About a year ago I purchased a series of lectures from The Teaching Company by Prof. Thomas Williams from the University of South Florida. The 24 one-half-hour lectures are titled “Reason and Faith: Philosophy in the Middle Ages.” Not only have I enjoyed repeatedly listening to the lectures, I now lead a couple of study-groups which use Prof. Williams’ lectures has a resource. I also had the delight of communicating with Prof. Williams by email and discovered that he is a committed Christian.
These lectures have led me to a broader appreciation of the great minds of the medieval era. One of my favorites is Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, [480–524 or 525]), the enigmatic statesman, scholar, philosopher and Christian who was unjustly executed by King Theodoric the Great of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths.
While imprisoned Boethius wrote a dialogical work called “The Consolation of Philosophy” which became a favorite of the who’s-who of medieval Christianity. The Consolation contains some of the loftiest insights ever penned about the purpose of suffering and evil. However, it’s most famous section deals with the subject of God’s divine foreknowledge.
The Consolation is an imaginary dialogue between the imprisoned Boethius and a character called Lady Philosophy. Within the dialogue, Boethius offers complaints regarding his situation which Lady Philosophy answers. In the section on divine foreknowledge, Boethius, the worried prisoner, offers the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. In summary, Boethius notes that if God foreknows everything then He cannot be wrong about what He knows. It must be the case, then, that what God foreknows cannot possibly be anything other than what He knows. God knows everything down to the smallest and most trivial things. Therefore, if the realm of divine foreknowledge is complete, then it follows that nothing anyone will ever do in the future is subject to true human free choice. If things have to happen—because what God knows must happen (He cannot be wrong)—then humans are not free because freedom does not extend to things that have to happen.
I haven’t done full justice to Boethius’ description of the problem of divine foreknowledge, but, I think you can sense the difficulties here for those who believe in human freedom. Boethius even bats away Augustine’s solution to this problem.
Lady Philosophy begins her response by helping Boethius grasp that one must have a correct understanding of two things. First, one must rightly understand God’s knowledge, and, second, one must understand the true nature of necessity.
We tend to think of God’s knowledge as basically the same as ours. For example, we can only know that something will happen in the future if it is a virtual certainty. We know that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow because it has done so for all of human history. For us, we know a future event only if it must happen. This might be termed a “simple necessity.”
God, on the other hand, knows all of history like we know the present. In a sense, there is no future to God. This is why the term “foreknowledge”, in reference to God, is somewhat misleading. God doesn’t have foreknowledge in the sense of predicting the future. God simply has knowledge because God is eternal and, therefore, He is outside of time.
Lady Philosophy tells Boethius that eternity is “the complete and perfect possession of illimitable life all at once.” This means that God’s life is not successive. He doesn’t pass through yesterday, today and then tomorrow. He has possession of an all-encompassing eternal present. This is why His “foreknowledge” is like our knowledge of present events. To God, nothing is future and this is why human freedom is perfectly compatible with God’s knowledge of future events.
If I am watching a baseball game and the centerfielder lets a fly-ball fall out of his glove, I know that he dropped the ball. However, I don’t think for a second that my observation of this fact caused the centerfielder to drop the ball. There is no “must” involved in my observation of the dropped ball. In the same way, Boethius (as Lady Philosophy) terms God’s knowledge of our future free actions as a “conditional necessity.” Given that God foreknows my actions, they must happen as He knows them, but this knowledge is benign. God’s foreknowledge does not cause my free actions, yet, He cannot be wrong about them.
Given that God knows all of time as “an all-encompassing eternal present”; our future free actions are understood to be a “conditional necessity” and not a “simple necessity.” They will happen as God knows them, but He knows them as free events. So it doesn’t follow that God’s foreknowledge is incompatible with free choice.
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I love this explanation, and I had read a short article on Boethius not long ago with regards to this very point. It is quite illuminating, but also wonderfully simple.
I love how putting the attributes of God within the context of the Eternal One helps us to understand Him more fully. Much like the Trinity, which cannot be understood as a temporal being only as an eternal one.
The one thing I think might help your analogy of the baseball player would be a slight change where you are actually watching a prerecorded game that you have watched many times before. When the ball goes up you already know that it will be dropped. If someone is watching with you that had not seen the game you would have a knowledge of the events that they did not. Regardless, you knowledge of what was going to happen and their lack of knowledge have no effect on what happens.
The real problem is not so much God's foreknowledge of how His creation acts, but their cause. God not only knows what His creatures do, but ultimately all they do is enabled by Him. His foreknowledge and His creative act sustained in time as part of the creative act is one thing. How does man act in any way that God does not ultimately will by enabling it, even those acts we call evil? This sets up the problem of explaining evil without attributing it to God.
●While I do not disagree with you that causation is a key issue; I also think that Boethius (and before his time, Augustine) wrestled with the problem of absolute foreknowledge and human freedom. As a matter of fact, in the dialogue with Lady Philosophy, Boethius the prisoner tells her that it really doesn’t make any difference what is the cause of human actions, if God has complete foreknowledge, which cannot be changed, then there really isn’t any freedom. In other words, in order to get to the causation question, one must first disentangle God’s foreknowledge from “simple necessity.” If one cannot, then God is on the hook for evil.
those are my thoughts for this evening.
ron
The best message is often delivered as an arrow of truth draw up on the bow of life, one at a time.
too many words hide the raindrop that nourishes in a deluge.
●While brevity is often helpful, so is clarity. How is it possible for “too many words (to) hide a raindrop?” Maybe you would like to clarify and explain your meaning.
You wrote: The best message is often delivered as an arrow of truth draw up on the bow of life, one at a time.
●Again, brevity and clarity are helpful. However, what does your thought have to do with the subject of divine foreknowledge?
Since God lives in the eternal now, there is no such think as a future. We are chronological, linear thinkers (at least in western thought). God is not chronological nor linear. Our perspective may be chronological or linear but that doesn't tie God to our view of time or our experience of cause and effect.
●As I understand it, it was Boethius’ definition of “eternal” that was his greatest legacy to Christian theology. I think his statement is brilliant that the eternal is, “the complete and perfect possession of illimitable life all at once.” The guy really “had it goin’ on.”
●I think I would say that all human thinking must, by necessity, be chronological. This is inescapable due to our temporality. Perhaps human thought need not be linear; however, I think it helps for people to think in a linear fashion if they want to survive. Imagine this non-linear approach to thinking. A lion comes bounding out of the grass and I think the following thoughts in response to the lion: “Run with left foot, kick football, eat breakfast.” Actually, I would be breakfast.
The one thing I think might help your analogy of the baseball player would be a slight change where you are actually watching a prerecorded game that you have watched many times before. When the ball goes up you already know that it will be dropped. If someone is watching with you that had not seen the game you would have a knowledge of the events that they did not.
●I see your point and agree that it adds a dimension to the illustration to use the analogy of a prerecorded game. I was working off of Boethius’ actual example which was a person watching a chariot race. He, of course, did not have the ability to illustrate his point using the concept of a prerecorded athletic event. Don’t you think, though, that it is fascinating to contemplate Boethius’ deep insights with such an ancient illustration as a chariot rider? The old guys “rock.”
Do you interpret The Book of Revelation in a chronological, linear manner?
Do you interpret The Book of Revelation in a chronological, linear manner?
●I was, of course referring to the actual process of thinking and not literature. That being said, one must still think about the Book of Revelation in a chronological way—meaning temporally. I must go from not thinking about it to thinking about it to, finally, not thinking about it again. This, by necessity, must be a chronological process because there is change in my thinking and “time is the measure of change.” On the other hand, I can think totally irrational thoughts that have no linear nature to them whatsoever. The only problem with this sort of thinking is that—if prolonged—it will nearly guarantee my death.
About the CWS -- Yeah….!!! The miracle continues! Go, Bulldogs (Fresno version)!
Yes the old guys rock ... also the chariot example is an amazing proof that we should be relevant to our society. Chariot races were very popular so he appeals to this common idea to explain something complex. Jesus does the same thing by appealing to agricultural ideals in an agricultural society, while Paul uses sporting terminology and war phrases where appropriate to those cultures.
BTW, the study last night was excellent. I wish my sister had been there since she has an excellent grasp of these concepts so there could have been more discussion and less of me teaching. When everything was open to discussion the general consensus was that the cosmological argument was so tight that they could not wrap their minds around why atheists refuse to allow this to be taught in schools ... after all it doesn't use the Bible or force a particular concept of God. This sparked a great conversation on humanism and how dogmatic they are in light of reason, the exact thing they accuse us of.
Finally, I wanted to comment on the question of linear thought. In crisis situations, the chemical and electrical activity of our minds shut off certain thought processes. The flight or fight response results in a type of tunnel vision with our mind operating at high capacity in only two potential lines of thought. Fighting or running. As such non-linear thought should be impossible during those times. Let’s assume that the run instinct takes over. Tunnel vision processes typically only allow you to deal with what is in front of you so that you can't be distracted by considering all the options and thus being lunch.
In your example, I see a lion, my mind is flooded with various chemicals that increase my strength and stamina for a short time and in a brief moment I look at some exit venues. Up a tree, across the savannah or into the jeep. Once the choice is locked in I start moving and deal with everything that comes up as it comes up. I choose to head to the jeep. It is closer and pretty solid. On the way I see a long that I have to jump; I focus on getting over that and then see a large rock I need to go around. The mind simply cannot start to process the rock while dealing with the log at this point. When I get to the jeep I just hope the door is unlocked because it didn't occur to me to start getting my keys out until I got there. Fortunately the jeep is unlocked and I get in and shut the door just as the lion hits the jeep. Now I can focus on getting my keys and starting the jeep so I can get to safety.
Extremely linear only dealing with one thing at a time.
Now, other times I can think in a very non-linear fashion. In fact, I often do. Especially when I'm doing creative work. I allow a more flow of consciousness mentality to take over. I like to use mind mapping because it frees me to start at a single idea then keep moving where it takes me. If I come up with ideas that belong with previous segments of though I jump up and put those ideas in. Generally, as the mind map takes shape I move around to various "nodes" putting in additional concepts in a increasingly less linear fashion.
Still, I have learned to approach conversations in a linear mode so that I can get my point across. It would serve no purpose if I started this comment talking about relevence, then moving to the Bible study and then to these comments on thought, bu tonly finishing one basic thought at a time before putting in the thought from the next subject and randomly moving around never completing a single idea before I've moved off. At the end every sentence might be included but in totally random order rendering any attempt at logic progression mute.
My point is, that free flow thought processes have their place and are very freeing, but in crisis situations are theoretically impossible and are basically useless in communicating. I say basically useless because a good brainstorming session uses different communication techniques and, while somewhat more linear than my private brainstorming, it is still less linear that standard communication.
I have learned to approach conversations in a linear mode so that I can get my point across. It would serve no purpose if I started this comment talking about relevence, then moving to the Bible study and then to these comments on thought, bu tonly finishing one basic thought at a time before putting in the thought from the next subject and randomly moving around never completing a single idea before I've moved off. At the end every sentence might be included but in totally random order rendering any attempt at logic progression mute…My point is, that free flow thought processes have their place and are very freeing, but in crisis situations are theoretically impossible and are basically useless in communicating.
●First, thank you for your interesting and detailed reflection on linear and non-linear thinking. This leads me to my hidden agenda. By now most people who participate on TFD probably realize that I am a fan of Western Civilization. For instance, while I respect the Eastern Church I still believe the Western Church has demonstrated an intellectual and spiritual vibrancy that the East lacks. This may not always be the case, but, until now it has.
●Additionally, I believe that all peoples use linear and non-linear thinking. However, the West has elevated linear thinking for the reasons you described. It enhances communication, problem solving, and social effectiveness. This emphasis on linear thinking is certainly one of the reasons why the West came out of tribalism to develop advanced technological economies. I would also suggest that those societies or cultures that do not elevate linear thinking tend to remain in tribalism (e.g. Islam).
●It is my view that the West inherited its emphasis on linear thinking from the Jewish tradition of the “book”, Greek philosophy, and Roman pragmatism. The Eastern Roman Empire had all of these things, but, it also was strongly influenced by eastern mysticism. Eventually, the Western emphasis gave rise to theologians like the troubled but brilliant Abelard. Abelard claimed that his students insisted that he use human reason to lucidly explain the deepest mysteries of the faith including the Trinity and the atonement. They asserted that a preacher who didn’t understand what he proclaimed was like the “blind leading the blind.” Obviously he agreed with his students. And, obviously, I would have been comfortable as one of Abelard’s students.
God is on the hook for evil only in the sense that God is responsible for all the good for which evil is a defect. As we've noted before, a defective creation possessed of free will is better than a perfect, but sterile creation with no free will. The question is whether God creates his creature with the defect that ultimately grows into damnation, for surely He knows the outcome when He creates. Doesn't that make God responsible? If not, from whence does the defect arise? Is created free will by its very nature a defective process? As I've noted before, we are each a one-off experiment. You can't replay our lives to test free will for determinism to see if you get different results by re-running multiple samples.
Wait-just to clarify- Am I right in understanding that Boethius calls these "necessary" in the sense that God sees future events in the same way we see present events (since He lives in all time at the same time)--in the same way that we say something happened necessarily because we ust watched it happen? So, those events which must happen because God has caused them are called "Simple Necessity", and those events which happen but are a result of man's free will are called "Conditional Necessity" Is this right?
Boethius claimed that things like the rising of the sun are "simple Necessity" because they just mUST happen. They always have, they always will. But I struggle a little with this unless Bo. means that they MUST happen APART FROM MAN. Because, I.M.H.O., the only things that MUST happen are those which God is pleased to have happen. The sun's rising is not so much a MUST to me because God can stop it if He likes.
Am I thinking right about this?
ron
I can see where you are going, but I believe the issue at hand is the movement of celestial objects is not governed by conscious thought but rather by laws which God created and set into motion. As such he specifically started the processes of the Earth spinning on axis which results in the sun rising each day because it was His good and pleasing will to make it work this way.
Certainly He can, and if you believe the Bible has, alter this motion of His own will, but man cannot do anything about it so this is a necessary action of God's will until such a time as He deems it an unnecessary action.
We can know the sun will rise with certainty because it has always risen through human history. Still we do not cause it to rise by knowing it will rise any more than we cause an eclipse by knowing such an alignment is pending.
I believe this is what B is getting at.
The book organized around the number 7
7 churches'
7 seals
7 angels with 7 trumpets
7 angels with 7 plagues
7 bowls of wrath
Personally I think that the motif is about judgment and each unfolds deeper and deeper the mystery and terror of judgment.
I think the book has to be read in a circular manner to understand the depths of God's judgment
ron
John wrote: "The question is whether God creates his creature with the defect that ultimately grows into damnation, for surely He knows the outcome when He creates. Doesn't that make God responsible?"
John, I may be missing your thought entirely. Feel free to clarify, if you wish. Created defect? How do you define “defective?” Is it that human beings lack the attribute of moral perfection such that WE CAN SIN? The only figure in history I’d argue who could not sin (from necessity) is Christ. But this necessity/inability to do evil was due to an infinite divine nature. If your view of defect means that we have the freedom to sin, then this doesn’t seem to be an obvious moral fault on God’s part for creating us that way. It seems to me that if God were to create us like Christ, then He in essence would have to create another God. That (I think) *is* a metaphysical impossibility!
Regarding your statement about testing for determinism; how does this tie in to our discussion? Are you still not convinced that you are free?
This is not to say that it’s logically impossible that as matter of fact human beings always happen to choose the Good and never sin. That is a logically possible world. Rather it is to say that humans have the inherent ability to choose evil or, better, lack the inherent ability to choose infallibly the Good. Even if they don’t sin, they can.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6209
I was never unconvinced that I was free. My attempt was to demonstrate that a I can't back that up with proof.
With regard to my "defect" comments, ask yourself why two people in otherwise the same circumstance make different decisions, one perhaps for salvation and the other damnation? Could you not view that as the judgment of one being flawed? Where does that flaw originate? I think of it like crack propagation in a piece of glass; the cracks spread differently depending on the micro-flaws inherent in their structure. In free will, if we see the cracks of bad judgments propagate isn't there an initial flaw from which they originate? What flaw in Satan's incredible intellect and judgment lead him to make a mistake that Michael the Archangel didn't? If it didn't exist as part of his creation, how do you explain its later appearance?
PropBasic- I am curious about your statement that God creating us like Christ as a metaphysical impossibility. Could you expound on this, and do you think that that idea is negated by God's creation of the Christ? What I mean is--1) Did God create Christ? and 2) If God can create one Christ, why not more? I don't adhere to this idea, I'm just curious about the reasoning behind your assertion.
--PhilosophiaTheos
P.S. GO DIAMOND DOGS!!
We cannot be created like Christ, that is of the same substance as opposed to material construction, because Christ is God. To b like Christ we would have to be God as well. In some respect it isn't even correct to think of Christ as a created being but rather an eternal being joined with a created being.
John,
Regarding imperfections within people as being similar to the micro imperfections in glass. Actually I think that you are very right in assuming the choices we make as being similar to glass breaking one way v. another. Given two people in practically identical circumstances and one chooses to follow Christ while another chooses to reject Christ it seems that there is a defect in the one that chooses to reject salvation.
However, there isn't necessarily a defect in glass until it is broken. That is to say, even a perfectly made piece of glass can be broken if enough force is applied correctly. The characteristics of the glass, what it has been through, how various things affected it during the process of being formed will alter exactly how it breaks. For example, there is a crack in the windshield of my van. It is about 12 inches long and makes a couple of small turns. A branch hit it during an ice storm a couple of years ago. The crack grew from almost too small to see to the 12 inches it is now over 2 weeks, then stopped. Because it is laminated glass it is really unlikely to completely shatter at this point. Now standard plate glass would almost certainly continue to expand until there became 2 pieces or more of glass while tempered glass, once broken, shatters into thousands of small pieces.
Regardless of how the glass reacts, it is rarely ever the fault of the manufacturer or the manufacture process that leaves a defect causing the glass to break, but rather an event after the glass is formed that causes the break, and this event is typically separate from the manufacturing process.
What I am trying to say is that the exact form out lives take is not because of an inherent defect, but rather because of a process through our lives making us into who we are. This leads to one person making the choices they make at a given time. Further, just like we do not blame the glass manufacturer when a window is broken because a kid threw a baseball through it, we cannot blame God when a person choses to sin thus shattering their life and the lives of others affected by this sin.
I'm going to jump in here with my answers.
The answer to the first question is NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!
The idea that the Second Person was created is called Arianism.
The Nicean Creed states that "We believe in lord, Jesus Christ, who was eternally begotten of the Father"...which means that we can't say that the Father preceded the Son in any temporal sense.
The answer to the second question according to traditional Christianity is "no."
Christian tradition testifies to the fact that there are only three persons in God. Aquinas argues that there can only be three persons in a being with one essence because the difference between ther persons depends on their being in the relations knowns as filiation, paternity, common spiration and procession.
At this time, I have to confess, I don't have the background for where he comes up with those relations.
I think the principle is sound. since God must have a single substance, the only difference that can matter is one of relationship and the relationship has to be unique because if you have two things that have a single subsance and do not have a unique relationship, you really have only one thing.
Putting aside the Thomism, the way I understand the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is love: In love there must be a lover, an object of love and love itself, which corresponds to the Father, Son (and Vice Versa) and the Holy Spirit.
John, ask yourself why you as a Catholic sound like a full blown Calvinist. Is your solution to this *conundrum* a kind of double predestination with *causal* stripes? The answer (it seems to me), is that free creatures *freely* form beliefs that are causally related to what obtains in reality. Would you argue that it’s impossible for God’s creatures to believe truly or muddleheadedly?
Et al, but why should one think God is obligated to create us with an inability to sin? It's not obvious one needs a defense for John’s question. I don’t see the capacity to sin as a defect at all. This question is, in other words, a false dilemma!
No I'm not a Calvinist and I don't believe in double predestination. I'm trying to pose the question in a way that highlights the conundrum. As I've said before, I think free will is very cutting edge even for God. I believe it's real, but I also don't think I could ever come close to an explanation. Try reading Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange's book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/Predestination-Reginald-Garrigou-Lagrange/dp/0895556340
Puri,
I have no problem with your point that the way glass breaks is also a function of how it's impacted. People are like that too. No matter how perfect your pane, there's still all kinds of flaws: crystal structure flaws, random inclusions, micro-surface scratches---miniscule stress risers that tend to be where a crack starts and then form a path along which it propagates. Who can predict just which one will give way first and path of flaws among the many possible along which it will propagate? If a pane were truly perfect, the force needed to break it would have to exceed its theoretical structural strength. If created free will were perfect in this way, wouldn't it take a force beyond its strength to break it and how could it be culpable in that case? If it's created with minute flaws such that it can fail at lower forces, is that not ultimately attributable to God too? Otherwise, how does man create his own initial flaws that could ultimately cascade into damnation? What flaw in Satan was enough to bring down his peerless (among created beings) intellect? How do explain such poor judgment on his part? If it's pride, where did that flaw originate?
P.s What's crackalackin Jan?! I'll be back in 8 weeks. huh HUH!
I'm sorry, I mustn't have been clear. I am positing that any flaws that predispose us to sin are a product of environment rather than creation.
A child, for example, is not culpable for sin until they can comprehend right from wrong, as such a child cannot sin even in breaking the Law because they cannot comprehend sin. This is a basic belief common to many if not all religions ... it seems that inherently we know this to be true. As a child learns the concepts of right and wrong, the various situations that surround the process cause mental patterns that will govern future reactions when they are capable of sin.
As such, the actual creation of man allows for freewill, that is the choice to sin because it is a higher good if we choose to do good rather than doing good with no choice, but freewill isn't free will if we cannot live without sin also. More accurately, if there is some inherent defect that causes us to sin, then we are not at fault for the sin.
Allow me to revisit the glass analogy. High end glass tables use very thick glass which is capable of withstanding significant impact. I know that not long ago, however, a company that manufactures this style of glass had a batch of tables with significant inclusions that led to some of their tables shattering while just sitting there. In this case, the manufacturer was to blame because there was an actual defect in the glass that led to failure.
If there is a defect, we cannot be accountable for our sin. It must be possible to live a life free from sin for us to be responsible for our choices. As proof I would like to offer Enoch, who walked with God and then was no more or Elijah who was caught up in a chariot of fire. It seems that the lives of at least a small number of people show us that it is possible to walk with God every day of our lives and then be spared death.
This is wrongheaded! First it pushes an Aquinas thought beyond necessity. I certainly don’t read Aquinas to be saying that because we are pursuers of the good that it therefore follows we are unable to knowingly and willingly rebel against the good. Perhaps the Thomisticguy can chime in here! Second, it’s still not altogether clear (to me) that free creatures must have moral fault or that there must be a necessary and sufficient cause outside of the self to do evil –especially if libertarian freedom exists. Is there an argument for this? Have you read Plantinga’s, God Freedom and Evil? Third, that our “judgment in the matter is mistaken” fails to specify that this is only contingently true. For if one made correct inferences from experience then there would be no mistake of judgment.
The problem is, once wrong is chosen one time, it introduces a defect that takes greater energy to correct than it took to create.
Let me give an example. Lets say you have a brand new car. You take good care of the car but one day accidentally open the door into the post at the gas station leaving a nice dent in the door. Now, to repair this defect you need to first pull the dent out, then sand off the flaked paint, fill in the imperfections will body filler, sand this perfectly smooth, prime the surface, then put on multiple layers of paint and finish so that the door panel matches everything else exactly. It is a long process that few people are qualified to do correctly and it takes a lot more energy than that one push.
Now, lets say you figure you don't have the time or money to deal with it, so you just put some nail polish that mostly matches the color over the scratches and knock out the dent the best you can. You will always see the defect, but it really isn't that bad ... except that the unprimed metal will begin to rust under the loose paint that wasn't sanded. The defect will continue to get worse even though it doesn't look all that bad until suddenly large sections of paint start pealing back revealing the cancerous rust eating away at your door panel.
The origin of the defect goes back to Satan falling from Grace. He then tempts Adam and Eve into sin which results in them having a defect that takes more energy to correct than they have to use. Their children are born more or less perfect, but the fallen parents cannot be perfect parents since they have a defect of sin. Satan then temps Cain into killing Abel, likely after a life of failing in one respect or another, resulting in the first murder. Life continues down hill with each human being born whole and more or less free from sin, but choosing sin over obedience at some point in their lives introducing this defect of sin into their life.
Eventually Christ comes and proves that the perfect life is possible, but more importantly he makes it possible to have the defect of sin removed from our lives because He can put that required energy into it. He then sends the Spirit to make it possible for us to live above the defect everyday by encouraging us to resist temptation where the world around us constantly encourages us to fall to sin.
It seems to me that your question may have been anticipated by St. Anselm.
Anselm attempted to solve the problem of the fall of the angels by arguing that in rational beings there were two wills - a will to happiness and a will to justice - and that the tension between the two wills gave rational beings the ability for self-initated acts, i.e. freedom of choice.
The will to happiness is the desire of the person for his own happiness. The will to justice is the desire to do God's will, even at the expense of one's own happiness.
The Stanford Encyclopedia explains:
Of course, this may amount to begging the question.
We might ask, even if there are two such wills, why do angels (and people) go wrong in the face of the obvious data of Heaven and Hell? Why do some people prefer one thing in the intial condition and not another? Is it a random decision, like an atomic particle decaying?
I guess, though, that this might answer your "defect" question. The fact that there are these wills in human nature is not a defect. It is a "feature" not a "bug. "
For Thomas, as I understand it, we still find the two wills. One is in the sensitive concupiscent appetites that seek corporeal happiness and the other is in the intellectual appetite which seeks another and higher kind of good.
I think you have homed into the heart of my comments, whereas Puri and properly still haven't peeled the onion down far enough. It's what you describe as the initial "random" decision that leads one to speculate about the nature of what is "random" in this case. Randomness itself is an extremely interesting topic when you start to peel that onion back. It's that razor's edge of God's creativity. How does something move off of top dead center "randomly"? You noted it as a "feature", which is essentially what I noted in one of my earlier posts. This is one of the reasons I view even damnation as a low level and acceptable good from God's viewpoint, i.e. if it's random, isn't it by definition non-preferential even by God? I also noted that you went for answering the question with a question, which is the same as I've been doing. I honestly find it far too great a mystery for an answer. I think these were excellent questions also posed by Calvin, but I don't think we share the same conclusions.
Plantigaguy: This is wrongheaded! First it pushes an Aquinas thought beyond necessity. I certainly don’t read Aquinas to be saying that because we are pursuers of the good that it therefore follows we are unable to knowingly and willingly rebel against the good.
As I understand Thomas, every decision we make is for some perceived good. Sin comes in having a disordered attachment to some finite good or in preferring some finite, created good to the infinite, uncreated good which is God.
But, certainly, every choice is premised on obtaining something that is in some way perceived as good and which actually is in some way good.
In our fallen state we can explain sinful choices as the result of our darkened intellect and our weakened will which allows us to make concupiscent choices - choices that prefer bodily pleasures at the expense of higher goods or because of bodily appetites, make our preferences disproportionate or inordinate.
It obviously gets dicier with Adam and the angels because they don't have that excuse, but they nonetheless chose to rebel against God because of some good thing that was desired disproportionately.
Here is Thomas' account of why Satan rebelled. According to Aquinas, Satan's rebellion was motivated by his desire to be like God in the sense of being able to attain his own beatitude by his own power rather than through God's power.
We might say, that's just silly. Obviously, Satan must have known that he could not have beatitude except through God and that he would obtain beatitude through God.
I guess, the response is "and...?"
Satan didn't want simply beatitude; he wanted beatitude on his own terms. Satan's sin was the intellectual sin of "pride." Apparently, Satan looked upon Heaven on the terms he had to pay to get it and decided that it wasn't good enough for him.
Now, we might not understand that and we might ponder what psychological causes led to that effect, but ultimately we might have to say that there is - according to John Searles - always a "gap" between the reasons for a decision and the decision itself. The gap, according to Searles, is the person who makes the decision. This "gap" is the reason why decisions are free.
I think you have homed into the heart of my comments, whereas Puri and properly still haven't peeled the onion down far enough. It's what you describe as the initial "random" decision that leads one to speculate about the nature of what is "random" in this case. Randomness itself is an extremely interesting topic when you start to peel that onion back. It's that razor's edge of God's creativity. How does something move off of top dead center "randomly"? You noted it as a "feature", which is essentially what I noted in one of my earlier posts. This is one of the reasons I view even damnation as a low level and acceptable good from God's viewpoint, i.e. if it's random, isn't it by definition non-preferential even by God? I also noted that you went for answering the question with a question, which is the same as I've been doing. I honestly find it far too great a mystery for an answer. I think these were excellent questions also posed by Calvin, but I don't think we share the same conclusions.
I think it is fair to say that God who allows free will and without it the possibility of damnation knows that some people will use their free will to obtain damnation.
I also think that it is fair to say that God created this reality where some number of people will be damned because the reality where damnation was a possibility was a better reality than one where damnation was not a possibility.
One reason for such a reality - this reality - being better is because a reality which instantiates all the possibilities of choice is better than one which doesn't.
The second is that it is logically necessary for their to be autonomous rational agents that their choices have consequences.
But those concessions doesn't mean that God predestines the damnation of those who will choose in a way that damns them; they all - including rebellious angels - could have chosen the other way.
It definitely is the case that Calvin's answer is not the Catholic answer. From the Council of Trent:
Canon 6.
If anyone says that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil as well as those that are good God produces, not permissively only but also propria et per se, so that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of St. Paul, let him be anathema.
This site explains propria et per se":
propria et per se: as His own [acts] and [accomplished] through Himself. The reference is to Calvin's doctrine of reprobation, in which God is understood not merely to passively to withhold his grace from those sinners who will be damned (and foreknowing this of course from eternity), but actively to intervene to confirm them in their evil, by sending Satan to put sinful notions into their head and positively to warp their wills.
There's an anathema that attaches, if you're not.
I have a question;
Peter posted from the Council of Trent;
"The reference is to Calvin's doctrine of reprobation, in which God is understood not merely to passively to withhold his grace from those sinners who will be damned (and foreknowing this of course from eternity), but actively to intervene to confirm them in their evil, by sending Satan to put sinful notions into their head and positively to warp their wills."
Doesn't this make Satan God's agent? Did Calvin really hold this position?
Oh, I probably don't even qualify to be anathema but it seems to be a sorry state indeed! Nevertheless, I don't think I dispute the Council of Trent's arguments. I wonder what that could mean?
Maybe the "except" vs "accept" is Freudian...... If God is the uncaused cause and the only uncaused cause with perfect foreknowledge, then how do you explain that "free will" creatures caused a rebellion that wasn't ultimately caused by God and is His responsibility? I think the whole thing is a much more subtle problem than you make it out to be. I accept the reality of free will and its consequences, but I also think its operation is a mystery that we'll never come close to truly understanding. I read through what Aquinas wrote about Satan and the first sin, which was excellent reasoning; but still left an infinitesimal unexplained gap of why/how at its point of origin. I think God alone holds the mystery of that explanation and we couldn't understand it even if He tried to tell us.
In some way one might argue that God is the cause of evil by proxy. That is, He caused Satan to be who chose evil and caused us to be who chose evil.
In other ways one might argue that God caused evil to exist by existing. That is, evil is only in existence as a deprivation of Good. Since God exists it becomes possible that anything He creates can become deprived of its created goodness and not fulfill its purpose, and thus become evil. Any act of creation then holds with it the potential for evil, and no act of creation would not have God being the fullest good and so is an act of evil ...
Of course, it is simply foolish to assume that something created good that turns away from the highest good to a lesser good means that the creator is evil.
Instead let s consider this.
-God is wholly good and perfect (complete).
-The goodness of God results in acts of creation because to create is better than to not create.
-Some aspects of creation are given free will because it is better to choose good than to be made to do good.
-Freewill, by necessity requires the ability to choose a lesser good.
These statements are generally considered true and I am leaving them as assumptions leading the the final statement which I will address. If need be I can defend each statement point by point, but that takes a while.
Freewill, by necessity requires the ability to choose a lesser good.
This statement must be true or else the choice is not free. If there is no choice, or rather the appearance of choice, then there is no freewill. If one is created with a predisposition to evil or good, then there is really no freewill since the predisposition will generally win out.
If it is a greater good to be able to choose right over wrong, then by necessity some must choose wrong. Now, lets consider the formation of a creature that has an independent will. Such a creature would be created good, because God can only create good things for He is good. In fact, man was created "very good" and so we know there is something better about man than all the rest of creation. Generally the greatest difference is man's ability to choose. Now, if man is very good" but must be able to choose, then the inherent nature of man must be one of balance at creation.
That is, the desire to please self verses the desire to please God, which is what all the discussion of sense of justice etc boils down to, is in complete balance at creation. If God made man so that He had a greater desire to please God, then there would be no choice for the desire to please self would never have the momentum to overcome the desire to please God. If God made man so the desire to please self was greater, then God would be culpable for sin and freewill would be an illusion because the deck would be stacked against us.
Instead, we must be made in such a way that these desires are placed in perfect balance. The difficulty is this, we are in a world where the balance is turned against God. From birth we are taught it is better to please self and so by the time we are responsible for our actions, we have accepted a life of sin as the norm.
Ultimately this is the curse of Adam. Once they chose wrong over right one time, their lives were never restored because the balance is shifted and it takes more energy to just right the balance than it does to continue the slide to damnation, and we are not capable of overcoming this deficit. Their children were raised by them in a fallen state and so became predisposed to sin by that fallen state.
The perfect balance of freewill is tipped by the world we are in. Thus one man's sin generally damns us all.
This is all a result of the greater good being creation with the ability to choose right over wrong, which required a creature capable to choosing wrong all on it's own.
That's a good historical question about John Calvin's belief.
I'll look into it.
It does seem incredible to think that Calvin would "sanctify" the Devil's mission, but I do know that modern Calvinists like James White often talk about people being damned by God from the beginning for the purpose of glorifying God's sovereignty.
Which strikes me as an awfully repulsive way of thinking about God.
What your last post boils down to is known as fatalism; the idea that God's foreknowledge of an event entail its necessary occurrence. The basic argument structure for theological fatalism is as follows:
1. Necessarily, if God knows x, then x will happen.
2. God knows x.
3. Therefore, x will necessarily happen.
The fallacy occurs when the necessity of the first premise is carried over to the conclusion. There is no reason to think x will "necessarily" happen; meaning no other alternative is possible.
The necessity in the first premise entails only that it is necessary that if God knows x, then x will happen. However it says nothing about whether or not God knows x.
To correct the fallacy one could simply make premise 2 necessary, but there is simply no reason to think it is necessary for God to know x, for surely He could know ~x (or not x).
Correctly stated, the above argument should look like this:
1. Necessarily, if God knows x, then x will happen.
2. God knows x.
3’. Therefore, x will happen.
As we can now see, it is only true that if God knows x, then x will happen. His knowledge of x does no kind of determining of x. God knows x because x will happen. If x were not to happen, then God would have always known ~x. The content of God’s knowledge does not determine the outcome of an event in the world. Of course His willing certainly can but you were talking about human freedom with respect to God’s knowledge. If I choose to do x on June 28, 2008, then God would have always known I would do x on June 28, 2008. In the same manner, if I choose not to do x on June 28, 2008, God would have always known ~x for 6/28/08. To summarize, our free actions logically cause God’s knowledge of them. The fact that His knowledge is temporally prior to their occurrence (foreknowledge) is irrelevant.
Blessings
John, I’m not interested in the initial conditions (perturbation) or lack thereof that may or may not have influenced Satan, Adam or Eve because such initial conditions are causally inert in the case when agents are free in a libertarian sense. What I care about is whether the agent is open to the potential for alternate possibilities (PAP) which seems to be the case. You continue to look for necessary and sufficient causes for beliefs and behavior and resist the solution that as God creates, His image bearers can also if only in a limited and finite way. This is especially puzzling in light of the fact that we are image bearers.
I agree wholeheartedly with what philosapologist has said.
I think you have missed the point of what I said. Lets assume free will, as I have done above, requires a neutral disposition towards good and evil, that is, we are not predisposed to either good or evil. This must be true or the will is no longer free since we will generally make choices towards our predisposed nature unless a force greater than our will is exerted against us making that choice.
As such, it is reasonable to allow that 50% of the Angels might have chosen to fall if they are given to the idea of free will as well. Granted, they see the very nature of God and so it seems that only 1/3 fell to sin with the solid majority siding with God.
As you have said, free will is a razors edge, but it must be completely neutral or God is either responsible for our evil, or we will never chose evil adn so the idea of choice is an illusion.
John: I agree with you that the subject of free-will is more subtle than we often think. As a way of getting back in the fray, I’m going to fire off a few thoughts.
First, in regard to the angels and their fall, Anselm wrote one of the most complex, detailed and insightful works on the subject. It is titled De Casu Diaboli (The Cause of the Devil’s Fall). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has an excellent summary of Anselm’s work. It can be found here:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/anselm.htm
If you have not read Anselm on this issue, then it would be worth the effort. However, remember that Anselm was a world-class intellect in Western history. “The Devil’s Fall” is not designed for people who want a couple of slogans and a poem as an answer to their questions.
Anselm takes a somewhat different approach than does Aquinas. Aquinas was working off of Aristotelian philosophical notions. I’ll make a comment on that below in response to one of Peter’s insights.
Anselm assumed that the angels and humans have similarly structured wills. However, Anselm’s definition of free-will is different than ours. Anselm defines freedom not as the choice of whether to sin, but the ability to be just—to do the right thing for its own sake. Freedom then is the ability to maintain the rectitude of the will by doing what is just. One’s motivation for choosing is divided between justice and happiness. If, for instance, an angel only had the will for happiness, they could not be either blamed or praised for any thing they did. Likewise, if they only had a will for justice they could not be blamed or praised. Consequently, in order to be free one must have a will for both justice and happiness.
Here’s the point now, according to Anselm, choosing justice over happiness is a self-choice. Also, to abandon justice for the sake of happiness is also a self-choice. The angels received from God the power to choose by themselves either happiness or justice. The fallen angels abandoned justice for the sake of happiness. They choose their own blessedness over the blessedness that could be attained through God. To do so is to fail to persevere in rectitude of will by choosing in a disordered way. Again, choosing to sin is not truly a “free choice”—it is a weakness. Therefore, the fallen angels were not demonstrating freedom but bondage. God and the blessed angels demonstrate freedom by always maintaining rectitude of will.
Anselm’s work is more detailed than my simple summary.
In regard to Aquinas’ view:
In Aquinas’ view, the will is simply ordered to the good. The will is an intellectual appetite for the good. Therefore, humans cannot not choose the “good.” In Aquinas’ system, free-choice is choosing “goods” that are the means to the Ultimate Good. We can only choose “particular” goods; but, we cannot not choose “Good.” This being said, Aquinas notes that when two things come together we will always choose a certain good. If we perceive a thing to be both “good” and “suitable” we will always choose it. This is why we will not sin in heaven. We will perceive God to be perfectly good and perfectly suitable. Consequently, we will not choose anything other than God.
Now to the angels; the angels—according to Aquinas—were not allowed to contemplate God directly without a merit. They had to willfully persevere in their desire for the highest good without seeing God as perfectly suitable. Some chose a lesser good—their own blessedness as a good. Satan did not think he could be equivalent to God, but he believed that he could find his own blessedness in himself. Only a self-existent being can be the object of its own blessedness.
●These are some of my thoughts off the top after a camping and preaching.
I would tend to agree with what Aquinas and Anselem had to say on the issue, except I don't know that I would agree with the exact way you presented the analysis posed by Anselem. Specifically, you have presented it as a more or less black and white Justice v. Happiness choice where it should be made clear that this only becomes and issue where there is an exclusionary choice between the two. That is, I am presented with an idea that I might do something to receive personal happiness, which I would call self pleasure as opposed to a more modern concept of happiness, or I can pursue that which is just and right. Within this choice I must sacrifice one of these ideals.
That is where it issue lies, because it is certainly possible to be personally fulfilled and enjoy pleasure while still holding to that which is just and right.
I only bring this up so that this can be more fully considered rather than having this presented as if happiness was standing in opposition to justice on all occasions.
Further, I would point out that these ideas require that we be essentially neutral before we start exercising our freewill in our disposition towards the choices rendered.
This is why Aquinas suggests that Angels must have been shielding from the fullness of God, otherwise they would have never chosen anything less than Him and so there would not be a free choice for them.
I write of pertubation as cause, but that's only because we see causality operating that way. At the point of free will we are open to alternate possibilities, but that's a fundamentally different operation than causality. The point I'm trying to make is that free will is a uniquely and wonderfully amazing invention of God's thats workings can never be fully grasped or even proven to exist as real. To me this is just amazing and I stand in awe of God when I look at it.
I only bring this up so that this can be more fully considered rather than having this presented as if happiness was standing in opposition to justice on all occasions.
●You are certainly right that justice and happiness are not per se opposed to one another. In fact, justice and happiness come perfectly together in God. On the other hand, what Anselm was showing is that if the will is order to just one thing (e.g. justice) then it is not able to do anything other than choose the just thing. Likewise if it is only ordered to happiness then a person would always choose that thing that made them happy. In either case, the person could not be blamed or praised for their choices. The “rub” only comes about if there is some tension between happiness and justice (on occasion). Again, Anselm’s definition of freedom is the ability to maintain “rectitude of will” to do the right (just) thing. In Anselm’s thought-question in regard to the fallen angels, there was a clear tension between their happiness and justice. In some ways, Anselm's description of these things is easier to square with Romans 7 than is Aquinas'.
●Anselm’s definition of freedom was generated by his notion of The Greatest Conceivable Being. God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” For instance, it is certainly greater to exist than to not exist. Therefore, a being which is the greatest being would surely exist rather than not exist. Consequently, it is greater to maintain rectitude of will than to not; because one needs the power to maintain one’s will. If one cannot maintain rectitude of will then they are less powerful than a being that can maintain rectitude of will. A less powerful being is not free to maintain rectitude of will.
Your skepticism reminds me of the village atheist who argues that in order to be rational you must believe on the basis of arguments. But do we really only believe on the basis of arguments? Must you always make inferences from premises to know? It seems to me that believing needn’t require an argument and for Plantinga there are lots of things we believe in that are not on the basis of arguments. For example, “that there are other people.” Can one give some sort of substantial argument for the existence of other people? No! It’s more like a matter of perceiving and experiencing them or finding oneself at a very young age automatically believing in such things. Much the same is true with religious belief which is why Peter Kreeft wisely points out how “the vast majority of all human beings at all times, places, and cultures have always believed in some kind of God. Therefore, belief in God is likely to be true. Or to put it differently, in order to be an atheist you must be a snob! You must believe you stand among the very small minority who are liberated from mankind’s most pervasive superstition. This doesn’t prove (with empirical certainty—Flush!) anything but should make the atheist worry a little bit.” I take it that belief in God is properly basic and that a failure to believe in God must be the result of Paul’s musings in Roman 1 and a broken cognitive faculty.
Marveling at the wonders of God is appropriate but throwing around statements like “you can’t prove this or that” is disingenuous in the context when the intelligibility of your assertions depends upon features of the Augustine’s intelligible realm, NOT empiricism or whatever your measure for certainty is.
Here's a thought experiment that might help get at what John is driving at... then again it might not.
Let's say that yesterday you got up and decided to drive to church. After church you had no immediate need to be anywhere, so you went to Starbucks and ordered coffee. This isn't a habit with you; it's just something you decided to do.
Let's say we have a "playback machine" where we can rewind the day so it is once again the yesterday morning before you went to church.
Will your day be any different than it was before, assuming that no outside influence changes?
Are you free to do things different?
Will you do things different?
Why?
I'm not arguing my belief in God, but the nature of free will. You seem uncomfortable with notion that something might be true, but unprovable. I d