Bob: When I said LFW provides a convincing basis to emphasize one’s superiority, you say, Yes, but pride is sin, So “why would it be necessary for one to” do that? But I’m not arguing that sin is good or morally obligatory. Just that we have a bent toward it, which appears bolstered by theories that feed a rationale for comparitive pride. And that that might be an encouragement to at least question such a paradigm.
Tom: Again all I can say is that we judge a position not in isolation from all qualifications but based upon how well it fits all other qualifications. LFW is a piece of the puzzle, a theory about a particular slice of the whole (namely, agency). It doesn’t presuppose other beliefs about God existing (or not), or the nature of the creator-created distinction (or its absence), or the unconditional love of God for all (or conditional election), or any of these crucial beliefs to which LFW must be related before being judged. So saying that LFW (by itself) provides a convincing basis or rationale for boasting makes the mistake of assuming that essential to LFW is the view that we are not unconditionally loved by God; that is, it picks sides on other related beliefs and judges LFW accordingly.
But this can just as easily be done with determinism. I can isolate the all-determining decree of God from other crucial beliefs regarding this decree, namely, I can isolate it from the belief that the decree is free and unconditional and then claim that divine determinism provides a rationale for boasting. And even if one were to qualify divine determinism as entailing unconditionality (which it clearly doesn’t), I could then claim that determinism provides a rationale for acquitting sinners and convicting God of evil.
Surely, Bob, truth is best served by our taking all the relative claims into account before judging what a particular theory ‘entails’ or ‘inherently’ provides a rationale for.
True, LFW has to be qualified by the unconditional love of God as grounds for our worth to preclude our supposing that our free choices grounds our greater worth. But so does determinism have to be qualified by the unconditionality of the decree to preclude its be taken as a basis upon which to boast for having been elected. Auggy wants to insist that divine determinism per se ENTAILS the unconditionality of the decree, but it’s impossible to show that “God’s determining all things” entails such unconditionality. It just doesn’t. Molinists (Middle Knowledge proponents) are straight up determinists (i.e., God alone decides which actual world gets instantiated) BUT they believe possible worlds are determined by the truth of so-called counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (what creatures WOULD freely do in this or that situation). So determinism CAN be conditional in a sense Calvin would never have countenanced.
Bob: You say, ‘sufficiently informed’ means sufficient to rationally make either of both alternative choices. But that seems to describe “ambiguous” information, which would commonly be perceived by definition, as “insufficient.”
Tom: But ‘insufficient’ for what? I think you’d answer, “Insufficient to guarantee choosing rightly.” But that’s just the issue. In a world where agents have to develop morally and participate in shaping their characters (because that character contributes to defining them as irreducible and unique persons in relation to God), what has to be avoided are arrangements that guarantee an agent’s choice (i.e., guarantees our ‘development’ one way or the other). The terms “sufficient” and “insufficient” are just comparative terms that measure means ‘relative’ to ends. If the end God determines requires LFW as a means, then what’s sufficient or insufficient is what guarantees a rational choice of either option and not what precludes one option and guarantees the other.
Bob: E.g. I agree that Eve doesn’t have experience or grounds to ‘know’ if Adam’s assertions about God and what is best are “reliable.” Pursuing greater knowledge appears to her to be a plausible (rational) good. So I fully agree that her lack of ability to be sure provides her ample “room” to err and “doubt”…
Tom: Yes!
Bob: …But I don’t see why “her knowledge was sufficient to the ought of trusting God,” such that she is the fully accountable explanation for the result. It seems to me that the situation’s ambiguous information accounts for much of this outcome.
Tom: Well, the ambiguity does account for much of the outcome. But had Eve chosen rightly the same ambiguity would provide the same account of the outcome. That is presumably what it means to be rationally free to choose between morally significant options.
Bob: Then, what she fundamentally needs is not a more responsible internal ‘choice-maker,’ but enough pedagogical experience to be more sure about what the truth is…
Tom: But how do you posit the pedagogical experience sufficient to guarantee right choices for finite creatures who by definition have a beginning to their experience and journey? You can’t. If we HAVE to develop into the mature sort of partners God wants, then we can’t start out being those partners. We have to mature into that calling.
Bob: Thus, we agree that we need to be “solidified in the good,” and thus “less free” in the LFW sense. And that the desireable (“higher”) freedom is to be (like Mother Teresa) “incapable of a wrong choice.” Our views of moral development seem identical! “Increasingly settled accurate perceptions are the road,” and the “need is to perceive the truth about the nature of reality.” Amen!
Tom: OK! So what’s the catch?
Bob: The catch is that you say such freedom results from being “free” (in a lower sense?)…
Tom: Just free in the libertarian sense.
Bob: …but I have no idea what that term means (except absence of external constraints; but van Inwagen is right, freedom can’t be a negative concept).
Tom: van Inwagen is a libertarian, remember. So he doesn’t find the notion itself meaningless. What he struggles to find is an account of the ‘causal nexus’ (i.e., a positive account of HOW it works). But one can have reasons sufficient for believing LFW is the case without having an exhaustive positive account of what the whole truth is. Analogously, nobody can account positively of quantum mechanics, but we have enough evidence to assume there’s some explanation that accounts for the indeterminacy that other factors require us to posit. You don’t need an full and positive account of indeterminacy at the quantum level to be justified in positing indeterminacy at the quantum level.
Bob: I fully agree that relationship and “character” must be formed by experiential participation that moves from ego-centered ignorance toward solidified knowledge of truth that frees us (and as you say “shapes our identity”).
Tom: That sounds positively libertarian! But you think this participation can be entirely determined by God. God orchestrates the minutia of its every movement?
Bob: But I wouldn’t call this beginning stage “freedom,” reserving that term for what you call “higher freedom.”
Tom: Let’s call it something else. It’s doesn’t matter. How about ‘power to the contrary’? What’s important is that we also want to avoid saying God simply steps into and determines or decides what course a person’s development takes. We want to say this is where creatures participate in self-formation. Yes? No?
Bob: I hear you to say that providing “absolute certitude” would illicitly “make the choice for us.” I have agreed that certitude is not how our present formation can be experienced as pedagogical, but I’m not sure that it is fundamentally illicit. Rather it is what we most need and will ultimately receive.
Tom: I agree. Perceiving reality so certainly and unfailing that sin isn’t possible can’t be an illegitimate form of personal agency since (presumably) this is exactly the sort of agency God possesses. So it’s a good thing. But we agree that finite creatures have to develop into this same compatibilistic form of agency. So the question is how best to articulate the nature of personal agency and choice prior to our becoming sufficiently solidified in the good. We need a meaningful and consistent account of ‘choice’ (‘self formation’, ‘habituation’) that leads to our being compatibilistically free (or just free if you like) but doesn’t start out there. BUT we also don’t want the account to simple be: Oh, well, God simply determines everything about the journey.
Bob: You seem to prefer calling our initial condition “free,” so that you can say getting to “higher freedom” is a “result” of our being “responsible” for that journey. My inclination would be that while we ‘participate’ in the journey, God is responsible for the ultimate result, that is what your rightly call “real freedom.”
Tom: But God cannot ALONE be responsible for the ultimate result IF the ultimate result is gotten to via a process of development in which we participate. What’s our participation in the development if God determines it? That would reduce ‘participation’ to mere secondary causation and instrumentality. Alas, I can’t go there.
What I hear you saying is that unless an account of creaturely participation can be given that consistently gives God glory for the end result and doesn’t provide creatures a rationale for boasting, you’re not buying. I totally understand that. I really think I’ve offered reasons to assuage the fear that synergy of any kind either robs God of glory or empowers creatures in their boasting. But it might be that some have a notion of God’s “receiving glory” such that nothing short of unconditional divine determination will do. In that case, one doesn’t really need development of character or creaturely participation at all. Those notions are only required if an understanding of choice and agency is assumed that precludes the determination of choice by divine decree.
Tom
But the principle remains the same even without the context…)
But practical examples are absolutely welcome and useful! 
We ought to have more of them for this discussion, I think.