God. Real. Right.

This post concludes the first difficulty of denying the reality of free will. That first difficulty is that it underestimates the nature and power of God.
2.1.2.2 Even explaining God’s foreknowledge while accepting free will is too great a limit on God.
Using God’s foreknowledge of possibilities as a means of explaining freedom while maintaining God’s control of events misses the significance of freedom (Molinism’s failure regarding the significance of human freedom is not the point of this paper, but it can be mentioned briefly. Creating layers between God’s knowledge and the actions of his creatures in the future does not eliminate the apparent problem for freedom foreknowledge forces. That is, if God knowing the activity of a person means she does not have an option, then God knowing what she will do in every possible circumstance still does not leave her a genuine option since God knows which world [and therefore which circumstances] He will actualize. That is, God actualizing only the circumstances which will produce a certain choice makes her choice no freer than the compatiblist’s subject, although her determination is buried one layer deeper) and inappropriately attempts to explain the knowledge of God. The question is how God could Read the rest of this entry »

This post continues the series begun here, the to-date-compilation of which is available here.
2.1.2.1.2 That God repents is evidence that God makes things the best, not that He must simply act within some externally defined best.
Even accepting the mistaken idea that there are a finite number of possibilities (too great a limit on God) there is still no reason to believe that there cannot be a plurality of morally equivalent possibilities. The scriptural use of “repentance” in reference to God makes the point. Reducing repentance to relenting neither addresses the problem nor deals fairly with the vocabulary—no one has a problem using the same word to mean repentance when it concerns humans. Is it not the case that every time God has mercy it is because He has repented? His pronouncement of judgment is not false. His mercy is real because the condemnation of the guilty is real and that guilty soul’s future without God is as really condemned as any future can be real. His act of mercy then overturns His pronouncement of judgment—which is why it is mercy. It is not necessity. If it were necessity, then His mercy Read the rest of this entry »

A note on terms in the argument: in this post, biology serves as the representative of material reductionism or just of naturalism, since it is the closest a reductionist can come to anything complex or progressive enough to explain the features which non-reductionists claim to exist. Similarly, evolution in this post is simply the most consistent model with which to explain biological advantages. In both cases, the position given to naturalism is intended to give it the most favor available.

Humans have many behavioral and functional characteristics which are biological by nature, none of which makes us human. To be clear, they may be necessary to being human, but they are not sufficient. For example, it is necessary to eat to be human. But many non-human things eat. So what separates humans from, say, pigs? Not much, biologically. But plenty, if Aristotle has anything to say about it; reason, to be specific. So Aristotle calls man the rational animal. From his perspective the definition is sufficient because it distinguishes humanity from every other thing.
There are characteristics other than reason which could be used to pull humanity out of the category of all other animals: consciousness, spirit, aesthetics, or ethics, for instance, depending on who is doing the pulling. But the one of most interest here is ethics.
Long since Aristotle, skeptics regarding human nature have argued that there is no cut-and-dry distinction between other animal species and humanity. There are differences of degree, but nothing absolute, they contend. Previously, value-laden characteristics like ethics seemed inexplicable in terms of biology alone. But once evolutionary theory takes on a social element, that explanation no longer seems Read the rest of this entry »

When Hurricanes strike, as Gustav is doing right now, age-old questions are raised again. Some are about how to react and why. But some are more basic, about the source of all kinds of problems persistently faced by man. This post is about that question: from where comes evil?
The first eight and a half lines of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” describe the immediate source (or proximate cause, using Descartes’ language) of problems:

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the

Read the rest of this entry »

Two previous posts identify the most difficult philosophical obstacle and most obvious practical objection to believing in a radical free will.
The post on free will before this one identifies the key theological problem of rejecting the possibility of radical free will. This post adds to that one another example of how rejecting free will goes hand in hand with diminishing respect for God’s sovereignty.
Subsequent posts will identify the key moral (or practical) problem of denying the reality of radical free will.
2.1.2 Attempting to explain God’s activity questions His sovereignty.
2.1.2.1 Claiming this world is necessarily the best of all possible worlds is an example of inappropriately explaining God’s activity.
Back to the nature of God’s freedom, which is important as a conceptual framework within which human freedom can then be described: To describe free will as logically absurd diminishes a person’s understanding of God. Why? Here’s a question that narrows the discussion a bit: is it better to describe God as free or rational? (Remember the first problem faced by those who believe in free will.) Obviously the position of this argument is that the best way to express God’s omnipotence and primacy is with His free will. Consider one philosophical system in which reason takes God’s place.
Leibniz’s argument about God’s rational behavior Read the rest of this entry »

The last post on science touts the material benefits of science for societies which respect liberty. But because that argument makes some people think science should operate without restriction, this post deals with the moral value of science’s product: technology. (This post is a necessary excursion on the way to defining science, which is next.)
Scientists regularly lament the restrictions imposed on them by moral, religious, and other value-laden sects of society. A few years ago an ABC news analyst/physician complained that since scientists had given the McGaugheys the ability to conceive their septuplets, scientists should be the ones to decide whether selective abortion was necessary for the health of the children. (The McGaugheys are pro-life and were the focus of Christian pro-life public activity at the moment.) But her argument is based on a poor understanding of liberty.
It is impossible to respect liberty without restricting it. Maintaining liberty with rational consistency requires separating negative rights (good ones) from positive rights (artificial ones). Negative rights preserve the interests (particularly life, autonomy, and property) of individuals against the intrusive interests of others. In other words, negative rights keep a bully from taking a would-be-victim’s iPod. Positive rights, on the other hand, claim entitlement for those who currently are doing without something. In other words, the claim that a person is entitled to medical care is a positive right. Obviously, positive rights inherently lead to a violation of negative rights. A doctor has a right to work only if it is worthwhile to him, and even neglect work altogether if he no longer cares about income. To say a patient has a “right” to that doctor’s care obviously violates the doctor’s liberty. No system with positive rights can survive—it will devour itself because of the practical contradictions built into it.
The ABC analyst mentioned above confused scientists’ libertarian (negative) right to study and learn in whatever direction the empirical data takes them with the contradictory (positive) right to impose the product of their research or the values they associate with it on either their clients or the public. It may be correct that intellectual freedom is essential to valuable scientific progress—as the last post argues. But it is equally correct that moral constraint is essential to the implementation and application both of scientific research itself and of its products. Read the rest of this entry »

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 Read the rest of this entry »

The original post about science is here. In that post, there are four sections, all requiring background and filling. The first one is setting:

this opinion is not Luddite. It’s neither anti-science nor anti-technology. Indeed, both science and technology are amazing results of the scientific-empirical or hypothetico-inductive method. The power and practicality of engineers and the acumen and creativity of scientists have changed the world and continue to provide societies which respect individualism with a functional advantage over the rest of the world.

The issue in this post is the one touting science’s strengths and benefits for culture. Once it is acceptable to use reason and nature rather than simply revelation in order to arrive at the “truth” about any particular issue, all bets are off on where the culture will go. In the West that transition took place over a period of about four hundred years, beginning somewhere around Averroes and Aquinas in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, maturing through Occam, and culminating in men like Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and Descartes in the Seventeenth Century.
People do not like change. To change even one significant element of Read the rest of this entry »

The reality of free will.
In modern culture either psychology or physics explains everything. So there is no room for real freedom. In many forms of orthodox, contemporary religion there is the belief that God chooses evil in order that good may come and that sin happens to be one form of that evil. So there is no room left for real freedom. Having real freedom is having the actual power to make self-denying choices. The issue is important because God has made that kind of real freedom both necessary and essential to real discipleship.
Then why do so many faithful and intelligent Christians Read the rest of this entry »

This article is not about scientists; it is about science. And it is not about whether or why scientists actually do or don’t tell the truth; it is about why it is impossible for science to tell the truth. There is no way even to broach this subject effectively in a single post–a fact discovered through many vain attempts. So instead, here is a very brief setting, and three very brief paragraphs leading to a very brief, albeit accurate, conclusion. Later posts can address each of the pieces at somewhat greater length, including the issues in parentheses at the end of each.
Setting: this opinion is not Luddite. Read the rest of this entry »