Are we just trying to understand the inconceivable?

[Radagast]

Radagast is apparently adept at giving horribly inaccurate presentations of Catholic theology, and you will never see him cite a source or construct an actual argument.

People will make up their own minds on that, of course.

 

[GodsGrace101]

Well, that shows a substantial lack of understanding of the issues.



Compatibilist free will says that you do the thing that you want to do. I'm having eggs for breakfast; that's what I want. To quote Thomas Hobbes, free will is finding "no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to doe."

Libertarian free will says that you could have done something else. I'm having eggs for breakfast, but I might have chosen oatmeal.

Libertarian free will is, of course, incompatible both with predestination and with the foreknowledge of God (because if God foresaw that I would have eggs, it would be impossible for me to have oatmeal).

Can't write. On a phone.
But your post made me giggle....
More tomorrow.

 

[GodsGrace101]

People will make up their own minds on that, of course.

I agree with @zippy2006

 

[zippy2006]

I agree with @zippy2006

(Though you are of course encouraged to read the sources I gave rather than simply taking my word for it.)

Admittedly it is a difficult topic and the Calvinist's mistake is in some ways understandable. At the end of the day it is their understanding of God that is most deficient, for the Thomist's understanding of God is night-and-day different from the Calvinist's. As for myself, I've been around the merry-go-round with Calvinists one too many times to feel the need to descend into that rabbit hole again.

 

[redleghunter]

So do many atheist materialists. "Compatibilist free will" is just contemporary academic jargon for a disbelief in the colloquial understanding of free will. At the very best this argument is a deeply problematic equivocation between academic terms and colloquial terms.

(For those who do not know, compatibilists believe that free will is compatible with causal determinism. So your whole life can be 100% causally determined by antecedent events and you can still have "free will." Fun stuff. )

You mean something like this l?

Acts 2:

22“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—23this Jesus,c delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (ESV)

Or this?

Acts 4:

27for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 29And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” (ESV)

We can just add Pope Peter to the compatibilist list.

 

[redleghunter]

So do many atheist materialists. "Compatibilist free will" is just contemporary academic jargon for a disbelief in the colloquial understanding of free will. At the very best this argument is a deeply problematic equivocation between academic terms and colloquial terms.

(For those who do not know, compatibilists believe that free will is compatible with causal determinism. So your whole life can be 100% causally determined by antecedent events and you can still have "free will." Fun stuff. )

The way you explain this gives the impression you adhere to open theism.

 

[redleghunter]

This is false. ...Radagast is apparently adept at giving horribly inaccurate presentations of Catholic theology, and you will never see him cite a source or construct an actual argument. All you get from him are arguments from authority--his authority. I would advise finding a better source, perhaps someone who is actually Catholic.

I’m still waiting for you to go beyond your assertions and form an argument. You have not cited one Calvinist source.

While you are digging Catholic Answers is not a source.

 

[redleghunter]

We can just skirt around the sophistry and take an actual authoritative source, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem, which concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism.
​

...like I said, compatibilists hold that free will is compatible with determinism.

Wow. Why didn’t you share the theological definition.

Meaning we choose according to who we serve. The bondage of the will in Romans 6.

 

[GodsGrace101]

(Though you are of course encouraged to read the sources I gave rather than simply taking my word for it.)

Admittedly it is a difficult topic and the Calvinist's mistake is in some ways understandable. At the end of the day it is their understanding of God that is most deficient, for the Thomist's understanding of God is night-and-day different from the Calvinist's. As for myself, I've been around the merry-go-round with Calvinists one too many times to feel the need to descend into that rabbit hole again.

Don't feel so responsible!
I already know all,,,except for Aquinas stand on free will.
If I'm not mistaken,,,,Mr. Augustine is the only early theologian who believed in predestination,,,,but not double predestination.
I'm pretty familiar with calvinism. What an unbiblical God.

 

[Radagast]

but not double predestination.

There is no such thing as "double predestination." It's just pejorative term aimed at Calvinists.

Calvinists believe in predestination, that's all. The authoritative formulation of Calvinism is the Canons of Dordt, part of which is quoted below. I invite Catholics to point out which parts of that contradict the Summa of Thomas Aquinas.

1. As all men have sinned in Adam, lie under the curse, and are deserving of eternal death, God would have done no injustice by leaving them all to perish, and delivering them over to condemnation on account of sin, according to the words of the apostle, Romans 3:19, "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." And verse 23:"for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." And Romans 6:23:"for the wages of sin is death."

2. But in this the love of God was manifested, that he sent his only begotten Son into the world, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I John 4:9, John 3:16.

3. And that men may be brought to believe, God mercifully sends the messengers of these most joyful tidings, to whom he will and at what time he pleaseth; by whose ministry men are called to repentance and faith in Christ crucified. Romans 10:14-15:"How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?"

4. The wrath of God abideth upon those who believe not this gospel. But such as receive it, and embrace Jesus the Savior by a true and living faith, are by him delivered from the wrath of God, and from destruction, and have the gift of eternal life conferred upon them.

5. The cause or guilt of this unbelief as well as of all other sins, is no wise in God, but in man himself; whereas faith in Jesus Christ, and salvation through him is the free gift of God, as it is written: "By grace ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God," Ephesians 2:8. "And unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him," etc. Philippians 1:29.

6. That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do not receive it proceeds from God's eternal decree, "For known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts 15:18. "Who worketh all things after the counsel of his will," Ephesians 1:11. According to which decree, he graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe, while he leaves the non-elect in his just judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the profound, and merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men, equally involved in ruin; or that decree of election and reprobation, revealed in the Word of God, which though men of perverse, impure and unstable minds wrest to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation.

 

[zippy2006]

The way you explain this gives the impression you adhere to open theism.

...lol, is that so? C.S. Lewis proposed a remedy for chronological myopia: reading old books. In your case I would recommend reading some theology that predates the 1980's.

I’m still waiting for you to go beyond your assertions and form an argument. You have not cited one Calvinist source.

I suppose if you don't consider the Foundation for Reformed Theology's Calvin Studies a Calvinist source I haven't, but given your comment about Open Theism it strikes me as more likely that you simply haven't looked.

I've discussed this subject in the past on CF, with plenty of primary sources. Here are some of the threads:

• The Bible or Calvinism
  
• Quoting Calvin
  
• The No-Straw-Man Calvinism challenge.
  
• Predestination v Free Will
  
• Calvinism and Relativism

 

[zippy2006]

There is no such thing as "double predestination."

It's good we can agree on something.

Calvinists believe in predestination, that's all.

There are Calvinists who believe in double predestination and those who don't. Calvin did. Luther flirted with it. Lutheranism dropped it at Concord. I already cited an example of a local Calvinist who rejects Calvin's doctrine of double predestination (see here).

 

[redleghunter]

lol, is that so? C.S. Lewis proposed a remedy for chronological myopia: reading old books. In your case I would recommend reading some theology that predates the 1980's.

I hail from a Jesuit university. The Catholic preparatory before that loved old theology books. We studied many.

The reason I mentioned open theism is in your assertions (note not arguments) by denying the Sovereignty of God all you have left is a beggar God who waits for humans to choose Him. And a God which is waiting for wicked men to endorse His own purpose.

Compatibilism takes the Sovereignty of God in measure along with the choices people make based on the master of their lives. Aka the bondage of the will explained by the Apostle in Romans 6.

I suppose if you don't consider the Foundation for Reformed Theology's Calvin Studies a Calvinist source I haven't, but given your comment about Open Theism it strikes me as more likely that you simply haven't looked.

Resting on old laurels will not do . If you make a sweeping comment you should cite the source and put a bit of intellectual freight behind it.

 

[zippy2006]

I hail from a Jesuit university.

It's worse than I thought.

The reason I mentioned open theism is in your assertions (note not arguments) by denying the Sovereignty of God all you have left is a beggar God who waits for humans to choose Him. And a God which is waiting for wicked men to endorse His own purpose.

Compatibilism takes the Sovereignty of God in measure along with the choices people make based on the master of their lives. Aka the bondage of the will explained by the Apostle in Romans 6.

You're laboring under the modern idea that predestination entails determinism and thus drawing the false conclusion that compatibilism is a characteristically Christian position. It's not. Here's an interesting excerpt from IEP that is helpfully succinct:

Medieval philosophers did not ask the question whether free will was compatible with causal determinism, not because they did not understand the ramifications of cause and effect or because they lacked a scientific notion of the world. They recognized the regularities of the world and understood the implications of a mechanistic world-view. They did not ask this question because they accepted the position that the freedom of human action is incompatible with causal determinism and because they believed that human beings in fact do act freely, at least on some occasions. Thus, in current terms, they were libertarians about human freedom.​

 

[redleghunter]

It's good we can agree on something.



There are Calvinists who believe in double predestination and those who don't. Calvin did. Luther flirted with it. Lutheranism dropped it at Concord. I already cited an example of a local Calvinist who rejects Calvin's doctrine of double predestination (see here).

Can you quote Calvin on double predestination. He actually shared St Augustine's view that we are all condemned and God saves some.

Chapter 16.— Why the Gift of Faith is Not Given to All.
Faith, then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God's gift; and let no one have any doubt whatever, unless he desires to resist the plainest sacred writings, that this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given. But why it is not given to all ought not to disturb the believer, who believes that from one all have gone into a condemnation, which undoubtedly is most righteous; so that even if none were delivered therefrom, there would be no just cause for finding fault with God. Whence it is plain that it is a great grace for many to be delivered, and to acknowledge in those that are not delivered what would be due to themselves; so that he that glories may glory not in his own merits, which he sees to be equalled in those that are condemned, but in the Lord. But why He delivers one rather than another —His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out.Romans 11:33 For it is better in this case for us to hear or to say, O man, who are you that repliest against God? Romans 9:20 than to dare to speak as if we could know what He has chosen to be kept secret. Since, moreover, He could not will anything unrighteous.​

CHURCH FATHERS: On the Predestination of the Saints, Book I (Augustine)

 

[zippy2006]

Follow the link in the post you quoted.

 

[redleghunter]

It's worse than I thought.



You're laboring under the modern idea that predestination entails determinism and thus drawing the false conclusion that compatibilism is a characteristically Christian position. It's not. Here's an interesting excerpt from IEP that is helpfully succinct:

Medieval philosophers did not ask the question whether free will was compatible with causal determinism, not because they did not understand the ramifications of cause and effect or because they lacked a scientific notion of the world. They recognized the regularities of the world and understood the implications of a mechanistic world-view. They did not ask this question because they accepted the position that the freedom of human action is incompatible with causal determinism and because they believed that human beings in fact do act freely, at least on some occasions. Thus, in current terms, they were libertarians about human freedom.​

Then address the Scriptures I posted from the Acts of the Apostles.

Peter was quite comfortable it seems with knowing God has a Divine purpose and will and predestines, yet showing the very acts of the men performing the actions acted according to their choice.

 

[zippy2006]

If you can't read posts how do you expect to read books? (Lk 16:10)

• Zippy: You're laboring under the idea that predestination entails determinism
• redleg: You're wrong, Peter believed in predestination!
• Zippy:

 

[redleghunter]

If you can't read posts how do you expect to read books? (Lk 16:10)

• Zippy: You're laboring under the idea that predestination entails determinism
• redleg: You're wrong, Peter believed in predestination!
• Zippy:

Perhaps you missed the point. Maybe not.

Was it God's Divine plan and purpose for God the Son to be crucified, die and rise from the dead the exact time it happened?

 

[zippy2006]

Was it God's Divine plan and purpose for God the Son to be crucified, die and rise from the dead the exact time it happened?

Of course.