Compatibilist Christianity?

In the comments section for the post "What is Determinism?", an interesting issue was raised that I think warrants its own place for discussion.

The question is this: Need Christians (or theists more generally) be libertarians?

The answer to this question, I think, is quite clearly: No. But as it is not meant to be a simple yes/no question, perhaps I should add -- why not?

There is at least prima facie reason to think that certain tenets of theism would be threatened if not made unintelligible under a compatibilist conception of freedom. Petitionary prayer and divine punishment might be two. To take the latter -- even though certain compatibilist theories of responsibility might successfully show that we can rightly hold people morally responsible for their actions and punish them accordingly, it is not clear that those theories could also be used to justify God's punishing certain actions. Isn't the intuition behind PAP even stronger when it comes to God holding us responsible?

Comments

[Rob]

This issue nicely echoes the debate between (to use Strawson's language in the Routlege entry on "Free Will"), on the one hand, incompatibilist "no-freedom theorists" (or pessimists) and, on the other, compatibilists and libertarians. For the pessimists (such as myself), the supposed omnipotence of God is sufficient to end any question as to whether humans can be held responsible by Him, since He, in his omnipotence, is ultimately responsible for our being; and, furthermore, since for pessimists questions of ultimate responsibility are unavoidably enmeshed with questions of any other sort of responsibility on offer, ascriptions (and self-ascriptions) of responsiblity among humans are ultimately a sort of regulative fiction.

[robert allen]

Neal,

Think of God as having made “Castle’s choice,” forswearing the use of covert non-constraining control to insure that people act in accord with His will. (You will recall that Castle tells Frazier in Walden Two that he would “dump (his) effective science of behavior in the ocean.” BTW, as an undergraduate, I had the good fortune of taking an intellectual history course from Albury Castell. The highlight of the course for me (and, I think, for him) was his recounting of the public debates he had had with B. F. Skinner on the subject of free will. Years later, while reading Walden Two, I was pleased to discover that the character opposing Skinner’s views seemed to have been named with my teacher in mind.) He granted us free wills, then, in the sense that we could do things that He did not intend, should they seem advantageous. Even if one does obey His commandments, it is not because transgressing them was something of which one was rendered incapable by God himself. Or, to put it another way, God, having created and left intact one’s capacity for rebellion, is not responsible for the righteous person’s following of His dictates: only if He had guaranteed that course of conduct by destroying or failing to create that capacity would it be something for which he, not she, would be praiseworthy. Instead of just obeying the commandments under the circumstances, she would have obeyed them no matter what. But God chose to leave open the possibility that a righteous person does contravene His will. Thus, such a person can transcend His influence, making her autonomous (at least in relation to Him). Of course, God would know, whether or not an agent is going to exercise her ability to rebel against His authority in a particular situation, which entails the conditional necessity of whatever she happens to do. Nevertheless, He is not in control of her, given her possession of that ability. On the other hand, the question of opportunity also arises here: would a sinner facing punishment have a legitimate excuse for his wrongdoings in that his exercises of his ability to rebel were determined by factors beyond his control: the reasons for his transgressions? Fairness would seem to require that a sinner be given the chance to atone, hence the idea of purgatory. In that case, however, the ‘deck would seem to be stacked’ in the sinner’s favor: it is hard to imagine someone choosing to rebel when facing eternal damnation. In other words, I seem committed here, ala Keith De Rose, to “universalism,” which doesn’t really bother me, since we pray anyways “lead all souls to heaven especially those in the greatest need of Thy mercy.”

[robert allen]

Rob,

God is resposnible for our being- He is our creator- but not for what we do. Again, think of a father whose child grows up to become a criminal: yes, he 'brought the child into this world' and even raised him/her, but so long as the child can overcome his influence, the father is not to blame for the child's conduct.

[Chris]

Certainly I think there's strong pressure, at least from the Calvinist tradition, to *be* a compatibilist. See, e.g., Jonathan Edwards.

I'm not sure what Neal is getting at with petitionary prayer. Petitionary prayer has purposes other than changing God's mind: publishing what he will do in advance, for instance. Thanksgiving also doesn't change God's mind about whether he will give us things, of course, but it's still appropriate. Petitionary prayer can serve the same purposes in advance, can't it?

You'll have to tell me more about these intuitions you have in favor of PAP in order for me to know if they're particularly theistic. To tell the truth, I've never really had such intuitions in a very strong measure.

[James Gibson]

Of course, there is a long tradition of compatibilist Christians (I am being loose with the term "compatibilism" and including in it, as the history of this thought runs, to include some form of determinism), from the later Augustine to Calvin, and those following that tradition (e.g., Turretin, Edwards, etc). One of the prima facie problems, Neil noted, is that even if compatiblists can offer a successful account of the compatiblity of moral responsibility and determinism, that still may not be sufficient for explaining how *God*, if He is the ultimate determiner of all events (and actions), can hold humans responsible... after all, isn't *He* responsible for every event's coming about?

I think in this case, the intuition behind PAP is not any stronger than the intuition behind PAP for an ultimate nonpersonal determining cause; at least, I myself don't share that intuition. Why would the personal character of the ultimate cause, if there is a first determing cause, be relevant to whether or not I need PAP in order to be morally responsible? I don't see the connection.

I think the real worry is given by Bill Wainwright. His paper, "Theological Determinism and the Problem of Evil: Are Arminians Any Better Off?" (International Journal for Phil of Religion 50, 2001) raises the following problem for Edwards, and Calvinists who are not libertarians:

"Like other traditional Christians, Edwards thinks that God justly inflicts an infinite punishment upon those who die unrepentant. Theological determinism makes this claim especially problematic. In Edwards' view, God inflicts infinite punishment on persons whom He has *made* wicked. Edwards is therefore forced to defend not only the claim that infinite punishment is a fitting recompense for human wickedness but also two further claims - that those whom God has made vessels of wrath are genuinely accountable, and that one can justly punish a person for an offense whihc one has deliberately caused him to commit. ... Edwards' third claim [this claim] is indefensible. Not only is it counter-intuitive, there are no good arguments in its favor" (p.93).

So the real problem is not the need for PAP, according to Wainwright; rather, it is that one who determines some other person to do some action cannot hold that person responsible. There are, then, two distinct claims here: (a) if theological determinism is true, I need PAP in order to be morally responsible; (b) if I am morally responsible, God could not have determined me to do some action *and* also be the one who holds me morally accountable. Perhaps it is that (a) stands out more clearly if we are starting with the intuition behind (b); that is, God is the one who is determining, and surely if God exists, he can hold us responsible, thus, it seems I need PAP. On the other hand, if we start with the premise that (theological) determinism rules out PAP and we can give an account of moral responsibility without PAP, then the worry in (b) is what is emphasized.

Let's ignore (a) for now since that appears to be a general worry about PAP given determinism - c.f., another thread - whatever determinism is! The answer to (b), I think Edwards and others in that tradition would give, is offered in one of Wainwright's footnotes on the section quoted above:

"More accurately, there are no good arguments in its favor if there are no good independent arguments both for theological determinism and for God's justice. If there are, then we may simply have to bite the bullet and accept the counter-intuitive consequence" (96)... and this is what the Calvinists have apparently done.

So, the response, while not dialogically useful in all contexts, would be this to the the person offering the objection on the Calvinist's own grounds: insofar as you grant inerrancy, exegetical arguments suffice to show both God is the determiner of all events and God is just, and the intution is wrong. As the dialogical context changes with the rejection of inerrancy or other meta-(a)-theological issues, the nature of the response will of course have to be directed to other areas. So, the prima facie problem doesn't appear to be insuperable, if in fact they can argue for the two points just noted.

[robert allen]

James,

God does not determine our actions, as Wainwright maintains; though our characters and circumstances do. In granting us autonomy, He separated us from His will. We have been, to use Heidegger's apt phrase, "thrown into this world."

Also, shouldn't your "a" read: if theological determinism is true along with PAP, then we are not morally responsible for our actions? "b," I agree is the real issue, but, as just noted, God does not determine anything that other persons do.

[James Gibson]

Robert... I can't think of any Calvinist who claims it is true that God determines us, but also does so independently of the characters we have. This is because they also claim that God is the one who gives us the characters we have that produce the actions He intended us to do, and usually in such a way that rules out PAP. I'm not sure what to say to the *assertion* that God does not determine us and the appeal to Heidegger. But one quote deserves another: "Therefore he determined whatever should be, because independently of his will, nothing could be" (John Calvin). In any event, these claims as such appear dialogically useless.

The issue raised by Neal, anyway, isn't over whether or not determinism is true. That is, the question was not formed in the following manner: Should Christians be libertarians since determinism is false? Rather, the question appears in the context of a rebutting defeater to the theological determinist and the adequacy of such a determinist making use of "certain [(contemporary?)] compatibilist theories" of moral responsibility. So, the question *was* whether or not the theological determinist, most likely to be a compatibilist, needs PAP due to a personal ultimate cause. I then attempted to guide the discussion to what the *real* prima facie problem is via Wainwright's article. Thus, whether or not determinism is true is irrelevent to whether or not there is a *particular* defeater - the one noted above - that demonstrates the theological determinist (and hence, compatibilist) must *in principle* deny her position as rationally defensible.

About my "(a)", I see why you asked your question - my fault for being sloppy (an unfortunate common occurrence). What I intended to say by (a) was this: (a') While nonpersonal ultimate determination, i.e. something like simply physical determinism, does not require compatibilists, even Christian compatibilists, of rejecting PAP and having their moral responsibility, personal ultimate determination, i.e. the type of determinism presupposed by Calvin, for instance, does require PAP in order to humans to be truly morally responsible. Hopefully that clarifies the two distinct claims, (a') and (b).

[Joe]

James has done a nice job of separating some issues that might have gotten mixed up above. (The mixing up I attribute to the complexity of these issues, by the way. All of the comments I found very rewarding.)

Following James (who knows more about these issues than I do, so please correct me, James, if I'm wrong), Edwards makes these three claims:

1. Infinite punishment is a fitting recompense for finite human deeds.
2. Humans can be morally responsible for their actions even though God is causally responsible for everything.
3. One (even God) cannot justly punish a person for an offense which one (even God) has deliberately determined him to commit.

Now let's turn to the original question posed by Neal: Need Christians be libertarians and if not, why not?

In light of Edwards's three claims we can see three separate problems that confront the Christian Compatibilist: the infinite punishment problem, the compatibility problem, and the third problem (for which I cannot think of a good name). I want to show that, in the context of this discussion, the third problem just reduces to the compatibility problem. (Don't stop reading! This isn't the same point I was making in the What is Determinism? section.)

Let me first make a claim that exposes my own liberal biases: There are plenty of cases in which Society has punished individuals even though the individual’s actions were pretty much determined by conditions that Society had created. One may respond: But the actions were not completely determined; the person still has a choice. But now we are back to the compatibility problem. In other words, if one (e.g. Edwards) already believes that the compatibility problem is not much of a problem, then he or she is unlikely to think that the third problem is much of a problem either.

Let me also add that in as much as (1) is a problem it is no more of a problem for the compatibilist than it is for the libertarian.

There is also a fourth problem, noted above but not (to my knowledge) mentioned by Edwards. Call it the 'problem of prayer': If God has determined (a long time ago) everything to be the way that it is, then what is the point of prayer? He is an analogy. (Perhaps this is a faulty analogy in which case I'd like to know why.)

Your son has an exam on Friday and there is a baseball game on Friday night. You decide that if he gets an A on the exam, then you’ll take him to the baseball game. Unfortunately, if you wait until Friday to buy the ticket, the game will be sold out. So you buy the ticket on Thursday as a reward for something that your son will do on Friday, knowing full well that your son will pass the exam. Does this make your son's accomplishment pointless or any less worthy? Does it make the baseball game any less of a reward? I don't think so. (Be careful when explaining why this is a faulty analogy that we don't get caught up in the compatibility problem again.)

[Joe]

I meant (3) to read something like: One (e.g. God) can justly punish a person for an offense that he (e.g. He) has deliberately determined the person to commit.

As it is worded initially, (3) suggests something that Wainwright would say in response to Edward. (Thanks to James for pointing this out to me!)

[Rob]

If, as my experience indicates, Christians typically hold that God is omnipotent, how can the world be other than ultimately determined by Him? And how then can any of the alleged instances or kinds of human freedom in a Christian world not be ultimately reducible to allowances by Him -- but allowances which must somehow be compatible with His omnipotence? But then one must make sense of the idea of a concession of power which somehow doesn't imply a reduction in the power of the conceder -- which, despite the analogies proffered above, seems to be incoherent.

Again, all of this reproduces the issues raised in other connections over the relevance of self-causation/ultimately responsibility to free will.

[tnadelhoffer]

I think that Rob's last comment perfectly expresses the concern that motivated me to suggest earlier that in order to avoid the problem of evil, compatibilist free will does not turn the trick. Unless humans have something like agent causation--which in and of itself creates problems for the existence of an omnipotent being--all of the evils we bring about could be causally traced back to God. Indeed, it looks like the history of Christian thought about free will (especially Augustine) was motivated by this very problem--although I am admittedly no expert.

[Chris]

"Unless humans have something like agent causation ... all of the evils we bring about could be causally traced back to God."

A lot of Calvinists would agree, but would say that God has purposes in causing these evils: for instance, epistemic or demonstrative goods. See, e.g., John 9:3 (concerning why a man was born blind: "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him."). Prayer can have a similar demonstrative purpose, independent of God-independent causal efficacy: e.g., showing and expressing our dependence on God.

[John Fischer]

I myself think that compatibist Christianity is quite possible, partly because I do not believe in the necessity of alternative possiblities for moral responsibility, and partly because I believe that mere causal traceability of an upshot is not sufficient for moral responsibility for it--everything depends on HOW that upshot is brought about. But I'm up in Palo Alto and trying to take a vacation, so I'm not going to be able to try to convince people of these views (and I recognize the probable futility of such attempts!).

But just a small note: Thomas, "doing the trick" is the metaphor you intend, not "turning the trick", which is quite a different thing, no?

Cheers from the clear skies of No. Cal.,
John

[Rob]

How, if God is omnipotent, can the world not ultimately be a deterministic one?

[tnadelhoffer]

It is worth pointing out that God's omnipotence alone is not enough to suggest that the world is a deterministic one--but once this omnipotence is considered in conjunction with His alleged omniscience, then the arguments for a deterministic world begin looking more convincing. I should also have mentioned earlier that I appreciate that Calvinists (as well as others) concede God's ultimate responsibility, but then the only recourse for getting around the problem of evil for them is theodicy--which has always seemed like a refusal to offer an argument (i.e. a throwing up of the hands) rather than an attempt to honestly get around the problem. On an unrelated note, I thank John for pointing out my misuse of the trick metaphor--I never meant to suggest that compatibilists are merely prostituting inadequate arguments:)

[Joe]

I guess I don't see the connection between omnipotence and determinism. 'Omnipotence' just means 'all powerful,' right? God could have created a determined world (if he is all powerful, He could have done anything) but why would he have to create such a world?

But even if you could show a logical link between omnipotence and determinism that seems besides the point of Neal's original question: Need Christians be libertarians and if not, why not?

The new worry that Rob and Neal are note directly above seems to be a worry about the truth of determinism, not the truth of compatibilism. A compatibilist can reject determinism as long as it is for reasons unrelated to the issue of free will. One could consistently hold the following three views:

1. Persons have free will.
2. Free will is compatible with determinism.
3. But determinism is false since it is incompatible with the divine attributes.

(I don't believe (3) but I'm saying that holding it is consistent with compatibilism.)

[robert allen]

James, Rob, & tnadelhoffer,

It is one thing to bring persons into existence; it is another thing altogether to retain control of them. God did the former; but not the latter. Thus, he is not responsible for what we do. (I believe that this is what the vacationing Prof. Fischer means when he says that “mere causal traceability of an upshot is not sufficient for moral responsibility for it--everything depends on HOW that upshot is brought about.”) The Calvinists are simply wrong: a character is not the sort of thing that can be bestowed upon one, as it takes time to be developed. What God did grant each one of us is a number of capacities- one of which makes possible the contravening of His will- the exercise of which under the circumstances we face produces the characters for which we are responsible. God would be responsible for them only if he we were under his control, which, again, we are not, given our capacity for evil. That is the significance of the above quote from Heidegger. Moreover, setting us free in this way did not diminish His Power, as Job learned.

[Rob]

I associate God's supposed omnipotence with determinism because all-powerfulness, it would seem to me, relates everything ultimately to Him as His consequence -- our deliberative natures, our circumstances, and whatever else compatibilists or libertarians suppose could underwrite human responsibility.

[Clark]

I'd agree that I don't see how omnipotence alone entails determines. Even if everything is a consequence of God, it doesn't follow that there is but one possible effect for God's cause. Put an other way, I think that answer simply ends up begging the question.

If you add in a full robust omniscience (which many think follows from omnipotence) then it seems determinism follows. That's because for any future event E, God knows it (or could reveal it) at some time before E. It therefore follows by the definition of knowledge it must be the case that E and never that !E. (Yeah I know most of you know that argument)

The only way out seems to try and say omniscience entails some kind of middle knowledge or the like. But if God is truly omnipotent, couldn't he truly know in a more robust way logically? One can limit God's omniscience and omnipotence, the way the Open Theists or others do. But that then takes us to a debate about the meaning of those terms. Certainly the way omnipotence is classically used, it seems to follow.

[robert allen]

Rob,

Would God still be responsible for what we do despite relinquishing control of us? Taking God out of the picture, would you hold a parent responsible for the doings of his/her adult children, just because they are "consequences" of things that he/she did?

[Rob]

I don't see how the analogy with a parent is supposed to help here, since a parent isn't an ultimate source of a child's doings in the way that God, in His omnipotence, would seem to be an ultimate source of everything.

And as for omniscience, which I think is typically also regarded as a divine prerogative, I consider it a further or specific aspect of His supposed omnipotence in relation to the issue of human freedom.

[James Gibson]

Sorry for the length. There is a Cliffnotes version at the bottom.

I think Robert Allen made an interesting suggestion about the nature of character development. On his view, "a character is *not* the sort of thing that *can* be bestowed upon one, as it takes time to be developed" (my emphases). As I understand this claim, it is not just that it is contingently true of our world that characters develop over time; rather, it is true of all possible worlds that character development, [for characters that come into existence], extends across time. This applies both to the character as it first develops into existence, as well as significant changes in the overall character of a person later in life.

If this is true, it would have several implications, one of which (pointed out by GFP's Eleonore Stump, and following, Jerry Walls) that the doctrine of purgatory is true, or at least one understanding of it anyway, given the suitable assumptions (e.g., God exists, heaven requires a morally perfect character, etc.). I suppose what is being raised here, the questionableness of RA's assumption, is possibly suitable for a whole new thread; be that as it may, I want to see if this I can damage this assumption here since that thread doesn't exist.

Suppose that we have two clocks, one running in real time, the other at the speed of an agent who places his finger on the second-hand and as he moves his finger, the time changes. Further suppose that the time of each clock, as the big and small hands move, events adjust in the world accordingly. This is a rough illustration. Suppose the time under examination here includes the following five events: (1) ball one rolls and hits ball two, (2) ball two rolls and hits ball three, (3) three hits four, (4) four hits five, (5) five rolls off the table. Let's stipulate that in real time, it takes approximately 1 second for each event to be fulfilled. As clock 1 rolls in real time, this will take 5 seconds. As the clock controlled by the agent has the second-hand moved twice the speed of real time, the fulfillment of all five events will take 2 and a half seconds; it should be clear by now.

So, let's say the development process of the events in question is this: the beginning of the process is the rolling of ball one, and the end of the development process (at the end of event five) is the state of affairs, ball five's being on the ground. It seems to me that the development process is equally possible to fulfill if it runs in real time, as well if it runs twice as fast by the moving hand of the agent upon the other magic clock. Now let's just speed up the clock again to five times as fast on the second clock. It's completed in 1/5th of a second. Now 100 times as fast. 1000, etc. Even if this is not *physically* possible, it still seems to be possible in the broadly logical sense. Regardless of the speed of the clock, the development process seems to be fulfillable.

Why, then, must character development be extended over a (long?) period of time, e.g., several years? The only reason I have seen for why this is the case is not that fulfilling a process in principle requires a long period of time, logically speaking, but rather that *character development*, for the character to be truly one's own, the agent who has the character must have played an important part along the way in the development of that character. Surprise surprise, now enters Galen Strawson's argument.

So it seems that if RA's criticism of the Calvinist is to have any merit, it must already assume something the Calvinists (and compatiblists generally) deny. Furthermore, the pessimists are going to jump all over the assumption brought out in the above paragraph to show that if RA is correct, even he can't have what he wants.

Cliffnotes version: character development need not extend over time for it to be truly one's own; and the only reason for thinking that it must, according to reasons I have seen, implies that no one can have a character for which they are responsible.

[John Fischer]

Hart and Honore, in their classic work on causation and the law, argued that voluntary human action "negatives" causation. (I've always liked that verb.) Feinberg, in Doing and Deserving, discusses their cases and agrees in important respects. I'm not inclined to agree about causation, but certainly about moral responsibility. So, why not apply this point to God? That is, even if God sets everything up deterministically, and thus is the cause of all upshots, it need not follow that certain upshots are his fault or that he is morally responsible for them. After all, voluntariness negatives responsibility.

Hmmm... Now you see how ineffective I am at vacationing!

Cheers,
John

[robert allen]

Rob,

I figured that that would be your response. But you asserted that God is responsible because "everything ultimately (relates) to Him as His consequence." So, by the same token, were a parent "the ultimate source of a child's doings," which they would be were there no God (unless you want to drag ancient ancestors into the picture and if you do, just imagine that we are talking about Adam, Eve, and Cain sans the Gardener) he/she would be responsible for his/her children's behavior, which I take to be a reductio of your position. Omnipotence has nothing to do with it, you are saying that if E "originates" with something that A does, then that alone makes A solely responsible for E.

[robert allen]

James,

If 'play(ing) an important part' in the development of one's character means 'being at least partly responsible for how one has 'turned out', then the compatibilist will not concede that "that no one can have a character for which they are responsible." She will, instead, attempt to meet Prof. Strawson's argument.