Compatibilism Or Theological Determinism?

            My previous article entitled Do We Have Free Will? Is Free Will An Illusion? concluded that free will is in existence i.e. we have free will. You and I have free will to make an independent choice – a choice that is not causally determined.

            So does this mean that we are Libertarians – those who endorse the libertarian free will position?  

            Libertarianism claims incompatibility of free will with determinism. Libertarians believe in free will; they negate determinism. Libertarians could also be termed as Incompatibilists. Libertarians believe that for any choice made, one could have always made another choice or no choice at all. This is called the CDO condition or Could Have Done Otherwise condition.¹

            There are sincere Christians who believe that free will is compatible with determinism. They are the Compatibilists. They believe that God’s sovereignty is compatible with human freedom.

            Compatibilism defines free will differently. “Compatibilism claims that every person chooses according to his or her greatest desire. In other words, people will always choose what they want-- and what they want is determined by (and consistent with) their moral nature. Man freely makes choices, but those choices are determined by the condition of his heart and mind (i.e. his moral nature).”²

            Compatibilism believes that man’s choices are not absolutely free. Both the desire and the choice of man are determined by God and the forces of nature and not by man. In this situation, man chooses what God and the forces of nature have already determined for him. This is not absolute freedom.

            A Theological Determinist, however, believes that God’s sovereignty extends absolutely to every event that occurs in the history of this world, which also includes human choice. Theological determinism eliminates human freedom since there are external factors that are sufficient to determine human choices.

            A theological determinist, if he is a soft determinist will be a compatibilist.

            These positions, Compatibilism and Theological Determinism should explain a plethora of theological dilemmas. A few of those dilemmas are mentioned below:

            1. If all our actions are determined, then is God the author of sin? If A kills B, then it implies that God determined A to kill B. So God is the cause of the murder, not person A.

            2. If God is the cause of the murder, how can HE punish person A for murder? Person A did not choose to murder, instead, it was God who determined A to murder. So if A were to be punished, would it not be an unjust punishment? Extending this to the final punishment would pose another serious dilemma. If mankind is not free to make a choice to either believe or disbelieve in God, then how can God send unbelievers to hell? How would it be just/fair on God’s part to send someone to hell despite the fact that that person did not choose to disbelieve in God?

            3. Does this mean that God is evil? If God is the author of sin and if God punishes people unjustly, then HE cannot be a good, loving, merciful, gracious and a just God.

            More such theological dilemmas should be explained by those holding to the viewpoint of theological determinism and compatibilism.

            Whatever be our stance, we need not condescend to the extent of alienating our Christian brothers and sisters holding opposing viewpoints. We could always agree to disagree, yet maintain our brotherhood.

            Christian apologist, Greg Koukl articulates this well:³

I believe that all things are in operation. That there are some things that are determined. Our molecules are like dominos falling in a certain way according to their chemistry and natural law, and we don’t make any decisions about those kinds of things. There are other things that I seem to make decisions on and I could have done otherwise, so I believe that there are libertarian freedoms that we have when we’re trying to make decisions about things.

There also seems to me that there are some things that I do because I want to do them, but I couldn’t have done otherwise. I don’t think it’s possible for us to live a sinless life. I seem to want to sin, and sometimes I want to do right. But even when I want to sin, and I do the sinful things, these are things that are, to some degree, dictated by my nature.

How that all plays out in our theology is a complex kind of notion. But when you’re addressing the question of free will, think of these different categories: strict determinism, strict libertarian freedom, and right in the middle, it’s called compatibilism, or soft determinism. Yes, some of the things are determined by your desires, and in that mix, you’re going to find a place for your particular theology.

            Why am I not a compatibilist? The Consequence Argument, even its non-technical version, is quite compelling against compatibilism. The non-technical version of the consequence argument is this:⁴

This argument invokes a compelling pattern of inference regarding claims about what is power necessary for a person. Power necessity, as applied to true propositions (or facts), concerns what is not within a person's power. Or, put differently, it concerns facts that a person does not have power over. To say that a person does not have power over a fact is to say that she cannot act in such a way that the fact would not obtain. To illustrate, no person has power over the truths of mathematics. That is, no person can act in such a way that the truths of mathematics would be false.[16] Hence, the truths of mathematics are, for any person, power necessities.

… The argument requires the assumption that determinism is true, and that the facts of the past and the laws of nature are fixed. Given these assumptions, here is a rough, non-technical sketch of the argument:[17]

1. No one has power over the facts of the past and the laws of nature.

2. No one has power over the fact that the facts of the past and the laws of nature entail every fact of the future (i.e., determinism is true).

3. Therefore, no one has power over the facts of the future.

According to the Consequence Argument, if determinism is true, it appears that no person has any power to alter how her own future will unfold.

            Peter van Inwagen is a prominent metaphysician and a brilliant Christian philosopher. He is an incompatibilist. He has written a paper entitled A dialogue on Free Will.⁵ Read this paper if you desire to dig deep into the subject of the superiority of incompatibilism over compatibilism.  

            I am a libertarian, for I hold to the libertarian free will position. This does not relegate those holding opposing views to hell. Whatever be your position, it does not affect your salvation, unless the extension of your belief motivates you to negate any of the essential doctrines of Historic Christianity. What affects your salvation and mine is our belief in the essential doctrines of Historic Christianity. 

            How do I reconcile my libertarian free will with God’s sovereignty? God has given man free will and God allows man to make independent choices that are not causally determined. So man is free to make his own decisions, and he needs to face the consequences of those decisions (moral responsibility).

            The sovereign God predestines people based on his foreknowledge (cf. Molinism). God knows who will accept and reject HIM. When God predestines, HE does so in the light of HIS perfect knowledge, which includes the knowledge of the counterfactuals as well.

Endnotes:

¹https://www.str.org/videos/do-humans-really-have-free-will#.XWjzDOMzZhF

²https://www.theopedia.com/compatibilism

³https://www.str.org/videos/do-humans-really-have-free-will#.XWjzDOMzZhF

⁴https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#ThrMajInfConCom

⁵http://andrewmbailey.com/pvi/Dialogue_Free_Will.pdf  

Websites last accessed on 30^th August 2019.

Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom – A Molinistic Perspective (Doctrines Dividing the Church)

            With respect to the salvation of mankind, there exist two major schools of thought within Christianity. They are Calvinism and Arminianism.

            Very minimally, Calvinism subscribes to divine sovereignty to teach that God chooses some people to go to heaven and others to hell. ‘Arminianism,’ which is predicated on human freedom, teaches that man has freewill to either accept God or reject HIM. This action of man will lead him to his eventual eternal destination, namely heaven or hell.

            Predestination is certainly one of the most controversial doctrines of the Christian faith. But the Bible reveals this doctrine. Hence a Christian has no other option but to understand it to the best of his/her ability.

            ‘Predestination’ refers to God’s choice of individuals for eternal life or eternal death. ‘Election’ is God’s selection of some for eternal life, the positive side of predestination.

            A definite tension (as to who is correct) exists between groups subscribing to Calvinism and Arminianism. Gotquestions.org explains the basic nuances of Calvinism and Arminianism so to understand this tension:¹

Calvinism and Arminianism are two systems of theology that attempt to explain the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility in the matter of salvation. Calvinism is named for John Calvin, a French theologian who lived from 1509-1564. Arminianism is named for Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch theologian who lived from 1560-1609.

Both systems can be summarized with five points. Calvinism holds to the total depravity of man while Arminianism holds to partial depravity. Calvinism’s doctrine of total depravity states that every aspect of humanity is corrupted by sin; therefore, human beings are unable to come to God on their own accord. Partial depravity states that every aspect of humanity is tainted by sin, but not to the extent that human beings are unable to place faith in God of their own accord. Note: classical Arminianism rejects “partial depravity” and holds a view very close to Calvinistic “total depravity” (although the extent and meaning of that depravity are debated in Arminian circles). In general, Arminians believe there is an “intermediate” state between total depravity and salvation. In this state, made possible by prevenient grace, the sinner is being drawn to Christ and has the God-given ability to choose salvation.

Calvinism includes the belief that election is unconditional, while Arminianism believes in conditional election. Unconditional election is the view that God elects individuals to salvation based entirely on His will, not on anything inherently worthy in the individual. Conditional election states that God elects individuals to salvation based on His foreknowledge of who will believe in Christ unto salvation, thereby on the condition that the individual chooses God.

Calvinism sees the atonement as limited, while Arminianism sees it as unlimited. This is the most controversial of the five points. Limited atonement is the belief that Jesus only died for the elect. Unlimited atonement is the belief that Jesus died for all, but that His death is not effectual until a person receives Him by faith.

Calvinism includes the belief that God’s grace is irresistible, while Arminianism says that an individual can resist the grace of God. Irresistible grace argues that when God calls a person to salvation, that person will inevitably come to salvation. Resistible grace states that God calls all to salvation, but that many people resist and reject this call.

Calvinism holds to perseverance of the saints while Arminianism holds to conditional salvation. Perseverance of the saints refers to the concept that a person who is elected by God will persevere in faith and will not permanently deny Christ or turn away from Him. Conditional salvation is the view that a believer in Christ can, of his/her own free will, turn away from Christ and thereby lose salvation. Note - many Arminians deny "conditional salvation" and instead hold to "eternal security."

So, in the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate, who is correct? It is interesting to note that in the diversity of the body of Christ, there are all sorts of mixtures of Calvinism and Arminianism. There are five-point Calvinists and five-point Arminians, and at the same time three-point Calvinists and two-point Arminians. Many believers arrive at some sort of mixture of the two views. Ultimately, it is our view that both systems fail in that they attempt to explain the unexplainable. Human beings are incapable of fully grasping a concept such as this. Yes, God is absolutely sovereign and knows all. Yes, human beings are called to make a genuine decision to place faith in Christ unto salvation. These two facts seem contradictory to us, but in the mind of God they make perfect sense.

            According to other theologians, this tension need not exist. These theologians subscribe to the teachings of Molinism.

            Dr. William Lane Craig offers an introductory explanation as to how Molinism can help us understand God with respect to man’s salvation:²

The biblical worldview involves a strong conception of divine sovereignty over the world and human affairs even as it presupposes human freedom and responsibility (cp. the accounts of Saul’s death in 1 Sm 31:1–6 and 1 Ch 10:8–12). An adequate doctrine of divine providence requires reconciling these two streams of biblical teaching without compromising either. Yet this has proven extraordinarily difficult. On the one hand, the Augustinian-Calvinist perspective interprets divine providence in terms of predetermination, God choosing in advance what will happen. It is hard to see how this interpretation can preserve human freedom or avoid making God the author of sin, since (for example) it would then be He who moved Judas to betray Christ. On the other hand, advocates of revisionist views (e.g., open theism) freely admit that as a consequence of their denial of God’s knowledge of future contingent events a strong doctrine of providence becomes impossible. Ironically, in order to account for biblical prophecies of future events, revisionists are often reduced to appealing to the same deterministic explanations that Augustinian-Calvinists offer.

Molinism offers an attractive solution. Luis Molina (1535–1600) defined providence as God’s ordering of things to their ends, either directly or indirectly through secondary causes. In explaining how God can order things through secondary causes that are themselves free agents, Molina appealed to his doctrine of divine middle knowledge.

Molina analyzed God’s knowledge in terms of three logical stages. Although whatever God knows, He knows eternally, so that there is no temporal succession in God’s knowledge, nonetheless there does exist a sort of logical order in God’s knowledge in the sense that His knowledge of certain truths is conditionally or explanatorily prior to His knowledge of certain other truths.

In the first stage God knows all possibilities, not only all the creatures He could possibly create, but also all the orders of creatures that are possible. By means of this so-called natural knowledge, God has knowledge of every contingent state of affairs that could possibly be actual and of what any free creature could freely choose to do in any such state of affairs.

In the second stage, God possesses knowledge of all true counterfactual propositions (statements of the form “If x were the case, then y would be the case”), including counterfactuals about what creatures would freely do in various circumstances. Whereas by His natural knowledge God knew what any free creature could do in any set of circumstances, now in this second stage God knows what any free creature would freely do in any set of circumstances. This so-called middle knowledge is like natural knowledge in that such knowledge does not depend on any decision of the divine will; God does not determine which counterfactuals are true or false. By knowing how free creatures would freely act in any set of circumstances He might place them in, God thereby knows that if He were to actualize certain states of affairs, then certain other contingent states of affairs would be actual as a result. For example, He knew that if Pontius Pilate were the Roman procurator of Judea in A.D. 30, he would freely condemn Jesus to the cross.

Intervening between the second and third stages of divine knowledge stands God’s free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His middle knowledge. By His natural knowledge, God knows the entire range of logically possible worlds; by His middle knowledge He knows, in effect, the proper subset of those worlds that it is feasible for Him to actualize. By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His middle knowledge. In so doing He also decrees how He would freely act in any set of circumstances.

Given God’s free decision to actualize a world, in the third and final stage God possesses so-called free knowledge of all remaining propositions that are in fact true in the actual world, including future-tense propositions about how creatures will freely behave.

Molina’s scheme effects a dramatic reconciliation of divine sovereignty and human freedom. In Molina’s view God directly causes certain circumstances to come into being and brings about others indirectly through either causally determined secondary causes or free secondary causes. He allows free creatures to act as He knew they freely would when placed in specific circumstances, and He concurs with their decisions in actualizing the effects they desire. Some of these effects God desired unconditionally and so wills positively that they occur. Others He does not unconditionally desire but He nevertheless permits due to His overriding desire to allow creaturely freedom, knowing that even these sinful acts will fit into the overall scheme of things, so that God’s ultimate ends in human history will be accomplished. God thus providentially arranges for everything that happens by either willing or permitting it, and He causes everything that does happen, yet in such a way as to preserve freedom and contingency.

            To conclude, divisions among Christian churches over doctrinal matters are rather unfortunate. If we are one in Christ, then much could be achieved in Christendom with the pooling of all resources.

            It is with this objective that these systems of thought are presented here. The hope here is that if Christians subscribing to Calvinism hear and study the Molinistic school of thought, then it is quite possible that they may appreciate the Molinistic perspective. This could then bridge the divide between Calvinists and Arminians.

Endnotes:

¹https://www.gotquestions.org/Calvinism-vs-Arminianism.html

²http://pastorseansblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-can-bible-affirm-both-divine.html

Websites last accessed on 25^th February 2019.