Freedom and Determinism and Little Fuzzy.

Within Christianity, there are two general views on the nature of freedom, namely libertarian freedom and compatibilistic freedom.

Let's define a few terms:

Determinism: the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, entail every truth about the future. [1] In a theological sense, I am going to extend this definition as follows: the facts of the past, in conjunction with the laws of nature and the input of God, entail every truth about the future. Without that extra bit, it would be deism or naturalism.

Compatibilistic free will: The idea that free will is logically consistent with determinism - i.e. it is compatible with determinism.

Libertarian free will: The idea that an agent could genuinely have done other than what it did.

So, if determinism is true, the past state of the universe, plus the rules governing the universe and whatever God in his sovereignty decides to do results in everything that happens, including whatever choice a person makes. Everything does mean everything.

Many more skilled logicians than me have pointed out how compatiblism cannot show that freedom and determinism are compatible since they must necessarily redefine freedom to do so. Something is compatible with determinism, but it is not freedom as the majority of people understand it, but this isn't my point.

A Little Furry Creature Visits Jack.
Stop now and read about it in the link above. I'm a quick reader so I can read it in about 3-4 hours.
*****SPOILERS BELOW *****
Jack is the futuristic equivalent of a gold prospector on distant world. A company owns the planet and is using it to make money and ship goods back to earth. Their charter(rights to the world) depends on the fact that there is no intelligent life on the planet. Jack finds a little furry creature there who seems intelligent, and the company man, seeing his profits about to vanish comes to investigate.  The company man kills one of the life forms, and Jack kills the company man's bodyguard in defense of his new friend.

Naturally this results in a dramatic trial. If the creature is sapient (i.e. thinking) then it follows that Jack is in the clear, the company's charter is invalid and the company man committed murder. If not it follows Jack committed murder and the company is in the clear. It's a good book, and well worth a read.

They sit around and argue how to define the terms for a while. A rule of thumb used was that a sapient being should be able to 'talk and make fire'. The fuzzy's it turned out could talk (just not in human audible range, so nobody knew). That definition is a bit lacking though. The book isn't up-to-date with the latest research and perpetuates the 10%/90% conscious and unconscious myth, but something struck me:

Two quotes;
"The sapient mind not only thinks consciously by habit, but it thinks in connected sequence. It associates one thing with another. It reasons logically, and forms conclusions, and uses those conclusions as premises from which to arrive at further conclusions. It groups associations together, and generalizes. Here we pass completely beyond any comparison with nonsapience. This is not merely more consciousness, or more thinking; it is thinking of a radically different kind. The nonsapient mind deals exclusively with crude sensory material. The sapient mind translates sense impressions into ideas, and then forms ideas of ideas, in ascending orders of abstraction, almost without limit."

and
"[..]above all, they can imagine, not only a new implement, but a new way of life. We see this in the first human contact with the race which, I submit, should be designated as Fuzzy sapiens. Little Fuzzy found a strange and wonderful place in the forest, a place unlike anything he had ever seen, in which lived a powerful being. He imagined himself living in this place, enjoying the friendship and protection of this mysterious being. So he slipped inside, made friends with Jack Holloway and lived with him. And then he imagined his family sharing this precious comfort and companionship with him, and he went and found them and brought them back with him. Like so many other sapient beings, Little Fuzzy had a beautiful dream; like a fortunate few, he made it real."

To the compatibilist, the illusion of free will comes from the reaction of our brains to external input. We are crude machines, mechanistic and, as defined above, non-sapient. Our imaginations that produce works of fiction like Little Fuzzy are merely the reaction of our beings to external stimuli. In a lot of senses, determinism and naturalism are but a hair's breadth apart. All we have to do to reduce theological determinism to naturalism is to remove God, and I have met quite a few theological determinists who took that easy step.

To the incompatiblist, this is not so, we are agents, limited agents to be sure, but we can imagine. We are creative, having been made in the image of the creative God. Our reasoning and logic is not all there is to our being. When faced with a problem, we don't have to merely weigh up two equally bad options (as the Americans are trying to do now) and try and pick the least bad, we can imagine our way around them. We can search for alternatives.



I will include this bit for the sake of those who think libertarian freedom means you can do anything:
It does not. You are still limited by your capacity to do things. In terms of the fall, your capacity to please God is broken beyond your ability to repair. Suggesting freedom means their are no limits makes as much sense as suggesting that because I can flap my arms quite fast I will take off and fly. There are limits, and freedom always describes a boundary.

For me personally, I think that our ability to ask "What if?" completely refutes compatibilism. Perhaps not, I could be mistaken - I haven't really formed a formal argument here.

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[1] See paragraph 1.3 from this article.

Why Arminians are so upset with Calvinists.

Some observations:
A lot of Calvinists think that Arminians think God is not sovereign.  That isn't true.
A lot of Calvinists think that Arminianism is the "theology of free will". This is also untrue.
A lot of Calvinists think that Arminianism makes God weak and not in control. This is untrue.
A lot of Calvinists think that Arminianism is Pelegianism. This is wildly untrue.
A lot of Calvinists think that Arminianism is a Philosophy with no scriptural backing. Also untrue.
A lot of Calvinists really don't take the time to understand.

(I could probably support the above with links and references, but these are just my observations having interacted on a number of forums)
 

Calvinists went to people like Finney and Spurgeon to understand Arminianism, and what they found horrified them. There are forms of so called Arminianism that embrace the above. Sadly missing from the list are people like Wesley, Arminias, Whedon, Wattson, Pope, Witherington to reference just a few in passing(Find some more here). They could also read Roger Olson's excellent book here. He has done such a great job that I don't really need to say much more here, except to link to it.

Faced with the attacks from the likes of James White and company, Arminians tend to rightly get upset. We are misrepresented, and the offense is grave.

This leads to a problem. Not all Calvinists are bad guys. In fact, in my experience, most are Christians, and more often than not the theological commitment is more of a social than deeply examined view. They simply wish to belong to the group. There is some pride, history and identity in calling themselves "reformed". (Technically Arminianism is reformed too, but I tend to reject the label, due to the unpleasant association with fatalism.) Many Calvinists would not for example agree that God is the author of evil, or that double predestination is true. Many appeal to mystery. I might see that as inconsistent, but I certainly see that as far preferable to embracing that God ordains some to evil which was rightly declared heresy in 529AD. Coherence is not a test of orthodoxy.

The issue is that in identifying with the group "Calvinists", they often unwittingly identify in the mind of the Arminian with the loud group. This is a hindrance to fellowship.


The struggle for the Arminian in a loudly Calvinistic world is to stop prejudging every Calvinist by the standard of the loud, obnoxious or misinformed ones. The struggle is to continue to see them as brothers and sisters.



What is the solution? I am not sure, but this wave of so called 'new Calvinism' appears to be wildly unChrist-like. As for me, I shall continue to try by all means to see my Calvinist brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters in Christ. Will you try and do the same for your Calvinist/Arminian brothers and sisters?



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Wrath and Love

Certain sections of Christianity seem to have a strange fascination with God's fury and wrath. A fascination that I don't quite understand. This is, by the way not aimed at anyone in particular, just stems from observations I have made over several years.

It was pointed out to me that I appeared to be going against the doctrine of divine simplicity in my post on primary and secondary attributes of God post. I don't really think it makes a difference to my argument, however, I think there is more to be said here.

The Bible tells us (quite plainly, and incontrovertibly) that God is identified as a father. Not in the biological sense, but in the social sense in which he provides "father-hood". Fatherhood stems from God, it is not a mere analogy of "how God is like", it is in fact a reflection of how God is - He made it after all.

This, I think is helpful in understanding why God does not need to be wrathful in order to be God, but at the same time wrath is a necessary consequence of God exposed to evil. We are told that the enemy comes to "steal, kill and destroy".  I am not a father, but I am pretty sure that any loving father out there would be angry, wrathful, or even furious if someone came to steal, kill or destroy their child. Yet, this is exactly what we as humans have done to Jesus. This is what we have done to Jesus' followers. There is indeed blood on our hands.

I propose the following 'equation' to examine the magnitude of the wrath.

Wrath(W) = (Depth of love for the subject who has been wronged) * (how much wrong was done).

Now, this is a mathematical analogy, it's not perfect, and don't think too hard on it, but it does illustrate the broader picture. If I do not love the people dying by ISIS, even though the wrong done is massive, I have no real anger about this. Additionally if a brother borrows my pen and forgets to return it, though I love my brother dearly, the wrong is too small to incur wrath. Perhaps mild annoyance at best.

Our failure to love, our love growing cold (Matt 24:12) is what causes us not to evangelize, to care for the widow and the orphan, and to do what God commanded. We simply don't care enough any more, so it takes a major wrong close to home to move us at all.

When we consider God, however, His Love infinite, and the wrong done was terrible, it should come as no surprise that God is, to put it mildly very very angry. Even in the Garden, Adam and Eve wrong God. They fail to trust Him, when he gives good instruction. They don't believe Him. They disobey.

The lesson to draw from this is a deeper understanding of the scripture Psalms 145:8 "The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love." He withholds his righteous wrath. No human could do that.

It is not that making love central to our understanding of God reduces his other qualities, or turns him into a gentle old man sitting on a throne, it is that it displays in sharp relief exactly how God truly is, and that includes terrible wrath. It could not be otherwise. God's Love is not a passive 'feel good' emotion, it is white hot and consuming.

The push-back against the centrality of the Love of God is mistaken. It is only through the understanding that God is Love that we can truly understand the rest.  This is, naturally, not the whole picture. There is more to God than just Love, but this is why we need to distinguish how God is primarily from how God is in the presence of secondary factors. God could not be wrathful if He did not love, and a right understanding of love demonstrates that God is indeed wrathful.


One final note -  God's anger does not derive from surprise, God knows the future, He knew what would happen. Apparently there is something He considers worth it all.

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Philosophy And Christianity - Why I don't subscribe to naturalism

I have been reading my way through the rather fascinating book, Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy (found here.).

The first view offered is one of conflict, by Graham Oppy, self described as adhering to metaphysical naturalism. To start off with I do understand Oppy's view which is well articulated and respectfully presented (if more atheists were like that, the world would be more pleasant by far) and I understand precisely why it is so compelling. Do not be fooled for one minute. Naturalism is an extremely compelling view and it does offer solutions to the great questions that are (if not emotionally) intellectually quite satisfying.

I have heard these same arguments presented before me much of my life. I understand them, I really do. And I have a respect for them. It has it's roots in rigorousness, repeatably, careful proofs and careful thought. Though many self proclaimed atheists (the type you might find on twitter or facebook for example) are far removed from such an internally consistent system(as far as internal consistency may be possible). When you concentrate your efforts on the attack, it becomes difficult to defend your position well. Oppy is to be commended. Most of naturalism's adherents I have encountered (even if they don't self identify as such), consider philosophy a dead end. Superseded by the physical sciences.

Make no mistake, as far as I, a theist, can enter Oppy's worldview and sympathize with it, it is consistent. This is something other theists would do well to understand. Often, frustrated by our inability to understand this view, it gets attacked blindly. Most attacks on it ultimately fail, since within itself it is quite strong. I ultimately do not find it persuasive, however.

This is where the naturalist philosopher must lose me. I will try by all means to frame my reasoning in a way that might make sense from their point of view, but ultimately what I consider a "good" reason is not going to be agreeable to everyone.

Firstly I must start with personal experience. I have walked as a Christian on this earth for some 26(plus or minus) years now. I have had many experiences with God, seen (and heard first hand) things which I consider miracles, or impossible within the natural order of things.

It must be noted, that people do have confirmation bias, and beyond that when one has invested considerable time and effort (as I have) into a worldview, the natural tendency is to try to prop it up as best one can, since leaving it is equivalent to considering that effort wasted. In essence we argue ourselves into corners that we can't get out of with our pride intact. I contest that this is no less true for theism than for naturalism.

All my experiences can be explained away within the above paragraph. Almost all, anyway, and I would suggest this is true for most theists as well. Save one factor. The above assumes pride.

Christianity, at its core is not about being right. It is about being wrong. For me to continue to be a Christian, I need to come to the understanding that I am wrong. This is quite a weird thing to say and requires quite a bit of explanation.

The 'true'(whatever that may mean) Christian approaches God in the knowledge of his fallen state. I am proud, I am sinful, and I am therefore incorrect about many things. In approaching God, I must in humility seek correction about these things.

Christianity isn't a list of "I must believes" that the investment of time and effort makes hard to let go off, Christianity is a humble approach to a God who corrects us. Slowly, and often painfully, as a result of our pride, it cannot be quick.

What naturalistic objective evidence can I provide for this very personal journey? None that is particularly interesting to a naturalist(yet we must continue to provide this evidence when asked). Let me give an example:

I was in Durban recently doing a FAT(Factory Acceptance Test). My colleague was in Joburg remotely writing the code for the system (remote tech is awesome :) ) I called him because the single line diagram on the HMI(Human machine interface) was incorrect. Now, our client saw both before and after, but did not hear my conversation.

It might not be reasonable to assume the HMI program changed itself, but in the absence of the knowledge of this phone call, the client may well have assumed we configured a delayed change, or the system corrected itself.  The client is not privy to the contents of my conversation with my colleague, but he may observe the results and conclude quite correctly that the conversation did in fact take place. Don't push this analogy too far, it is just that, an analogy.

In the same way, as a Christian, my life is subject to change, and sometimes difficult and tough change, and you out there may not be privy to my conversations with God, but you may (I hope at least) see the results.

This takes us quite far from the empirical evidence naturalism demands from theism. It's a personal thing, but I think the requirement of humility casts doubt on the assertion that I am operating under heavy confirmation bias. It is less "costly" for me to leave Christianity than to stay.

Are there good philosophical arguments for God? Yeah, I think so, though some are badly over-sold. The heart of the matter, though is the human heart.

 There is a lot more to say on this, but I think this is sufficient for the time being. This post has become a bit long. I have other reasons for rejecting naturalism, but this will suffice for now.

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God and Logic

I am currently reading my way through the rather fascinating book, Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy (found here.) Once I have finished that, I might be able to articulate better where I stand on the issue. However, I want to talk about the consequences of completely rejecting logic here.

Regardless of whether logical principles are necessary in any reality, or contingent based on the nature of the creator(which to my mind makes them just as necessary), we start to run into problems quite quickly if we disregard them. I once asked an anon account on twitter if God could make a square circle. The answer was "Yes, of course."

This should worry you. Deeply. A square circle is a nonentity. A nonsensical construct. At first suggesting that God can do anything, seems pious and almost set up so we give credit to the speaker for being so committed to his doctrine that he is willing to embrace the truth even if it doesn't make sense to him.

A little prodding and everything starts to unravel, however.  If God can manifest logical contradictions, then is God trustworthy? How about this other logical contradiction: Can God tell a true lie? Sure, God cannot lie, but what if the lie is true? Is he lying? This is madness.

Let's entertain the rabbit hole of madness for a bit. If God can tell a true lie, how do we know He is not? How do we discern the truth, and what, for that matter does truth even mean? Sure, we have the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit is God too, and can tell true lies too. This is no slippery slope, it is a bottomless pit of despair and uncertainty. God is reduced to a trickster. Untrustworthy because we cannot trust the nature or fabric of reality. We say, "God is good", but what does "Good mean"? What if Good is really evil and evil is really good?

Clearly we cannot embrace nonsense in respect to God. The position is self defeating and ultimately leads away from God. CS Lewis puts it very well;

“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.

If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.'

It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”

I really like CS Lewis' view. God remains omnipotent. He can do anything. However, some 'things' we think up aren't really things. They are nonsense.

However there is something to the idea that logic cannot circumscribe God. At some point in examining God we are going to come to mysteries, things we cannot explain, and yes, sometimes apparent contradictions. We need to understand that the mind itself is 'infirm'(I have been reading too many old books). There are possibilities that we may not have thought of to resolve some of the more complex contradictions.

The trick, in my view is to learn to distinguish between the genuine mystery and the flat out contradiction. We cannot bar logic from our examination of theology, and we cannot rely fully on our on own faculties. We make mistakes, God does not. God has granted us the ability to reason, and it is unfaithfulness on our part not to use it.

Can we use logic in examining God, and trying to understand better? Certainly, but with care.

As usual, comments should be respectful.

Primary vs Secondary attributes of God.

This note stems from some comments I have heard from time to time on the nature of God's wrath.

(Note on timelessness - when I say 'before creation', I am referring to a logical condition, not a temporal one, since it does not follow that God is a subject of time)

Consider that God has an attribute X.

If God is Eternal and independent of his creation, X can either be necessary or contingent.

Note that we start with the idea that God is a necessary being - i.e. God's existence is not conditional or reliant on anything. For all realities God exists since He must exist. Creation is entirely contingent upon God.

This argument is presented in a semi-formal way. I am trained in some logic, but it may be there are errors below.

1. It is not true for X that all possible X is necessary.

Proof: If X is judgement, X cannot exist where there is nothing to Judge. Thus judgement is a contingent or derivative attribute - it derives from another characteristic of God - in this case, goodness. Goodness exposed to evil results in Judgement.

2. God does not require his creation to be perfectly Himself, thus we reject that God can have "dormant" characteristics.

3. All contingent attributes are derivatives of necessary attributes. Proof: if God is perfect in and of himself, He does not require creation to be perfect (He was perfect prior to creation). Thus any "new" attribute must be an expression of an existing necessary attribute.

4. Any attribute which would appear to invalidates God's trinitarian co-equalness is contingent. For example, Judgement -  God has no one to judge before creation. If the father were to judge the son, the son could not be co-equal with the father, since judgement requires one to be above the other. To avoid semantics I take judgement here in the sense that God is Just with His creation.

5. Two examples

Sovereignty misused:

here are two possible definitions in context for sovereignty:

(a) Sovereignty in the sense of rulership. Implies no one dictates to a sovereign.

(b) Sovereignty in the sense that the sovereign controls every aspect of the subject.

(note that sovereignty implies a subject)

Sb -(Sovereignty B) is cannot be a necessary attribute. Proof: If Sb is necessary, it follows that there must be found a subject before creation. The subject may not be part of the Godhead, since this violates co-equality.  Sa may exist independently of creation. Thus the claim that Sb is the correct definition implies God is dependent on his creation to be sovereign.  (Note: There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but one must then agree that God was not sovereign before creation).
 
Wrath misused:
 Wrath is contingent since before creation there was nobody to be wrathful with. Any other view makes God dependent on creation in order to be God. Wrath is therefore a result of God's other attributes (Holiness, Goodness, Love, etc) to evil.

6. Love is not a necessary Attribute of God.
Within the trinity God loves. Love is contingent on there being someone to love, however, since our God is Trinitarian and  love exists in this necessary being, it follows that love is not a contingent attribute of God.

Notes:
A focus on God's necessary attributes will lead to understanding of God's contingent attributes, and not the other way around. Many modern Christians have put the cart before the horse.

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