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.

Do We Have Free Will? Is Free Will An Illusion?

            All but one of the ‘Four Horsemen of Atheism’ deny the existence of free will. Dan Dennett is the sole exception. Even the most acclaimed scientist Stephen Hawking considered free will as an illusion.

            So, atheists have no choice but to deny free will!

            An atheist is a materialist. If all there is is nothing more than matter and energy, then strictly, the concept of free will should be negated. If every event is connected to a past (antecedent) event, then any decision cannot be ‘freely’ decided. The materialistic perspective holds every thought captive to things external – the forces of nature.

            Discussing the topic of free will necessitates a brief understanding of free will and its competitors - determinism and compatibilism, at the very least. The definitions found below are from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article on Compatibilism.¹

            Free Will: “…free will can be defined as the unique ability of persons to exercise control over their conduct in the manner necessary for moral responsibility.”

            Determinism: “A common characterization of determinism states that every event (except the first, if there is one) is causally necessitated by antecedent events.[4] Within this essay, we shall define determinism as the metaphysical thesis that the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future. According to this characterization, if determinism is true, then, given the actual past, and holding fixed the laws of nature, only one future is possible at any moment in time.”

            Compatibilism: “Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is typically taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed as a thesis about the compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism.”

            Since these definitions include the term moral responsibility, here’s a brief understanding of moral responsibility:

            Moral Responsibility: “A person who is a morally responsible agent is not merely a person who is able to do moral right or wrong. Beyond this, she is accountable for her morally significant conduct. Hence, she is, when fitting, an apt target of moral praise or blame, as well as reward or punishment. And typically, free will is understood as a necessary condition of moral responsibility since it would seem unreasonable to say of a person that she deserves blame and punishment for her conduct if it turned out that she was not at any point in time in control of it.”

            One method to ascertain the reality of free will is to think if its archrival, determinism, is real or not. If we are not determined, then the other possibility is that we are free rational beings.

Is Determinism For Real?

            William Lane Craig assaults determinism by terming it as an unlivable view, “A determinist cannot live consistently as though everything he thinks and does is causally determined—especially his choice to believe that determinism is true! Thinking that you’re determined to believe that everything you believe is determined produces a kind of vertigo. Nobody can live as though all that he thinks and does is determined by causes outside himself. Even determinists recognize that we have to act “as if” we had free will and so weigh our options and decide on what course of action to take, even though at the end of the day we are determined to take the choices we do. Determinism is thus an unliveable view… insofar as naturalism implies that all our thoughts and actions are determined by natural causes outside ourselves, free will is an illusion. But we cannot escape this illusion and so must go on making choices as though we had free will, even though we don’t. Naturalism is thus an unliveable worldview.” (Emphasis Mine).² 

            An article entitled Determinism's Self-Destruct Button by Christian apologist Tim Stratton exposes determinism as a self-defeating worldview:³

Those who presuppose determinism have big problems on their hands. Consider the words of Greg Koukl:

“The problem with [determinism] is that without freedom, rationality would have no room to operate. Arguments would not matter, since no one would be able to base beliefs on adequate reasons. One could never judge between a good idea and a bad one. One would only hold beliefs because he had been predetermined to do so. . . . Although it is theoretically possible that determinism is true — there is no internal contradiction, as far as I can tell — no one could ever know it if it were. Every one of our thoughts, dispositions, and opinions would have been decided for us by factors completely out of our control. Therefore, in practice, arguments for determinism are self-defeating.” (Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, 128-29).

            The ironies exhibited by those who negate free will should not be neglected. In an article entitled Atheism & Free Will in the Apologetics Press website, author Kyle Butt exposes these ironies:⁴

There are striking ironies in the position that Harris and others take as they deny their own free will and their readers’ as well. First, why in the world would these men write books and articles in an attempt to persuade anyone to believe their “no free will” position if the reader cannot decide for himself to change his mind? What is the point of trying to convince a person who believes in free will, if that “belief” is nothing more than the consequence of the cause-and-effect, natural processes that are banging around in his brain? If the reader does not have the ability to choose his or her belief, what is the point of trying to “show” the superiority of the “no-free-will” position? According to Harris and crew, you believe what you believe because of the physics of the Cosmos working in your brain, and how in the world words on a page could change those physics would indeed be a mystery worth uncovering. The fact that modern atheists are writing books to convince people that there is no free will belies the undeniable fact that humans have free will.

Second, Harris’ concluding statement brings to light another glaring difficulty in the no-free-will position. He says, “Am I free to change my mind? Of course not. It can only change me.”13 Wait just a minute. Who is the “I” or the “me” in the sentence? If there is no free will, and humans are simply the combined total of the physical processes at work in their brains, then there should be nothing more than the “mind” in Harris’ sentence. The fact that he can differentiate between “himself” and his “mind” shows that there is something more at work than determinism. A purely physical entity such as a rock or atom does not have the ability to think in terms of “I” or “me.” In truth, that Harris is conscious of an “I” or of a “self” contradicts his claim that free will does not exist.14

In addition, it seems humorous and superfluous for people such as Harris to write an “Acknowledgements” section in their books. Why thank people and acknowledge their contributions to your work if they could not have done otherwise? He writes, “I would like to thank my wife and editor, Annaka Harris, for her contributions to Free Will. As is always the case, her insights and recommendations greatly improved the book. I don’t know how she manages to raise our daughter, work on her own projects, and still have time to edit my books—but she does. I am extremely lucky and grateful to have her in my corner.”15 That’s all well and good, but since she has no free will, she didn’t choose to help Sam. It was thrust upon her by the nature of the Cosmos. Why thank a person who stays with you and helps you due to no choice or decision of her own, but due to an unalterable course of cause-and-effect actions in her brain? Why not thank the computer that “typed the words so faithfully as I hit the key strokes,” or the oxygen that “so generously entered my lungs and allowed my cells to function,” or the light that “so gracefully bounced from the screen (or page) to my eye, allowing me to see”? That Harris thanks his wife and not his computer gets to the point that there is something very different about the two entities. You thank a person because that person helped you (but could have chosen to do otherwise).

            These are more than adequate reasons to negate determinism as an existential reality. So free will is not an illusion. Free will exists. 

            We may negate naturalistic determinism, but we need to consider Theological Determinism, which we shall in my next article. (According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Theological determinism is the view that God determines every event that occurs in the history of the world.)

            Compatibilism cannot be ignored as well. The sequel to this article will discuss both theological determinism and compatibilism with respect to libertarian free will. (Libertarian free will is the ability of human beings to make a choice that is independent of being causally determined.)

Endnotes:

¹https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#TerOneForFreWilPro

²https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/calvinism-and-the-unliveability-of-determinism/

³https://seanmcdowell.org/blog/determinisms-self-destruct-button

⁴https://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=5339

Websites last accessed on 28^th August 2019.