I think all this follows perfectly. Few too Arminians and “simple foreknowledge” folks really realize it. Careful, Meclchizedek… you’re flirting with Open Theism!
Hi Chris, 
This is the point I’ve come to on the other thread. It’s not the decision itself that’s involved with “free-will”, culpability and all the rest. It’s the** input** which comes from us, our character— desires, priorities, quirks and all. The question is really: Do we have control over our own character or not? Can we by our “will” improve our character or not? If we decide after a particular moral failure to “turn to God”, avoid evil companions, study and embrace morally up-lifting literature and thus change our character,** is that something we did** on our own or is it a causally determined decision based on the experience of moral “failure”—the consequences of our “bad” choices? Does it really matter? Other than “culpability” or “blame” , I can’t see that it does…
Just my thoughts.
Oh how your looks do change, Johnny! Seriously, though, the answers to your questions are “Yes” and “Yes.” I agree with Moltmann’s view concerning the nature of freedom in the eschaton, and I also agree that even in this life our freest acts may occur in a context where it is not even psychologically possible to act otherwise. But I also agree with Paidion concerning this much: No free action, not even one where it is psychologically impossible to act otherwise, can be the product of sufficient causes that lie either in the distant past before we were born or in eternity itself. I hold, in other words, that neither God nor any set of conditions external to us can causally determine a genuinely free action. I believe that early on you indicated your own agreement with this as well.
As George MacDonald put it in the quotation that Chris so kindly shared with us: We shall all one day discover that God “has been educating us, leading us, pushing us, driving us, enticing us, that we may choose him and his will …” But he will never force himself upon us, never violate our unique personalities by simply constituting us with a virtuous or an obedient character, and never bypass our own reasoning processes. Instead, he will allow us to discover for ourselves why disobedience is so irrational and so utterly contrary to our own best interest, and in that way he will undermine over time every possible motive we might have for disobedience.
So now the question is: Can one hold all of this together in a coherent package? And can I do so without confusing Chris even further? Hee. Hee. I hope I can. But, of course, each of us will have to make up our own minds in the end.
Thanks for sharing Moltmann’s view with us.
-Tom
Thanks Tom and everyone
I’m just summarising here, in order to help clarify things for myself as much as anything; tying some of my thoughts to those presented here. Without re-reading all the posts that I will certainly do at another time I must ask you to forgive me if I’m not giving credit where it’s due; there’s so many good pointers that filter through and some of the thoughts and expressions below belong to others. Thanks.
We are destined to be saved.
We are destined to walk on the earth on two legs (mostly) affected by gravity; we are destined to breath, to eat, to grow old. Each of these have some freedom attached, I may choose to run, to jump, to eat junk food that might shorten my life. These freedoms can be exercised only within certain parameters. This freedom could be defined by the possibility that I could (within parameters) choose to do otherwise.
I cannot though choose not to breath, not to eat etc. for very long without major catastrophic affects that will increasingly restrict my ability to choose and finally end the possibility of any choice.
Sin restricts our ability to choose and ultimately would eliminate freedom of choice altogether.
We were created and still carry the image of God though marred. We are not totally autonomous beings as it’s in Him that we live and breathe and have our being, but we were created as ‘agents of God’, with the ability to generate an action from within and of ourselves.
This freedom to be exercised at its most free is contingent on our connection with the Creator, simply it’s the way he chose to make us, perhaps the only way He could have made us if we were to have this godlike capacity.
We now live in a condition of marred ability to exercise free will, some due to mental capacity, poor choices entrenched sin etc have virtually no choice to speak of; spiritually speaking as Paul describes we were all dead in trespasses and sin. The dead have no capacity.
In respect of doing anything to sustain ourselves, to save ourselves we have no capacity of choice.
We are destined to be Saved.
As our lives change in Christ we become freer, but the starting point is that He has saved us, this has nothing to do with us in any sense of choice; but was while we were still sinners with the incapacity to choose.
Why should we think we must have any input into our salvation? We had none in our creation, obviously, or in the circumstance of our birth or many other things.
God is about restoring His creation; reconciling us to Himself.
Where volition comes in is we can facilitate the speed, we can become freer become more ourselves in fact, by submitting to His will, but the capacity to do this is paradoxically from Him.
This doesn’t mean becoming controlled by His Will, as that would be counter-productive to His creating us as Agents, as Sons of God. But as we become freer the faculty to make right choices aligns us with his desires.
It is God who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure.
The ultimate free will is tied up in Love, when we love we will desire only to align ourselves with Him, ultimately this will be achieved at the Eschaton when we will all be changed and we will see him as He is and know even as we are known.
We are destined to be reconciled; the sooner the better.
Cheers S
Thanks Sturmy, I really like the way you laid that out.
(MavPhil has a pretty good entry today that I found interesting, having to do with libertarian freedom and God’s simplicity.
maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/ … eedom.html)
Well, as I said; this is not necessarily how I see it, but rather how I perceive others view it. In other words, I believe most proponents of free will would say that if our choices don’t make an ultimate difference, then what’s the point; and is that really free-will at all?
Hey Chris,
I fear that a little devil has gotten into me, as sometimes happens. Or, perhaps someone who goes in for the relevant kind of psychobabble might blame it on my inner child. But before tackling more substantial issues and the extremely important question you have raised about the power of contrary choice, I cannot resist responding to your red herring comment. I thought it would be fun to do so for two reasons: first, because my inner child sometimes loves to surprise someone with a totally unexpected response, and, second, because you have provided an opportunity for me to explain why, in my opinion, Calvinists and Arminians are both utterly confused about Paul’s understanding of salvation and his doctrine of grace.
Anyway, in response to Paidion I had previously written:
To which you responded a follows:
Observe first that the quotation from my earlier post is a question rather than an argument. Now a question, no less than an argument, may indeed distract someone’s attention from the issue at hand and do so even as a red herring might distract the attention of hunting dogs from a relevant scent (that’s the origin of the expression). Still, I’m having a terrible time wrapping my mind around this statement: “No libertarian has ever argued that salvation is anything less than totally gratuitous.” For not all libertarians are even theists; much less do they all accept the Christian understanding of salvation. Beyond that, Laura Ekstrom, who is both a Christian and a libertarian, seems to commit herself to the idea that “the agent’s good character is ultimately of his own making" (Free Will: A Philosophical Study, p. 165). And the libertarian extraordinaire, Robert Kane, explicitly states that “Agents with free will … make themselves into the kinds of persons they are” (The significance of Free Will, p. 72). If that is true, then why shouldn’t those of a good character “credit themselves” for their own good character?
But perhaps you had in mind Arminians in particular rather than libertarians in general. I say this because your illustration of God lowering a rope is pretty standard in Arminian theology. Bear in mind, however, that Arminians also presume an ultimate division within the human race between those who grasp the rope and are saved, on the one hand, and those who never grasp the rope and hence are never saved, on the other. So why shouldn’t those who are saved credit themselves (or even boast) along the following lines? “At least I wasn’t as stupid as those poor saps down there in hell who didn’t even have the sense to grasp a rope dangling right there before their eyes! All of which surely misses the whole point of Paul’s doctrine of grace–which, as I understand it, is just this: In order to rescue us from our delusions, God must also rescue us from our unwillingness to be rescued, which is itself the product of a delusion.
Be all of that as it may, here is my really important and, I hope, unexpected question: Why on earth should anyone accept the traditional assumption that “salvation is … totally gratuitous”? You are quite right that Calvinists and Arminians both make this assumption, which makes no sense at all to me. Augustine and Calvin in particular held that that the supposed guilt we have inherited on account of original sin relieves God of all responsibility for our moral and spiritual welfare. But isn’t that a terribly unfortunate confusion? You might as well argue that a child’s disobedience relieves its parents of all responsibility for the child’s future welfare as well–which is absurd. Just as the decision to have a child creates an obligation to promote the child’s welfare, however disobedient the child might happen to become, so God’s decision to create us entails a freely accepted obligation to promote our welfare, however disobedient we might have become; his decision to create also includes an obligation, grounded in his love for us, to work for our salvation and eventual perfection. In fact, this is precisely why, according to Paul, we can do nothing to earn God’s grace (or favor): It is always and everywhere present, whether we know it or not, from the very beginning of our earthly lives. We can hardly earn something through good works that will always be present–albeit in different forms, perhaps–regardless of what we do.
Finally, at the risk of making this post way too long, I would point out that no one has challenged the traditional assumption that salvation is utterly gratuitous more vigorously than George MacDonald, who wrote the following in his sermon “The Voice of Job”:
Having now had my fun, I promise to get to your important question about the power of contrary choice as soon as I take care of some other responsibilities. You have an excellent mind for philosophy, and your concerns deserve to be addressed.
All the best,
-Tom
Tom,
Thanks for the interesting (as always) dialogue and response.
In truth, I don’t view Christian doctrine in traditional Reformation terms. Words like grace, faith, regeneration, total depravity, etc. are all… well, I think wrong. I even think the term “salvation” smacks of a self-derogatory, legalistic, “snobby” God. 
As such my comment to you was more an attack on the traditional, Calvinist rebuttal to Arminians regarding grace and mankind being “by nature children of wrath.” That’s why I called it a red herring. I felt it never really addressed the Arminian point that all those under original sin are still gratuitously rescued, even if there is some action required on their part. But all that is to say, my post was sloppy and assuming. You posed a question and I put words right in your mouth (which is quite stupid actually, eh?). I appreciate you pointing that out.
Without getting too upper-graduate or categorical regarding the theology behind God’s grace and his obligation to create, my view is basically this. God himself is infinitely dissatisfied - in a way I think we can only partly imagine - until all of his creation is perfected. Therefore the very work and labor of God is to purify and make his creation all-good and in absolute closeness with him. So to throw the Reformation terms out there - especially grace - is to invite an opportunity for grave misunderstanding. The type of God I believe in, in one sense, could not possibly “gratuitously” offer grace; for that implies that he really didn’t want to give it or was somehow satisfied within his being without giving it. Which suggests he only grudgingly saves those who happen to hit the jackpot. But that’s not the God I believe in. As MacDonald believed (and yourself), I also think that with the very creation of rational, sentient, feeling beings - beings who are inescapably drawn towards good and who experience desires not of their own generating - the very creation of such beings simultaneously entails an eternal responsibility for their welfare. Indeed from a perfect God their perfection. It is this foundational belief which makes me a universalist. So I really think on this issue we’re in agreement.
As an aside, I actually think it logically impossible for a God of perfect love to have any division in his will whatsoever: all of his will is fully “behind”, as it were, all of his actions. (This is another reason I cannot believe in determinism - I do not think God could determine sin and at the same time hate it or be against its existence.)
The issue about boasting is different - and perhaps best left for another thread. I won’t go into too much detail but will say this. I think there has to be some difference in the exercise in will between a person who’s done a good act and one who’s done a bad one. I have several reasons for holding this (it would destroy our notion of a person actually sinning, destroy the principle of sufficient reason regarding why God “does good” to one person rather than another…)
By the way, that is another good point not often talked about. In the deterministic, non-libertarian model, is God’s sufficient reason not destroyed concerning why bad stuff happens to this guy and good stuff happens to another? Wouldn’t his dealings with his creatures all be arbitrary if it was not somehow conditioned by free choices - if not of the individual only, of all the rational creation? Will God reward every person according to their work?
Anyway - I do think there is a difference between a good act and a bad with respect to the persons choice. But the real reason I think boasting is wrong - that is, why it’s a mental mistake and why it doesn’t follow theologically - is because one can never really know what another is going through. Subjectively, no one can never really know what another is going through. So no one can ever really say with any confidence of accuracy that “I would have done otherwise in your situation.” (Besides, we don’t even know what we would do in certain situations!) Thus, to boast is to claim to have knowledge of what is in principle impossible to know.
I agree with Ekstrom to a good extent. We are in a sense responsible for certain emotional states - even uncontrollable ones - based on previous free choices. I anticipate a rebuttal may be: but at the time of the free choice, are all the said consequences really present and understood to the mind? Therefore, the argument would go, the choice would not be free since the person really didn’t know what she was getting into. But I would say two things. 1) The type of freedom I’m espousing is such that there is an inherent uncertainty concerning the consequences of a given action. I think this is a necessary consequence for the type of free choices God wants us to make. In other words, if I knew with absolute certainty that giving $20 to the homeless man would bring great blessing to myself, it would destroy the value in the act itself. I would be serving necessity, and not goodness at such. To put it another way, all acts of self-sacrifice would be impossible. In other words, God I think puts us in such situations where we must choose goodness simply because its good, even if it somehow harms us, and not because we may somehow gain from it. 2) Even though certain unforeseen consequences may follow from a given choice, the choice itself was still freely done. The alcoholic who knows he shouldn’t drink may not be in control by drink 10. But he certainly was before the first one. (This point of course assumes that there is a certain knowledge of the possibility of the consequences. To the extent that the consequences are not understood at all, I would agree that the choice itself cannot be free.)
I seem to have rambled on quite a lot more than I intended. But, if it’s all the same to you, we can just leave this here and pick back up where we left off? I won’t reply anymore until you’ve had a chance to address the main issues brought forth in the thread (if you believe in the power of contrary choice, if so why do you think God gave it to us, etc.)
Steve, if we said no to this, in what sense could we say anything that has ever happened in the universe depended on human choice?
OK, Chris.
I assume you feel we can improve our character intentionally by our “will” alone —by choosing to do good, by choosing to reject the “bad” and embrace the “good”. This implies (I think) a** qualitative difference** in people, the idea that there are some people born or created with a greater love for good or who are perhaps “good” themselves and others who are “bad” who really prefer to embrace bad things because of something inherent within them. The idea seems to be that this is** not** dependent on inherited genetically derived traits or those acquired by circumstances and experience, but something at the core of that person. If that’s true, where did this come from? Is it something given by God in creating them? If not, is it essentially random? i.e. God created beings who may be “good” or “bad” (he himself doesn’t have control over this apparently) and he doesn’t really know how they are until they mature and act. If we happen to be the “good” type, can we claim some praise for our good acts and if “bad” are we to blame for our sins in this scenario? It seems obvious this scenario implies a determinism of sorts.
If people are** not** born with a qualitative difference in their character, then how do those that are able to improve their character by “will” alone do that as opposed to those who don’t? What is** different** about them that they choose good and turn from evil? Is it random? If so, where does praise and blame come in? I’m having a hard time understanding… 
I’m not sure this brings us any further along compared to the idea that our character is formed by our inherited traits and the influence of environment with God working on us to bring us to understand what is right and good and, as MacDonald says, “educating us, leading us, pushing us, driving us, enticing us, that we may choose him and his will …”
I may very well be misunderstanding how you view this so would love to hear your thoughts!
Perhaps, but I don’t think that we could necessarily say arbitrary. I’ll be interested to see how Tom addresses this.
So let me ask you this: How does a person know what is a “good” act for certain in any given situation?
You tell me! It’s a bit boring always being the one asserting ideas. Try it on for size! 
Well, the reason I asked it as a question is because I don’t have an answer for this. I don’t think we can necessarily objectively know in every situation what is considered a “good” act vs. an “evil” act. Take for example the story of Rahab and the Hebrew spies. Normally, we view lying as wrong, but in this case she does the “wrong” thing for what is/ are apparently the right reason(s), and as her reward, not only is her life and the life of her family spared, but she gets included in the line of Jesus!
So, it seems that we are inadequate judges of what is right or wrong in at least some situations, due to our lack of complete knowlege and other factors. Things we might normally consider evil acts could very well in fact be good acts in some situations, and vice versa. I think the only way we can know for “certain” is retrospectively, by the fruit later produced by the action.
I think that “good” does need to be judged on a case by case basis. It can be so very hard to know the right thing to do in any given situation. If we follow our hearts, well, our hearts are easily misled, aren’t they? If we follow our intellect – ditto.
The example Jesus gave us, which we’re to follow – that is, living by the guidance of the Holy Spirit showing us all things the Father doeth, seems so dangerous and imprecise. What if we get it wrong? What if we can’t hear Him? What if He doesn’t speak to us? It seems to me like walking on a balance beam over the Grand Canyon (have you seen the Canyon?), without looking at the beam. If you’ve ever walked a balance beam, you know that this is the best and only way TO walk one. Look where you’re going; if your gaze turns downward, your body will follow it. 
You really, really WANT to look down, though. You want to guide your steps – every single step – by your knowledge of where you’re placing your foot and where you’ll be placing the next one. But Father doesn’t work that way. I think it’s got to do with making us free.
Ours is to take the wave that comes and trust Him for the next and not be afraid. The angels will catch us if we honestly fall and perhaps (as we surely will), get it wrong from time to time. We can’t let ourselves worry about that. When we genuinely trust our Father’s perfect love, and permit the fear to be cast out of our hearts by it, then we will be free. Ultimately, I don’t think freedom can come any other way.
I think that part of what appears to be disagreement among us may actually be semantical. I think that “free will” in this thread is being used in two distinct ways:
- Freedom to choose
- Freedom to act
My contention for libertarian free will is “freedom to choose.” I think that when we are faced with two or more possible choices, every healthy person may choose any one of them, and that no matter which he chooses, he could have made a different choice. There is no cause for the choice he did make except himself.
On the other hand, we may or may not have the freedom to act. I do not have the freedom to fly unaided. I do not have wings, and if I did have wings large enough to support me, I would not have the strength to flap them. I do not have the freedom to play Chopin waltzes on the piano. If I had taken piano lessons and worked hard at them, I would have that freedom. A change in my mental processes would have been made so as to enable me to play the piano.
This is what I think Paul was writing about in Romans 7. First of all, let me say that in using the first person, I don’t think Paul was talking about himself. He was writing about the person who doesn’t have the enabling grace of Christ. If I do not appropriate that grace, then I may want to do the right thing, but instead, I do the very thing I hate (vs 15). “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” (vs 18). I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (vs 19). I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (vs 25). Yes, I may serve God in my mind, but in my flesh I serve sin. Then in Chapter 8, Paul contrasts the ability a person has who is in Christ: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
Is this not what Jesus meant when He said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)?
33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have been enslaved to no one. How do you say, ‘You will be become free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly I tell you, everyone who practises sin is a slave of sin.
35 "Now the slave does not remain in the house permanently; the son remains permanently.
36 "So if the Son sets you free, you shall be really free.
Through the grace of Jesus we participate in the process of salvation from sin (freedom from sin). This is the very reason Jesus died:
*I Peter 2:24 He himself endured our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
II Corinthians 5:15 And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Titus 2:14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Heb 9:26 …he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.*
So when a person’s character changes, he will cease doing some of the things he previously did, and begin serving other people and working righteousness in many ways.
So, I agree that God does not have the freedom to work wickedness. The scripture says that God cannot lie. Because of God’s character (that of complete LOVE), God does not have the freedom to act unrighteously. But He does have complete freedom of choice. And so do we, who were created in His image.
Hi Paidion,
I’m trying to figure out if my disagreement about “free-will” is semantical or not. It very well may be and if nothing else, I think I’m closer to your definition than it might appear.
I largely agree with this but would make a modification—so it would look like this with my definition:
" I think that when we are faced with two or more possible choices, every healthy person may choose any one of them, and that no matter which he chooses, he could have made a different choice if he desired to. There is no cause for the choice he did make except himself."
I just can’t see how we could makes contrary choices at the moment of choosing when our desires lead us to prefer one choice over another. 
Is this substantially different from your view of free-will? What do you think?
I don’t think my position differs from yours, Alec. But I think the addition of the phrase “if he desired to” doesn’t add anything to the statement, and is therefore unnecessary. I would think the addition would give the statement a different meaning only if our desires themselves were inevitable, that is, determined. I disbelieve that to be the case. I think we have a measure of control over our desires, even without the enabling grace of God. I have known alcoholics who have been able to stop drinking through their own choice or will. One could alwalys say that that is because they had a different desire which took precedence over the desire to drink. That may be the case, but what was the source of the different desire if not themselves? True, someone could have strongly influenced them by showing them that their drinking would likely lead to an early death. But did that influence CAUSE their desire to stop? Or were they, themselves the source of their desire? I think they themselves was the source, because alcoholics, under an identical influence, would choose not to stop.
Yet, a person CAN choose contrary to one’s desire can’t they? Suppose a man desires to live, but he chooses to save another’s life knowing that he will die? Of course, you could say that his desire to save the other’s life was greater than his desire to save his own. If that is your claim, then it is impossible to give a counter-example, and therefore the claim that one cannot act contrary to one’s desires, becomes meaningless.
I recall many year ago, a man interviewed Mother Theresa and John Vanier. It was the interviewer’s contention that EVERYONE acts from selfish motives. Yet these two were doubtless among the most altruistic persons in the world. But the interviewer’s bottom line was that unless they were acting from selfish motives (their own desires), they wouldn’t have done their acts of kindness. How can you argue against that? But “selfish motives” or “one’s own desires” becomes meaningless unless we can act contrary to them.
Hi Paidion,
I appreciate your reply.
There is a lot in there to discuss, so I’ll start with this.
I agree that these alcoholics that stop drinking do so through their own choice or will, but it is, frankly, impossible to tease out the factors that led to that choice. Did they finally become ill enough from drinking, end up in the hospital with a life-threatening variceal hemorrhage? Did their wife threaten to leave if they didn’t stop? Did they have an experience with one of their children expressing their shame and disapproval?
These are all consequences of their alcoholism and I can’t help but think that these experiences and the knowledge gained by them (the consequences?) help to change who that person is. They change the strength of desires as well as priorities all of which make us who we are. Yes, the decision is made by the “will” but it is informed by our desires and priorities. Desires like living to see a daughter graduate from college, desires like wanting to be in control of one’s actions, desires like wanting children to be proud of you. Yes, the physical desire for alcohol might be there and unchanged but there are so many other desires that have changed that we can’t say it is simply a matter of “will.”
You hit the nail on the head, Paidion! That is exactly what I’m claiming. I’m saying that God is always “educating us, leading us, pushing us, driving us, enticing us, that we may choose him and his will …” We are changing and our very desires and priorities change…as Bobx said, our very disposition is changed. As go our desires and priorities, so go our choices… 
Tom asked me some questions:
No, nothing would be amiss. I believe it to be true that virtue is its own reward. There are plenty of virtuous acts which go unrewarded externally. A truly altruistic person needs no reward.
Yes. God is to be praised becauase of his enabling grace, made possible through the sacrifice of His Son. But I wouldn’t say that salvation is WHOLLY a matter of grace, an not works. Since Paul also wrote:
Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (2Cor 6:1 ESV)
The phrase “working together with him” is the translation of the word “συνεργουντες” (synergountes) from which the English word “synergy” is derived. God won’t deliver us from sin without our choice to coöperate with Him and His enabling grace. To attempt to receive this enabling grace apart from our will, would be to “receive the grace of God in vain.”
On the other hand, we cannot deliver ourselves from sin apart from His enabling grace. If we could, we’d have something about which to boast. As Paul said in the verse you quoted, “not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
No, I wouldn’t say that that makes no sense. We praise Him for who He is, as well as for what He does. But we seem to be getting into a grey area if we say that God DESERVES our praise, if He could not choose to do otherwise. Similarly, we might praise our child for who he is as well as for what he does. But does the childe DESERVE our praise, if he could not choose to do otherwise?
Yes, Alex. All of those factors are a strong influence on the alcoholic to stop. But as I said in my post:
But did those influences CAUSE their desire to stop? Or were they, themselves the source of their desire? I think they themselves were the source, because alcoholics, under an identical influence, would choose not to stop.