly sounds to me like John Calvin believed that God actually causes sin. At least I certainly don’t see how one can understand statements like this in any other way.
Whence that which I have just stated is perfectly plain: that the internal affections of men are not less ruled by the hand of God than their external actions are preceded by His eternal decree; and, moreover, that God performs not by the hands of men the things which He has decreed, without first working in their hearts the very will which precedes the acts they are to perform.
And how about this one:
“From this it is easy to conclude how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be not by [God’s] will, but merely by his permission. Of course, so far as they are evils, which men perpetrate with their evil mind, as I shall show in greater detail shortly, I admit that they are not pleasing to God. But it is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them.”(John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, 176).
And the fall of man was ordained by God too:
Meantime, I freely acknowledge my doctrine to be this: that Adam fell, not by only the permission of God, but by His very secret counsel and decree; and that Adam drew all his posterity with himself, by his Fall, into eternal destruction.”
All quotes from this site: http://www.orthodox-christianity.com/?p=340 They are found in his Institutes of Christian Religion and Defense of the Secret Providence of God
Hodge,
1. Simply assuming individuals were raised in Arminian traditions or went to Arminian institutions is absurd and amounts to an ad hominem attack. Beyond that it is just plain false. Alvin Plantinga was raised Presbyterian, attended Calvin College, and taught at Calvin Seminary for 20 years. While these institutions have certainly become more “liberal” then your strand of Presbyterianism they are still broadly Calvinistic and certainly were at the time he attended some 55-60 years ago and taught 30-50 years ago. William Lane Craig attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for both of his Masters – again hardly a bastion of Arminianism.
2. To second what Cherylu said you seem to be an a la carte Calvinist. It’s hard to debate you because you seem to freely pick and choose which portions of Calvinism you wish to affirm and deny. It’s actually a quite frustrating bait and switch routine. As Cheryl points out Calvin Calvinism clearly taught that the Fall of Man was ordained and caused by God, not that Adam and Eve were independent agents with real ability to choose otherwise.
3. According to the classical Calvinistic view God chooses whom he will with no regard whatsoever to any instrinsic quality of the chosen subject. You seem to contradict this above.
Yeah Calvin taught that the fall was ordained by God and John Piper, that very well known, highly respected, much quoted Pastor and Calvinist believes that sin and punishment had to be decreed to be for His glory to best be shown and for the joy of His elect.
Now I can see where he gets that from in Romans 9, but I think that may be taking what is said there further then intended.
However, my point again is, if God is not then the ultimate cause of sin in that understanding, who is? If He said sin had to be and so it was, who else could be said to be the ultimate cause of sin?