Here are the recent Exchanges in the discussion on Free Will and Determinism, mostly with Ben from examiningcalvinism.blogspot.com.
I plan to write a concluding reponse with the third and final entry on this issue.
Stephen,
This exchange is getting very long. Let me just address a few things as briefly as possible and then I will probably not be able to continue going back and forth with you.
Regarding your back-peddling some things need to be cleared up as you seem to have thrown quite a bit of smoke on the situation.
Here again is what you wrote initially:
If free will got us into this mess, why do we value it so highly?
Here is what I deduced from that statement: free will should not be valued highly because it got us into “this mess.” I understand that you are a determinist and that you were arguing from my point of view and not yours. All of that is really irrelevant. The point was that I, as a believer in free-will, should not value free-will because if it wasn’t for free-will then we wouldn’t have gotten into this “mess” (sin, the fall of man, etc.). In other words, if something gets us into a mess, especially the mess of sin and the fall of man, it shouldn’t be valued. I then turned that around on you and made the point that from a determinist point of view it would mean that we should not value God since in the determinist view God and not free-will got us into this mess.
You then back-peddled and try to say that all you meant was that free-will gives us no guarantee or security, but that is not what you said and if there was some misunderstanding it did not stem from me failing to understand that you were assuming my perspective when you made that statement. I knew that you were and returned the favor. So again, according to determinist theology, why should we value God so highly seeing as how He caused the fall of man and brought sin and destruction into the world and then punished his creation for the sins that God caused them to commit?
You then wrote:
Being a logical statement, rather than a statement of my own belief, I was, in fact, only attempting to show that “free will” theology offers no real security and that it is a contradiction in such theology to speak of being one day fully determined, without ability to choose evil, and yet having free will or the ability to fall. Such is an indeterminate system and can never be determinate.
I never said that we would one day be fully determined. I only said that we will be unable to sin in Heaven. That does not mean that God will determine all that we do. As I have plainly explained our incorruptible state in Heaven is rooted in free-will and is therefore a genuine love relationship. If we surrender our will to God then we have done so willingly. There is no contradiction in saying that the genuineness of our relationship with God is proved while on earth and sealed in Heaven. It is also true that God will remove all those things which pull us toward sin in heaven. We sin on earth because of:
1) The pull of the sinful nature
2) The pull of the corrupt and sinful world system
3) Temptation form demonic forces
In Heaven there will no longer be a sinful nature, a corrupt world system, or demonic forces. There is really nothing in the Bible that tells us what our wills will be like in Heaven. It does seem that there will be no sin in Heaven and I am content to believe that this results from the lack of opportunity to sin coupled with the fact that God makes us incorruptible in accordance with our will (and His) to be completely free from sin and conformed to the image of His Son.
Besides, you seem to favor loss of free will by a free will decision, a thing, as I have said, is incongruous.
I favor the ability to surrender our will to God just as Jesus surrendered His will to the Father. If we make the free-will decision to surrender our will to the Lord and desire for that surrender to be permanent and God makes that decision permanent, then the relationship that results is still genuine because it was based on the free-will decision of the free-agent. However, if God irresistibly determines our choices then our choices are not ours but his. In that case, when we love God, God is really just loving Himself. He is not receiving love from His creatures but receiving love from Himself. Worse yet, when a person hates and rejects God, he is not really hating and rejecting God because he is not in control of his decisions, God is. Therefore God is just hating Himself and rejecting Himself. It really does reduce to a cosmic puppet show where God causes puppets to love Him and causes puppets to hate Him and then punishes them forever for doing what God caused them to do. That is why hard-determinism is absurd and the history of Christianity has never accepted it as orthodox.
If genuine love cannot exist without free will, and you admit that we lose free will in heaven (the loss of which makes sin impossible), then love to God is not genuine when in heaven.
Genuine love must be based in free-will. If we do not have free-will in Heaven it is because we have freely surrendered that will to God. As long as our relationship with God in Heaven is based on our free-will decision to love God (and it is) then that relationship is genuine even if the ability to sin no longer remains.
Christ went to the cross to make provision for our salvation. That provision, once made, was permanent. Christ had the freedom to choose all the way to the cross and He chose to go to the cross freely. Once He died, however, that freedom also died. His death made that decision permanent. That does not mean that it was not a genuine act of love after the cross because the affects of the cross were permanent.
In a similar way, death makes our decisions permanent, but that permanency does not make those decisions any less real or genuine prior to death. That is why we are judged, rewarded, etc. after death. That is how God wanted to do things and I respect His sovereign right to it that way.
In your restricted view, God cannot demand love nor condemn a man for not loving him, no more than I can condemn a woman for not loving me when I want her to!
Herein lies the basis of much of your confusion. Our relationships with each other are not always analogous to our relationship with God. Our relationship with God and our interactions with God are different because God is our Creator and He has certain rights over us that we do not necessarily have over each other. I have no right to take the life of another person, but God, as Creator, does have the right to take life. I do not have the right to seek vengeance while God alone has the right to avenge, etc. I cannot condemn a woman for refusing to love me because I am not her Creator. I do not have absolute rights over her. She does not belong to me. That is not the case with God. We owe allegiance to God because He is our maker. It is wrong for us to rebel against our Maker, and yet God allowed for that possibility because God wanted us to do what was right freely. God created us as moral agents and treats us accordingly.
Again, God has the sovereign right to create us as free moral agents and hold us accountable for our actions. He does not have to prevent those actions. He has the right to decide how to deal with us as His creatures as long as it does not contradict His nature. Allowing us to act and holding us accountable for those acts does not violate His nature.
In your view God creates us without the ability to do anything that God does not make us do and then holds us accountable for actions that He irresistibly determines us to do. As I said before, He commands us to love Him and causes us to hate Him and then punishes us for doing what He caused us to do. It would be similar to you punishing your child because she has blond hair. Such behavior is not consistent with His nature as He has revealed Himself. It makes the God of truth contradictory. It makes the most holy One the only true sinner in the universe. It makes the God whose essence is love into a puppet master who does not value real relationship and demonstrates His power by proving He can do whatever evil thing He wants to with His creation. God is sovereign, but his sovereignty is directly related to His holy nature.
Your knowledge of “causality” is little. Don’t you know there are different kinds of causes and that there may be varied causes to an effect, or what is called “contributing causes”? Do you or do you not believe that God is the “first cause of all things”?
I believe that God created the universe and nothing happens that God does not either cause or permit. You call my knowledge of “causality” little, but I am trying to work with normal definitions. If you want to expand and stretch a definition to the point that includes things that are contrary to it, then we are not going to be able to have an intelligent conversation. If you want to say that permission is the same as causality then you need to demonstrate that and not just assert it or appeal to what Aristotle thought on the matter. Perhaps I do not want to swim where you are swimming if that means that you can just assert whatever you like. Most people understand the difference between permitting something to happen and making something happen. That is the definition I am working with.
True, the hammer could not be “blamed” or “faulted” in a legal sense, as humans are, but if we use the term “cause” in the sense of “responsible,” we use it in regard to both things human and non-human. So too with the words blame and fault, we use it in regards to things. For instance, “a faulty engine was to blame (at fault, or responsible) for the wreck.”
I am glad your are bringing the conversation back to responsibility and I think this illustration is helpful. If the faulty engine was to blame for the wreck then the faulty engine was responsible. Would we charge the driver with a crime if the fault lied with something beyond his control? No, we would not. It was mechanical failure that was to blame. If someone in another car was killed as a result, the driver of the first car would be innocent.
People are not machines that cannot help but to do what they do. People are free-moral agents and are held responsible for the decisions they make for that very reason. In your view people are little more than machines. They do not make moral decisions. They are entirely passive and God makes decisions for them. God punishing us for what we do in hard-determinism is as absurd as punishing an engine for breaking down. In your view (since you like appealing to the courts) one should never be exonerated due to mental deficiencies, etc. For if determinism is true then no one is any more or less responsible since none of us are really in control of our actions. Yet, the courts do show mercy to those who are deemed not to be in control of their actions. But, then again, you seem to believe that ability has nothing to do with responsibility.
If I make a hammer, and I know in advance that the hammer will kill a certain person, and I nevertheless make that hammer, and give it to the person, am I, in any sense, a “cause”? You know our legal system would say I was at fault, responsible, or to blame, or the legal cause.
God did not give us free-will so we could sin. It was not His intention when He gave it to us. That God foreknew that we would choose to disobey Him does not make Him culpable for our disobedience since God did not cause that disobedience. God’s foreknowledge is not causative. We do not do things because God foreknows what we will do. God foreknows what we will do because we will in fact do them (freely).
Again, our interactions with each other are not always analogous to God’s interactions with us. We owe allegiance to God as our Creator, but God does not owe allegiance to us. God does not have to stop us from abusing the gifts He has given us. And the fact that God does not stop us from abusing His gifts does not make Him responsible for that abuse. The one who freely abuses the gift is responsible because He is perverting God’s gift and using it in a way that God did not intend for it to be used. In your view, however, God does intend for sin and then punishes the sinner for what He intended and caused them to do.
He does not have to rescue us from the consequences of our behavior either. God will, however, make things right. He has provided for forgiveness and restoration through the cross and will judge the world in perfect justice.
Sure, God gives ability. Who denies that?
You do. How can I have the ability to resist temptation if God irresistibly determines that I will not resist temptation? If something is impossible for us to do then we do not have the ability to do it. That is a very basic use of normal human language and no appeals to Aristotle or claims of shallow thinking will ever change that. In this passage God says that we can resist temptation. Many do not. Therefore, either God is not faithful as He claims or your determinism crumbles.
In your system, in the end, you must credit yourself for overcoming temptation, not God. “For who made you to differ from another” as regards the use of this ability?
Actually, Paul goes on to explain this further in a way that perfectly conforms to Arminian theology:
“For who makes you different than anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7)
So the reason they cannot boast is because they have only received what they have. They did not work for it or earn it. In the same way, we cannot boast in our salvation because we have only received it as a free gift from God. Faith excludes boasting because it is the receiving of a free gift that is not deserved or earned. Paul does not say that they have no basis for pride because the gift is received irresistibly.
Brother, you are just ignorant of modern behavioral sciences which are mostly deterministic in the matter of human choice and behavior. In fact, many criminals are found not guilty because the attorneys in their defense proved that sociological, psychological, or environmental factors brought about the choice and behavior. I guess you set yourselves against them all. I think you should look up articles on “free will” as it is discussed by psychologists.
I have no problem setting myself up against them since the Word of God contradicts them. They are wrong. Why are you so certain that they are right? Because it seems to support your beliefs? Do you also believe that science has proven that we are just a cosmic accident and the results of random mutations which took place over millions of years? Do you dare “set yourself against” the atheistic evolutionary scientific community?
And let us suppose that they are right to let people off the hook because their wills are not free due to the control of social, psychological, and environmental factors. How then could we ever condemn anyone for any crime at all? And if divine determinism is correct then there is no difference between the Harvard grad with good parents who murders someone and the kid who grew up in Harlem in a broken home surrounded by drug pushers who murders someone. In both cases their will was determined by God, and so neither of them should be responsible.
But here you contradict what you said above! If there are causes to choice, then choice is not “free” by common Arminian and Libertarian definitions.
Not at all. The free-agent is free to use his powers however he decides. But he is the cause of his actions. His actions are not “uncaused.” They are caused by him. You have misunderstood how Arminians understand free-agency. That, unfortunately, is not uncommon among Calvinists.
But, you think that if God create or cause us to love him, then the love is of no use. You think self created love is what God desires more than any love he would cause or create!
I believe that God did create us to love Him. That is our purpose. It is to love and worship Him and give Him glory. God is best glorified when His creatures freely love and worship Him. How is God glorified by making His creatures love Him? However, if love is defined as something that one must freely do, then God cannot make us love Him. He could make us act and feel like we love Him, but it would not be real love. Nor would it be real worship. We are not God’s equals. We owe Him love, but love is not love if it is caused irresistibly. If God wanted to cause us to love Him, then we should never see God pleading for the love of His people (not because God needs us but because we need Him, and God wants what is best for His creatures). Yet we see that all throughout Scripture.
Brother, if you will look at all the other places in the bible where this and similar language is used - “put it in their hearts,” then I think you could talk about this more intelligently. If I put into the heart of my son to commit murder, no court in the land would hold me wholly blameless, or not in any way a “cause” or “responsible,” and you know that!
And of course, the passage does not say anything about God putting it into their hearts to murder.
I will give you just a few. Romans 11: 36; I Cor. 8: 6: Colossians 1: 16-18.
Romans 11:36- God created all things and everything that has been created owes its existence and allegiance to Him. It is not saying that God made sin.
1 Cor. 8:6- Again, everything is created by God and owes its existence to Him. But God created all things “good” and created nothing evil. This passage is not speaking of decisions to rebel against God and corrupt His goodness. Rather, it is speaking of how God created and sustains His universe. “All things” has reference to created things and the passage is speaking of those things’ existence and not their actions. That you call this passage into service demonstrates how weak your position is.
Col. 1:16-18- Same as above. The context is even more obvious than that in 1 Cor.8:6 and Rom. 11:36 with regards to what is being described: creation and its existence, not the sinful actions of God’s creatures. Weak.
No, James 1: 13 does not make that impossible. You are not correctly understanding that passage if you think it denies God being the first cause of all things, and the cause of all other causes.
Of course not. I must not be correctly understanding it because it doesn’t fit with your determinism. I gave you an alternative interpretation for Rev. 17. You don’t accept it, and that is fine, but at least I tackled the passage instead of waving it off as you have.
James makes it plain that we should never imagine that God tempts us because to think such of God is improper and impossible. Yet, your determinism is even worse than accusing God of temptation since at least temptation can be resisted. In your view God just causes us to sin in a way that is irresistible and then punishes us for it.
Sorry about the mistake on the term. If God create a personality, then it cannot be a personality? What kind of logic is that? Or, are you saying that God does not create personality? Not even the personality of Christ? Who created yours then? Yourself? Somebody else?
If God controls our every thought then our thoughts are not our own. They are God’s thoughts. Therefore, our thoughts, actions, and personality are just expressions of who God is (panentheism). God allows us to mold our own personality. Our personality is shaped based on how we use our God given powers of self-determination. That does not mean that God does not influence us for good and play a part in shaping our personality, but we are distinct from God. Your view dissolves that distinction and panentheism results. Christ’s personality was uncreated in His divinity, and shaped by His own power of self-determination in His humanity, which Christ perfectly exercised in full submission to the Father’s will. So, in a real sense Christ’s personality was indeed the perfect expression of God’s personality. And since Christ never sinned nor caused anyone to sin, then we can conclude that God never sinned nor caused anyone to sin.
The bible teaches that God does control every action, from the bird falling to the ground, to the number of hairs on a man’s head. That is intense or minute control or governorship!
Actually, it says that no bird falls to the ground without God being aware of it, and that the hairs of our head are numbered. No one ever said that we control the number of hairs that will grow on our head (If that were the case I would surely have more hair on my head!). These examples do noting to prove your determinism and your wild claims that God causes our sinful actions.
It is valid to say, for instance, “but for” God creating Richard with free will, he would be happy in Eden now”! Do you deny this is valid?
Maybe, and maybe not. It may be that our happiness can only come when we freely choose to love and obey God. If that is the case then happiness would be contingent on free-will and Adam could not have been happy. Though Adam could still be happy in Eden if he had not decided to rebel against God. Either way, God did not cause Adam’s sin and is not responsible for it. Adam could not have sinned if God did not create the universe, and yet God declared that all he created was “good.” God did not intend for Adam to sin and He did not cause Adam to sin. Therefore, God is not responsible for Adam’s sin. Your courtroom analogies fail to reckon with the unique creature/ Creator relationship between man and God, and deny God the sovereign right to create free moral agents and hold them morally accountable for their actions.
So, Richard, how would you respond? Suppose you put your name up there instead of “God.” In other words, “Richard could have kept my client from doing this evil”?
You see, the difference between you and me is simply this. You try to do the impossible, by scripture and reason, to exonerate God of all causality in evil, but I acknowledge his causation.
See above regarding the difference between our interactions with each other and God’s interactions with us. BTW, I am not Richard. Later, you chide me for not paying close attention to what you write, yet you cannot even keep straight who you are addressing.
The difference between me and you, IMO, is that you blaspheme God by making Him the cause of sin, something Scripture plainly contradicts, and I do not.
It makes no difference as to my argument as to whether Abimelech was “innocent.” God kept him from a sin. But, in your Arminian system, God can’t do this!
I never said that God cannot prevent us from sinning in certain situations. I did say that God cannot cause sin. He is holy, just, perfect, and non-contradictory. In fact, we are to pray that God will not lead us into temptation, which essentially means to protect us from situations where we may be tempted to sin. That is what God did with Abimilech. That God intervenes at times for specific reasons, does not mean that He must always intervene. Nor does it mean that if He could intervene, but does not intervene, then He is responsible for what His creatures freely do.
Just so we understand each other I need to make a few things clear. I do not believe that God treats everyone equally. I do not believe that circumstances cannot limit our freedom, or that God cannot limit our freedom by circumstances. I do not believe that everyone gets the same exact opportunity to hear or respond to the gospel. I do believe that God holds us responsible for what we can do and how we do respond to Him in whatever circumstances God puts us in. I even believe that God sometimes overrides man’s will to accomplish things. I do not, however, believe that God ever overrides man’s will to deliberately sin against Him. So, I, like most Arminians, believe that God gives us a measure of free-will and allows us to make moral decisions and judges us accordingly. I do not believe that God gives us unlimited free-will as you seem to think.
My main concern is the genuineness of a love relationship with God and avoiding the blasphemous charge of making God the author of sin. If it wasn’t for those things I wouldn’t give a rip about free-will.
It is unbelievable to me that Arminians preach salvation apart from the gospel and faith in Christ when they see how to believe such puts them into the position I have uncovered!
Not sure what “position” you have uncovered. I don’t preach salvation apart from the gospel and faith as I said, “It may be that if they respond to the grace given that God will work things out so that they will eventually hear the gospel.” All of it is speculation and it is unwise to build doctrines on speculation and “secret decrees” of which the Bible says nothing. That is a backwards and dangerous hermeneutic, as your conclusions that God causes sin plainly demonstrate.
There is much more that I could say, but I cannot devote any more time to this exchange. It is not that it is not important, or that I do not think you are worth my time, it is just that I do not have the time. If I do respond to something you write, it may not be for quite a while. It seems clear that we are not going to agree.
I am, however, genuinely concerned for you regarding your belief that God is the author of sin. I hope that you will reconsider that belief. I believe that it is truly a blasphemous charge to lay at the foot of a holy God, but I do not think you intend to blaspheme God. May God bless you as you continue to seek Him, and may His Spirit guide you into all truth.
Ben
kangaroodort
Thank you for the engagement on this issue.
I, like you, do not have time for the continuation of this discussion. I commend you for defending what you believe, although I disagree with it.
It is not true that those who believe that God is the cause of all things believe God therefore delights in wickedness. Many supralapsarians have been very godly men.
I do commend you also for a point or two you made. Perhaps you too were helped some by this engagement?
I pray you well.
God bless
Stephen
Stephen,
I also appreciate the discussion. You are the first hard-determinist I have debated with so you have forced me to think more clearly about the issue, which is never a bad thing.
I admire your desire for consistency. Many Calvinists abandon consistency for the sake of trying to sound more orthodox. I only wish that your consistency would lead you to realize that Calvinism has serious problems since it does make God the author of sin. Instead, you seem content to affirm that God authors sin for the sake of being consistent and remaining a Calvinist.
Again, I hope that you will re-consider this. I do believe that you are an honest seeker and that you are trying to be true to the word of God, and I respect that. That is all that I am trying to do.I do need to make a small correction. I wrote:
"Actually, it says that no bird falls to the ground without God being aware of it"
I did not check the reference on that one because I thought I remembered it clearly. The passage actually says that no bird falls apart from “the Father” (Matt. 10:29). It does not say “apart from the Father knowing”. A few translations add “Father’s will”, but that seems to be interpretive and not demanded by the text. Even if that is the correct rendering I think it still makes better sense to understand that within the framework of permission and not causation (and even if it does relate to causation it is not a problem for my view, since I believe that God causes many things).
Anyway, thanks again for the enlightening discussion. I appreciate that we could maintain a civil dialogue even though we took some small shots at each other along the way. May God bless you as you continue to seek His truth.
Ben
Oh, and one more thing...
"It is not true that those who believe that God is the cause of all things believe God therefore delights in wickedness. Many supralapsarians have been very godly men."
I never thought or suggested that supralapsarians, because they believe that God authors sin, cannot live godly lives. I only suggested (and truly believe) that to think such things about God is unBiblical and blasphemous.
But again, I do not think that any supralapsarian means to or believes that they blaspheme God with their beliefs. Like you said, they are mostly godly men who are trying to be faithful to what they believe the Scripture teaches. I only think that they are very wrong about how they understand Scripture and come to some very unfortunate conclusions based on that misunderstanding.
God Bless,
Ben
Dear Ben:
Thanks much!
I do plan to write some more on this topic in my baptistgadfly.blogspot.com blog.
I have already posted the exchange between us there.I have studied theistic and non-theistic determinism all my life. I wrote papers on it in college. I dealt with the issue of cauality and responsibility. I believe absolute predestination of all things is scriptural and I believe it is the only view that satisfactorily deals with the "problem of evil," being the best "theodicy."
Sin does serve God's purpose or else it would not be suffered to exist in any world he created. I do not believe that God created Adam as an end, but that he created Adam, willed the fall, in order that he might reveal himself in the second Adam.
Had Adam not fallen into sin, there would be no second Adam, no redemption, no understanding of the love, grace, and mercy of God, nor would we know the meaning of pain, suffering, rest, etc.
I will let you know when I have found time to write some on this topic in my Gadfly blog.
God bless,
Stephen
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