This blog has lain fallow for too long. Kevin's renewed cultivation of his own blog has motivated me to do the same.
As far as I can tell there is no longer any important disagreement between me and Kevin regarding God's libertarian freedom. I'm not too concerned with whether or not God's libertarian freedom attaches to his will, as long as we are agreed that God does indeed have libertarian freedom, at least with respect to election. I see no reason to posit any third thing in addition to nature and will, so Occam's razor inclines me to think that God's libertarian freedom is properly thought of as a freedom of will. But as far as I can see, nothing hangs on this, so I won't press it.
But when it comes to Adam's will, there is substantive disagreement.
I had made a distinction between a sinful inclination and an inclination to do something that is (per accidens) sinful. Now, in spite of his use of the phrase "distinction without a difference," I think that Kevin does indeed recognize the difference between these two inclinations. If I understand him correctly, he does not reject my distinction between a sinful inclination and an inclination to do something that is (per accidens) sinful. He rather thinks that there is an identity, or at least a necessary connection, between acting on an inclination to do something sinful and acting on a sinful inclination. He writes, "the command being both given and understood, acting on the same inclination [an inclination not inherently sinful] cannot be separated from acting on a simultaneous inclination to disobey God."
But why?
Suppose I have been without food for a long time. I am ravenously hungry. I have a strong desire, which naturally translates into a strong inclination, to eat. Some food is set before me, but God commands me not to eat. I understand the command. I have no inclination to disobey the command, but I also have no inclination to obey, or perhaps I have only a small inclination to obey. I follow my strongest inclination and eat in spite of the command to the contrary. I have sinned, even though I had no inherently sinful inclinations. My only inclinations were 1) the per accidens sinful but inherently good inclination to eat, and 2) perhaps a smaller, good inclination to obey God. Neither of these is inclinations is inherently sinful (though there is something morally wrong with me if my inclination to obey God is either weak or absent). Is there something incoherent about this story? If so it is hidden from me. Indeed, this story even seems to cohere with the Edwardsian theory of will.
Kevin writes "Just as the [good] activity of eating is, in this case, inseparably linked to disobedience to God, even so, the inclination to eat is now inseparably linked to the inclination to disobey God."
If this is an inference, it is a fallacious one.
The fact that A is inseparable from (or even identical with) B does not, in general, imply that an inclination to A is inseparable from an inclination to B (and if Kevin thinks this this particular situation is different, he should say why). The word "inclination" sets up an intentional (and thus referentially opaque) context. To illustrate what I mean, consider the following sophism: John does not know who the man behind the screen is; the man behind the screen is John's father; Therefore John does not know who his father is. Knowledge, like inclination, is intentional -- that is, it is directed to an object. An identity or necessary connection between objects of intentional acts or attitudes does not entail identity or inseparability of those intentional acts or attitudes. X=Y does not entail that knowledge of X = knowledge of Y. Similarly, that X is identical with or inseparable from Y does not entail that an inclination to X is inseparable from an inclination to Y.
Kevin further writes, "whether the sin was found directly in choosing the lesser good or whether it was accompanied by the inclination to disobey, the inclination to obey God at the time was not and could not have been the strongest." This begs the question. My account of the human will is precisely that it is possible for us to act on inclinations other those that are the strongest at the moment of action. I do agree with the conditional proposition expressed in Kevin's next sentence, "if even this one time it failed to be the strongest inclination, it must follow that neither Adam and Eve were created in an incorruptible state." Indeed, I would go further and say that if their inclination to obey God was ever weaker than any other inclination, there was something morally wrong with them. Like Kevin, I deny that Adam and Eve were created in an incorruptible state -- it was, obviously, possible for them to fall -- but I affirm that they were created in a state such that there was nothing morally wrong with them. All their inclinations were in order.
But, on Kevin's scheme, their inclinations were out of order. So, if Kevin is right, then there was something morally wrong with Adam and Eve prior to the fall. Kevin writes, "In the final state, incorruptible will be the standard for what constitutes good, but not before." I agree. It is not the corruptibility of Adam and Eve that I object to in Kevin's scheme. It is their disordered inclinations.
Again, Kevin writes, "Nor does corruptible imply that Adam’s nature necessitated the fall. To fall or not to fall were both equally viable options." And again, he is right: corruptibility does not entail this. But, again, disordered inclinations does, as I argued in Choice and Necessity, and as Kevin conceded in Motives for the Fall, where he wrote, "Chris effectively demonstrates that if Adam always acts according to his strongest inclinations, then the fall was ultimately necessitated by the way God made Adam and the situation in which he placed him."
Thus, I question the coherence of Kevin's account of the angels. He says that their "nature, while it did not determine that some would sin and others would not, made both options possible. In other words, each angel had about the same odds that Adam did." But, on Kevin's theory, it cannot be a matter of odds, or possibilities, since, on his theory, choice is necessitated by strongest inclination, which is necessitated by nature.
Don't get me wrong. Kevin has every right on his scheme to say that sinning and not sinning were both "viable options" for Adam, and for the angels. But he cannot say that both options were possible for them. On Kevin's scheme, Adam was able to refrain from sin, in the sense that it was in Adam's power not to sin, but refraining from sin was not possible for him. (readers who may have forgotten this distinction can follow this link to my initial contribution to the discussion, where I introduced it)
In summary, I believe that my theological argument against the Edwardsian theory of the will, and against Kevin's scheme, which follows therefrom, still stands: On that scheme, Adam was created with disordered inclinations, so there was something morally wrong with him. His nature and circumstances necessitated his corruption, so that he was ill-made (not because his corruption was possible, but because it was necessitated by his disordered inclinations). As I said before, something that, by its nature, MUST become corrupt, is ill-made.
Coda: We have been speaking about the comparative strength and weakness of inclinations as if everyone understands what we are talking about. But what is it that makes one inclination stronger or weaker than another? I don't think Kevin means "felt strength". It's experientially obvious that we sometimes choose to follow an inclination that doesn't feel as strong as an inclination in the opposite direction. And Kevin has consistently distinguished between inclinations and desires. So he must mean something else by "strong" and "weak". But what?
Well, one way of getting at the meaning of these terms is to ask what causes the will to choose between two conflicting inclinations. My answer is: in some cases at least, nothing apart from the secret will of God; Kevin's/Edwards's answer is: always something about the inclinations. If they are right, it makes sense to think of this "something" as a kind of strength or weakness. Now, I have no objection to the idea that sometimes there is something about our inclinations that determines us to choose one over another. I only object to the idea that this is always the case. Often, I would claim, either the conflicting inclinations are equal in strength, or they are incomensurable. So, rather than saying that we can choose weaker over stronger inclinations, perhaps I ought to just say that our conflicting inclinations are sometimes incomensurable. When they are not, and when their relative strength determines the direction of the will, I would say that there is no freedom of decision -- though there is freedom of consent.
To put it another way, I have no objection to defining "strength" in such a way that whenever one inclination is strongest, the will must follow that. Under this definition I will express my view by saying that often inclinations are either incomensurable or of equal strength. And of Adam I would say that there was something morally wrong with him only if his inclination to obey God was weaker than any other inclination, but not if they were incomensurable. Perhaps it was to be by means of Adam's choice that the relative strengths of the two inclinations were to be fixed. Had Adam chosen to obey God, his inclination thereto would have been fixed as stronger than all his natural inclinations, whereby he would have been confirmed in righteousness. By chosing otherwise, his inclinations were fixed in a disordered state.
But if "strength" is defined differently, it might be more appropriate to express my view as I have been doing, saying that the will needn't follow the strongest inclination. It can choose to follow the weaker -- more accurately, the person can choose, by means of his will (as faculty-of-decision), to turn his will (as faculty-of-consent) toward the weaker inclination.
Posted by mccartney at June 17, 2006 08:27 PM | TrackBack