Credo Ut Intelligam

Divine Decisions, Human Nature, and Merry Christmas

With much rejoicing, I welcome Kevin's newest post. It's unfortunate that blogging is so time consuming, and that the real world leaves us so little time to spare. I've been enjoying this conversation quite a bit, and I would have been sad to see it end. This is an offshoot of a larger discussion. To see the whole thing, go here. (Thanks to Clifton for maintaining that list.)

Kevin says some truly wondeful things in his post. Standard Reformed soteriology doesn't do a very good job of making sense of such passages as 2Peter1:3-4. We need to do better. The promise of apotheosis is there in Scripture, and it is very dear to me and I think it ought to be very important to us as Christians. I think Kevin's treatment of apotheosis is spot-on. My heart resonates with what he says. He worries about getting off-track; and indeed he is getting off the track of our previous discussion, but it is a trail I would be delighted to diverge onto ... but in a different post. For now, I'll do two things: first I'll respond to Kevin's denial of my claim that God has libertarian freedom, and then I'll address the question of Adam's moral status before the fall.

In my most recent contribution, I defined what I meant by "libertarian free choice". I then gave an argument demonstrating that God made at least one libertarian free choice. Kevin, if I undertand him correctly, has conceded all of my premises. He conceded that, "the choice between creating and not creating was equal, that both of these options were so well within the boundaries of God's nature that it could not be a factor determining which choice was made, that, in effect, there was nothing prior to this choice." If there is nothing prior to a choice, then by my definition, that choice must be libertarian free. More precisely,

Definition: Choice X is libertarian free if and only if there does not exist a prior reality R such that it is not possible that R & ~X.

Premise 1: There was nothing prior to God's choice, C, between creating and not creating, except perhaps God's nature, N.

Premise: 2: It was possible that N & ~C.

Conclusion: C was a libertarian free choice.

As far as I can tell, Kevin denies this conclusion. But the conclusion follows logically from premises he has conceded. So it seems to me that Kevin's position is simply incoherent. He writes, "The question is not about any prior restraints on God's decision, ..." This strikes me as pure evasion: given the way I've defined libertarian freedom, the question is precisely about any prior restraints on God's decision. But perhaps he misunderstood my definition, in which case my more explicit stating of that definition above should clear up any potential confusion.

Now I turn to the question of Adam's nature before the fall. Kevin propounds the following syllogism:

1) "The inclination to sin in someone with a perfect nature is zero.
2) Adam sinned;
3) therefore, Adam did not have a perfect nature."

Kevin is, of course, relying on an additional premise. He gives some indication of what that additional premise is, but its precise nature is not clear. Here are two likely candidates:

a) Adam would not have sinned unless he had an inclination to sin
b) Adam would not have sinned unless he had an inclination to do something sinful.

Now, I agree with (b). But it will not help Kevin get to his conclusion (3). For that, he would need something like (a). And I reject (a). The difference between a sinful inclination, and an inclination to do something sinful was explained in my initial post. Then, I was still using the term "desire" to mean "inclination". I wrote: "Since God created [Adam & Eve] good, their desire to obey him was stronger than their desire for what was pleasing to the eye and good for food. Notice that none of their desires is bad. God gave them the desire for what is pleasing to the eye and good for food, and that desire was good. What was evil was their choosing to follow the desire for the lesser good."

If it were not for God's command, eating the fruit would not have been a sinful act. Their inclination to eat was of precisely the same nature it would have been if God had not issued the command. Thus the inclination, considered in itself, was not sinful, but good. It was an inclination to do something which, given the contingencies of their situation, was a sinful act. But it was not a sinful inclination.

So far, I have assumed that by "inclination to sin" Kevin means what I have been calling a sinful inclination. But maybe what he means is what I have been calling an inclination to do something sinful. In that case, (b) would be sufficient for his conclusion. But then I object to (1). Perfection, as I understand it, includes the following two things: (i) No sinful inclinations, (ii) Any inclination to do something sinful must not be stronger than the inclination to obey God.

And this is the crux of our disagreement: I think (i) and (ii) both applied to Adam before the fall. On my theory of the will, this is compatible with the fact that Adam sinned. On Kevin's theory of the will, it is not. On my theory of the will, it is possible for someone to be perfect and have the ability to sin. On Kevin's theory it is not. That is why I think Kevin is being quite logical when he rejects the idea that that Adam was perfect before the fall. Given his theory of the will, he must. But it would be just as logical, and more sensible, if he were to accept the idea that Adam was perfect before the fall, and give up his theory of the will. For, as I argued in previous posts, there are some big problems with the idea that Adam's nature necessitated the fall, and there are also more direct problems with the Edwardsian theory of the will. Kevin will probably respond more directly to those arguments in his forthcoming post. But in his Christmas post, he initiates a new line of thought: he argues directly for his claim that Adam was not made perfect, bypassing his theory of the will.

He says, "any fundamental change in our nature, while it may be conditioned by human works, is ultimately supernatural." It seems to me he'll have a hard time establishing this premise. Although it is certainly true about apotheotic change (no creature can become divine--whatever we think that may mean--by its own deeds and without God's supernatural intervention), it is doubtful when it comes to a change from moral perfection to moral corruption (unless we go back to relying on the Edwardsian theory of the will). Illustration: think of a pin poised on its point on the edge of a table. If it falls in one direction it will fall off the table, if it falls in the other direction, it will fall onto the table. Once it falls, it comes to rest either on the table or on the floor, at which point it cannot change its position without some outside intervention. But when it was poised on its point, it was able, simply by its own weight, to bring about a change in its position. It seems likely to me that man was, at first, like the pin poised on its point: able to become sinful or to become confirmed in righteousness, without any supernatural intervention. But after the fall, unable to do anything that would result in a change in his nature, until that nature was assumed by God, in celebration of which I say:

Merry Christmas!

Addenda:
*After re-reading Kevin's post I'm beginning to wonder if I misinterpreted him in claiming that his last argument was intended to work independently of the Edwardsian theory of the will. Anyway, what I was trying to point out was that it doesn't work independently of the Edwardsian theory--whether Kevin intended it to or not--so my rejection of Edwards' theory gives me grounds to reject Kevin's argument. Which brings me back to the idea that the crux of our disagreement is our conflicting theories of the will.

*The point about God's libertarian freedom is an issue only because Edwards argued that the very idea of libertarian freedom is incoherent. The fact that God has it shows that that particular argument of Edwards's is unsound. But I'm actually not sure whether Kevin thinks the idea of libertarian freedom is incoherent. If he doesn't think this, or if he isn't relying on this as an argument for his position, then the question of divine freedom is not relevant to the rest of the discussion (though it's still an interesting question in its own right).

*I wonder what Kevin thinks about fallen angels. The standard view, not only in Reformed circles, but, if I'm not mistaken, in all Christendom, is that angels and demons were created with the same nature, morally speaking, but some of them fell and some didn't--demonstrating that their fall was not determined by their nature.

Posted by mccartney at December 26, 2005 12:35 PM | TrackBack