This is the third part of a series of responses by Calvinists’ to my article on SBCToday (September 2013). (([1]http://sbctoday.com/2013/09/13/is-libertarin-free-will-eternal/#comment-41520)) The full title of the article is “Can Man Endowed with Libertarian Free Will Live Righteously Forever in Heaven?” You may also search this site for the article. The blogger’s comments are emboldened, followed by my response.
You said, “In this scenario God also causally determines the person’s decision to follow Him. If God is omniscient, which we both affirm He is, then either way a person’s decision of whether or not to follow God is causally traced back to the knowledge of God in eternity.
If you think that a decision to follow God (or any decision) doesn’t require a cause, remember that it is, by definition, an effect. If you think that libertarian freedom as achieved through enabling grace is some kind of supernatural divine gift that enables a person to choose a specific option or another, remember that if it is not determined by a person’s desires, which are shaped by nature and nurture, and guided by their thought process in weighing those desires then it would be foreign and uncontrolled by the person. They would not have free will; they would be acted upon by a free will. I am just mentioning these things, not claiming that you would espouse these views.
Now turning to God’s eternal knowledge, it seems that I need to first argue for the correct understandings of time, eternity, and choices. When I speak of time (especially in contrast to the state of eternity), I am speaking of the common sense A theory of time in which time is a word we use to describe a sequence of events. For example, we have uniform measurements of time (years, months, weeks, days, hours…) based on repetitive sequences of events involving the Sun, Earth, and Moon. There is not a thing called time that has actual physical or metaphysical existence or exerts force on physical objects as some cosmologists, who have embraced an epistemology of logical positivism and assigned the name of time to variables in mathematical models, have suggested in the B theory of time. Neither is time an idiosyncrasy of human perception as Immanuel Kant proposed in his “Critique of Pure Reason”. Time is simply a word used in reference to sequences that occur in reality.”
You have once again highlighted the difference between us; however, as I do understand and accept your causally determined choosing as a part of your interpretive construct, it would be most helpful if you would accept that I do understand your position and argument for compatibilism. I argued it for many years in the past. If you would place my views in the construct of libertarianism, rather than trying to sift them through compatibilism or Calvinism, you could understand more clearly my position as I do yours.
Additionally, you have once again constructed a compatible, deterministic system in which the idea of anyone at anytime being able to choose other than they did in fact choose is “illogical.” I get that, but I am not arguing a person having actual otherwise choice in Calvinism. Yes, a decision is an effect, but no it is not a determined effect by antecedents that were equally determined by an utter absence of choices between two accessible options. That is to say, it is an effect that is irreducible to causation by events and states.
I do not believe that “free will” acts upon the individual. Technically, free will is not what determines the choice. Rather, it is the individual using his free will. I believe that God created Adam and Eve as free moral agents, efficient causes. Accordingly, the free will or free choice is not the efficient cause of the free act, but rather the free agent is the efficient cause. The free agent exercises his power through free will. Thus, the cause of the effect is the efficient cause who may have been (and surely is) influenced but not caused to make such decision (agent causation). Therefore, we look back no further than the efficient cause for the choice or effect of the choice. We do look back however to God as the efficient cause for that ability. Again, I do not accept the premise that knowing is synonymous with causing, and you may not either. God can know what He causes to be, and what He does not cause to be, but could have (Matthew 11:20-24).
I do believe that Adam and Eve could have chosen differently and followed God’s command. I do not believe that God created them so that what He commanded them not to do (eat), He knew they would and could only do that because of how He created them–determinative antecedents. There is nothing illogical or unbiblical with the sovereign God of all creating man with a choice, precisely what we find in Scripture.
Concerning time, I also accept the A theory. I also agree with Einstein that time, any theory of time, including the one we presently use (like to determine the age of the earth, etc.), is not innate to nature but rather a “convention” arrived at by the choice of man. That is to say, it is a convention like the imperial vs. the metric system of weights and measures is a convention–an agreed upon means that could be changed. I also believe that in the person of God, He eternally knows (including has known) everything.
This includes potentialities and actualities, and potentialities that He would actualize and those He would not. He has eternally possessed exhaustive knowledge of what is termed conditional or counter-factual knowledge (Matthew 11:20-24). Yes, I do think God has otherwise choice rather than He does what He does because… He knows and understands the sequence of events, eternally and simultaneously, without looking outside of Himself. He is neither informed nor changed by sequential knowledge; although He speaks of such in time and space related to the unfolding of the event–God repented (Genesis 6:6). It may be that your understanding of God is that He could only do what He did–compatibilism. If so, of course I disagree.
