Free Will: First Problem of Rejecting it–Denying its Possibility Denies God’s Sovereignty
Two previous posts identify the most difficult philosophical obstacle and most obvious practical objection to believing in a radical free will.
This post begins the opposite task: identifying the key theological (or philosophical) problem of rejecting the possibility of radical free will. There will be about six posts working on this part of the task.
Subsequent posts will identify the key moral (or practical) problem of denying the reality of radical free will.
2.1.1 To claim that determinism is rationally necessary impugns God’s sovereignty.
One of the first criticisms of the free will position is that the idea of a truly free will impinges on the sovereignty of God. This criticism is actually just an extension of free will’s bad reputation. Of course, not even the critics of free will could take this accusation seriously. Nothing can meaningfully, significantly, nor certainly successfully assault the sovereignty of God. But there are plenty of opinions which either underestimate or impugn it—the sovereignty of God, that is. And although critics of free will accuse it of doing just that—impugning the sovereignty of God—it turns out that believing it impossible that God’s omnipotent sovereignty can coexist with libertarian will is much more malignant to the opinion of God’s absolute authority.
Suppose two ardent theists disagree about freedom and determinism. To make it simple, Val believes in libertarian (radically free) will while Dieter does not. Dieter claims Val’s belief in free will impugns the sovereignty of God since the freedom of His creatures implies either slackness, culpability, or outright ignorance on the part of the God necessitated by Val’s system. How could God be sovereign if He does not have control over how the creatures act in every detail within Val’s system?
Val has a few answers which do not satisfy Dieter. For instance, God does not need to control the decisions made by the creatures since He controls both the options available to them and the consequences of every decision. Or, since God made the creatures’ will and freedom, He is sovereign in their expression of it. But Dieter claims these arguments only sideswipe the real issue, either pushing it back a step or missing it altogether. So Val dives more directly and deeply into the issue by using the very tool which seems to have him trapped: the necessity of reason.
In Dieter’s view, radical free will is necessarily excluded from any possible world where God is sovereign. In such a view, determinism is a necessary consequence of God’s nature (or, in some views, God’s nature is a necessary consequence of determinism.) Dieter’s God is one whose sovereignty would be impugned by human freedom. In Val’s view God is free to choose whether He creates a world with free will or one which is determined, or even both for that matter. The point, which should be obvious now, is that Val and Dieter have to choose between believing in a God who could not create a world with free will, or a God who could.
Out of a respect for rationality, Dieter chooses to believe in a God whose control is never less than complete. He not only knows everything that will happen, but has willed it to be so and effected His will. He sufficiently causes every birth, marriage, and death, not to mention every abortion, divorce, and murder. Isaiah 45:7 seems clear enough: God creates evil. He does not shirk responsibility for it and no human has the right to judge Him for so creating.
Not out of mere preference, but what seems to him the very nature of God, Val chooses to believe in a God who can create a world with radical free will. In short, Val reasons that if he must choose between worshiping God as One who can make such a world or as One who cannot, it makes more sense to worship Him as One who can. Now whether He did create such a world or not is a different matter. But at least at this point Val is satisfied that He is worshiping the greatest (and only) God more truly by acknowledging that He is able to create a world with free will and remain sovereign. After all, Isaiah 45:7 no more implies that God creates acts of evil than placing the tree in Eden and commanding Adam not to eat from it implies that God really chose or desired for Adam to eat from it. The question of how His sovereignty is maintained is separate and not resolved here. It may be the point that man had freedom to choose evil or to reject it only because God created the category of evil, but not individual acts of evil. Or it may be the point that while man could choose whether to eat the fruit or not, he had no freedom about the consequences of his choice, the realm in which God’s sovereignty was manifest again though it never really waned. The point for now is simply that whatever the means, it is at least the case that God need lose no sovereignty just because man can choose freely.
Determinists should read at least this much into this post: it is just as rationally inconsistent to advocate for the sovereignty of God and reject the possibility of free will as it is to advocate His sovereignty and embrace free will.
But the point of the post is this: determinism faces a contradiction advocating God’s sovereignty while rejecting His ability to create free will. The point of upcoming posts is to show why the free will position does not face the same problem, since there actually are consistent ways to speak of God’s absolute authority (even with the doctrine of maintenance) including a world with radically free will.
Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Rationalism
WHOA!!!
Good post… do you know of any authors/thinkers that actually try to use this argument against free-willers? I have heard it in conversation but I don’t recall it being a major debate amongst scholars.
The classical form of “Dieter’s” position is from Leibniz. More recent and moderated forms of the position are in people like John Feinberg.
Thanks for the post. I’ll be keeping up.
I’m not so sure that determinism faces a contradiction since the determinist doesn’t have to say that God has to create a deterministic world, just that he did, which you also seemed to say in your post- “Now whether He did create such a world or not is a different matter.” However, I completely agree the premise- denying the possibility of free will denies God’s sovereignty- since I would much rather, ideologically, hold on to God’s (radical) freedom than my own.
Joel, you are right on the mark. Not only do I not argue in this post that determinism itself is a contradiction, but I could not do so consistently. It would be ironic (at least) for me to argue that there is no choice to make about whether the world is determined or radically free!
If God knew that Adam and Eve would sin why did He creat them? This question came from my 12year old who like to reason things out and use the gift of being very logical that God gave him.