Precisely, exactly as traditional Calvinism has always maintained!
You might be happy to have me “convert” 
but “compatibalism” simply does not meet my definition of true freedom.
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How do you think Calvinism can maintain this? e.g., if it has been predetermined by God that Bob will choose an apple at 7:30 on19 May, he cannot not chose that apple. He has no capacity to do otherwise…
With deepest respect, I think you’re genuinely misunderstanding what Calvinism is maintaining at this point - God does indeed create our wills, natures, and desires (in the same sense that if it wasn’t God who did so, then something outside of ourselves gave us these things.)…. But God having given these things does not program certain outcomes; we make free choices within those limits that our natures cause. It does mean that we cannot do things that are not in our nature, but this doesn’t dictate the specific choices we’re making. We are free to do whatever we desire, anything that is in our nature. We’re simply not free do something that literally is not in our nature.
The simplest way to think about this I think is in eternal glory - we maintain that in our glorified state in eternal life, our nature, will, and desires will be such that it will be literally impossible to sin. Not because of some external contraints, nor because God is actively interfering with our free will any time we get close to venturing outside the lines…
But because our will, nature, and consequent desires will be transformed and glorified such that we will not have the capacity to sin… doing so simply will not be in our nature. But how in the world would that dictate what I do on any particular day in eternity? Perhaps I’ll freely choose to go for a hike, maybe to compose music, maybe build a cello, who knows? Any of these would be options for me to freely will and choose to do, as any of these will be within my nature.
But I will not be “free” to murder someone. Not because my will is being constrained by some power interfering with my free will, but because my nature will be such that this simply will not be something I am capable of. But this “limitation” (or real freedom?) of my will simply is not dictating my individual choices.
From his own perspective, he had every capacity to choose whatever he wanted, and he chose to do what he freely decided to do. The fact that this course of history was predetermined, either by foreknowledge, predestination, prophecy, or the like simply does not compel him to make that choice. I grant it is counterintuitive, but there simply isn’t compulsion.
In largely the same way that someone could (quite rightly) observe that if Captain Sisko really did have unerring knowledge of what Captain Kirk would do at any particular moment, then in one sense Captain Kirk couldn’t choose otherwise, in the sense that we know that said event or action is indeed how history was going to proceed.
But this did not compel - cause, constrain, force, manipulate, or coerce - Captain Kirk to make the decision he made even though from another perspective he couldn’t have made another choice. Captain Kirk still freely chose to do what he freely chose to do, even though from Sisko’s perspective he would not have chosen otherwise.
In science fiction and fantasy literature - either due to time travel or prophecies, we see this all the time, someone does something that was prophesied, or foreseen, or the like - but no one objects to these stories (at least that I have ever seen) on the grounds that the particular character is all of a sudden a puppet just for that moment, just because for whatever magical or sci-fi reason, someone else knows unerringly what they were going to freely choose to do. I suspect this betrays that deep in our nature we instinctively understand that these things are indeed compatible.
But getting back to the main point of this thread so I don’t cause too big a rabbit trail… from this compatibilist perspective, it would indeed be consistent to maintain that God intended every single word of the Scripture that he himself breathed, for his purposes, such that we can say about something in the Scripture, “the Holy Spirit spoke…” and yet it simultaneously be entirely the very words of the human author, according to their experience, personality, and free choice of words. God choosing every word he intended in Scripture does not turn them into puppets, automata, dictation machines, nor even simply an amanuensis.
But I am indeed fascinated by how much the question of inspiration philosophically overlaps with questions about Calvinism/predestination/free will. I would not have thought that such degree of overlap existed.
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Not at all asking you to convert - only asking that you acknowledge that Calvinism holds that we do genuinely have real and genuine free will… even if you can’t understand how we can simultaneously hold two positions that to you seem so contradictory, all I’m asking is that you acknowledge that we Calvinists do indeed explicitly and historically affirm said real and genuine liberty and free will.
But if we have an equivocation over the meaning of “Free Will” (which we do) how does me parroting the words “Calvinists have Free Will” solve anything? Then this is just a game in semantics which I do not want to play.
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Basic courtesy, of allowing people to define their beliefs. You can spend all day long arguing that our belief in predestination and free will are incompatible, according to your understanding of the logic involved, and that is certainly fine.
But what I think is inappropriate to do is to claim That because you see ann inconsistency, then we Calvinists obviously don’t believe in free will.
It would be just as (il)logical as someone reading Calvinist literature, recognizing that we affirm free will, and then concluding that we don’t “really” believe in predestination, since predestination is logically inconsistent with our affirmation of free will.
Thanks for this respectful conversation Daniel.
I addressed this point already earlier in the thread. Libertarian free willers do not maintain that our choices occur in a vacuum, only that God’s will and creation of the universe does not fully determine our choices. God gives us the agency to asses options, and even act against his will if we so chose. We seem to be going around in circles here…
And if God has created our nature and is fully responsible for it…then that is the crux of the disagreement over what a “Free Agent” really is (as opposed to a robot acting according to its programming). I don’t think its very useful to speculate about what our transformed natures might look like in heaven, when the question is how do humans act on this side of life.
Yes, the character may perceive himself to be free but this is just an illusion Have you ever seen the movie “The Truman Show”?
You may call freedom and compatibalism “counterintuitive”…but others of us simply see it as “incoherent”, based on our different definitions about what it means to be free.
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Oh, I can easily affirm that some Calvinists say that they believe in “free will” and that they may self-identify as believing in “free will”, but when we are using different dictionaries for the same word, still intellectually believe that their statement is incoherent…
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I’m curious about this. Earlier, I understood you to be arguing for meticulous sovereignty – that God ordained literally everything down to the smallest action through how God created. The above seems to suggest that when God gives us a glorified nature, it will rule out sinful choices but won’t determine our choices between options that aren’t sinful. We could actually choose between different live options without God having ordained one or the other through our will and circumstances and such that God gave us. Is this right, or do you still maintain meticulous sovereignty?
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But the text does not say that God predetermined Pharaoh’s actions, only that He raised Pharaoh up.
That’s different from authoring the evil.
Bingo.
This takes it back to foreknowledge. If it’s just foreknowledge, it isn’t determined.
No, it just shows that we are willing to grant that foreknowledge may be possible.
Fair enough. I think that considering our promised glorified state is incredibly instructive, and less open to misunderstanding, but I can further clarify what the Calvinists are talking about in the present moment.
However controversial, Calvinism asserts that “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God”, but that those who are born again by the spirit “received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
We understand that in our default, fallen nature, we did you not even have the capacity to turn from our sin and repent, without the spirit of God, so working in us as to actually change our nature.
When that nature is transformed, then God‘s people, transformed by the spirit in Ridley, therefore will, of their own free will, and according to their new nature, turned to God in genuine, faith, and repentance. As their new nature now allows them to do.
Sure, I’m sure that is controversial enough as it is. But please try to follow the main point: The Holy Spirit, giving an individual a new nature, which (finally) gives them the ability to so turn to God in faith and repentance, in no way dictates the minutia or specific subsequent choices they make. It does not dictate the specific words of their first prayer of repentance to God, it does not dictate where they choose to go to pray to God, it does not dictate who they choose to first tell about their new conversion, it does not dictate where they are going to go to church. God giving them a new nature, one that is not bound by sin, Finally allows them to do something that previously was against their nature: turned to God in genuine faith and repentance. But God giving them that new nature simply did not dictate the specific choices they would make.
But even in the deepest expressions and historical statements of Calvinism, God giving people a new nature, did not force or compel them to do something.
It is at least comparable to what I have seen in my counseling: someone might be totally addicted to some kind of sin or behavior, let’s say alcoholism. And that inclination runs so deep it practically controls them. In a real sense, the alcoholism that is so deep in their nature keeps them from having the freedom to make other choices. They simply find that they cannot through their sheer willpower choose to maintain sobriety.
But sometimes I have seen some breakthrough, some new insight, or some tragedy, or the like that affected a deep transformation within their own character and being, and all of a sudden they find themselves choosing to maintain sobriety. Because that incident or insight or tragedy, forced them to make some new choice? No, they would describe it as finally having a new freedom to make a new choice.
This is at least comparable to what we are talking about, or what Luther was talking about when he wrote “the bondage of the will." He wasn’t meaning our will is bound such that every single little choice, whether to had froot loops or raisin bran for breakfast, was “bound” because of how God formed out nature such to force us into such minute decisions… but that our will if bound by sin cannot please God, and that God the Holy Spirit in giving us a new nature breaks said bondage.
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Seriously, though, yes, this is historic Calvinism. We do believe that, to use the Westminster Confession’s language “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”
But they also understood, also from Scripture, that we do have a very real free will and liberty of choice - that said predestination does not remove said free will: “yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established… God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.”
concurrently, the writers of said confession also recognized that we must act according to our natures, and thus noted in said confession that even completely humanly speaking, when speaking of our human free choices and liberty that they repeatedly affirmed, that nonetheless said choices must always be in accordance with our nature. In this context, yes, our nature is given to us by God, but that nature doesn’t dictate or force us to make certain choices, though it precludes certain choices as they simply are against our nature.
Again, I think that is easiest to illustrate when we think of our glorified state. The words in Westminster are “The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only.” Meaning, due to the new glorified, perfected nature that God will give us, we will be free to do good only, and literally not be free to do evil. But not because our wills are forced or violated, but because it simply will not be in our nature to do evil.
If I understood rightly, I was clarifying as I think @klw was misunderstanding Calvinism at this point - that because we do indeed affirm that our wills are in “Bondage” (to use Luther’s term), due to our fallen nature… If I understood properly, I believe this was (mis)understood or interpreted so as to mean that our nature had such specific and minute control over us that it was literally dictating our choices of whether to have raisin bran or cheerios in the morning.
If I shared @klw’s understanding (if I did understand correctly), then I would indeed agree that this would indeed be forcing our choices, and hence they would indeed not be free choices.
But when a Calvinist (or Westminster confession) says that Man in his fallen state “*wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation,” This doesn’t mean that any fallen man’s specific sins are thus dictated by his nature.
Again, unless I completely misunderstood, I read @klw as understanding this particular point of Calvinism to mean that God had caused us to have a certain nature, desires, etc., and that those factors were 100% determinative over every single choice, including something so mundane as what I would eat for breakfast.
Rather, Westminster’s (and Luther’s) position is that our fallen nature , apart from the Holy Spirit’s intervention in changing our nature or giving us a heart of flesh, precludes our ability to make certain choices. But said nature does not force us to make any particular choice among the myriad of options. Likewise, in glory, a person will be in “bondage” to righteousness, and unable to sin. But that nature that precludes the ability to sin does not cause them to commit any particular act of righteousness. What specific act of righteousness we in glory will choose to do on any particular day in glory will be according to the free will of the individual there making said choice.
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Yes, I’m aware that this is what Calvinists assert…I just don’t agree that scripture backs that formulation. (and FYI I did just read Luther’s “bondage of the will” for the theology class I just took–so I’m not unfamiliar with the concept). We Arminians just disagree with the conclusion that people are born with the incapacity to respond to God’s free offer of grace to all.
Re: the alcoholic example.
First of all, Libertarian Free Willers would say that the alcoholic chose to drink alcohol of their own free will, not because God created them with the will and nature to desire alcohol such that they were predestined for alcoholism. We can agree that the alcoholic may have tried repeatedly to get sober and has repeatedly found that they lack the ability to get out of their addiction themselves (this shows that they lack the power to save themselves, not that they lack free will). Indeed, we can imagine that a family member stages an intervention saying “if you (alcoholic) will just exercise the free will that you currently have in your state of “bondage to alcoholism” and accept my free offer of a rehab clinic, then I can help you get free of your addiction, which you can’t achieve on your own strength.”
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Well…if God has determined all of our natures and desires why wouldn’t our choices over “small things” like choice of cereal be any less fixed than our choices over “big things”? How does one arbitrate what is a big decision and what is a small decision?
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Agreed and concur!
And on that note, I have on genuine and sincere question… earlier you mentioned:
Very sincere question: The way you wrote this seems like you are assuming I would disagree at some level? I’m really curious why that is. Apologies if I completely misread it, but if I did read it correctly, why would you think I wouldn’t agree with this? I have no disagreement with anything I quoted there whatsoever.
But it really sounds like you assumed that a Calvinist like me wouldn’t agree with this - if I misread, can you clarify? If I did read correctly, I’m sincerely curious why you’d think I wouldn’t agree with that? This is standard Calvinist theology.
Just to be sure we are understanding each other, though - are you tracking that my/Westminster’s/Luther’s position is that the “bondage of the will” we are talking about is such that it precludes us from making certain choices as they are against or otherwise not according to our nature, not that it dictates what choices we make that are within our nature?
(Again, not asking if you agree with it, just making sure you understand Luther’s position…)
In other words, Luther was arguing against Erasmus that a human, apart from the Holy Spirit’s transformation of their heart, was in bondage to sin, sure… But that bondage of their will Luther was espousing wasn’t dictating or forcing one person to be a bank robber, another to be an internet scammer, another to be a womanizer, another to be a serial gossip, etc.? He argued that they were bound to sin, sure, but not that their nature was dictating or necessating their individual choices right down to the level of what specific sins they were going to commit, no?
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Well, I don’t want to harp on it too much but I genuinely think that considering our eternal glorified state is truly instructive. God will have, by his own direct action of resurrecting me to a glorified body, have determined and given me this new nature.
So In eternal life, God will have glorified my nature, and determined my nature and thus the nature of my desires, and will have ensured that my nature is 100 percent God glorifying, without any taint of sin whatsoever. Thus my nature, and its subsequent desires, will have no taint of sin whatsoever, and will only be free to do righteous things.
Therefore it simply will no longer be in my nature to sin. I will be literally unable to sin due to this glorified, sinless nature.
Thus this new nature will preclude me from certain choices and actions that will be contrary to my new nature (murder, harmful gossip, envy, etc.)
But they won’t in any way dictate what actions I do take. I’m not sure it has anything to do with whether any choice is “big” or “small.” I will be free to choose big and small things freely. On any given day in eternal life I may sing, or dance, or pray, or read a book, or spend time with loved ones, or build something, or rest, or all manner of the choices in front of me - and my newly glorified, sinless nature is not dictating or forcing me to do any one of those things, all of them are open and available to me, I suspect I will be free to do whatever of them on any given day I freely choose to do.
My new sinless glorified nature will preclude me from some actions, and I will be “bound” in righteousness, but said nature doesn’t dictate any particular righteous action. I will be completely free to choose to do any righteous act I so freely choose to do, no?
OK, maybe this will move the ball forward. Can you define for me “Compatibalist Free Will” and “Libertarian Free Will”, explaining how they differ.
Secondly, maybe you can clarify for me so I don’t put words in your mouth. I have heard that Calvinists subscribe to God’s “Universal Divine Decree”. When I look in a Systematic Theology textbook it gives this definition: “Reformed theology stresses the sovereignty of God in virtue of which He has sovereignly determined from all eternity whatsoever will come to pass, and works His sovereign will in His entire creation, both natural and spiritual, according to His pre-determined plan.”
Now, “whatsoever comes to pass” “in the entire creation” seems pretty inclusive to me! Even including one’s choice of cereal… (there don’t seem to be any caveats or limitations here).
So, are people misreading this definition of Universal Divine Decree? Or how do you interpret this?
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I agree that the assertion that predestination is compatible with free will is no more strained than many other particulars of theology, but I would go further
God’s grace is irresistible, but can be resisted. Compatible
We are predestined, but at liberty to choose. Compatible
Atonement is for all, but only the elect. Compatible
because support for each can be found in Scripture, depending on the purpose of the message.
In my younger days, I though everything could be wrapped up in a neat, harmonious package based on unassailable exegesis. Since, I have recanted systematic theology beyond basic orthodoxy, and am settled that if God was desirous that we possess a comprehension of the divine He would have inspired such a special revelation instead of the narratives and exhortations of scripture.
The universe is astonishing, and we are nowhere near to comprehending it. If we do not understand material things, how would we understand heavenly things, and most especially the creator? We are not told, and if told we would not grasp. So I find Calvinism not so much either right or wrong, as audacious and hopeless.
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