Freewill - Folk Views, Intuition, and Properly Basic Beliefs

In this episode we discuss if Libertarian Incompatibilism really is the folk view, the view of common intuition or even, a properly basic belief. 

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The Fragility of Libertarian Incompatibilism

AUDIO Version:

The weaknesses of Libertarian Incompatibilism are manifold. There are so many defeaters for it that it’s hard to imagine how anyone can affirm it with absolute dogmatic certainty. Even if one believes that it is true, they should at least hold it with a good amount of intellectual humility and understanding of why the vast majority of philosophers and theologians over the millennia have denied it in favor of some manner of Compatibilism. 

Part of the problem is that it is a position that rests on TWO firm principled positions such that they claim that if X obtains, then Y is necessarily false. That is, if God has determined something then it cannot, in principle, be a free act sufficient for moral responsibility; and that if God has determined something that is immoral or evil, then God is, in principle, blameworthy for that evil. The reason that this makes the position so fragile is that if one can present even ONE exception to either of the principles, then the view is falsified.

Here, numerous examples have been given to that effect (one reason why most do not affirm the view). But let me give only one example from the Bible that is an exception to BOTH principled positions.

 

In Acts 2:22-23 we read,

“22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a Man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— 23 this Man, delivered over BY THE PREDETERMINED PLAN AND FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.”

 

In this passage we observe two facts:

1. The crucifixion of Jesus was something that was brought about by God’s determinative plan and foreknowledge;

 

2. God’s determining plan was to have the incarnate 2^nd person of the Trinity, the Son, executed as an act of state sponsored deicide – the most evil act in human history to which the responsible agents (Jewish leaders, Pilate, Judas, the soldiers who tortured him, etc) were all morally responsible for their actions, and thus sufficiently free.

 

These two facts serve falsify the two principles above. Firstly, the crucifixion came about “τῇ ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ καὶ προγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ”. This phrase is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, many translations will supply the prefix “pre-“ to “determinate/determined.” This is not a bad translation as it gets at what is likely meant by Peter in his sermon considering it is connected to God’s foreknowledge. However, to avoid the charge, however unwarranted, that using a dynamic equivalence meaning of ὡρισμένῃ, I will simply translate this as “ordained” or “determinate.” This is the same word used in Luke 22:22 when Jesus says, “For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!” Here, Jesus uses a perfect tense participle – something that has already been completed in the past. The idea conveyed here is clearly that there is not only something that is known, but something that God has ordained or determined will happen.

Paul, in his sermon in Acts 17:30-31, says the same when he says, “So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.” It is not merely that God knows in the abstract that Jesus would come and die, it is that Jesus was appointed to die. God directly planned that; he decreed and intended it to happen. It is not something passive on God’s part. Paul echoes this in Romans 1:4 when, speaking of Jesus, he writes, “…who was declared the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…” (This same use relating to Jesus being ordained by God is present in Acts 10:42). Here, we start to see the overlap between God’s active decree and his determination of something to come to be. This is rooted in the notion that a sovereign, like God, creates reality by declaring something to be the case – epitomized in the creation account of Genesis 1 where God speaks creation into existence. When God declares “Let X be,” it is not a simple description of what will happen, or even more weakly, what may happen. Rather, it is the ordaining of something to happen.

 

The term is also used in Numbers 34:6 and Joshua 13:27 of the establishing of boundaries. Here they did not merely know about boundaries, but rather, to ὁρίζω just meant to decree/establish/ordain/bring about the boundaries and thus actually mark out what will and will not be part of the land/property. (The use of the term to establish/ordain the boundaries of nations, and even when and how long they would exist for, is used in Acts 17:26 during Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill). We see something similar in Acts 11:29 where ὁρίζω is used to describe the disciples determining to set aside money as relief for those in need. They did not just let the chips fall where they may, so to speak, but they determined the definite amounts that they would give. It was a determinative act.

 

So what we see in Peter’s statement in Acts 2:23 is that the cross was brought about “by the determinate plan… of God”. That is, the plan of God is what established and determined it, it brought it to be as if it was a creative decree. It was not only by God’s foreknowledge, (which creates problems for Open Theists considering it requires the free actions of those agents involved and God knows them) but it is precisely because of God’s determinative decree in the past, prior to the events, that the crucifixion occurs.

This then demonstrates the first fact – that the crucifixion was brought about by God’s determinative plan. However, we see that Peter places the blame squarely on the Jews he was addressing when he declares, “you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.” Notice that Peter on the one hand can say that the crucifixion is “by the determinate plan of God” and yet also that “you nailed (him) to a cross…” God determined the action but the people were freely and thus morally responsible agents.

This first fact disproves the first principled stance of the Libertarian Incompatibilist, and thus is enough to falsify the view. Remember, since Libertarian Incompatibilism is a principled position, only one exception to that principle brings down the entire house of cards.

Secondly, by implication, we see that the thing that God’s determinate plan brought about was deicide – the state sponsored murder of the only unfallen and innocent person ever to walk the earth. This is the most evil thing to ever happen. Libertarian Incompatibilists will often try to use emotive reasoning to persuade people of their position: “Oh you mean God determined the rape and torture of small girls in sex trafficking?!” The rhetorical point here should not be missed. They want to cause an emotional, not a rational response. Here, we think of something so horrific as child sex trafficking (a truly evil and disgusting practice) and the Libertarian Incompatibilist wants you to make the unwarranted leap to the conclusion that therefore God could not have possibly determined something to evil to happen.  This attempt to force us into a non sequitur is powerful because our emotional response to such evils is very deep and visceral. The problem however, is that such an appeal highlights that we often do not think of the horror of the crucifixion enough. Rather than wonder how God could determine human trafficking, it highlights that we  are not equally appalled that God could determined deicide of his own Son!

However, for this fact to go through, one need not agree that the crucifixion was the superlative evil of all human history, though that should make this point more poignant. One only need to think that is an evil act for this second fact to go through. Here we have an act that God has determined to be, and we know that it is an evil act. And yet Peter does not blame God, but rather blames the agents who handed Jesus over and those who went through with the crucifixion. So, we see that God can determine something evil to be brought about by the free choices of his creatures, and yet not be blameworthy for them. In fact, the New Testament commonly glorifies God for the crucifixion, so it may even be the case that the manner in which God does decree and determine evil to happen, far from bringing blame to God, may in fact bring glory to God for his righteousness, justice, and plan of salvation. As Paul says in Romans 9:22-23, speaking of the objects of mercy and objects of wrath that God himself had fashioned, “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon objects of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory...”

 

Therefore, we can see from one single scriptural example, that Libertarian Incompatiblism is not only implausible, but definitively falsified due to the fragility of the core principled stances that it takes.

 

 

Syllogistic Objections to Libertarian Freewill and Open Theism from Isaiah 41 and 46.

Syllogistic Objection Against Libertarian Freewill (Based on Isa 41-46):

1. If a god is not a true god then they cannot declare the future as causally inferred from past events. (Isa. 41:21-23)
2. YHWH can declare the future as causally inferred from past events. (Isa. 46:9-10)
3. YHWH is a true god. (MT 1, 2)
4. All other gods cannot declare the future as causally inferred from past events. (Isa. 41:22)
5. All other gods are not true gods. (MP 1, 4)
6. YHWH is the only true God. (Imp. 3, 5)
7. If a future event can be known as causally inferred from past events, then Libertarian Freewill cannot be true.
8. Future events can be known as causally inferred from past events since God can do so. (Imp. 2, 7)
9. Libertarian Freewill cannot be true. (MP 7, 8)

THUS, the very test that YHWH established in the testing of the gods of Babylon assumes a metaphysics of causality that renders Libertarian Freewill impossible, and therefore false.


Syllogistic Objection Against Open Theism (Based on Isa 41-46):

1. If a god is not a true god, then they cannot declare the future as they can the past. (Isa. 41:21-23)
2. YHWH can declare the future as he can the past. (Isa. 46:9-10)
3. YHWH is a true god. (MT 1, 2)
4. All other gods cannot declare the future as they can the past. (Isa. 41:24)
5. All other gods are not true gods. (MP 1, 4)
6. YHWH is the only true God). (Imp. 3, 5)

THUS, the god of Open Theism would not pass the very test for a true god that YHWH established in testing the gods of Babylon, and therefore is a false concept of god, (i.e. an idol).


REFERENCE:
ISAIAH 41:21-24:
21 “Present your case,” the Lord says.
“Bring forward your strong arguments,”
The King of Jacob says.
22 Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place;
As for the former events, declare what they were,
That we may consider them and know their outcome.
Or announce to us what is coming;
23 Declare the things that are going to come afterward,
That we may know that you are gods;
Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us and fear together.
24 Behold, you are of no account,
And your work amounts to nothing;
He who chooses you is an abomination.

ISAIAH 46:9-10:
9 “Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’

Fore more of our resources on Reformed Theology, CLICK HERE.

A Warranted Case for Biblical Compatibilism

Libertarian Incompatiblists often say that the Bible demonstrates that their position is the biblical position. I simply disagree, for one very simple reason: Libertarian Incompatiblism and Compatiblism (as well as a handful of other views) all affirm substantive concepts of human choice and moral responsibility associated with those choices. 

Now, the Libertarian Incompatiblist may want to argue that Compatiblism is not successful in reconciling any meaningful concept of of Determinism with any meaningful concept of a Responsibility making Freedom of Choice. But that really does not help them here. Why? Well because Compatibilists disagree with them and think that is it Libertarian Incompatibilism which fails. We will see why this cannot be used in this regard shortly.

Libertarian Incompatiblists will go to some Bible verse that presents a real choice where someone is actually held morally responsible, such as Josh 24:15, "choose this day whom you will serve." They will then say, "SEE! Choice. Freedom. Therefore, the Bible affirms Libertarianism."

The problem is that Compatibilism also affirms substantive choosing and the responsibility that comes with it. We have no problem with such a verse. But then the Libertarian Incompatiblist asserts, "Ah, but your view fails to establish freedom and responsibility, so it cannot account for this verse."

Yet notice what this argument actually is - it begs the question. It says, "Assuming that Compatiblism is false, this verse demonstrates Libertarianism," but the verse is supposed to be being presented as evidence for the case that Libertarian Incompatiblism is true. As such, the Libertarian cannot presuppose the falsity of Compatibilism in their reading of the passage to argue to the conclusion of the falsity of Compatibilism. If we allow this, the Compatibilist can do the same.

The Compatibilist could say, "Assuming that Libertarianism is false, this verse demonstrates Compatibilism," but then we would simply be in a deadlock with both sides simply begging the question of their own positions.

A far more fair analysis is simply that the Bible passages which present choice and decisions are simply metaphysically neutral with regard to the nature of the will in such "choice" passages. What such "choice" passages would prove is simply that some concept of substantive choice and responsibility must be true, that is, that Deterministic Incompatibilism must be false since it denies any substantive concept of choice and human moral responsibility.

Now, this does not mean that Bible cannot adjudicate this issue for us. In fact, the burden of proof for each side, that of Libertarian Incompatibilism and Compatibilism are very lopsided, because the Compatibilist must only show a single example of God determining something while someone is also morally responsible for their choice to be vindicated. In fact, even if no such verse is found, the position is not falsified without a massive appeal to silence. While on the other hand, the Libertarian Incompatibilist must defend a universal negative - that in principle there can be no such instance ever. They need a principled contradiction to exist in every concept of determinism and human choice or moral responsibility in order to be maintained, and a single exception falsifies their view.

So do we see just such examples where God determines an action and the agent makes the choice and/or is morally responsible? We do all over the place in the Bible.

1. Gen 45:5, 7-8: And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life... And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.

(Well we know his brothers and the slavers and Potiphar and his wife's choices and the choices of the Pharaoh and his servants and such sent him there, but Joseph says God sent him. So who sent him - God or all those other morally responsible agents? Yes. Notice that Joseph is so emphatic that while we know his brothers sold him and others sent him, he says unequivocally that it was God who determined it.)

2. Gen. 50:20: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

(This is a rephrase of the prior verses, but here the action "it" - selling him into slavery - equally has the intention of his brothers and God behind it. They both intended "it" equally.)

3. Prov. 21:1: The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

(Does the King choose his plans and what he wills? Or does God? Yes. Even if we limit this to some special act of providence over monarchs, remember we only need one example of determinism and freedom/responsibility concurring in the same act to falsify Libertarianism.)

4. Jam 4:13-16: Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

(Tomorrow will I choose to go to work, or will God will it? Yes. And apparently it is actually boastful to claim otherwise!)

5. Acts 2:23: this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

(Some will claim it makes God the "author of evil" if he predetermines evil actions. But here we are told that the most evil action known to man, the decide of the son of God, was predetermined by God and that godless men put him to death. Does this make God the author of that gravest of all sins? He predetermined it and they chose to do it and are responsible for their sin.)

6. Acts 4:27-28: for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.

(The people and their rulers gathered together against Jesus. Why? To do what the hand of God had predestined them to do. God had predestined it and they chose it and were responsible for it. The former does not, in principle, contradict the latter.)

7. Isa. 14:24: The LORD of hosts has sworn saying, "Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand."

(Here, Isaiah is refering to the fall of Assyria. How great is the countless mass of human decisions were needed for Assyria to fall? And yet God here says it was exactly what he intended and planned to happen.)

8. Jer 10:23: I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.

(Here Jeremiah is praising God and saying the ways he is not like the false gods of the nations. And one of those ways is that Jeremiah says that YHWH is more glorious, is that even man does not direct his own steps - that YHWH is the one who does.)

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Now, this was just a small handful of the vast number of verses that one could go to in order to demonstrate that there are cases which falsify the principled objection of the Incompatiblist (that determination and freedom are always, in principle, contradictory). This means that while the "choice" passages maybe be metaphysically neutral on which form of choice is possible, the broader Biblical picture is not.

Here we could also think of a Protestant understanding of Inspiration where God and the human author are both active in determining the exact same text, such that it is equally true to call Romans the word of Paul and the word of God. For more on this, see my article here.

So we can see that not only can the Libertarian Incompatiblist argue from the Scripture for their position exclusively without begging the question of the very conclusion that they are seeking to prove, but also that they cannot meet their burden of a universal negative principle of incompatibility, especially in the face of numerous verses which show instances where determinism and freedom are not in contradiction with each other.

At the very least we can say that the Reformed Christian (or any that affirm some kind of Compatibilism) is warranted in holding their position from the scriptures. Why? Because we can see passages that clearly present humans as making responsible choices, and at the same time we can see passages that clearly present God determining some of those responsible choices. We also can overcome objections to the incompatibility of the two (such as the conflation of of Soft and Hard Determinism, that any kind of determinism makes us robots, or makes love impossible, etc.) Even if the Compatibilist is not able to give a fully systematic reconciliation of these two truths of scripture, absent some kind of defeater for the view, they are warranted to accept them both as true.

Soli Deo Gloria.