William Lane Craig against Calvinism: a response, Part 3B of 5

Part 3A

I'm continuing to response to Craig's third reason for thinking reformed theology is problematic. I'll post it again to remind you of what he said.

3. Universal, divine, determinism makes God the author of sin and precludes human responsibility. In contrast to the Molinist view, on the deterministic view even the movement of the human will is caused by God. God moves people to choose evil, and they cannot do otherwise. God determines their choices and makes them do wrong. If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but becomes evil Himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been removed. For our choices are not really up to us: God causes us to make them. We cannot be responsible for our actions, for nothing we think or do is up to us.

Whether divine determinism removes human responsibility

It is understandable that we would think God determining our actions would remove our responsibility for them. We have a strong intuition that ought implies can, and that if we are unable to do something, then we cannot be blamed for our failure to do it.

But I think that if we are unable to do the right thing, it matters what the reason is for our inability. If I would like to do my duty, but I can’t because I’m duct taped to a tree, then I can’t be blamed for failure to do my duty. But if I’m unencumbered by physical restraints, and the only thing keeping me from doing my duty is the fact that I just really don’t want to, then I can be blamed. We don’t let people off the hook just because they’re doing what they want. Quite the opposite.

Under libertarianism, which Craig subscribes to, our desires do not determine our actions. In fact, no antecedent conditions at all, neither inside of us nor outside of us, are sufficient to bring about our actions if our actions are free. However, Craig would readily admit that antecedent conditions can have some influence over our actions. Otherwise, commands would be superfluous. Why command us to do anything if we would behave exactly the same whether we received the command or not? Commands only serve a purpose if they have some influence over our behavior.

Influence comes in degrees. Some influences have more power over us than others. The stronger our desires are, the more likely we are to give in to them. If our desires are so strong that we can’t help but give in to them, then our desires determine our actions.

If Craig is right in thinking that divine determinism removes our responsibility and that libertarian freedom is necessary for moral responsibility, then it would follow that the stronger our desire to do good, the less praiseworthy we are for doing it, and the stronger our desire to do evil, the less blameworthy we are for doing it. The reason is because the stronger our desire to do good or evil, the closer those desires are to determining our actions, and Craig thinks we cannot be responsible for our actions if they are determined by any antecedent conditions, including our own desires and motives.

If a desire removes all moral responsibility in case it is so strong that we cannot help but give in to it, then it would follow that the less influence desire has over our actions, the more responsible we are for them because the less influence our desires have over our actions, the more free we are in the libertarian sense. It would follow that we are most free (and therefore most responsible) when our desires have no influence over our actions at all.

But think about how counter-intuitive that is. It would follow that you are most responsible for your actions when you didn’t mean to do them. You had no plan to do them, no desire to do them, no motive, etc. You are most responsible for your actions when they are accidents that happen for no reason at all.

Moreover, the deeper your desire to do evil, the less blameworthy you are for doing evil, and the deeper your desire to do good, the less praiseworthy you are for doing good. The more hand your own intentions, desires, motives, inclinations, etc. have in bringing about your actions, the less responsible you are for your actions. And the less hand your own intentions, desires, motives, inclinations, etc. have in bringing about your actions, the more responsible you are for your actions.

That is the absurd consequence of Craig’s point of view. That is the absurd consequence in believing that ought implies can, not only in the physical sense (i.e. the physical or natural ability to act), but also in the psychological sense (i.e. the psychological ability to act, willingness to act, etc.).

But reason dictates that the two senses of having an inability to do otherwise are exactly opposite. The more physically difficult it is for you to do your duty, the less you can be blamed for your failure to do it. But the more psychologically difficult it is for you to do your duty, then the more you can be blamed for your failure to do it.

After all, our psychological motives for acting are the basis upon which we are praised or blamed. If I shove an old lady because I hate old ladies, then I can be blamed, but if I shove an old lady to save her from being hit by a bus, then I can be praised. The more my actions are influenced by love, the more praiseworthy they are, and they more my actions are influenced by hate, the more blameworthy they are.

We cannot be praised and blamed for actions that we did not intend or plan. We can always excuse ourselves on the basis that it was an accident. To do something on purpose is to do it out of a prior disposition. The actions we take on purpose are actions we do for reasons and motives. The more hand our own desires and motives have in bringing about our actions, the more those actions are under our control. It follows that our actions are completely under our control when they are completely determined by our own desires, motives, inclinations, etc. And we can only be responsible for actions that we perform on purpose.

Not only is libertarian freedom unnecessary for moral responsibility, but it’s actually inconsistent with it. A person is only free, in the libertaraian sense, to the degree that antecedent conditions (including a person’s own psychology) do not determine their actions. Consider the following diagram.

Libertarian freedom is indirectly proportional to the strength of our desires as well as every other psychological influence. If our desires are strong enough to determine our actions, then we have no libertarian freedom. We have the most libertarian freedom when our actions are not so much as influenced by our desires.

As I said before, commands (e.g. moral imperatives) are superfluous unless they have some power to influence our actions. But that means commands carry with them the very thing that removes libertarian freedom (and moral responsibility if you follow Craig). The more influence from commands, the less freedom in the will. Libertarianism, on the other hand, carries with it the very thing that makes commands superfluous. The more freedom of the will, the less influence from command. If you follow Craig, indifference is the only way you can be completely responsible for your actions since that’s the only state under which nothing but your own libertarian choice has any influence over your actions.

So far, I have argued that we can be responsible for our actions if they are determined by our own antecedent psychological states, especially our own desires, motives, and inclinations. But what of the cause of those prior psychological states? Some people claim that we must choose them before we can be morally responsible. If they arise from some outside cause, then we cannot be responsible for acting on them.

But that leads to an infinite regress. If you must choose your desires before you can be responsible for acting on them, then the choice of your desires must be determined by an even earlier desire. And that desire must be preceded by an earlier choice which also must be preceded by an earlier desire, etc.

There’s only one of two ways to halt this infinite regress. You can either halt it by beginning with a desire you did not choose (the compatibilist position) or by beginning with a choice that arose spontaneously without any determining desire at all (the libertarian position). Since we can only be morally responsible for actions we did on purpose, and our actions are only on purpose to the degree that they are determined by our own desires and motives, it follows that we cannot take the libertarian position. Ultimately, all of our actions must originate from desires that we did not choose. Otherwise, morality would be impossible altogether.

If it turns out that we can be morally responsible for our actions even when they are based on desire that we did not choose, then it doesn’t matter what causes our desires—whether somebody outside of us using persuasion, whether we are born with a sinful inclination, or whether God directly influenced our hearts. Since all of these causes for our desires lie outside of the will, they cannot be the basis upon which we are excused or held responsible. So if God hardens your heart resulting in you having a desire to disobey him, and you act on that desire, then you are still morally responsible.

Consider the Voldemort thought experiment. Voldemort is an evil character in Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling made him up. He’s only evil in the book, though, because that’s how Rowling wrote him. He’s not evil in reality because he doesn’t exist in reality. But suppose Rowling was able to pull him out of the book and into reality, and suppose that if she did so, he would be just the same in reality as he is in the book. Would he not act the same as in the books? And if he did, would he not be responsible for his actions?

You might say no since Rowling determined that he would be the way he is. But let’s suppose there are two people named Voldemort who are alike in every way, including all of their beliefs, desires, memories, habits, inclinations, biases, abilities, etc. The only difference between them is that one was born into the world the usual way and for whatever reason became like he is today. The other was created ex nihilo by J.K. Rowling just yesterday, and she planted all those memories, beliefs, desires, etc. in him. Considering the fact that at this moment, they are exactly alike in every way, doesn’t it follow that if one is responsible for his actions, the other is as well? And doesn’t it follow that it doesn’t matter how they got to be that way? We would all agree that the Voldemort who came into the world the usual way is responsible for his actions, so it follows that the Voldemort created by J.K. Rowling is also responsible for his.

And it follows that if God brought us into existence and caused us to have sinful desires, that we are just as responsible for our actions as we would be if he had not caused us to have sinful desires.

That is not only agreeable to the philosophical arguments I just made, but it’s also consistent with the scriptures. In Romans 9:18, Paul says that God “has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.” Then he says, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?’”

Now, why would Paul raise this question? The thought behind the hypothetical question is that if it is God’s will that our hearts are hardened, then he shouldn’t find fault in us. If God is the one who hardens our hearts, and if God’s will cannot be resisted, then we can’t help but sin. That raises the question of why God would hold us accountable for our sins. So Paul’s hypothetical question makes no sense at all unless Paul really means to be saying that God hardens people’s hearts, resulting in sin.

Notice that the hypothetical objection Paul raises to what he just taught is exactly the same objection Craig raises against reformed theology. Craig thinks that if divine determinism is true that it removes personal responsibility for our actions just as Paul’s hypothetical objector thinks. And just as the hypothetical objector is taking issue with what Paul just taught about the sovereignty of God, so also is Craig taking issue with what Paul just taught about the sovereignty of God. So Craig is on the wrong side of this issue Biblically.

Part 4

God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, part 2

All of our choices are determined by the reasons we have for making them--our desires, dispositions, inclinations, motives, etc. But what about the desires themselves? Are they under the control of the will? Do we choose them? It seems not, because that would get us into an infinite regress. If all of our choices are determined by desires, and we choose our desires, then our choices for desires are determined by previous desires. But if we choose those desires, then those desires have desires that come before them. Back and back it goes. To make any choice at all, we'd have to make an infinite number of previous choices to lead up to it. But that's not possible. So if we are able to make choices at all, then they must ultimately originate in some desire that we did not choose.

Ultimately, then, the desires that determine our choices are not under the control of the will. That raises another question. If our choices are ultimately determined by things that are not under the control of the will, then how can we be morally responsible?

Last year, a guy I knew made an argument against morality from determinism. He argued that ultimately all of our choices are determined by things not under the control of the will--our genes, our environment, our upbringing, etc. Since our will is not free but determined, he argued, we cannot be morally responsible.

His argument depended on the notion that "ought" implies "can." If I have a moral obligation to do something, then I must be able to do it. If I'm not able to do it, then I cannot have an obligation to do it. Since I'm not able to choose the desires that determine my choices, then I'm not able to choose other than what I choose. I can only choose otherwise if I am enclined to choose otherwise. But it is a contradiction to suppose that I could be enclined to choose what I am not enclined to choose.

This intuition that "ought" implies "can" seems to be universally recognized. I find that curious in light of people who don't believe in morality. Even people who think morality is an illusion, a convention, or non-existent seem to know beyond doubt that inability is a legitimate moral justification for failure to comply. That's one reason I think morality is not only universal, but also universally known. Even the strictest empiricists subscribe to the notion that "ought" implies "can," though they can give no empirical proof for it. Anyway, that's another subject.

In my response, I argued that not only is compatibalism consistent with moral responsibility, but that it is necessary for moral responsibility. Libertarian free will, which he seemed to suppose was necessary for moral responsibility, turns out to be inconsistent with moral responsibility. I gave my arguments in nine posts, so I don't really want to repeat them all hear. You can do one of three things. You can either assume I'm right for the sake of argument, take my word for it, or go read those posts. They are on parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine of "An argument against morality from determinism."

Part 3

to be continued...

William Lane Craig against Calvinism: a response, Part 3A of 5

Part 2

3. Universal, divine, determinism makes God the author of sin and precludes human responsibility. In contrast to the Molinist view, on the deterministic view even the movement of the human will is caused by God. God moves people to choose evil, and they cannot do otherwise. God determines their choices and makes them do wrong. If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but becomes evil Himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been removed. For our choices are not really up to us: God causes us to make them. We cannot be responsible for our actions, for nothing we think or do is up to us.

Craig raises two points here. He says that divine determinism makes God the author of sin. He also says that divine determinism precludes human responsibility. I’ll treat these one at a time. Since I had so much to say, I separated part 3 into Part 3A and Part 3B.

Whether divine determinism makes God the author of sin

First, let’s talk about whether divine determinism makes God the author of sin. People frequently use the phrase “author of sin” without being clear about what they mean. There are at least two possible things that it could mean.

It could mean that God authored sin in the same sense that J.K. Rowling authored Voldemort’s evil except that sinners are real and Voldemort is not. In this view, God intended sin to happen, and he disposed the world in such a way to ensure that it would. Sin was part of God’s plan.

I readily admit that God is the author of sin in this sense. I don’t see how any Calvinist who subscribes to the Westminster Confession could deny it. The Westminster Confession says that “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” If sin comes to pass, then God must’ve ordained it.

Even Craig must admit that God is the author of sin in some sense. According to Molinism, God knew all the counterfactuals of human freedom, and he knew all possible states of affairs, so he knew exactly what would happen depending on which world he chose to actualize. God chose to actualize this world knowing ahead of time that the inevitable outcome would be specific sins that he knew about. If he had refrained from creating this world, those sins would not have happened. So God is the author of those sins in some sense. He created the conditions under which those sins were inevitable.

I’m guessing Craig would say the difference is that when God disposes the world in such a way that he knows sin is inevitable, he doesn’t actually cause it to happen. Rather, he passively allows it to happen.

I don't think it makes much difference in whether God causes or allows evil. In either case, God intends the evil to come about because he has some good purpose in it. If God didn't have a good purpose in allowing the evil, he could've easily prevented it. He chose to allow the evil because he intended the evil to happen. That seems to me to be consistent with the view that "God decrees all things that come to pass." However you look at it, whether by allowing or causing, God disposes the world in such a way that evil is inevitable because evil is part of his plan.

Craig may object that sin isn’t something God intends to happen as a means to a greater good, but that sin is an inconvenience that God must work around to obtain his ultimate good. In that case, God doesn’t actually plan or intend sin to happen; rather, he just puts up with it because his hands are tied by the counterfactuals of human freedom.

However, the Bible is clear that God intends sin to happen because he has a purpose in it. It isn’t just an inconvenience that he’s forced to work around. Here are a couple of examples.

God meant for Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery, and even though his brothers meant it for evil, God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20).

When Pilate, Herod, the gentiles, and the people of Israel gathered together against Jesus in Jerusalem, they were doing what God predestined to occur (Acts 4:27-28). But the crucifixion was the means by which God saves people from his wrath against sin. God meant for Jesus to be crucified, which entails that he meant for somebody to crucify him.

I would go even further to show that in some cases, God directly causes people to sin. I may have lost some of my Calvinist friends at this point, but see what you make of my case.

We all know about God hardening Pharoah’s heart which resulted in Pharaoh not letting the Hebrews go. And we know that God punished Pharaoh for his refusal to let the Hebrews go even though that was God’s plan all along.

The common response is that Pharaoh hardened his own heart first. But as long as God played any role at all in Pharaoh’s heart being hardened, this common response does nothing to diminish the point. Whether God assisted Pharaoh in hardening his own heart or whether God did all the hardening himself, we're still faced with the same situation--God played a role in Pharaoh's heart getting hardened, and the result was sin. In fact, that's why God hardened his heart. He did it so he could display his power in Pharaoh (Romans 9:17). God meant for Pharaoh to refuse to let Israel go, and he played an active role in assuring that Pharaoh would choose just as he did. Whether you say God did that all on his own, or he just assisted Pharaoh, doesn't seem to make much difference because God was active (not merely passive) in either case.

There are other Biblical examples of God causing people to sin, which I’ll list here.

God causes people to be false prophets (1 Kings 22:23).

Isaiah 63:17 says, "Why, O LORD, dost thou cause us to stray from your ways, and harden our hearts from fearing you?"

He turned the heart of the Egyptians to hate the Hebrews and deal craftily with them (Psalm 105:23-25).

He caused the Egyptians to turn against each other and to resort to idolatry and necromancy (Isaiah 19:2-3).

He sent the Assyrians to plunder and trample Israel (Isaiah 10), then punished them for taking the credit for it.

He sent the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem and the surrounding nations, then punished them for it (Jeremiah 25).

He causes people to forget the Sabbath and feasts (Lamentations 2:6).

John 12:39-40 “For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ‘He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.’”

1 Peter 2:8 “For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this they were also appointed.”

Revelation 17:7 “ For God has put it in their hearts to execute his purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.”

These passages make God out to be the author of sin in the sense that God intends and brings it about that people commit sin.

But there is another possible meaning to the phrase, “author of sin,” which is that God himself commits sin. Craig says, “If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but becomes evil Himself, which is absurd.” Whether God is evil himself hinges on the premise that it is evil to make another person do wrong.

In general, I think it is wrong to cause another to sin. The Bible gives several warnings against being a stumbling block to other people and causing them to sin.

Matthew 18:6-7 “If any of you puts a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one through whom the stumbling block comes!”

1 Corinthians 8:9-12 “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.”

Although it’s clearly a sin to cause somebody else to sin, I think this is only a prima facie moral imperative that is not without exception. Just as lying is wrong in most cases, one can imagine scenarios in which lying would be the right thing to do, such as protecting Jews from Nazis during the holocaust. In the same way, there are scenarios in which it is not wrong to cause another to sin.

Consider this scenario. You are a quadriplegic confined to a wheel chair, and you know two things: 1) That there is a black man hiding in the woodshed near you with a detonator prepared to blow up a school filled with black children and teachers; and 2) There is murdering racist about to walk by who would like nothing better than for as many black people to die as possible, and he would gladly kill any black person he sees.

If you are a moral person, you would like to be able to stop the man in the woodshed from blowing up the school, but you’re a helpless quadriplegic. The only person around who can help is the murdering racist about to walk by. How are you going to get him to stop the man in the woodshed?

Well, you can’t just tell him he’d be saving hundreds of kids if he stops the man in the woodshed because if he finds out the kids are black, he may let the man hit the detonator or hit it himself. There are no altruistic motives you can appeal to to get the racist to stop the man in the woodshed.

Pretty much the only thing you can do is appeal to the racists’ murdering intentions. If you do nothing, he’ll just walk on by, so the best thing for you to do is tell him there’s a black man in the woodshed, and he better kill him quick, not to save innocent lives, but just because he’s black. That’s the only way to save all those kids, and it seems to me that’s the moral thing to do.

I made up that scenario. Maybe I could’ve come up with something more simple if I were more creative. But the point is to illustrate that it is possible for there to be a morally justifiable reason for causing another person to sin. If it is possible for us to be morally justified in causing people to sin, at least in some cases, then it is possible that God has a morally justifiable reason for causing people to sin in all cases in which they sin. Before Craig could argue that God causing people to sin makes God evil, Craig would first need to rule out that possibility.

However, the Bible is not silent on the issue. It specifically tells us in some cases why God causes people to sin. In the case of Joseph’s brother selling him into slavery, the purpose was to save people from starvation. In the case of hardening Pharaoh’s heart, we are told that God did it to demonstrate his power (Romans 9:17). Jonathan Edwards argued in The End For Which God Created the World that God’s ultimate end in everything is his own glory, and God’s glory is made manifest in the demonstration of his attributes. God’s glory is the greatest good, and with God being perfectly good, it stands to reason that he would have a passion for his own glory. I don’t want to go into detail about that because it would make this blog post a lot longer, so have a look-see at Edward’s book.

God is justified for causing people to sin because he does so for good and praiseworthy ends which outweigh the immediate consequences of sin. But that is not the only reason God is justified in causing people to sin. He is also justified for a reason that does not apply to mere mortals. He is justified because he is God—the creator. He is justified because of his divine prerogatives and absolute autonomy and freedom to do as he wishes with his creation.

In Romans 9:18, Paul says that God “has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.” Then he says, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who resists his will?’” Paul responds to this hypothetical challenge in a number of ways, but the first thing he points out is God’s freedom and autonomy to do as he wishes with his creatures. He says, “On the contrary, who are you, o man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?” So, according to Paul, God has the moral right to harden whom he desires. He therefore is not evil for causing people to sin.

Part 3B

A Calvinism thought experiment

Since becoming a Calvinist, I've given a lot of thought to the issue of how people can be morally accountable for their actions if God decrees everything that comes to pass, including human decisions. Calvinists usually subscribe to compatibilist free will to reconcile the situation, but people have a difficult time understanding how people can be morally accountable for their actions if their actions are determined by motives and desires that they did not choose. I wrote two series of blogs about this problem. The first is a nine part series called "Argument against morality from determinism" where I argued that compatibilism is compatible with moral responsibility. You can read them here: intro: the power of intuition, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, and part 9. The second is a five part series called "God's Sovereignty and Human Responsibility," where I argued, building on the previous series, that God's sovereignty is compatible with human responsibility. You can read them here: intro: My conversion to Calvinism, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5. The discussion in the comments section of parts 3 and 4 are worth reading, too.

After all this, I tried to come up with thought experiments that would appeal to most people's intuition and that would help them see that people can be morally accountable for their actions even if God made them the way they are. I came up with one regarding Voldemort, which I posted on my blog here. I wanted to find out if this thought experiment would have an intuitive appeal in favour of the Calvinist view or not, so I posted it on Yahoo Answers to see what people would say. This is the question I asked:

As all us Harry Potter fans know, Voldemort is not a real person. As a fictional character, he's evil and blameworthy within the story, but not in real life. But suppose J.K. Rowling had the power to bring Voldemort to real life. And suppose that if she did so, the real Voldemort would be exactly like he is in the books. He'd be just as mean and nasty and evil. Would he be morally blameable for his actions?

I intentionally left out any reference to Calvinism because I wanted to get opinions from people without their bias for or against Calvinism playing a part in their answer. Sometimes people resist the force of an argument if they don't like where it is going. The majority of people who answered thought that Voldemort would be morally responsible for his actions in spite of the fact that he didn't choose to come into existence or to have all those nasty dispositions, which is what I was hoping for.

It wasn't until just the other day that I actually used this thought experiment in a real conversation about Calvinism in order to persuade the other person. The conversation took place on Stand to Reason's facebook discussion forum, and you can read the conversation here. As I suspected, the person I was talking to was not persuaded by the thought experiment.

So I came up with a different thought experiment, and that is the whole reason for this blog post--to share the next thought experiment I came up with and to see what you think about it. Here it is:

Let's suppose there are two people named Voldemort, and that they are exactly alike in every way. They look alike, dress alike, smell alike, talk alike, etc. They have identical DNA, an identical brain structure, identical mental structure (including desires, biases, beliefs, memories, personality, etc.). The only difference between them is that one of them was born and came into the world the usual way. The other was brought into existence by J.K. Rowling just a few days ago. Would you say...

A. They are both morally accountable for their actions;
B. Only the one born the usual way is accountable for his actions;
or
C. Neither one of them is accountable for his actions?

And since I'm making so many links in this blog entry, I might as well link to another conversation I had on this same topic. The subject came up on STR's blog, and you can read it here. And there's another related conversation here on whether Jesus could sin, and if not, was he really tempted?

There. Now I've got all these handy links in one place so if I ever want to read any of this again, I won't have to look it up. How convenient!

God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, part 1

There are people who deny that God is sovereign and there are people who deny that man has any moral responsibility, but let's let those be assumptions for the sake of this discussion. You don't have to believe in either to ponder the question of whether the idea of a sovereign God is consistent with the idea of people having moral responsibility.

Let's start with compatibalism. Compatibalism is the view that we always act according to the strongest motive we have. Let's say you're a diabetic sitting in front of a chocolate cake. In a situation like that, you've got two competing desires. You've got a desire to eat the cake because you know it will taste good. But you've also got a desire to not eat the cake because you know it will make you sick. The thing that determines what your choice will be, whether to eat the cake or not, is which desire is the stongest.

Whenever somebody does something, you can always ask, "Did you mean to do that?" All intentional acts are done for a reason. That's what it means for them to be intentional. If they're not intentional, then they're accidents. You didn't mean to do them.

This is true in even the most seemingly neutral choices. For example, suppose you've got two glasses in front of you, both with the same drink. It may seem that there is nothing which would cause you to prefer one over the other. Yet you will eventually choose one over the other. Does it makes sense to even ask why? Well it's impossible to choose either without some sort of inclination to move. The mind, at some point, must get itself fixed on one or the other and then choose it.

It's impossible to move without being enclined to move. So some kind of inclination, preference, predisposition, motive, desire, or whatever is necessary for any intentional act. Acts that lack any mental predisposition include things like reflexes (e.g. when somebody hits you on the knee) or muscle spasms, shakes, twitches, or any kind of involuntary physical movement. It's involuntary because it's not done out of a mental disposition, and so it's not a choice.

The will is the faculty of choice. Any act of the will is a choice. That's why we say that some actions, like twitching, are not under the control of the will, and are therefore not choices. They are done involuntarily. If choosing is acting on a motive, then any act of the will is determined by the motive it acts on.

That's compatibalism.

Part 2

to be continued...

My conversion to Calvinism

I'm writing this as a preface to a post I want to make where I'll reconcile God's sovereignty with man's responsibility. This is all just autobiography, and you can skip it if you aren't interested.

I didn't grow up in a church, and I was never really taught theology when I was a kid. I formed a lot of my ideas from reading the Bible by myself and just thinking. But I did hear theological phrases and such from people at school sometimes. One I remember hearing a lot was "God is in control."

When I heard that, an idea formed in my mind that was, as it turns out, not what the other person had in mind when they said it. The other person meant that God actually intervenes in everything that happens. I took it to mean that God could intervene anytime he felt like it. I thought that for the most part, God had a hands-off approach to the world, and he only intervened in the rare case of miracles or such.

I remember using an analogy to explain what I thought was meant by "God is in control." After all, I wasn't about to dispute with my better whether it was true or not. I accepted that it was true, but then explained how it could be true under my understanding. I compared it to a person driving a car. As long as the person has his hands on the steering wheel, he's in control of the direction of the car even if he doesn't happen to be turning the wheel or manipulating it at all. He could manipuate it any time he wants, but he's still in control even if he doesn't happen to be manipulating it at the moment. I figured God had the same kind of control over creation. He could intervene anytime he wanted, but that didn't mean he was intervening on a continual basis.

I don't remember hearing much about God's sovereignty until I was an adult. When I heard that phrase, "God is sovereign," an idea formed in my head that also turned out not to be what people meant. Here, I don't think I can be faulted too much. People still mean different things by saying God is sovereign. I took it to mean God is the highest authority in the universe. There's nobody above him, and he makes the rules that apply to everybody. It had nothing to do with God's intervention in the universe except in regard to judging, rewarding, and punishing.

It turns out that that's not exactly what a lot of people mean by saying God is sovereign. Although what I thought may be included in what they think, it doesn't exhaust what they think. When people say God is sovereign, they often mean the same thing my friend from high school meant when she said that "God is in control." God isn't just sovereign in his authority, but he is sovereign over all events, meaning he is in control of them.

I remember being 23 or 24 the first time I heard that there was a distinction in God's will. A girl I used to know told me that God has an active will and a permissive will. His active will included those things he actually does. His permissive will includes those things he allows to happen. Of course I bought into this distinction right away, because it cohered nicely with what I understood it to mean that "God is in control."

It was around this time, also, that I first heard of this problem of reconciling God's sovereignty with man's responsibility. With the understanding I already had in place, I couldn't figure out why it caused anybody problems at all. I figured God's sovereignty, even over human action, only implied that God could intervene if he wanted to, but human activity normally fell under God's permissive will. People don't act because God somehow causes them to act. Rather, God allows them to act freely. So God is sovereign in the fact that he is in control of people and can stop them or manipulate them any time he wants, but people are still morally responsible because God doesn't ordinarily manipulate people.

I was agnostic for a while in my early 20's, but it's also around that time that I start seriously studying the Bible. It's also about that time that I first discovered the internet. Through the internet, I ran into people of a vast variety of religious beliefs that I probably could never have done otherwise. I had my first exposure to Calvinism at that time.

I didn't fully understand Calvinism that early, but there were a few things people said that I was sympathetic to. Not that I agreed with them, but it was understandable to me how they could come to their conclusions. Through reading the Bible, I found much that seemed to be consistent with Calvinism. I always put it on the back burner, though. I figured these were isolated verses here and there, and the whole of scripture was against how the Calvinists understood them. My exposure to Calvinists was sparse enough for me to pretty much ignore them.

Two things happened, though, that made me decide I needed to educate myself on the whole question of Calvinism. First, I kept running into Calvinists more and more, and I became aware that there was serious debate on the matter going on. Second, I saw a book called The King James Only Controvery at the Christian bookstore by James White. I had run into a guy a few years earlier who thought the King James version was the only valid translation. At the time, I thought he was an anomoly, but when I saw the title of this book, I decided to get it and read it.

Through that book, I became aware of this guy named James White. It turns out that James White is the head of an apologetics ministry called Alpha and Omega, and the web site address was in the back of the book. I did some reading on the internet about White and discovered he was writing a book (or had written a book) called The Potter's Freedom, in which he defended Calvinism against Norman Geisler's book, Chosen But Free.

I went into White's chat room and interacted with the people there, almost all of whom where Calvinists. I didn't debate much with them, though, because I didn't feel myself too educated on the subject. After a lot of time being in there, though, I started wishing I knew more so I could debate with them. Eventually, I decided I could postpone my education no longer. I had to learn about the whole Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate.

I had heard enough about Calvinism and Arminianism to know that I had some disagreements with both. The Calvinists, however, didn't seem to recognize people who didn't fall into one camp or the other. Anybody who didn't fall into one camp or the other was just called "inconsistent." Since I was closer to being an Arminian than a Calvinist, I wondered if I would eventually fall into the Arminian camp once I read up on the arguments.

I decided a good place to start would be to read the books by Geisler and White. To my surprise, Geisler started his book by arguing for the sovereignty of God over all events--even human decisions. Although I had stumbled across plenty of verses that seemed to support this view (e.g. Proverbs 16:9 and 20:24), I had never heard it argued so pursuasively before. It was so pursuasive, in fact, that it caused me to change my mind right away. I wasn't at all impressed with the rest of the book, though. First, he seemed to contradict everything he had written in the first chapter. Second, his arguments just weren't that great.

Since I was so unimpressed with Geisler's book, I didn't really read White's book with anticipation about how he was going to refute Geisler. Instead, I read White's book with anticipation about how I was going to refute White. I thought maybe I'd write a critique of it.

As I read the first few chapters of White's book, I didn't think I'd have much problem critiquing his book. But then I got to chapter seven--"Jesus teaches 'Extreme Calvinism.'" In that chapter, White made what seemed to me to be an airtight case for Calvinism from John 6.

I didn't convert to Calvinism right away, though. First, I wanted to read other interpretations of John 6 and see what kind of responses there were to White's arguments. White had said at various other times that he had never seen a consistent interpretation of John 6 that got around the points he made. I wanted to know if it was true.

After reading around, I found that what White said was true. There have been numerous attempts at refuting White's arguments from John 6, and there have been all kinds of interpretations of it, but none of them come close to upsetting the case White makes for Calvinism. His case still seems to be solid to me.

Still, my conversion to Calvinism did not come easy. As I continued to read and learn about Calvinism, I discovered that it required a Copernican revolution in my worldview and in my understanding of the Bible. There were still places in the Bible that I had always understood in a way contrary to Calvinism, and it took a long time to iron them all out.

At a certain point, though, I came to realize that overall, the Bible supported Calvinism far more strongly than it supported the contrary. I decided I was a Calvinist before I got it all ironed out. In fact, I probably still don't have it completely ironed out.

There was another problem with Calvinism, though. The problem wasn't only Biblical, it was philosophical as well. In fact, the philosophical problem seemed worse than the Biblical problem. I became convinced that the Bible taught Calvinism, but Calvinism seemed to have some serious philosophical problems.

Since I'm sure non-Christians are reading this, I'll tell you that, yes, I did consider the fact that if the Bible definitely teaches Calvinism, and if Calvinism is philosophically bankrupt, it would follow that the Bible can't be the inspired word of God. I also considered that if the Bible supported both Calvinism and non-Calvinism, then the Bible is contradictory and can't be the word of God. But I'm not going to get sidetracked on those lines of thoughts now.

Anyway, the philosophical problems only increased the more I learned about Calvinism. One book in particular caused me a great deal of consternation. John Piper wrote a book called The Justification of God in which he gave a very thorough exegesis of Romans 9. From Romans 9, Piper argued for double predestination. You see some Calvinists are willing to say that God predestined people to eternal glory, but not that he predestined people to eternal damnation. Rather, God simply allows, passively, people to fall into damnation. Piper argued from Romans 9 that God creates some people for the purpose of damning them. I found that (and still find that) incredibly disturbing. Yet his case was pursuasive.

Before going into the philosophical problems with Calvinism (which is the subject of this series), I want to mention one other problem I had with Calvinism. The problem I had with it was my general impression of Calvinists themselves. There was a guy in my Monday night Bible study who was a Calvinist--a pushy one, too. He was always getting me to read his Calvinist books. Two of them that stick out in my mind were by Martin Luther and Arthur Pink. I remember thinking they were both just really nasty. James White seemed pretty rough around the edges, too. My general impression of Calvinists was that they were just some rude and nasty people.

Of course I recognized that it was fallacious to fault Calvinism just because a lot of Calvinists seemed nasty to me. I'm human, though, and I can't help that it caused me to be suspicious of Calvinism.

Anyway, one of the major philosophical problems with Calvinism in my mind was how to reconcile God's sovereignty with human responsibility. The first time I ever heard the problem expressed in light of Calvinism was when I read a book called Decision-Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen and J. Robin Maxon. It turned out, though, that Calvinists were not the only ones who had a strong view of God's sovereignty (Geisler being one example). Being much influenced by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, I believed libertarian free will was necessary for moral accountability. Besides, libertarian free will had a strong appeal to common sense for me.

You might wonder how I reconciled that with my Calvinism. Well, I think my view was a lot like the view of Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason. Basically, I did not think we had free will in regards to accepting or rejecting the gospel. The Bible seemed clear on that. But I figured we had free will in every other aspect of life. At the time, that seemed consistent with Calvinism to me.

It wasn't, though, and I think Koukl recognizes this. God's sovereignty must cover all moral choices, not just the choice to accept or reject the gospel. Koukl has often said on his radio show that the hardest theological problem for him is how to reconcile the fact we have moral obligations with the fact that we have an inability to obey. We are dead in sins, unable to please God apart from his intervention, necessarily sinful. You see, we have this strong intuition that "ought" implies "can." That is, we can't have a moral obligation to do something if we are unable to do it. How is it, then, that we DO have a moral obligation if we also have an inability to meet those obligations?

Dennis (the guy in my Bible study), let me borrow The Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards. This book caused another Copernican revolution in my way of thinking. It completely resolved every philosophical problem I had with Calvinism. It raised problems I didn't have before, and solved those, too. Though it didn't cure me of my discomfort with double predestination, it did satisfy me intellectually. Of course I had to read it a couple of times to understand it, and there are some sections I've read several times to understand them.

The major shift in my thinking was from believing in libertarian free will to believing in compatibalism. Also, from thinking libertarian free will was necessary for morality and compatibalism was inconsistent with it to thinking libertarian free will was inconsistent with morality and compatibalism was necessary for it. That was probably the most interesting thing I got out of the book.

Most importantly, Edward's book solved the problem of how to reconcile God's sovereignty with human responsibility. I wish I could convince all my readers to read his book--especially Steve and Dagoods. I wish I could convince Greg Koukl to read it, too. Edwards covers a lot of area that I can't cover without writing a book of my own, and he argues better than I could hope to do it.

to be continued: God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, part 1

William Lane Craig against Calvinism: a response, part 1 of 5

A while back, William Lane Craig at Reasonable Faith got a question about Calvinism vs. Molinism. In his response, he listed “Five difficulties with the reformed view.” I’ve been wanting to respond to them for a long time but just haven’t gotten around to it until now.

With the exception of #2, Jonathan Edwards dealt with all of these issues 260 years ago in his book, An Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of That Freedom of the Will Which Is Supposed to Be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame. Or, more commonly, The Freedom of the Will. So I highly recommend this book for anybody who wonders how Edwards might’ve responded to Craig.

I’m going to respond to each of these in a separate blog post. Here’s the first difficulty Craig raises.

1. Universal, divine, causal determinism cannot offer a coherent interpretation of Scripture. The classical Reformed divines recognized this. They acknowledge that the reconciliation of Scriptural texts affirming human freedom and contingency with Scriptural texts affirming divine sovereignty is inscrutable. D. A. Carson identifies nine streams of texts affirming human freedom: (1) People face a multitude of divine exhortations and commands, (2) people are said to obey, believe, and choose God, (3) people sin and rebel against God, (4) people’s sins are judged by God, (5) people are tested by God, (6) people receive divine rewards, (7) the elect are responsible to respond to God’s initiative, (8) prayers are not mere showpieces scripted by God, and (9) God literally pleads with sinners to repent and be saved (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension, pp. 18-22). These passages rule out a deterministic understanding of divine providence, which would preclude human freedom. Determinists reconcile universal, divine, causal determinism with human freedom by re-interpreting freedom in compatibilist terms. Compatibilism entails determinism, so there’s no mystery here. The problem is that adopting compatibilism achieves reconciliation only at the expense of denying what various Scriptural texts seem clearly to affirm: genuine indeterminacy and contingency.

While it is true that some reformed people have said the reconciliation of God’s divine sovereignty and human responsibility is inscrutable, there are some who have given philosophically sophisticated reconciliations without resorting to Molinism. Jonathan Edwards dealt with this issue in some detail in his book on The Freedom of the Will. A lot of my responses will be inspired by Edwards but may not be exactly what Edwards said.

Craig is right that some reformed people have reconciled God’s sovereignty with human freedom by defining freedom in compatibilist terms. That is how Edwards reconciled them. That’s the option I take as well.

Where Craig goes wrong is in saying that “compatibilism achieves reconciliation only at the expense of denying what various Scriptural texts seem clearly to affirm: genuine indeterminacy and contingency.” Craig is wrong for a couple of reasons.

First, because the scriptures do not affirm libertarian freedom (which is what Craig means by “genuine indeterminancy and contingency”). Rather, Craig infers, through philosophical reasoning, that the Bible must presuppose libertarianism since it affirms the nine points that Craig spells out above. Craig thinks those nine point only make sense if we have libertarian freedom. But that is a philosophical presupposition of Craig’s, not anything the Bible actually says.

Second, if you look at what the Bible actually does say about the nature of the will, it supports compatibilism, not libertarianism. According to compatibilism, all of our choices are determined by our strongest desires and motivations. According to the Bible, our actions are determined by the condition of our hearts.

Matthew 7:16-18 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.”

Matthew 12:33-35 “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil.”

Luke 6:43 “For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit; nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”

From Jesus’ statements in Matthew and Luke, it’s evident that all of our actions, whether good or bad, are determined by the condition of our hearts. Jesus could hardly have endorsed compatibilism more clearly without actually using the word “compatibilism.”

Ezekiel 36:26-27 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

This directly addresses Craig’s second point above which he thinks implies human freedom. It says, “people are said to obey, believe, and choose God.” Craig thinks that obeying is inconsistent with determinism and implies libertarianism, but according to Ezekiel 36:26-27, obedience is caused.

Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”

A person who is accustomed to doing evil cannot do good because they can only act consistently with the condition of their hearts.

Proverbs 21:1 “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes.” (Cf. Ezra 6:22)

God’s sovereignty over the hearts of people is why he can be sovereign over all of our actions. That entails that our actions are determined by the condition of our hearts. This view of sovereignty is quite different than the Molinist view. Under Molinism, God doesn’t exercise sovereignty over human decision by influencing the human heart, but by actualizing possible states of affairs in which he knows ahead of time what people will freely choose.

Many more examples could be cited. Check out Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will. The scriptures clearly affirm compatibilism, not libertarianism. Craig does not get libertarianism from the Bible. Rather, he gets it from his philosophical presupposition that libertarianism is necessary for moral accountability combined with the Bible’s affirmation that we are morally accountable.

I’ll address the subject of whether libertarianism is necessary for moral accountability in part 3b of this series.

Part 2

God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, part 3

In case you didn't read that, let me explain the difference between a natural ability/inability and a moral ability/inability. If I have a natural ability to do something, that means I'm physically able to do it. If I have a natural inability, that means I'm physically unable. For example, if I have no legs, I have a natural inability to walk.

A moral inability consists in lacking the desire or inclination to do something. Since the will always acts on a motive, it cannot act without a motive. I have a moral inability to walk if I lack any inclination whatsoever to walk.

Okie dokie, with that out of the way, let's move on. We've seen (or assumed or taken my word for it) that we can be morally responsible even if we are unable to do otherwise provided the inability is a moral inability, and not a natural inability. Whereas we would excuse somebody for not walking since he had no legs, we wouldn't excuse somebody for not walking just because they had no desire to walk. The lack of desire amounts to a moral inability and doesn't excuse disobedience. As long as we have a natural ability, we are responsible even without a moral ability.

The proper object of command is the will, since it's the will that either obeys or disobeys. It's the actions of the will, then, that determine whether a person is worthy of praise or blame. A person is morally praiseworthy if they act on good motives and blameworthy if they act on bad motives. As we've seen, though, the motives themselves are not under the control of the will. They are caused by something else.

Since a person is morally responsible for acting on a bad motive even though the motive is caused by something other than the will, then it doesn't matter what the cause is. We cannot be praised or blamed for events that occur outside the will, so the causes of our motives cannot be the basis upon which we are excused or held responsible. Remember, the will is the object of command, not those things that lie outside of the will, including the causes for our motives. What makes us responsible, regardless of how the motive got there, is that our will is engaged in acting on the motive.

Whether the cause of our motives is our DNA, our environment, another person, or God, they all amount to the same thing--a motive that we did not choose. Since we can be held responsible for acting on motives that we did not choose, God's sovereignty is compatible with human responsibility. God may, either by causing or allowing, by direct or indirect means, create in us a motive to do wrong. But that does not excuse us, since we still act willfully.

God intended for Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery, he intended Pharaoh to refuse to let Israel go, he intended Judas to betray Jesus, and he intended the Romans to crucify Jesus. If God's intention brought these events about, then ultimately God was the cause for the motives these people acted on in doing these things. Yet they were morally responsible.

Part 4

to be continued...

Soft Libertarian Free Will

Blogspot seems to have made some changes that has made it impossible to post comments. My comment section works, probably because I'm still using an old theme, but I've been on two other blogspot blogs lately, and neither one will let me post comments. One of them is Evan Minton's blog. He recently posted an explanation of soft libertarian free will. Soft libertarianism differs from ordinarily (hard?) libertarianism in that your choices are limited to being within your nature (i.e. moral character). You're still free to choose between various options that are within your nature to choose, but you can't choose things that are against your nature.

This is the comment I tried to leave on Evan's blog post (edited a little since my last attempt).

How does moral accountability work with soft libertarianism? Some people say that you can't be blamed for doing wrong if you are unable to do good, and you can't be praised for doing good if you are unable to do bad. But if your nature restricts the scope of your options to good or to bad, then how can you be morally accountable for your actions?

Let's suppose you're in a situation where you can either choose to do X or choose to not do X. Doing X is morally obligatory, which entails that not doing X is wrong. If a person's nature constrains them in such a way that they can only do the right thing, then wouldn't that determine their choice in this case?

The reason I ask is because you defined soft libertarianism as being constrained to your nature, but free within your nature. But when it comes to individual choices, it's not a matter of doing X or doing Y; rather, it's a matter of doing X or not doing X. I can see how if your nature is good, and X and Y are good, then you could choose between X and Y, but if X is good, and not-X is bad, and you had to choose between X and not-X, you'd be determined to choose X, in which case soft libertarianism seems to reduce to determinism.

I suppose you could say there are some goods that are not obligatory. Or some actions are morally neutral. In your example, there's nothing wrong with playing a video game or writing a blog post, but there's also no obligation to do either. They're morally neutral. So you're free to do either. But in cases where some action is either forbidden or required, that wouldn't be the case. If it's forbidden, and your nature is to always do the right thing, then you'd be determined to choose not to do it. If it's required, and your nature is to always do the right thing, then you'd be determined to choose to do it.

So I'm not sure soft libertarianism accounts for a lot of the moral choices we have to make. If you are required to do X, and your nature is to do either right or wrong, then whether you choose X or not, you could not have done otherwise. Can a person be morally responsible for failure to do their duty if it was not within their nature to do their duty? Or can they be worthy of praise for doing their duty if it was not in their nature to refuse?

One of the objections compatibilists like myself have to the notion that Jesus or God had libertarian freedom is that it entails the ability to do evil (see "Does God have free will?"), which they are unable to do because of their perfectly moral character. The fact that Jesus and God are worthy of praise even though they are unable to do evil shows that libertarian freedom isn't necessary for moral responsibility. Soft libertarianism appears to be designed to avoid these criticisms. But I don't think it works. If we're going to say that some kind of libertarian freedom is necessary to be morally responsible, then there are a lot of things Jesus can't be praised for. The demands of the Mosaic law, combined with Jesus' perfect moral character, would've determined his choices in a lot of cases. Also, it seems to me that under the supposition that libertarianism is necessary for moral praise and blame, an act can only be good if one could've done otherwise, and the otherwise must be not good. How could one be worth of praise for choosing one good thing instead of another equally good thing? It seems like the instead of would have to be a bad thing or at least a less good thing. Can you imagine saying, "Oh, you are such a wonderful person because you chose to do that good thing when you could've just as easily chosen to do a different good thing"? That doesn't make sense. I would like to know from anybody who subscribes to soft libertarianism and thinks some kind of libertarianism is necessary for moral praise and blame, why does my ability to choose an equally good option instead of the one I chose make me worthy of praise? How does this improve upon a situation in which I'm determined by my moral character to choose a specific good action, and I couldn't have chosen a different action that was equally good? It seems to me, given the usual way that libertarians think of moral responsibility, I can't be praised for doing good unless I could've chosen evil, and I can't be blamed for choosing evil unless I could've chosen good. So soft libertarianism doesn't seem to solve the problems raised by compabilitists against libertarianism concerning Jesus and God's moral abilities and inabilities and their worthiness of praise.

See also "Does libertarian freedom entail the ability to do good or evil?"

Is same-sex marriage a matter of equal rights?

Rights can be had either by individuals or by groups.  When it comes to the right to marry, should we think of it as a right that a couple has, or should we think of it as a right that individuals have?

The right of individuals to marry

If we think of it as a right that individuals have, then I don't think the same-sex marriage debate is a matter of equal rights.  The reason is because each individual, whether gay or straight, has the same right already.  Whether you are gay or straight, you have the right to marry somebody of the opposite gender.  So gay people and straight people don't differ in their individual rights; rather, they differ in their desires.  Gay people don't want to marry people of the opposite gender.

But gay people could construe the right differently.  Instead of being "the right to marry a person of the opposite gender," which a gay person would have to admit to sharing along with straight people, they could construe it as, "a right to marry the person of your choice," or "the right to marry the person you love."  In that case, perhaps straight people do have a right that gay people don't have.

But I'm skeptical of that since not even straight people can marry just anybody they choose or anybody they love.  And most gay people would agree.  If we construe the right as being "the right to marry who you love," and if we wanted every individual to have that right equally, then we would have to allow incest.

Now, I know a lot of people just got up in arms about that because you think you've heard this argument before.  But I can almost guarantee you that if you're feeling hot under the collar right now, you're probably just having a knee jerk reaction, not to what I actually just said, but to what you imagine I must've said.  You've heard something similar that was offensive, and you've read that into what I said.  But what I said is actually quite logical and nothing to be offended by it all.  I'm taking the supposed right to marry who we love to its logical conclusion.

1.  Each person should have the right to marry who they love.
2.  A brother and a sister love each other.
3.  Therefore, a brother and a sister should have the right to marry each other.

The only way to reject the conclusion is to reject the right spelled out in the first premise.  So take a chill pill.  I'm tired of coddling people who are unable or unwilling to think carefully and simply react in emotional outbursts like silly children.  If you're still offended, I don't care.  It's up to you to get a grip.  I've done my part.

In summary, if the individual's right to marry is construed as a right to marry a person of the opposite gender, then gay and straight people already have equal rights.  But if it's a right to marry the person you love, then gay and straight people do not have equal rights, and hardly anybody thinks they should.

The right of couples to marry

If the right to marry belongs to groups or couples rather than individuals, then it is true that gay couples do not have the same right to marry as straight couples.  In that case, the debate on same sex marriage is a matter of equal rights.

However, not even same sex marriage advocate really want there to be equal rights granted to groups or couples because if there were, then it would have to be granted to every group or couple that wanted to get married.  Otherwise, the right would not be equal.  They would have to allow polygamy and incest marriages.

Did you just get offended again?  I don't care.  It follows.  Deal with it.

Think about other equal rights we think of as applying to kinds of groups.  Equal rights between races means that people have the same rights regardless of their race.  If white people and black people had the same rights, but not Asians, then we would not have racial equality.  So if the right to marry were granted to couples, the only way we could have equal rights is if the right were granted equally to every kind of couple.  But hardly anybody really advocates that.

So the same sex marriage debate cannot be a matter of equal rights granted to couples or groups.

Then why construe the debate as a matter of equal rights?

I think the primary reason the same sex marriage debate is framed in terms of equal rights is that pragmatically, it's a good idea.  It works.  We have a strong belief in equal rights in this country because if the long hard battle for equal rights between men and women and racial equality.  We have a past of inequality that we're ashamed of.  So if we can frame any right in terms of "equal rights" is going to be rhetorically effective.  It's effective because it's very emotionally appealing and it makes anybody who opposes it look like a bigot.  That lessens the need to argue.

Maybe pro-lifers should frame the abortion debate in terms of equal rights. The unborn should have an equal right to life along with the rest of us.  But I digress.

What's this debate really about?

What this debate is really about is the fact that same sex couples want to get married, and for two reasons--respect and benefits.  If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.  It's as simple as that.  That's what the same sex marriage advocates should be arguing.

1.  If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.
2.  Same sex couples want to get married.
3.  There's no reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry each other.
4.  Therefore, same sex couples ought to have the right to marry each other.

Somebody who wanted to defend same sex marriage while opposing incest and polygamy could say that this argument won't work in their case since if you plug them in, there are reasons to deny the third premise.  For example, polygamy leads to oppression of women as well as poverty which ends up being a burden on the state.  It also makes divorce and inheritance a nightmare. Incest leads to children with birth defects.  Personally, I don't think those arguments are all that great, but I won't get into that.  The point is that this argument allows same sex advocates to consistently support same sex marriage while opposing polygamy and incest.

Somebody who opposes same sex marriage could attack the first or third premise, and I've heard them do both.

The first premise:  If people want something, and there's no reason to deny it to them, then you should give it to them.

The first premise is attacked by claiming that it isn't enough for there to be no reason to deny something to somebody.  There has to be some positive reason for why you should give it to them other than the fact that they want it.  The state has to have an interest in it.  The reason the government is involved in marriage at all is because marriage is the institution where families are created and the next generation comes into being.  Families are necessary for societies, and regulating marriage is how the government protects families.  By giving married people certain rights and benefits, it encourages people to stay together, and that's good for society.

The state has no interest in regulating same sex marriage because it is impossible for same sex couples to have children.  While same sex advocates point out that it's impossible for some opposite sex couples to have children as well, opponents respond that opposite sex couples are at least the kind of relationship capable of producing children, so it's the kind of relationship that the state has an interest in regulating.  I'm not going to go into the merits of either of these responses.

The third premise:  There's no reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry each other.

I have heard many same sex marriage supporters say that they can't even imagine why somebody would oppose same sex marriage other than because of their religious beliefs.  However, same sex marriage opponents have offered many reasons.

1.  It encourages the kind of relationship that leads to early death.
2.  It would entail the right to adopt children, which would result in those children being denied either a father or a mother.
3.  "Same-sex marriage" is a contradiction in terms since marriage is a union between a man and a woman.
4.  It will weaken the institution of marriage.

Of those three, I think the second one is the strongest, but the third one is the one I most often hear.  An advocate of same sex marriage would obviously not find any of them to be an adequate reason to deny same sex couples the right to marry.  Most flat out deny 4.

What about civil unions and domestic partnerships?

I used to think civil unions gave same sex couples the same rights as married couples, but just denied them the "married" label.  Back in 2008 when I was on that Alaska cruise, I met this guy named Cole who was gay.  When he noticed the badge I was wearing for the apologetics conference, he knew right away that I was a Christian.  We ended up having a long talk about gay rights and the motivations of the gay community.  I asked him why civil unions were not enough if they gave gay couples the exact same rights as married couples.  He said it wasn't just the rights they wanted.  They also wanted the dignity, respect, and recognition that the "married" label carries with it.  They wanted public approval.

But I heard an interesting argument recently in a debate between Andrew Sullivan and Douglas Wilson.



Sullivan, the one arguing for same sex marriage, made an argument against civil unions and domestic partnerships.  He said that if we have civil unions and domestic partnerships, the right would have to be extended to heterosexuals as well as homosexuals.  That would create "marriage light" because it wouldn't require as much responsibility, commitment, or legal force.  That would weaken marriage because many heterosexuals would prefer "marriage light" to the full commitment and responsibility involved in traditional marriage.

Notice that this argument only works if civil unions and domestic partners do not have the same rights and responsibilities as married couples.  That was news to me.

He argued, on the other hand, that allowing same sex marriage would strengthen society.  In general, men who are married are monogamous and men who are not married are promiscuous.  That is true whether men are gay or straight.  If men are not allowed to marry, they will have as many sex partners as they can, and that is bad for society.  For one thing, it causes diseases to spread quicker and more widely.  Allowing gay people to marry would be good for society because it would reduce the amount of promiscuity out there.

He also argued (half jokingly, I'm sure), that if homosexuality is immoral, then we ought to encourage same sex couples to marry.  Why?  Because marriage kills sex.  I thought that was funny.  Of course he doesn't think homosexuality is immoral.  He was just telling people who do that they ought to support same sex marriage.

What's the real reason Christians oppose same sex marriage

In spite of all the legal and pragmatic reasons that Christians give for why we should not allow same sex marriage, I am fairly confident that the real reason they oppose it is because they think it's immoral. They don't want to have to recognize immorality, and they don't want to have to be forced to respect it.

They're also afraid that as homosexuality becomes more and more acceptable in society, Christianity will become less and less acceptable.  That will make it harder for Christians to find employment because if being anti-gay is seen to be morally equivalent to being racist, then society will feel perfectly justified in marginalizing Christians for their religious beliefs and denying them employment because of it.

I think that is a legitimate concern.  Of course I'm sure the homosexual community could care less.  One of my friends on facebook recently posted a link to a Christian complaining about being "persecuted" because of his opposition to same-sex marriage, and he said, "They can dish it out, but they can't take it."  Although I don't think things have risen to the level of persecution yet, I would not be surprised if it rises to that level within the next fifty years, and nobody will think Christians are being wronged.  Christians will be regarded as haters, bigots, and the bane of society, and discriminating against them will become perfectly acceptable.  We do seem to be headed in that direction.

Should Christians join the military and go to war? Part 2 of 2

In Part 1, I talked about my personal story surrounding this issue. Today, I want to talk about some of the specific reasons I had for being a conscientious objector and what I think about those reasons today.

Before I ever joined the Navy, I had already read the sermon on the mount where Jesus seemed to teach pacifism. All that stuff about turning the other cheek, doing good to those who harm you, etc., sure made it seem like you shouldn't hurt people no matter what. That, combined with the hippy phase I was going through as a late teen, made me friendly to the idea of pacifism even before I joined the Navy. So when I was exposed to the Watchtower arguments against Christian involvement in the military, I was already primed to agree with them. I was an easy sell.

Taken at face value, the New Testament does seem to teach a radical kind of pacifism. The fact that you may be harmed in the process doesn't seem to be a good excuse for retaliation or self-defense. We are explicitly told to love our enemies, to do good to those who harm us, not to seek revenge, to turn the other cheek, to forgive people, to seek peace and persue it, etc. Surely this prohibits Christians from taking up arms against anybody, whether in your own back yard or on a battlefield.

Probably the most compelling reason not to take things that far is the fact that sometimes it isn't just you who needs defending. It's your family. It's one thing to allow somebody to harm you without fighting back, but what if they're trying to harm your wife or kids? Surely, we have a responsibility to fight to protect them, don't we? The command to love our enemies surely doesn't nullify the command to love our neighbor. The command to love and care for our families ought to include protecting them when somebody else is trying to harm them. If you'll recall what I wrote in part 1, this reasoning is probably the biggest thing that has caused me to have doubts about my conscientious objector views.

One argument I have not found persuasive, though, is that Jesus was talking about personal conflict, not national conflict. I remember Greg Koukl making this point one time about loving your enemies, but I think he was mistaken. Jesus' command to love your enemies was juxtaposed with the already existing command to love your neighbors. If you look at the command to love our neighbor in its original context, you'll find that "neighbor" refers to fellow Israelites. That is likely how Jesus' audience would've understood the command because they were made up entirely of Jews. If "your neighbor" refers to fellow Israelites, then "your enemies" must refer to non-Israelites. That means the command to also love your enemies isn't talking about personal conflict. Jesus was making a political statement that applied to national conflict.

There seems to be an inconsistency in arguing on the one hand that the command to love our enemies only applies to personal enemies but not national enemies, but then to argue on the other hand that the obligation we have to protect our families with violence if necessary should apply just as much to protecting our country. There's a willingness to extrapolate from protecting our family to protecting our country, but an unwillingness to extrapolate from loving our personal enemies to loving our national enemies. But I digress.

There are a couple of other lesser points worth mentioning regarding Jesus' apparent teaching about pacificism and non-resistance. One is the possibility that Jesus was using hyperbole or he was only talking about insults and inconveniences, not physical harm, and it certainly didn't apply if somebody was trying to kill you. I don't know about that, though. I think we should take it seriously until we have good reason to make an exception. So I suppose we could take Jesus seriously but make room for moral dilemmas in which we have to choose the lesser of two evils. That would allow us to defend ourselves under dire situations like when somebody really wanted to harm us physically, especially if they wanted to kill us.

Another point worth mentioning that I already brought up in my digression is that it may be an unjustified extrapolation to go from defending your immediate family to defending your country. Surely we have obligations to our immediate families that we don't have to strangers who live a thousand miles away. But that does raise a thorny question, which is the question of where your obligation ends. I mean if I saw a stranger being attacked, surely I'd have an obligation to help them if I could. Maybe I don't have the same obligations to strangers that I do to my immediate family, but that doesn't mean I have no obligations. Moreover, tribes are extended families, and nations are extended tribes, so there isn't a clear line to draw between those we have an obligation to protect and those we don't.

That brings me to another argument I used to have against Christians in the military. In the New Testament, we are told that we should think of ourselves as aliens and strangers on earth and that our citizenship is in heaven. That means Christians shouldn't draw their "national" boundaries around certain areas of land the way secular governments do. Instead we should draw our national boundaries around our fellow Christians. There are Christians in almost every nation, and we should not go to war against each other just because of where we live. An American citizen who happens to be living in Canada would be thought a traitor if they joined the Canadians in waging war against America. Well, Jesus said his true followers would be known by the love they have for each other. Wouldn't that love be better displayed if the reason Christians gave for not joining the military is so they would not be forced to fight against Christians living in other countries?

I still think that's a decent argument, but it, too, is weakened by the Koukl Argument. What if the person trying to harm your family is a Christian? Well, if you have an obligation to defend your family with violence if necessary, it shouldn't matter whether the attacker is a Christian or not. So while I agree that in general, Christians shouldn't fight against each other, it does seem like one's fellow Christian can become one's enemy. An ideal solution would be that no Christian anywhere joined the military. Then scenarios like this wouldn't come up because Canada's army would not consist of any Christians trying to harm your neighbors. But the fact of the matter is that Christians do partipate in militaries, so you may be faced with having to defend your neighbors against Christian Canadians.

Another argument against Christian involvement in the military still carries a lot of weight with me. Joining a military requires taking an oath in which you voluntarily put yourself under the command of others who have the authority to tell you who to kill and who to protect. Not every war is a just war, and we all know that many unjust things happen in wars, even if we think the war in general is just. The Bible recommends not only avoiding sin but also avoiding situations that might cause you to sin. This should apply just as well to taking oaths. In fact, Jesus and Solomon both discouraged taking oaths, probably for reasons such as these. They force you into moral dilemmas. An oath could put you in a position of being obligated to do what you are obligated to refrain from doing. It would seem unwise, especially, to put yourself completely under the command of those who do not share your Christian values and are uninterested in your sense of right and wrong, which is exactly what a Christian would be doing by joining a secular military commanded by secular politicians.

The arguments I've heard against this are not at all persuasive. I remember when I was in the Navy, going through the conscientious objector process, being told that Jesus said to give to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's, as if to say you could have a divided loyalty. Jesus was talking specifically about paying taxes, though, and I don't see how this passage would allow you to engaged in an unjust war just because you belonged to the government. It is precisely because the government could at any time ask you to engage in an unjust war that you shouldn't have put yourself in that situation in the first place.

One other argument that also still carries a lot of weight with me is that it seems from historical evidence that Christians were nearly unanimous in condemning Christian participation in the military for the first two or three centuries of the church. This is evident both in the New Testament and in the writings of the early Church Fathers. In the New Testament, we have Jesus saying that those who live by the sword die by the sword, and Paul telling us that as Christians we do not wage war as the world does (i.e. by armed conflict). There is evidence in the early Church fathers that there were Christians in the military, but it was universally condemned. You have people like Tertullian explicitly condemning Christian participation in the military, and then you have accounts of people like Maximilian who succumned to martyrdom because he refused military service on the basis that he was a Christian and could not serve. I am sometimes surprised that Catholics became so friendly toward military service when they place so much weight on Tradition. There was a strong Tradition in the early Church about it being wrong for Christians to participate in the military, but that doesn't seem to matter to Catholics today. As a protestant, I'm not bound by Tradition, and I'm free to disagree with the early Chruch fathers. After all, they disagreed with each other on a number of things. But when there seems to be unanimity between them on a subject, that carries a lot of weight with me because it seems unlikely that they would have such a strong concensus on an issue if it were not correct.

One argument that used to be brought up a lot back in the day was that when the Centurion in Acts converted to Christianity, Peter never suggested to him that he should stop being a centurion. Also, John the Baptist told soldiers to be content with their pay, not to get out of the military.

In the case of John the Baptist, that argument didn't carry much weight with me because that happened before the ministry of Jesus in which Jesus introduced a new command--to love your enemies. The argument carries more weight with me now than it did then, though, because even though it's true that John the Baptist came before Jesus, we nevertheless have to consider the question of why the gospel writers decided to include that. The gospel writers weren't simply recording history in a disinterested way; they were teaching principles to a Christian audience. So it would seem that this teaching by John the Baptist was included because it's a principle the author thought still applied to his Christian audience.

In the case of the centurion, that argument didn't carry much weight because it's an argument from silence. We have no idea what advice Peter gave the centurion, because that wasn't the point of the story. The point of the story was about gentiles being able to convert to Christianity without first being Jews, which was a major controversy in the early church. So the argument from the centurion still carries little weight with me.

There's a lot more that could be said on this topic. It was not my intention to give an exhaustive account of all the arguments for and against Christian involvement in warfare and the military. I just wanted to share a bit of my personal reflections on the topic. If you want to read what I wrote back in the mid to late 90's in defense of Christian pacifism, you can check it out on the WayBack Machine: "Principles of a Conscientious Objector." I didn't address every point I made in that article in this post, and I didn't cite as many scriptures, but I hit on what I thought were the most significant points.

The bottom line is that I think there are good arguments for and against Christian involvement in warfare and membership in the military. I am not fully committed to either view. In Romans 14, Paul said that when it came to observing special days or not, or eating certain foods or not, it was a matter of personal conscience. But he also said that if you have doubts about whether it's okay to eat certain foods, then it's better not to do it. I apply Paul's principle to this subject because I am uncertain, so if I had to decide today whether I should join the Navy or not, I probably wouldn't. But at the same time, I wouldn't think any less of somebody who did, and I wouldn't try to discourage it. At most, I would only encourage the person to look into it because I think it's a topic any Christian considering joining the military should give careful study and thought to.