Pretty Sure...

I'm over this blog. Peace.

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

I recently read through a section of Clark's work entitled "Responsibility and Determinism", and decided to break my critical response to it into two blog posts. The first answered the initial claim Clark makes on the basis of Romans 1: that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will, but on knowledge. I found Clark's conclusions to be lacking warrant, and in fact found the language used and presuppositions latent in Romans 1 to imply something quite incongruent with Clark's position on responsibility.

Interestingly enough, "Responsibility and Determinism" goes on to admit that responsibility is not actually contingent on knowledge after-all. But Clark nevertheless maintains that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will either. To make this case, he offers a counter-example: the teaching of Romans 5:12-21. In my second blog post on "Responsibility and Determinism", I wrestled with the meaning of Romans 5 in light of Ezekiel 18 and other passages concerning judgement. I found Clark's assumption that Romans 5 teaches that every human shall be held morally responsible for Adam's sin to be without Biblical foundation. Whatever it was that we inherited from Adam, it wasn't moral guilt for his sin. Therefore, Romans 5 is no counter-example to the position that moral responsibility is contingent on human Free Will.

What I failed to review in my second post, was what Clark contends that responsibility is in fact grounded in. This is what I hope to do in this post. I apologize for taking 3 long posts to critically review roughly a page of text, but Clark references some big ideas and makes some bold assumptions in the span of very few words, and I don't want to be too hasty in reply. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Clark says that:
1. A person is responsible if he can be justly rewarded or punished for his deeds.
2. Responsibility presupposes a superior authority that rewards and punishes.
3. The highest authority is God.
4. Therefore responsibility is ultimately dependent on the power and authority of God.

(1) seems true. It might not be the only way to describe responsibility, and it might not capture its full scope, but it does seem that the set of all persons who are responsible is equal to the set of all persons who can be justly rewarded or punished for their deeds. And it seems as though this equality is not a coincidence, but that responsibility is predicated on praiseworthiness/blameworthiness or perhaps vice versa.

(2) is precarious. First of all, it is not clear whether Clark intends for (2) to be implied by (1). If he does, I think it is a mistake because the mere capacity to be justly rewarded or punished does not necessarily require that rewards or punishments actually be given, or given by a superior authority.

If Clark were to intend (2) to simply be self-evident, I think that would be a mistake as well. When we talk of "responsibility" we simply mean "fault" (even if "fault" grounds the justice of deserts).

Here is a counterexample: If there were no God, and the whole world were ruled by a dictator who extinguished all of the Jews without ever being opposed, we would still say "Hitler Prime" was 'responsible' for extinguishing the Jews. It is not necessary to presuppose a superior authority who justly punishes Hitler Prime in order to call Hitler Prime the one responsible for the "Holocaust Prime". He is responsible because he did it, and nobody made him do it. Such fact may mean that it would be just to justly punish him, but not the other way around.

This is how we're able to talk about people "getting away with murder". These are individuals who are responsible for committing crimes, who are never justly punished. But the fact that they are never justly punished doesn't mean that they aren't the ones responsible for their offenses. (If they aren't, who is?)

(3) is obviously true.

What are we to do with (4)? If the truth of (2) is in question (even before an analysis of the validity of this ill-formed syllogism), then the soundness of the argument is already suspicious. But even if the argument for (4) isn't sound, (4) might still happen to be true.

To investigate the truth of (4), we should first try to understand what Clark means by "responsibility is ultimately dependent on the power and authority of God.". Fortunately, he elaborates for us:

It is [God's] will that establishes the distinction between right and wrong... Most people find it easy to conceive of God as having created or established physical law by divine fiat... But for some peculiar reason, people hesitate in applying the same principle of sovereignty in the sphere of ordinary ethics. Instead of recognizing God as sovereign in morals, they want to subject him to some independent, superior, ethical law - a law that satisfies their sinful opinions of what is right and wrong.

Clark believes that God can do whatever and judge however He wants, and that His actions and judgements will be, by very definition, just. Therefore, if God causes people to commit evil and judges them for doing so, so be it, it is just. In fact, if God were to do evil, it would be just. Good and evil might have just as well been inverted from what they are, and we could have been calling what is good in this world, "evil", and what is evil in this world "good". It was God's call either way.

The alternative to God's "sovereignty" over what constitutes Goodness, according to Euthyphro Clark, is that in order for God to be good, He must adhere to some concept of Goodness outside Himself.

Clark's position is tricky. As Christians we want to affirm that God can do anything He wants, and we want to deny that there exists anything outside of God. So it is easy to nod our heads along with Clark's leading propositions, that God can do anything and that whatever God does is just and that however God judges is just. But by the time we come around to Clark's conclusion, we are repulsed. Why?

There are two issues here that Clark's view muddies. The first issue pertains to God, and the second to God's created self-Images.

While it's true that God can do anything He wants, it also happens to be true that God only wants to do things that are logical. This is why the Evangelist is comfortable saying that God is logic. Not that Logic is God, but that God is logic. That is, logic is a description of God's character; God is orderly and not chaotic. He wouldn't, and in fact couldn't create a round square, or cause 2 + 2 to equal 5.

Would Clark say that God is similarly "sovereign" over His existence? Could God make it such that He never existed?

No, He couldn't. These are logical impossibilities, and since God is logic, they are Godly impossibilities.

And the same goes for love. John is also comfortable saying that God is love. Not that Love is God, but that God is love. Love is a description of His character. It is not as if love or logic exist outside of God's ontology in such a way that God must adhere to them. Rather, they emanate from God's ontology. And since God is immutable, that is, He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then things that describe His unchanging character, such as logic and love, are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And if that's the case, then God cannot be loving and logical one day, and hateful and irrational the next. He is bound to be Himself. Furthermore, God is united and not divided. His attributes inform one another, and his love cannot behave irrationally, and similarly his logic can never be hateful.

There are things that God's character binds Him, or to use a word Clark has a felicity for, "determines" Him to be or do. In this way, we can coherently talk about God's need to behave justly, logically, or lovingly, without presupposing standards external to God.

This splits Euthyphro's Clark's "dilemma" through the horns.

In this way, if it is the case that causing someone else to sin, is itself a sin, then it cannot be the case that God does it and thereby makes it just.

So, is it evil for God to cause others to commit evil (ignoring, for a second, the verse in Mark that suggests such)? Doesn't it just seem true? But what of Clark's point about our sinful opinions about right and wrong? Such questions lead us into the second issue that Clark's rhetoric muddies: whether humans can know the difference between right and wrong.

Clark co-opts his readers' desire to be, or at least to appear to be, humble. He claims that saying God has to be one way and not another is arrogant, and presupposes our ability to know what is right and what is wrong. Manipulative rhetoric like that isn't helpful to the discourse, because it prevents us from using the "sound mind" that Paul says God gives us to think about the issue. It manipulates us into adopting Clark's position outright, because even so much as a peep of criticism is labeled arrogance and heresy and indicates reprobation.

In rebuttal, I offer two points. The first is that if our faculties have been so damaged by the Fall that we are unable to discern between good and evil, than certainly such damage prevents us from rightly dividing the Word of God as well. There is no way that we are capable of correctly and certainly interpreting the Bible, but yet incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong. And if that's the case, then how can I trust Clark's interpretation of the Bible? I can't. And therefore this whole debate is pointless, because I can't know whether it would be evil for God to cause evil, and Clark can't know whether the Bible says that God causes evil or not. So why did Clark write a book about it and why am I arguing with him?

The second point is that the scriptures teach that even the reprobate man has God's very law written on his heart, and that even the reprobate man's conscience bears witness to it (Romans 2:14-15). So how much more does the regenerate man understand the division between right and wrong! How much more does the man with God's very Spirit indwelling him have access to the meaning of justice!

So although Clark thinks that God could do anything, even cause evil, and it would be just, I think that God can only do those things which are in fact just. And that would exclude causing evil or causing others to do evil, per both the Mark verse and my hopefully God-implanted and Spirit-led intuitions concerning justice.

In other words: yes, something is good simply because God is or does it, but God's character and behavior are not arbitrary. Therefore, since deterministic Calvinism teaches that God is and does things that can be shown to be against His character, it is therefore in error and so must have gone hermeneutically or presuppositionally awry somewhere.

Clark concludes this section with a far-fetched ad hominem about Platonic dualism. Kind of ironic, since Calvinism has been historically accused of committing the same error as Manichean dualism (perhaps due in part to their forefather Augustine's Manichean roots). What are you gonna do.

On Fathering Thus Far

Baby: *cries*
Dada: Buddy, you know I always give you your pacifier back after you lose it! There's no need to panic.
Baby: That's called the inductive fallacy, Dad. There is no guarantee the future will resemble the past. There is ample reason to panic!
Dada: Just because we have reason to believe inductive reasoning isn't conclusive, doesn't mean you are warranted in believing conclusions contrary to those suggested by an inductive process. It's called learning to trust your Dad.
Baby: I love you Dad. Can we get back to reading Plato's Republic, now?
Dada: I love you too, Son. *tears up*

When I saw my son for the first time, it was love. But now I look back and realize I hadn't even gotten to know him yet. He was so slimy and sort of grey. Now he is dry. And more pink colored. And he snores. And other fun things. I like him.

He is learning to smile. Which is adorable.

I can't speak lowly enough of Baby-Wise and other "cry-it-out" methods. More on this perhaps in an anathematizing future post.

I can't speak highly enough of our providers - the pediatrician, the midwife, and the nurses. My mother-in-law is a saint. She comes and has fun - fun, mind you - cleaning our house and holding our baby.

Also my family. Close friends and family. Their love and support and generosity and eager arms have been hugely helpful. Way to be helpful, guys.

But the real star is my wife. She stands head and shoulders above us all for the hard work she's put into pregnancy, labor, delivery, breastfeeding, Soren's infancy in general so far... I could easily go on. I married the right woman. Hands down.

I was a little concerned about spoiling my son, since his needs have been so well met so far, and he already has an abundance of toys and textures. But I think I am actually okay with that. I just want to be intentional about teaching him humility and generosity.

He is very obedient so far, in fact. I tell him to be cute and to smell good and he does it. Good boy.

My wife has taken to calling him "Pumpkin", but it sounds more like "Punkin".

My nicknames for him so far include Dino-Soren, Sweet Baby Boy, Sweet Baby Son, My Son My Only Son, Snoren, and the like.

I am convicted to look to live a more righteous and generous life as a model for him. Lord, help me to take my responsibility seriously and to be a good model for my son, and help him to excel far beyond whatever goodness You have granted me. Amen.

Great Bible Giveaway

Logos Bible Software is celebrating the launch of their new online Bible by giving away 72 ultra-premium print Bibles at a rate of 12 per month for six months. The Bible giveaway is being held at Bible.Logos.com and you can get up to five different entries each month! After you enter, be sure to check out Logos and see how it can revolutionize your Bible study.

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

I recently read through a section of Clark's work entitled "Responsibility and Determinism", and decided to break my critical response to it into two blog posts. The first answered the initial claim Clark makes on the basis of Romans 1: that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will, but on knowledge. I found Clark's conclusions to be lacking warrant, and in fact found the language used and presuppositions latent in Romans 1 to imply the opposite.

Interestingly enough, "Responsibility and Determinism" goes on to admit that responsibility is not actually contingent on knowledge after-all. But Clark does maintain that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will either. To make this case, he offers a counter-example: the teaching of Romans 5:12-21:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

If all of humanity is morally responsible for Adam's sin, then moral responsibility is not contingent on Free Will (for surely not every human freely willed Adam to sin!).

But is that what Romans 5 teaches? Are we all really guilty for our great+ grandfather's sin? A face-value reading of Romans 5 with Calvinistic categories in our minds would seem to imply so, but it poses five problems.

The first problem is that there are other passages of scripture whose face-value readings seem to directly contradict a face-value reading of Romans 5. One of the clearest is Ezekiel 18, whose summary is found in verses 20b and 30a:

The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself...

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD.

[This chapter also contains a statement (verse 23) whose face-value reading seems to directly contradict the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation: "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?".]

Ezekiel 18 seems to teach that God judges each individual according to his own ways, and that each individual's righteousness or wickedness is upon himself or herself, not that God judges each individual according to Adam's ways, and that Adam's wickedness is upon each individual. So between the Calvinist reading of Romans 5 and the face-value reading of Ezekiel 18, something has to budge. Should it be the Calvinist understanding of original sin?

The second problem that the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 poses is that Romans 5 uses identical language in describing both the scope of the consequences of Adam's sin, and the scope of the consequences of Christ's free gift. It says that one trespass led to condemnation for 'all' men, and that one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for 'all' men. And when it uses the term "many", it uses it the same way: through one man's disobedience, the 'many' were made sinners, and through one man's obedience the 'many' were made righteous.

Yet since we know from the rest of scripture, and even from Paul's own writings, that not literally all men are justified and given life, we have reason to doubt the Calvinist reading of "one trespass led to condemnation for all men".

The third problem that the Calvinist reading of Romans 5 has is that it is not conclusively entailed by the language used. Paul says that sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. The phrase "sin came into the world" doesn't necessarily commit us to anything more than believing that Adam was the first sinner in the world. That death entered into the world "through sin" doesn't spell much else out for us other than that Adam died because of his sin. I am personally unsure about whether Paul means physical or spiritual death in this and subsequent verses, or both, or each in different contexts. Perhaps his offspring were born mortal because of his sin (but I don't see how this verse conclusively teaches that our inherited mortality implies our inherited moral responsibility for Adam's sin). "And so death spread to all men because all sinned... even [to] those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam" could possibly mean that subsequent humans sinned in various ways and thereby incurred death (and not, necessarily, that Adam was the federal head of humanity, unless there are aspects of the Greek grammar that entail such an interpretation that I am not aware of).

The fourth problem with the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 is that the penal math doesn't add up. Or rather, it adds up to too much. If charges were levied against Adam, then there wouldn't be any to levy against subsequent plaintiffs. This is the same argument the Calvinists themselves use to defeat unlimited atonement: if Christ truly paid for the sins of an individual in full, the Judge has no further charges to levy against them, and there are therefore no grounds for their punishment. For God to require payment for sins that have already been paid for would be unjust. If this logic holds for the mechanics of the atonement, it holds for the mechanics of original sin too. Therefore if Adam was held responsible for his sin, then his offspring cannot be.

The fifth problem with the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 is different. This one is not a problem inherent in the doctrine, but an objection to the possibility that Clark or another Calvinist might use one variant of the doctrine as a counter-example to the principle that moral responsibility is contingent on Free Will.

Some Calvinists might object to the other four problems I've outlined with something like "But Adam's sin wasn't just his own. When he sinned, all of humanity was bound up in him and sinned too.". I think this is close to Jonathan Edwards' position. There may be internal problems with such a view, but today I would just like to point out that if that's the case, then it might be that humans are morally responsible for Adam's sin, but not on the basis of inherited guilt. If every subsequent human participated in Adam's sin and is thereby guilty, then it would be an example of moral responsibility being grounded in human Free Will, not a counter-example.

As of tonight, it is not clear to me what Romans 5 means. I can trace some of the boundaries of the meaning, but cannot fill in all of the soteriological details about original sin.

Now don't blow this out of proportion; I am not trying to make room for what is commonly called "Pelagianism"; I maintain that Adam and every human being with a biological father need a Savior, salvation cannot come by works, and we inherited a lot more than a bad example from Adam.

But I am not convinced we inherited guilt. I am not convinced we are held morally responsible for Adam's sin.

I think in the end my view turns out to be something like Copan's.

Therefore I am not convinced that the teaching of Romans 5 stands as a counter-example to the principle that moral responsibility is grounded in Free Will.

Well, since I only got through the second paragraph of this section, and there remain four or five more, I will save the rest for subsequent posts. In the next post I really hope to get around to explaining what Clark believes moral responsibility is grounded in and why I find such view wanting.

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

I just read through a section of Clark's work entitled "Responsibility and Determinism". I am going to split up my review of it into two blog posts.

The first post will examine a claim that Clark makes in the first paragraph of this section: that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will, but on knowledge. He advances this by no thorough exegesis or logical syllogism, only an aside about the first chapter of Romans.

I was surprised that Clark brought up Romans 1, because this passage has always appeared to me as one that would be challenging for a Calvinist to take seriously. Here is what Paul writes, starting at verse 18:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

It seems to me that Paul is not trying to say that these men were determined to do what they did but were also given some knowledge concerning God and are therefore morally responsible. He doesn't say that these men couldn't have done otherwise.

Rather Paul says just the opposite: that these men knew better; they could have worshipped Him. His existence and invisible attributes are evidenced by what He has made, and yet these men chose to reject the Truth.

Clark's casual lack of exegetical treatment makes it seem as though this passage so clearly denies that responsibility is contingent on Free Will that it requires no more than a quick allusion.

But if Paul had written the passage in such a Calvinist way, it would have come out more like:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of [He causes in] men, who by their unrighteousness [the absolute predetermination of God's secret will] suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So [even though it was by God's causal decree that they sinned] they are without excuse [due to the fact that they were also given some knowledge concerning God].

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

If God is jealous for His own glory, why would He cause men to exchange His glory for images of men, birds, and animals? If God wants above all to be worshipped and enjoyed forever, why would He cause the men of Romans 1 to worship idols instead of Him?

Seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it?

Paul says that it is because these men, who should have known better, chose to exchange God's glory for idols, God gave them over to their lusts as a result:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Notice that God gave them over to their lusts after they chose to suppress the truth, and not the other way around.

Clark's reading of this passage would have us believing that God is enraged at these men for behaving exactly as He decreed (and not as they freely willed). Clark would have us believe that though God pretends He wants to be worshipped (His "revealed will"), He actually caused these men not to worship Him (His "secret will"), and that God became upset that they did exactly as He secretly caused but not as He outwardly commanded, and consequently gave them over to what He implanted in their hearts to begin with. Now these men will suffer eternal hellfire under His wrath.

At any rate, one paragraph later, Clark says that it actually isn't really just knowledge that grounds responsibility after-all. What he says it is that does in fact ground responsibility, and why I find such view also to be wanting, will be discussed in the next post.

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

The current section of Clark's work that I am journalling through is called "Appeal to Ignorance". He is responding to Free Will theorists who claim that Free Will makes the most sense out of their conscious experiences ("it just seems like I have free will and that my actions are not being predetermined").

Clark explains that it is ridiculous to think that you would be able to know whether your actions and intentions are being determined or not. In fact, it would require omniscience!

I pretty much agree with Clark in this section. Western science allows us to understand certain influences on our wills such as diet, exercise, social conditions, and weather. But it has no power to investigate metaphysical, unpredicatable, divine causation. So when we get cranky with our spouses and feel like our behavior is entirely our own, scientific data enables our minds to know better. But if our every action and intention is being supernaturally and unpredicatably determined, we would have no way of knowing better. If Calvinistic determinism is true of us, we might still feel "free".

However, under Calvinism, any misinterpretation of our "free" feelings would be due to God's causation. And while Calvinists claim that the fact that we have conscious wills grounds our responsibility for things like misunderstanding the world, it still seems strange and unbiblical that God would deceive us (even despite verses they use as prooftexts of their position that God deludes humans according to His good pleasure).

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

I have been journalling through Gordon H. Clark's "God And Evil: The Problem Solved" with a posture of openness to what the author has to say and honesty concerning my criticism of it. The current section is called "Puppets". In it Clark responds to the charge that Calvinism reduces men to mere puppets.

He begins with a brief defense of Presuppositionalism and a reiteration of his previous claim that Calvinism is positively deterministic. He explains that the London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession of Faith in historical context, regardless of any "free will" looking language, condemn free will and espouse determinism.

To explain why the LBC and WCF contain some "free will" looking language, Clark draws again from the writings of the baptist John Gill. He starts by clarifying that Calvinistic determinism is distinct from materialistic determinism (likes Hobbes'). So, for example, while the planetary bodies may be materialistically determined by their initial conditions and physical laws (and the occasional miracle), human behavior is not completely determined by antecedent material conditions and physical laws. Rather, the means by which God determines human behavior is supernatural.

This difference is what accounts for the use of terms like "natural liberty" and "free agency" in the creeds.

To reiterate for the sake of clarity, Clark believes that mankind is "free" in two senses:

1. Man is free from coercion, because divine determination never goes against a human's will. Rather, God determines everything that each man wills. God's predestination establishes man's will.

2. Man is also free from material causation. No human being's behavior is completely determined by his biology as it interacts with its environment. Humans are free from the natural laws that govern things like planets.

It is this conscious "will" that humans have that makes them different than unconscious machines or puppets: the behavior of a robot is mechanically predetermined, and the behavior of a puppet may be actively determined, but it is still physically determined. Humans have the distinction of having conscious wills that are supernaturally determined.

But though terms like "will" and "agency" signify the distinct way by which human behavior is determined by God, they do not imply anything close to Free Will. Free Will holds that a will may be free from external determination altogether.

I learned a little bit about the historical Calvinistic understanding of agency from this section, and am glad of it. Some of the language in the LBC and WCF bothered me when I was a Calvinist, but now I understand how it coheres.

The problem, of course, is that none of this answers any of my objections. Whether or not human beings are determined naturally or supernaturally, they are still determined. And, being determined, they cannot be praised or blamed or held responsible for their actions. They may be unlike puppets or robots in having conscious wills, but they remain like them in their being determined, and that's what carries the force of puppet and robot objections.

---

Post Script

Clark believes that no human is ever determined against his or her will, because the very activity of each human's will is determined. I wonder what he would say about those of us who not only believe in libertarian free will, but would prefer it to determinism.

If we are in fact being determined the way Clark says we are, aren't we then being determined against our wills? I think Clark would say that God is causing us to desire not to be determined. And since, as a result of God's determining work in us, we do in fact desire not to be determined, He is not causing us to desire anything that we don't desire. But because of the reflexive nature of the quandary, it can still be possible for God to determine us to desire not to be determined.

In that way, our initial desire not to be determined does not exist against our wills, but that we are are being determined, even determined to desire not to be determined, occurs against our wills. Aside from painting a grotesque picture of God and man, this seems like it counts as "coercion". And while it isn't my biggest problem with Calvinism, I wonder how Clark or one of his followers might deal with it.

See also: How much does God control?

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

I have been journalling through Gordon H. Clark's "God And Evil: The Problem Solved" with a posture of openness to what the author has to say and honesty concerning my criticism of it. So far the work has largely comprised philosophical arguments attempting to undercut the idea of libertarian free will, which I have found unconvincing. I just finished reading through two sections that seem like they ought to be reviewed together, "Responsibility and Free Will" and "The Will of God".

Clark says that Free Will theory begins with God's goodness, and reasons from there. It attempts to maintain divine goodness in the face of evil, by placing the responsibility for evil on the heads of free agents whom God created. When Free Will theorists are faced with challenges to their view posed by Calvinists, they often ask what alternative Calvinism can possibly present. While Calvinists accuse Free Will theory of failing to maintain a robust view of divine omnipotence and omniscience, Free Will theorists accuse Calvinism of failing to maintain a robust view of divine goodness.

Clark believes that he has already shown that any notion of free will is logically incompatible with omnipotence and omniscience and fails to solve POE. And so now he promises to show how human responsibility and divine goodness can be possible under determinism, and how deterministic Calvinism resolves POE.

He quotes from someone who says that very few of even the most rigorous Calvinists would say that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it is the will of God. Clark, on the other hand very frankly and pointedly asserts that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it is in fact the will of God.

Though this seems contrary to scriptures, as though God could will something He does not will (drunkenness and murder), there is a way to resolve it. God, according to Clark, has a revealed will (or precepts) and a decretive will (or providence). In this way, God is able to verbally tell people to do one thing, but cause them to do another. Thus, Calvinism avoids self-contradiction.

He offers as an example, the story of Abraham and Isaac. God temporarily commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son (God's revealed, preceptive will), but secretly intended to keep Abraham from doing so (God's secret, decretive will).

Clark concludes these two sections by declaring that "if Arminians had a keener sense of logic they would not be Arminians!".

I think Clark is right about the different starting places of Calvinists and Free Will theorists. One starts with God's love and is therefore willing to limit the application of His power, and the other with His power and is therefore willing to limit the application of His love.

I think love is the right place to start, based on John's statement that God is love, and Jesus' statement that the most important thing for a human being to do is love God and love other human beings. I would much rather get love right at the expense of erring in my consideration of other divine attributes, than get omnipotence right at the expense of erring in my consideration of love.

On top of that, I think that Free Will doesn't require us to dilute our understanding of omnipotence anyway. It only requires us to consider that God does not fully exercise it all the time.

But the nature of love is different than the nature of power. By virtue of the fact that love is relational, it cannot be withheld in the same way that power can. The choice not to apply power in a certain circumstance does not mean God is any less powerful, but any choice not to be loving would in fact mean that God is less loving. A man who can bench-press 500 lbs. is powerful enough to do so whether or not he is actively doing it. But a man who withholds his love from some of his children while giving it to others in the same context is less loving by exactly that much.

Calvinism gets both facts backwards. It holds that God must fully apply His power in all circumstances to be omnipotent, and as a consequence He arbitrarily limits His love to some while withholding it from others. In this way, Calvinism starts in the wrong place and is misunderstood about the nature of the thing it starts with anyway (omnipotence), and as a consequence grossly misunderstands the nature of love.

Free Will theories, on the other hand, start where we should, with love, and everything else falls into place.

Now concerning God's secret will, by which He unequivocally determines whatsoever comes to pass, and His revealed will, by which He verbally commands His creatures to do good: I find this distinction, while it saves the logical coherency of Calvinism against one type of argument, to be completely ad hoc, unbiblical, and troubled by even a simple, common sensical regard.

First, the story of Abraham and Isaac cannot be seen as an example of this distinction. The reason is that all we have access to in the story is God's revealed will. God commands Abraham to kill Isaac, and then He commands Him to substitute a ram. Both commands are part of God's revealed will. Nowhere in the story do we see a description of God's secret will. It, being secret, is said to be the driving force behind nature and behind Abraham's and Isaac's behaviors. But the story doesn't tell us about the driving forces behind all of these events. The events themselves are described without mention of metaphysical mechanics. It could very well be the case that Abraham and Isaac each had free will. This story can be coherently read under either a deterministic Calvinist framework, or a Free Will framework. But it is not a conclusive example in support of either. And if this is supposedly the clearest, flagship example of the Calvinist doctrines concerning God's secret and revealed wills, it should tell us something.

Second, it must be realized that nowhere in the scriptures do we see anything remotely close to this doctrine taught. It is entirely a fabrication devised by the Calvinists to save the coherency of their philosophical system. And it is especially hypocritical of Calvinists to do this.

Third, these doctrines would have us believe that God is divided against Himself, both willing sin and not willing sin. Though there may be two different senses of "will", it is nevertheless bizarre. Why would God cause the very things He abhors, and against which His wrath burns? Take Jeremiah 19, for example. Doesn't it seem deceitful on God's part to verbally tell the people that He did not command or decree their evil deeds, and that they didn't even enter His mind (v. 5), if He was the one causing them the whole time?

Only a non-Calvinist worldview enables us to boldly and plainly hold to the simple, Biblical doctrine that God does not will evil. Evil is what is contrary to the will of God. We don't have to do any philosophical gymnastics to save our view or explain ourselves. It is plain and simple.

So Clark has shown that Calvinism might be strictly, logically coherent in the face of one particular type of objection. I am not sure how this is meant to constitute a robust account of human responsibility or divine goodness within a determinist framework or a resolution of POE, and so I guess I can only assume that all of what has been promised is yet to come. But I am truly baffled by Clark's arrogant concluding statement about Arminian logic, since this has been the first chapter in which he hasn't attempted to demonstrate logical errors in Arminianism.