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.
[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
