Dr. Anderson v. Dr. Craig

I recently listened to Dr. William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith Podcast, in which, he criticized Dr. James Anderson's recent post on middle knowledge. I wanted to direct my readers to Dr. Anderson's reply to Dr. Craig here. Make sure to read Dr. Anderson's interaction with Dr. Greg Welty in the comments.

After thinking through Dr. Craig's criticisms and Dr. Anderson's counter arguments, I wonder what would Dr. Craig say to fictional middle knowledge? Why not consider middle knowledge the same as Dr. Craig's fictionalism? Wouldn't such a view withstand Dr. Travis Campbell's criticisms? It plausibly  would give Calvinists a way of speaking about God's providence, much like possible world semantics, without the metaphysical baggage of excluding counterfactals from God's natural knowledge. Just some thoughts!

      

Presuppositionalism Made Simple

Too often there is more dispute on how Presuppositional apologetics should be performed and less practical instruction on how to put it to use. 

There are many great men who have made successful efforts to fill in these gaps in presuppositional apologetics application. John Frame, Greg Bahnsen, James Anderson, Jason Lisle and Sye Ten Bruggencate all come to mind. 

Where Do We Start?

We show existence, truth, goodness, justice, and beauty, can only be made sense of by the truth of Christianity alone. This can take effect in various ways. But it always involves comparing worldviews. We show Christianity to be true by demonstrating its logical opposite is false. Two principles must be followed in this process, (1) no one can be religiously neutral in their beliefs, and (2) no one, except God, can claim the rights of power and authority over all things, especially in intellectual or moral judgements. 

Some one-liner objections I recently encounter on the college campus. 

1. That's your interpretation. 

2. God is prideful

3. God is unloving if babies go to hell

4. The Bible is not God's word.

5. The Bible has been corrupted

6. Genocide is not justice. 
7. The heathen goes to hell without any hope. 

How can all these objections be answered properly without getting away from the gospel? All these questions can successfully be addressed by attacking the underlying presuppositions. Make God in all reasoning the ultimate standard. Man cannot be elevated to the position of God to judge Him. Man must be brought down intellectually to face his position before God--a mere limited creature dependent upon God for everything.   Let's try to do this. How would you answer these above one-liners?    

1. That's your interpretation. Often this objection is given to a particular passage or doctrinal teaching of scripture. You can always quote the disputed passage of Scripture. Ask the objector, "why do you say I am not interpreting this passage correctly?" And then proceed to tell the person its a quotation.  Notice the objector has made a fatal move in his objection. By pressing hard against the scripture's plain meaning, the objector substitutes its content with his desired meaning. He thinks the text has more than one valid interpretation. One interpretation is no better than another. The problem is the objector cannot possibly claim to know the text has multiple valid interpretations unless the objector also claims to interpret the text better than you. Thus the objector refutes himself. The objector claims, "nobody's interpretation is any better;" but in the same breath utters, "except my interpretation that nobody's interpretation is any better." To keep God first in handling this objection one can always simply say, "since you are limited in knowledge how can you know?  You are not God, yet you elevate yourself in the place of God to judge God. By who's authority, power, and right do you sit in judgement of God? If you arbitrarily appoint yourself as judge over God, you are no less than irrational, and no better than insane."                

2. God is prideful. This objection takes pride to be immoral. One could challenge the objector to make sense of morals without God. Or one can say the objector is a hypocrite, since he judges God as prideful, yet the objector makes the objection out of pride. He says in his heart, " at least I am not like that." The objector can rightly be corrected by biblical theology. God is the most perfect being and thus there is no pride that resides in Him. He ought to be praised, honored and glorified, not merely because he commands it, but, since he deserves it. He commands, deserves, and is worthy of, worship.    

3. God is unloving if babies go to hell. This is a sensitive issue which should be answered with precision and caution. I'd say Christ died for all those that will, or physically cannot (i.e. mentally disabled or infants), believe. Other plausible positions can be argued for as well. Let us assume though God sends babies to hell. How would this be unloving or unjust? Where can love or justice exist without God? God is the source of love and justice. Does not God have the right to do what He wants with His creation? Who are we, as limited humans, to question God? Is it not possible that God would still love them even in hell? The Scriptures teach us no one is innocent of sin. All humans are guilty of sin. Thus God would be perfectly just to send all mankind to hell. Yet God chose in His mercy to redeem and transform people from their sins in Jesus Christ. And I believe God, in His providence and compassion, saves those He has not given the time or physical ability to exercise faith in Christ to magnify His justice, mercy, love and grace.       

4. The Bible is not God's Word. Such an objection assumes the objecter knows the Bible is not God's Word. But how can a creature with limited knowledge know this? How does the objector know there is no evidence proving the Bible is God's Word?  Often this objection is made with a cluster of beliefs that drive it. So probe the objector with questions to get to the root of the problem. Underlying all these objections is the commitment that the objector is the standard of truth. This commitment must be challenged by the Bible itself. First, do this by showing the objector's prejudice against the Bible. Second, demonstrate the necessity of starting first with God to even approach the question of whether or not the Bible is or isn't God's Word. Third, reveal the glaring gaps in the objector's knowledge by explaining the historical reliability of the Scriptures, fulfilled prophecies, and archaeological  discoveries. Show the Bible alone provides us with explanation, consistency, coherence, conscience, hope, fulfillment and livability. It takes us from a limited perspective to an incorporation of the normative, existential and situational perspectives that finds completeness, an objective perspective, in Christ. That is to say, it brings us from the limited to the complete in Christ alone.         

5. The Bible has been corrupted. This objection can be taken as a shot in the dark. Simply ask, " can you prove this?" The objection is at its heart autobiographical information of the objector. It is merely the objector's opinion.   

6. Genocide is not justice. Why is genocide wrong to the objector since he rejects God? How can justice make sense if God is not taken as King in our beliefs? Once again, though, the objector is ignorant of Biblical theology. First, God has the right to dispose of His creation however He sees fit. Second, God is the locus of moral perfection, therefore, He alone is the standard of goodness. Third, all humans are guilty, so God can never be charged with Genocide.  God can only be seen as enforcing justice. 

7. The heathen goes to hell without any hope. There are multiple views on how to rightly answer this objection. I will simply say, that given general and/or special revelation, no one can claim to be without hope of knowing God since He has given us all sufficient knowledge of Himself. The heathen that goes to hell goes willfully rejecting God. He had enough revelation from God, to exercise faith in God, but He chose to fashion an idol in His place. 

Anderson Lectures

A book recommendation, for James N. Anderson's new apologetics book recently released, plus a link to some of his lectures here.

Anderson, Calvinism and the First Sin

In this paper (here) Dr. James N. Anderson, Associate Professor of Reformed Theological Seminary, has masterfully taken up the subject of Calvinism (with its respective doctrines of God, providence and sin) to address those that charge it of implicating God as the author of sin.

I do not wish to give a complete summary here. I’d prefer to commend readers to it. I wish only to discuss some of the paper with comments.

Dr. Anderson begins with a familiar discussion in Christian Theology of the devastating nature and effects of sin brought by Adam’s transgression. God created Adam and Eve after His image good--with the ability to choose good or evil. Adam for unknown reasons chose to violate one of God’s commandments. Subsequent to Adam’s transgression, sin was imputed, inherited and imitated, by all mankind.

Dr. Anderson asks the deep and difficult questions we are confronted with, as Calvinists, in light of Adam’s transgression. It is the very same questions believers in the past have had to struggle with such as St. Augustine and Jonathan Edwards. Dr. Anderson states, “the most perplexing question of all is simply this: If Adam was created good, why did he commit evil?”[1]

Dr. Anderson stresses that it must be admitted, from the start, that all theological traditions face difficulties. Nevertheless, all theological traditions must each attempt to construct a coherent model to make sense of God’s providence in relation to Adam’s sin. As we take Calvinism to be the most faithful theological tradition to Scripture. We affirm: (1) God either directly or indirectly determines all things (which includes Adam’s transgression), (2) man freely determines actions and acts, and (3) God is neither the author nor approver of sin. Yet it is precisely these affirmations that require us to construct a coherent model. But many from other theological traditions deem this as an impossible task. Dr. Anderson in the rest of his paper directly addresses objections to the possibility of a Calvinistic model, critiques alternative models, and then offers a Calvinistic model, which best affirms (1), (2), and (3), with less (severe?) philosophical difficulties than alternative models.

Dr. Anderson states that Calvinism is committed to divine determinism in which God is the sufficient cause of all things. But how God precisely determines and causes all things does not necessarily entail physical or causal determinism. So then, in what way are we to understand “God determines all things” and “God is the cause of all things?” Dr. Anderson points out that Calvinism essentially is not committed to any specific view of causality. Therefore many views are open to Calvinism. In this paper Dr. Anderson takes cause generally in its ordinary sense, namely, to bring about a state of affairs. With this definition in mind, Dr. Anderson distinguishes between creator and creature causation. There is a creator/creature distinction that vastly separates God essentially from His creation. For example, God can cause things to exist from nothing. But creation cannot cause things to exist from nothing. By this distinction, Dr. Anderson argues that divine causation can be properly understood as analogical. Thus God determines C by X and man determines C by Y. Divine causation is not transitive to human causation. Things in creation do not cause Y by Z and God causes creation to cause Y by X where XYZ are equivalent. There are two levels of causation that must be kept in tact. The first level is divine causation and the second is creation causation. On the latter we experience daily in creation. It is a linear perspective of causation. However, the first level, God causes the creation to exist; He sustains its existence and concurs with its causation precisely in accordance with His will. I think Paul Helm reinforces Dr. Anderson’s model when he writes,

“(9) Wherever one person X causes another person Y to do moral evil X does moral evil.

 (10) Wherever one person X upholds another person Y and knowingly that Y will do evil does not prevent Y from doing evil, X does moral evil.

    

… it is by no means clear that even if X does moral evil he is doing the same moral evil as Y. Moreover, whether or not X is guilty of moral evil is presumably a matter of what rule or law X has broken or whether his upholding and permitting of X to act in an evil manner is in furtherance of some greater good for which X’s evil act is a logically necessary condition. It is not obvious that either a law has been broken in such a case, or that X’s evil act is not a logically necessary condition for the achieving of certain further goods.”[2]

Dr. Anderson gives helpful insight to divine determinism with discussion on particular models of providence. The first he calls the Domino Model and the second Authorial Model. The first takes causation as straightforwardly causal determinism. The world and everything in it is like a giant game of dominos. In the game of dominos, each individual domino is placed face to face with another domino. Typically a long chain of face-to-face dominos is spread out like a train. And once the first domino of the chain falls, it causes the adjacent domino to fall, continuing on from domino to domino. Eventually, through the chain of causes and effects, all the dominos fall. In the same manner as dominos the Domino model of providence views everything that happens in the world as a chain of causes and effects. God just taps the first domino to fall, as it were, and everything happens precisely in accordance with His will. The Authorial Model takes providence much like an author writes a book.[3] The author controls every element in the story; he can even write himself into the story. But how the author writes the story is not the same as how the characters act in the story. The author can write that a particular character commits a wicked deed, without approving or applauding it, but the author does not thereby commit a wicked deed.[4] Moreover, there is a one-way streak of moral accountability in the Authorial Model. Since the author can rightly hold its characters accountable for their actions. But the characters have no right to hold their author accountable for their actions.[5] Furthermore, to the least extent, the author is merely telling a story with characters that participate in evil, but the author himself does not participate in evil. Dr. Anderson sees that Calvinism with this Authorial Model of Providence is most helpful in understanding divine determinism.

Dr. Anderson after developing the Authorial Model to understand divine determinism, he moves his attention to addressing possible objections to such a model of providence as it relates to the first sin. Dr. Anderson then critiques alternative non-Calvinistic models of providence in the face of Adam’s sin.

I think Dr. Anderson brings great clarity to the difficulties for those who wish to affirm libertarian freedom. First, he points out that such a view violates a moderate principle of sufficient reason (ironically the very law many Arminians vehemently defend in the Cosmological argument).[6] That is to say everything has an explanation for its existence either by necessity or contingency. But Dr. Anderson points out that if libertarian freedom is true there is no explanation for any given person’s decision. Since reasons merely influence any given person, but decisions are made, if any given person wills them. Thus why any given person chooses to will one decision over another remains inexplicable. I think Arminians and Molinists alike would respond to Dr. Anderson that Adam sinned simply on the basis he willed it. So in that sense there is something in Adam. But such a reply does not escape Dr. Anderson’s criticism.

Dr. Anderson concludes with “…five significant virtues of the Calvinist account:

1. Unlike its competitors, the Calvinist account does full justice to the divine perfection of aseity (God’s self-existence and absolute independence). There are no events in the creation that take place apart from God’s will, and God’s knowledge isn’t dependent on brute facts or on anything in the creation.

2. Unlike its competitors, the Calvinist account doesn’t require God to take chances or to rely on “good fortune.” (Even the Molinist account subjects God to some degree of chance insofar as God has to play the hand of feasible worlds that is dealt to him, so to speak, by the counterfactuals of freedom.)

3. Calvinism affirms the doctrine of meticulous providence, which receives strong support in both the Christian scriptures and the Christian tradition.

4.On the Calvinist account there is an ultimate sufficient explanation for the first sin, namely, the good and wise decree of God. God has authored a creational story in which human sin plays an integral role. While the first sin may have been irrational in terms of Adam’s nature, character, and circumstances, it was not irrational in terms of God’s decree. The first sin was not ultimately an irrational brute event in God’s universe. God worked out his sovereign plan through Adam’s sin rather than around it.

5. Calvinists can affirm that the first sin considered in itself was a supremely evil act while at the same time affirming that God decreed Adam’s sin for his good and wise purposes—ultimately, for his own glory manifested in his mercy and his justice—as part of the overall storyline of the history of creation.”[7]

See also my posts Craig, Providence and Calvinism, Original Sin and Middle Knowledge and Harmatology.

                  

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[1] James N. Anderson. Forthcoming in Calvinism and the First Sin in Calvinism and the Problem of Evil, edited by David E. Alexander and Daniel M. Johnson (Wipf & Stock, 2014) http://www.proginosko.com/docs/Calvinism_and_the_First_Sin.pdf p.3.

[2] Paul Helm. Eternal God: A Study of God without Time (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010)pp.161-162.

[3] John M. Frame. The Doctrine of God. (Philipsburg, N.J.,:P&R Pub., 2002)p.p.154-159. See also Dr. Gordon H. Clark’s discussion of cause and authorship in Christian Philosophy, vol 4. (Unicoi: Trinity Foundation, 2004)p.p. 268-269.   

[4] Dr. Anderson even points out that most, if not all, good stories must contain some amount of evil. http://www.proginosko.com/docs/Calvinism_and_the_First_Sin.pdf; p.11. See also Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Richard Francks, and R.S. Woolhouse. Philosophical Texts (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998)p.252.

[5] I see no reason why a moderate divine command theory of ethics cannot be incorporated in this model. See Edward John Carnell. An Introduction to Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1981. pp.302-303. Gordon H. Clark. Christian Philosophy, vol 4. Unicoi: Trinity Foundation, 2004. p. 269. Paul Helm. Eternal God: A Study of God without Time. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010.pp.161-162.Morland, J.P. and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview.Downers Grove: Intervarsity P, 2003.pp.531-532.

[6] William Lane Craig. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/leibnizs-cosmological-argument-and-the-psr

[7]  http://www.proginosko.com/docs/Calvinism_and_the_First_Sin.pdf p.p.30-31

Craig, Providence, and Calvinism

Dr. William Lane Craig lists five objections against a Calvinistic conception of providence in the book above. Craig's five objections can be summarized as follows:

1. Calvinism is exegetically unfaithful to the Scriptures (indications of a robust doctrine of human freedom).
2. Calvinism is self-refuting.
3. Calvinism makes God the author of sin.
4. Calvinism destroys human freedom.
5. Calvinism entails human thought and experience is illusory.

1. Calvinism is exegetically unfaithful to the Scriptures.

Craig merely asserts Calvinism is contrary to the plain teachings of Scripture. He does not exegete any text to argue the supposed exegetical shortcomings of Calvinism. Craig claims Calvinism undermines all scriptural texts that affirm "genuine indeterminacy and contingency."I fail to see how Calvinism cannot affirm "genuine indeterminacy and contingency," if God (analogically) determines them.

2. Calvinism is self-refuting.

Simply to say one believes Calvinism given the truth of Calvinism seems trivial. But Craig sees this as self-refuting. Since a person is determined to believe in determinism, (somehow) this determined belief is not acquired rationally, but why not? Craig is assuming latently by this objection Calvinism entails causal determinism. But there is no obvious reason why it must. In fact, many Calvinists would adopt an analogical understanding of determinism whereby God determines C by X and man determines C by Y. On such a view divine causation is not taken as univocal, but, rather analogical.

3. Calvinism makes God the author of sin. 

“…God is the first efficient cause of everything, but evil has come, not from His first act, but by a second act, an act of creatures.

God is the author of the author of sin, He cannot be the author of sin itself, for sin is the result of a rebellion against God. 

If God is not the author of sin, at least He must be charged with being responsible for sin…A little reflection on the subject will show the contradiction involved in charging God with responsibility. Let us ask one question: Responsible to whom, or to what?...Obviously  if we are talking about the Almighty, He already is the highest power there is. Therefore, when God decreed this type of universe where Christ was to die for the sins of all who believe, God was responsible to none but Himself.” [1]

“God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though He is the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not sinful because in the first place whatever God does is just and right. It is just and right simply in virtue of the fact that He does it. Justice or righteousness is not a standard external to God to which God is obligated to submit. Righteousness is what God does…God’s causing a man to sin is not sin. There is no law, superior to God, which forbids Him to decree sinful acts. Sin presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. But God is “Ex-lex.” [2]

“(1) Necessarily, if God exists he is all-good.

 (2) God exists and ordains whatsoever comes to pass.

 (3) Necessarily, if A is a human action then A is causally determined.

 (4) There are morally evil human actions.

 (5) Either God is the morally culpable author of the morally evil actions or human beings are   their sole morally culpable authors.

 (6) (1) and the first disjunct of (5) are formally inconsistent.

 (7)(1),(3) and the second disjunct of (5) are not formally inconsistent.

 (8)Any agent who freely and knowingly sets up a deterministic process with a certain outcome must be responsible for that outcome.

 (9) Wherever one person X causes another person Y to do moral evil X does moral evil.

 (10) Wherever one person X upholds another person Y and knowingly that Y will do evil does not prevent Y from doing evil, X does moral evil.

    

…moreover, it is by no means clear that even if X does moral evil he is doing the same moral evil as Y. Moreover, whether or not X is guilty of moral evil is presumably a matter of what rule or law X has broken or whether his upholding and permitting of X to act in an evil manner is in furtherance of some greater good for which X’s evil act is a logically necessary condition. It is not obvious that either a law has been broken in such a case, or that X’s evil act in not a logically necessary condition for the achieving of certain further goods.”[3]

“Since our moral duties are grounded in the divine commands, they are not independent of God nor, plausibly, is God bound by moral duties, since he does not issue commands to himself.

If God does not fulfill moral duties then what content can be given to the claim he is good? Here Kant’s distinction between following a rule and acting in accordance with a rule has proved helpful. God may act naturally in ways which for us would be rule following and so constitutive of goodness in the sense of fulfilling our moral duties, so that God can be said similarly to be good in an analogical way….God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial, and so forth, and His commandments are reflections of his own character.” [4]

             
4. Calvinism destroys human freedom.
Instead of rehearsing the, already mentioned, alternative to causal determinism in favor of compatibilism, I'd like to focus on Craig's offered alternative. He would say libertarian freedom is the only view that rightly upholds human freedom. On such view a subject is free if the subject makes a choice without any sufficient or necessary causal conditions. Any given person, with the options of X or Y, to be free should have the ability to choose between the two (independently of any other factors such as genes, dispositions, desires, customs, and practices). But how is such a view any more plausible? Given the fact that a person can choose between X or Y (independently of any other factors such as genes, dispositions, desires, customs, and practices) amounts to the person being indifferent. Why then should an indifferent person chose one thing over another? I think Craig wants to say, simply because the agent reasoned to will one choice over another. It seems to me, then, this freedom of indifference make a person's choice utterly arbitrary. Reason being that any given reason why a person should choose X, an identical reason can be given to choose Y. [5]

5. Calvinism entails human thought and experience are illusory. 

Quite the contrary, if analogical determinism is true. But for the sake of argument, even if causal determinism is true,  it would not entail human experience is illusory given the fact that on such a view there really is secondary causes. And therefore, people are not rightly construed as puppets in the hands of God; instead they're agents that possess knowledge, volition, purpose, and deliberation. 

[1] Edward John Carnell. An Introduction to Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1981. pp.302-303.
[2]Gordon H. Clark. Christian Philosophy, vol 4. Unicoi: Trinity Foundation, 2004. p. 269.
[3]Paul Helm. Eternal God: A Study of God without Time. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010.pp.161-162.
[4]Morland, J.P. and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview.Downers Grove: Intervarsity P, 2003.pp.531-532.
[5] I take this point from the insights of Bruce Ware, John Frame, and Ronald Nash.