Thursday, August 27, 2009

A Critical Review of Gordon H. Clark's "God And Evil: The Problem Solved": Part III

I am journalling through Gordon H. Clark's "God and Evil: The Problem Solved". I have worked out a good pattern for reading each section in this pamphlet to encourage open-mindedness in myself: first I read a section through for understanding, second for ideas about how a third-party critic would respond, and third to get a feel for how Clark (or the strongest version of Clark's argument) might answer such a critic. I try to saturate this process in prayer.

Right now I am reading the second section, entitled "Free Will". In this chapter Clark intertwines explanations of different historical versions of the Free Will view with his own commentary on how the Free Will view falls short as a solution to POE.

The Free Will view in general, Clark explains, is one of the most popular solutions offered for POE. The basic idea is that while God is omnipotent, He chooses not to exert His power fully in all cases, allowing humans to have the ability to choose between good and evil (with qualifications). This is meant to preserve God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence, while giving an account for why evil yet exists in the world. The reason God chooses to allow humans to have a certain amount of free will, under the Free Will view, is that its possible goods (freely given love and freely performed righteousness) make it worth the risk (freely performed evil and freely withheld love). Thus, God has morally justifiable reasons for granting free will to human beings.

After explaining this much of the Free Will view, Clark pauses to challenge one of its presuppositions. The Free Will view seems to presuppose that being is better than non-being in such a way that even an unrepentant sinner is better off than a nonexistent entity. Clark quotes Christ's statement that "it would have been good for that man if he had not been born".

The next issue Clark takes with the Free Will view's apparent presuppositions, is that the Free Will view only works as a theodicy if the ability to do good and the ability to do evil are one and the same. The problem with this is that the Fall enslaved humanity in such a way that a post-Fall, pre-regenerate human is incapable of doing any genuine good, but can only do evil continually. And a post-glorified human will only be able to do good, and not evil. Even if pre-Fall man was in some sense able to do good or evil as he initially chose, the two other stages of humankind serve as counterexamples to the idea that the ability to do good and the ability to do evil are one and the same.

After this, the related issue of the nature of God's freedom is explored. Surely we want to say God is free in all of the most desirable ways, and yet He is literally and definitionally incapable of sin. After thinking about this, who could go on to claim that the ability to do good and the ability to do evil are the same?

Next Clark makes a couple of statements that resonate with me so strongly I want to shout them from the mountaintops:
One should never suppose that a phrase or a term means the same thing in every book in which it occurs. Each author chooses the meaning he desires, and each reader ought to try to determine what that meaning is... Strict definitions and strict adherence to them are essential to intelligible discussion.
He says that for his purposes in this book, "free will" will be used to "indicate the theory that a man faced with incompatible courses of action is able to choose any one as well as any other". I here swallow my objection to this definition as a gross oversimplification.

After this, Clark wants to explore something else with the reader: whether Free Will solves POE.

Clark answers the question, "no"; he believes that Free Will does not solve POE. To demonstrate this, he asks the reader to imagine a lifeguard on a beach. A boy comes out, of his own "free will", and gets stuck in an undertow. The lifeguard, though he has the power to save the boy, allows the boy to drown. In such a case, we will want to say that the boy's predicament being brought about by his own free will has no bearing on whether the lifeguard is culpable. The lifeguard should still save the boy, right?

This is meant to show that permission (as opposed to positive causality) does not absolve the Lifeguard of responsibility.

But this is what the Free Will theorist denies! The Free Will theorist says that creaturely free will absolves God of any responsibility to stop evil! Clearly this must be false, and Free Will is thus shown to be impotent to defend theism against POE.

Worse than its impotence to defend theism against POE however, is the fact that Free Will doesn't even make any sense. In the case of the lifeguard, he is able to permit the boy to enter the water because the boy and the water are all beyond his control. In God's case, since He providentially sustains and governs the cosmos, it is impossible to "permit" something without causing it. So Free Will doesn't solve POE and it doesn't even make sense.

Thus Clark believes he establishes that Free Will is impotent and nonsensical. Next he pledges to demonstrate that it is also false.

He concludes,
Certainly, if the Bible is the Word of God, free will is false; for the Bible consistently denies free will.
Here are my honest reactions to this section:

• I'm not gonna lie; I was a little disappointed in both the disorganization and philosophical opacity of this section. This is primarily a stylistic critique, but I think it is indicative of sloppy thinking.

• I can't help but think that Clark is mistaken about the Free Will view's presupposition that even a sinner is better off existing than not existing. It seems that the Free Will view only needs to presuppose that it is worth the risk, on God's part, to create a being with free will. I don't think one who holds a Free Will view is necessarily committed thereby to saying that if a free being is created and subsequently chooses to sin, he or she is still "better off" than if he or she had never existed.

• I think Clark misses the point when he offers his two counterexamples to the idea that the ability to do good and the ability to do evil are one and the same. It seems the Free Will view's presupposition is more specific: that the ability to freely choose good and freely choose evil are one and the same. Even if its true that post-Fall, pre-regenerate man is indeed incapable of doing true good because he is enslaved to evil, his evil would not be freely performed (even if it is "willingly" performed in some sense). Similarly, even if post-glorified man is indeed incapable of sinning because he is made a slave to Christ, his righteousness would not be freely performed in the relevant sense. So even if the mere ability to do good is not identical to the mere ability to do evil, the ability to freely do good may yet be identical to the ability to freely do evil. I think "free" in this context means just that: free from any restriction to do only good or only evil.

• As far as God's freedom is concerned, I concede that God is not free to do evil. However the good that God does is in fact freely performed in other significant ways. For example, God has the ability to creatively choose to do one good in alternate to another equivalent good, and He is free to do supererogatory goods on top of what His attribute of justice would require (we call this "grace"). But none of these goods are performed "freely" in the specific sense that God is not free from the characteristic restriction to do good only.

This is not to concede that "good" has any meaning outside of God's character. But God is unchanging (and therefore "goodness" is unchanging), and His goodness informs His actions; He is united and not conflicted. Thus, because God has the ability to do good, but not the ability to do evil, He does not have the ability to "freely" do good. Therefore God does not serve as a counterexample to the Free Will view's presupposition that the ability to freely do good is identical to the ability to freely do evil.

It should be noted that God is yet praiseworthy, but not because he is a morally responsible agent like humans and angels. God is praiseworthy because He is the source of Good itself. In this way He is beyond the category of moral responsibility (but not beyond the restrictions of consistency with His own character). In other words He is the Standard, whereas everyone else are held to the Standard. (And, as stated above, He can also be praised for doing supererogatory goods above and beyond the minimum bar of goodness that His attribute of justice sets.)

God is the only being that is morally praiseworthy on the basis of something other than freely performed good.

• I find the illustration comparing God to a lifeguard on the beach and comparing mankind to a boy drowning of his own free will, to be fatally disanalogous: the mechanics of morality, damnation, and salvation do not operate with a one-to-one correspondence to the mechanics of the choice to swim, the act of drowning, and the act of rescue as presented.

First of all, the drowning boy is passive, whereas sinners are active. Even though the boy got into the water of his own free will, he is not drowning of his own free will. Quite the contrary, he is freely wanting to live and be saved, but is being towed against his will. This contrasts the sinner, who willingly sins.

Second of all, and perhaps more importantly, the lifeguard in the story is passive and does not offer salvation, whereas God is active. God goes through great lengths to wright the means of salvation and offer it to everyone. This makes all the difference in the world between the lifeguard and God. If the lifeguard had jumped into the water and swam out to the boy and offered salvation, it would have been a bit more analogous. And then the boy would have had the opportunity to accept or reject the offer. If the boy had then rejected salvation of his own free will, he would have been a bit more analogous to a reprobate.

These two points alone dispatch the illustration, but it should also be noted that his caricature of the Free Will view is quite the straw-man. Under a Free Will view, whoever asks for salvation receives it. In Clark's illustration of the Free Will beach, a single decision to enter the water eternally damns a boy.

Concerning Clark's claim that permission, as opposed to positive causation, does nothing to absolve a lifeguard of responsibility: it seems obvious that allowing a person to enter the water and respecting their refusal to be rescued is entirely distinct from dragging a person into the water and drowning them against their will.

The lifeguard scenario can easily be turned against Clark's Calvinism. Under Calvinism, the Lifeguard actively saves drowning men, but not all of them. Even though he has the ability to, and even though all the men are in the exact same predicament, he arbitrarily chooses some to save and others to drown. Surely this is the most counterintuitive picture of a God who is "good to all" and whose "mercy is over all that he has made" (Psalm 145:8-9)!

• As for Free Will not making any sense, I am a little stunned. I would be more stunned if I hadn't previously thought as Clark does. Now I have come to understand that God is capable of creating the "beach", creating the "water", creating the "boy", and creating inside the boy this ability to act on his own (not without influence, but without sufficient causal determination), providentially sustain this ability, and then permit the boy to use this ability to "go swimming". This doesn't undercut God's omnipotence at all. In fact it affirms that God has the power to create, not just the matter and the law, but a being with freedom. That takes power. And the ability to allow this freedom to be used, while sustaining its very existence, without causally determining its every outcome, takes great skill. There is no logical contradiction between Free Will and divine omnipotence. Free Will doesn't require us to abandon the notion of providential sustenance, or creation, or any other Biblical doctrine that I know of.

I know Clark disagrees with this, but the really stunning thing is that he doesn't even come close to offering any arguments that demonstrate the logical incompatibility of Free Will and divine omnipotence! He just emphatically insists that they are incompatible and moves on.

I was hoping for an argument to analyze.

• On top of an argument, I was hoping for scriptures. So far, Clark has relied heavily on philosophical reasoning in establishing his case. A common reply to non-Calvinist critiques of Calvinist systems of reasoning is that the Bible plainly teaches what is now often called "Calvinism", whether we like it or not. We should not start with philosophy according to most Calvinists, but with scripture. Clark ignored his brethren and chose to start with what he sees to be the philosophical flaws in Free Will. I, personally, am fine with that. I don't happen to find his attempts to philosophically undercut Free Will persuasive, but I am fine with beginning with philosophy.

Even still, I eagerly anticipate Clark's exegetical treatment of a number of passages to which I was never able to find a satisfactory answer as a Calvinist. I am also curious to see if his exegetical treatments of all of the passages commonly used in support of Calvinism will be any different or more persuasive than I found any of the other Calvinists' treatments of them to be.

I am most anxious however, for him to show me the myriad places where the Bible clearly denies free will.

52 comments:

  1. Louis, I appreciate the thoroughness of your journaling.

    It seems that the Free Will view only needs to presuppose that it is worth the risk, on God's part, to create a being with free will.

    Do you believe that God took a chance, not knowing the outcome, when He chose to create the world?

    It seems the Free Will view's presupposition is more specific: that the ability to freely choose good and freely choose evil are one and the same. Even if its true that post-Fall, pre-regenerate man is indeed incapable of doing true good because he is enslaved to evil, his evil would not be freely performed

    I think you have missed the point. Perhaps you have a different view or reason for defending free will, but Clark was responding to Augustine's early formula. Augustine, along with most people I have heard, argued that a choice cannot be good or righteous without the equal ability for the person to choose evil. The examples given demonstrate that it is possible to do good without the equal ability to do evil, thus the foundational reason for the necessity of free will is without basis.

    So even if the mere ability to do good is not identical to the mere ability to do evil, the ability to freely do good may yet be identical to the ability to freely do evil. I think "free" in this context means just that: free from any restriction to do only good or only evil.

    If man can be righteous and good without having the ability to also be evil (as Clark demonstrates), then what is the purpose of this added "freedom"?

    Thus, because God has the ability to do good, but not the ability to do evil, He does not have the ability to "freely" do good. Therefore God does not serve as a counterexample to the Free Will view's presupposition that the ability to freely do good is identical to the ability to freely do evil.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that you have, again, missed the point of the argument. What, in your opinion, is the point of free will? Why would God choose to create beings with free will?

    Aside from the above mentioned view of Augustine, either you or Derek have also claimed that God created man in his image in the sense that they "freely" choose things. Are you now disagreeing with that by saying man's freedom is different than God's freedom?

    God is the only being that is morally praiseworthy on the basis of something other than freely performed good.

    Can you please interact with Clark's arguments regarding post-Fall, pre-regenerate man as well as post-glorified man? Do you believe post-glorified man is righteous and does good?

    ---

    In regards to the lifeguard illustration: you have not avoided the problem. You have attempted to absolve God of responsibility by denying His omnipotence. As much as He wants to, and tries, God cannot save the boy. Your solution is a limited deity. If you object by saying God is not omnipotent, He has just chosen to remain hands off in regard to man's will, then Clark's argument still stands and you have not absolved God of responsibility.

    ---

    You should also keep in mind that this book was really just a chapter in Clark's larger "Religion, Reason, and Revelation." His focus was specifically to deal with the problem of evil, not to defend predestination. His book on predestination should provide more of the argumentation you are looking for in that respect. Here he only addresses the points relevant to the problem of evil.

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  2. Thanks Brandon.

    Do you believe that God took a chance, not knowing the outcome, when He chose to create the world?

    Of course God knew the outcome, He's omniscient!

    I think you have missed the point. Perhaps you have a different view or reason for defending free will, but Clark was responding to Augustine's early formula. Augustine, along with most people I have heard, argued that a choice cannot be good or righteous without the equal ability for the person to choose evil.

    I may be misunderstanding Augustine, in which case I need to qualify what I said. I think the strongest versions of the Free WIll view maintain this: that the ability to freely (not just merely) do good is identical to the ability to freely do evil. Thus, Clark's counterexamples don't apply.

    The examples given demonstrate that it is possible to do good without the equal ability to do evil...

    If man can be righteous and good without having the ability to also be evil (as Clark demonstrates), then what is the purpose of this added "freedom"?

    ...What, in your opinion, is the point of free will? Why would God choose to create beings with free will?


    The reason why the "freedom" part matters, is because moral responsibility and moral praiseworthiness/blameworthiness are contingent on freedom for every creature (but not God).

    So God could have created biological robots that acted like they loved Him and did good only, but they wouldn't have been able to freely love or freely do good. Thus, it wouldn't have been real love, and it wouldn't have been morally praiseworthy goodness.

    Would you rather have a robot that you created that is aesthetically and behaviorally identical to your wife (but is a better cook), or your actual wife, who actually loves you of her own free will?

    If you indeed created such a robot wife, but then programmed it to go murder a pedestrian, would that robot be morally responsible? Or would you be the morally blameworthy one for determining Robot Wife's to murder?

    I know the robot objection will make your stomach turn, because I used to be right there with you. You will first insist that the scenarios I offered are disanalagous because robots don't have wills. In the case of God with humanity, He created them with wills, such that the sin they commit is performed willingly on their part. This is supposed to be sufficient for grounding moral responsibility.

    But it isn't. Your characterization of "will" is opaque. The bottom line is that no matter how complex we are under your view, we are still fully determined to do everything we do. Whether you posit some complexity in our makeup worthy of being called a "will" or not, the point is that it is not free, and freedom is what counts.

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  3. Aside from the above mentioned view of Augustine, either you or Derek have also claimed that God created man in his image in the sense that they "freely" choose things. Are you now disagreeing with that by saying man's freedom is different than God's freedom?

    Can you please interact with Clark's arguments regarding post-Fall, pre-regenerate man as well as post-glorified man? Do you believe post-glorified man is righteous and does good?


    That's a really good question, based on keen observation. The short answer is "yes". Even though man was created in God's image, and consequently bears an image of God's freedom, God's freedom is still different than man's freedom. (Divine attributes are never fully communicable.) In this case, God is free to creatively choose one good in alternate to another, or to do supererogatory goods. Man, during a certain stage, is free to do goods this way, but also to do evil.

    The reason for this disjunct is because God is the moral standard, whereas man is being held to the moral standard. The moral standard cannot change or be other than itself, but those being held to the moral standard are theoretically able to adhere to it or deviate from it.

    This might seem to accord man as having a desirable quality that God does not; the freedom to do good and evil. But this is only a desirable quality for non-God beings. The reason is that all non-God beings require this freedom in order to be morally praiseworthy/blameworthy. God is the only being exempt from this, and that's because, like I said, He is the moral standard.

    This might also seem to accord pre-glorified man as having a desirable quality that post-glorified man does not. But this is not so. Post-glorified man is still morally praiseworthy because he had previously made the free choice to love God and thereby be given grace. Only subsequently does glorification happen, by which he is made like Christ in His inability to do evil.

    This might also seem to esteem man as meritorious, giving cause for boasting. But this too, is not so. Man was created by God. His freedom was created by God. His context (the cosmos and its governing laws) were created by God. His opportunity for grace was created and offered to him by God. The only things he did on his own were sin, and in the case of believers, accept grace. Obviously sin is not meritorious, and I believe the acceptance of grace isn't either. At least not in any way that contradicts scripture's teaching that the opportunity for boasting is excluded by the mechanism of salvation.

    Take a quick example. Let's say a man cheats on his wife. She is devastated. According to Matthew 5, she is justified in leaving him. But instead she decides to do everything in her power to heal the relationship. So she offers to forgive her husband, to pay for the counseling, to pick him up for the appointments every week in her car, and to go above and beyond her part to play in the healing. He thinks about it, and decides to take her up on her offer of forgiveness. Does he really have occasion to boast?

    Sure, at least he accepted forgiveness, but is a man to be praised for doing what he ought (consider Luke 17:7-10)?

    Next, I admit that all of this presupposes that "freedom" is necessary for moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. I know that it is easy enough to verbally deny this presupposition, but you know it to be true in your heart of hearts, and so I am prepared to argue for it if necessary.

    Lastly, I readily admit, as most Calvinists are so quick to point out, that all it takes is one correctly interpreted passage of scripture to debunk this whole thing. But I maintain that I have not seen such a passage. To the contrary, I believe my account, or something close to it, is presupposed and affirmed throughout the scriptures in really profound ways.

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  4. In regards to the lifeguard illustration: you have not avoided the problem. You have attempted to absolve God of responsibility by denying His omnipotence. As much as He wants to, and tries, God cannot save the boy. Your solution is a limited deity. If you object by saying God is not [sic] omnipotent, He has just chosen to remain hands off in regard to man's will, then Clark's argument still stands and you have not absolved God of responsibility.

    Yes, my objection is that God is omnipotent, but choses to remain hands off (with a very specific understanding of "hands off").

    So you think Clark's argument still stands? Why is that? I thought I showed how his analogy did not apply?

    You should also keep in mind that this book was really just a chapter in Clark's larger "Religion, Reason, and Revelation." His focus was specifically to deal with the problem of evil, not to defend predestination. His book on predestination should provide more of the argumentation you are looking for in that respect. Here he only addresses the points relevant to the problem of evil.

    Right; this is good to keep in mind. Thanks.

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  5. I may be misunderstanding Augustine, in which case I need to qualify what I said. I think the strongest versions of the Free WIll view maintain this: that the ability to freely (not just merely) do good is identical to the ability to freely do evil. Thus, Clark's counterexamples don't apply.

    I would say you have greatly misunderstood the whole debate. Of course, by definition, the ability to "freely" do good is identical to the ability to "freely" do evil. But that's not the point. The heart of the debate is whether or not something can be good if it is not done "freely." Augustine said no. "The fact that human beings could not live rightly without it (free will) was sufficient reason for God to give it" (On Free Choice of the Will, Book II). You have interjected a distinction between "freely doing good" and "merely doing good" which is not part of the debate. Free Will advocates defend Free Will by saying in essence that there is no such thing as "merely good." It is either good or it isn't and it can't be good without free will. That is what Clark is arguing against and so, yes, his counterexamples do apply.

    See the summary of Plantinga's argument here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantinga%27s_free_will_defense

    So God could have created biological robots that acted like they loved Him and did good only, but they wouldn't have been able to freely love or freely do good. Thus, it wouldn't have been real love, and it wouldn't have been morally praiseworthy goodness.

    Thus God is a robot and His love is not real. Also, our love of Christ in heaven will not be real. Also, Satan is not evil because he cannot do good.

    The reason is that all non-God beings require this freedom in order to be morally praiseworthy/blameworthy.

    Which, again, is precisely what is being debated.

    Post-glorified man is still morally praiseworthy because he had previously made the free choice to love God and thereby be given grace.

    So loving Christ in heaven is not a good thing to do?

    Only subsequently does glorification happen, by which he is made like Christ in His inability to do evil.

    So Christ's works were not therefore good? (Heb 4:15 should be considered here. If His freedom is wholly different than ours then He cannot sympathize with us).

    divorce...Does he really have occasion to boast?

    Over his neighbor that had the same opportunity but refused? Yes.

    I know that it is easy enough to verbally deny this presupposition, but you know it to be true in your heart of hearts, and so I am prepared to argue for it if necessary.

    In my heart of hearts? You mean that wicked one that can't be trusted? (Jer 17:9)

    So you think Clark's argument still stands? Why is that? I thought I showed how his analogy did not apply?

    Because God could save the boy but He chooses not to, thus He is still responsible.

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  6. You have interjected a distinction between "freely doing good" and "merely doing good" which is not part of the debate.

    Oh, are original thoughts not allowed in book reviews on the blogspot.com domain in 2009 anymore?

    Free Will advocates defend Free Will by saying in essence that there is no such thing as "merely good." It is either good or it isn't and it can't be good without free will.

    Right, most people usually use "good" to reference "freely performed good", because they share my presupposition that moral praiseworthiness is contingent on free will. Thus, they wouldn't call a robot's "good" deeds "good". I think my distinction preserves their commitments while showing exactly why Clark's counterexamples don't apply.

    Thus God is a robot and His love is not real. Also, our love of Christ in heaven will not be real. Also, Satan is not evil because he cannot do good.

    God is exempt from the contingency because He is the very Source of Goodness and Love. Post-glorified man's love and goodness are real because he was glorified on the basis of freely exhibited faith. Satan's evil is blameworthy because his corruption is due to a freely performed rebellion. None of them are robots because their actions aren't wholly, inevitably determined (only bounded).

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  7. So Christ's works were not therefore good?

    Christ is God, so He is normally exempt from the standard by which actions are grounded as morally praiseworthy ("good").

    Heb 4:15 should be considered here. If [Christ's] freedom is wholly different than ours then He cannot sympathize with us.

    Philippians 2:6-7 should be considered here. In becoming (not always existing) like us, Christ had to temporarily empty Himself. Thus, the nature of the freedom of the post-incarnate, pre-resurrected Christ was distinct from His pre-incarnate or post-glorified state.

    Over his neighbor that had the same opportunity but refused? Yes.

    That contradicts the passage that says that servants who do what they ought may only say "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.".

    In my heart of hearts? You mean that wicked one that can't be trusted?

    Yes, the regenerated one that has the moral law written on it and the Holy Spirit indwelling it.

    God could save the boy but He chooses not to, thus He is still responsible.

    The story pumps out of us the intuition that the lifeguard is responsible regardless of the fact that the boy was merely permitted to drown, and not caused to drown, because the drowning boy and lifeguard were both passive. If the boy were actively refusing help and the lifeguard were actively offering help, it would be more analogous to the mechanics of eternal salvation and damnation, and wouldn't conjure in us the intuition that God is somehow responsible. Not to mention the fact that eternal salvation, while by divine grace, must come through human faith (something definitionally unable to be forced), whereas the boy's will may be easily overridden in an ocean rescue.

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  8. Post-glorified man's love and goodness are real because he was glorified on the basis of freely exhibited faith.

    So nothing man does in heaven is good?

    Satan's evil is blameworthy because his corruption is due to a freely performed rebellion.

    So nothing Satan did after He fell is evil? Tempting Christ is not evil? His attempt to destroy Christ is not evil?

    Philippians 2:6-7 should be considered here. In becoming (not always existing) like us, Christ had to temporarily empty Himself. Thus, the nature of the freedom of the post-incarnate, pre-resurrected Christ was distinct from His pre-incarnate or post-glorified state.

    And yet He could not sin.

    Will you please direct me to someone besides yourself that makes these arguments? Or are these your own spur of the moment inventions?

    That contradicts the passage that says that servants who do what they ought may only say "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.".

    No it doesn't. You weren't dealing with that passage. You referenced Romans 3:27. Luke 17:10 would equally apply to someone who was perfectly righteous and never sinned. Those two passages are talking about two different things. One is talking about our boasting before men, the other about expecting congratulation for doing what was simply required.

    Yes, the regenerated one that has the moral law written on it and the Holy Spirit indwelling it.

    And the ravages of sin still eating away at it. I don't look into my heart to discern truth, I look to God's Word.

    If the boy were actively refusing help and the lifeguard were actively offering help, it would be more analogous to the mechanics of eternal salvation and damnation, and wouldn't conjure in us the intuition that God is somehow responsible.

    Intuition has nothing to do with it. If God only offered help instead of actually helping when he could have, then He is still responsible. If a little 2 year old wants to crawl across a busy street and he won't listen when his father says no, the father is not relieved of responsibility if he watches the 2 year old do it. If the 2 year old gets half way across and sees a truck coming and his father offers to pick him up but the baby says no, then father is not relieved of responsibility when he watches his son die.

    If you say that He could not, that He could only offer, then once again you are resorting to a limited deity.

    You need to think harder about what Clark is saying.

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  9. btw, you continue to miss the point of Clark's argument by talking about "praiseworthy" and "blameworthy." Responsibility is not the direct issue he is discussing. He is talking about doing something morally good or morally evil and he has sufficiently demonstrated that it is possible to do something morally good or morally evil without the equal possibility of doing the opposite.

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  10. So nothing man does in heaven is good?

    Depends on how you define "good".

    Under my set of definitions, it can be called "good", but not "'freely performed' good". He is free, like God, to creatively choose one good in alternate to another, or to do supererogatory goods above what is required (“grace”), but he is not the one restricting himself to the performance of actions within the category of “good” instead of “evil”. In this way he may be praised for his creativity or his grace, but not the fact that he is doing good. Still, I think it can be called "good" nevertheless.

    Under the definitions of others, where "good" must be "'freely performed' good", the actions of a man in heaven are not truly "good", but might be described with some other positive adjective.

    Under the definitions of others still, where "'freely performed' good" is called "moral good" and good that is not freely performed is called "functional good", the actions of a man in heaven are "functionally good" but not "morally good".

    Under any set of definitions, it’s significant that post-glorified man's state, though achieved entirely by God’s gracious work, came through his freely performed acceptance of forgiveness and its subsequent glorification.

    Some might even construe man’s earthly faith as a basis for calling his actions in heaven "good" or even "morally good", since they are rooted in an initial free action.

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  11. So nothing Satan did after He fell is evil? Tempting Christ is not evil? His attempt to destroy Christ is not evil?

    It is evil, but not "freely" performed evil in the sense that it is not being performed by an agent who is able to do good in alternate to his evil. Naturally Satan is able to creatively choose one evil in alternate to another evil, or to go the extra mile in heaping evils upon evil, but he is not the one keeping himself in the category of “evil” as opposed to “good”.

    If this were the whole story, then he could not be held morally responsible for his actions, but would be like a robot that God programmed to do evil. In such a case, God would be the blameworthy one for causing Satan's sin, just like you would be blameworthy if you programmed your a robot of your own to go out and sin.

    But that's not the whole story, because he wasn't made corrupt; he freely chose to sin in the first place and thereby become a slave to corruption. And it is on the basis of his initial free choice that he is blameworthy for his evil (and thus, some might say, his evil is truly and rightly called "evil").

    He is like an addict that way. Both Satan and a hypothetical addict freely chose to subject themselves to a state of bondage. The addict freely chose to shoot up for the first time, and Satan freely chose to rebel for the first time. The addict is now being chemically fated to seek his next fix, and Satan is now being fated by his corrupt nature to perform evil continually. Even though the addict is in an important sense unable not to seek his next fix, and Satan is unable to do good, they are both responsible for freely getting themselves into such a state of bondage to begin with. Satan is addicted to evil.

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  12. ...yet [Christ] could not sin.

    Yes, that right. Wouldn’t you would agree that Christ was incapable of sin, and that you are capable of sin, and yet that Christ’s freedom was alike enough to yours to ground His sympathy? The Impeccability of Christ has never been an easy doctrine to understand, but surely we both hold to it!

    Will you please direct me to someone besides yourself that makes these arguments?

    Can you be more specific? I'm sure you are familiar with a lot of historical Eastern, Roman, Evangelical Weslayan/Arminian, general Molinist, and other non-Calvinist literature. If you would like references to some resources that regard specific questions you have, I would be more than happy to help you out.

    are these your own... inventions?

    Very few of us agree 100% with one theologian or one theological tradition. I have my disagreements with the biggest group of non-Calvinist Christian brethren (the Arminians). Specifically, I hold to the Calvinist L and P pretty strongly, and modified versions of the other three points, all of which exclude me from their camp. On top of that, obviously, I am going to have other differences with them and other non-Calvinist traditions. I don’t pretend all of my thoughts are original, since I stand within certain, often overlapping, theological and philosophical traditions, but some of the nuances in my worldview and categories in my language might be unique in their combination.

    ...One is talking about our boasting before men, the other about expecting congratulation for doing what was simply required.

    Either way, I'm not convinced that accepting forgiveness is cause for boasting.

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  13. If God only offered help instead of actually helping when he could have, then He is still responsible... If you say that He could not, that He could only offer, then once again you are resorting to a limited deity.

    There is a difference between a limited deity and a logically consistent deity.

    God cannot make 1=2, or A≠A, or a square circle, or an object that is red all over and yellow all over in the same way at the same time, or a rock so big that He can’t lift it, or a foe so powerful it could kill Him, or a universe such that He never existed in it.

    It is not a matter of being limited, but of being logical.

    So when I say that God cannot cause someone to have faith, I am not saying that God is limited in His power, as if a being with more power would be able to. Rather, I am saying that faith, by its very nature, is something that cannot logically be caused by an external agent.

    The reason is that inherent in the definition of "faith" is freedom. And inherent in the definition of "freedom" is lack of external causation. It is definitionally impossible to cause another being to have faith. It’s not a matter of limitation.

    Moreover, your theology is in fact the one guilty of limiting the power of God, by asserting that he is not powerful enough to create free beings, or accomplish His will without wholly determining whatsoever comes to pass, or manifest His attributes or His glory without creating evil.

    And your theology is also guilty of arbitrarily limiting the Goodness of God to some and not all!

    Under my view, the “babies” “crossing the street” are not doing so helplessly and ignorantly, but are willingly rejecting the “Father’s” active offer of salvation from the “traffic”, which cannot be performed but through their acceptance. While this succeeds in absolving God of responsibility, your view takes it in the opposite direction, worsening the problem. Under your view it’s as if there were multiple babies crossing the street, all of which the father can save, but doesn’t. Instead he arbitrarily elects some babies for salvation, allowing the others to be run over and die. What a sickening picture of a God whom the scriptures describe as gracious and merciful and good to all!

    So no, I am not the one resorting to a limited deity.

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  14. btw... Responsibility is not the direct issue he is discussing. He is talking about doing something morally good or morally evil...

    Moral responsibility is inherent in the concept of "moral" good or evil.

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  15. I have an idea. Since you you believe that I need to think harder about Clark’s argument, why don’t I put aside my own thoughts for a while and just focus on trying to understand his.

    I will summarize what I think his argument is in my own words. If you think I’ve gotten something wrong, let me know. Then I will go back and try again, until I’ve convinced us both that I fully understand his argument.

    After that, if I still think it’s flawed, I can reiterate my concerns with it.

    What do you say?

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  16. Ok my current understanding of Clark’s argument is something like this:

    1. Free Will is posited to relieve God of the responsibility to stop evil.
    2. Free WIll does not relieve God of the responsibility to stop evil.
    3. Therefore, positing Free Will is without motivation.

    Disagreements about the truth of (1) seem futile. Even if there may be other motivations behind positing Free Will (eg. it makes sense out of our subjective experience), Clark could easily modify (1) and (3) to say something like “often posited” or “without this motivation”. (1) is one of the most common motivations for positing Free Will, and it is the topic at hand.

    Therefore it seems like the discussion is rightly centered around the truth of (2). This is what Clark’s lifeguard illustration is meant to support.

    The lifeguard illustration is designed to show the reader a situation in which an individual undergoes harm (“evil”) solely due to his own free will. This is meant to represent the existence of evil in the world due to creaturely free will. But what’s interesting about the situation is that there is an onlooker with the power to stop the suffering, and the reader is meant to feel like this lifeguard is responsible for saving the boy, despite the fact that the boy’s impending peril is due to his own free will. This is meant to represent God’s knowledge of evil in the world, and His power to stop it. If the situation is analogous, then the existence of free will, even if it is the sole cause of evil, does not absolve God of the responsibility to stop it.

    Am I close?

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  17. Do you think I grasp his argument in such a way that I don't need to think any harder about it?

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  18. If you still don't think it applies, then I would edit my comment to say you need to think harder about your own position.

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  19. Are you sure you understand my argument?

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  20. Yup. You say it's logically impossible for God to save a sinner who does not want to be saved, thus you think you are not resorting to a limited deity because omnipotence does not imply the ability to do the logically impossible.

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  21. Right, so I would deny (2), on the grounds that Clark's illustration is disanalogous. It is disanalogous because the boy and lifeguard are both passive, the boy isn't saved even if he wants to be, and because the lifeguard is capable of saving the boy despite whether the boys want it. Whereas reprobate man actively rejects salvation, salvation is actively offered, and salvation cannot come but through faith, which cannot be forced.

    So how exactly does this fail to undercut Clark's argument?

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  22. You are missing the point of the analogy. No analogy is 1:1, that's why it's an analogy, so stop getting stuck on the analogy and deal with the issue. The point is that God is able to save the boy, but he doesn't. You claim that no, He can't save the boy. God cannot stop the reprobate from burning in hell. The only possible way to maintain this claim is to

    1. believe that the boy is an independent force in the universe.
    But,
    2. The only way to maintain that the boy is an independent force in the universe is if he was not created
    (created forces cannot be independent forces and independent forces cannot be created forces)
    3. Thus God is still responsible

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  23. I reject your presupposition that created forces cannot be independent forces.

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  24. Did the boy will himself into creation?

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  25. So God brought the boy into existence knowing he would burn in hell?

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  26. And He could have refrained from bringing him into existence?

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  27. Then God could have prevented the boy from burning in hell.

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  28. That's not an argument for why a created force cannot be an independent force. It's part of a different argument altogether. I would be more than happy to engage you on it, but I want to sort out the topic at hand first. Your argument currently hinges on whether a created force can act independently. Can you please tell me why you think the answer is "no"?

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  29. "Then God could have prevented the boy from burning in hell."

    Only on the condition that

    (1) it's better to not exist at all than to have the opportunity for bliss and yet reject it and be damned.

    But what's the argument for (1)?

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  30. Can you please tell me why you think the answer is "no"?

    Does the boy will himself to exist?

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  31. If (1) is false, then there is clearly no injustice on God's part for not preventing the boy's eternal suffering by way of not creating him at all .

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  32. Derek:

    1. You are not avoiding the conclusion that God is responsible, you are simply arguing that it was justifiable. Clark's point here is that the free will defense does not relieve God of responsibility.

    2. Please review the summaries Louis has posted to answer your question.

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  33. Put another way,

    (2) Having the opportunity for bliss, yet rejecting it > not existing in the first place.


    Hence, there is no injustice if God doesn't prevent, by way of non-existence, that someone should suffer eternally.

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  34. "1. You are not avoiding the conclusion that God is responsible, you are simply arguing that it was justifiable. Clark's point here is that the free will defense does not relieve God of responsibility."

    The issue is God's moral responsibility, right? Everyone grants that God wills everything that is, including the existence of those who suffer. So no one denies that God is fundamentally causally responsible for such being the case. The controversy is whether God is guilty, in the morally responsible sense, of such being the case. If (2) is true, then though God is causally responsible for such being the case, he is none the less, as you say, justified, and hence, not morally responsible.

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  35. "Does the boy will himself to exist?"

    Suppose, that

    (3) Whether Derek punches Louis or not is entirely up to Derek, in conjunction with God's permisive will.

    is true.

    How does the truth of (3) entail,

    (4) Derek is a causa sui simpliciter .

    ?

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  36. @Brandon:

    Your argument seems to be this:

    1. The boy did not will himself into existence.
    2. Therefore created forces cannot act independently.

    Can you please help me understand your jump from (1) to (2)?


    @Derek

    Your argument seems to be that it was better for a reprobate to exist than to not exist, thus God's motivation for creating him. But this ignores the verse that says it would be better for a man who causes a little one to stumble if he had not existed.

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  37. Louis,

    If the boy is dependent upon God for his existence, then he is not independent of God.

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  38. So now your argument seems to be:

    1. A boy's existence is not independent of God
    2. Therefore a boy's will must be wholly determined by God

    Why make the jump from (1) to (2)?

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  39. There's no jump. If a force is independent, it cannot be dependent.

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  40. The existence of a force is distinct from the actions of a force. Therefore a force can be dependent for its existence but independent in its behavior. You are wrongly equivocating between the two.

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  41. "But this ignores the verse that says it would be better for a man who causes a little one to stumble if he had not existed."

    Right. Surely for the man who does such, it would be better that he didn't exist. That is to say suffering from the consequences of your own sin is unbearable, so unbearable that you would, in some sense, naturally long for non-existence.

    But the "better than" relation that having the opportunity for bliss yet rejecting it has to not existing in the first place doesn't have to be a subject relative property. That is, the goodness of a universe from the view of eternity is not merely the net difference between the quantity and quality of the experiences of the blessed and the quantity and quality of the experiences of the damned .

    From the view of eternity, but maybe not the pleasure of those in hell, it’s surely a good thing that men are responsible for themselves and that some men had the opportunity to enter the KOG but they nonetheless refused. That is, imagine someone like Hitler who never repents. Assuming he can see clearly, he will know that

    (1) He is suffering for his own sins that he freely caused. And,
    (2) He freely rejected forgiveness from the Righteous and Merciful Judge.

    (1) and (2) enable the contingent good of getting what one deserves. Someone like Hitler, if he doesn’t repent, could see that it’s a good thing there is Justice, even if what Justice requires is experientially unbearable.

    Hence,

    (2) Sub specie aeternitatis, it is better if a person be responsible and have the opportunity for bliss, yet reject it, than that person not existing in the first place.

    And

    (5) Sub specie Hitler in hell, it would be better for him that he didn’t exist.

    Are entirely compossible.

    Cf. Swineburne’s “Some Various Stands of Theodicy”

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  42. Louis,

    I'm not equivocating. I'm saying the same thing I said originally. I apologize because I do not think I was as clear as I could have been.

    I see now that part of the confusion stems from the fact that the lifeguard illustration specifically does not appear to apply to your view, thus Clark is not arguing against you on that point. Clark's entire point in the illustration is to demonstrate that "permission of evil as contrasted with positive causality does not relieve a lifeguard from responsibility. Similarly, if God merely permits men to be engulfed in sin of their own free wills, the original objections of Voltaire and Professor Patterson are not thereby met. That is what the Arminian fails to notice."

    His argument is thus directed at those Arminians who claim that God's permission of evil relieves him of responsibility. These would be Arminians like Jack Cottrell who believe God can override man's will, but He chooses not to.

    "God exercises his sovereign control especially through his permissive will, which presupposes divine foreknowledge of future freewill choices. Such foreknowledge gives God the genuine option of either permitting or preventing men's planned choices, and prevention is the ultimate control... This highlights the fact that having free will gives human beings only a relative independence since the sovereign God maintains the right and power to intervene in the world's circumstances in whatever way he chooses. Through his special providence he can intervene in and influence the laws of nature without actually violating them and thus use natural events to influence human decisions. The reality of free will means that such influence can be resisted (Amos 4:6-11; Hag. 1:1-11); thus God sometimes exercises his right to intervene in natural and human events in a direct way. This means he sometimes suspends natural law and performs miracles; it also means that he is able to suspend free will itself if his purposes require it (as with Balaam, Num. 23-24).

    That God has such sovereign control means that although the creation has been endowed with independence, such independence is only relative. True control does not require causation, predetermination, or foreordination of all things; but it does entail causative intervention when necessary. Free creatures are usually allowed to go their own way, but God can and will intervene when his purposes require it.

    -Perspectives on Election

    You reject the idea that God permits evil. Instead you believe that God has absolutely no control over it. He is helpless. Thus Clark's illustration is not directed at you. But his very next paragraph is, thus the source of my comments.

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  43. I'm not equivocating. I'm saying the same thing I said originally.

    I apologize for not being clear about what I meant by "equivocating". I didn't mean to imply that your position had changed, but that your latest argument was fallacious due to a semantic ambiguity.

    To prove that a created force cannot behave independently of its creator, which is the only proposition in focus between you and I at the moment, you argue:

    If a force is independent, it cannot be dependent.

    You use the term "dependent" in a misleading way because it has more than one semantic sense. Your argument, put more formally, goes like this:

    1. A given force is "dependent" on something for its existence.
    2. A "dependent" force is not an "independent" force.
    3. Therefore, the force in question is not an independent force.

    (3) is meant to imply that the force in question cannot be independent in its behavior. But this equivocates (confuses due to ambiguity) two of the senses of "dependent". Namely, dependency for existence and dependency for behavior.

    Below is a parallel example of equivocation. Let's say someone asks me who the pastor of Free Will Baptist Church is, and I don't remember so I reason through it thusly:

    4. Free Will Baptist Church of Glasgow was started by Zach.
    5. What is started by Zach is "Zach's church".
    6. Therefore, Free Will Baptist Church of Glasgow is "Zach's church".

    And I use (6) to imply that FWBC is being pastored by Zach. This equivocates due to the two senses of "Zach's church". Namely, people sometimes use a phrase of that form to describe the state of having been started by someone, and other-times to describe the state of being pastored by someone. But just because FWBC was started by Zach, doesn't mean it is currently being pastored by Zach, even though it may in one sense be described as "Zach's church".

    Similarly, just because a force was created by God, doesn't mean it is being controlled by God, even if it may in one sense be called a "dependent" force.

    Naturally it will be a little bit different, because God is the Sustainer of all that exists. But nevertheless, sustaining the existence of a force is not tantamount to controlling the behavior of a force.

    I hope this helps you understand what I mean when I say you are equivocating. There may yet be reasons for believing that if a force that is dependent on something for its existence, then it must be dependent on it for its behavior too, but so far you have not offered any.

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  44. You reject the idea that God permits evil. Instead you believe that God has absolutely no control over it. He is helpless. Thus Clark's illustration is not directed at you. But his very next paragraph is, thus the source of my comments.

    With all due respect, I think you need to "think harder" about my view. Of course I believe that God has power over evil, to stop it or to control it. I do not believe however, that God can cause someone to freely perform good, where "free" means "freedom from external causation". And I believe that God has good reasons for wanting to give people the opportunity to freely perform good.

    You are right however, in finally realizing that Clark's lifeguard illustration does not exert any force against my view.

    As for Clark's paragraph proceeding the lifeguard illustration, I believe he "equivocates" too, by saying that since nothing in the universe can be "independent" of God, "free will" has no intelligible meaning. But again, "dependent" for existence is a distinct notion from "dependent" for behavior. Thus, while God is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and while it is only in Him that we live and move and have our being, it may yet be the case that He created agents with free will.

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