The Well of Questions

On Coram Deo, Donald has recently attempted to argue that libertarian freedom is not part of the grounding of human moral responsibility. With customary wit, he has offered a critique of non-Calvinist understandings of responsibility and sin. My response below should not be taken as an argument in favor of the non-Calvinist view (at least I don’t argue for the non-Calvinist view at every point) but primarily as a response to his arguments for the Calvinist view.

Donald frames the issues fairly accurately. One of the concerns of non-Calvinists is that Reformed understandings of human agency make God, not human beings, responsible for sin. I would tend to agree with this conclusion, though my main reasons for rejecting Calvinism lie elsewhere (the weight of the Scriptural evidence).

Donald construes the non-Calvinist view of moral responsibility as follows: “In order to be responsible for something, there has to have been a point in the past, or at the present time, where you could/can have done something to prevent it from happening.” I am not sure if he intends the label “liberal autonomy theory” to apply to all people who ascribe to this theory (if so I disagree with him). He points out an application of this theory: the mentally-handicapped and other people who lack sufficient control over their actions are not held responsible.

He then proposes that this assumption generates an argument against Original Sin. He construes the doctrine of original sin in the following way:

(1) We are inclined toward sin.
(2) We are totally tainted by our sin.
(3) Our nature forces us to sin.

The assumption that this is the Christian view of original sin seems very natural for those in the Reformed tradition. However, neither (2) nor (3) is something that most non-Calvinists would agree with. Saying that we are *totally* tainted by sin would probably require a bit more elaboration on Donald’s part (different people mean different things by this). But if what he is saying is that every part, property, capacity, or activity of human nature has become warped and directed away from God to such an extent that human beings cannot do good (which I think is his meaning) then I would challenge this on biblical grounds. Paul seems to imply (Acts 17:26-7) that all men do, in some sense, search for God because God arranges it to be so. Paul also seems to say that unsaved Gentiles do good (Rom. 2:14-5) in some sense. And speaking from the perspective of corporate fallen humankind (not his present, post-salvation, first-person perspective), Paul says (Rom. 7:14-20) that “he” wants to try to do good, but simply cannot follow through with the actions because his corrupt desires get in the way. This implies that corporate fallen humankind is in some sense disposed toward goodness, but simply unable to follow through adequately with the desire for good.

Furthermore, if Jesus had human nature, and human nature is sinful, does this not imply that Jesus himself was sinful?

With respect to the issue of our natures forcing us to sin, this seems an odd way of stating things. Human nature is passive in and of itself with respect to choices. It seems that persons are what actually originate choice by deciding how to use their natural capacities (such as will).

A more credible view of original sin (or ancestral sin) is that it is an inherited corruption. Corruption is just the disordering of things. The specific disordering that happens at the fall is (1) that the faculties of human nature (will, intellect, whatever) become directed wrongly. In other words, human nature becomes corrupted. Additionally (2) human persons exist in disunity with their natures. I am not in a state of having my personal will (the source of volition, located in my person, that activates my natural will) aligned properly with the purpose/goal/telos of my nature. But none of this implies that human nature is sinful. Persons are sinful, not their natures, which are in and of themselves volitionally passive “instruments” that persons misuse when they sin. It is death (corruption) of a good nature that we inherit (many Greek fathers would translate Romans 5:12 “…death passed to all men, on the basis of which all have sinned”, not “…death passed to all men because all have sinned”) not a sinful nature.

Donald then goes on to suggest that the no-original-sin account of human nature denies that the evil of an action is rooted in the act’s evilness; rather it is rooted in the fact that one could have done otherwise. It would be more accurate to say that the libertarian believes that an evil act (one that is directed away from the good proper to nature) is only *culpable* if one has the ability to do otherwise.

Donald goes on to talk about the rehabilitation and care that would be involved in God’s justice. I don’t see what precisely is the point he’s getting at; does he approve or disapprove of this idea? In any case, it seems obvious that God’s justice involves rehabilitation. Plato defined justice in terms of harmony, the right-ordering of things. Similarly, Scripture sometimes construes justification in terms of being freed from the power of sin (not just the guilt of sin). To use one example, Paul says in Romans 6 that “he who dies to sin is freed from sin” he uses the same word that is translated “justified” elsewhere to talk about “freed”. Similarly, there is a connection between righteousness and life (both physical and spiritual) throughout Romans 5-6. This fits very well with the idea that justice involves restoration to right order (again, Plato’s harmony), not just “paying men what is due to them” (Aristotle).

Donald’s discussion of strict liability talks about cases where the government has enforced punishment for people who did not fit the libertarian criteria for free will. He goes on to talk about how sin lies not in choice but in breach. It isn’t so much that we fulfill the criteria of libertarian freedom and that is what grounds our responsibility; rather it is just the fact that we do some act that is wrong that makes us culpable. In support of this, Donald cites Paul’s statement that “the wages of sin is death”.

While I agree that *some* kinds of sin in Scripture don’t qualify under normal standards of moral responsibility, (sins of ignorance vs sins of knowledge) these sins are also not punished as severely. There is a distinction we could draw between guilt and debt. A sin incurs guilt if it is done knowingly; guilt is the state that results from knowingly and responsibly doing what is wrong. Debt is different. While we are not guilty per se for sins of ignorance, they do incur a debt. They create an obligation to compensate (Swinburne’s section in “Responsibility and Atonement” where he draws out this distinction is good). For sins of knowledge, however, we incur guilt. I do think that we have to be libertarian free in order to be responsible for them; and I do not see any argument from Donald against this (at this point in the post at least).

With respect to saying the wages of sin is death, there are at least two issues. First of all, what is sin? If sin requires the exercise of libertarian freewill, then this quote would not support Donald’s thesis. Secondly, even if we grant that you don’t have to be libertarian free to be guilty, saying “the wages of sin is death” isn’t necessarily referring to punishment and responsibility (which I took to be what Donald meant in saying “condemnation”). Sin is personified here as a tyrant; saying the wages of sin is death need not be read as saying “God pays you with death if you sin”; it could instead be read in terms of “sin pays you with death if you are its slave”. Why prefer the interpretation in terms of divine retributive punishment?

The entire project of giving an analogy from court cases to vindicate Donald’s view of responsibility and sin is interesting. But if it is meant to extend to anything more than an analogy–like if Donald wanted to use it to demonstrate the acceptability of his view of sin–it seems he would have to assume that the judgments of the US courts corresponds closely to how God judges; and this would be very questionable.

Donald goes on to discuss how God’s holiness and justice require that sin must be punished. However, nothing he quotes requires this conclusion. Isaiah 13:11 is only a statement of what God will do, not what He must do. And saying that the righteous man can’t be allowed to live if he sins need not be read in terms of God’s holiness demanding judgment. God could have required death for other reasons (the need to prevent the rest of the community from participating in his sins, the need to discourage sin by warning against its consequences, etc.). When Donald asks “do I need to list many verses proving [that God's holiness demands that he punish sin]?” I think the answer is actually “yes”.

Because as far as I can tell, Donald has not demonstrated that God has unqualified standards of “absolute liability” at this point, I simply do not accept the assumption that grounds his argument against libertarianism. Even if I did, would the conclusion have to follow from the fact that God has standards of absolute liability that he holds us to them out of the need to punish? Why could God not hold us to them for some other reason? (correction, demonstration, deterrence, etc. as opposed to retribution)

Donald goes on to discuss the irrelevance of choice to sin. We either sin or we don’t because we don’t have two masters (Matt 6:24). Consequently it is irrelevant that we be able to choose one way or the other. But what does his quote have to do with the inability to choose between two alternatives? It has to do with the incompatibility of two different orientations of life; you can’t have two radically incompatible sets of goals. But how does this imply that we cannot choose which kind of orientation to have, which kind of goals to seek after–and that this can change as time passes? I think not.

Now, as for the implication of our being slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). There doesn’t seem to be anything in this verse that implies that libertarian freewill is not instrumental to making us slaves to sin. Jesus says that those who sin are slaves to sin (John 8:34). Though this could be construed demonstratively (if you sin this demonstrates you are already slave) I think of it as being at least in part causal (if you sin, this causes you to become a slave to sin). Overall, none of the examples Donald brings up in his paragraph “The matter of choice… one man’s action” seems to demonstrate his thesis: that the matter of choice appears totally irrelevant to the issue of sin.

When Donald brings up the garden, he assumes that Adam and Eve were holy before God before they knew the difference between good and evil, and their righteousness was given to them because they kept God’s law. I disagree with Donald’s statement that Adam and Eve were holy, if by that he means they had perfectly good and morally immutable human natures (if he means something else that is different from this view–which I take to be the usual view of Reformed theology–then I would appreciate clarification on this point). If this were true, it is hard to see why they would need a commandment, what the point of their existence would be (if they didn’t need to grow in virtue), and what the explanation is for their falling away. Adam and Eve had God’s eikon (image) in that they were persons; but they were made in a state of progression toward God’s likeness–union with God and becoming by grace what He is by nature.

Donald also assumes that Adam and Eve did not know the difference between good and evil prior to sinning. On this issue, I recommend Reformed theologian Henri Blocher’s commentary “In the Beginning: the Opening Chapters of Genesis”. He argues that “knowledge of good and evil” means autonomous moral authority–deciding for oneself and others what is good and evil. This makes a lot more sense exegetically, (makes sense of similar language elsewhere) and in terms of theological narrative (how Adam and Even can still be blamed, why God considers it such a big deal). After all, if you are given a commandment, then it seems most plausible that you have at least some understanding of moral goodness and evil; doing good is following the commandment, whereas doing evil is the opposite.

Also, if Donald says the crux of righteousness is the keeping, then he seems to mean this as analogous to sin. But with respect to sin, part of the point of his post is that you can still be blamed for sin if you do evil uncontrollably, unintentionally, or unconsciously. Does he wish to affirm that a good act can be uncontrollable, unintentional, or unconscious and still be righteous?

The fact that Christ purchased us and has become our righteousness and holiness need not imply the understanding of Christ’s imputed righteousness that he seems to assume in his discussion of Christ’s office as priestly advocate: namely that the divine declaration of righteousness about human persons is in no way based on an ontological change in their moral qualities. Why can’t it be the case that the reckoning (logizomai–recognizing accurately the quality of some existing thing) results from our actually being righteous?

But this raises a question: if God reckons us righteous based on our actual qualities, doesn’t this mean we have to do works to make us righteous? The answer is: yes. Works do not merely exemplify a justifying faith already had; they are instrumental to increasing our justification. They don’t just show that we are justified, they partially cause our justification. Though faith alone (which is not a work involving meritorious exertion of effort, but rather the non-meritorious act of receiving a gift) initially justifies, subsequent increases in justification (becoming more righteous) comes through good works (Romans 6:16, James 2:14, James 2:21, James 2:24, James 2:26, etc.). Furthermore, when God declares us righteous or wicked at the eschaton, our works will factor in (Romans 2:13, Matthew 12:35-7, 25:32-46, etc.) to that judgment.

Saying that works are instrumental raises a problem. If we would have to fulfill the law to be righteous, which seems impossible, then how can we be saved? After all, nothing we do is perfect. How can anything we do be adequate if we must meet the specific demands of the law–its letter? But because Christ has condemned sin in the flesh that we may walk in the Spirit, we fulfill the law (Romans 8:1-4) by fulfilling the spirit of the law which is love (Romans 13:8-9) which the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts from the beginning of our conversion (Romans 5:5).

With respect to Donald’s conclusion, a first point is that a conceptual/philosophical question arises from his analysis of sin: if the breach is what makes us responsible for sin, and not the choice (ie. if we don’t have to have control over our actions, if they are caused directly or indirectly, or done under circumstances that made our guilt unavoidable) then can’t we say the same thing about our salvation? If our salvation is directly caused by God operating on us, then why not take this to imply that we can be responsible for our salvation? If there is some feature between salvation and sin that is disanalogous and explains why we are responsible for one and not the other, what is it? (I can guess, but I would like to hear Donald’s explanation) Otherwise it seems I can say “all that matters is that we perform the act of receiving grace, not why” and then go on to claim “so I’m responsible for my salvation.”

In conclusion, as to whether or not our choices are relevant to salvation, I do not think that Donald has given any particularly good arguments for his view.