Mysticism: Mission Impossible?

Infinity
of
Moebius Strip

How would a mystic know he has experienced union with God?

The mystic is finite. God is infinite.

Can the finite experience the infinite?

I know doggerel's great fun, but I feel compelled to bring this report on free will!

Free Will

I've occasionally, if rarely, discussed free will on this blog, but I'm doing so today because I read an intriguing article by Michae1 Egnor titled "More Than Material Minds" (Christianity Today, September 14, 2018), in which  are discussed the significance of recent findings in neuroscience on the possibility of free will:

Some of the most fascinating research on consciousness was done by . . . Benjamin Libet at the University of California, San Francisco. Libet asked: What happens in the brain when we think? How are electrical signals in the brain related to our thoughts? He was particularly interested in the timing of brain waves and thoughts. Did a brain wave happen at the same moment as the thought, or before, or after?

It was a difficult question to answer. It wasn't hard to measure electrical changes in the brain: that could be done routinely by electrodes on the scalp, and Libet enlisted neurosurgeons to allow him to record signals deep in the brain while patients were awake. The challenge Libet faced was to accurately measure the time interval between the signals and the thoughts. But the signals last only a few milliseconds, and how can you time a thought with that kind of accuracy?

Libet began by choosing a very simple thought: the decision to press a button. He modified an oscilloscope so that a dot circled the screen once each second, and when the subject decided to push the button, he or she noted the location of the dot at the time of the decision. Libet measured the timing of the decision and the timing of the brain waves of many volunteers with accuracy in the tens of milliseconds. Consistently he found that the conscious decision to push the button was preceded by about half a second by a brain wave, which he called the readiness potential. Then a half-second later the subject became aware of his decision. It appeared at first that the subjects were not free; their brains made the decision to move and they followed it.

But Libet looked deeper. He asked his subjects to veto their decision immediately after they made it -- to not push the button. Again, the readiness potential appeared a half-second before conscious awareness of the decision to push the button, but Libet found that the veto -- he called it "free won't" -- had no brain wave corresponding to it.

The brain, then, has activity that corresponds to a pre-conscious urge to do something. But we are free to veto or accept this urge. The motives are material. The veto, and implicitly the acceptance, is an immaterial act of the will.

Libet noted the correspondence between his experiments and the traditional religious understanding of human beings. We are, he said, beset by a sea of inclinations, corresponding to material activity in our brains, which we have the free choice to reject or accept.

The veto is interesting, but I wonder if the fact that it was already decided in advance makes a difference to the outcome. Perhaps the brain wave in this case entailed both the decision to press the button and the decision to veto that decision. Comments welcome.

For the entire article, click here. This article originally appeared in Plough Quarterly No. 17: "The Soul of Medicine" (Summer 2018).

God is Sovereign?

Frontispiece

Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan

(Image from Wikipedia)

In the discussion of Hebrews last Sunday, our group got off on a tangent about sacrifice, and someone asked if the Bible offered a reason for God's acceptance of Abel's animal sacrifice and rejection of Cain's fruits-of-the-field offering, a story presented early in Genesis.

We speculated, some suggesting that blood sacrifice was the paradigmatic one and that the text presupposes that the reader would know this, others proposing that the motives of the two brothers were opposite one another, Abel offering his sacrifice with a proper heart and Cain presenting his offering with an impure heart.

We seemed to have reached an agreement that the text offers too little information to strongly claim one or the other reading as correct, except that one young man offered a third suggestion at that point (and I hope that I've got this right):

"In the final analysis, God is sovereign and can do as He pleases."

That sort of statement is usually a conversation-stopper, so I leaned forward and objected:

"But there is a strong Christian tradition that God is rational and would not decide arbitrarily."

The young man hesitated, then said:

"But God is far beyond our rational abilities."

I agreed, conditionally:

"Certainly, but He would not contradict himself."

We got no further on that issue, but I have given some thought to how one ought to respond. The Christian tradition generally insists that God is rational, that He is good, and that He is not arbitrarily willful (unlike some Islamic conceptions of Allah). If one agrees to this, the issue becomes one of whether or not we could judge some actions to be impossible for God because contrary to His good, rational nature. He could not declare evil to be good -- for instance, declare that rape or murder is good. More generally, He could not arbitrarily declare one individual's action better than another individual's action.

The appeal to God's sovereignty, however, seems to imply that he could do precisely this, namely, that God can arbitrarily choose, for instance, to accept one sacrifice and reject another for no good reason!

But perhaps I've not understood the appeal to God's sovereignty . . .

UPDATE: Blogger did some maintenance all day Friday the 13th (2011) and 'trashed' the fine comments that had been posted here. Apologies . . .

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom VI

King Saul and David

Rembrandt

(Image from Wikipedia)

An intriguing instance of a counterfactual seems implicit in 1 Samuel 23:9-13, where David is hiding in the city Keilah but hears that Saul is plotting to attack:

9 When David learned that Saul was plotting against him, he said to Abiathar the priest, "Bring the ephod." 10 David said, "O Lord, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. 11 Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O Lord, God of Israel, tell your servant." And the Lord said, "He will." 12 Again David asked, "Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?" And the Lord said, "They will." 13 So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and kept moving from place to place. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he did not go there. ("1 Samuel 23 - New International Version," Blue Letter Bible, 1996-2009)

As we see from this example, David uses the ephod (something like divine dice) to ask God to reveal what the future holds, and God tells him what the future holds: Saul will come down to Keilah, whose citizens will surrender David.

David therefore leaves Keilah, and the events foretold by God do not occur.

The counterfactual that I understand is this: God foretells what will happen -- on the assumption that David should choose to remain in Keilah. Left unstated is what will happen if David should choose to leave Keilah, but David chooses to leave and escapes unharmed.

I don't have a sophisticated argument here, but this passage seems to make more sense if one reads it in light of libertarian freedom than divine determinism. The passage seems to presuppose a true counterfactual in this world (rather than some other, possible world): if David remains, then Saul will capture him, but he leaves, so Saul does not capture him.

Assuming that David has libertarian free will, then David's choice could make either outcome true (though God, being omniscient, knows what David will choose).

By contrast, if David lacks libertarian free will, and God divinely determines every event, then God's statement of the foretold events would seem to me to be false, for God knows that he has determined David to choose to escape. If we assume divine determinism, God would seem to be making a false statement.

I don't pretend that I've made a rigorous argument that libertarian free will is implicit in 1 Samuel 23:9-13, but it seems intuitively more likely to me.

Other interesting passages to consider are Jeremiah 38:17-18, Matthew 17:27 and 26:24, and John 18:36.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom V

William Lane Craig

(Image from Reasonable Faith)

In a comment left on my first post in this series, Dominic Bnonn Tennant noted the following point about an omniscient being (in the context of interpreting Matthew 11:23):

Moreover, how does Jesus know what Sodom would have done? That is, what grounds his knowledge? The Calvinist says that counterfactuals are grounded in God's knowledge of what he would have caused to occur in some other possible world. Hence, Jesus can know certainly what Sodom would have done in the possible world where he performed such signs in it. But if you are making an argument for libertarian free will -- specifically an argument which presupposes as necessary the principle of alternative possibility [PAP] -- then what grounds exist for this knowledge? Was Jesus just guessing? If PAP obtains, then in principle Jesus could not possibly know (that is, he could have no certainty) that Sodom would have repented. There just doesn't seem to be any way for him to know this, given that it didn't actually happen. Furthermore, even if some account for the grounds of his knowledge can be given, the problem remains as to how God can have knowledge grounded in anything but himself. How can he be genuinely omniscient if some of his knowledge is contingent upon his own creation? This would seem to destroy both his simplicity, and his status as the ontological grounds of knowledge itself (see John's use of the term logos).

As Bnonn's comment shows, this is a complex issue. Even setting aside the problem of how Jesus would know things available only to an omniscient being (given Jesus's presumed kenosis), as Bnonn suggests, there remains the question as to how God could be "genuinely omniscient if some of his knowledge is contingent upon his own creation."

Perhaps I've misunderstood, but Bnonn seems to be distinguishing between two sorts of omniscience: authentic and inauthentic:

Authentic omniscience: God's omniscience is grounded solely in divine determinism.

Inauthentic omniscience: God's omniscience is grounded in more than divine determinism, e.g., also upon contingencies of creaturely freedom.

By "divine determinism" is meant that God causes to occur or could cause to occur. If I understand Bnonn's point, then God's omniscience would be inauthentic if it were partly dependent upon the free acts of created beings. Why? Well, perhaps Bnonn means because God would then not know what would have happened if a created being had acted differently.

If that is the case, then would God's omniscience exclude knowledge about possible worlds that entail creaturely freedom? Would this mean -- to 'misquote' Robert Browning -- that God's "reach must exceed his grasp"? God's omnipotence, which includes his power to actualize possible worlds in which creaturely freedom is actualized, exceeds his grasp to know what would result in such possible worlds?

If so, then "authentic omniscience" would seem to exclude knowledge of some possible worlds.

Perhaps William Lane Craig's explication of middle knowledge (scientia media) offers a way of understanding how God could have knowledge of all possible worlds. Here is a long passage from his article "No Other Name":

Largely the product of the creative genius of the Spanish Jesuit of the Counter-Reformation Luis Molina (1535-1600), the doctrine of middle knowledge proposes to furnish an analysis of divine knowledge in terms of three logical moments. Although whatever God knows, He has known from eternity, so that there is no temporal succession in God's knowledge, nonetheless there does exist a sort of logical succession in God's knowledge in that His knowledge of certain propositions is conditionally or explanatorily prior to His knowledge of certain other propositions. That is to say, God's knowledge of a particular set of propositions depends asymmetrically on His knowledge of a certain other set of propositions and is in this sense posterior to it. In the first, unconditioned moment God knows all possibilia, not only all individual essences, but also all possible worlds. Molina calls such knowledge "natural knowledge" because the content of such knowledge is essential to God and in no way depends on the free decisions of His will. By means of His natural knowledge, then, God has knowledge of every contingent state of affairs which could possibly obtain and of what the exemplification of the individual essence of any free creature could freely choose to do in any such state of affairs that should be actual.

In the second moment, God possesses knowledge of all true counterfactual propositions, including counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. That is to say, He knows what contingent states of affairs would obtain if certain antecedent states of affairs were to obtain; whereas by His natural knowledge God knew what any free creature could do in any set of circumstances, now in this second moment God knows what any free creature would do in any set of circumstances. This is not because the circumstances causally determine the creature's choice, but simply because this is how the creature would freely choose. God thus knows that were He to actualize certain states of affairs, then certain other contingent states of affairs would obtain. Molina calls this counterfactual knowledge "middle knowledge" because it stands in between the first and third moment in divine knowledge. Middle knowledge is like natural knowledge in that such knowledge does not depend on any decision of the divine will; God does not determine which counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true or false. Thus, if it is true that

If some agent S were placed in circumstances C, then he would freely perform action a,

then even God in His omnipotence cannot bring it about that S would refrain from a if he were placed in C. On the other hand, middle knowledge is unlike natural knowledge in that the content of His middle knowledge is not essential to God. True counterfactuals of freedom are contingently true; S could freely decide to refrain from a in C, so that different counterfactuals could be true and be known by God than those that are. Hence, although it is essential to God that He have middle knowledge, it is not essential to Him to have middle knowledge of those particular propositions which He does in fact know.

Intervening between the second and third moments of divine knowledge stands God's free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His middle knowledge. By His natural knowledge, God knows what is the entire range of logically possible worlds; by His middle knowledge He knows, in effect, what is the proper subset of those worlds which it is feasible for Him to actualize. By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His middle knowledge. According to Molina, this decision is the result of a complete and unlimited deliberation by means of which God considers and weighs every possible circumstance and its ramifications and decides to settle on the particular world He desires. Hence, logically prior, if not chronologically prior, to God's creation of the world is the divine deliberation concerning which world to actualize.

Given God's free decision to actualize a world, in the third and final moment God possesses knowledge of all remaining propositions that are in fact true in the actual world. Such knowledge is denominated "free knowledge" by Molina because it is logically posterior to the decision of the divine will to actualize a world. The content of such knowledge is clearly not essential to God, since He could have decreed to actualize a different world. Had He done so, the content of His free knowledge would be different.

The difficulty in this system of middle knowledge lies in understanding how God could know what free agents would freely do. Yet, an account of this would seem to be necessary if God's knowledge about the details of all possible worlds is not to be incomplete. Molina saw this problem and attempted to deal with it, perhaps unsuccessfully, but his suggestion led to further theological reflections:

Molina (Concordia, pp. 290, 303) transferred the medium of God's infallible knowledge to the supercomprehensio cordis (kardiognosia, the searching of hearts). In virtue of this supercomprehension, God knows the most secret inclinations and penetrates the most hidden recesses of man's heart, and is thus enabled to foresee with mathematical certainty the free resolves latent in man's will. This unsatisfactory explanation, however, met with the natural objection that the mathematically certain foreknowledge of an effect from its cause is nothing more or less than the knowledge of a necessary effect; consequently the will would no longer be free (cf. Kleutgen, "De Deo Uno", Rome, 1881, pp. 322 sqq.). Therefore, the opinion, gradually adopted since the time of Francisco Suárez (but repudiated in Molina's work), maintains that, by the scientia media, God sees the conditioned future acts in themselves, i.e. in their own (formal or objective) truth. For, since every free act must be absolutely determined in its being, even before it becomes actual or at least conditionally possible, it is from all eternity a definite truth (determinata veritas), and must consequently be knowable as such by the omniscient God with metaphysical certainty. (Joseph Pohle, "Molinism," The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911))

I freely admit that I don't understand all of this, for I haven't read enough and perhaps also lack sufficient metaphysical insight, but this series of posts is, after all, merely an investigation.

But I am out of time for today.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom IV

Augustine of Hippo

Sandro Botticelli, c. 1480

(Image from Wikipedia)

I have the image above from Wikipedia, which confidently informs me that "Augustine of Hippo wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it." The anonymous contributer then cites an article on "Free Will" in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press, 1997), edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. The statement that Augustine 'affirmed' free will surprises me, for I thought that he had denied it. Unfortunately, I cannot check the article to see what the anonymous Wikipedia individual was referring to, for I do not have the book that contains it.

Well, that's my opening gambit, and it ain't much of one, but I liked the image of Augustine -- his eyes lifted up -- deeply engaged in moral and theological reasoning, for it's indicative of the deep waters into which I've gotten myself (my eyes also lifted up as I sink beneath the waves).

For instance, in an earlier post defending free will, I had innocently noted that "a 'should' entails a 'could.'" To this, Dominic Bnonn Tennant posted a response, asking:

[O]n what basis do you say that a "should" entails a "could"? All men should be perfect. Are you arguing that all men could be perfect? An imperative in no way leads one to infer an indicative.

I've been hesitating to reply to this because I felt that I needed better grounding in the philosophical thinking on this issue. I don't want to go about reinventing the wheel. The wheel has already been invented, improved, possibly even 'perfected', so my own wheel is likely to be a crude one, vastly inferior. But I'll make some suggestions and ask some questions.

First, the suggestions.

Bnonn's statement that "All men should be perfect" is a Christian one, probably based on Matthew 5:48:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (King James Version)

ἔσεσθε οὖν ὑμεῖς τέλειοι, ὥσπερ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς τέλειός ἐστιν (Textus Receptus)

I borrow this verse, both in English and Greek, from the Blue Letter Bible, as one might have expected. I admit that I've always been somewhat puzzled by this imperative, for it seems to be exhorting people to be something beyond their power. Possibly, one should understand the imperative to mean, "Try to be perfect, and you will learn that this is impossible, for the law is intended to teach you that you will fail" -- if one were to apply a Pauline hermeneutic here (cf. Romans 5:13-17 and Galatians 3:19-25, among other places). But maybe the point goes a bit further, namely, that perfection is possible, ultimately, if one accepts the grace offered and the glorification promised (again applying a Pauline hermeneutic, cf. 1 Corinthians 15:42-54). Perhaps one needs help to be perfect, but if one should be perfect, then one ought to accept that help.

I'll get to my questions in a moment, but I should note an example that Bnonn provided to illustrate that an "ought" does not always imply a "could":

Say a man embezzles a million dollars, and is subsequently caught. At trial, because of mitigating circumstances, the judge agrees to defer jailtime if the man simply pays back the money. Unfortunately, most of it has already been squandered. Surely we'd agree that the man ought to pay back the money (in fact, even if he were not so ordered, he still ought to pay it back) -- yet certainly he cannot pay it back. The imperative does not imply an indicative.

I think that the issue would be more complex than this. Of course, the man should not have embezzled the money in the first place, and presumably, he had a choice about that. Since he is guilty of a crime, he must make some sort of restitution or be punished (or both). One way would be for him to repay the money, and he should do this if he can. If he lacks the funds now, he could be required to pay back in installments. There is some possibility of repaying, even if the man currently lacks the money. By contrast, we would never say of a murderer that he should bring the dead man back to life, for that is not only currently impossible but also utterly beyond all human possibility. Returning to the embezzlement case, if for some reason -- let us assume -- we know that the man would not, ever, be able to repay, then the legal system could provide for punishment instead. The reasoning would be: "Since the man is guilty, then he should repay the funds if he can, but since he cannot repay the funds, then he should be punished with prison time." A legal system would be foolish to insist that the man should repay if he cannot. It would, rather, insist that the man serve time in prison.

Now for my questions.

How would an imperative make sense if the act demanded were impossible? I can understand that an imperative might be given to teach a lesson, e.g., "Okay, be perfect by your own efforts if you think that you can be (but you'll find that you cannot)." But would that be a genuine imperative? Or rather a means of teaching a lesson? In the embezzlement example above, however, the moral assumption is that the man had a choice between embezzling or not embezzling. If he were forced at gunpoint to embezzle, we would likely not hold him responsible. Or, to put things another way, we would not hold the man's computer responsible for the embezzlement, for the computer had no choice, being merely an instrument of the man's will. Would we say that the computer should not have carried out the man's will? Wouldn't that be demanding of a computer that it ought to act in a way that it cannot act? Would such a demand make any sense?

I'm not sure if I've adequately responded to this part of Bnonn's objections to my view that an "ought" implies a "could." Probably, I've merely chiseled a rough-hewn wheel from philosophical stone.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom III

Dominic Bnonn Tennant

(Image from Bnonn's Profile)

In a comment to my first post on "Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom," Dominic Bnonn Tennant has posted a vigorous critique of my interpretation of Matthew 11:23. Due to lack of time, I will have to deal with the critique in several posts.

Let's recall the verse in question:

καὶ σύ Καφαρναούμ μὴ ἕως οὐρανοῦ ὑψωθήσῃ ἕως ᾅδου καταβήσῃ ὅτι εἰ ἐν Σοδόμοις ἐγενήθησαν αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ γενόμεναι ἐν σοί ἔμεινεν ἂν μέχρι τῆς σήμερον (Morphological Greek New Testament)

And thou, Capernaum, which unto the heaven wast exalted, unto hades shalt be brought down, because if in Sodom had been done the mighty works that were done in thee, it had remained unto this day; (Young's Literal Translation)

Bnonn -- as he is commonly known online (pronounced "non") -- begins with my own words:

Capernaum is to be punished for having chosen the wrong response, differently than Sodom would have chosen in a similar case.

Bnonn restates my point in his own words:

Indeed. Let me rephrase your words back to you: Capernaum is to be punished because they chose sinfully.

He then quotes me again:

Look at the biblical statement, which -- in its larger textual context -- effectively means that Capernaum will be condemned because Sodom would have repented (cf. verse 20). The "because" here specifies the reason for Capernaum's condemnation, namely, that Sodom would have repented.

Bnonn maintains that this does not follow, arguing:

Capernaum will be condemned because they chose sinfully. Not because Sodom would have repented. How does the latter follow? Why would the fact that Sodom would have repented function as a reason for condemning Capernaum? Condemnation is grounded in wilfully choosing what is wrong; not in some kind of comparison to other sinners. The comparison can certainly emphasize the depravity; but it does not function as a grounds for condemnation.

The objection that Bnonn raises here follows from my manner of expression. I was trying to stay close to the wording of Matthew 11:23:

And thou, Capernaum, which unto the heaven wast exalted, unto hades shalt be brought down, because if in Sodom had been done the mighty works that were done in thee, it had remained unto this day; (Young's Literal Translation)

One could raise a similar objection to this verse that Bnonn has raised to my statement above. Why should Capernaum be brought down because Sodom would have remained to this day? As Bnonn rightly points out, "Condemnation is grounded in wilfully choosing what is wrong; not in some kind of comparison to other sinners." Yet, a comparison has been made.

I had attempted to explain this comparison by stating that "the 'because' here specifies the reason for Capernaum's condemnation, namely, that Sodom would have repented." Perhaps a better way of stating this would have been to say that Capernaum had been offered a choice to repent and could have repented. The comparison to Sodom is offered as evidence that the choice had been offered and that the choice had been a free one because if the same mighty works had been done in Sodom, it would have repented. My interpretation here is that since the choice was free, Capernaum therefore has no excuse.

That's my understanding of the comparison used in Matthew 11:23's because-clause. I don't know if this clarification allows us to move on to the next point or not, so I'll wait to see Bnonn's response.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom II

The Last Judgement (c. 1467-1471)

Hans Memling

(Image from Wikipedia)

Two blog entries ago, I posted on "Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom" in response to a couple of comments by Professor David C. Innis on an even earlier entry in which I ask about "Total Depravity?"

In my blog entry on "Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom," I cited Matthew 11:23 as a scriptural foundation for free will:

καὶ σύ Καφαρναούμ μὴ ἕως οὐρανοῦ ὑψωθήσῃ ἕως ᾅδου καταβήσῃ ὅτι εἰ ἐν Σοδόμοις ἐγενήθησαν αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ γενόμεναι ἐν σοί ἔμεινεν ἂν μέχρι τῆς σήμερον (Morphological Greek New Testament)

And thou, Capernaum, which unto the heaven wast exalted, unto hades shalt be brought down, because if in Sodom had been done the mighty works that were done in thee, it had remained unto this day; (Young's Literal Translation)

My argument was as follows:

Look at the biblical statement, which -- in its larger textual context -- effectively means that Capernaum will be condemned because Sodom would have repented (cf. verse 20). The "because" here specifies the reason for Capernaum's condemnation, namely, that Sodom would have repented, implying that Capernaum should also have repented. But that implication further entails that Capernaum could have repented, for a "should" entails a "could."

Professor Innis replied:

Well that is a challenging point, and I've had to ponder it. But is the example really any different from Jesus' call for people to "Repent!"? Or is it any different from the very fact of a Judgment Day, when Jesus will say, "I was hungry and you didn't feed me"? Here he says, Messiah himself lived in your midst, preached the Kingdom, and you didn't repent. He uses the example of Sodom to shame them and so to stir their consciences.

I think that there is a difference between Matthew 11:23 (actually, the entire passage of Matthew 11:20-24) and two examples given by Professor Innis. Neither example offers a counterfactual. In the first example, Christ's call to "Repent!" is a present offer, current at each moment (until retracted someday). In the second example, the judgement pronounced by Christ on Judgement Day is for a past failure, therefore closed off in the past (and thus judged). Neither of these situations is expressed counterfactually. Although I believe that the call and the judgement both presuppose personal responsibility and thereby free choice, I think that Matthew 11:23 provides a stronger argument by virtue of its counterfactual.

Basic to my argument here is the statement that a "should" entails a "could." According to my friend Bill Vallicella, The Maverick Philosopher, this is equivalent to stating that an "ought" implies a "can." The standard view in philosophy is: "If one ought to do X, then one must be able to do X." I think that this statement is even more clear when expressed as a past subjunctive -- "If one should have done X, then one must have been able to do X" -- for this means that one could have acted differently.

Christ's words in Matthew 11:23 seem to mean that in the very conditions in which Capernaum had found itself at the time of the call to repent, it could have chosen to repent or not to repent. Capernaum did not repent, but this fact does not mean that it could not have repented, for if that were the case, the analogy to Sodom as a counterfactually repentent city would fail.

My argument depends upon Christ referring to a past event, which is how I understand Matthew 11:20:

Τότε ἤρξατο ὀνειδίζειν τὰς πόλεις ἐν αἷς ἐγένοντο αἱ πλεῖσται δυνάμεις αὐτοῦ ὅτι οὖ μετενόησαν (Morphological Greek New Testament)

Then began he to reproach the cities in which were done most of his mighty works, because they did not repent. (Young's Literal Translation, slightly edited)

The Greek word metenoasan (μετενόησαν) is in the aorist, and ou metenoasan (οὖ μετενόησαν) therefore means "did not repent." Some translations use the past perfect: "had not repented." Either way, I take Christ's words here as referring to a past event from the perspective of Christ himself.

But I suppose that there might be some disagreement on how to understand the use of the aorist in this verse, and I'll have to think about this point.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom I

Professor David C. Innes

(Image from The King's College)

In response to my query on "Total Depravity?", I received a number of helpful comments, the most detailed one coming from the hand of David C. Innes, a professor of politics in New York City at The King's College and a blogger along with Harold Kildow at the impressive blog Principalities and Powers. Here (albeit slightly edited) is what Professor Innes wrote with respect to my remark about free will:

Free will? Are you familiar with the Fourfold State of Man? It is certainly in Thomas Boston (Human Nature in Its Fourfold State; 1720, Banner of Truth 1964) but it is said to be originally formulated by Augustine. I have not found it in this form, however.

State of Innocence - posse peccare (able to sin)
State of Sin - non posse non peccare (not able not to sin)
State of Grace - posse non peccare (able not to sin)
State of Glory - non posse peccare (not able to sin)

In this understanding, natural man is unable not to sin, dead in sin, by nature at enmity with God, unable to respond to the gospel without the efficacious work of God's Holy Spirit. (On that last point you MUST look at -- and highlight, if you haven't already -- Ez. 36:24ff. and Jer. 31:31ff. Marvelous and beautiful OT accounts of God's saving work to come.)

As for the will considered from a natural standpoint, I find Jonathan Edwards has the most compelling account of what exactly happens when we will something. He understands it in terms of one's chief love or desire at the moment of decision. Of course, he gets it from Augustine. Of course, if the will is under the dominion of the desires, where is the "freedom" of the will? If freedom is autonomy, there is none because the desires are shaped by a thousand influences from one's nature to one's family to one's lunch. If freedom is the ability to be and do what one was created to be and do, then in sin one's will is hopelessly enslaved, whereas in Christ and most fully in glory one's will is entirely free (again Ez.36/Jer.31).

Let me approach the central issues raised in this passage from an oblique angle.

Professor Innes stresses the profound sovereignty of God and questions the putative freedom of the will, which he touches on as "autonomy," on the one hand, and as 'conformity', on the other hand. By the former, he means a will unshaped by desires. By the latter, he means a will in conformity to God's will. At least, I think that these are the alternatives presented by Professor Innes. As we see, he understands the former as empirically false and the latter as doctrinally true. My reading of his words is that human beings have volition entirely grounded in and exhaustively stemming from their nature, whether that nature be unfallen, fallen, redeemed, or glorified. I hope that I've adequately summarized his views.

I agree with Professor Innes that the Bible does emphasize the sovereignty of God, but it also emphasizes the responsibility (and hence the freedom) of individuals. Allow me to cite William Lane Craig's well-formulated expression of this:

The biblical worldview involves a strong conception of divine sovereignty over the world and human affairs even as it presupposes human freedom and responsibility . . . . An adequate doctrine of divine providence requires reconciling these two streams of biblical teaching without compromising either.

This is from page 1850 of The Apologetics Study Bible (Holman Bible Publishers, 2007) but can be read online at the link given.

At issue here is what the expression "free will" can mean within the context of a biblical understanding of human responsibility consistent with the sovereignty of God. If I recall, Craig elsewhere cites the words of Jesus from Matthew 11:23 in support of human freedom:

καὶ σύ Καφαρναούμ μὴ ἕως οὐρανοῦ ὑψωθήσῃ ἕως ᾅδου καταβήσῃ ὅτι εἰ ἐν Σοδόμοις ἐγενήθησαν αἱ δυνάμεις αἱ γενόμεναι ἐν σοί ἔμεινεν ἂν μέχρι τῆς σήμερον (Morphological Greek New Testament)

And thou, Capernaum, which unto the heaven wast exalted, unto hades shalt be brought down, because if in Sodom had been done the mighty works that were done in thee, it had remained unto this day; (Young's Literal Translation)

Whether or not my memory serves me well on Craig having cited this verse, the verse itself can serve me well, for it offers a case of a counterfactual situation whose truth depends upon the possibility that the people of Capernaum could have acted differently and chosen to repent in response to Jesus's works (cf. verse 20). Capernaum is to be punished for having chosen the wrong response, differently than Sodom would have chosen in a similar case.

I think that this counterfactual situation fits what is sometimes called -- for example, by Alvin Plantinga, philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame -- a "counterfactual of creaturely freedom" (pdf), which here entails the morally significant freedom required for responsible moral agents to be held accountable for their actions.

Look at the biblical statement, which -- in its larger textual context -- effectively means that Capernaum will be condemned because Sodom would have repented (cf. verse 20). The "because" here specifies the reason for Capernaum's condemnation, namely, that Sodom would have repented, implying that Capernaum should also have repented. But that implication further entails that Capernaum could have repented, for a "should" entails a "could."

How free will actually 'works' is difficult to say, but described negatively, I think that we can state that a free choice is one that cannot be exhaustively described as the consequence of a causal chain, whether external (roughly, "environmental") or internal (roughly, "natural").

To explain an individual's actions in terms of causes is to exculpate that individual of responsibility for those actions; to explain an individual's actions in terms of reasons is to hold that individual responsible for those actions.

Or so it seems to me from here.