Defining Key Terms in the Free Will/Determinism Discussions #freewill #determinism #calvinism

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Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today

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I want to do this brief video to discuss the issue of free will and the debates on libertarian free will, compatibilistic – compatibilism, the whole issue of Calvinism and non -Calvinist positions.

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And you have the incompatibilism position, libertarian free will, all these sorts of things

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I want to kind of discuss and define some key terms in a way that is not scholarly and really hard to understand.

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I'm going to try my best to do that, and so I'm going to define some key terms that I think are important for people who don't really have experience in talking about these things in any depth.

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I want to kind of provide kind of an easy -to -understand definition or definitions of key terms in these sorts of kind of free will debates which are typically associated with Calvinism and Mullinism and Arminianism and all different kinds of theological perspectives which have something to say with respect to what they think the nature of free will is, the nature of God's sovereignty, the relationship between our choices and moral responsibility.

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You get this whole question that if God determines everything that happens, how can we be morally responsible for our actions?

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So I'm not going to get into too much detail as to the answers to all of that because as you can hear, my voice sounds a little off, okay?

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I just got back last night from Pennsylvania. I was speaking in Pennsylvania at a

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Christian private school, classical school, and I was invited to talk about the importance of apologetics, theology, and Christian education.

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And so they were amazing hosting me. They were so kind and really hooked me up, and it was an awesome experience.

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But in the process, I lost my voice, so they took me to each of the classes, and I answered a bajillion

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Bible questions ranging from kids in kindergarten to seventh grade.

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And let me tell you, some of those questions are harder to answer than a full -blown adult skeptic asking questions on the fly.

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So it was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. And then during the evening, I had to speak to the parents and the faculty about the topic of Christian education and things like that.

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So by the time I was done, my voice was shot, and I am just recovering. So this video will not be too long, but I do want to take the opportunity to talk about this important and interesting topic.

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I find Calvinism and free will debates, these sorts of things, as you guys know from previous videos, is an area of interest to me.

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And I actually like the free will debates, whole Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism sorts of debates.

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I'm super interested in eschatology, believe it or not, although I haven't done a lot of those topics on my show.

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And perhaps my most watched video on my channel is – let's see what the view count is here.

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Another topic I love is the creation, you know, the old earth, young earth sorts of debates.

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And so if I were to search – let me try this right now. I'm going to search – let's see here,

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Hugh Ross and Jason Lyle. Let's see.

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It is my most watched video. It's got 43 ,000 views, and I still get comments on that video.

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It was an awesome discussion where I had the opportunity to moderate.

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So it was really cool. So those are the topics I like. I enjoy them. But this is a topic

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I do enjoy as well. So we're going to be talking about this whole issue of how should we understand this issue of moral responsibility and what is the nature of the ability to choose otherwise, these sorts of things.

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And so that's what I want to discuss in this short video. So first I want to begin by defining our terms, okay?

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So when we speak of Calvinism and things like that, the issue of determinism usually comes up, right?

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Calvinists will often say that God determined or decreed all things, these sorts of things. What is meant by determinism?

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And then we're going to narrow that definition down to a more specific flavor of determinism and then go from there, okay?

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So determinism is the foundational concept that suggests that all events and outcomes are predetermined or compelled.

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It's not even appropriate to use that word, but things are predetermined by antecedent factors, whether they are of natural or supernatural origin.

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So kind of a broadly speaking, determinism can be a kind of one that finds its grounding in supernatural considerations, like God determining things, or naturalistic forms of determination, okay?

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So determinism means that everything that happens is already set in motion by things that happened before. So if I can kind of very simply divide it, whether they are part of nature or have a supernatural cause, that's kind of determinism, broadly speaking, okay?

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So this idea is important, and it matters whether you believe in God, you're a theist, or not, okay?

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It's because what makes things happen could either be God's plan, if God exists, right, or it could just be how things work naturally.

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So if God doesn't exist, you still have various flavors of determinism to consider.

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Now, theological determinism is a particular flavor of determinism, and if I can just define it simply, theological determinism is the idea that God providentially determines everything that comes to pass, including human choices, okay?

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Pardon one second, there we go.

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Alright, so, let me adjust my volume here, there we go. I don't want to exert too much of my voice, then

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I'll be back at square one where I can't say anything. It was really bad, I literally was at a whisper, could only whisper, and that's all you could hear, but right now

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I think I'm doing okay. So, theological determinism, okay, so it's the idea that God providentially determines everything that comes to pass, including human choices, okay?

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And so I would say that Calvinism is a form, or Calvinists hold to a form of theological determinism.

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Now, of course, there are different kinds of Calvinists out there who hold all different sorts of views, but I'm taking it from this perspective.

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Theological determinism acknowledges obviously the existence of God, and God in some way is the one who providentially determines everything that comes to pass.

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So, specifically I'm mentioning here this includes human choices. Now, of course, the

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Calvinists, or typical Calvinists, again, you're going to have different flavors, but from the perspective I'm coming from, I would hold to, and many

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Calvinists would hold to, a view known as compatibilism. And compatibilism is the idea that it's possible for things to be determined, like following a plan or a set of rules, and still have moral responsibility.

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It doesn't actually say whether determinism or moral responsibility is true. It just suggests that they can go together, like two puzzle pieces that fit together.

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So in theory, someone could believe in compatibilism but not believe in determinism or moral responsibility or maybe not believe in both.

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The idea is that they are compatible with each other, okay? As a Calvinist, I do believe that God decrees whatever comes to pass.

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I am in agreement with the portions of the Westminster Confession of Faith that suggest this and the

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London Baptist Confession. And so I'm a compatibilist.

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I think that God determining all things, decreeing all things, is compatible with moral responsibility.

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Now compatibilism should be drawn in distinction to the view known as incompatibilism.

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And incompatibilism is the idea that if everything is determined, then people can't be praised or blameworthy for what they choose and what they do.

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So it's basically saying that determinism and moral responsibility don't go together, or to use the term, they are not compatible, hence incompatibilism, okay?

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So incompatibilism is the idea that if everything is determined, then people can't be praised or blamed for what they choose and what they do.

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And so, as I said, determinism and moral responsibility don't go together on this particular view known as incompatibilism, okay?

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So let's kind of back up here. So compatibilism says that determinism, if God determines all things, that is compatible and it is consistent with moral responsibility, moral praiseworthy, and blameworthiness.

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Incompatibilism says that if everything is determined, then people can't be praised or blamed for what they choose and do.

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And so determinism and moral responsibility don't go together, okay? So that is compatibilism and incompatibilism.

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Sorry, I've got a volume issue here. Okay, now, when you go under the umbrella of incompatibilism, you get a view known as libertarianism, okay?

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Now, I think libertarianism is closely associated with incompatibilism, okay?

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And so if you're a libertarian with respect to free will, folks who hold to libertarian free will, which is typically associated with theologically, just broadly speaking… … but generally speaking, when you're speaking to an

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Arminian or you're speaking to a Molinist, and I'm not going to define each of those terms because there's a lot of unpacking.

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I'm going to assume that many people are already familiar with these categories. But libertarian free will, this

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I think is the position that the power to make choices aren't determined by things that happened before or antecedent causes, okay?

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So a libertarian free will is a will that is not determined, okay?

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And again, because if they were determined, then given determinism, that's incompatible with moral responsibility or moral praiseworthy or blameworthiness.

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So a libertarian free willer is going to deny determinism, okay?

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And in some cases, we'll also say that determinism and moral responsibility are just not compatible with each other.

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So if incompatibilism is true, if the idea that freedom and determinism can't coexist, if that's correct, then libertarian free will is the kind of freedom we would have.

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Okay, so I think I've got that right. Now, those are the different views there, okay?

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But when we deal with the realm of moral responsibility, and this is very relevant to the nature of our choices, if you're a compatibilist, you're going to think that's compatible with determinism.

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If you're an incompatibilist, you're going to think it's not compatible with determinism. In the realm of moral responsibility, there is a very important debate which centers on the concept of the ability to do otherwise.

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So libertarians will often bring up the issue that if I make a choice and I'm determined to make a choice and I do not have the ability to choose other than what

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I do, how can God hold me accountable? How can I be blameworthy? How can I be praiseworthy for my actions? Okay, so in this remainder of the video here,

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I want to explore two key concepts, and this is the concept of what we call categorical ability and conditional ability.

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The categorical ability to do otherwise versus the conditional ability to do otherwise.

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And then I'm going to talk about a biblical passage that often comes up in discussions and debates between people who kind of are the compatibilist and the incompatibilist and the

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Calvinist and those who hold to libertarian free will and these sorts of things. I'm going to talk about a very commonly used biblical passage, and then

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I'll wrap it up because I don't intend to go very long, okay? All right, so let's define our terms then.

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So the categorical ability, okay? This view posits the idea that a person is morally responsible for their actions only if at the moment of choice they could have chosen differently given that all internal and external factors remain the same.

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So in simpler terms, this perspective suggests that moral responsibility requires what we call a categorical ability to choose otherwise.

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If you do not have the categorical ability to choose otherwise, then you are not morally responsible because on this view, in order to be morally responsible… … you can't be determined in the way that, say, the compatibilist who affirms that determinism is compatible with moral responsibility would suggest.

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So that's the categorical ability to do otherwise. Those who hold to libertarian free will will hold to a categorical ability to do otherwise.

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Now, again, do all of them hold to that? I'm not sure. I'm not a scholar in this area. I'm just kind of defining the terms with the hopes that the layperson who's somewhat interested in this topic can kind of know a little bit about what people are saying when they are using these concepts.

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Now, so if you are a categorical ability to do otherwise guy, you are probably going to hold to libertarian freedom or some form of incompatibilism.

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But again, if you know someone who has an exception to that rule, great. I'm just laying out the basic categories here.

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So categorical ability to do otherwise. Now, you also have what we call the conditional ability to do otherwise.

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And this ability asserts that moral responsibility hinges on the individual's ability to choose differently if their beliefs and desires had inclined them to do so, if we can put it that way.

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And this view suggests that moral responsibility requires a conditional ability to choose otherwise dependent on one's inner motivations.

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So I could have done otherwise if I had desired to choose otherwise.

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And those who are from the Calvinist, compatibilistic, determinist perspective would hold to the ability to do otherwise, but they would see it within the context of what we would call the conditional ability to do otherwise.

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If anyone is interested in kind of diving into this concept and these distinctions, you want to check out the work of Guillaume Bignon who is a philosopher and expert in this area.

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He's written a book that I always mess up the title, which is really bad because I've had

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Guillaume on the show, mentioned the book multiple times, had him on the show multiple times. And I even stayed at his house, and we talked about his book, and we talked about other stuff, and I still never get the title of his book correct.

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I think it's called – I should look it up. Oh, man, let me look it up now. I feel so embarrassed.

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Let's see here. Oh, boy. I think it's called Blaming God, Excusing Sinners, or Excusing Sinners and Blaming God.

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Let me see here. Oh, I'm sorry, Guillaume, if you ever watch this. This is so embarrassing.

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Let's see here. There we go. Oh, man, Excusing Sinners and Blaming God. Why don't

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I ever – I never remember the title. I don't know why. Anyway, but if you want to get into deeper analysis of these concepts and how it relates to Calvinism and the problem of evil and these sorts of things,

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Excusing Sinners and Blaming God, the full title is A Calvinist Assessment of Determinism, Moral Responsibility, and Divine – let's cut off here –

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Divine Involvement in Evil. Super, super good book. It's pretty challenging to read if you are not initiated into these discussions, but hey, why not?

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Give it a shot. I think you will not be disappointed. And even if you disagree with Guillaume, you at least can understand what a compatibilist -slash -conditional ability to do otherwise -ist – you can see where they're coming from.

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So we have these categorical ability to do otherwise, which the libertarian would hold to.

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Then you have the conditional ability to do otherwise, which is going to be typically associated with those who hold to a compatibilistic view and believe that determinism and moral responsibility are compatible and the ability to do otherwise is still meaningful even though, on this perspective, determinism is true.

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Now, let's consider, for example, a common scripture that is often used to support the categorical ability to do otherwise, that is to say that those who are of the libertarian free will stripe who believe in a categorical ability to do otherwise will typically use this scripture.

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So I want to define categorical ability again so you can follow and see why this is important and why they bring this verse up.

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The categorical ability says that a person is morally responsible for their actions only if, at the moment of choice, they could have chosen differently given that all internal and external factors remain the same.

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In other words, moral responsibility requires a categorical ability to choose otherwise.

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So let's take a look at this scripture here. So let me get my Bible, which

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I should have had in front of me, but I didn't. And I could put it, you know what, what am

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I doing? I got a physical Bible. Why don't I just get it up on the screen here?

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I'm so sorry. I feel like it's been a while. Let's see here. First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13.

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OK, and let's use the inspired translation. Yes.

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OK. I love the USB. I like the USB, but I'm also a fan of the

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NASB. OK. I like the King James, but I don't read from it because it's really hard to follow given the old school

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English. So sorry, King James, only as people. OK. All right.

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So let's take a look. So the person who holds to liberty and free will, who holds to a categorical ability to do otherwise, will typically use the verse, the scripture.

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First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13. And they use this to show that man, that the believer has the ability to choose other than what he's or he has the ability to choose something other than the sin that is presented to him.

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So First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13, says this. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

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God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

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OK, so there it is. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape.

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In other words, you have the ability to escape when temptation when temptation is presented to you.

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So you have a choice to fall into the temptation. But God has provided a way out of falling into that by giving you a way out.

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Right. And so this is often used to support the notion of the categorical ability to do otherwise.

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OK, now. Let's see here. Let's see.

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We define those terms to find those terms. Now, I think it's important if we consider

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First Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13, which states that God does not allow temptations beyond what individuals can bear and provides a way of escape.

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Right. Some argue that this verse supports the idea of libertarian, incompatibilist, categorical ability.

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suggests that this this verse supports the idea that someone has the categorical ability to do otherwise.

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But I think this is very important to kind of point out that it is important that we do not argue that a verse says more than it actually does.

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And so this is a warning to those who are trying to find categorical ability to do otherwise in this passage and a

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Calvinist, compatibilist, conditional ability to do otherwise.

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It is to use this verse to to support what they what what their position is. We want to be very careful that when the

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Bible is written, it's not specifically written with the same questions that we're grappling in today with.

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Right. So while so while this particular verse does, in fact, touch on the ability to choose otherwise, it is it is addressing that for sure.

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It does not necessarily align with a categorical ability perspective. In other words, it doesn't imply that in an unaltered situation, a person could have chosen differently.

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It simply assures us that there is a way out when facing temptation. OK, now, on the other hand, this passage doesn't explicitly support the conditional ability perspective either.

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It doesn't specify the exact nature of the ability to choose otherwise. It merely is assuring us that a way out exists in some manner.

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And so this passage doesn't offer substantial support for the categorical view of ability or the conditional view of the ability to to choose otherwise.

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And so what's my point here? OK, we've defined the basic categories. We define kind of the basic points and hopefully have defined them somewhat correctly.

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I know that there's so much nuance that matters. The nuance in these debates are the sorts of nuances that matter.

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And so, again, I know that someone can correct me on my particular definitions, but I try my best to be as accurate as I can.

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What's important in these debates between Calvinists, determinists, libertarians,

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Arminians, Molinists, we want to be very careful when we are using Scripture to support a view that we do not make a

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Scripture say more than it's actually saying. OK, so when someone brings up, you know, for the Calvinist, you know, this is my bone to the

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Calvinist because I'm a Calvinist. When someone says, ah, well, 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13 teaches clearly that we have the ability to do otherwise, you're going to need to point out to them that this passage does, in fact, talk about the ability to do otherwise, but that there are two very important considerations with respect to the nature of the ability to do otherwise.

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This is a very widely discussed concept, and so the ability to do otherwise can be seen in two very important ways within the categorical ability to do otherwise context and the conditional ability to do otherwise context.

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Now, which one is correct? OK, I hold to a conditional ability.

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I do not believe that the categorical ability to do otherwise is a necessary feature for moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness.

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Again, I'm not going to get too much into my reasons why. That's not the point of this video. But whichever view is correct, you're not going to get support by simply quoting this passage, and this happens on both sides of the aisle here.

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The Calvinists will often quote a scripture, thinking that the scripture just flat -out supports their view, and that's not enough,

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OK, in many contexts, and of course, I have no problem with proof texting to some degree. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with quoting a passage and strongly suggesting in the quotation of that passage that it supports a view, but you're going to have to get into some of the details.

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And so, again, not the topic of this video, but it's not going to be enough for either side to simply quote passages that they think support their view.

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There's going to have to be some exegetical legwork and theological and philosophical considerations as well.

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But all of that is done within the context and boundaries set up by the scriptures themselves, and this is why we want to be very careful as Calvinists, who tend to be very textual -based, and that's true even if you disagree with our conclusions, right?

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In my experience, at least, Calvinists tend to be very textually driven and theologically driven. But we need to allow the text to define the categories we use and create the boundaries with which our philosophical speculations function in.

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So I don't believe that it's wrong, and I do believe it's unavoidable that we are, especially when we're discussing the nature of free will and the ability to do otherwise and all these other sorts of things.

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I think it's necessary that we are engaging in some form of philosophical reflection and consideration.

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But we want our philosophical considerations and reflections and analysis to be guided by the boundaries that are set up within scripture itself.

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I think it reminds me of that passage in Colossians, not being deceived by vain philosophies. The Bible does not condemn philosophy.

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Rather, it condemns a particular kind of philosophy. And so it's very important that we have our philosophical musings kind of caged in, so to speak, within the boundaries that scripture sets for itself.

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And so just summarizing these different concepts, determinism, generally speaking, theological determinism, compatibilism, incompatibilism, libertarianism, defining those terms as I defined them at the beginning of the program here, and considering this idea of the ability to do otherwise, you want to – if you're kind of jumping into these debates, you want to be familiar somewhat with the nuances of these terms and the variations within those categories with respect to how people explain their positions and who holds to what, whatever.

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You want to consider those details when you are engaging the libertarian, the incompatibilist, vice versa, and really kind of engaging what you think the

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Bible is saying with respect to which view is more strongly supported. You're going to have disagreements.

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Some people think that the Bible does pull in one direction or the other, and you have other positions where people say the

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Bible is under -determinative with respect to which position is correct, and that's fine.

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People have that position as well. But when we're engaging in these discussions, we just want to be familiar with some of those key concepts and nuances within the discussion.

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So hopefully – again, we're right just under a half hour here. I can't go too much because of my voice.

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Again, my goal here was not simply – is not to engage in any depth with respect to arguing for one or the other.

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People know my position personally already if you've seen other episodes in the show. My goal here is to simply lay out some of the key ideas and hopefully define them in ways that are understandable to some extent, and will hopefully provide people with a context who don't have experience in this topic to kind of engage in these discussions and appreciate,

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I think, the subtlety and nuances that are required to talk about some of these deep philosophical concepts.

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I remember hearing the debates on free will for the first time, and I remember thinking, yeah, sure, free will, that's an easy concept, completely unaware that there is a whole body of philosophical theological literature that spanned centuries and centuries.

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So when we think a concept is super -duper easy and kind of straightforward,

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I think sometimes it's really good to kind of sit back and ask ourselves, is there background music to this discussion?

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And of course, with respect to free will, Calvinism, determinism, incompatibilism, conditional, categorical ability, yes, there is a lot of background music that needs to be considered.

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There's a lot of context that needs to be fleshed out. Okay? So, well, that's it here, folks.

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As you can hear in my voice, I'm waning, but I just wanted to take a few, oh, a half hour to talk about these issues.

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Now, for future stuff, just as a heads up, I don't know how frequently I'll be putting out a video.

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I do have plans to have some guests on. It's all going to depend on my voice, but next month, the beginning of November, I'll be flying out to Kansas to speak at a conference in which

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I have been asked to discuss the importance of apologetics, how to engage

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Roman Catholics, and atheists. So atheism is kind of in my wheelhouse.

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Roman Catholicism, it's not my main wheelhouse, so it's going to require me to do some extra kind of digging as I prepare.

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So a lot of my time will be occupied with preparation for that. But I will try my best to continue to chug out some videos, maybe a little shorter videos like this.

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I mean, I don't know. Some people like the long -form stuff, and other people like, you know, you've got a half hour driving to work, and you like something like this.

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But there you go. All right. Well, if you have been blessed by Revealed Apologetics content, you can do me a solid and write me a positive review on iTunes.

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That is super helpful. It's actually much more helpful than many people think. So if you have the time and you've been enjoying and have been blessed with the content of this channel, go ahead and do that.

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I appreciate that as well. So I very much appreciate the audience and those who engage in the comments section, always so respectful for the most part, right?

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But I really do appreciate all the supporters and those who listen in and appreciate what we do.

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All right. Well, that's it for this program. And until next time,

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I will be inviting Jeremiah Nortier to do a response video with me on a 15 -minute or so video on critiques of presuppositionalism from a bunch of skeptics.

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So I will keep you guys up on that when my voice is fully recovered. I'll schedule that and get

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Jeremiah on, and we'll have a good time doing that and hopefully in the process teaching how presuppositionalism can answer a lot of the objections that are launched at it.

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So with that, that is it for this episode, guys. Take care. Until next time,