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Church Authority: Argument 3 December 30, 2008

Posted by MG in Authority, Ecclesiology, Exegesis, Responses, Scripture.
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Accuracy, Authority, and the Visibility of the Church

In this post, I will argue that (1) There are some reasons to think the Church’s leaders have intrinsic authority, (2) Saying our parents have intrinisic authority is compatible with questioning our parents once we incorporate the concept of “insanity” into our model of authority, (3) Authority and accuracy are two distinct things, and this is implicitly accepted by Protestants, (4) Jesus thought the Scribes and Pharisees had intrinsic authority, (5) The Church continues the visible leadership structure and intrinsic authority that the Scribes and Pharisees had.

This post is a response to a comment in a very long discussion that can be found here on the blog By Whose Authority? about private judgment in the interpretation of the Bible. David Nilsen has been arguing that the gift of the illumination of the Holy Spirit helps individuals to interpret the Bible, and that the Spirit’s infallibility can speak directly to the soul of a Christian, binding his or her conscience to believe an interpretation of the Bible. Much of the discussion has already happened on his blog, and may be good background for this post.

(1) There are some reasons to think the Church’s leaders have intrinsic authority. (more…)

Church Authority: Reply 1 August 1, 2008

Posted by MG in Authority, Christology, Eastern Theology, Ecclesiology, Patristics, Responses.
9 comments

When engaging with a sophisticated and elaborate ancient worldview that has been held by thousands of brilliant minds and many a pure heart, it is important to give that tradition the benefit of the doubt. Giving someone or something the benefit of the doubt does not imply assuming it can answer all of the objections that can be leveled against it and make an airtight case for its plausibility. But it does imply assuming that the tradition one is critiquing has answers to what seem like obvious problems with its core teachings.

(Special thanks to a phantom menace for providing many of the resources and ideas for this post.)

(more…)

Was the Author of the Gospel of Mark an Adoptionist? January 18, 2008

Posted by MG in Christology, Exegesis, Historical Jesus, Incarnation, Responses.
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A reader who calls himself “Hokku” on David’s Blog suggested that the Gospel of Mark teaches an adoptionist Christology and that this can be argued for exegetically. Adoptionism is the view that Jesus’ divinity is to be understood in terms of a man being adopted, due to his virtue and moral excellence, into the divine life. Jesus did not pre-exist his birth as God or anything else; rather he was born as a man (some adoptionists deny the virginal conception) and raised to deity.

As someone who believes in Incarnational Christology, I disagree with this view, and I was interested in whether or not there are textual reasons for denying it, considering Hokku’s claims that it can be argued from the Gospel of Mark. Here are the comments that argued for adoptionism and my proposed responses. For those interested in reading this, I would appreciate evaluation/criticism.

Hokku wrote:

“And what we do see in Mark is Jesus being declared son of God at his baptism when the heavens open and the Spirit descends into him (note that it is as though Jesus becomes possessed by the Spirit — we see later in Mark that the Spirit “casts him out” into the wilderness, a violent term that Matthew and Luke change to “led”). The voice from heaven declares “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased,” which is a reflection of Psalm 2:7: “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” On his elevation, the ancient king of Israel was believed to become the son of God, and in Mark, Jesus becomes the son of God at his baptism, thus no need for or interest in birth stories and virgin births, both things Matthew and Luke added to the Markan text, which again is why their two stories are so divergent and discrepant — they had no Markan model to follow, as they do with the rest of Mark up to the point where the women run from the tomb in fear and say nothing to anyone.”

“If there is no virgin birth in Mark (and there is not), no birth narrative in which Mary is impregnated by the Holy Spirit (and there is not), no pre-existent Logos who becomes flesh (as in John), and Mark’s “heavenly” declaration that Jesus is/has become God’s son takes place and is emphasized at his baptism — and Mark states the “beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” to be at the appearance of John and his baptism, then that alone provides substantial evidence. But further, we have the evidence of early Jewish Ebionite Christianity, as already mentioned, which held to a form of adoptionism, so we have extra-biblical evidence for this understanding as well.”

I wrote:

Hokku–-

Here are a couple of possible problems that came to mind when I was thinking about the possibility of a Markan adoptionist Christology. I didn’t assume biblical inspiration or inerrancy or anything in making the arguments; I just tried to assume that the Markan narrative is somewhat internally consistent and had an audience of some kind. None of these is an argument that Mark’s beliefs were correct, just that its hard to see how we could claim that he had adoptionistic beliefs. None of the arguments is adequate by itself, but I think that taken jointly they make the adoptionist interpretation unlikely. Then again, Im not a biblical scholar, so I’d like your feedback. Tell me what you think:

1. When John speaks about the coming of Jesus in the prologue, he speaks of him as “The one who is more powerful than I” and says that he is not worthy to stoop and tie his sandals. This is hard to mesh with the idea that Jesus was not considered to be divine by the author of the Gospel of Mark prior to his baptism . How does an adoptionist exegesis explain Mark’s putting these words in John’s mouth in a way that isn’t ad hoc?

2. The language of John becomes even more problematic if we try to read it adoptionistically because if adoptionism is right, then Jesus had to prove his worthiness of divinity through effort and therefore to have had some kind of special life prior to his exaltation. This follows from the definition of adoptionism; after all, its not just any mortal who is worthy of becoming divine. This implies some kind of backstory that the readers of Mark would be familiar with. The existence of this backstory also seems to be implied by the total lack of clarification as to who Jesus is or where he comes from at the start of Mark’s narrative–something that other Jewish writers afford their readers when they are introducing an important character in their so-called salvation history. But if this assumption is granted–that according to the Christian story, Jesus had an incredible, powerful, or unusual life prior to baptism that made him worthy of somehow partaking of divinity–then invoking a virginal conception and Incarnation as being part of Mark’s background information becomes a lot more credible. It becomes one of many acceptable ways to explain Jesus’ worthiness to be given divinity (another way would be that he had some kind of incredible human virtue, a story that may have narrative difficulties of its own). But of course if he had divinity before the baptism via a virginal conception and Incarnation from pre-existence, then the argument for adoptionism collapses.

3. The actual events of the baptism and what immediately follows are peculiar if read through the lens of adoptionism. One big problem is where the author sees Jesus becoming exalted to divinity. Is it the Holy Spirit’s descent? This would be a strange place to identify the exaltation because the Holy Spirit seems to remain distinct from Jesus (the Spirit drives him into the wilderness in 12, implying a kind of distinction). If we were looking for evidence of exaltation, we would want to locate something that has specifically changed about Jesus’ position on the hierarchy of beings; but identifying the Spirit’s descent as embodying this is odd because of the subsequent distinction between the Spirit and Jesus. Also, there was a precedent in Jewish teaching for the descent of the Spirit being a royal anointing–giving a king rule over Israel–when accompanied by a washing in the river by a prophet; but its a huge stretch to see this as an enactment of divinization. Especially when we take into account John’s acknowledgment of the prior power and authority of Jesus, this is very awkward. Is the voice of the Father the point that we look to to see divinization happening? This is strange because the voice merely acknowledges, it doesn’t actually *do* anything from what we can tell. All the transformation that the author wants to get across seems to have already happened once the Holy Spirit comes down and rests over him. So where’s the exaltation to divinity from a previously non-divine state?

4. If we try to argue that the words “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased” are an acknowledgment of present exaltation to divinity, then this sits very awkwardly with Mark’s account of the transfiguration later on, where similar language is used. With the transfiguration we have to grant that the voice from the cloud is recognizing a status that has been in Jesus’ possession at least since the time of his baptism. It is thus an acknowledgment of a state that Jesus has had for awhile–not recognition of something that has just been obtained, much less an actual act of conferring authority or power verbally. But if we are willing to grant this with respect to the transfiguration account, then why not assume that Mark’s meaning is the same in both cases? This is simpler. Is the only reason that we should prefer your exegesis of Mark 1:11 that the phrase “you are my Son…” here occurs for the first time? At this point the argument has become a stretch.

5. Your arguments from the lack of an Incarnational narrative or a virginal conception narrative seem to assume that these ideas weren’t in the background of the minds of the readership, and that Mark’s choice not to include them implies that he didn’t believe in them–two assumptions that I don’t see any good reason to grant. The argument from the baptismal proclamation is awkward for reasons I’ve explained above. And your argument from how Mark positions “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” seems unpersuasive because (a) Mark could just mean that this is the beginning of his telling of the Gospel (which seems in no way problematic as a read) and (b) as I argued above, Mark seems to assume his audience has some prior knowledge of the story of Jesus, which would include supplemental material about how Jesus confers salvation, etc.–more Gospel.

6. Finally, there may be arguments available that Mark believes in Jesus’ divinity in a sense that is stronger than that of adoptionism–a pre-existent sense, or a fully-divine sense. If you would like, I can attempt to locate these for you.

Thanks.

Dualism and Joint Causality December 21, 2007

Posted by MG in Epistemology, Human nature, Metaphysics, Person, Philosophy of Mind, Responses.
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In his response to my argument against property dualism from its inadequate account of personal identity, Brett made a suggestion that if the soul together with the body is adequate to generate a continuity of consciousness, that the body alone is adequate to generate a continuity of consciousness. Here I will examine and critique these suggestions.

Brett wrote:

“I have no problem accepting a materialist account of the mind and here is why: if the dualist hold that certain material states of the brain “capture” or “hold in” the soul to the body, then they believe that it is sensible to say that some physical state causes the continuity of the soul’s interaction with the body. It appears to me that a dualist would have to accept this in light of what we know about labodomis: if dualism is true, then the altering, or rather severing, of the frontal lobe causes the aspect of the “soul” that causes emotion to vanish and go off somewhere else. Therefore, from this, we can draw a general principal (lets just assume that other phenomena of the mind like belief work in the same way emotion has been demonstrated to work) that physical states are a necessary factor for states of consciousness to endure continually. Well, if ((X and S)->continuous Y) where X is a certain chemical combination, S is some soulish agent, and Y is the consciousness being presently experienced, then it necessarily follows that (X->continuous Y) is also possible, where X and Y are the same things. If one is to say that X, since it is material and its parts are being replaced, cannot be one of the casual factors in bringing about uninterrupted consciousness because its token is changing constantly (X->continuous Y), then it follows that X should also be insufficient to continually “cage in”, or “hold onto” the soul in an uninterrupted fashion, as would occur in the case of ((X and S)->continuous Y). In short, it seems that the argument that Michael uses to critique the brand of materialism under question is either valid, and therefore the dualist and the monist account of consciousness are both incompetent, or the critique is invalid, and the dualist and monist models are both workable. I believe that both models, the dualist one and monist alike, are possible and that the critique does not show that either are incompetent, but I think the monist account wins because it does not multiply as many bodies to explain the phenomena as with the dualist account, when taking occum’s razor into consideration.”

I will try to analyze this part of Brett’s post in 3 segments.

(1) Brett first states that “if the dualist hold that certain material states of the brain “capture” or “hold in” the soul to the body, then they believe that it is sensible to say that some physical state causes the continuity of the soul’s interaction with the body. It appears to me that a dualist would have to accept this in light of what we know about labodomis: if dualism is true, then the altering, or rather severing, of the frontal lobe causes the aspect of the “soul” that causes emotion to vanish and go off somewhere else. Therefore, from this, we can draw a general principal (lets just assume that other phenomena of the mind like belief work in the same way emotion has been demonstrated to work) that physical states are a necessary factor for states of consciousness to endure continually.”

Brett uses language of “capturing” which seems to imply that on his view of dualism, the dualist is saying that the body is what causes the continual interaction between soul and body. But this is false. Dualists would hold that a precondition for the interaction of the soul with the body is the existence of specific physical states (the body, and more specifically, certain causal channels within the body). But preconditions (Brett’s “necessary factors”) aren’t causes. The example of lobotomy does show that the soul may have some powers that are inactive if certain physical states aren’t in place that the soul will normally act through. But that doesn’t imply that the body and specific brain states are efficient causes of the soul continually interacting with it–no more than the existence of a plaster surface is the efficient cause of a three week painting project.

It is the assumption that physical states cause the continual interaction that leads to Brett later arguing that “if the body can cause continual interaction, then the body can adequately cause continual consciousness”. I will continue to address the soul/brain relation below as related issues come up (see [3]).

(2) Next Brett says “Well, if ((X and S)->continuous Y) where X is a certain chemical combination, S is some soulish agent, and Y is the consciousness being presently experienced, then it necessarily follows that (X->continuous Y) is also possible, where X and Y are the same things.”

It seems to me that this is false–even obviously so. Take for instance the good ole’ volcano experiment that you did in fourth grade. You wanted to make foamy, fizzy bubbles. So you took vinegar (ingredient x) and baking soda (ingredient s) and you put them in the cheap paper-mache volcano sculpture. You got a whole ton of bubbles (continuous Y) and were a very happy kid.

But was it ever reasonable to believe that ingredient x was adequate on its own to give a continuous Y? I don’t see how. It is not in fact sufficient. The fact that X and S can lead to Y doesn’t imply by any known rules of inference that I’m aware of that X is sufficient by itself to generate continuous Y.

But, you might protest, we *know* this to be the case with baking soda and vinegar because we’ve *seen* the interaction between them and that both are joint causes of bubbling. But that isn’t true with the soul and brain states. We haven’t seen that they’re *both* jointly necessary. We just know that the brain states are necessary–the question of whether they are jointly necessary is something else. So its simpler, given this consideration, to assume that the soul is not a necessary factor and need not be postulated to explain consciousness.

I would agree with this (other things being equal–like assuming we don’t have any other arguments for the existence of a soul). But that last comment (“we know this to be the case with baking soda and vinegar… but that isn’t true with the soul and brain states…”) is the *real* intuition–a principle of parsimony–that motivates the assumption that a soul isn’t necessary to explain consciousness. All by itself, the assumption in the last comment (“we know…but this isn’t true…”) serves to undercut the assumption that a soul is necessary. But this is very different from the line of reasoning expressed in the argument for “possibly, X–>Y”. That original reasoning was what I have already criticized above; I thought it was more closely analogous to assuming that because baking soda and vinegar are jointly necessary and sufficient for bubbles, that vinegar by itself is necessary and sufficient for bubbles. Why incorporate that whole extra first part that is, by itself, fallacious reasoning until you add in the principle of parsimony to explain what you’re really trying to say (“we shouldn’t assume both are necessary for consciousness if we only experience one”) if the principle of parsimony would have got the job done in the first place?

(3) Next, Brett suggests that “If one is to say that X, since it is material and its parts are being replaced, cannot be one of the casual factors in bringing about uninterrupted consciousness because its token is changing constantly (X->continuous Y), then it follows that X should also be insufficient to continually “cage in”, or “hold onto” the soul in an uninterrupted fashion, as would occur in the case of ((X and S)->continuous Y).”

I think this assumes that on my account, a single continuous physical state is causally responsible for the continual interaction between soul and body (I already discussed this above somewhat). But I deny this; I think that the soul by its nature interacts with its body so long as the body is available. The soul’s qualities are what cause the continual interaction with the brain, through the various causal channels in the brain.

You might think of it in terms of a computer–more specifically, a robot–like this: certain faculties of the soul are like USB ports. They can sense whether a USB drive (the body–specifically the brain) has entered into it (whether the soul and body are united). When the USB drive does enter into the port, it accesses it, (the soul is aware of the body) and displays it as available on the computer screen (kind of like the brain displaying sensory data [transmitted through the eyes] to the soul). Then the computer (soul) can interact with the USB drive (body/brain), transferring files on and off of it (causing brain events, and allowing physical/brain events to be preconditions to the soul causing mental events–if they are identified as the appropriate kind of physical events). But it is the computer’s robotic arm that goes through the process of inserting the USB drive (it is the soul that causes itself to be united to the body and keeps that union in place).

So some powers of the soul cause it to automatically be joined to the body if the right physical preconditions are in place.

Now, even if we grant the assumption that the body causes the soul to remain united to it, what follows? I’m not sure we can automatically go to Brett’s conclusion–that it follows that the body could be an adequate grounding for the continual existence of certain mental entities. Why would we have to assume that in order for the soul to remain united to the body, there must be the *same* body parts that cause it to be continually united? I don’t see why the physical states that causes soul-body union couldn’t be replaced over time slowly so that eventually they are totally replaced. It could be that every physical state of the type U (cause of the union between soul and body), whether it be U1, U2, or U3… Un, U[n+1], will automatically cause the union of what remains of the body with the soul that was united to it before. So why not think the soul remains united to the body so long as there is a state of type U?

For an analogy, think of a king’s throne that a servant has to carry on his shoulders to keep the king up. In order to keep the king supported, all you need is an entity of type S–a “strong servant type” of human being. There doesn’t have to be absolute numerical sameness throughout time–you can replace one servant with another after the first guy gets tired. All that has to be there is *someone* who can handle the load. Because we aren’t talking about an identity relation here (the servant example is illustrating continual causality, not sameness or identity) its okay for him to be replaced. He can uphold the king, who remains elevated in place the entire time.

So I think the problems with Brett’s arguments are numerous. Some of them seem to be fallacious (until coupled with considerations that would have illustrated the same point just fine on their own); others seem to be working off of assumptions that dualists aren’t willing to grant; while still others seem to be easily answerable.

Physicalism, Property Dualism, and Personal Identity (II) December 21, 2007

Posted by MG in Human nature, Metaphysics, Person, Philosophy of Mind, Responses.
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Brett has suggested that my critique of property dualism as adequately grounding personal identity fails. Here I will attempt to respond to his criticisms of my argument.

Brett wrote:

Michael introduces this as a critique of type-property dualism, but this seems to be another critique of token-property dualism taken from a different angle. Michael points out that the second tape is a “different tape” from the first one, which seems analogous to the difference between the first token-molecules of the mind being different in token to the second token-molecules of the mind, even though they are the same type throughout. But as Michael himself points out the same image will pop up on the screen, and so he agrees that it is the same “type” and that nothing has changed as far as “type” even though, with the switching of tapes, things have changed with “token.” And since the “type” does show continuity between the exchanging of tapes, this hypothetical situation does correlate to what we experience phenomenological. So, in the instance of property dualism, where aspects of consciousness are the emergent property of brain chemicals, it seems that the changing of brain chemicals will not interfere with the belief, feeling, or image that it emergently creates.

Brett says that I am giving a critique here of token-property dualism. But what I am really arguing is that type-property dualism is counterintuitive. Its correct that I am pointing out that the second tape of the same type is a different token from the first one, analogous to the difference between physical state X token A and token B. And yes, the same type of image will appear on screen. So there is continuity of the type of image even though there’s two different tokens.

But that’s the whole problem. Personal identity, whatever it is, has to involve total continuity and sameness across time. Now think of how property dualism articulates personal identity. If a ship lost its mast and got a new mast, we wouldn’t say that it was exactly the same ship. Whatever we believe about personal identity, we can’t believe that its grounded in switching the ship’s mast every time it falls off; that’s precisely *not* a continuity of identity, but two totally different things. Similarly, two different showings of the same film are *not* the same film. They are two very different things.

Now, the continuity of mental states Brett is imagining that gives us personal identity is like the continuity between two different showings of the same film on a tv screen. Its two very different things, not having any of the exact same parts or properties in common with previous states of the mind. Two different video tapes have successively gone into the VCR, and now the image being projected on the screen is a different one from before. This is not a continuity but precisely a discontinuity of identity between this showing of the film and the previous one. It may be displaying the same image, but we would not say its the *exact same film*.

Its like the replacement mast on the ship: sure, its a mast–but its not the same one as before. And similarly this is not a continuity but precisely a discontinuity of identity between this mental state and the previous one. Thus the continuity that is suggested by this theory of personal identity is like the replacement of one mast on a boat with another mast–hardly adequate for claiming numerical sameness throughout time in the sense necessary for *identity*. At most, this theory of personal identity seems like it can be dubbed a theory of *personal similarity*.

In Brett’s next section he talks about how substance dualism is unparsimonious. This may be true if we have no arguments for it. But of course an argument for dualism from the inadequacy of non-dualist theories of personal identity would qualify to override this appeal to parsimony. For if materialists can’t explain personal identity, and property dualists can’t explain personal identity, then parsimony should be set aside for the explanatory power of substance dualism.

Simplicity and Theism Once Again December 2, 2007

Posted by MG in Epistemology, Metaphysics, Natural Theology, Philosophy of Mind, Responses.
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It has been suggested to me by Brett that theism is theoretically inferior to naturalism because it postulates a complex God. Here I will attempt to rebut this charge and show that even granting the premise that God is ontologically complex, theism is still extremely theoretically simple. First I will retrace the line of thought that leads up to these considerations; then I will state my argument that theism is theoretically simpler than naturalism.

Brett–

We’ve talked about how an abductive argument attempts to weigh different possible explanations for phenomena to determine which one is best. It is an “inference to the best explanation”.

You have suggested that with respect to the debate between theism and naturalism, it was suggested to me that theism and naturalism are alike in all other relevant criteria. For instance, naturalism can explain just as many phenomena as theism (appearance of design, ethical entities, consciousness, the universe, religious experience). Its explanations are also just as good as those of theists. Hence naturalism has the same explanatory scope and explanatory power as theism. Because there is a tie on these two criteria, the issue of simplicity becomes relevant as the crucial factor for why we should prefer one over the other. Naturalism is simpler because if naturalism is true, then there is no infinitely complex God that must be postulated.

God is infinitely complex because God is a mind and minds operate algorithmically. What this means is that there are certain “input-output” systems in God’s mind. I will call these systems “powers”. For each kind of action God could do, there is a distinct power. Because God is omnipotent, and able to do all kinds of actions that are not logically contradictory or conflict with other divine attributes, He has an infinite number of powers. There are an infinite number of input-output systems in God’s mind. (of course I don’t believe most of the assumptions that you use in the argument; but I can grant them for this discussion)

Because there are so many powers, we can call God extremely complex. If God is infinitely complex, then even if naturalists have to postulate billions of universes that have been generated by a multiverse generator, this would still be far simpler than postulating a God who is literally infinitely complex.

Simplicity in scientific theories can be construed in terms of having either a maximal or a minimal value (Swinburne’s The Existence of God discusses this, of course). Though I disagree with how you use simplicity, I will grant your present assumption. According to you, there are two simplest ways that reality could exist: either only one very simple thing exists, (maybe one particle) or every possible thing that could exists does exist. As you rightly pointed out, if all possibilities were actualized, then this would be the simplest way for reality to exist. An infinitely ontologically complex universe would be very theoretically simple in this sense. If every entity that reality possibly could have were in existence, then this would be the simplest way that reality could be.

Now, naturalism as you have suggested it postulates a finite number of beings. There are three different ways of offering an explanation for the existence of the universe that have been proposed:

(1) Only one universe exists of metaphysical necessity and popped into existence with no prior causes. There is no need to explain fine-tuning because this is just how things must be.
(2) A multiverse generator exists and makes all the universes that exist. This helps to explain how, if there were contingency to the universe’s fundamental laws, there could be an explanation for fine-tuning.
(3) An infinitely-old, or finitely-old oscillating universe that resets its laws each time it oscillates exists, and we are by chance in one of the universes where life, consciousness, and morality happens to exist and have the proper correlations.

All of these proposed explanations involve a finite number of entities, and hence they are simpler than theism, you have argued. Thus we have reason to prefer naturalism over theism as an explanation for reality.

But here’s the issue: if God is infinitely complex, and if maximal values are theoretically simple in the specific way you take them to be (ie. “its simplest to think that everything possible would exist”) then saying that God is infinitely metaphysically complex would imply that He is an infinitely theoretically simple entity. If God has an infinite number of powers, and an infinite number of true beliefs, then what this implies is that in terms of whether or not entities postulated in scientific theories are simple, God is maximally simple. If God’s mind is infinitely complex, as Dawkins seems to want to think, then theism is infinitely more probable than any naturalistic hypothesis that invokes a finite number of entities. The parallel statement to “its simplest to think that everything possible would exist” is “its simplest to think that whatever the explanation for reality is, it would have every possible power”.

Indeed, this seems to be the most theoretically simple kind of hypothesis one could have. Every possible power that a being could have (consistently) is had by God; this parallels the idea that reality would be simplest if there were an infinite number of things existing–namely everything that could exist. Just as every possible thing existing would be the simplest way reality could be, every possibility existing in God would be the simplest kind of entity you could postulate to explain any phenomena.

It also seems that theism wins out over other views of God because it says that God is a mind in the simplest kind of way that a mind could be: one with all possible powers and items of knowledge. Finite gods would be less simple because they would not have all possible powers.

Positing the ontological complexity of the contents of God’s mind points to the theoretical simplicity of theism. Because theism postulates a God with all possible powers, and all possible knowledge, it postulates an entity to explain the phenomena of matter, organization, consciousness, goodness, and religious experience that is simpler than the explanations postulated on naturalism.

A Response to Donald’s "Liability Standards and Sin Before God" November 25, 2007

Posted by MG in Atonement, Christology, Divine Attributes, Eastern Theology, Exegesis, Faith and Works, Freewill, Human nature, Responses, Salvation, Total Depravity.
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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.

A Response to Donald’s "Liability Standards and Sin Before God" November 25, 2007

Posted by MG in Atonement, Christology, Divine Attributes, Eastern Theology, Exegesis, Faith and Works, Freewill, Human nature, Responses, Salvation, Total Depravity.
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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.

A Response to Donald on the Sacraments November 25, 2007

Posted by MG in Divine Attributes, Eastern Theology, Ecclesiology, Exegesis, Freewill, Human nature, Responses, Sacraments, Salvation.
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I wrote this for a comment on Coram Deo in response to arguments against high sacramental theology. It deals with issues related to the distinction between essence and energies, person and nature, etc.

Donald–

To add on to the stuff Mark was saying, consider the following as a response.

You wrote:

“So physical objects carry grace in the sense that God makes them little grace banks independent of Himself?”

Response:

The language of “independence” you use is interesting. Saying that grace dwells in physical objects is not saying that grace is in them independently of God. For grace *is* God. Specifically, grace is God as He personally manifests himself in the world through his activities (energies). To say that there is grace in the sacraments means that by definition, God is himself present in them; God acts in and through the sacraments. So no, they are not grace banks independent of God. They are vessels of the gift that is God Himself. The sacraments surely don’t contain God’s essence (the transcendent aspect of God that is beyond language, thought, and even the categories of ontology) but they do contain divine activities.

Lets think about this biblically. God’s glory is a unique manifestation of his presence; so unique, in fact, that we can accurately say that the glory is God (Lev 16:2, Rev 22:5, Isa 6:1 and John 12:41). The fact that the glory is “God as He manifests himself actively and immanently” but not “God’s ultimate transcendent aspect” is obvious especially in Exodus 33. God’s glory dwelt in the Tabernacle (Ex 40:34-5). The tabernacle became a vessel of divine glory. And yet this doesn’t imply that because the glory has a particular location, it is independent of God. The tabernacle was a place of the presence of God, not a “grace bank independent of Himself”. Similarly, the sacraments can carry divine grace without that grace being independent of God.

You wrote:

“I hope I’m just unclear on this point, but that would mean that God couldn’t control who was given His grace via the sacraments (ie. bread/wine). If this was true, then we could manipulate God’s grace by, say, carrying the sacraments into battle with us to grant us His favor…or, maybe bring the ark into war against the Philisti…wait, that didn’t work.

“Maybe you’d say that God makes little grace lockboxes, but He can withdraw His grace from them if they are improperly used? If so, I’m not sure how this differs from saying that God is the one giving His grace irrespective of physical elements, since it seems God is then conditioning His grace upon His desires, not the use of some physical element.”

Response:

The issue you bring up with whether or not we can appropriate grace in a way that God doesn’t want us to is a good point. But the identification of grace with divine activities helps solve this problem. Saying that grace is in the sacraments means that God is active in and through them. But God can surely control how He acts. So if God wanted his glory to depart from somewhere, He could have it depart. He could cease to act a certain way–namely in a way that is conducive to salvation–in and through the sacraments. So I’m agreeing basically with your initial consideration of a possible defense of the sacramental position (“Maybe you’d say that God…can withdraw his grace if…improperly used”).

But does this imply that there’s no real difference between saying this, and saying grace works independently of sacraments? If God can withdraw his grace, how is this different from saying that God is the one giving the grace irrespective of the physical elements? I think this argument depends on the assumption you make at the end of your last sentence: “if God is conditioning his grace upon his desires, then He operates irrespective of physical elements”. Why think this is true? Lets say your dad and mom are planning to give you and your brother stockings for Christmas and put gifts in them. Your mom is the one sewing the stockings, and your dad is the one supplying the gifts. Your dad says “If you kids are good, I’ll send gifts in your stockings.” He proceeds to put three small gifts in each of your stockings. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, your brother consistently misbehaves, and you consistently behave. Your father watches and removes all 3 gifts from your brother’s stocking. On Christmas morning, your mother hands you and your brother your respective stockings. You look inside and pull out the 3 gifts; your brother looks inside and sees no gifts.

Now I don’t know about you, but I would say that your father had actually been using the stockings to send you his gifts. This is distinct from saying that your father just gives you gifts irrespective of stockings. It doesn’t matter that he could remove the gifts if he wanted to; the gifts are still sent in and through the stockings your mother made. What matters is the question “are the gifts in the stockings?” not the question “could the gifts have been removed from the stockings?”. What matters is not hypothetical issues of conditions (could the stocking have been emptied if my father decided not to put my gifts in there? could the gifts have been given without a stocking?) but the identification issue of parts, properties, and relations (is the gift actually in the stocking?).

Lets give a biblical spin to this. God’s glory dwelt in the temple, but it also left the temple. In Ezekial, God (the glory) went from the cherubim to the Temple to a mountain east of Jerusalem (Ezek. 8:4, 9:3, 10:4, 19, 11:22-23). Hence God’s glory wasn’t connected of necessity with any particular location. But does this imply that there is no significant difference between God being there in the temple and mediating his presence (contingently and conditionally) from it, and God not being there at all? I certainly don’t think so.

You wrote:

“Maybe we have to perform certain rituals to invoke His grace? Sorcery, anyone?”

Response:

I’m not sure what you mean by sorcery; but I’ll assume that it involves (1) man approaching a deity without any kind of positive disposition, in a very contractual sort of way that involves no personal interaction; (2) being able to force the deity to reveal himself when called upon–man controlling God at his whim.

Grace is not just operative; it is cooperative. We are God’s co-workers (2 Cor 6:1-2) who must receive grace worthily to be saved, who must call on God who will listen to us and save us . We are urged to cooperate (work out our salvation in fear and trembling) because God gives us grace (energizes us to will and to energize according to his good pleasure; Phil 2:12-13). We must make use of the grace (receive the word of God) that is present within us already (implanted, which is able to save your souls). God does not just unilaterally act on us and cause us to improve irrespective of our cooperation. Various divine activities can enter into human nature through different ways (the grace that is always present in human nature, Christ’s indwelling all human nature and filling it with more grace, coming into contact with things in the world that mediate grace). But none of it can be accessed and actually participated in by a person unless that person freely makes use of the grace that is present in his or her nature. To return to the stocking analogy, lets say that your dad gives you and your brother each three gifts in your respective stockings. You decide to personally make use of the gifts in your stocking: you take them out, open them up, and use them for what they were intended for. Your brother disregards the stocking and its contents. In doing so, he scorns the gifts and does not receive them: he fails to cooperate with the generousity of your father.

One of the key ingredients of personal response to grace is faith. Without the act of faith, we cannot appropriate the grace of the sacraments. So sorcery is out of the question for that reason. Grace can only be received by those who cooperate with God’s activities. That requires faith, hope, and love. So you can’t have the grace in a contractual sort of way where you have no positive personal response to God; that is definitionally impossible.

As my explanations above imply, God doesn’t have to reveal himself to us just because we do certain things. You could go through all the preparation in the world to get ready for God to reveal his glory to you, and he still doesn’t have to. Sacraments are different from “magic” for many reasons, one of which is that it is God who is in control of the process. He is sovereign, and his activity is under his control at all times. God’s presence can leave things (to varying degrees and in specific ways) instantaneously if He wants it to.

Ancient Israel obviously approached God through ritual and by gathering in particular holy places. But this doesn’t imply they were sorcerors–at least not all the time. They would have been (by my definition) when/if they did so with no love, and if they could force God to respond to them. But that’s not how it always was/is.

Response #2 to David Nilsen September 23, 2007

Posted by MG in Christology, Eastern Theology, Freewill, Metaphysics, Responses, Salvation, Trinity.
13 comments

Here’s a continuation of the discussion in the comments on the subject of Christ’s natural wills and Calvinism…

David–

1. You say “Um, I’m not sure I’d say that either one willed it exclusively. Both wills would have been in perfect agreement. I’m not sure that answers your question.”

Now on your view human actions are determined by their natures (specifically their desires). Furthermore, God is the efficient, deterministic cause of all events, whether directly or indirectly. This brings up the following question:

Which will originated or caused the alignment of Christ’s human will with his divine will?

Jesus’ human nature desired to avoid death, and his divine nature desired for him to die. But somehow this issue got resolved. The human being Jesus of Nazareth ascended the cross in glory.

Now, Jesus’ human will did not have the requisite desires for changing his mind. His human will was to avoid death (“not my will but yours” implies his will was to avoid death and that he was choosing not to follow it). Hence his strongest desire in his human nature was the avoidance of death. So it seems implausible to say that Jesus’ human will caused him to align his human will with his divine will.

At the same time, it would be heretical to say that the alignment of Christ’s wills happened when the divine natural will determined Christ’s human natural will to accept the cross. If this were the case we would have monothelitism (one will) and monoenergism (one activity). Christ would only really have one will.

Think about it. Compatiblists say that whatever your strongest desire is, that’s what you must do, or else you’re not free. Freedom consists in choosing according to your strongest desire. If Christ’s human nature’s strongest desire was to flee death, then that’s what free will would consist in for him: fleeing death.

So introducing God’s deterministic implanting of a stronger desire to ascend the cross in Christ’s human will would imply that God had violated the freedom of Christ’s human will. His human nature wasn’t acting according to its own strongest desire, but according to the strongest desire of the divine nature. This is monothelitism and monoenergism–one will in Christ, one operation/activity/energy in Christ.

What, then, is the explanation for the alignment of Christ’s human will with his divine will? Appealing to compatiblist agency doesn’t seem to work here. After all, (to summarize) both compatiblist explanations are unacceptable. Saying it was the human will seems false–the strongest desire of his human will was to avoid death. Saying it was the divine will also seems unacceptable: it implies that Christ’s humanity was not free in choosing the cross, which implies monothelitism.

Instead of appealing to compatiblist agency and explaining Christ’s choice in terms of the deterministic operations of his wills according to their strongest desires, we need to redefine our understanding of agency. Whatever was responsible for aligning Christ’s human will with his divine will can’t be natural; therefore it is probably personal. Whatever the person did was some kind of activity that moved one will into alignment with the other; therefore it is probably true that there is a personal will that did the aligning. Furthermore, it is most plausible to say this wasn’t due to compatiblist agency. Compatiblists say that free will is defined in terms of following your strongest desire. But it seems that the personal will was the thing that arbitrated between desires and chose to follow one of them. Hence strongest desires of natures do not determine the actions of free beings.

At this point it might be interjected that the person could have compatiblistic freedom of some sort. Perhaps persons have distinct desires and these desires determine which natural desire they will act on. But this is ad hoc and it makes creation necessary, because the act of creation would result from a personal will that had its desires necessarily or from a natural will that determined the personal will. And there may be other problems lurking there as well.

So this argument makes it plausible that in Christ person is distinct from nature. Christ’s person had a distinct personal will. This will was not compelled by one set of desires, so it can’t be understood compatiblistically. The personal will was what arbitrated between the divine and human natural wills, and aligned the human will with the divine will so that He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.

2. You said in response to Mark:

“Now, what you have said about Christology has been very helpful, but again, I’ll need you to flush that out a lot more. Why is it that man must have LFW simply because Christ did? If Christ had two wills, why must both have LF? Why couldn’t Adam have lost LFW in the Fall? Etc.”

Here’s where the implications start for Calvinism. I have argued above that persons are distinct from natures, that the person of Christ had a personal will, and that the personal will of Christ had libertarian freedom. What follows from this?

A. The question of why man must have LFW if Christ did can be answered in one of two ways:

i. Argument by analogy:

The more similar two things are in in ways we know about, the higher the probability they will resemble each other in further ways we don’t know about.

There are three important considerations in which Christ and other humans resemble each other:

First, if Christ is a human being and He has libertarian freedom, then it makes sense that other human beings would have libertarian freedom. This would be very consistent because it would be simpler than saying that some human beings are different than Christ.

Second, a little more specifically, Christ is not just any human being. He is the last Adam (Rom 5:17, 1 Cor 15:47). He is also the image of God (2 Cor 4:4, Col 1:15). Christ “recapitulates”–He sums up all things in heaven and on earth (Eph 1:10-11), which includes what it means to be human. What these verses imply is that Christ is paradigmatic of the humanity of all other human beings. Christ is the representative of humankind, and it is most natural to think that if He has libertarian freedom that we do too.

Third and most specific, Christ’s temptations are representative of ours. As Paul says in Hebrews 4:15, Christ was tempted like us. The choice of the personal will of Christ to align the human natural will with the divine natural will is clearly very important to his temptation. The fact that this involved his libertarian freedom seems also to even further favor the idea that human beings have libertarian freedom.

As Maximus says, in willing that the cup would pass, Christ “typifies what is human”.

Now, technically the conclusion of this argument doesn’t have to be accepted. But the argument is stronger than a normal analogical argument because Christ is representative human and his sufferings are representative as well. If the argument is as plausible as I’m claiming, what reason is there to reject the conclusion?

ii. Deductive Argument:

1. All the fundamental capacities of the human being Jesus Christ are the fundamental capacities of all human beings.
2. Libertarian freedom is a fundamental capacity of Christ.
3. Therefore all human beings have libertarian freedom.

In order to deny this argument, one of the premises has to be rejected. Which do you reject?

B. For question 2, Christ didn’t have two wills with libertarian freedom. It was his personal will that had the libertarian freedom, and activated and used the natural wills.

C. As for question 3, its no good to appeal to the corruption of human *nature* to escape the reality of libertarian freedom. Human libertarian freedom could persist even if the natural will became totally corrupt. This would mean at the very most that man had to choose between multiple evil desires, none of which compelled action (and I don’t see any reason to take it this far–why say only evil options?)

3. “Thus you must offer Biblical arguments against neo-platonism to defend your charge that Augustine’s being a neo-platonist was a bad thing.”

There are dozens of arguments. Lets start with John 17:5 and 17:22. If Neoplatonism is true, then absolute divine simplicity is true. If absolute divine simplicity is true, then God’s nature is just his essence. So if God imparts his nature to his creatures, they will be participating in his essence. To participate in God’s essence would mean to become numerically identical with God. This is clearly false.

Yet the disciples are really receiving the divine nature. It is uncreated, so its obviously something “of God”. The glory that the Son shared with the Father before the beginning of the world is given to creatures. More specifically it is an activity. This is why Paul says in Romans 6:4 that Christ was raised *by* the glory of the Father. The divine activity of glory enters into and transforms creatures that are glorified.

So Neoplatonism is incompatible with the Christian teaching of ontological union with God. If it were true, we could only participate in God’s essence. We don’t participate in God’s essence. Yet we do participate in God–through his energies, or activities.

See David Bradshaw’s essay “The Divine Glory and the Divine Energies” for more:

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/

4. There are still several issues that you haven’t addressed.

Does God create out of metaphysical necessity? If not, then libertarian freedom with respect to God seems to follow.

If denying Christ had a certain part of human nature is heretical in the councils, then wouldn’t saying human nature lost some of its fundamental parts be inconsistent with the conciliar definition of nature? (Im not claiming we know specifically exactly what that is, but it does seem inconsistent)