Compatibilism – Philosophical Theology

An Essential Tenet Of Reformed Theology Is Determinism. The Reformed Need To Embrace It.

March 12, 2023June 4, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo3 Comments

When it comes to the question of whether Reformed theology entails a principle of determinism, either disagreement abounds among Reformed theologians or else many within the tradition are talking by each other.

Perhaps some are in theological agreement over this essential aspect of Reformed theology while expressing themselves in conflicting ways. Perhaps. Regardless, there is no less a need to adopt a uniform theological taxonomy by which such theological ideas and concepts can be articulated and evaluated.

Semantics or substantive disagreement?

R.C. Sproul denied determinism yet affirmed “self-determination.” Sproul also rejected spontaneity of choice, whereas Douglas Kelly has favored it. Tom Nettles favors determinism whereas Burk Parsons was relieved to learn it is not an entailment of Reformed Theology. Richard Muller has claimed that Reformed theology does not entail a form of determinism. D.A. Carson and Muller disagree on the freedom to do otherwise. John Frame, James Anderson, and Paul Manata recognize that Reformed theology operates under a robust principle of determinism.

Either we are in need of tightening up our theology within the Reformed tradition or else we need to get a better handle on our terminology. (With the exception of one from above, I am hopeful that there might be general theological agreement yet without clarity of articulation.)

Back to the 1800s:

19th century Princeton Theological Seminary theologian A.A. Hodge rightly taught that Arminians deny that God determines free willed actions whereas “Calvinists affirm that [God] foresees them to be certainly future because he has determined them to be so.” For Hodge, “the plan which determines general ends must also determine even the minutest element comprehended in the system of which those ends are parts.” (WCF 3.1.2)

Reformed theology entails not merely a doctrine of determinism but a principle of exhaustive determinism. Specifically, causal divine determinism is at the heart of Reformed theology.

As the label “causal divine determinism” suggests, adherence to a Reformed understanding of determinism does not consign one to a secular view of bare causal determinism let alone fatalism. Causal divine determinism does not contemplate impersonal laws of nature or relations of cause and effect that are intrinsically necessary. Nor does causal divine determinism mean that God always acts directly. Rather, “God…makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.” (WCF 5.2) Indeed, “second causes [aren’t] taken away, but rather established.” (WCF 3.1)

How exhaustively detailed is causal divine determinism?

The decree of God is so exceedingly all-encompassing that for Hodge God “determines the nature of events, and their mutual relations.” In other words, impersonal laws of cause and effect do not impinge upon God, for there are none! Rather, God gives all facts their meaning and in doing so determines how A would effect B. Surely God could have actualized a world in which the boiling point of water is other than it is!

Common examples – physical and metaphysical causal relationships:

If causal divine determinism is true, then God is not confined to work from mysteriously scripted means of possibility imposed by necessary conditional relationships that are intrinsically causal without reference to God’s free determinate counsel. No, God’s creativity is independent. God is the ultimate source of possibility.

Consider that liquid water freezes at 0 degrees C. (No need to get into pressure, additives, purity and nucleation centers etc.) Does God know this fact of nature according to his natural knowledge or his free knowledge? In other words, is this a necessary truth or could it have been different? What grounds such truth – God’s nature, his determinative will, or something external to God? From whence does God source the objects of his knowledge?

What do fish and ponds have to do with this?

Water at 4 degrees C is at its highest density, which means that at that precise point it will expand whether it is heated or cooled. Must that causal relationship necessarily hold true under identical circumstances? Or, could God have determined that water continue to become increasingly dense as it is cooled below 4 degrees C? Hopefully we recognize that God was not constrained to provide fish a safe haven in winter. God could have determined that the density of water continue to increase upon cooling it below 4 degrees C, in which case ice would not rise to the top.

God’s freedom relates to our freedom:

We can apply God’s creative decree to the analysis of human freedom as well. With respect to our doctrine of concurrence we can employ the same concepts of contingency, possibility, necessity and causality when considering how God knows the free choices of men. Indeed we should.

Given an identical state of affairs, God is free to determine that a fragrance or song from yesteryear causally produces a particular disposition to act freely. Yet the precise disposition of the will that would obtain is ultimately determined by God alone.

Under the same conditions (or relevant states of affairs) God can ensure any number of free choices. In the context of hearing a song, God can actualize that one causally, yet freely, looks at an old photo album, picks up the phone to call someone or something else. These alternative possibilities are not contingent upon libertarian creaturely freedom for their actualization, but rather they are true possibilities that God is free to determine as he purposes. Free moral agents participate with God’s purpose by divine decree and meticulous providence, and not by autonomous spontaneity of choice. The unhappy alternative is God’s foreknowledge is impinged upon by uninstantiated essences, making his sovereign purpose eternally reactive and opportunistic.

In short, God determines the free choices of men. Indeed he can do no other! Consequently, God’s exhaustive divine foreknowledge is based upon his having exhaustively determined whatsoever comes to past including the causes that incline the human will. For God to foreknow choices presupposes his determination of their antecedent causes. Yet no violation to the creature is entailed by God’s determination of antecedent causes. God’s determination of our choices is compatible with our freedom and responsibility. Notwithstanding, God must casually ensure the outcome in order to foreknow the outcome. Yet the outcome is consistent with the person, for God is good.

The current Reformed landscape:

Unfortunately but not surprisingly, a growing number of Calvinists are unwittingly libertarian Calvinists. Many affirm the “five points” yet believe that in other instances we are free to choose otherwise. The logical trajectory of such a philosophical-theology denies (a) the determinative basis for God’s exhaustive omniscience, (b) the future surety of his decree, and (c) God’s independence and unique eternality.

If Christians are not affirming causal divine determinism, they are implicitly denying Reformed theology’s coherent and explanatory grounding of God’s exhaustive foreknowledge of contingent free choices. Consequently, whether self-consciously or not, they are implicitly affirming a form of incompatibilism, which in the context of moral responsibility entails libertarian freedom. With libertarian freedom comes a theology proper that is highly improper, and a theory of responsibility that lacks moral grounding.

Let’s address some common misunderstandings along with some implications entailed by the denial of causal divine determinism:

1. Free Will:

Can’t we choose otherwise, surely Adam could have!

How many times have we heard it? Maybe we’ve even said it!

To illustrate the disagreement on matters of the determinative decree as it relates to free will, consider the two quotes below.

Adam alone had the power of contrary choice. He lost it in the fall, making his will enslaved to sin. Hence, all his posterity are enslaved to sin. Their will also is enslaved to sin.
Lane Keister

I don’t know how many times I have asked candidates for licensure and ordination whether we are free from God’s decree, and they have replied ‘No, because we are fallen.’ That is to confuse libertarianism (freedom from God’s decree, ability to act without cause) with freedom from sin. In the former case, the fall is entirely irrelevant. Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense. But freedom from sin is something different. Adam had that before the fall, but lost it as a result of the fall.
John Frame

Kevin DeYoung is correct here, “Arminians argue that we have a libertarian free will, which simply put means that we have the power of contrary choice…” So, whether the other Keister understands this or not, he has asserted that before the fall Adam had freedom in the libertarian sense. Therefore, Frame or Keister is incorrect, and it’s not Frame.*

Although those two opposing views might appear inconsequential because the prelapsarian state has expired, it’s worth addressing because the first quote is a common sentiment among theologically trained (as Frame notes) and has far reaching metaphysical and theological implications with respect to possibility, responsibility, truth-makers and truth-bearers, God’s exhaustive omniscience and more.

Regarding the view of Keister- his point has significant consequences that transcend pre and post fall ontology. In other words, if Adam had libertarian freedom while in a state of innocence (as the pastor wrongly asserts), then there’s no reason to believe we don’t have such freedom today given that libertarian freedom is by definition not nature dependent. (That’s hardly controversial among philosophical theologians whether Reformed or not.) Needless to say, clarity within the Reformed tradition is needed and overdue.

Let’s be clear, if Adam could have freely chosen not to eat of the forbidden fruit, then God’s decree could have failed. God’s decree could not have failed. Therefore, Adam could not have freely chosen not to eat of the forbidden fruit. Modus Tollens**

Regardless of the lapsarian state under consideration, even though free moral agents would never choose contrary to God’s foreknowledge and decree, an ability to do so would undermine moral responsibility and betray orthodox theology proper.

If we can’t choose otherwise, how can we be free and responsible?

That we are responsible is indubitable. Therefore, if libertarian freedom is a philosophical surd, then from a Christian perspective free will is compatible with the determinative causal nature of God’s decree. In other words, our freedom is of another kind than the freedom to choose otherwise.

Without an intention to act there is no act of the will. When an act of the will occurs, the intentional choice is consummated. Both components of the choice obtain. An intention to act gives way to the actual act the intention contemplates. We may say the intention of the moral agent is the immediate or proximate cause of the act. The act is effected by the agent’s intention.

Now then, what causes an intention to act? If it’s a chosen intention, then what causes the intention to choose the intention to act? (Regress)

Agent causation?

Here’s a libertarian solution to the regress conundrum. It’s called agent causation. Rather than choosing our intentions, the agent simply causes it.

The ability to choose otherwise would destroy moral accountability, for how can the pure spontaneity of agent causation produce morally relevant choices? With agent causation comes a break in the causal nexus whereby the agent becomes the ultimate source of his intention to act. Such autonomous independence and regulative control would detach influence, reason, and relevant history from intentions and willed actions. By implication the agent rises above all influences, where-from a posture of dispositional equilibrium forms intentions from a functionally blank past. In other words, given the liberty of indifference that agent causation contemplates, choices would be unmapped to personal history, entailing a radical break from the person doing the choosing.

Nobody rationally determines intentions in a libertarian construct. There’d be no reason to guard the heart for we’d be able to kick inconvenient habits spontaneously according to a will that’s impervious to causal influences. Such radical spontaneity would result in pure randomness of choice, destroying moral relevance by detaching choice from person. In a split moment we should expect to see saints behaving like devils, and devils like saints. The implications of non-decretive metaphysical contingency of choice demand it! Any libertarian appeal to will formation does not comport with libertarian freedom. Libertarians may not have their cake and eat it too. Autonomous freedom precludes moral responsibility.

2. Doctrine of God:

As a point of orthodoxy, does God know how we will choose because he knows us inside and out? And besides, doesn’t God’s transcendence enable his infallible foreknowledge? Doesn’t God know the future because the future is all before him?

If God knows how we would freely choose in certain circumstances because of his intimate insight into our make-up or vis-a-vis his transcendent relation to time, then in both cases God would be eternally informed by uninstantiated essences or timeless beings. God’s knowledge of possible metaphysical (actualizeable) counterfactuals of creaturely freedom would not be according to his natural knowledge. Accordingly, God’s knowledge of what he could freely actualize would be eternally sourced from outside himself. Such knowledge of possibilities would not be natural (i.e., based upon what God knows he can do). Nor would God’s knowledge of how we would choose be solely based upon his free determinative will in the context of what he intuitively knows are possibilities of actualization. Rather, how we would choose would be an object of God’s middle knowledge – knowledge obtained from something other than God himself. There would be no grounding of the eternal truth bearing proposition that God knows. Counterfactuals of creaturely freedom would assume the divine property of self-existence! The eternal truth that you would freely read this article exists without any beginning, source or truth maker.

In simpler terms, if God’s determinate counsel does not eternally ground his foreknowledge of free choices, what eternal (God-like) entity does? (Implicit heresy)

3. Special pleading that certain sufficient conditions are not to be considered causes when prior to freely willed acts:

Molinists like to point to Jesus’ rebuke of the inhabitants of Chorazin and Bethsaida as proof of God’s Middle Knowledge – for had Jesus performed the same miracles in Tyre and Sidon that he had performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida, Tyre and Sidon would have repented. The prima facie interpretation of the text is not that Jesus was revealing how others would have responded to those same miracles. Rather, the immediate inference is that inhabitants of Israel were even more hardened to revelatory truth than pagans (and will accordingly be counted more culpable on the day of judgment). It was a rebuke, not a nod toward Middle Knowledge!

Yet aside from the obvious, let’s run with the Molinist interpretation and see where it gets us. Consider possible world Wp with the exact same relevant state of affairs as actual world Wa up to time t. At t in Wp, Jesus performs in Tyre and Sidon the same exact miracles from Wa that he performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida at t. The result in Tyre and Sidon is repentance. If that is not causality, what is? Remove the miracles, no repentance. Introduce the miracles, repentance. Remove the miracles, no repentance. Introduce the miracles, repentance… Like a light being switched on and off, the miracles would have causally triggered repentance. If not, then what? Would the miracles have triggered (inexplicable) agent causation? Even if so, how would that not cash out as causal divine determinism given exhaustive omniscience and purpose? The only escape hatch is that the miracles trigger nothing in Wp, but that would prove too much, as it would highlight the randomness and, consequently, moral irrelevance of libertarian freedom.

4. The two-fold ambition of radical freedom and exhaustive omniscience:

Open Theists deny God’s exhaustive omniscience because they rightly grasp (along with robust Calvinists) that the freedom to do otherwise is not compatible with it. Sadly, their consistency leads to confessional heresy, whereas libertarian Calvinists and Molinists are happily inconsistent and only doctrinally heretical by way of theological implication, not confession of faith. (Open Theists are quick to point out that God’s foreknowledge is not lacking; it’s just that in eternity there’s nothing yet to know about certain future occurrences.)

Let’s see how Molinism and libertarian Calvinism leads to heresy:

In order to lay claim on the doctrine of God’s exhaustive omniscience there must be a surety to future choices. Yet in order to maintain that free choices are not causally determined by God, it must also be considered true that free choices can be otherwise. The question is, how can both be true? How can God know a future choice that truly might be otherwise? The simple answer is he cannot. Mystery cannot solve true contradiction.

An undetermined libertarian free choice implies that what would occur under certain circumstances might not occur under those exact same circumstances. So, although it can be true that Jones would freely choose the taco if offered it under a specific set of circumstances, it is supposedly true that Jones might not freely choose the taco if offered it in those identical circumstances. (In passing we might simply observe that <Jones might not freely choose the taco> is a contrary truth relative to <Jones would freely choose the taco>. Since both can’t be true, at least one must be false and both can’t be known. [The critique readily applies to Adam prior to the fall.])

This is where Molinism becomes most creative.

Only God can possibly define the limits of possibility. Therefore, in Reformed theology all possible worlds are actualizable worlds. They are consistent realities that truly might have been (had God so-willed). Within a Reformed compatibilist framework, a reality that is consistent is, therefore, both possible and metaphysically actualizable. In other words, being a possible world is a sufficient condition for God’s ability to make it actual. Not so with Molinism!

Within Molinism the set of possible worlds cannot all be actualized by God. Those possible yet unactualizable worlds are called infeasible worlds. Molonist William Lane Craig explains.

Notice that because counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are contingently true, which worlds are feasible for God and which are infeasible is also a contingent matter. It all depends on how creatures would freely behave in various circumstances, which is beyond God’s control.

Possibility of actualization for God is creature-dependent within Molinism. Consequently, Molinism allows for some narrowly-logical possibilities that are purely theoretical – so much so that God cannot know them as actualized realities. These alleged possibilities could be actualized a whopping zero number of times, even though there are an “infinite number” of these possibilities. This statistic is all the more striking when we consider the spontaneity of purely random libertarian freedom! At the very least, if we could freely choose contrary to how God knows we would choose, wouldn’t somebody have done it by now? (Complete the reductio.) The philosophical conundrum is apparent. In what meaningful sense are such possibilities possible?

Because Molinism denies that God determines the free choices of his creatures, free choices are beyond God’s control. Such free choices, being beyond God’s control, cannot be causally ensured by God’s decree. Therefore, within a Molinism framework certain possible worlds cannot be actualized by God, yet they are consistent and complete worlds that supposedly might have been. The consistency of such conceptual realities keeps them possible, whereas ungrounded counterfactuals of creaturely freedom determine whether such worlds can be made actual (are feasible). Astonishing? Well, that’s where libertarian Calvinism takes us but without the sophistication of Molinism.

A delicious irony according to the two-fold ambition:

It was noted earlier that from a Reformed perspective a possible world is a sufficient condition for God’s ability to actualize it. In other words, all possible worlds are feasible worlds. So, although Molinism parks certain consistent realities “that might have been” in the semantic land of possible-infeasible worlds, if we treat their actualizable worlds like Reformed ones (as the only metaphysically relevant ones that are within Divine reach) we can see that all Molinist would-counterfactuals functionally reduce to necessary truths. That’s because states of affairs are sufficient conditions for actualizable choices (from point 3 above), which is not the case in Reformed philosophical theology.

In Reformed philosophical-theology compatibilist counterfactuals of creaturely choices are contingently true because God is their truth maker and relevant states of affairs are not intrinsically or necessarily causal. Again, “God is free to determine that a fragrance or song from yesteryear causally produces a particular disposition to act freely. Yet the precise disposition of the will that would obtain is determined by God alone.” Whereas with Molinism, eternal self–existing facts(!) about creaturely freedom, although claimed to be contingent, are unalterably fixed in order that they might be eternally true, so that they might be divinely known, apart from being determined by the only possible Source of eternal truth.(Again, implicit heresy)

For the Reformed, being a possible world is a sufficient condition for it being actualizable. That is not a tenet of Molinism. Yet if it is true (as Reformed thought claims) that possibility entails possible actualization, then there is something inconsistent with possible-infeasible worlds, which would disqualify them as possible worlds. That inconsistency is rooted in Molinism’s claim of contingent CCFs. What is claimed as metaphysically possible never would obtain in infinite trials. Yet molinism claims such possibilities could obtain. But if they could – yet never would obtain, then in what sense could they?!

Molinism cannot bridge the possible-actualizable chasm because Molinism posits possible-infeasibilities, which are ungrounded truths about facts that are impossible for God to believe as possible, let alone as actualized. Accordingly, such truths cannot exist. They are impossibilities because they have no source!

From a biblically informed philosophical-theology, only causal divine determinism can adequately account for and reconcile foreknowable contingent-truths that are of any moral consequence. Only Reformed theology upholds God’s freedom and man’s freedom. Only Reformed theology upholds the Creator-creature distinction.

5. To deny causal divine determinism is to (a) deny that God causes one to differ from another and (b) limit God’s and man’s free creativity!

All breakthroughs in medicine, science and the arts involve free choices. So, why did Sir James Paul McCartney compose Eleanor Rigby and not Davy Jones? Was Paul’s intention a result of God’s determination or does Paul merit glory? (No, that’s not a false dilemma when we fill in other biblical truths.)

If God wants his creatures to freely advance in medicine for the common good of society, within Molinism God might be restrained to fulfill only half his desire. We may gain the desired medicines God intends, though it might require making robots out of scientists because nobody would freely cooperate in a “praiseworthy” manner. Both God and man are limited by man’s libertarian freedom. Whereas Reformed theology teaches that man’s limits are dependent upon God’s limitlessness to do all his holy will. (In Reformed theology, God determines the free actions of his creatures.)

If we deny causal divine determinism, then we imply that God’s desire to bless us with good things is limited by uncooperative creatures. Sure, from a libertarian perspective God could turn a person into a robot by determining his will, but then what about true inspiration, covenantal relationship and responsibility?

The bottom line is, if causal divine determinism is false, then God’s creative purposes are subject to undetermined possibilities and creation.

6. Inconsistency regarding causality and responsibility:

It’s interesting that many libertarians subscribe to properly basic beliefs that are formed in us but not strictly by us, which they’d say we are nonetheless morally responsible to live by. But how can such incompatibilists consistently maintain that we can justly be held responsible for such unwilled beliefs if we may not be held responsible for causally determined intentions? After all, wouldn’t unwilled beliefs be causally formed in us beyond our ultimate control no less than any externally caused intention to choose? From an evangelical libertarian perspective, why would an infidel be responsible for a causally formed belief in God but not a causally formed intention to choose one sin over a lesser one? In fact, she heartily approves of the latter whereas the former is an inconvenience, which she suppresses because it doesn’t meet with her approval!

Time to wrap things up. How are we free, by the way?

We are free and morally responsible when in possession of certain cognitive capacities that produce different acts given different states of affairs. Freedom is accompanied by dispositional powers to try to choose according to our cognitive faculties. The capstone of our freedom comes in having been endowed with a “mesh” of first and second-order desires (desires to act and the ability to approve of such desires), which differentiate us from creatures of brute instinct, and perhaps those who act according to addictions and phobias too.

It’s difficult to imagine any sensible person thinking we need more than such compatibilist freedom to be held responsible. It’s seems intuitive enough that compatibilist freedom provides sufficient conditions for moral responsibility. I don’t think many Christians would look much further than to those general conditions for responsibility if determinism wasn’t part of the discussion. In other words, if we merely summarize the essence of freedom as the possession of certain cognitive capacities and dispositional powers that produce different willed and self-approved acts given different states of affairs, who’d object? Such freedom would seem to entail moral responsibility. Now introduce determinism and then people feel the need to scramble for something additional to save moral responsibility, but it’s not because compatibilist freedom is intuitively lacking in this regard. That God determines free choices doesn’t somehow take away what makes them free in the first place.

The idea of libertarian freedom is merely an attempt to break the chain of determinism for reasons that don’t impinge upon personal responsibility! After all, isn’t an ultimate cause compatible with a proximate cause? Who killed Saul? (1 Chronicles 10:4,6,14)

Footnotes:

* Keister might be confusing WCF 9.2 with “the power of contrary choice”, which is libertarian freedom.

WCF 9.2: “Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it.”

With the fall, Adam lost moral ability to not sin. He did not loose something he never had, namely an ability to choose contrary to how (God knows) he would choose.

That Adam could fall does not imply that Adam could choose contrary to how he would choose. Yet if Adam had libertarian freedom, then he could have chosen contrary to how he did. And, if Adam could have chosen contrary to how he did, then Adam could have chosen contrary to God’s decree. The only question left is, could he have?

We can leave the fall out of it. If Adam had libertarian freedom, then prior to the fall he could have chosen to name the animals differently than he did – differently than God decreed he would! Freedom and power happily comply with compatibilist freedom as discussed above, whereas contrary choice is the hallmark of libertarian freedom.

Before and after the fall, every time Adam freely chose he did so according to the decree by exercising dispositional powers to will. But far from affirming a principle of alternative possibilities that would undermine the exhaustive Divine decree, classical compatibilism of the day thought in terms of hypothetical and conditional terms. As I’ve written elsewhere: “Classical compatibilists have tried to work within the strictures of alternative possibilities. Although classical compatibilists don’t affirm a strict ability to do otherwise, they have traditionally affirmed a version of the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) couched in hypothetical or conditional terms. Although Jane could not have done other than x; she could have done not-x had she willed.”
Later compatibilists employed a different approach: “Rather than speaking in conditional terms: ‘Jane could have done not-x had she willed,’ it was considered advantageous to speak in terms of: ‘If Jane were feeding her baby, she would have married rather than remained single.’ The focus was no longer fixed on hypotheticals that change a fixed future by altering the past – e.g. I could have x’d had I willed to x. Instead the focus shifted to an agent’s power to act in a way that contemplates a different past.”

** I wrote: “if Adam could have freely chosen not to eat of the forbidden fruit, then God’s decree could have failed. God’s decree could not have failed. Therefore, Adam could not have freely chosen not to eat of the forbidden fruit.”

Of course Molinists can counter: although Adam could freely ~x, he would not freely ~x if God knows Adam would not freely ~x. (We can actually leave God’s knowledge out of it. Molinists can simply say: although Adam could freely ~x, he would not freely ~x if it is true that Adam would not freely ~x.)

Perhaps Molinists will gladly concede the philosophical possibility of God’s decree failing while maintaining the actual infeasibility of the same. After all, the possible actualization of ~x would under such circumstances be sufficient for an infeasible world; whereas the contingent nature of the CCF makes such worlds no less possible.

I’m not suggesting that Molinism entails possible worlds that include as a feature that God’s decree does fail - as I don’t think we may impugn Molinism with the charge that possible worlds include the divine decree given that the decree occurs at a later logical moment than the evaluation of a possible world to actualize and, therefore, takes into account all circumstances and subsequent truth values of CCFs. In other words, some possible worlds God would not possibly try to actualize if he somehow knew which were the infeasible ones.

Notwithstanding, Molinist must offer a defense of how God’s decree cannot fail in any world he might actualize, even though Molinism entails that God’s decree would not fail. (This gets to the might vs would counterfactual loophole of Molinism.) Molinism must give an account as to how God’s beliefs about CCFs can rise to the level of foreknowledge given that the contingency of CCFs within their system defy grounded truth values.)

Appealing to God’s middle knowledge of would-counterfactuals begs the question and does not save God from possible fallibility in the context of libertarian freedom in any actualizable or decreed world. (We might note here that God’s foreknowledge would either seem to secure or else presuppose conditions for certainty that do not comport with libertarian freedom. Since knowledge is receptive of truth and not determinative of truth, how are we not strictly dealing with the latter? Foreknowledge presupposes causal conditions, which for causal divine determinists are contingent upon God’s free determination.)

The very notion of the Molinist employment of might-counterfactuals that are contrary to would-counterfactuals demands the philosophical possibility of the decree failing in any actualized world. Of course, that also defeats any legitimate philosophical claim upon the infallibility of the God of Molinism.

Again, given the order of logical moments, I’m happy to concede that no possible world includes the decree. Nonetheless, all possible worlds with true CCFs (i.e., feasible worlds) are subject to a mismatch relative to God’s “foreknowledge” not coming to pass as believed it would.

At the end of the day, how does infallible foreknowledge comport with indeterminism? (Again we can leave divine foreknowledge out of it. How does ungrounded contingent truth comport with truth, which is an object of knowledge?) If one might choose contrary to how God believes one will, why should it be true that one never would? What turns God’s mere belief into knowledge of true CCFs other than God’s free determination, which Molinism denies.

Apologetics Discussion

January 11, 2023January 17, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo

Arne Verster of Apologetics Central and I discussed apologetics (last evening for me, this morning for Arne who lives in South Africa). This article of mine on the failure of classical apologetics was the impetus for our discussion.

John Davenant, Another Enticement For The “Reformed” (in name only)

October 31, 2022June 7, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo3 Comments

“If it be denied that Christ died for some persons, it will immediately follow, that such could not be saved, even if they should believe.”

I can understand Arminians saying such a thing but when those who profess to be Reformed say things like that, more than bad theology is at play. (And by the way, why do latent Arminians insist upon being considered Reformed?)

At the risk of addressing the obvious, such a sentiment assumes what must be proven, that those for whom Christ did not die can believe. From a Reformed perspective, how does this not deny irresistible grace and inseparable operations of the Trinity?*

“if nothing else is judged possible to be done, except those things which God hath decreed to be done, it would follow that the Divine power is not infinite.”.
John Davenant, Dissertation on the Death of Christ, n.d., 439

God having already decreed that the boulder would fall from the cliff entails that God could not prevent the boulder from falling from the cliff. The “could not” is due not to a lack of divine power but a want of divine will. Because God cannot deny himself (or act contrary to how he has determined he will act), God’s inability to act upon the boulder either directly, or through secondary causes, is ascribable not to finite power in the Godhead but the outworking of God’s internal consistency, from decree to providence.

That God’s omnipotence and decree are not mutually exclusive entailments implies that the latter does not diminish the former, though it will certainly curtail and redirect its decretive unleashing in ordinary providence. Davenant and his recent followers not only miss this. Is there any indication they’ve even considered it?

“The death of Christ is applicable to any man living, because the condition of faith and repentance is possible to any living person, the secret decree of predestination or preterition in no wise hindering or confining this power either on the part of God, or on the part of men. They act, therefore, with little consideration who endeavour, by the decrees of secret election and preterition, to overthrow the universality of the death of Christ, which pertains to any persons whatsoever according to the tenor of the evangelical covenant.”
Davenant, Loc. Cit.

In other words, for Davenant, it is possible for those not elected unto salvation to be saved. Indeed, it is possible for those not chosen in Christ to be baptized into the work of the cross.

Pelagian connotations aside as they relate to faith and repentance, if Davenant is correct, then it is possible that God’s decree not come to pass. It is possible that more are saved than predestined unto salvation. It is possible that God can be wrong! Or does God not believe his decree will come to pass?

Possibility with zero probability of occurring:

Simply try to imagine a possible world in which Esau is not elect but enters into everlasting life contrary to God’s will of decree. In other words, is there a possible world in which some are redeemed yet the elect are less in number than they? If not, then so much for this already rejected view of the atonement that posits incoherence by implicitly denying exhaustive omniscience, penal substitution, and the inseparable operations of the Trinity.** That’s what Davenant “possibility” gets you. (Enter now the sophistry of Molinism with its might-counterfactuals and possible-feasible worlds distinction.)

Confessional?

Regarding confessional status, any extra-confessional teaching that leads to confessional doctrinal contradiction may be confidently rejected for being un-confessional even if not explicitly refuted by the church’s standards, (regardless if a delegate to the assembly held the view in question). Otherwise, we unnecessarily introduce incoherence and confusion into our system(s) of doctrine.

A “consensus” document does not preclude certain doctrines from having won the day. So, for instance, any view of free will that by necessary implication entails that God is contingently infallible must be rejected as non-confessional. So it is with all forms of hypothetical universalism that lead to intra-confessional doctrinal incoherence.

I find it a stretch to call a doctrine “within the Reformed tradition” merely because a delegate held to it. When a confession is not already internally contradictory, let’s not allow it to be! For a doctrine to be considered confessional it must be explicitly taught or necessary implied by the confession and cannot introduce contradictions to other confessional doctrines. Again, we may not introduce teachings that are not inferable or would undermine other confessional doctrines, even though our confession is a consensus document of sorts. After all, what does it mean for a teaching to be “within the bounds of a Reformed confession” if it entails an implicit denial of another doctrine of the same confession? Roman Catholics are often constrained to speak that way (vis-à-vis Trent and Vatican ii) but why should the Reformed make such concessions? Can a doctrine be incoherent and Reformed? How about contra-confessional? We’re discussing what it is for a doctrine to be confessional or Reformed. That should be an objective consideration, unlike whether one wants subjectively to label someone else as Reformed. Is John MaCArthur “Reformed”? He’s certainly not confessional!

Clichés that obfuscate:

It’s inescapable, the atonement is a matter of divine intent, which is equivocally obscure within Davenant’s hypothetical universalism.

Little clichés like Christ’s death is “sufficient for all, efficient for the elect” have no place in rigorous systematic theology. A sufficient condition entails a state of affairs that if met ensures another state of affairs. In that sense, the cliché implies actual universalism. Sufficient and efficient become functionally indistinguishable and the cliché, tautological. Yet if “sufficient for all” is intended to convey that Christ’s death would save you if you believe, then redemption becomes necessary for saving faith, which isn’t very interesting. That one cannot have saving faith without the work of the cross, although true, doesn’t advance the discussion. Accordingly, we are back to election and irresistible grace, which are anything but sufficient for all! The historia salutis and ordo salutis must coincide.

In closing:

It would be helpful if those with positions of influence (I’m only referring to them), who claim to be Reformed while showing sympathy to Davenant’s view of possibility, would acquire a contemporary philosophical taxonomy and better grasp of modal concepts. If these historical types who promote not just aberrant but incoherent views would improve upon their equivocal notions, and gain a bit more philosophical understanding, consistency and theological trajectory, they might develop some semblance of appreciation for their modal claims; they might begin to see that they neatly align with Molinism and not confessional Calvinism given (at best) a Davenant underdeveloped version of the “logical-possible chasm” of Molinism.

Upon the Reformed (in name only) becoming better informed on necessity, possibility, metaphysical contingency, compatibilism etc., and thereby becoming self-consciously (or at least more consistently) Molinists, non-libertarian Calvinists might then refer these historical types (who too often show insufficient interest in understanding theological compatibilism) to the preponderance of refutations of the most sophisticated form(s) of Arminianism, if not also to some of the better Molinism arguments out there. Until then, we weep and pray, perhaps most of all for the relatively few Reformed institutions that are towing the line, as well as for those institutions that are not equipping the capable while simultaneously enabling the philosophically disinterested to gain a seat at the Reformed table.***

Footnotes that might surprise:

* A similar informal fallacy is committed here by perhaps the most notable popularizer of Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: 

“The logic goes something like this: ‘The gospel offer, which ministers are called to proclaim, must indiscriminately include this proposition: God is, according to his divine justice and on account of the person and work of Jesus Christ, able to forgive any person of their sins.’ For this proposition to be true, it then must be the case that God in Christ made a remedy for every person such that God is able to fulfill the antecedent condition proclaimed in the gospel—viz., God is able to forgive the sins of any person. In order to claim that God in Christ made a remedy sufficient for every person, we must affirm that God intended that Christ make a remedy for every person.” (Confessional Orthodoxy and Hypothetical Universalism: Another Look at the Westminster Confession of Faith, pp. 134-5).

This is another example of assuming what needs to be proven. Consider the author’s proposition: 

“God is, according to his divine justice and on account of the person and work of Jesus Christ, able to forgive any person of their sins.”

If the doctrine of limited atonement is true, then it is false that God is “able to forgive *any* person of their sins.” Accordingly, the author has begged the question and traded in ambiguity by not recognizing that God’s “ability” to forgive any particular person is predicated upon full satisfaction having been made for any particular person who would be forgiven. Consequently, the proposition doesn’t establish a doctrine of unlimited atonement. Rather, it assumes it!

** Of course no Davenant disciple will acknowledge her denial of orthodox Theology Proper. But I suppose that’s due to a failure to recognize the implications of one’s own position.

Regarding exhaustive omniscience, penal substitution and inseparable operations of the Trinity in light of the alleged possibility:

If God had known non elect persons would convert, they would have been elect. They were not elect (yet would convert), therefore, God did not know they would convert (though they would). 

If Christ dies for some whose sins will be paid for in hell, then Christ’s sacrifice is not vicariously propitiatory for at least some. 

If the Spirit converts (or aids in converting) contrary to the Father’s choosing, it is unreasonable that the Father acts with the Spirit in conversion. In fact, the Covenant of Redemption is undermined. 

(Molinist might-counterfactuals can’t save this.)

*** I won’t name seminaries or professors but Modern Reformation, Reformation 21 and Greystone Institute are examples of giving credence to Davenant’s hypothetical universalism and consequently a seat at the Reformed table. Why is that not deemed outrageous by NAPARC churches and Reformed seminaries? (Shortly after publishing article, Greystone Institute removed linked article by Mark Garcia that looked favorably upon the incoherence of Davenant’s hypothetical universalism.)

Moreover, many seasoned pastors in the Reformed tradition will say things like “God knows the future because he transcends time and the future is all before him.” That’s a direct denial of the determinative nature of divine decree and an implicit affirmation of God being eternally informed by the self-existing wills of uninstantiated essences. Why that is not deemed as outrageous is telling.

Even a relatively recent commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith looks favorably upon Middle Knowledge, which is another example of giving non-confessional views a seat at the Reformed table.

Accordingly, it’s not surprising that rarely have I read a theological exam of a seminarian seeking licensure or ordination (and rarely have I had a discussion on theological compatibilism with such a person) that demonstrates a minimally thoughtful rejection of libertarian freedom or an understanding of combatibilist freedom and the determinative nature of the Divine Decree. After all, it’s rare for students to be acquainted with, let alone internalize, concepts they haven’t yet been exposed to.

John Frame had similar experiences: “I don’t know how many times I have asked candidates for licensure and ordination whether we are free from God’s decree, and they have replied ‘No, because we are fallen.’ That is to confuse libertarianism (freedom from God’s decree, ability to act without cause) with freedom from sin. In the former case, the fall is entirely irrelevant. Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense. But freedom from sin is something different. Adam had that before the fall, but lost it as a result of the fall.”

Calvinist Paul Manata has noted, “One often finds misunderstandings disseminated by laymen on the Internet. This should not be surprising, for a cursory look at what Reformed teachers have said on the subject gives evidence of at least a surface tension among Reformed thinkers.”

I appreciate my article might come across as contentious to some. My concern that constrains me to write as I have is that I desire not to eclipse the problem I hope to further unearth, which extends beyond this particular stripe of hypothetical universalism. The doctrinal infidelity in “confessional” churches is, I believe, at an all time low. That Reformed folk are entertaining hypothetical universalism is just an indicator of a much larger problem. For more on that, read on.

Dr. James Anderson Dismantles Opposition to Presuppositional Apologetics, Theological Determinism and Christ’s Kingly Reign Over All

June 13, 2022September 29, 2022by Ron DiGiacomo

It’s never pleasurable to read (i) caricatures, (ii) misunderstandings, (iii) reckless treatment of opposing views and (iv) badly formulated arguments – especially by other Christians. It is pleasurable, however, given such grave misfortune, to read precise interaction with such positions.

One wonderful thing about James’s work is his points of disagreement are always precisely articulated. (My prayer is that people will engage and if warranted change their views. I’ve never known James to bite or gloat.)

James interacts here with Davenant Institute’s attempt to interact with Pesuppositional Aplogetics.

James interacts here with J.V. Fesko’s attempt at Reforming Apologetics.

James interacts here with Richard Muller’s attempt to unhitch the Reformed tradition from theological determinism and its compatibilism implications.

James interacts here with David VanDrunen’s attempt to make sense of a 2K paradigm.

The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
Proverbs 18:17

Moving beyond Sproulian Compatibilism

March 26, 2022April 7, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo

Below are excerpts from R.C. Sproul’s, What Is Free Will?

We have seen Edwards’ [1700s] view and Calvin’s view [1500s], so now we’ll go into the Sproulian view of free will by appealing to irony, or to a form of paradox… I would like to make this statement: in my opinion, every choice that we make is free, and every choice that we make is determined. Again, every choice that we make is free, and every choice that we make is determined.

Sproulian or just a version of (Classical) Compatibilism? Or did Sproul distance himself too much from Edwards, ending in a position not unlike agent causation?

Now that sounds flatly contradictory because we normally see the categories of “determined” and “free” as mutually exclusive categories. To say that something is determined by something else, which is to say that it’s caused by something else, would seem to indicate that it couldn’t possibly be free.

But what I’m speaking about is not determinism. Determinism means that things happen to me strictly by virtue of external forces. But, in addition to external forces that are determining factors in what happens to us, there are also internal forces that are determining factors.

Though apparently unaware, Sproul certainly is advocating a kind of Determinism. (See James Anderson for various species of Determinism. See my former blog, Reformed Apologist, for review and link to Paul Manata’s case for Reformed Theology as a kind of Determinism. See my article on causal divine determinism.

What I’m saying, along with Edwards and Calvin, is that if my choices flow out of my disposition and out of my desires, and if my actions are effects that have causes and reasons behind them, then my personal desire in a very real sense determines my personal choice.

For Sproul, choices cannot be separated from desires, though the two must be distinguished. By choices Sproul is not identifying desires as choices, for he plainly states that choices flow out of desires. Furthermore, given the determinative causal place he assigns to desires, Sproul is identifying choice not as the determinative desire itself, which will (and “must”) be acted upon, but as effects that proceed from externally caused desires. In other words, the determinative desire is not the choice, but it’s the proximate cause of the choice.

For Sproul, the following chain holds true:

Internal Desire —> Choice

If my desires determine my choice, how then can I be free? Remember I said that, in every choice, our choice is both free and determined. But what determines it is me, and this we call self-determination. Self-determination is not the denial of freedom, but the essence of freedom. For the self to be able to determine its own choices is what free will is all about.

For Sproul choice is the action itself – that which is caused by internal desire or “according to the strongest inclination at the moment.”

Back to something Sproul said earlier:

But, in addition to external forces that are determining factors in what happens to us, there are also internal forces that are determining factors.

The “internal forces that are determining factors” are not chosen, nor do they cause intentions that effect “choice.” Rather, the internal forces that have determinative power are the intentions themselves, or what we might call the desires. For the Compatibilst it’s intention that brings causal force upon an action of choice.

Let’s go deeper:

At the heart of the free will debate is the cause of the intention to act.

The question is not whether free moral agents make choices or whether they flow from the agent or her intentions. The pertinent questions have to do with how intentions, if they cause volitional actions, can be morally relevant if they don’t originate with the agent as their ultimate source. Similarly, what is it for an agent to possess sufficient control over those causal influences that precede the proximate cause of any free choice? Need an agent regulate or merely guide causal influences? Must she ultimately or merely proximately cause her choices? Must there be a mesh of desires, whereby moral agents approve of their intentions?

Putting this together from outside-in, Compatibilism entails that external determining factors can cause internal intentions. In turn, internal intentions, that are externally effectuated, cause at least some “free choices” (i.e. actions that proceed from them.)

A common Incompatibilist complaint might be phrased thusly. If an internal intention triggers a volitional act, and the intention is imposed upon the agent from without, then how can the agent act but only one possible way given the preceding causal circumstances that are outside the agent’s control? Where is freedom of choice under such constraints? Fair questions.

The simple point I’m trying to make is that not only may we choose according to our own desires but, in fact, we always choose according to our desires. I’ll take it even to the superlative degree and say that we must always choose according to the strongest inclination at the moment. That is the essence of free choice—to be able to choose what you want.

Allowing for lack of attention to John Locke (1680s) and Harry Frankfurt (1980s) with respect to Sproul’s last statement, Sproul is correct that if actions causally proceed from inclinations, and if we define such actions as choices, then surely such choices are according to inclinations. As for how helpful that is, I’m not quite sure. Add external causal-forces to the mix and we soft-determinists might have some ‘splaining to do!

More to consider:

Sproul provides accessible talking points. How they might advance discussion with a thoughtful Incompatibilist or provide an adequate defense for one with a Reformed leaning against Arminianism at it relates to Divine Decree and Free Will is, I think, another consideration. Perhaps further reflection is appropriate to develop a robust defense of how free will is compatible with causal divine determinism, and how one might perform an internal critique of free will Incompatibilism. The free will debate has advanced in the last 300 years beyond Sproul’s use of Edwards, especially with respect to the most sophisticated stripe of theological Incompatibilism called Molinism. (Philosophical-Theology Molinism tag here.)

Now that Sproul has at least spade some soil, we might want to unearth some deeper questions like, does any prominent free will view lead to heresy? Can any side of the debate make sense of intentions? What, if anything, is lacking with compatibilist freedom as it relates to responsibility that supposedly makes libertarian freedom desirable or necessary? Is libertarian agent-causation ill defined or even defensible?

My hope is this post and the links I’ve provided might cause one to desire and actually go beyond Sproul – to choose to think harder about these things. (Pun intended).

In closing, it’s not apparent that Sproul ever worked out an adequate version of Classical Compatibilism (or an Edwardsian view of free agency). Again, Sproul:

If my desires determine my choice, how then can I be free? Remember I said that, in every choice, our choice is both free and determined. But what determines it is me, and this we call self-determination. Self-determination is not the denial of freedom, but the essence of freedom. For the self to be able to determine its own choices is what free will is all about.

Self-determination sounds a bit like agent-causation, which is a feature of libertarian freedom, not compatibilist freedom. (Most contemporary compatibilists recognize the inadequacy of self-determination as a feature of compatibilist freedom.) After all, the determinative nature of compatibilist freedom doesn’t make room for regulative control or ultimate source-hood. It gladly concedes that intentions that trigger choices are formed in us but not by us. (That’s what libertarians find so objectionable!)

Since intentions aren’t chosen, then for Sproul, in what sense are their effects (i.e. their caused choices) self-determined in a way that denies libertarian agent causation? Indeed, Sproul is saying that the agent determines the choice, which for Sproul springs necessarily from the agent’s intention: Internal Desire —> Choice.

But the question Sproul doesn’t address is whether a new causal nexus begins at the point of self-determination. By denying determinism and not denying ultimate source-hood, how does Sproul distance himself from libertarians who affirm agent causation? Remember, agent causation entails a new causal chain that is not determined by past states of affairs and laws of nature. Sproul appears to have held to:

External Influences / Break in Causal Chain / Internal Desire & Self-Determination —> Choice

Sproul denied any form of determinism and unhappily posited self-determination, which suggests a break in the causal chain entailed by causal divine determinism. Consequently, its hard to conclude Sproul was a compatibilist. He never seemed to put his finger on, let alone defend, the heart of the free will debate.

5 Point Molinists & Pervasive Confusion

December 4, 2021March 11, 2022by Ron DiGiacomo

I have been convinced for well over a decade not only that many professing Calvinists are latent Molinists but that most are.

Here we find what I believe to be a representative sample of how Calvinists relate free will to the decree of God. The author of the piece earned a Masters in Divinity (minor in Systematic Theology) and his Doctorate at a renowned Baptist theological seminary.

I’ll interact below with pertinent excerpts from the piece, though it brings me no pleasure to do so. It’s actually rather discouraging for me, which might explain why I’ve procrastinated for nearly a month on offering this brief interaction after having recently read the five year old piece.

Sadly, the post can be found on the Founders Ministries website, an organization “committed to encouraging the recovery of the gospel and the biblical reformation of local churches.”

With respect to the human will, the confession states, “nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (2LCF 3.1). To understand what this means, it is critical to understand the meaning of the word “contingency.” J.V. Fesko explains:

Contingency does not mean that something does not have a cause, as Jonathan Edwards argued. Rather, it means that something could be otherwise. God’s decree, for example, is contingent in the sense that he was under no external or internal necessity to decree anything – He was free to decree and free not to decree

When Edwards spoke of contingency in this respect, he was correct. Contra-Edwards the metaphysical contingency of Arminian freedom implies a pure spontaneity that renders choices causeless (thereby morally irrelevant). Yet this Arminian notion of human freedom is now pervasive among Calvinists, that a choice might / could be otherwise than what it would be.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do maintain that a choice could possibly be different, but that pertains to contingent truths and possible worlds, not causal necessity within any possible world. What is rejected is necessitarianism. In other words, there are possible worlds in which identical states of affairs result in different volitional dispositions, but in any particular world how things are secures how things will be by virtue of God’s pre-interpretation of the particulars, whereby God decrees the intelligible mapping of cause (how things are) to effect (how things will be).

(A common error among Calvinists is the failure to grasp the compatibility of contingent truths with decretive causal necessity.)•

In the immediate context of God having been free to decree and free not to decree, the author claims that the same is true of free human choices.

The same is true of free human choices. When human beings choose freely, the confession says they have the ability to choose other than what they chose.

The Confession says no such thing; nor does it imply the Arminian notion of “the ability to choose other than what they chose.” That’s libertarian freedom of the non-Frankfurt variety!^

In the chapter on divine providence, the confession says that God orders all things “to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently” (2LCF 5.2). God decrees contingent things without imposing any necessity upon them. His decree renders contingent things certain but not necessary.

(I ache in the depths of my soul.) God doesn’t impose any necessity? Then how does God ensure certainty? Reformed scholastics and contemporary compatibilists appreciate that certainty presupposes a particular kind of necessity, causal necessity.#.

In the case of sin, human beings can always choose otherwise, but God’s decree makes their choice certain.

That sentiment is straight out of the Molinist play book. Molinism affirms both the certainty of the fruition of the divine decree and the ultimate sourcehood essential to choosing otherwise.+ (Given the Edward’s remark, I doubt we can salvage the “can always choose otherwise” with the conditional analysis of (Edwardsian) classical compatibilism. Surely there’s no basis to read into the statement an Edwardsian use of hypothetical ability. It’s nowhere in view. No, we must take the author at face value, that given the same state of affairs a free moral agent might choose contrary to divine foreknowledge, though he never would.)

Surely something must ensure the certainty of choices if they’re to be certain at all. What ensures their certainty is not some vague notion of “God’s decree” but rather the causal necessity that God’s decree contemplates; yet that is precisely what the author denies by denying causal necessity and positing ability to choose contrary to how one would. Certainty presupposes not ability but inability to choose otherwise. Certainty presupposes causality.

Whatever the Confession is looking to teach by “necessarily, freely or contingently”* we may not separate those concepts from the explicit statement that immediately precedes those adverbs. Those things that fall out in such a way that make them certain do so according to the nature of “second causes”. Now surely where there is cause, there is effect. And where there is cause and effect, there is causal necessity!

With respect to human freedom, the Reformed tradition on the matter of volition entails a metaphysic of causal necessity. Accordingly, to say that God’s “decree renders contingent things certain but not necessary” is not only confused – it bespeaks incompatibilism. What is being offered as a Reformed understanding of the mechanics of choosing is that freedom is incompatible with causal necessity, which is an outright denial of a Reformed view of compatibilism – a view that human freedom is compatible with the causal necessity of Causal Divine Determinism.

This means that “certainty” and “contingency” are not mutually exclusive.

Not so. In the sense that contingency is being employed by the author – as the ability to choose contrary to how one would – it most surely is incompatible with certainty and consequently exhaustive omniscience. (Enter Open Theism)

• After private interaction with one Augustinian thinker, it has become clear to me that it is believed by some that by virtue of God decreeing a counterfactual true it, therefore, becomes a necessary truth, which in turn makes it an object of natural knowledge. That is simply wrong by definition and entails dualistic implications, not unlike Molinism. Perhaps the renown Reformed philosopher doesn’t recognize that non-necessary contingent truths can be decreed as causally necessary. Other Augustinian thinkers more steeped in contemporary taxonomy, analytic philosophy and philosophical theology grasp the error and its implications immediately.

^ The ability to do otherwise is not a necessary condition for libertarian freedom as long as the agent performing the choice is not caused to do it other than by herself. There are Frankfurt libertarians who subscribe to agent causation.

# What’s commonly missed is that contingent truths can be causally necessary. In other words, a counterfactual can be causally necessary without being necessarily true. That distinction is surprisingly missed by many Reformed compatibilists who have a seat at the Free Will discussion table.

+ God can, by decreeing to place just those persons in just those circumstances, bring about His ultimate purposes through free creaturely decisions. William Lane Craig, Molinist

* In passing we might note that a consistently Reformed rendering of caused effects falling out “necessarily, freely or contingently” is to apply those descriptors to (a) physical laws of nature, (b) human intentions and (c) apparent chance, respectively: Genesis 8:22; Proverbs 4:23; Deuteronomy 19:5

Libertarian Freedom and Properly Basic Beliefs, an analogy of unlikely bedfellows

November 12, 2021April 23, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo

Plain and simple, we are responsible for what we believe and what we intend because they are our beliefs and our intentions. I maintain that it’s not the freedom of compatibilist freedom that’s so objectionable to libertarians, but rather it’s more likely to be God’s determination of the intentions of such freedom that they find so distasteful.

Libertarian free will, regress or crickets?

November 10, 2021May 9, 2022by Ron DiGiacomo3 Comments

Libertarians and Compatibilists can agree that there are two distinct components when choices come to fruition, (a) an intention to act and (b) a specific act that proceeds from an intention. An actual act of the will comes from an intention to make a willed act.

Intention to act —> act of the will

Without an intention to act there is no act of the will. When an act of the will occurs, the choice is consummated. Both components of the choice obtain. An intention to act gives way to the actual act the intention contemplates. We may safely say the intention of the moral agent causes the act. The act is effected by the agent’s intention.

Examples:

Choice: I choose to eat ice cream.

My intention to eat ice cream —causes—> my actual eating ice cream.

Choice: I choose to dwell on the past.

My intention to dwell on the past —causes—> my actual dwelling on the past.

Both acts – eating ice cream and dwelling on the past – are caused by an intention to do. Therefore, we may say the acts of eating and dwelling are the effects of intention, lest we have un-willed and uncaused acts, which would not be subject to responsibility or moral evaluation.

It is not difficult to grasp what causes the acts we choose. Surely our intentions do. When we freely eat ice cream it’s because we choose to eat ice cream according to an intention to eat ice cream. Simple enough.

This invites the question, if our intentions cause our willed actions, then what causes our intentions? That question gets to the heart of the free will debate.

Infinite regress?

Assume for a moment that the intentions that trigger our acts of the will are themselves chosen acts of the will (just like eating ice cream and dwelling on the past are chosen acts of the will). As chosen acts of the will, intentions would be chosen effects of the will. Accordingly, intentions to act would be the effect of a preceding cause (just like the acts of eating ice cream and dwelling on the past are effects of a preceding intention). So, if an intention to eat ice cream is itself an act of the will, it too must be an effect of some intention. Some intention would have to cause that intention!

Recall that there are two components for a completed choice: an intention to act and the actual act that follows the intention. Now consider again my choice to eat ice cream. My act of eating of ice cream would be caused by my intention to eat ice cream:

My intention to eat ice cream —causes—> my act of eating ice cream.

So, if I not only choose to eat ice cream, but also choose my intention to eat ice cream, then my choosing of the intention to eat ice cream must be the effect of a preceding intention in order that I might have the intention to eat ice cream! (By now you see where this is going.)

An intention to have the intention to eat ice cream would cause the intention to eat ice cream, which in turn would give way to my actually eating ice cream. 😳

Intention to have the intention to eat ice cream —causes—> my intention to eat ice cream —causes—> my actual eating of ice cream.

Now then, what causes the intention to have the intention to eat ice cream? Well, if we choose our intentions, then another intention ad infinitum. We’d have a backward regress for any choice.

Agent causation?

Here’s a libertarian solution to the infinite regress conundrum. It’s called agent causation. Rather than choosing our intentions, the agent simply causes it.

Agent —causes—> intention —causes—> actual eating ice cream.

But what about the agent that is within the agent would cause the intention? We’ve already ruled out chosen intentions for that would lead to a regress conundrum. Well, what then causes intention from a libertarian perspective? What do we hear from the libertarian camp regarding what within the agent causes the intention to eat ice cream, and how is that agent property, whatever it is, an uncaused first mover? If it’s the agent’s will, then what inclines it? Crickets

Anticipated questions addressed:

For a simple explanation of (a) how unchosen intentions can be rational from a compatibilist perspective but not from a libertarian perspective, (even though morally significant intentions are formed within the agent yet not by the agent, being caused from without the agent), and (b) how libertarian freedom would destroy moral accountability, try here.

For a simple explanation of how compatibilist freedom can account for moral responsibility, try here.

For a simple explanation of why incompatibilist-libertarians might subscribe to the philosophical surd of libertarian freedom rather than to intuitive sufficient conditions for moral responsibility that compatibilism has to offer, try here.

For a more advanced treatment dealing with the truth-making of causal relationships as they relate to God’s (non-necessary) free knowledge of contingent truths that God determines to make causally necessary, try here.

For a more advanced treatment of how libertarian freedom when coupled with exhaustive omniscience results in necessary counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, try here.

What drives libertarian freedom, moral responsibility or determinism?

November 8, 2021December 2, 2022by Ron DiGiacomo4 Comments

What seems to drive Libertarians to their view of freedom is not the reasonableness of pure contingency. It’s seems intuitive that compatibilist freedom provides the sufficient conditions for moral responsibility. I don’t think many libertarians would have looked any further than to those conditions if determinism wasn’t part of the discussion.

In other words, if we merely summarize the essence of freedom as the possession of certain cognitive capacities that produce different willed acts given different states of affairs, who’d object? Such freedom would seem to entail moral responsibility. Now introduce determinism, and then people feel the need to scramble for something additional to save moral responsibility, but it’s not because compatibilist freedom is intuitively lacking. The idea of libertarian freedom is merely an attempt to break the chain of determinism for reasons that don’t impinge upon personal responsibility! After all, isn’t an ultimate cause compatible with a proximate cause? Who killed Saul? (1 Chronicles 10:4,6,14)

Libertarian freedom does nothing to advance the cause of moral responsibility. In fact, such detached freedom would seem to abolish moral responsibility.

From whence come intentions, and how is compatibilism any better in this regard?

November 6, 2021April 23, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo4 Comments

This post aims to address how unchosen intentions can be rational and person-relevant from a compatibilist perspective but not from a libertarian perspective. Even though morally significant intentions are formed within the agent, they are not formed strictly by the agent, being ultimately sourced and caused from without the agent. Secondly, libertarian freedom would undermine moral accountability.

An unhappy choice for libertarians, infinite regress or ex nihilo:

The will is the faculty of choice, or that by which the mind chooses. If the will itself forms intentions to act, then intentions are a result of the mind choosing. We may add that if an intention to act is produced by the will (rather than formed in but not by the will), then it would have to be a result of a previous intention because definitionally the will cannot produce an unintended act. Yet if the mind chooses intentions intentionally (according to a preceding intention), then intentions would be a product of the will ad infinitum, as argued here. There would be what I call a regress conundrum.

How can libertarian philosophy avoid regress, other than by agent causation? In agent causation the willing agent becomes the first cause. Pure spontaneity of intention saves freedom and moral responsibility, or so it’s said. Yet such autonomous independence would detach influence, reason, and relevant history from intentions and willed actions. We’re asked to believe by implication that the agent rises above all influences, wherefrom a posture of equilibrium forms intentions from a functionally blank past. In other words, given the liberty of indifference that agent causation contemplates, choices would be unmapped to personal history, entailing a radical break from the person doing the choosing, as argued here.

Libertarianism’s dead end:

So, libertarianism is a project that entails acts of the will that bring into existence intentions – while simultaneously denying chosen intentions because of the regress conundrum. The libertarian commitment to the causal contingency of agent causation leaves libertarianism with unintended intentions mysteriously formed by the will, an internally inconsistent notion for libertarianism that would render unintelligible a libertarian claim on moral responsibility based upon ultimate sourcehood and regulative control.

A challenge to Christian compatibilists:

Augustinians should acknowledge that intentions are not chosen. Contingent beings neither choose nor cause the intentions of the will. However, with that acknowledgment comes significant challenge. What makes intentions any more rational and morally relevant from an Augustinian perspective? In other words, what’s the relevant difference between a conception of an intention that springs from nothing and an Augustinian conception that posits that intentions are caused by unwilled states of affairs that are the consequence of causal influences that don’t originate with us and are outside our regulative control? As the title of this post asks, “From whence come intentions, and how is compatibilism any better in this regard?” After all, neither philosophy adequately accounts for agent willed intentions, though only libertarians try to do so. (*Libertarians need it for moral responsibility. Compatibilists do not(!), as explained here.)

What makes unintended intentions sensible?

If you’re Augustinian I would suggest you not read on until you feel the weight of the philosophical problem from the previous paragraph.

Nobody rationally determines intentions in a libertarian construct. There’d be no reason to guard the heart for we’d be able to kick bad habits spontaneously, according to a will that’s impervious to causal influences. Such radical spontaneity would result in pure randomness of choice, destroying moral relevance by detaching choice from person. In a split moment we should expect to see saints behaving like devils, and devils like saints. The implications of pure contingency of choice demand it! And any libertarian appeal to will formation doesn’t comport with the metaphysical or causal contingency of libertarianism. Libertarians may not have their cake and eat it too.

The Augustinian solution:

The problem restated: If we don’t sovereignly instantiate our intentions but rather they are formed in us, then how can intentions be morally relevant to the person?

Although intentions are formed in us, they are not strictly formed by us, yet they are approvingly ours. Intentions, in other words, are not the result of free choice.) Notwithstanding, our intentions are rationally relevant because when God maps the cause of our intentions to providential states of affairs, he determines that our resultant intentions remain consistent with our person. They fall out naturally and by design, even with our approval! This uniformity is not a guarantee for libertarianism since it would not be normative that intentions have any relevance to the person given the contingency entailed by libertarian freedom. Whereas in the real world, one who experiences anger flare ups likely will be given over to outbreaks of anger given similar states of affairs, or trigger points. God is not mocked. There is a sowing and reaping principle by design. Similarly, if the life practicing thief finds a billfold loaded with cash, from an Augustinian perspective the formed intention will likely result in a free act of ditching the wallet and pocketing the cash. However, God could also decree a trigger of a childhood memory resulting in an intention to freely do right given identical circumstances. Unlike with the implications of libertarian spontaneity, from an Augustinian standpoint either intention would be contingent yet causally relevant to the person’s past. Also, both outcomes could be actualized by God, which is not the case with Molinism, and profoundly undermines the contingency of CCFs that Molinism seeks on the basis of indeterminism, in turn exposing Molinism for the brute fact functional necessity of all CCFs, as argued here. Given compatibilism, there’s hope for repentance and change, whereas with libertarian free choices there’s no hope for the will whatsoever. Free will becomes an illusion.

*For Augustinianism, moral responsibility is sufficiently obtained by other factors whereby agent-willed intentions are unnecessary (not to mention, philosophically inexplicable). As long as intentions are formed within the agent, even though they are are not formed by the agent, they can be morally relevant. They are morally relevant when they are the agent’s intentions of which she even approves.