I don't want to get into a Calvinist vs Arminian debate, just to point out that there are multiple viewpoints.
You write:
And Calvinism doesn't deny free will, only
libertarian free will.
My Response:
Firstly, I apologize for misrepresenting your intentions.
Secondly, regarding Calvinism, there are several forms of Calvinism. And the lower moderate forms do teach mankind may freely choose to do good or evil, or to believe. But once saved, they can never lose their salvation because God guarantees perseverance of their faith unto salvation.
However, Calvin's teaching on God's Sovereignty (
which is the foundation for the 5 points of Calvinism thought) ultimately means that an omniscient all powerful God created mankind, including Adam and Eve, with the mindset to sin and act the way they did, or do, to fulfill His purpose... For, according to Calvin's doctrine of God's Sovereignty, a Sovereign God created everything, and every person, perfectly to fulfill his plans, and that includes every creature and everything else. God makes no mistakes, and no person God creates can ever thwart His purpose for creating him or her.
What John Calvin taught regarding God’s Sovereignty is contained in his following work:
“
The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, Chapter 16”
See:
Calvin on God’s Sovereignty | Christian History Institute
Book One of “The Institutes…,” Chapter 16 clearly reveal John Calvin’s understanding of God’s Will as 100% active.
Chapter 16
Part 1 provides the foundation for God’s sovereignty as active (God is the cause).
Part 2 denies the idea of chance and that anything in the world is random.
Part 3 counters some alternative interpretations of God’s sovereignty.
Part 6 explores God’s control of human actions.
The Calvinist definition of
God's Sovereignty must be active over all the things He created for His own purpose and pleasure.
This Calvinistic understanding of God’s Sovereignty is the mindset for which all Biblical proof texts are to be interpreted, and of which the 5 points of Calvinism are founded. To further illustrate this key point, consider the following key statements by John Calvin:
John Calvin
John Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993 reprint), 206
“Since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.”
John Calvin
John Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993 reprint), 231.
“By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.”
John Calvin
John Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993 reprint), 231.
“Those therefore whom God passes by He reprobates, and that for no other cause than he is pleased to exclude them….”
John Calvin,
Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993 reprint), 231.
“If we cannot assign any reason for [God] bestowing mercy on his people, but just that it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will. When God is said to visit in mercy or harden whom he will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond his will.”
In regards to the rest of your post...
For those reading, terms need to be defined:
Definition of "
libertarian free will" as in opposition to "causal determinism."
Definition for "libertarian free will" is as follows:
<<
Libertarians believe that free will is incompatible with causal determinism, and agents have free will. They therefore deny that causal determinism is true. ... Non-causal libertarians typically believe that free actions are constituted by basic mental actions, such as a decision or choice.
https://philpapers.org/browse/libertarianism-about-free-will
>>
The definition for "causal determinism" is as follows:
<<
Determinism often is taken to mean causal determinism, which in physics is known as cause-and-effect. It is the concept that [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_(philosophy)']events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely determined by prior states. This meaning can be distinguished from other varieties of determinism mentioned below. (Wikipedia)
>>[/URL]
Calvinists would believe in "God decreed and ordained determinism." In other words, all the effects each person does was caused or predetermined by God when He made them.
You write:
You are totally misrepresenting what I said.
What I said was that, even if you deny predestination, God's foreknowledge
all on it's own means that the future is fixed (it
must happen as God foresaw, or else God didn't really foresee it). Therefore God's foreknowledge
all on it's own rules out libertarian free will.
My response:
As a Christian who believes in God... How can one believe that God foreseeing the future necessarily and legitimately imply a ruling out of libertarian free will?
Keep in mind, that man's actions are more than the sum of cause and effect events. If that were the case, people would not be responsible for their own actions - whether good or bad. Rather, each person responds within the circumstances he finds himself.
Scripturally, there are no causes that a person can turn to as justification before God for His choices. Each person stands before God on Judgment Day being fully responsible before God for his choices. And God will judge righteously in recognition of the knowledge and circumstances each person possessed while on earth.
