Consider the following plausible principle:
- If x's character are such that they causally necessitate x's doing wrong in circumstances C, then (a) the character is in some way vicious or (b) x is not culpable for doing wrong in C (or both).
Now, Calvinists are typically compatibilists. There are, however, two relevant senses of determinism: determinism by divine causality (d-determinism) and determinism by finite causes (f-determinism). Likewise, there are two senses of compatibilism: d-compatibilism asserts the compatibility between d-determinism and freedom, while f-compatibilism asserts the compatibility between f-determinism and freedom. The kind of Calvinist response to the problem of sin that I sketched in the comments to my preceding post require f-determinism and f-compatibilism.
But now consider this argument:
- (Premise) Antecedently to sin, the first sinner had character that were in no way vicious.
- (Premise) The first sinner was culpable for the first sin.
- (Premise) If f-determinism holds, the first sinner was necessitated to sin by his character in the circumstances in which he sinned.
- If f-determinism holds, the first sinner, antecedently to sin, had a character that was in some way vicious or he was not culpable for the first sin. (1 and 4)
- F-determinism does not hold. (2, 3 and 5)
The present argument together with the previous provides a dilemma for the Calvinist. Given Calvinism, either f-determinism or mere d-determinism holds. If f-determinism holds, the present argument leads to absurdity. If d-determinism holds, however, then it does not appear easy to get out of the objection that God intendingly causes people to sin (x intendingly causes A iff A fulfills x's intention that A occur; to cause intendingly is more than to intend and cause[note 1] and may be more than to cause intentionally[note 2]).
21 comments:
Mr. Pruss...
If you dont mind, can I ask you a question that doesnt neccesairily have to do with your blog post?
I know this is really big question but im having trouble thinking through it.
Can/does math truly exist apart from human minds?
I know, thats a terribly large question (or not?). Anyways, your really cool. :) and your blog is wonderful. I dont mean to flatter you either, lol.
I think math is about the mind and/or power of God.
Your answer lulls me into worship of the Risen Savior.
thankyou.
Dr. Pruss:
If x's character are such that they causally necessitate x's doing wrong in circumstances C, then (a) the character is in some way vicious or (b) x is not culpable for doing wrong in C (or both).
For a third alternative, suppose the Calvinist advanced something like the following: x's character is good (or virtuous) but not impeccable. On the one hand, the Calvinist seeks to preserve "the goodness of creation" (x's character is good), but on the other hand, she certainly wants to avoid claiming that the first sinner was morally perfect (x isn't impeccable). The properties being good and being not-impeccable seem to be consistent with x's character causally necessitating x's doing wrong.
2. (Premise) Antecedently to sin, the first sinner had character that were in no way vicious.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "in no way vicious"? I wonder if being good and being not-impeccable are compossible with "in no way vicious." If so, "in no way vicious" might be ambiguous, for it could either mean (i) impeccable or (ii) good but not impeccable.
I responded to the impeccability issue, but on prosblogion.ektopos.com. Sorry. :-)
Hello Alexander,
I appreciate you laying out this argument in a formal way. Many calvinists speak of Jonathan Edward's book on the freedom of the will as if it is the best thing every written on the subject.
But Edwards' whole philosophy on the will breaks down with the sin of Adam. Edwards argued that our nature or character determines our actions (what you referred to as finite determinism in your argument). The problem is that prior to the fall, God created everything **good** so Adam did not have a sin nature or evil nature in any sense. If Edward's reasoning were valid then his account should explain why Adam sinned: but it cannot. Instead it breaks down precisely there in the form of the finite determinism which you argued against. The calvinists who are enamored by Edwards rather than admitting that the jig is up the game is over, Edwards is mistaken. Then play the "mystery card". Well you see it is just a mystery, we don't know how it happened using Edward's thinking on the will. But in my opinion this is just dishonest, just a case of being in denial about what is true, rather than adjusting your thinking/theory so that it corresponds with reality.
Of course, some more logically consistent calvinists just bite the bullet and freely admit that God intended and necessitated Adam's sin. But then these folks then deny that God is the author of sin! What this all clearly demonstrates is that one of the problems/breakdowns in the calvinist system is Adam's fall into sin. So the calvinist system breaks down from the very beginning of the bible. Sadly despite such clear breakdowns, some very intelligent people continue to defend, promote and endorse this false system of theology.
Robert
I responded to the impeccability issue, but on prosblogion.ektopos.com. Sorry. :-)
No worries. =) I frequently visit The Prosblogion. I'll have a look at your response to the issue. Thanks.
Thanks for another thought-provoking post, Alex: a friend directed me to this after a discussion about Jonathan Edwards's account of the first human sin. I think that the orthodox Calvinist that affirms f-determinism would deny (1)(a):
1. If x's character are such that they causally necessitate x's doing wrong in circumstances C, then (a) the character is in some way vicious
I think the orthodox Calvinist line with respect to the first human sin is that God gave Adam a mutable, but not vicious, character, and that this non-vicious character later morphed, before the first act of sin, into being a vicious character. The morphing is probably usually thought of as a result of a separate divine action or lack of action, which would lead to d-determinism, but one could hold that the character itself was, like Dr Jekyll, determined to become vicious. Now, causation is transitive, so the character would causally necessitate the first human act of sin even before it became vicious. The key assertion would be that something can be determined to become vicious without itself being vicious. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Mogwai and Gremlins might be good examples here.
Daniel:
I realize now that (2) is ambiguous between:
(2a) At some time prior to their sin, they were not vicious.
(2b) At all times prior to their sin, they were not vicious.
What I meant to express was (2b). The argument behind (2b) was that evil entered the world through sin.
Your particular Calvinist proposal, thus, is a denial of (2) (i.e., of (2b)).
Besides the Christian intuition that evil entered the world through sin, I think one can argue for (2) on the basis of a weakened version of the Stoic thesis about the stability of virtue. The weakened version says:
- you cannot lose virtue except (a) by choice or (b) through an overwhelming evil that destroys freedom (e.g., brainwashing, mental illness, etc.).
Given this weakened Stoic thesis, the only way the first sinner could have changed to be vicious would be through an overwhelming evil that destroys freedom. But (a) the world's being such that it would produce such an overwhelming evil even prior to there being any freedom is hard to reconcile with the world's great original goodness, and (b) it is hard to see how one could be responsible for a choice f-determined by a character induced by such an overwhelming evil.
Many thanks for this, Alex. I -- and, I suspect, many Christians -- have competing intuitions here. On the one hand, there is, as you say, the intuition that evil entered the world through sin. But on the other hand, there is the intuition that sinful actions come from sinful characters -- our knowledge that we won't sin in the next life is grounded in our assurance that we will have new natures in the next life.
The weakened Stoic thesis is a bit ambiguous:
- you cannot lose virtue except (a) by choice or (b) through an overwhelming evil that destroys freedom (e.g., brainwashing, mental illness, etc.).
Does 'by choice' mean 'by intentionally choosing to lose virtue'? If so, I deny the thesis: one might think that one could lose virtue by a choice made in error. Or, more relevantly to the case of Adam, it might be that one can lose virtue by knowingly choosing something bad without choosing it in order to lose virtue.
If 'by choice' means 'by some chosen action or other' then I affirm that Adam did lose virtue by this method, as did Satan.
Maybe option (a) should be: (a) by a wrongful choice.
I guess one could hold that the first sinner first performed a wrongful choice he wasn't to blame for (say, due to ignorance), which choice then distorted his character, and then he performed a wrongful choice he was blameworthy for. And only wrongful choices one is blameworthy for are sins. This denies the claim that evil entered the world through sin, but at least holds on to the claim that evil entered the world in a wrongful action.
In any case, I think that if your character is distorted by something you're not to blame for, then you're not to blame for whatever is f-determined by the resulting distortions.
Thanks, Alex. I now think I was too hasty when I said:
If 'by choice' means 'by some chosen action or other' then I affirm that Adam did lose virtue by this method, as did Satan.
I think that there I was confused between losing personal virtue by actions and losing virtue of character.
I think that the standard Calvinistic view would be that Adam lost virtue in the sense of his nature's changing from good-yet-mutable to vicious when he was tempted by the serpent. So I think that there is another way to lose virtue in addition to your (a) and (b):
(c) through an external evil that doesn't destroy freedom because its pull changes one's nature from resistance to lack of resistance.
Our natures in the next life, and God's nature, are not mutable in this way. Our natures in this life, after the Fall, already lack resistance.
I agree that there is a pull about your assertion:
I think that if your character is distorted by something you're not to blame for, then you're not to blame for whatever is f-determined by the resulting distortions.
Nevertheless, I deny it, under the influence of the arguments of Jonathan Edwards in his The Freedom of the Will. (Have you read that, if I may ask? I'd be interested to know how you react.)
But in the case of the *first* sinner, what external evil can there be? The first sinner isn't Adam or Eve, but presumably one of the angels.
Hello!
I am writing a paper on original sin and compatibilism, arguing that on most versions of compatibilism a person could not be morally responsible for Adam's sin, and therefore that compatibilism is inconsistent with (the reformed conception of) original sin. I was wondering if you would be interested in reading it before I submit it for publication.
Thank you,
Finney
I wish I had the time. I am curious about the argument because it seemed to me that most compatibilists have been willing to swallow (Mele is explicit on this) the idea that we could in principle create a person preprogrammed to do something that we intend them to do and yet they could be free. So I am curious how God being the creator would change that.
Thank you for the response. I shall give you the short version:
Michael Preciado's "reformed" view of free will adopts John Martin Fischer's reasons-responsiveness compatibilism. One tenet of reasons-responsiveness is causal sourcehood: "we cannot be held responsible for actions which we are not the appropriate source." So then:
(1) If Jane is responsible for an action, then she is the the causal source of the action.
(2) Jane was not the causal source of the action of "eating the forbidden fruit" within the meaning of Westminster Confession Chapter 6, Section 1.
(3) Jane is not responsible for eating the forbidden fruit.
You can substitute Preciado's conception with any necessary condition for moral responsibility posited by compatibilism. Take Guillaume Bignon or Thomas Hobbes' classical compatibilism where one is responsible for an action if she has the conditional ability to refrain from it (she could have done differently if she wanted to):
(4) If Jane is responsible for an action, she had the conditional ability to refrain from performing it.
(5) Jane did not have the conditional ability to refrain from eating the forbidden fruit. (Since it was eaten by Adam millenia earlier).
(6) Jane is not morally responsible for eating the forbidden fruit.
The key is *any* compatibilist theory of action involves a degree of individual freedom as necessary for his moral responsibility. But the reformed conception of original sin, with its doctrine of imputed guilt, dispenses with necessary conditions. Preciado anticipates this problem, and argues that reformed federal headship theology can demonstrate how one can "justly" be imputed Adam's guilt because Adam represents us. But this fails to reconcile the necessary conditions posited by compatibilism with federal headship. Federal headship supplants the need for any necessary conditions. Adam's sin may be imputed to us because Adam "represents" us, and his representation of us means nothing more than his actions are imputed to us as our federal head, which restates the thing in need of reconciliation.
Importantly, on the reformed view, the imputation of Adam's sin precedes the conveyance of his corrupted nature (Turretin). Arguably, if the source of an individual's moral depravity is not his fault, then the inevitable effects are not his fault.
The moral is that reformed theology has distinctive contours that cannot be easily complemented by compatibilist philosophy.
Oh, I misunderstood your claim. I thought you were claiming that on most versions of compatibilism, *Adam* could not be responsible for Adam's sin (i.e., I read your claim as "a person could not be responsible for a sin like Adam's").
The idea that *we* would be responsible for Adam's sin seems absurd, and I've never heard it before. It seems analytic that one is only responsible for an action if one has an explanatory role in the action, and barring backwards causation or Leibnizian pre-existence of our souls, we have no explanatory role in Adam's sin.
Is that what the Westminster Catechism is claiming? It does say that Adam's guilt is imputed to us. To conclude from that that we are responsible for Adam's guilt requires something like two additional premises:
A. If x's guilt for action A is imputed to y, then y is guilty for action A.
B. If y is guilty for action A, then y is responsible for action A.
The closest I see to (A) is 6.vi: that every sin, including original (and hence imputed) sin, "brings guilt on the sinner". But even this does not say that we guilty *for Adam's sin*, just that Adam's sin is the cause of our being guilty.
And I don't see (B) anywhere. It's a plausible premise, but not plausible if one form of guilt is imputed guilt.
Hello,
That is an interesting response. So on your view, imputation would not necessarily entail responsibility.
I think that within the reformed tradition, to impute guilt is simply to reckon or consider one as guilty of sin (AA Hodge). It does imply one is personally morally responsible, since it entails that one merits punishment, and punishment implies responsibility. As Francis Turretin notes (in the Helvetic Consensus Formula): "[f]or God, the most supreme Judge of all the earth, punishes none but the guilty."
Because God views us as guilty of Adam's sin, he may punish us for Adam's sin by conveying to us his fallen nature. As a consequence, infants are born already guilty and, therefore, under condemnation and in need of salvation through election and regeneration. If they were not morally responsible, they would not meet the conditions for condemnation at all. That's the logic of immediate imputed guilt. There are more moderate views that escape this implication (like Oliver Crisp's moderate Augustinianism), but those are in the minority, as I understand it.
Ah. If to impute is to consider as, then being guilty follows from imputation by God, since if God considers x as F, then x is F, as God is omniscient.
I'm not in the reformed tradition, and the view seems absurd unless one has some sort of a backwards causation or preexistence of souls view. To be guilty of something one had no contribution to is like being a triangle while having only two sides. Frankly, backwards causation or preexistence of souls seems way better than to suppose literal guilt (as opposed to "analogical guilt", as in the Catholic tradition) in the absence of any contribution. For us Catholics, preexistence of souls is probably heretical, but at least it's not logically contradictory. Even circular causation (Adam's sin causing our sin and our sin causing Adam's sin, say by scandalizing him in some way) seems slightly better than guilt without causal contribution.
Yup! I haven't heard of the concept of analogical guilt before. I'll have to read up on it.
The more common phrasing is "analogical sin".
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