It is no secret to most that I hold strongly to the Reformed doctrines of grace. But it is equally no secret that I have deep respect for the godly character and scholarship of many of the Arminian persuasion that believe differently than I. The issues that unite us a greater and more substantial than those that divide us. In other words, the Calvinism/Arminianism divide is over non-essential issues in my opinion. What I am saying is that this article is in no way meant for to put an essential line of demarcation concerning the issues of Calvinism and Arminianism. However, just because something is not essential does not mean it is not important. Therefore, I continue to write on these about such.
Yesterday, I wrote that I believe that the doctrine of Prevenient grace is the Achilles heel of Arminianism, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy (although, less so with Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism since they don’t have such a strong stance on depravity). Prevenient grace literally means “grace that comes before.” Prevenient grace is the Arminian counter to the Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible grace.
It is important to note at the outset that both Calvinists and Arminians believe that people are born sinful. To make this a little more clear, both sides agree that all people are born with an inherent disposition of antagonism toward God. Both Calvinists and Arminians reject what is know as Pelagianism. Pelagius, a fifth-century British monk, taught that people are born neutral, neither good nor bad. Pelagius believed that people sin as a result of example, not nature. Augustine, the primary opponent of Pelagius, responded by teaching that people are not born neutral, but with a corrupted nature. People sin because it is in their nature to sin; they are predisposed to sin. Both Calvinists and Arminians agree with Augustine believing the Scriptures to teach that people are born with a totally (radically) corrupt spiritual nature, making their disposition toward God perpetually antagonistic. Therefore, according to both sides, people are absolutely helpless without God’s gracious, undeserved intervention. This is an important mischaracterization of Arminian theology that adherents to my position often fail to realize. Arminians believe in the doctrine of total depravity just as strongly as Calvinists. In contrast, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics both hold out some sense of natural ability. Therefore, they don’t believe that the will is as depraved as traditional Protestants.
This adherence to total depravity makes the Arminian doctrine of Prevenient grace necessary. A former Wesleyan theology professor of mine who believed in Prevenient grace once called it the “ingenious doctrine.” Why? Because according to Arminians it allows them to hold to the biblical position of total depravity, yet also allow true free will. You see, according to Calvinists such as myself, if people are in such desperate condition, being inclined toward enmity with God from birth, and unable to change their condition on their own (as a leopard cannot change its spots – Jer. 13:23), having no “free will” to choose against this depraved nature, then the only way to answer the question, How is anyone saved? is to answer that the will of God saves them. In other words, if our will could not change our disposition, then God must have changed our will. Up to this point, both Calvinists and Arminians agree. But the Calvinist will say that God’s intervention is radical. In our depraved state, God comes into our lives and opens our eyes to His beauty. This intervention happens by means of saving or “irresistible” grace. In our helpless and antagonistic position, while shaking our fists at God, God sovereignly and autonomously regenerates us. Once regenerated, we trust and love the Lord because our nature has been transformed by Him. Therefore, God is the only one to credit for our salvation seeing as how we did not play any part in its genesis (this is sometimes referred to as monergism). But, according to Calvinists, God does not give this gift of saving grace to all people, only the elect. Otherwise, all would be saved.
How do Arminians deal with our depraved condition? Well, they reject the Calvinistic doctrine of “irresistible” grace believing that it does violence to the necessary freedom that must exist for God to have a true loving relationship with man. But something, nevertheless, must make belief possible. In comes Prevenient grace. This is an enabling grace that comes to the aid of all people so that their disposition can be made capable of receiving the Gospel. It does not save them as the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace, but it makes the savable. In essence, Prevenient grace restores people to a state of ability. As Adam before the fall was not predisposed toward a willful rejection of God, being able to make a true free will decision, so people, once affected by Prevenient grace are brought dispositionally to Garden of Eden type conditions. God’s grace comes to the aid of all fallen sinners restoring freedom of the will. Now, it is up to the individual to make an unbiased untainted choice for or against God. Voila! With the doctrine of Prevenient grace, total depravity and true freedom can be harmonized. Ingenious, right?
I agree with Calvinist commentator and theologian Tom Schreiner that “Prevenient grace is attractive because it solves so many problems [for the Arminian] . . .” but I also believe that it creates more problems than it solves. I am going to briefly list the two major problems that I see with the doctrine of Prevenient grace, but I, as always, want to remind you that there are many great men in the history of the church and in contemporary Evangelical philosophy and theology that do not see things the way I do. I encourage you to seek out their position from them in addition to reading my analysis.
1. Lack of Scripture: The biggest issue that Calvinists have traditionally had with the doctrine of Prevenient grace is its lack of biblical support. Tom Schreiner’s quote above is incomplete; it concludes with this, “. . . but it should be rejected because it cannot be exegetically vindicated.” While Prevenient grace may solve problems and allow Arminians to hold to a biblical understanding of depravity, the biblical support for the doctrine is very difficult to find. Most Arminians would agree that direct and explicit support from Scripture is not there, but they would say that the concept is necessitated from other explicit teachings. Most importantly, God commands and desires that all people are to repent of their sin (Acts 17:30, 2 Pet. 3:9, et al) and holds them responsible if they do not. This assumes that “all people” have this ability, otherwise God’s desire is hopeless and His command is useless. While there may be some mystery in the fact that God desires the salvation of all and commands all to repent, this does not necessitate nor justify, in my opinion, the insertion of a fairy complected and even more mysterious doctrine of Prevenient grace. In other words, it could be conceded that God commands all people to repent because sin is at issue. People have violated God’s law. This necessitates God to act as God in accordance with His righteous character and reveal the violation of sin, even to those who have no ability to change on their own. In this case, God’s command is true and genuine. Even if no one were to respond, their sin is made manifest and God’s righteousness is exposed through God’s command. It can also be conceded that God does truly desire the repentance of all people, even if people do not have the ability to repent. God’s desire in this case is mysteriously not going to be an active agent in bringing about the salvation of some. Why? I don’t know. But my ignorance in this matter does not justify the implication of Prevenient grace. God can passively desire things that He does not actively will to come about.
2. It does not really solve any problems: Lets assume that we could overcome the difficulties of the lack of Scriptural support of Prevenient grace. Let’s say that I give the Arminians the benefit of the doubt and say that it is possible to interpret the biblical data in such a way that all people receive an enablement that neutralizes their antagonistic disposition toward God. God then would come to each person sometime in their lives and graciously restore their will to the point that they don’t have any predisposed inclination toward rejection or acceptance of the Gospel. What would this look like?
First, this “balancing the scales” of the will makes any choice, good or bad, for God or against, impossible. Why? Because each person would be suspended in a state of perpetual indecisiveness. They would have no reason for choosing A rather than B. Even Arminian theologian Roger Olson admitted to this in a recent post: “One thing I wrestle with about Arminianism is the mystery of free will. I don’t know how it works. There does seem to be an element of uncaused effect in it” (source). If there is no reason to choose one over the other, then all choices, if they were made, would be completely arbitrary (“uncaused effect”).
You see, we make choices according to who we are. If “free will” of the Arminian variety is going to be responsible for making the choice, and this will is neutralized by Prevenient grace, then there is nothing compelling you (character, upbringing, disposition, the Holy Spirit, genetics, etc.) to make any decision whatsoever. Who you are, the primary factor behind every choice, is taken away. There is no “you” to make the choice. It is arbitrary. It does not solve the “loving relationship”problem to say that God is pleased to have a relationship based upon the arbitrary decisions of people. Therefore, in order to hold to the doctrine of Prevenient grace, one is left with either perpetual indecisiveness or an arbitrary choice. Neither of which solves any problems.
Not only this, but lets do the math. Prevenient grace neutralizes the will, making the will completely unbiased toward good or evil. Therefore, this restored “free will” has a fifty-fifty shot of making the right choice. Right? This must be. The scales are completely balanced once God’s Prevenient grace has come upon a person. What would you expect to see if this were the case? Well, I can flip a coin and pretty much expect that the coin would land on heads just as many times as tails. The same should be the case with salvation. You should expect that just as many people to trust the Lord as those that don’t. But just a cursory look through Scripture tells us that this is not the case. For the most part the number of unbelievers has been dramatically higher than that of believers. Take the time of the flood for instance. How is it that out of millions of people (probably much more), there was only one who was found to be righteous? That would be like me flipping a coin a million (or more) times and it landing on tails 999,999 times and only landing on heads once. Impossible. Christ even explicitly said that there will be and always have been many more people who don’t believe than those that do (Matt. 7:14). How can this be if Prevenient grace created a situation of equal opportunity for all people? It can’t.
Now I don’t want to be accused of building a straw man here so I will attempt to represent how Arminians would respond to this. They would say that the contributing factors that influence people’s freedom are those in the outside world. As the snake came from the outside and influenced Adam’s otherwise neutral will, so also outside influences such as culture and family influence people’s will. Therefore, in the time of Noah, the reason why there was only one righteous person on the earth is because the culture had become so corrupt that God could not be found. This is why God destroyed everyone with the flood. This makes some sense, but in reality it simply re-introduces the same problem that Arminians are desperately attempting to avoid – divine unconditional election.
Let me explain. If outside influences play such a large role in influencing Prevenient-grace-restored-people in their choice for or against God, doesn’t that make God the determining factor in whether they are saved or not? If you had a choice, knowing that outside influences were going to play such a big role in the decisions you make, would you want to be born to a family of believers who teach and live the Gospel in a culture of believers that do the same, or would you rather be placed in a committed Muslim home in a Muslim country where the Gospel is unable to give a testimony of God? In other words, would you rather be placed in a Garden with the snake or without the snake? Of course you would say you want to be placed in the environment where the outside influences for belief in God would be most prominently exemplified. Why? Because you have a better chance. Maybe the odds are not perfect, but they would still be much better. Let’s face it, if you were in the preflood world at the time of Noah, as nice a person as you are today, I seriously doubt that you would have followed Noah rather than the rest of the world.
The problem is that you do not decide where you live or when you will be born. You do not determine your outside influences, God does.
Acts 17:26 26 And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation.
This passage tells us that God determines the outside influences that are the ultimate influence, the determining factor, in our choice. God chose where you would be born, when, and to what family you would belong. Therefore, God’s sovereign unconditional choice is still the ultimate and determining cause in our salvation. This is the very problem that Arminians seek to avoid with the doctrine of Prevenient grace.
If Arminians were to respond by saying that God gives more grace to those in the most depraved conditions, this would not explain why it is that people in cultures and families that are godly have a higher percentage of believers. We are back to flipping the coin. It does not work either way.
In conclusion, I don’t believe that there is a reason for to entertain the doctrine of Prevenient grace outside of a presupposed view of what some believe must be in order for the truth to be palatable. More importantly, since it really does not solve any problems, it is, in my opinion, superfluous and confusing. Even if it may seem more palatable to say that all people have equal opportunity to accept the Gospel, the palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity. This is why I reject the doctrine of Prevenient Grace.
Whether you agree with me or not, I hope that I have been able to give you an appreciation of why Calvinists such as myself have issues with the libertarian freedom inducted by Prevenient grace.
360 replies to "Why I Reject the Arminian Doctrine of Prevenient Grace"
In my experience this term refers to that which the way the world is or could have been like, e.g. it is metaphysically possible for the universe to have different physical laws, but it is not metaphysically possible that torturing infants just for fun is morally permissible. In Molinism, we could say that certain worlds are feasible for God to create and others, while metaphysically possible (e.g. nobody sinning) are not.
Well, that would seem to argue against your claim that “If Molinism is true, LFW doesn’t work (because there’s only one actualized choice you can make, and it’s the one your soul was naturally going to make anyhow).” Molinism doesn’t appear to imply that. Or if it does, some additional explanation will be needed.
There’s no reason to think that the credit can’t be shared. If two people freely choose to donate equal amounts of money to save an orphanage out of the goodness of their hearts, both get credit for saving it. Similarly, there’s no reason to think that God and humans can’t freely work together and share the credit.
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It sounds like a modal fallacy because you seem to be suggesting some inconsistency between “the choice will happen” and “it is up to you.” I am not a compatibilist in the normal sense (i.e. soft determinism) but I certainly am one in the sense that “someone S will choose action A” is compatible with “S freely chooses A in the libertarian sense.” Why presume an inconsistency?
Yes, it looks like you use “metaphysically possible” the same way I use “logically possible”.
Wade, I’ve just been debating against three entirely different Arminian positions; each one required entirely different arguments, since they had different ideas about Molinism, LFW, and even what “compatibilism” meant. (The latter one actually had a good point; I changed my definition.) So I’m actually a little annoyed that you could say I’ve never set out an argument. I’ve set out MANY of them.
What I haven’t done is set out one that’s tailored to you personally, and that’s simply because I have no idea what you believe. So, I see from your most recent comments that you’re a compatibilist (in the Inwagen sense of the word): you believe that total determination and total libertarian free will are possible at the same time. You’re the only one I’ve personally met, so I’d like to know more about your position before I talk more.
I know some people hold definitions of LFW which are very different from others. Some hold that LFW is the ability to choose between more than one fully available outcome, so that if there’s only one outcome, it’s not a real choice. You can’t believe that, since you’ve said Molinism is compatible with LFW, and Molinism provides only one outcome.
I see you making a distinction between “would” and “could”, but in Molinism, the two differ only in that they’re in different parts of God’s knowledge — everything that “could” be is in God’s natural knowledge, while everything I “would” freely choose is in His middle knowledge. Once God’s created, the two have the same actual effects — the things I “would” do are all either things I WILL do or things I WILL NOT do, and God made the choice.
-Wm
I find modal logic very difficult, so perhaps I’ve erred; but I don’t see any modal error in my statements. I do, however, see a problem in how you quoted my argument. The contradiction isn’t really between what “WILL happen” and that it’s “up to you”; the contradiction is between the fact that the outcome of the choice is up to God, and that it’s “up to you” in a libertarian sense.
Please keep in mind, by the way, that I do think that we are responsible for our willed actions, even the ones that God decreed prior to creation. But I don’t insist on libertarian free will; I simply insist on moral responsibility.
-Wm
In philosophy, the phrase “logically possible” usually just means “not self-contradictory.” Some things are logically possible yet metaphysically impossible, e.g. torturing an infant just for fun being morally right.
I didn’t say you never did, and I will confess to not having read all the hundreds of posts in this blog. Still you have not (yet) put forth an argument with clearly delineated premises and conclusion in your responses to my posts (I make no claim of others), and I hope my request for one will help me see your position more clearly.
To help you see where I’m coming from, I’m a staunch incompatibilist regarding free will and determinism. I accept libertarian free will, and I see no conflict between middle knowledge and libertarian freedom. By libertarian freedom I mean determinism is false with respect to human volition.
It’s assertions like this I’d like to see an argument (premises + conclusion) for so I can follow the reasoning, because as stated here it seems non sequitur. While it may be true there _is_ only one outcome, it doesn’t follow that LFW is false. Either I will drink a root beer tomorrow or I will not; there is only one outcome (I cannot do both). Nonetheless, the fact that there is only one outcome doesn’t entail the falsity of LFW.
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But why exactly is this inconsistent? I did after all give an example of how credit for an action could be shared (two people donating money to save an orphanage; we can even assume that both individuals have libertarian freedom) and there doesn’t seem to be any good reason to think that the credit can’t likewise be shared between God and human individuals endowed with libertarian freedom. Perhaps it’s just the analytic philosopher in me (I recently finished a semester in symbolic logic) but I would very much like to see an argument (clearly delineated premises and conclusion) for such an inconsistency.
WM,
For full disclosure Wade is a friend of mine from church who is a philosophy student and someone who follows Christian philosophy alot closer then I do. I invited him in on this discussion because he seemed to have a better grasp of the concepts then either of us.
Moving on I think Wade brings up some good points that I’ve been trying to make less succesfully. As I’ve said before something with Molinism doesn’t sit completely right with me, but I’m not sure how to disprove which is why I, like Wade would like to see how one proves it to be contradictory. To get us rolling it seems that in Molinism this is true
1. God wanted us to be having this conversation right now.
2. As a result God chose to actualize a universe out of all the possibilities in which we would freely choose to have this conversation.
3. When the time came about to have this conversation we freely chose to engage in this conversation (by which I mean our choice to have this conversation was not merely the result of antecedent causes).
Now I’m not sure where the contradiction is here. It seems that it is true that God chose for us to have this conversation from prior to the begginings of the universe, and equally true that we freely chose of our own libertarian free will to have this conversation.
Wade, I’m a little leery of attempting to state a solid position about someone else’s beliefs when I don’t know what they are. I made that mistake with Michael, assuming that his beliefs about LFW were similar to the commonly stated ones here; I was wrong to use that shortcut :-).
I can discuss in more detail the things you’ve clearly said. For example, you mentioned that LFW+Molinism could be like a joint contribution to a charity, where both parties get credit. That’s a good example, but it allows me to illustrate the problem in detail. Since you specified that both parties get credit, this requires that both parties consent and be able to dissent; but God willed the action and arranged the universe (including the agent) in order to cause the action, and there’s no way the action won’t happen. God’s actions were necessary and sufficient to cause the action. If you reject compatibilism (which you explicitly do), you specifically reject the idea that credit should be assigned for willingly undertaken actions even though they’re entirely determined by other factors.
Now, if you’re going to claim that a human’s actions are self-determined even though they’re entirely chosen by God, here Molinism provides no help. Molinism is specific that God’s middle knowledge of our conditional actions is prior to our existence — we don’t have to even exist for our conditional actions to be utterly determined. Therefore, whatever determines them is not US.
Of course, if you allow compatibilism (or semi-compatibilism) there’s no problem.
-Wm
Oh, and Michael: thank you for introducing Wade here; I admire both of your philosophical sophistication, and wish I could meet with you in person — I think we’d have a lot more fun that way. I’ve certainly learned a lot from our interactions. (Imagine — I’d never even heard of van Inwagen!)
-Wm
I guess the summary of my position on Molinism is that it looks like it can’t be elaborated consistently into any actual reality. You can SAY that “God knows all counterfactuals of creaturely freedom”, but when you try to explore the implications, the picture falls apart.
I don’t see any attempt by Molinists to respond to these criticisms — as in the article by Craig in which he claims that there’s plenty of warrant for believing middle knowledge is reasonable, but without giving any reasonable examples (only ones which are clearly not any type of middle knowledge at all) nor any logical warrant.
As things stand, Molinism is a vague claim on which is based an incredibly detailed theology of creation, none of which is present in the Bible. Compatibilism is an incredibly detailed account of man’s will, but at least it’s hinted at in the Bible and isn’t an account of God’s creative act (i.e., it’s an account of something we humans have experience with).
Probably the worst thing about Molinism, though, is that its entire purpose is to make the claim that God based His election to salvation on man’s foreseen merit. People simply want to believe that God’s saving love for them is because of their own goodness, rather than simply being God’s uncaused love.
-Wm
Again, this sounds like a modal fallacy. It is necessarily true that if it will happen, then it will happen, i.e. Necessarily(If A will happen, A will happen). It doesn’t follow that “If A will happen, then Necessarily(A will happen).” That I will do some action by libertarian choice, say, giving to charity, it doesn’t follow that I could have chosen not to do it simply by God foreknowing that I would do it. You seem to be implying that our actions would be determined in this way when you say, “Molinism is specific that God’s middle knowledge of our conditional actions is prior to our existence — we don’t have to even exist for our conditional actions to be utterly determined.” I think you’re going to need an argument for middle knowledge implying determinism (if you have one, please clearly delineate your premises and conclusion), because without one it seems like you’re employing a fallacy of modal logic. While I agree that there’s no way the action won’t happen in the sense of “Necessarily(If A will happen, A will happen)” I do not agree that LFW+Molinism implies determinism.
You say, “God’s actions were necessary and sufficient to cause the action” but the Molinist need not agree with that at all. In addition to God creating conducive circumstances, another necessary condition for us to choose an action (say, giving to charity) is for us to freely choose it. So why can’t both God and the human individual share the credit for the human giving to charity?
Wade,
I don’t believe that responds to my message at all (the large part that you quote). I’m giving a moral and legal argument based on the specific claims Molinism makes. If you’re a semi-compatiblist you won’t mind my argument at all (as I said); this proves that my argument has nothing whatsoever to do with modal logic, much less a modal fallacy, since obviously a successful modal argument would bind a semi-compatibilist Molinist just as well as an incompatiblist.
Again, according to Molinism, God was able to plan infallibly the entire course of the universe logically prior to our existence (and logically independently of our existence, since some of the futures God middle-knew may have been possible futures which involved beings He did not choose to create). This is not merely KNOWING the future, but actively CHOOSING what the future would be, rejecting some possible decisions and accepting some others (while, of course, tolerating still others because there are no middle-knowable courses which avoid those undesirable events). God did all of this work of creation without us existing at all.
So, what does this mean? It appears to mean that if Molinism is true, the nature of “free choice” is somehow compatible with God’s ability to decide which way the free choice will turn out, without any need for the existence of the creature making the choice. That needn’t imply determinism; but it necessarily excludes the “principle of alternate possibilities”, which most people who hold to LFW believe is required (and Michael has said that he does).
-Wm
But how did he choose? He chose by KNOWING what would happen if he chose initial conditions C1 over C2. The individual would still have to make the choice.
For the future to be actualized though the individual must still make the choice. This way, the future isn’t entirely decided by God; it’s also decided by humans. So the falsity of LFW (understood as determinism being false with respect to human volition) doesn’t seem to be entailed here. If you think otherwise, it might help if you gave an argument with clearly delineated premises and conclusion on exactly why you believe LFW is incompatible with Molinism.
This is an explicit equivocation on “chose” — “he chose by knowing what would happen if He chose…”.
But the individual’s choice is indistinguishable by any principled means from the initial conditions, in that both are both chosen and actualized by God; not merely in an ultimate sense (as Open Theism claims), but prior to and as part of creation.
As a semantic point, this contradicts Craig’s and Wikipedia’s use of the word “actualize”; both of them use that word to refer to what God does at the moment of creation. As a result, I don’t know what you mean — the way you’re saying it implies that humans have some kind of veto over whether the future ever happens.
Also: how can this be distinguished from semicompatibilism?
But it is entirely decided by God. Humans in themselves contribute nothing (although Molinism claims that God’s true ideas about individual humans can detract).
You understand my argument, even if you keep saying that I’m proving LFW to be false (I’m not; I’m only showing that Molinism and LFW are contradictory). Given that I also say that Molinism is impossible to state as anything more than vague handwaving, I don’t think I need to do more than communicate…
(Argh. What irony. I got cut off in the middle of saying: )
Given that I also say that Molinism is impossible to state as anything more than vague handwaving, I don’t think I need to do more than communicate clearly.
-Wm
Wade, I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m trying to dodge your request for a more precise argument. Your request is perfectly reasonable, but I don’t think it’s possible to render a precise statement of LFW Molinism, because it’s foundationally based on the idea of a solidly determinable indeterminacy. If we attempt to express that in detail we get an obvious contradiction; if we leave it undefined but assumed, our argument is vague.
The grounding objection is the attempt to render a precise statement about middle knowledge. My argument is the result of allowing it to remain undefined but assumed.
-Wm
Where does Craig define “actualize” such that _only_ God can actualize something? The term “actualize” in philosophy is a more general term than that; human beings are also capable of actualizing (i.e. make actual) states of affairs, e.g. by building a house.
Of course they do! The fact that they effectively have this power is precisely why God can’t feasibly create just any universe he would like, e.g. a world where nobody ever sins against Him. God can create any initial conditions he likes, but if his created free agents refuse to freely choose what he wants (as often happens, unfortunately), God has feasibility constraints on His omnipotence. So as I said earlier, for the future to be actualized the individual must still make the choice. This way, the future isn’t entirely decided by God; it’s also decided by humans.
How do you define “semicompatibilism”?
(1) I’m not sure I do understand your argument; (2) I’m not saying you’re proving LFW to be false, but you do seem to be saying that Molinism entails the falsity of LFW, and the reasoning behind it is unclear to me. I didn’t want to risk attacking straw men, which is why I asked for clearly delineated premises and conclusion. That said, maybe your argument is this:
(1) LFW is true (determinism is false with respect to human volition)
(2) Suppose God knows that if he creates conditions C1, you will choose action A1 (reductio assumption).
(3) Therefore, if God creates C1 you are determined to choose A1 (follows from 2; if God knows you will choose A1, you can’t not choose A1)
(4) Therefore LFW is false (follows from 3).
(5) But LFW is true (from 1), and therefore it is not the case that God has that type of middle knowledge (as described in 2).
(3) does not follow from (2) however; just because God knows you will do something doesn’t mean you are determined to do it, and line (3) seems to make a fallacy of modal logic.
Maybe the above isn’t actually your argument, but then can you clearly delineate your premises and conclusion to tell me exactly what your argument is?
By all means, inform me of the “obvious contradiction”! I defined LFW as determinism being false with respect to human volition. We can define Molinism as God’s counterfactual knowledge (God knows that if he created conditions C1, someone S would have freely chosen action A1) as well as God’s ability to actualize certain conditions (e.g. C1) to help bring about a certain action (e.g. A1) that he knows would happen if he did so. I claim that LFW is a type of freedom that is consistent with Molinism. Can you put forth an argument (clearly delineated premises and conclusion) that makes the contradiction obvious?
The “obvious contradiction” is the statement I made about “determinate indeterminism”; in a more precisely stated form (but less obvious), it’s the grounding objection (I said this in comment 15 above).
Unfortunately, that’s not a definition; it’s the negative space of a definition. Note that you’re stating it by referring to an ideology (-ism). To define something you must do more than say a belief system is false about it. Also note that your opponent is NOT responsible to define your belief system for you.
Let me give this a try, though. I’ll use a modern Aristotelian definition of free will; Michael should recognize it from earlier. The LFW people who take up Aristotle’s mantle say that a moral decision must be “up to us”, meaning that the decision must originate within us, and have its source nowhere else.
Molinists, on the other hand, say that every possible decision we could make in every possible circumstance entirely precedes us; they are, in a sense, embedded in eternally true hypotheses; and the entire body of these hypotheses include created and not-created beings: and just as the content of these hypotheses are not “up to” the not-created beings, so also they are not “up to us”.
THEREFORE, our decisions are, according to Molinism, not “up to us” in the sense of having their origins within us. Thus, LFW and Molinism are incompatible.
-Wm
Thank you for the clear explanation. I see why you thought I might possibly be committing a modal fallacy. But my argument is not about the mere knowledge of God, but about His positive actions. God’s knowledge does not cause our actions; rather, our actions cause God to know them. BUT, God’s actions are causative, and are in fact intended by God to have the effect of producing the decisions we actually make.
Let’s look at some of your other points.
Your objection is that humans can actualize a building while God actualizes the world; these are different things. But Craig says that God actualizes the world when He creates. You said that humans actualize the future. Both terms refer to the same things; a single thing cannot be actualized by two different actors in the same way.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5633 (an example of Craig using “actualize”.)
(Hmm, your post is worthy of more… To be continued…)
-Wm
But by Molinism that’s not POSSIBLE. God didn’t create a world in which individuals would ever choose to veto His will! He avoided all such contradictory wills by the notion of Middle Knowledge. So although it’s POSSIBLE to veto God’s will, it’s not ever going to happen; Molinism claims that God carefully constructed a world in which nobody EVER will veto God’s will.
Do you see what I mean now? This is not an argument that depends on modalities. It uses Molinism’s own description of God’s creative activities. God specifically avoided the only possible situations in which a human could possibly will otherwise than the way God wanted him to. Humans therefore have no actual power of contrary choice — not because God actively forbid that to them, but rather because the laws contained in middle knowledge forbid it to them, and God uses those laws to structure His creation.
The only difference between Molinism and classical compatibilism is that Molinism puts an eternal limit on God (the fact of middle knowledge are eternally true, and absolutely bar God from contrary action); classical compatibilism doesn’t claim that there’s something God can’t do.
It refers to the belief that, whether libertarian free will exists or not, morality is real and binding because your responsibility for your actions depend on whether you desired to perform them, NOT on whether you possessed libertarian free will.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/semicompatibilism.html
-Wm
WM,
Been quite busy so I haven’t had time to comment. That and I didn’t want to barge in on the discussion which I have found quite illuminating.
1. “Unfortunately, that’s not a definition; it’s the negative space of a definition.”
I think the definition Wade may not be fully developed by him, but is sufficient for the purposes of this debate. A action or state of being is either merely the result of antecedent causes or it is not. One does not have to develop this further for the point that is being made.
2. THEREFORE, our decisions are, according to Molinism, not “up to us” in the sense of having their origins within us. Thus, LFW and Molinism are incompatible.
Ahh but you are simply mistaken here. In Molinism when the time comes for the choice to be made the choice being made is NOT merely the result of antecedent causes. Thus the choice is “up to us”. To claim that this is undermined simply because God “knew” that if he created Universe X, Agent Y would freely choose to perform Act Z and then chose to create Universe X is to commit the very modal fallacy that Wade accuses you of. You are making an improper leap from choosing to create a universe knowing that what is going to happen in that universe to all the actions in that universe being determined. Whether or not God chooses to actualize the universe where Act Ywould occur is irrelevent to whether or not Act Y is the result of antecedent causes or not.
WM
3. On wills
I’m not sure that Molinism doesn’t posit multiple wills just like Calvinism (and some forms of Arminianism for that matter). Let me illustrate perhaps. God wants a race that will choose Him of their own free will. This limits the range of logically possible universes that God could create. For the sake of argument let’s say this makes a perfect universe in which everyone freely chooses Him impossible. Thus it would be fair to say that the will of God is truly that everyone will freely choose him. At the same time it is logically impossible for such a universe to exist. Thus he has willed this world and is willing to use the evil in it to gather all who will accept Him to Himself. Yet at the same time it is also correct to say that He does not desire the evil, much less cause the evil (modal fallacy again). You understand the tension perhaps?? I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this – but I think it is a fair representation of Molinism.
WM,
4. Finally on Semi-compatibilism
I’ll be honest and say that I’m not sure there is a logical argument against this idea because it for the most part is a bald assertion. That being said I’m not sure how a Christian could be comfortable holding this position. Even if we limit the Early Church writers who addressed free will such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Methodius to merely addressing immaterial fates (something Hodge argues for, but I disagree with) at the very least their writings stand as a strong refutation of the semi-compatibilist assertion that hard determinism and moral responsibility are compatible. Such a view would have been considered heresy by these writers and they argued against it as such.
We weren’t making a point, though. We were debating over whether I’d produced a clear enough argument on whether Molinism and LFW were incompatible. If the proponents of LFW (in particular) can produce no definition of their position WHATSOEVER, they have no right to complain when I don’t refine my argument. Now, Wade has made some statements about LFW and Molinism, and I’ve immediately responded by making arguments based on those specific statements. The response has always been “give me a logically precise argument”. My response is that I’ll give you a precise argument when you give me a precise definition; until then I’ll argue only with the data I’m given.
I have made more precise arguments in the past, against people who have made precise statements.
Yes, Molinism makes this claim. It’s preposterous on a number of fronts; but my argument simply accepted it at face value. For this reason, I made no attempt to use determinism (or non) in my argument. For example, think about it — if the choice is not deterministic, then why is God able to fix it in every case, simply by setting up the person with the circumstances? If my choice isn’t determined by my circumstances, surely at least SOMETIMES it wouldn’t be possible to nail down my choice by nailing down my circumstances!
Non-sequitur. The fact that it’s non-deterministic doesn’t make it “up to us”. It could be random, or up to God, for…
(I don’t get it… That was 1984 characters long. Why did it truncate? As I was saying:)
Non-sequitur. The fact that it’s non-deterministic doesn’t make it “up to us”. It could be random, or up to God, for example.
-Wm
That’s why I do NOT “simply” make that claim. My claim, as it MUST be, is based on much more than God’s direct knowledge, as I’ve explained; and it depends on much more than the fact that LFW is indeterminist.
-Wm
On wills: I agree with you; this is one of the “big deals” for Molinism. It’s supposed to give God the sovereignty to direct the entire universe, without giving Him any blame for any moral evil — or at least avoiding some of it. The argument can then be made that this is the important part.
I don’t buy this; I don’t think Molinism actually avoids the problem it’s designed to avoid. But this is a side issue, since I also don’t think Molinism is internally consistent; i.e. it couldn’t possibly be true.
-Wm
WM,
1. “It could be random, or up to God, for example.”
If our actions are up to God in the sense that God is a sufficient explanatory cause of all our actions then determinism would be true. However, Molinism doesn’t posit this. In Molinism God simply actualizes this universe out of many knowing what free agents will do. Thus while God is a cause in the sense that He created this universe (in the same sense that a murderers great-grandmother is a “cause” of the murder) He is not a sufficient cause. There are numerous actors who exercise their wills independent of God including our own which are responsible for the state of affairs we find ourselves in. As to whether or not everything is purely random that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand since no one has made this claim.
My point was simply that while Wade’s definition does not suffice in a macro sense for the purposes of this debate is it sufficient.
2. “If my choice isn’t determined by my circumstances, surely at least SOMETIMES it wouldn’t be possible to nail down my choice by nailing down my circumstances!”
This is where the Middle and Foreknowledge meet. God simply knows what you are going to freely choose. One does not need posit how He knows for such a thing is unfathomable.
3. My claim, as it MUST be, is based on much more than God’s direct knowledge, as I’ve explained; and it depends on much more than the fact that LFW is indeterminist.
Yet it is still God’s knowledge – whether it be of the Middle or Fore variety it is still knowledge and there is simply no way to leap from knowing to determinism. At the end of the day whether by fore or middle knowledge God created the universe having full knowledge of what will happen – determined this does not the world make.
Finally, on semi-compatibilism… That was me, not Hodge, I think. I stand by what I said: those writers were unmistakably speaking against fatalism. It’s like hijacking Ireneus to make him be saying that his opponents were denying transubstantiation — he wasn’t; he was saying that they were denying that Christ had a body made of matter, and they rejected the food and drink because they rejected the statement that Jesus was associated with matter.
I admit that my statement about semi-compatibilism is a mere definition, not an argument. And it’s a vague one; it correctly reflects my ambivalence about determinism. I believe that man is free, and I don’t know how that works. I also believe that in at least some things, man is enslaved, and man is nonetheless morally responsible for his actions even in those areas.
The Reformed believe that mankind has free agency. We are free as people, free to choose according to our desires. We deny that there is meaning in saying that man’s will is free. Yes, man is free; but man’s will is bound to serve the man’s desires. If a man’s will were free from every influence, his will would not be serving him, but rather itself.
-Wm
The link you provided for this defines semicompatibilism rather differently. A semicompatibilist is a “narrow compatibilist” (one who thinks moral responsibility is compatible with determinism and indeterminism) and is “agnostic about free will and determinism.” A quick Google search reveals this term is defined or described somewhat differently across various sources. Somewhat puzzling is your link’s initial definition of semicompatibilism as “the idea that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism,” which is a typical definition of compatibilism simpliciter.
Well, we can equivalently define LFW as “indeterminism is true with respect to human volition.”
Could you state the argument in detail, with clearly delineated premises and conclusion showing the contradiction between LFW and Molinism? I kind of requested this in post 20 of this page.
This seems patently false; every time we sin we are going against the will of God. The fact that God needs our cooperation for us to freely choose his will is precisely why philosophers like Craig argue some worlds are not feasible for God to actualize.
For the moment let’s ignore that humans veto God’s will all the time; if under Molinism it is possible to veto God’s will (even though we do not do so) it seems to argue for indeterminism being true with respect to human volition, and therefore for LFW being compatible with Molinism.
What is your argument that God specifically avoided the only possible situations in which a human could possibly will otherwise than the way God wanted him to? God knew someone S would choose action A1 under conditions C1, but it doesn’t follow that A1 is the only action a human could do under conditions C1. To use an analogy, God knows whether I will drink a root beer or not tomorrow. Both actions are possible, but God knows which one I will choose.
I made a similar point before and you replied with “So what?” (see post #27 on page 4). Maybe the point I’ve made here doesn’t jeopardize your actual argument, but if so please clearly list out your premises and conclusion so I have a better idea of what your argument actually is. The following for example is a bit vague:
The decisions precede us in what sense? Perhaps you mean the truth of them precedes us before we make them, and perhaps this is what you mean by “embedded in eternally true hypotheses.” But to then say that this somehow makes our decisions not up to us once again makes a fallacy of modal logic; and the addition of true counterfactual statements for non-created beings would not negate this fallacy. If I misunderstood you, please clearly list your premises and conclusion.
God doesn’t “fix it,” he simply knows what you will choose when he actualizes those circumstances. Consider for example normal foreknowledge and LFW before you make a given choice. Before you make the choice, there are only the initial conditions and the choice has not yet been actualized. It thus doesn’t follow that because God knows you will do action A in conditions C you are determined to do A.
Another approach: we can kind of think of God as a scientist to simulate middle knowledge if after he creates the initial conditions he is capable of knowing what you will choose if God doesn’t interfere further. Being sufficiently similar to normal foreknowledge, it’s plausible that God has this type of knowledge; do you agree? God creates conditions C1, and because of his supernatural knowledge, knows you will do action A1. God then “changes his mind” and creates conditions C2, and when he does so because of his supernatural knowledge knows you will choose action A2 (this idea is inspired by watching the Nicolas Cage movie Next).
To recap, I define LFW as indeterminism being true with respect to human volition. We can define Molinism as God’s counterfactual knowledge (God knows that if he created conditions C1, someone S would have freely chosen action A1) as well as God’s ability to actualize certain conditions (e.g. C1) to help bring about a certain action (e.g. A1) that he knows would happen if he did so. That said, can you clearly delineate your premises and conclusion to show that LFW is incompatible with Molinism?
I don’t see why that follows, unless you believe that God is entirely deterministic. Of course, it doesn’t matter — if you insist, simply delete “or God” from my statement; my point was only that “indeterminism” alone doesn’t make things “up to us”. If you’re going to insist that God is purely deterministic while we’re free, I won’t argue at this point. (Out of curiosity, would you accept that our decisions could be undeterministic if they were “up to” quantum changes in our neurons? What if they were “up to” capricious Fates? Why are these things more free than God?
I’m talking about a definition of LFW, not of Molinism. Molinism doesn’t posit anything about free will; it merely assumes it without defining it; except that it can’t be part of Natural Knowledge; and that Molinism needs God to use it before Free Knowledge is possible.
Really, that word “simply” shows up a lot in your writing. It glosses over some very important data. God doesn’t arbitratily actualize a universe! He does so in order to produce His desired outcome, following a very precisely described logic and action. If a human engineer did that, and we were able to decide that the human engineer’s works were reliable for their purposes, our conclusion would be that the human engineer knew some kind of law that his creation obeyed. Molinism insists this isn’t the case, and the grounding objection is the interaction with that claim.
-Wm
Michael, sorry- I ran out of comment space. This is complex.
The specific claim was that LFW is defined as indeterminism within man’s will. I’m pointing out that this isn’t enough to work with as a definition; randomness fully meets the definition, and philosophers of will admit this (it’s the basis of Inwagen’s Mind argument).
A. It is not a definition at all. B. At least you want more — you want actions that are “up to us”.
No, it isn’t. Free knowledge is a result of creation (or of decree). Foreknowledge is a Greek and Hebrew term that refers to God’s approval. Meanwhile, my argument is about the proposed relationship between my own freedom and God’s actions, not God’s knowledge of that freedom. If we are not determined by circumstance, then why does Molina insist that God sets the timeline by setting circumstances? If indeterminism is true, or more generally if our decisions are not determined by our circumstances, then setting our circumstances will not be enough to set our decisions! It will be an irrelevant action. Yet it’s the specific action that Molinism says God takes for that purpose.
The two claims are contrary — unless Molinism doesn’t presuppose the same “free will” that you presuppose. Which is my point.
-Wm
Wade, this is exactly why I need to know your background and definitions for your own beliefs before I can start arguing against them. I got the term “semicompatibilism” as a result of discussion with Michael, in which he pointed out van Inwagen’s definitions for “compatibilism”. Using Inwagen’s terms, “compatiblism” is actually the claim that LFW is compatible with determinism (!!!!). Inwagen then brags that since he started writing, educated people abandoned the idea that compatibilism is valid. This is, of course, unsurprising since his definitions make “compatibilism” a fairly blatant contradiction in terms :-).
For this reason, I use the longer word, since as far as I know it hasn’t been redefined. It’s been useful in conversation with Michael.
And honestly, I do like Inwagen’s approach, even though I’m not satisfied with his redefinition of that particular term.
-Wm
No, one doesn’t change a non-definition to a definition by moving the negation. I’m not objecting to the sentence; I’ve already responded to it with an argument that attempts to show that Molinism makes claims about God’s actions that are inconsistent with indeterminism.
It’s simply obvious that the sentence doesn’t adequately describe LFW, since it also describes a will behaving according to external sovereign caprice or pure randomness. (Michael says God can’t do this because He’s deterministic, but I don’t understand that.)
Let me rebuild a previous argument involving indeterminism in numbered form. I actually enjoy doing that.
-Wm
Actually, the “pure randomness” objection has been made against simple indeterminism, a variant of libertarianism. “External sovereign caprice” is inconsistent with this definition since that wouldn’t really be human volition. Mine is a pretty standard definition of libertarian freedom: (1) we have free will; (2) determinism is false with respect to our freedom. That is, we have the capability of choosing among genuine alternatives not determined by antecedent conditions (hopefully this makes it clearer). We can define Molinism as God’s counterfactual knowledge (God knows that if he created conditions C1, someone S would have freely chosen action A1) as well as God’s ability to actualize certain conditions (e.g. C1) to help bring about a certain action (e.g. A1) that he knows would happen if he did so.
OK, I’ll wait for that (hopefully you are referring to some argument for Molinism and LFW being incompatible).
I probably missed this, but has anyone defined what they mean by “determinism.” It sounds like Wade means to be “forced to make a decision,” and William means “to be effectively persuaded to make a decision.” If that’s not correct, I’ll accept rebuke. 🙂
It may be though that each is talking past one another in terms of Molinism’s compatibility with LFW. If determinism is effectively persuading an individual to make decision A, even though he technically can make decision B, but given the circumstances, never will, and Wade’s form of LFW (although I don’t think would be the common definition of it) allows for effective persuasion, it might bring about some light to the discussion regarding his definition of LFW.
Good point, Hodge. And well asked. I’m going to slow down a bit to answer it, and wait to see if my answer makes sense to Wade. If it doesn’t, my argument won’t make sense either.
I’d say that an outcome is deterministic if it could be reproduced by recreating the same situation. We could also say that a deterministic outcome is “fully determined” by all the factors that go into it; a mathematical function is fully determined by precise values being assigned to all its variables, while a Newtonian physics simulation is fully determined by assigning momentum and position to all its particles.
A partially determined outcome is one for which we lack control over some variables, and the outcome is therefore limited within a range or predictable with better probability than a less determined outcome would be.
A non-determined outcome is one for which we lack information and/or control of any input parameters. Non-determined outcomes can be classed with undetermined outcomes, which (of course) have zero input parameters but which nonetheless vary.
-Wm
Hodge,
Determinism as understood in the realm of philosophy is not typically the belief that one is “forced” to make a particular decision. This would be a narrower form of determinism, but determinism itself is a broader category. Simplistically it can be defined as a system in which all actions and states of affairs are the result of antecedent causes. Thus all of history is more or less a Rube Goldberg type machine and if one could have full knowledge of all present conditions one could then by cause and effect predict all future conditions.
That’s not quite right. If LFW is true, an outcome could be reproduced by recreating the same situation (since the individual could make the same choice). More accurately, determinism is “the claim that all events are the necessary result of previous causes.” I got that from my college philosophy textbook (The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach, 2nd edition, by William F. Lawhead, page 253).
Wade, so is LFW the claim that choices made by a human will are not the effect of prior causes? (Sounds fair to me.)
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong in your rebuttal. If the outcome is ALWAYS reproduced, you’ve got a fully determined outcome. If holding a set of variables constant holds the outcome constant, and changing any of those variables changes the outcome, you’ve found a fully determined outcome. If this is an experiment, the result is subject to inductive doubt…
-Wm
WM
“Wade, so is LFW the claim that choices made by a human will are not the effect of prior causes? (Sounds fair to me.)”
I had to laugh here because this is more or less what I have been saying all along by saying that human choice is not merely the result of antecedent causes.
Michael, no humor intended, but it’s very welcome. You’ve always given me plenty of definitions; discussions with you are usually very concrete and clear. I was glad to see that Wade’s definition might be rephrased into something like yours, which is why I asked that. Since you’re both here, it would be nice if I could build an argument which addressed both of you.
I’m taking more time to get started than I expected, due to a flu. Ugh, I hurt. (Wade, I see your definition of determinism. Thanks.)
Right. This is distinguished from God’s free knowledge, in that God simply KNOWS the future to be true (because it is). In keeping with this debate, it’s also distinguished from middle knowledge, in that although God can use middle knowledge to compute the futures (plural), He does so by using knowledge about future souls, which isn’t needed for a deterministic Gold Rhubarb[1] machine as described above. Therefore, Molinism doesn’t qualify as determinism by this definition.
EDIT: but I intend to show that it is.
-Wm
[1]: My mom said that particular Spoonerism while late-term pregnant. She had a broken rib at the time. Everyone in the room nearly died trying not to laugh so that she wouldn’t hurt herself laughing.
Well, more accurately prior causes do not determine the human action, and human decisions are not the necessary result of prior causes. Antecedent causes can still have some influence, e.g. if I have an itch I am more likely to scratch. Still, we have the capability of choosing among genuine alternatives not determined by antecedent conditions; that’s what LFW is all about.
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(Addendum: oops, I didn’t send this. I don’t have time now, but it looks complete. Hope you’re both having a great New Year’s Eve!)
I think you have to be very careful with things like this. There are at least two very different types of things that can, in a general sense, “cause” human choices. The first is electrochemical phenomena; the second is reasoning as applied to perception and desires. Some people, physicalists, claim to believe that all human decisions are completely caused by the first category of causes (a suicide argument applies here, as I’m sure you’re aware). But Calvinists are not physicalists.
Even physicalists will agree that human decisions are not a necessary result of prior EXTERNAL causes (i.e. you’d have to dig inside to find a deterministic outcome, if such is even possible). The hardest of determinists among the Calvinists still believe that God designed our souls to apprehend reason and revelation (causes that move the soul, not primarily the neurons).
So, here’s my next question: do you consider “reason” to be a “cause”? Reason, as in logic, whether flawed or accurate; numeric or propositional? Suppose a person thinks carefully about a problem and makes a decision based on his reasoning; is that person using his free will?
I ask because most of the time, we only ask “what caused you to do that?” once we already know that a person did not use reason. We only hand a person over to the phsychiatrist once we know they’re not reasonable — and in those cases the psychiatrist looks for things like chemical imbalances that might “cause” a pattern of unreasonable choices.
(Out of space. Next post, please.)
-Wm