Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

Hi Terry,

See my responses interspersed below :)

--- "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu> wrote:

> Christine,
>
> In discussions of free will there is what is called
> libertarian free
> will and what is called compatibilist free will.
>
> In the former there can be no decree or
> foreordination that
> predetermines the outcome; this is what most people
> in casual
> discussions seem to mean by "free will". In open
> theism, free choices
> of this sort can't even be foreknown by God because
> if they were
> foreknown there would have to be some
> "deterministic" mechanism such
> that what was foreknown actually came to pass. Once
> it's foreknown it
> can't be free choice in this sense any more. (Open
> theists are
> consistent in their advocacy of libertarian free
> will, in my opinion.)

I would distinguish between the terms "foreknown" and
the terms which you had used in your original post:
"decree" and "ordained"--the connotations of the
latter from my point of view go beyond simple
knowledge, and encompass an imposition of will and/or
blessing--in other words, God plays a passive role in
"foreknowing" but an active role in
"decreeing/ordaining". I have no problem believing
that God foreknows our choices, because He is outside
of space/time and therefore has a "bird's eye view" of
all time. And I have no problem saying that He
*interacts* with us on the basis of that foreknowledge
to try to bring about His will in our lives and in the
world. But to say that He decrees what our choices
will be or ordains everything that happens doesn't
make sense to me...
>
> Compatibilist free will is compatible with God's
> decree or
> foreordination or in a general sense with some sort
> of determinism.
> Here free will simply means that the agent is not
> coerced in his or
> her choice; no outside factor is determining what he
> or she does--it
> comes from within--some say it is an expression of
> the agent's
> desires. But it doesn't mean that the outcome can't
> be determined or
> known ahead of time.
>
> Some critics of compatibilist free will argue (as
> you seem to below)
> that this is no free will at all.

I guess by this definition, I would fit into
compatibilist free will?

Although, I take issue again with "determined" where
you write "determined or known ahead of time"--same
reasoning as I mentioned earlier.
>
> Of course this is very simplified summary of a
> debate among
> philosophers and theologians that has taken pages
> and pages.
>
> As for me--this is where I see scripture pointing.
> God is totally
> sovereign--purposing everything that happens--even
> evil. (You can find
> lots of Biblical proof-texts in one of the footnotes
> of the paper to
> which I referred. His plan to show his love in the
> death of Christ is
> the pre-eminent example. All sort of evil intentions
> of men "caused"
> Christ's death and they will be held accountable for
> their evil; yet
> it was God's plan all along--from all eternity, I
> think we can even
> say.) At the same time, human beings are responsible
> agents, we are
> not coerced in our actions--we make choices that we
> are accountable
> for.

I think it would be better to say (at least from my
point of view) that evil was not part of God's plan (I
think He would have much preferred that we would
remain sinless), but that foreknowing we would choose
evil as agents with free will, He planned accordingly
:)

Reformed/Calvinist theology maintains both
> simultaneously. Other
> understandings of scripture force a choice between
> those two strands
> usually giving God reduced sovereignty (redefining
> the word
> variously!) and giving human beings libertarian free
> will. I will
> gladly admit (as do all Reformed theologians) that
> there is some
> mystery here, but we seek to let scripture determine
> how to think
> about this rather than unrestrained human
> philosophizing.

Agreed...and for whatever reason, paradoxes like this
(i.e. grace/law, saint/sinner, etc.) seem to run
throughout the Bible--indeed, I see this as being a
testimony to the Bible's truth that it does not hold
to a black/white view of the universe, but that it can
speak to and hold in tension all the various shades of
gray that define our reality.

It sounds as though our views are not that far apart,
but that we use different terminology to describe it,
would you agree?

In Christ,
Christine
>
> TG
>
> On Feb 15, 2008, at 12:07 PM, Christine Smith wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I must say, I'm enjoying this thread thoroughly.
> Ted's
> > and John's answers in particular I found to be
> quite
> > insightful and eloquent :)
> >
> > Terry--a question to you...you write here that:
> "From
> > God's point of view nothing is random, it's all
> > decreed and ordained. (And that goes also for the
> free
> > choices of free agents!)" We're coming from
> different
> > theological backgrounds/frameworks here, so maybe
> you
> > can help me understand--I just don't follow how
> this
> > can be a logical conclusion--if God decrees that
> > something will be a certain way--say, a (sinful)
> > choice I make, then how can I be truly "free" in
> any
> > sense of the word, and how can God not be the
> author
> > of evil? Doesn't it make more sense, logically and
> > theologically, to understand that though God is
> > all-knowing and all-powerful, He is also
> > self-limiting, and that He has chosen to limit His
> > powers by intentionally creating a universe that
> > contains elements of randomness and free will
> which He
> > interacts with, rather than "predicts" or
> "decrees" as
> > it were?
> >
> > Thanks everyone for good food for thought!
> > In Christ,
> > Christine (ASA member)
> >
> >
> > --- "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Randy,
> >>
> >> I think you have understood him correctly.
> >>
> >> Personally, I think the only way out of this
> >> "problem" is to have God
> >> involved in some way in every single thing (even
> the
> >> most minute and
> >> the most fleeting) that happens. The Reformed
> >> theologians (and others)
> >> have called this concurrence and it is a
> >> sub-category of the doctrine
> >> of Providence.
> >>
> >> Westminster Confession of Faith:
> >>
> >> III, 1
> >> God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and
> >> holy counsel of his
> >> own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain
> whatsoever
> >> comes to pass:
> >> yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of
> sin,
> >> nor is violence
> >> offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the
> >> liberty or
> >> contingency of second causes taken away, but
> rather
> >> established.
> >>
> >> IV, 2
> >> Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and
> >> decree of God, the
> >> first Cause, all things come to pass immutably,
> and
> >> infallibly; yet,
> >> by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall
> >> out, according to the
> >> nature of second causes, either necessarily,
> freely,
> >> or contingently.
> >>
> >> Random events are in the category of contingency.
> >> Thus, according to
> >> this historic Presbyterian and Reformed way of
> >> understanding
> >> scripture, even chance events are ordained by
> God.
> >>
> >> Logan Gage is mistaken to think that there is no
> >> difference between
> >> physical and metaphysical randomness. God
> "orders"
> >> some of his
> >> "decree" to "fall out" by chance events. Such
> events
> >> look entirely
> >> like chance events to us the human observer, even
> >> though they are
> >> completely ordered by God. Even Calvin talks
> about
> >> the ill-fortune
> >> (bad luck) of the fellow killed in the forest
> when a
> >> branch fell on
> >> him while passing by. But, no doubt, for Calvin
> it
> >> was part of God's
> >> plan and decree. I suppose it's semantics of
> sorts.
> >> I'm happy to call
> >> things that look like random events in terms of
>
=== message truncated ===

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Feb 16 12:38:31 2008