Guillaume Bignon on Calvinism, Determinism, Libertarianism and More...

Things like that. Now for the purpose of time, I'm going to move on to some questions and then we're going to move on to Braxton Hunter from Trinity Radio to interact with some of his stuff. So we have a couple of questions here.

Why People Reject Calvinism

This is a softball one. Okay, it's up there on the screen. Why do you think people reject Calvinism? That's kind of a subjective sort of thing, because people can reject the position for all sorts of reasons, but why do you think?

Well, it started with Adam. So he disobeyed and there was this dramatic consequence on all of us that we became sinners and we started to act wrongly and believe wrongly. So I don't know why people reject Calvinism.

Obviously, I know some of the arguments that are offered against it and some of them have some teeth, right? So I think that people can be very strongly impressed by the merits of the arguments against Calvinism and say, well, it doesn't seem right.

Therefore, I'm going to reject Calvinism and in a sense, trying to avoid that is what I do with my book and I take the best arguments against Calvinism and I explain what I think is wrong with them and hopefully that encourages people to say, well, actually, no, there's no really strong.

Compatibilism and Scripture

Reason to reject it. Okay. Now this one's from Leighton Flowers and if he's sleeping, someone wake him up, okay? He's asking, someone wake me up when they start talking about why compatibilism is theologically necessary based on scripture.

And you know, I appreciate that question very much. And of course, this, this very question or a comment rather can take an entire podcast episode because you're going to have to debate the various, the various texts and how we understand that.

How would you begin to, if Leighton was sitting here with you right now and asking, it's like, you know, how is this, how is compatibilism theologically necessary based.

On scripture? How would you answer that? Yeah. So there's a couple of things to say here. The first one is that, well, I don't know if he's telling me that I'm, I am putting him to sleep because I'm engaging in the philosophy.

I'm responding to philosophical arguments. I think it's fair play if I use philosophy to explain what's wrong with them. But with respect to the Bible, I think the first thing also is to point out that we find ourselves in the exact, doing the same exact exercise.

That is that there is biblical data. There's a number of affirmations in there. None of them come out right and tell you philosophically, here is the deal. You know, God determines all things or God leaves libertarian free will.

There is no discussion of incompatibilism, compatibilism, determinism, indeterminism. None of those terms are used in the scriptures. So we both libertarians and compatibilists, we both find ourselves having to look at the text, figuring out how we take the statements, unpack their likely consequences in philosophical concepts, and try to coherently defend that this view is reasonable, true, justified, you know, coherent, all of those good virtues of philosophical thesis.

But there's not something special that I'm currently doing by going in all this philosophy. Both of us have to really do that. We take the biblical data and then we infer that there are conclusions on a philosophical level.

So if I had to give a sketch, you know, like this is to try to humor him, what are some of the biblical things that are best explained or that most likely entail compatibilism and determinism? There's a number of things.

I mean, I don't think any of them is going to be groundbreaking for if he's listened to any amounts of Calvinists debating those matters in the literature or online. But, you know, personally, let's say biblically, what does that look like?

I would say that determinism is the best explanation of a number of texts that claim that God is actively controlling and bringing about the outcomes of all things, good and evil, in very explicit terms.

And so I think that those texts are far better explained by the deterministic view. I believe that this is also the best explanation of all the texts on election. So obviously it's going to be a wide debate biblically on how best to interpret the doctrine of election and predestination.

But these terms are in the Bible in very strong texts declaring that we are predestined and elected. And I think that they are best explained by a deterministic account of human free will. I would say that there's a couple of philosophical arguments that find their premises in the biblical teachings.

So in my book, I defend two arguments that I've taken from Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards, which are fairly famous claims that that so Martin Luther argues that if incompatibilism is true, so he doesn't use those terms obviously, but he says that if moral responsibility requires the ability to do otherwise, then it means that you can live a fully sinless life and therefore that denies original sin.

So he's saying if you're actually obliged, morally obliged to live a sinless life, but you don't have the categorical ability to do that, then it shows that you don't have incompatibilism. This is what I try to impact.

So obviously he does a sketch of that in his writing, Luther. I try to put precise and rigorous philosophical premises and to defend the argument. But I think that that's a philosophical argument that has a biblical premise, namely the fact that we are, we ought to live a sinless life.

We are morally demanded to do that. And yet we lack the categorical ability to do that because we are fallen sinners. And it's not just very hard to work ourselves to heaven. It's literally categorically impossible for us sinners to do that.

So that refutation of the principle of alternate possibility, which in turn refutes libertarianism. And then the similar claim can be done with the teaching that God is praiseworthy, even though he's impeccable.

So God does not have the categorical ability to sin. He cannot, he cannot avoid being wonderfully righteous, and yet he is praiseworthy for this righteousness of his. So we have an independent refutation of the principle of alternate possibilities right there that I think refutes libertarianism and therefore supports the compatibilist thesis.

And then obviously then there's the cheeky claim that I put in the introduction of my book and in the title of it, really. It's the fact that the two main arguments against determinism, against compatibilism, the main, the most famous ones are the fact that if we are determined, God cannot blame us or praise us for what we do.

Right? That's the compatibilist debate. And the second is that if he determines what we do, that includes our sin and therefore that makes him inappropriately involved in evil. And what I point out is that those two main objections against Calvinism are the two very objections that are anticipated by Paul in Romans 9.

And so I think that's also showing some philosophical credentials of the view that if you find yourself objecting against it, with those two very specific arguments, you're in the camp of the guy that Paul is rejecting.

So I think that those are some of the biblical things that I think supports the philosophical views, but the libertarian really should be doing the same exercise. Tell us what are the texts that none of them speak of libertarianism, compatibilism or incompatibilism, but what are the teachings that you think support the philosophical view you affirm?

And then we obviously can then debate as to whether or not they support those views, but then we can take those views and assess their coherence in a philosophical level. And both of those things should happen.

That's right. Good. And of course,.

Leighton is asking this question. So everyone familiar with Leighton Flowers, Soteriology 101, he has a lot to say with regards to Romans 9, which we would obviously take issue with, but that's part of the discussion, right?

We do precisely what you just said, look at the text and then take it from there. We'll take one more question before we move on to Braxton Hunter. And this question comes from, well, he's got a kind of a screen name there, I guess Cranman.

I believe he was on the Unbelievable Show with James White talking about a similar topic, I think, but here's what he asks. He says, First Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 proves libertarian free will.

Paul says every time... No, he doesn't. Okay. Okay. First Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 proves libertarian free will. Paul says every time you sin, another option was available, contra-causal choice.

So the Bible itself refutes determinism. Yes?

So this is precisely trying to do what I just said should be tried to be done by the libertarian, right? Try to take text and say, well, it seems to teach something that supports libertarian free will.

So what would I say about that text? Well, it says that there is another option available, namely you could have done otherwise. And we're back to that equivocation. What kind of ability is in view here?

Is this a conditional sense of ability or is this a categorical sense of ability? The text obviously doesn't tell you. And so it's perfectly fine for the Calvinist to say, yes, I do have the ability to do otherwise.

If I wanted to, I would do otherwise, right? There's no gun on my forehead, forcing me to choose against my will. It's through my will. So no, obviously there's lots of philosophical questions, you know, is God's activity on your will appropriately respecting your moral responsibility?

Are there manipulation style arguments that could be mounted against that view? All of those claims I deal in my book, but the text itself claiming that we have the ability to do otherwise doesn't tell you one bit whether it's one view or the other that is refuted here.

So I don't think that this text.

Teaches libertarian free will. No. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. So you're doing, you're doing great. I'm sure many things that you said people would take issue with, and that's just part of the discussion, but I hope some of the things that you're saying.

I'm offended if people disagree with me, I should say.

Well, yeah. Let me just find the most recent one that he put here. I think it's a good one too. Oh, he says, does the decree cause, he says, does the decree cause. What is decreed?

Does the decree cause what is decreed? So I'm inclined to be fine with that and saying, yes, the problem I have is that the understanding of cause, cause is a very complex word. Philosophically, there's lots of different ways that this can be unpacked.

So I fully agree with Peter van Inwagen, who says that causality is a morass in which I refuse to step foot unless I am pushed. And so affirming causality to me is not, well, it's, I don't think it's guilty.

So that's why I'm saying, I don't think I have a problem with saying that, that yes, God causes in some sense, everything that comes to happen, it decrees and it is causally determined. But I don't think that speaking of causality is adding much to what I'm saying.

So I am affirming determinism, right? This is as strong as it gets. And I don't think that speaking of causality is much different. Where I'm careful here is that sometimes people think of causing as something that is completely immediate or that is somehow agreeing that there's a transfer of blameworthiness, which I obviously deny.

So God causes us to do some evil things. Well, is that causing action, something that transfers to blameworthiness? I obviously deny it. So this is my qualms with the word cause, but obviously that question is just a yes or no.

So I don't know if he's then eager to take my yes and to use it as a premise in an argument that says, well, if he says yes to this, now here's why it's a problem. I don't know where that goes, but this is my two cents on causality.

I don't love the word it's too ambiguous. And so I fold Peter Verneenwagen in saying I'm not even getting there unless I am pushed. Okay. Oh, well,.

Leighton continues here. He says with regards to God might have sufficient reasons for allowing something. He says sufficient reason to allow freedom is much different than God causally.

Determining moral evil. Yeah, obviously that's the case. But what I'm saying is that you affirm exactly the same thing about everything that doesn't include more libertarian free will. So you're talking about natural evil, earthquakes, twisters, everything that does not involve immediately libertarian free choices.

There's a great deal of suffering that happens and that you cannot plausibly blame on libertarian free choices. And you would respond to that. So if you find yourself debating the atheist about those evils, you would say exactly what I affirm of everything, including our free evil choices.

I would say God is controlling all of that. He's sovereign over all of that, but he has morally sufficient reasons to desire this, to bring about this. You could use the language of permission. I have a great chapter in my book about whether that's compatible for a Calvinist to speak of permission, but that's another story.

But really, the non-Calvinist affirms exactly that. When in 2004, there's the Asian tsunami with hundreds of thousands of people instantly dead by a big wave that God could have perfectly well stopped.

So there was no libertarian free will in the wave. The wave was not rebelling against his creator. There was really just a natural process that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people dead. So what does Leighton and any libertarian respond to an atheist who says, well, God is evil because there's that thing?

You would say, no, God had morally sufficient reasons to permit that wave. And while I don't know what those reasons are, it doesn't follow that God is evil for that. And I say exactly the same thing for all evil that happens, moral and non-moral.

Source Libertarianism and Alternate Possibilities

Okay, good. One more question. And then we're moving on to Leighton Flowers, which is our, he is our last gentleman to critique. Here's a question from Vincent. He says, could God have chosen to create a world in which these libertarian free will choices are different?

Well, I guess that's a question for a libertarian, right? So these libertarian free will choices are different than they in fact are. So that's presupposing that they are in fact libertarian in this world.

So it's not something I affirm. So I'm going to have a hard time telling you what would be the case otherwise. So I guess it's a question for a libertarian.

Okay. All right. Whetting the whistle, so to speak, for people who might be interested to look into this more in detail. So let's take some questions here. I'll throw in some of my own and then take a couple here in the comments.

Someone said, question, please interact with source libertarianism. Why don't you define that? And are there any issues with source libertarianism?

Yes. So source libertarianism, it's a style of libertarianism that focuses less on the ability to do otherwise, right? So we've seen that's a core claim of the libertarian view I've described as the principle of alternate possibility.

That's a very famous argument against Calvinism, against determinism. And that's the claim that in order to be free, you need the categorical ability to do otherwise. The source libertarians or the source incompatibilists are saying it's not so much a matter of being able to choose otherwise.

It's a matter of being the ultimate source of your own free decisions. So it's no longer focusing too much on the categorical ability to do otherwise, but it's saying you need to be such that your choice is not determined by sources that are antecedent or that go outside of you.

And obviously that would be the case for human beings on Calvinism. Our choices go back to God's providential control of our choices. And so the source libertarian says, this is really what matters, not the ability to do otherwise.

It's the fact that you're ultimately determined by things that you're not the ultimate source of your choices. So can I interact with that? Yes. And I have. If folks want to read that, there's a big chunk in my book that deals with source incompatibilism.

We don't really speak of source libertarianism so much. It's more the source incompatibilism, but yes, that's a libertarian view. A couple of quick comments here. The first one is that I offer an argument for why if indeterminism is true, then so indeterminism, no matter how you slice it, requires the presence of alternate possibilities.

And so if moral responsibility and free will require indeterminism, as is affirmed by even the source incompatibilist, then like it or not, they are committed to affirming a principle of alternate possibilities.

So that's my claim here. And therefore that means that source incompatibilism is also refuted by my refutation of the principle of alternate possibilities. And I would very straightforwardly go like this.

Source incompatibilism entails the principle of alternate possibilities, whether they like it or not. And I show how that follows. But in fact, principle of alternate possibilities is false. Therefore, source incompatibilism is false as well.

If you want to really get technical in those, and I suspect that the questioner is familiar with the concept and technical because you don't know about source incompatibilism if you've not read a good deal like that.

And you want to see really how those positions are hashed out. I recommend that you read my response to Kevin Timpey's review of my book. So my book is Excusing Sinner and Blaming God. The philosopher Kevin Timpey has written a review in Faith and Philosophy, the journal.

And I've responded then to his review on my blog. So if you look just for Guillaume Bignon and Kevin Timpey, you will find my response. And there, between his critique of my book and my response to his review, you will see a lot of the comments that are relevant to source incompatibilism, its relationship to the principle of alternate possibilities, and how I would go about refuting.

Source incompatibilism. All right, very good. We're gonna move quickly here. So here's another question. You're doing really good. No, you're doing great. What would you say to the statement, there is no difference between hard determinism and compatibilism?

Well, if it's supposed to be a matter of definition, then that statement is demonstrably wrong. That is that soft determinism is compatibilism, and hard determinism claims that incompatibilism is true.

So the compatibilist says that determinism and moral responsibilities are compatible. And the hard determinist says that moral responsibility and determinism are incompatible. So a hard determinist is somebody who says we are determined, and therefore, we don't have free will.

Whereas the compatibilist says we are, well, at least the soft determinist says we are determined, and it is compatible with moral responsibility. So there's a big difference. One says we have free will and moral responsibility.

The other one says we don't. So obviously, there's a big difference here at the level of definition. Now, this person is probably pressing this as a claim to say, well, no, because if you both are from determinism, then you're both committed to saying there is no moral responsibility and free will.

Fine. That's what he says. I disagree. So there's clearly a difference here. And the debate is at the center of the compatibility question. Here's a question from Tim Stratton. He says,.

And I'm not sure if you're familiar with this. He says, Eli, can you offer my specific mad scientist thought experiment? Are you familiar with the mad scientist thought experiment?

Tim, you have to stop claiming arguments that are not yours. Mad scientist, this is a basic compatibility. It's a manipulation argument. It's completely middle of the road. I don't know if you've come up with some groundbreaking version of the manipulation argument, but this is standard fair in the manipulation literature.

So mad scientists, there's love potions. You have the, yeah, with the electrodes in your brain, you have the, so in the literature, in the philosophical literature, you have the so-called four case arguments.

It's a manipulation argument by Dirk Pereboom. It's just very standard. So I don't know if you know of a specific version that you want to throw at me. I do deal with manipulation arguments in my book.

So yeah, I do think he says.

He has a specific one, so I'm not aware of that specific one. And that's, that's, we can see that,.

But if you're interested in, I mean, obviously I think that Tim has read my book and he's interacted with it. So you see my manipulation argument in there. That's all I can say for now.

Now, would you be okay? He actually messaged me the argument. If you, if you don't, I've asked people if they're okay, that we're going, you know, a little bit long and people seem to be okay. And I don't want to overstep the time that you have, but if people are enjoying these questions, I don't mind going a little bit longer if you don't mind, but that's completely up to you.

Okay. I mean, addressing a long manipulation argument like this might be a bit hard just off the cuff and very quickly. I'm happy to attempt a succinct response to a brand new argument I haven't heard, but if it's a mad scientist manipulation type argument, it's quite straightforward.

So I mean, it's, it's what I'm saying is this is the kind of manipulation argument that I treat in my book, but let's see if there's something original I haven't seen.

So I asked the people, I asked the folks if they were okay, it was going long. People were like, we're okay. They want to read Tim's argument. I'm going to do it. And of course, I don't know if it's sarcastic, but keeping that in mind, I believe, believe it or not.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with this sort of stuff that goes on online. People really do enjoy these kinds of conversations. It's super, super interesting for folks. So I'm going to read what Tim sent me here.

He says, Bignon complains, stop complaining. What's wrong with you?

Bignon complains, I'm French. I can't help it. It's not my free will. It's just being French.

I will complain. That's right. Okay. So he says Bignon complains that I haven't really dealt with his response to the consequent argument. However, the reason why I include it is because it leaves us with the following summary quote, if determinism is true, then all of our thoughts and following actions are ultimately the consequences of God's will and acts of causation, but it is not up to us what God wills or what he has caused.

Therefore, the consequences of these things, including our own thoughts and actions are not up to us. They are up to God. He continues. And then there's a question. So I need to set it up with that in mind, if that's a bad summary or not, suppose a mad scientist exhaustively controls, causally determines all of Bignon's thoughts and beliefs all the time.

This includes exactly what Bignon thinks of and about, and exactly how Bignon thinks of and about it. All of Bignon's thoughts about his beliefs and all of Bignon's beliefs about his thoughts are caused and determined by the mad scientist.

We get it. Determinism is true. This is also, this also includes the next words that will come out of Bignon's mouth. So here's a question. How can you not the mad scientist rationally affirm the current beliefs in his head as good, bad, better, the best, true, or probably true?

Note the range of options from which to choose. That's his question.

Okay. So I stand corrected. It's not a manipulation argument here. It's just trying to, because the manipulation arguments in the literature are again, trying to support incompatibilism. So there are arguments that claim that if God determines what we do, it's relevantly analogous to someone else, like a mad scientist or determining everything that we choose.

And since we are saying that in the case of the mad scientist determining what we choose, presumably we're not morally responsible in the same way, when God does the determining, then we should also affirm that we're not morally responsible.

That's the standard manipulation arguments with mad scientists and love potions and that type of a thing. That's not what he's trying to do. He's trying to salvage his free thinking arguments by saying that we cannot have knowledge if we are determined.

And so he is trying to now describe a mad scientist determining all of our thoughts and claiming, well, how could you claim to know anything if the mad scientist is the one who determines every thought in your mind?

And my response, believe it or not, is going to be the exact same one as if it were God. So obviously there's a wide avenue to claim, well, God is not relevantly analogous to the mad scientist here, but without even going there, the argument is still half-baked.

The mad scientist determines all of your beliefs. How could you claim to know anything? Well, it depends how the mad scientist determines all of my beliefs. If the mad scientist is just shoving beliefs in my brain, independent of any sort of proper mechanism to acquire those beliefs based upon the evidence, based upon proper perception, then yeah, sure enough, I cannot know any such thing.

But if he determines me by using proper mechanism that do track the evidence, then that's not a reason to think my cognitive faculties are not reliable to track the truth. So how can I claim? I don't necessarily claim until you tell me what kinds of determination the mad scientist is in view, but certainly if you now try to take that and bring it to the allegedly analogous situation where God determines my beliefs, then here that obviously doesn't carry over.

God does, on Calvinism, determine my beliefs, at least in the majority of cases, by simply bringing about my beliefs through the proper mechanisms of my reasoning and cognitive faculties. So there's no successful argument here to repress that somehow that undermines knowledge.

Divine Free Will and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities

Okay, very good. That wasn't that bad.

Okay, I have a question. This is for myself. And so I'm going to ask it and I know that other people have asked as well. So I'll post it up there. Does God have free will? If so, what kind.

Of free will does God have? Yeah, it's a great question. So does God have free will in the very agnostic sense that I've defined free will at the beginning of this conversation? It's obvious that a Christian in his right mind is going to affirm yes, right?

If it's the control condition for moral responsibility, then God has free will. He's free in the actions that he performs. He is morally responsible for them. He is praiseworthy for what he does, you know, praise God for he is good.

He does all good all the time. If so, what kind? So what kind? I suppose it's the same question, libertarianism, compatibilism, determinism. Here, I don't really feel comfortable declaring too much there.

I think that there are some very strong disanalogies between our will and God's will, in the sense that he is, at least, to some extent outside of time. So you might affirm God is timeless or without creation, and then gets in time with creation, or you might say he's always timeless.

Whichever view you do, there are some difficult concepts here so that when we talk about what possibly could determine God's will, we're not dealing with factors that preceded in time. So there are a bit of complexities there that incline me to be somewhat cautious when I start to talk about God's free will.

So here are some of the things that I'm prepared to say. One, he does have free will. He is praiseworthy, and he definitely controls enough his actions that he is morally praiseworthy for them. Two, I do think that his free will, in conjunction with the fact that he is impeccable, successfully refutes the principle of alternate possibilities.

So I think that bringing in God here works. We can see that there's a being, God, who is praiseworthy for acting righteously, even though we maintain that it's categorically impossible for him to act unrighteously.

So I think that that's the import of God there. As to whether God is, in some fashion, determined, in similar fashion, I don't know for a fact that he is determined in all things. I do think that we want to say when some action is better than another, and also there might be the question of how many of those better options are there?

Is there an infinity of good things, each of them getting better? That gets into very thorny philosophical questions. But when there are good options and bad options, God cannot, given who he is, pick the bad options.

So that's a limitation that I think you can press into an argument against the principle of alternate possibilities. But whether God is fully determined in that light, I don't know. And if I were to say he's fully determined, is there anything bad that follows from that?

Sometimes we speak of moral collapse to say that, well, if God is determined, then all of the actual state of affairs that he brings about were determined as well. So all is necessary. You have moral collapse.

I don't see anything that's incoherent as a result of that. But yeah, it's seen in a bad light. So I'm a bit cautious about what I affirm there or not. I'm not too sure. But I'm open to arguments one way or the other.

Mad Scientist, Knowledge, and Warrant

All right. Out of respect for your time, there's going to be one more question, and then we'll wrap things up. And two hours and five minutes so far. I think you did an excellent job summarizing. Again, this will be a lot of good food for thought for people to go back and listen to.

So I really do appreciate that. I'm just going to give you one last question from Leighton, and it's in regards to the mad scientist. He says, suppose the mad scientist used the same mechanisms that God does and then answer the question with regards to the mad scientist.

Does that make any difference? Well, yeah. And the answer is yes, I would know.

And you still need to give me an argument for why I should believe that those mechanisms that God and the scientists are using, which are, I remind you, using my brain that has been designed to require true belief, to weigh the evidence and draw some reasonable conclusions.

All of that, why would that be undermined by knowing that this is determined? It's molded by the evidence. It's the opposite view that strikes me as undermining warrant, because now you have to say that given all of those evidence, even all the proper reasoning of it, you can just freely choose to disregard it.

So if God, if the mad scientist using the exact same mechanism as God does, then that mechanism is proper. It's the proper, properly functioning cognitive faculties to use verbatim Plantinga language.

It's the proper function of your cognitive faculties. That's knowledge. And so if there's an argument to think that somehow determinism removes that.

Warrant, I haven't heard it. All right. I am, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie. I was impressed. And yet, like I said before, your accent makes you sound very smart. Your book is pretty impressed, but I actually am.

I'm impressed that you were able to cover three individuals. Of course, there's so much more that we can cover, but I guarantee people are going to find this useful and helpful, whether they agree or disagree.

I say this from the bottom of my heart as a brother, thank you so much for giving me your time. I don't just do these things for people who are interested. I do these things and I try to invite people on that, that I think can provide good answers to questions that I, that I ask.

And so I'm going, yes, I'm that guy who goes back and listens to his old episodes to make sure I can process everything, things like that.

Perhaps let me say a kind word in conclusion to all three of those gentlemen. It's been enjoyable to listen to their arguments. They defend them with passion. They clearly seem to genuinely believe their view and they are passionate about defending the righteousness of God.

And you can tell they have a good heart. I'm criticizing their arguments, but I thoroughly enjoy them and I wish them well. Hopefully my interactions have helped them sort out some of their critiques and that will sharpen it and that would be positive for them as well.

But.