Questions about Predestination

Ignatios said:

Calvin isn't making sense here. He both supports the idea that the will of man is comprehensively predestined according to God's good pleasure and that God is emotionally divested in the fate of his creatures in a way that alternatively pleases and displeases Him. He is displeased with sin but is pleased to predestine man and his sin.

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Ahm. "Calvin isn't making sense" to whom? His work is extensive, do you have a comment to his point that he hasn't already answered?

If something is opposed to God, it's a simple deduction that God created what that is. This would introduce the paradox you state into every view of creation and determinism.

Ignatios said:

What conditions constitute freedom? Many Calvinists have said that freedom is present exclusively as freedom from sin, that is, as a predetermined state of godliness.

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Really. Cite where that freedom is exclusively from sin, and not in other aspects. In fact, cite it for Calvin or at least an unequivocal Calvinist; let's not go arguing over the credentials of so many Calvinists.

Ignatios said:

When human responsibility is located in the will, regardless of whether we understand freedom as freedom from sin, we are confronted by the human will as being a predetermination of the divine will. It's simple. If responsibility is located in the will, then both man and God are responsible for sin.

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This would only be the case if God were the human will. God is perfectly capable of creating someone other than Himself, and then judging him rightly as evil and condemning and sentencing him.

To deal with the evil human will apart from its end in judgment is to deal partially with the Divine involvement in the human will. And any partial dealing will always come up with a partial answer. Moral answers demand a full accounting. "He stole from me!" seems a proper moral judgment until it's discovered, "He stole from me what I stole from him."

Ignatios said:

I repeat that it seems, for you, that it would be a creative defect if man were created with a will that wasn't already determined by God's will.

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I point out that the result of creating man -- something God undoubtedly knew and undoubtedly had the power to change -- is evil. The anti-Calvinist position has God wringing His hands over "well, they're such sinners", powerless to have done anything by His neglect of what He undoubtedly knew.

Your criticism of Calvinism is identical. God could create people incapable of sinning. He didn't. He freely chose not to. Evil resulted. Therefore God is responsible for evil.

Ignatios said:

What, exactly, in the Institutes or Spinoza are you referring to? I'm basing the belief in free will firmly in the scriptural tradition, since Holy Scripture is of the utmost authority. Starting from the tradition of Holy Scripture, I can confidently assert my view as a matter of faith. It is then up to the determinists to prove their view, as if they really could. Are you a determinist?

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If you claim a Scriptural tradition, cite the Scripture that formed the basis for the tradition. Where's the free will of men stated in Scripture without equivocation?

Ignatios said:

What are your viable alternatives to libertarian free will?

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Human free will constrained in the bounds of detailed predetermined creation.

Ignatios said:

heymikey80 said:

Determinists the world over have a number of viable alternatives to libertarian free will. Just alleging "They never proved these accusations wrong" without seriously reviewing their case, doesn't carry your point. What's your response to the Institutes?
Better yet, what's your response simply to Spinoza?

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What, exactly, in the Institutes or Spinoza are you referring to? I'm basing the belief in free will firmly in the scriptural tradition, since Holy Scripture is of the utmost authority. Starting from the tradition of Holy Scripture, I can confidently assert my view as a matter of faith. It is then up to the determinists to prove their view, as if they really could. Are you a determinist?

What are your viable alternatives to libertarian free will?

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The comment that a determined will doesn't make the will any less a will. The comment that a will that does evil must still be constrained and punished because otherwise the system is being immoral to the rest of the wills affected by evil.

There're dozens of answers, all coursing through the relationships we have with one another -- individualistic, libertarian free will doesn't catch this, and doesn't realize that "your wickedness affects a man like yourself, and your righteousness, a son of man." So libertarians say, "He didn't have a choice, so no harm no foul", when in fact it was indeed foul. The evil one did indeed have a choice, and chose evil because he was evil.

Calvinism simply makes the distinction that no corrupted human consistently chooses good for goodness' sake and for good motives. It's a deductive tautology, yet it draws peals of denial from libertarians. Well, I just have to laugh. Under functional libertarians we've reached the depths of modernistic depravity. For goodness' sake, would that we would turn a little from libertarianism qua libertinism.