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"
But an itch isn’t a cause; it’s an input, but it’s not a cause. In theory, if there are any causes for our choices, they would be internal to us, not external. Perhaps there are no causes (your position, as far as I know), or perhaps the causes are immaterial (Jonathan Edwards’ position in “the Freedom of the Will”), or perhaps the causes are physical (Dawkins’ position, as far as I know); but nobody holds that the causes are external.
The REASON you scratched was the itch; the CAUSE of your scratching wasn’t the itch.
(I’m not asking this because it’ll prove determinism. It won’t, because there’s usually more than one reasonable choice in any situation, and even more when you consider that sloppy reasoning is still “reasonable”. So this isn’t a trap.)
-Wm
Happy new year!
I was writing (and still am writing) my original response, when a simpler one occurred to me. Let’s submit it for peer review and see what happens. Just one thing I ask: respect the line numbers. If you’re going to dismiss this, tell me on which line number the error appears.
1. LFW means determinism is not true of at least some choices made by humans.
2. Determinism means that predictions can be made about a process using only information about its inputs.
3. A prediction means that by giving information about inputs to a process, you receive information about the output.
4. Molinism specifies that God uses information about a pair of inputs (person S, circumstance C) to get information about the output (action A). The important thing is that the mechanism actually has as its inputs and outputs ONLY information, not real objects.
6. Molinism then claims God chains the results of these together to model a timeline, then creates the first link in the timeline, and then observes everything turn out exactly as specified, proving the perfect accuracy and precision of the prediction.
7. Therefore, it’s possible in principle to construct a model to predict human choice under Molinism.
8. Therefore, human choice under Molinism is deterministic and therefore not compatible with LFW.
A comment: a model may be possible in principle but impossible in practice. Some reasons for this:
A. Model complexity. The human brain contributes to human decisions, and is very complex.
B. Information complexity. “All circumstances” is very complex, and is not generally possible to hold constant in an experiment (but it can be approximated).
C. Unobservable variables. The human soul may be unobservable in principle.
D. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions (AKA Chaos). This may sometimes apply.
-Wm
I said: “But by Molinism that’s not POSSIBLE. God didn’t create a world in which individuals would ever choose to veto His will!”
This is equivocation (not a moral term, BTW). This discussion previously was using “veto” to refer to your statement “For the future to be actualized though the individual must still make the choice”. I’m not sure what you meant by the idea of an individual somehow stopping the future from being actualized after God created the initial conditions and started the world rolling on its way, but I don’t know any meaning that makes sense.
-Wm
I’d still like to know why you said the following, Michael; and one little comment:
Again, why is making our actions “up to” God deterministic, but making them up to us is nondeterministic? I simply don’t see how that’s associated.
And I just noticed that comment about Molinism; but I wasn’t talking about Molinism there at all. I was only trying to say that simply denying determinism isn’t enough to define LFW in order to produce desirable results. I used “up to us” as an example of one of the desired results that you won’t get simply by positing nondeterminism, since I knew you liked that. I still don’t know why specifically Wade likes LFW; it’s actually possible that total randomness is OK with him (he actually briefly discussed it, and didn’t reject it).
-Wm
It occurs to me that the same argument in my “Happy New Year” post might be construed to mean that God cannot have true knowledge of the future in a A-theory non-deterministic universe. I’m trying to see if there’s a way around this; one possible solution is that because God participates in the unfolding of time, He can decree the nondeterminism, so long as He allows that to Himself. This is conceivable for quantum events, for example; Molinism specifies that it is NOT allowed for “creaturely free” actions. This breaks down the philosophical nondeterminism, but preserves the mathematical and scientific concepts (which are the only ones that are positively defined anyhow).
I’m poorly motivated to do this, since I find the A-theory of time to be somewhat implausible as philosophically expressed; it doesn’t make sense to me how God could make true prophecies if the future is philosophically indeterminate by nature. A partial A-theory still could be the case, of course, where the future is determinate to God but intrinsically undeterminable by us (this is a hidden-variable theory, but the hidden variables are almost certainly not physical at all).
-Wm
A quick note: I found the following article very informative, since it specifically distinguishes Molinism from Open Theism.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?id=6803
-Wm
Is anyone here? Wade? Michael?
-Wm
I don’t think you’ll want to keep this argument — it requires God to create all possible worlds and then destroy all but one of them, with all souls. Eternally. If you suppose this you don’t need Molinism, of course — God simply picks the world He knows will have the best conclusion as the ‘keeper’.
(It’s not clear to me that this is even metaphysically possible, either — it requires God to be undecided and needing time in order to make up His mind. It requires God to either undo an action in eternity, or to have the aborted remnants of an infinite number of universes eternally present to Him.
If you put these problems aside, there’s still the Molinist assumption that our free choices are controllable simply by controlling our circumstances. If we have LFW, this simply cannot be true, as I’ve explained in my long-delayed detailed argument, posted above.
-Wm
WM,
I am on vacation skiing in the rockies so I’m not on the internet much and don’t have time to formulate a proper reply. As for Wade I think he is probably busy starting another semester of classes. I have a feeling what his responses will be to what you wrote, but I’ll give him the chance to make them before I say anything.
Michael, have a relaxing and pleasant vacation!
This is a fundamental premise of Molinism, not anything I should need to argue. Do you disagree?
How does it not mean that? The only answer Molinists give is to draw a distinction between “could” and “would” which does not apply; they themselves take advantage of that inapplicability (Michael, tell me if I’m misusing this legal term:) thereby estopping themselves from pressing against me. See Craig’s article 6803 linked above. In short, Molinism says that God CAN NOT violate one of the true CCFs. If “cannot” applies to God, it applies a fortiori to man.
God knows which one you will choose because He “sees”, without mediation, your actual drinking of the soda. There’s nothing for God to see about a hypothetical you hypothetically drinking soda.
-Wm
Entirely. There is no way in which the eternally true CCFs do not precede us. Do you see an exception? They even exceed God’s power, according to Craig (although not in those words).
I haven’t given the full derivation for this argument (I found it very complex and would like to see your reaction to the simpler one I presented), but I am curious what modal fallacy you’ve found above. As is perhaps common, I don’t see it, and if you found a fault with the simple form of the argument it would be silly to build the complex form.
-Wm
I saw an amusing blog post… The entire text was:
Calvinism: God is the author of sin.
Arminianism: God is the publisher and co-author of sin.
Molinism: God is the editor of sin.
Open Theism: God is the financier and reader of sin.
From: http://aporeticchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/the-story-of-sin/
I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. It’s an amusingly accurate metaphor, at least for Calvinism and Molinism; I won’t comment on Arminianism, and I don’t know Open Theism well enough to comment on it.
-Wm
Patience! I replied to you quickly before because I was on vacation and had a lot more time.
Well, perhaps I was insufficiently clear. God knows that we would veto his will in certain circumstances. For example, God knows if he creates conditions C1 that I would not do as His will (an exercise of my “veto” power) due to my imperfect moral nature and my freedom to sin, so God creates conditions C2 instead knowing that C2 will have a better outcome even though God prefers I would do the right thing under C1.
That isn’t really an assumption of Molinism or my claim here. Here I’m assuming (1) God has foreknowledge in the normal sense, i.e. God knows what you will freely choose in the future; (2) after God creates the initial conditions, he is capable of knowing what you will choose if God doesn’t interfere further. Is knowledge (2) sufficiently similar to (1) such that if God has (1) then God has (2)?
Line 2 is false, strictly speaking. Determinism entails “that predictions can be made about a process using only information about its inputs” but that’s not what determinism means. Perhaps you were referring to entailment here, but if so line 8 doesn’t follow from any set of lines in your list; it certainly doesn’t follow from line 7. Recall God can predict our choices (in the normal sense of foreknowledge) based on whatever “inputs” His mind receives without robbing us of free will.
Actually, the link you gave to the reasonable faith web page kind of addresses this. Because I’m training to be an analytic philosopher, I’ll use symbolic logic (though I can’t use the real symbols so I’ll approximate with text).
~p = “not-p” i.e. “p is false” [negation of p]
p = “Possibly, p” (p could/could have happened)
p-<>q = “If p is true, then q is true.”
p[]->q = “if p were true, then q would be true.” [would-counterfactual]
p->q = ~(p[]->~q), or in English, “if p were true, then q might be true.” [might-counterfactual]
The problem Boyd seemed to have is that “might” doesn’t mean “could.” Might-counterfactuals are strictly defined as I did so above. So p[]->~q is inconsistent with p->q, but there is no logical contradiction between p[]->q and p->q, nor does one exist between p[]->q and p[]->~q. For example, because of the kind of person I choose to be, I know that if a defenseless person right next to me were to Spill a glass of water on Mt. Rushmore, I would not Murder that person just for doing that, i.e. S[]->~M. Because of my free will, I know I could do so if were to happen, i.e. S[]->M; just as I know that when the clock strikes Ten p.m. tomorrow, I could Kill myself but I know I will not do so (i.e. T->~K and T->K). While S[]->~M and S->M are inconsistent, S[]->~M and S[]->M do not appear to be for the same sort of reason that T->~K and T->K are not.
Actually, the link you gave to the reasonable faith web page kind of addresses this. Because I’m training to be an analytic philosopher, I’ll use symbolic logic (though I can’t use the real symbols so I’ll approximate with text).
~p = “not-p” i.e. “p is false” [negation of p]
{}p = “Possibly, p” (p could/could have happened)
p->q = “If p is true, then q is true.”
p[]->q = “if p were true, then q would be true.” [would-counterfactual]
p{}->q = ~(p[]->~q), or in English, “if p were true, then q might be true.” [might-counterfactual]
The problem Boyd seemed to have is that “might” doesn’t mean “could.” Might-counterfactuals are strictly defined as I did so above. So p[]->~q is inconsistent with p{}->q, but there is no logical contradiction between p[]->q and p->{}q, nor does one exist between p[]->q and p[]->{}~q. For example, because of the kind of person I choose to be, I know that if a defenseless person right next to me were to Spill a glass of water on Mt. Rushmore, I would not Murder that person just for doing that, i.e. S[]->~M. Because of my free will, I know I could do so if were to happen, i.e. S[]->{}M; just as I know that when the clock strikes Ten p.m. tomorrow, I could Kill myself but I know I will not do so (i.e. T->~K and T->{}K). While S[]->~M and S{}->M are inconsistent, S[]->~M and S[]->{}M do not appear to be for the same sort of reason that T->~K and T->{}K are not.
Using the symbols I used in my previous post, I’ll add one more:
[]p = “Necessarily, p” (p can’t be/could not be otherwise)
Here’s an example of a fallacy of modal logic:
[](p->q)
Therefore, []q.
Here’s an example of that fallacy in action: let p be “I will drink a carbonated root beer beverage” and q be “I will drink a carbonated beverage.” We can see here (1) is true but that (2) does not follow from (1); it doesn’t follow from (1) that my drinking a carbonated beverage is something that could not be otherwise (for I still have libertarian freedom with respect to this matter).
[continued in next post]
[continued from previous post]
Another example of that sort of modal fallacy:
(1)it is necessarily true that [if it is true at time t1 (some time before time t2) that I will choose action A1 at time t2, then I will choose A1 at time t2].
(2) Therefore, I cannot do otherwise than to do A1 at time t2.
Here, p is “it is true at time t1 (some time before time t2) that I will choose action A1 at time t2” and q is “I will choose action A1 at time t2.” While line (1) is true in such a case, (2) doesn’t follow. Similarly, the fact that a truth is “eternally embedded” with respect to what I will choose does not entail that I will not have libertarian freedom with respect to A1.
Welcome back! I apologize for the impatience, but this is, after all, fun.
I think another way of phrasing your point here is: “It’s possible that something other than determinism could explain being able to know about the outcome of a process using only information about its inputs.” But this isn’t true. The entities which follow my definition of determinism are a subset of the ones which follow the “necessary” definition you gave; it’s logically possible to have a necessary consequence of information which is an unknowable consequence of the information, but it’s impossible to have a knowable consequence of information which is not a necessary consequence of the information.
The above is a subset, not a *strict* (or proper) subset. God’s knowledge is exhaustive, such that He knows everything that is in principle knowable; thus, both types of determinism are the same for Him.
As a side comment, I appreciate the symbolic logic (I’ve always enjoyed it, and didn’t know about the modal symbols), but you didn’t tie them in to what I said, so I’m not sure why you posted them. Nonetheless, thank you; I’ll try hard to follow whatever you’re about to write using them. I am a programmer in multiple computer languages and platforms, so it is in in principle possible for me to understand formal language.
-Wm
This is an expression of God’s “immediate” knowledge. “Immediate” here means “un-mediated”, in the sense that (for example) God doesn’t need to wait for photons to reach His “eyes” in order to see a thing; in general, the simple fact that a thing exists is sufficient for God to know about it.
The problem is that God’s knowledge of the actual consequences of our “free choices” doesn’t follow from God’s immediate knowledge, because the consequences follow from our choices and not from anything that actually can be known to exist before the choices occur. In order for it to do so, you have to add an assumption. Some (not all) of the possible assumptions include a B-theory of time (i.e. the future is real); determinism (the future is in principle predictable based on the present); or something I’ll call pseudo-Molinism (there is a set of real things called CCFs).
(I call that pseudo-Molinism because actual Molinism only states that the CCFs are true, not that they’re in some way real — although Craig’s claim that they restrict God does seem to imply that there’s some kind of reality to them.)
-Wm
So do you then agree that God arranges the world such that no veto will ever occur? That it is in principle impossible, given middle knowledge and God’s creative action using it, for a creature to veto God’s will? That, in fact, the very fact that we exist as creatures of a middle-knowing God means that it is impossible for us to veto God’s will, and if we had been capable of vetoing God’s will in the circumstances in which He placed us we would not have been created in those circumstances at all?
-Wm
Wade, a purely non-rhetorical question: how does the []-> operator differ from the -> operator? I see they have a different symbol, but does their truth table differ?
I really like your explanation of would versus might counterfactuals; it makes Craig’s use of the terms much more understandable. (I simply took his word for it before; your explanation makes his claims make sense.)
-Wm
I did tie them in. To recap, I said, “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 which you replied, “How does it not mean that?” I used symbolic logic to help answer that question. I noted there is no contradiction between p[]->q (e.g. I would do it under conditions C1) and p[]->{}~q (e.g. if conditions C1 were to come about, I could have chosen otherwise). Another way to look at it is that that p[]->q does not entail p[]->~{}~q.
The second time I used symbolic logic was in response to “I am curious what modal fallacy you’ve found above.” I then used symbolic logic to help explain why a claim like “the truth of them precedes us before we make them makes our decisions not up to us once” makes a fallacy of modal logic (I wasn’t sure that’s what your argument was, hence my saying, “If I misunderstood you, please clearly list your premises and conclusion”). The following is a (somewhat notorious) fallacy of modal logic:
[](p->q)
Therefore, []q.
So in our case p is “it is true at time t1 (any time before time t2) that I will choose action A1 at t2” and q is “I will choose A1 at time t2.” Line 1 is true but the conclusion is fallacious.
Heh, I myself am a software developer by trade, though I’m going back to school to get a degree in philosophy (last semester I took symbolic logic and aced it).
But apparently not necessary; there are plenty of future acts that have not yet been actualized yet God knows what we will do, and surely there are some counterfactual conditionals one can know about (e.g. I know that if a defenseless person near me spilled a glass of water on Mt. Rushmore, I would not murder that person just because of that) even if the conditions of those counterfactuals haven’t happened, and this isn’t limited to philosophy: scientific laws also license counterfactuals (e.g. if I were to let go of a ball, gravity would make it fall).
See above; I just don’t think that type of reasoning follows.
You spoke of something you called “CCFs,” but what are they?
Sure it is. God knows what we will do (using whatever inputs His consciousness has) without determinism being true with respect to our choices. Or do you have something specific in mind when you say “inputs”?
Obviously not; we veto God’s will every time we sin—unless perhaps you’re using “veto” in some narrower sense.
Would-counterfactuals don’t really have a truth-table. To give you a feel for the difference though, note that “If Oswald didn’t kill JFK, somebody else did” and “If Oswald were not to have shot Kennedy, somebody else would have” have different meanings and (possibly) different truth-values.
I apologize — I should have said “I didn’t see any tie-in,” not “you didn’t tie them in.”
I didn’t answer this because it seemed obvious from context that this didn’t address what I was saying. But I’m wrong, because the context is so old; it’s not obvious. The context is our discussions of vetoes, and I’ll discuss that in my response to your post about that, so that we can reduce the number of simultaneous threads on the same topic (you know how dangerous it is to use shared memory while multithreading!).
Okay. I don’t think that helps, because it doesn’t seem to me to be connected at all — but that’s not your fault, since as you said, my argument was both terse and vague. Let’s postpone working on that until I decide to post a full argument on that; in the meantime, we’ll look at my currently better-developed argument.
-Wm
I had said: “in general, the simple fact that a thing exists is sufficient for God to know about it.”
This is highly contentious; it’s therefore not “apparent”.
Also contentious — you have to believe that the future isn’t actual to say that God knows about non-actual future acts. I do concede that the B-theory of time may possibly be true, in which case God’s knowledge may require some additional term.
However, due to the conceptual difficulties involved in B-theory, I think it’s very unlikely to be true, and in the total absence of a believable model, shouldn’t taken as a primary theory.
But you say you have knowledge of this; if I asked you why you knew this, you’d be able to answer me. You might answer something like “I don’t break the law in small ways, and therefore I probably won’t ever break it in such a huge way with no reasonable pretext.” In other words, you know this not because you know an abstract “thing”, but rather because you know something about your own person.
I don’t think this is true. I’m uncertain, but it seems to me that science only exhibits implications, not counterfactuals. And the implications are based on inductions and deductions — inductions from specific facts TO general principles, and deductions from general principles to specific facts…
A generally used term in Molinism, “Counterfactual(s) of Creaturely Freedom”. A statement for the terms that together make up the body of Middle Knowledge.
-Wm
I said: I think another way of phrasing your point here is: “It’s possible that something other than determinism could explain being able to know about the outcome of a process using only information about its inputs.” But this isn’t true.
Whew. One sentence, MANY problems.
First, you’re responding to my brief statement of my position rather than my argument for my position. And you’re doing so with a statement of your own position rather than any kind of refutation. Argument is an intellectual process; contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
Second, we’re talking about God prior to creation (the critical time for Molinism). So there’s no meaning of “inputs” that can possibly make God have inputs prior to creation. Nothing aside from God existed.
Third, my argument stands unchallenged: knowable determinism is stricter than philosophical determinism, and identical in the case of God (who knows everything that’s knowable). All you’ve done is contradict me, not argue against me.
Oops, I just noticed your nice explanation of would-counterfactuals — sorry I didn’t see it while I was writing my previous message. More in a second.
-Wm
Okay, here are your words that I’m replying to:
I mean the word ‘veto’ in THAT sense, the one you used in that message I was replying to. You proved that you know exactly the sense I meant.
If you really think the word ‘veto’ is inappropriate for that, give me a different word. I really want to explore Michael’s claim that people might possibly be able to make a choice that stops the flow of time; my use of the word ‘veto’ has possibly stopped the flow of useful argument, but I don’t know a better word.
-Wm
Those aren’t actually would-counterfactuals. Let’s see if I can make one:
“If William were in this situation, then he would write a comment to Wade.”
“If William is in this situation, then he writes a comment to Wade.”
Okay, the linguistic meaning is different. I see that. But the truth table is identical, and even the idea that the conditional need not be true is preserved. Why is there a need to include these in symbolic logic?
Might-counterfatuals are clearly different, and I see the possibility of a clue here. Might-counterfactuals don’t actually HAVE a boolean truth value — or if they do, it should almost always be true. A might-counterfactual is certainly NOT the simple negation of an implication.
Hmm. This isn’t boolean logic; it’s something else.
Okay, I think you’ve answered my question. These notations are useful in reasoning, but they’re not boolean logic. And since I’ve studied other kinds of logic, I think I’ll stop with that… It gets complicated fast, and even implication itself gets messy with more than two truth values.
-Wm
WM,
Maybe you got this but I think I will step in a clarify. I don’t think I ever claimed that people can make choices which “stop” the flow of time in the sense that the choice changes God’s knowledge of what will happen in the future (if I did I apologize as that would entail Open Theism which I do not believe). Rather I believe God has perfect knowledge of the future and knows exactly how it will play out. However, I don’t believe this entails determinism and to assert such commits the modal fallacy.
As for as veto power – humans have veto power in the sense that the choices we will make with our free will limits the range of possible universes which God can actualize. We have free will in the sense that our actions cannot be simply predicted from knowing the antecedent causes. In other words our choices cannot be mechanistically predicted.
OK, so apparently the answer is “yes” you do have something specific in mind when you use the word “inputs.” I was using it in the sense of doxastic inputs, i.e. whatever set of inputs is used in one’s forming of beliefs. From God’s doxastic inputs he is capable of knowing what we will do without determinism being true with respect to our choices.
What argument? If you’re referring to the argument I responded to in post 16, note how I said that the conclusion doesn’t appear to follow from the premises. Perhaps it would be help to rewrite your argument in such a way to mention where some lines follow from other lines, e.g. this:
(1) If it’s raining, then I will get wet.
(2) It is raining.
(3) Therefore, I will get wet (from (2) and (3)).
I think that would make it easier for me to follow your line of reasoning.
Not really. I’m aware of the sense of veto I was using in both cases, however the sense of “veto” I was using in both quote is the same; I was using it in a fairly generic sense. Yet you appear to be using “veto” in a sense that applies to my second quote yet not the first (if I am mistaken, please correct me). So can you give a clear definition of what you mean by it if you’re not using it in the way that I am?
Actually, the context in that case was that I said, “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 which you replied, “How does it not mean that?” I used symbolic logic to help answer that question. If anything, the context has to do with God’s middle knowledge not entailing determinism.
Actually what I mentioned is a somewhat classic way to illustrate the difference between indicative conditionals (e.g. “If Oswald didn’t kill JFK, somebody else did”) and counterfactual conditionals (“If Oswald were not to have shot Kennedy, somebody else would have”). You can find this in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (page 52), The theory of ontic modalities by Uwe Meixner (page 5), on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional#Example), and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conditionals/#Int).
The counterfactual conditional as I said doesn’t really have a truth table. In material conditionals, the antecedent being false is enough to render it true, whereas this isn’t the case for counterfactual conditionals.
Engineers rely on it all the time, e.g. “If this machine were to operate on Tuesday, it would function this way due to the physical laws operating in the way we understand them.” Take a college level physics class (as I did) and you’d likely get homework problems asking you what would happen under certain hypothetical situations. If you took such a class and wrote on your homework “There is no right scientific answer because science can’t license counterfactuals” your physics professor would likely be less than convinced.
I’m going to stop talking about vetoes; I did have a strong curiosity about what you meant, Michael, but it’s going to take WAY too long to bring the conversation back around. I’m going to try to stick to the new argument as much as possible.
-Wm
This sentence proves that it’s possible to form an English sentence that describes a state of affairs under which my argument would be false. Unfortunately, as described in my argument (and my response to your question about point #2), there is no such circumstance. The English sentence you speak here therefore has no connection with reality.
I said: “First, you’re responding to my brief statement of my position rather than my argument for my position.”
No, that’s not what you said. You critiqued point #2, and said IF point #2 failed THEN the conclusion didn’t follow. I posted a response attempting to defend point #2, and you quoted me saying “but this isn’t true”, and ignored the rest of the post (containing the actual defense of point #2) completely, as if I hadn’t made it.
The defense is at http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/10/why-i-reject-the-arminian-doctrine-of-prevenient-grace-2/comment-page-6/#comment-46623 .
If my defense of point 2 is weak, rebut it. You can’t simply contradict it without any grounds; and right now, you’re simply ignoring my defense of it. It’s not prima facie false, and in fact it’s a definition that’s actually in use in the real world (in mathematics and quantum physics). In addition, I explained (but didn’t prove) that both our definitions collapse to the same one given omniscience (defined as knowing all knowable truths).
-Wm
A good way to put it, yes. Another way is to say it is that the truth of the counterfactual depends on whether or not the implication is actually supported in the real world, not merely the boolean value of both propositions. (Although I don’t think my rephrasing is GENERALLY correct, it’s at least helpful to me.)
Ah, here’s another one: there must be some form of causation, not merely logical correlation. (NOTE: I’m not arguing my anti-Molinism point now. I’m aware that if that were PERFECTLY true it would refute the possibility of CCFs, so I’m assuming it’s only imperfectly true.)
-Wm
(1) I assumed that we both agreed that God has foreknowledge of our future choices without determinism being true (perhaps I was mistaken); (2) My English sentence utters a logically possible proposition (if you think it’s not, please derive a self-contradiction from it), and if it’s logically possible that is enough to show that premise 2, “Determinism means that predictions can be made about a process using only information about its inputs” is false. Determinism entails that, but that isn’t what determinism means. At least, it doesn’t mean that if the type of inputs we’re talking about are doxastic inputs. Are we? If not, exactly what “inputs” did you have in mind?
I actually said that if point #2 was about entailment (in which case point #2 would be true, as I said) the conclusion doesn’t follow.
“It’s possible that something other than determinism could explain being able to know about the outcome of a process using only information about its inputs” is true in the sense that such a thing is logically possible. If you think it is not, please derive a self-contradiction.
I wasn’t aware what you said was intended to be a defense of #2. If it is, I’m not sure what your argument is for #2. You said, “it’s impossible to have a knowable consequence of information which is not a necessary consequence of the information.” This isn’t strictly true (suppose the A being a consequence of B is not necessary but probabilistic, e.g. 99.99999% certainty; while knowing A one would still be properly justified in thinking that B would occur) but even if it were, so what? How does that entail that “Determinism means that predictions can be made about a process using only information about its inputs” (if indeed it is intended to show that)? It just doesn’t seem to follow, particularly if the reason knows one will do action A1 is not because of some state of affairs that A1 is a necessary consequence of. Suppose for example the information about someone doing A1 is obtained by a person traveling to the future to see the person’s libertarian choice and then moving back into the past. This is at least a logically possible way for one to know a future libertarian choice.
Thank you, Wade. Good answers.
We both agree with “God has knowledge of our future choices.” I don’t know the logical function you intend “without” to have; I read it as meaning “and not”, so you were asking me to agree that God knows the future and determinism is false. I don’t, in fact, know that determinism is false, and I don’t even have reason to suspect that it’s false.
Why should begging the question disprove anything?
Oh, so that’s what’s wrong. I was talking about the process’ inputs. “Determinism means that predictions can be made about a process using only information about its [the process’] inputs.” No, the inputs to a process are not doxastic; in the case of Molinism I’m claiming that the CCFs in middle knowledge make it possible to model free will as a deterministic process with two inputs (a soul and circumstances) and an output (the single choice the soul would make were it placed under those circumstances). So the inputs to the process in this case are a description of a specific soul and a description of a specific set of circumstances; the inputs are information (not belief, since God didn’t “believe” that I exist prior to creation), as is the ouput.
-Wm
WM,
1. “(1) I assumed that we both agreed that God has foreknowledge of our future choices without determinism being true (perhaps I was mistaken);
We both agree with “God has knowledge of our future choices.” I don’t know the logical function you intend “without” to have; I read it as meaning “and not”, so you were asking me to agree that God knows the future and determinism is false. I don’t, in fact, know that determinism is false, and I don’t even have reason to suspect that it’s false.”
Let me clarify for Wade here since I think it is pretty obvious what he meant. Do you agree that God “CAN” have foreknowledge of our future decisions without necessitating determinism (i.e. it is possible for God to have exhaustive knowledge of the future and LFW to still exist)? This simply goes back to the modal fallacy discussed ad naseum earlier.
2. “in the case of Molinism I’m claiming that the CCFs in middle knowledge make it possible to model free will as a deterministic process with two inputs (a soul and circumstances) and an output (the single choice the soul would make were it placed under those circumstances).”
Except this isn’t what Molinism posits. In this universe God knows what Soul X will do in Circumstance Y, however in another universe the same Soul X in the same Circumstance Y might do the opposite. The deterministic process you claim breaks down because in Molinism the behaviour of a soul is indeterministic – it has free will. I also think you are again committing the modal fallacy because you are again improperly moving from knowledge of what Soul X will do in Circumstance Y to that being determined. I really feel we are playing “hide the modal fallacy” here.
Hmm. I phrased point 2 as: “Determinism means that predictions can be made about a process using only information about its [the process’] inputs.”
Perhaps I should have said: “A process is deterministic if predictions can be made about it using only information about its [the process’] inputs.”
Thusly:
1. LFW means determinism is not true of at least some choices made by humans.
2. A process is deterministic if predictions can be made about it using only information about its [the process’] inputs.
3. A prediction means that by giving information about inputs to a process, you receive information about the output.
4. Molinism specifies that God uses information about a pair of inputs (person S, circumstance C) to get information about the output (action A). The important thing is that the mechanism [of Molinism] actually has as its inputs and outputs ONLY information, not real objects.
6. Molinism then claims God chains the results of these together to model a timeline, then creates the first link in the timeline, and then observes everything turn out exactly as specified, proving the perfect accuracy and precision of the prediction.
7. Therefore, it’s possible in principle to construct a model to predict human choice under Molinism[, exactly as though human choice were a deterministic process].
8. Therefore, human choice under Molinism is a deterministic process and therefore not compatible with LFW.
Contrariwise: If LFW were true, there is no set of facts that would be sufficient to know with total precision what a person’s choice would be. If there were a set of facts God could change in order to predetermine a person’s choice, AND God could change the facts to make that person choose the other way, then the choice would be up to God and not up to the person (by Michael’s definition of “up to you”).
-Wm
We’re talking about prior to creation; the only being is God Himself, no universe. I think what you’re trying to say is that middle-knowledge reports to God what’s actually true; it doesn’t CAUSE the soul to act, and therefore doesn’t constrain how the soul acts. And I agree entirely with that; I’m not arguing at all that middle knowledge constrains people to act.
What I am claiming is that Molinism describes itself in a way which contradicts the claim that free will is nondeterministic. It requires the ability to be able to predict a single outcome to a free choice when you have all the data the soul making the choice has (plus all the data about the soul). And that kind of action is called a “prediction”, and is possible only for deterministic processes.
It’s fine to know how created soul X will behave in the future, because soul X and the future actually exist — God can “see” what they’ll freely do (or predict what they’ll non-freely do). But prior to creation, that soul does not exist and does not have the ability to make free choices.
-Wm
A 99% certainty is a “might” counterfactual, not a “would” counterfactual, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about.
First, I did state that only information about the soul and the circumstances are available; your “counterexample” improperly makes the actual soul and circumstances real.
Second, your counterexample is only logically possible in conjunction with a future realism (B-theory). And it’s not at all possible prior to creation.
-Wm
I wanted to clarify something I said.
By “improper” I mean that your counterexample doesn’t fit within Molinism, first because applying it to the Molinist model of creation assumes time travel prior to the creation of the timeline (in other words, the timeline exists prior to its creation); and second, even if we don’t apply it to God’s act of creation (but simply allow you to use it as an example), it still violates the basic assumptions of Molinism, because it requires that the people who make free choices exist in order to allow me to see their actions.
This latter point is reminiscent of the grounding objection, but my objection is not rooted in the grounding objection.
-Wm
That’s irrelevant to my point. I can be properly justified in accepting the true belief that B will be the consequence of A, and if that’s the case your claim, “it’s impossible to have a knowable consequence of information which is not a necessary consequence of the information” is false.
All of this is irrelevant to my point: what I described is at least a logically possible way for one to know a future libertarian choice via doxastic inputs despite the choice being indeterministic.
8 doesn’t follow from 7. As an analogy, God can predict actual future human choice as though it were deterministic, but that doesn’t entail human choice is in fact deterministic. Still, I think I can see where you’re going. Presumably the only “inputs” premise 4 is talking about is process inputs (which you haven’t explained exactly what they are, but presumably they are some set of initial conditions—if this is mistaken please correct me), but why limit only process inputs for God’s doxastic inputs for CCFs? God knows that (S&C)[]->A, but that doesn’t imply that (S&C)[]->~{}~A (though you seem to be saying it does) and therefore (S&C)[]->A being true doesn’t entail determinism. It’s clearly possible to know a CCF (counterfactual of creaturely freedom) without determinism being true.
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