French Calvinist Philosopher Responds to Critics

Opening Banter and Guest Introduction

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Elias Ayala and today I'm super duper excited because I have Guillaume Bignon. Which took me a while to properly pronounce his name and perhaps he can just give me a thumbs up if I got it.

All right. Good. Very good. Very good. And so we're gonna be talking about a interesting topic where I kind of promoted it as kind of Guillaume who is a French Calvinist and I call him French Calvinist because you're gonna notice he's French just by when he opens his mouth but he's also a philosopher, right and He's going to be interacting with three friends actually, but have a completely different perspective.

We'll talk a little bit about them in just a few moments. But by way of announcements, I am going to be having a couple of in good interviews coming up. That will be covering a wide variety of topics most of which will relate to apologetics, but that's my primary focus in With Revealed Apologetics, and so I'm looking forward to that.

I just received a text not that long ago I know a lot of people enjoyed the the episode that I had with Chris Bolt on the topic of presuppositionalism. And so I will be having him on at a future date.

Hopefully we can lock that in. I'm still I'm still I'm still fighting for dr James-Anderson from Reform Theological Seminary to talk about the nature of transcendental arguments. So that should be fun as well.

And so there's a lot of good things coming up in the near future. Also, if you have someone a scholar or an apologist a philosopher that you'd like me to have on the Revealed Apologetics show. Please email me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com.

And I will reach out to those folks and hopefully I can provide for the listeners what they want to hear so that it can be educational, informative, edifying, and Just works towards equipping us to think better as Christians loving the Lord our God with all of our mind.

I'm in a super good mood. Not just because of the guests that I have today. But I was just telling our guests that because of this whole quarantine lock-in thing I have actually convinced my wife to watch the Star Wars movies from beginning to end.

So we just finished the the prequels episodes 1 through 3 and this is this praise God praise God because if anyone knows my wife She does not like those type of movies. So I am very very excited That that we made it through those first three films.

Guillaume Bignon on Calvinism, Philosophy, and Wall Street

All right. Well that aside let's let's jump right in. I have with me today Guillaume Bignon. Why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself and and then we'll take it from there.

Hey, hi Eli, thanks for having me. About myself. I guess my accent already betrayed that I'm French. You've already called me out on it, which is a really mean thing to say. I would never call you French.

So I'm I guess I'm a Calvinist that's going to be the topic of the interview. I'm I guess a philosophical theologian or theological philosopher, whichever way you want to prime it. So I think that just Philosophy is thinking very hard about things and you don't you do that about God and that's a theologian.

So philosophy and theology coming together. During the day I work on Wall Street. I live in the New York City area. So I'm a director in the corporate and investments bank. And at night and I guess on the weekends, I'm a philosopher and think about those.

I'm also a father of four young kids. And so you're not foreign to that situation with the wall lockdown on the outbreak. It's quite a lot of fun to have all these kids running around.

So basically you what you work on Wall Street and you have a really boring day job but at night you are a Calvinist superhero fighting crime of libertarianism and all the different kinds of Molinist running around and our minions running around.

So that's basically what you do, right? That's right.

I don't think I don't know if libertarianism is a crime and maybe a felony. I don't know. We need we need to look at the law for that. All right. All right.

Well, we'll look into that later on maybe a topic for another another episode. Well, okay. So all joking aside now, we're gonna be covering three individuals and I would say that that they are Mutual friends of mine.

I've had Tim Stratton of free thinking ministries on my show a few episodes back to talk about Molinism and of course Guillaume knows much about Molinism. He said I remember he said it in a particular context that Molinism is his favorite of the false views.

And and you know what I have to be honest out of all the false views out there it is my favorite as well. And so we'll be taking a look at Tim Stratton from free thinking ministries. Who's a great guy very sharp guy and We're gonna be taking a look at Braxton Hunter from Trinity radio.

And we're gonna take a look at some of his arguments against Calvinism. And of course The infamous Layton flowers. I he knows I love him, but we'll be looking at Layton flowers as well so we have a lot to cover in this in this show tonight and I'm I actually I usually don't drink coffee this late, but I drank coffee.

So I'm ready if you're ready I'm ready. And I'm sure the people listening are going to enjoy the content whether they agree or disagree all that to say. This is done in brotherly love. We are not the sorts of Calvinist that You know resigned and non Calvinist to the pits of hell, of course, right where this is an in-house discussion.

But an important one and I think Guillaume would agree with that. So we're going to Begin now, so let's start with with Tim Stratton. Okay. I've spoken with with Tim and he says that he's interacted with with your work and Are you familiar with the work that he's put out in response to you and his free thinking ministries website?

So I've met him very briefly a couple of times at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and Evangelical Philosophical Society. So friendly guy I have not. Read extensively his material.

I do know that he had put out some material against my book after it came out. So we can focus on that for the arguments of the evening. But that's just about the extent of my engagement with him.

But yeah. Yeah, very friendly guy. Definitely the kind of guy you want to just like chill out and watch a movie with or you know grab something to eat or Something. I very very nice guy. But okay, so let's jump in.

Defining Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Determinism

So so the overall topics that we're gonna be covering as you interact with Tim with Braxton and with Layton are the topics of free will moral responsibility Issues of determinism issues of incompatible ism compatible ism and libertarianism now.

We're using these terms under the assumption that the majority of people who are gonna be listening to this are somewhat familiar with these debates. But if we can just quickly define those concepts for us, and then we'll start interacting with.

With Tim Stratton's work that kind of makes comments on on his perspective of your work. Yes. Okay. So a few words on Preliminaries, let's say to understand those concepts. So free will as is normally understood in the philosophical literature is the Control condition for moral responsibility.

So it's a bit of a mouthful. But let's start then with moral responsibility and that will help us understand what free will is. So moral responsibility is What you have when you are suitable for praise or blame.

So if when you make choices you you do actions. You choose to do something. That action may be praise worthy or blame worthy. And you in order to be praised or blamed that is in order to be morally responsible.

You need to be properly in control of what you're doing. And so that element of you controlling the decision to engage in those actions is what we call free will. It's the control condition for moral responsibility now an Interesting way of contrasting it is simply to realize that for you to be morally responsible.

That is for you to be praiseworthy or blameworthy for what you do. You need to satisfy the control condition the free will condition. But there's also additional conditions that haven't that don't have to do with how you control your decision.

But more with what you know, so there are epistemic conditions for moral responsibility. I'll give you a quick example. You can freely choose to do something. But if you if you lack some very important pieces of information about your action that you're carrying out.

You may be excused for something that if you had known you would be blameworthy. So let's imagine that I'm pouring some sugar in my wife's coffee, but unbeknownst to me the jar has been replaced with poison.

I'm doing the action freely. So I control what I'm doing. So I have free will. I satisfy the control condition but I am not aware of very important facts about the matter and Therefore I would not be blameworthy because I just didn't know it was poison.

So there's epistemic conditions for more responsibility and control condition and the control condition is what we say is free will. If you have free will if you act freely then it's.

Necessary for to be more irresponsible. Mm-hmm. And okay, so that's free will more responsibility. Determinism this is thrown out a lot in the discussions. Different kinds of determinism, but just basically what is determinism and.

How are we using it within this with this particular context? Yes, so determinism is the question. It's one of the questions that's at the heart of the debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinist. Determinism is the view that Everything that happens including our choices because that's the area on which we're interested tonight.

Everything that happens is necessitated by prior facts so everything that happens in this world everything that we do and choose in the era of of human choices is Determined by antecedent factors by prior facts about ourselves.

So the way that the world is. When you know, let's focus on choices again when I'm about to make a choice. The Determinist view is going to say that the outcome of my choice is determined it's necessitated by all the facts about my own makeup my bringing the conditions in which I'm placed, you know my thoughts and desires inclinations on the moment of choice all of those taken together and obviously on a Christian view that also includes God's Providential activity in my heart his own drawing of my own Volition all of that put together determines the outcome of my choice.

Okay.

Okay, so free will moral responsibility determinism. Now just to clarify the the debate between the Calvinist and the non-calvinist is not that one affirms free will and another denies it rather we have different.

Understandings of free will. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's why it's important to define free will in the way that I've just done which is the completely standard way of defining free Will in the literature, it's agnostic as to whether or not that is Compatible with determinism and so this is where we enter into those concepts of incompatibilism and compatibilism.

Which are very simply the views that free will and moral responsibility as I've defined them Are either compatible or incompatible with determinism?

Okay, so you just define there for incompatibilism and compatibilism. All right, that's right.

So incompatible lists are going to say that if you're determined then you cannot be morally responsible. You cannot have free will and then the compatibilist will simply say no. No, no, you could be determined and still have free will and moral responsibility.

So it's a disagreement on not on whether we have free will or not. I think that most Christians will want to say that we are blameworthy or praiseworthy for what we do that We do have free will in that sense but they will strongly disagree as to whether or not that namely free will and moral responsibility is compatible with determinism.

So we have Compatibilism which is a form of determinism, right? No, so compatibilism is just a thesis that free will and Determinism are compatible. Okay, so it doesn't actually commit you to saying that you either have free will or that you are Determined right?

So it's just saying the two could be true together. But in itself, it doesn't commit you to affirming that in fact either is true. Now more often than not compatibilists tend to Affirm that they're compatible because they happen to be true.

And so if both of them are true, then obviously both of them are compatible. But technically compatibilism isn't the thesis that they are in fact true. It's just a thesis that they're compatible.

All right now can you define for us the difference between determinism and soft determinism. Yes. And and libertarianism and soft libertarianism because that's going to come that's going to come an issue later on when you interact with Particular versions of libertarianism as they come.

Within the context of Tim's work and others. Yes. Okay. So Determinism is simply the view that as I described it. Everything is determined. Everything is necessitated by prior antecedent factors. What is called soft determinism is simply the combination of determinism plus compatibilism.

So it's a soft determinist is someone who says we are determined. So it's affirming determinism and also Compatibilism is true. Therefore we could have free will even though we are determined and so soft.

Determinism is the combination of compatibilism and determinism and that is really what I take to be the standard Calvinist view. That is that is the affirmation. That's overall. We are determined to do everything that we do.

But we are still morally responsible. So we are from compatibilism and determinism. That's soft determinism. All right, very good. So we have good. Did you want to have another thought there? No. Well, you also asked about libertarianism.

So yes, that's right. Okay. Yeah libertarianism and soft libertarianism. Yeah, so libertarianism is the one that we haven't defined yet. Libertarianism is another combination of those two. So libertarianism is the thesis that incompatibilism is true and Also, some of the choices we make are free so libertarianism is the view that Determinism is incompatible with free will and moral responsibility and also some of the time we have free will and moral responsibility.

From which it follows that determinism is false. Okay, so that's the standard definition of libertarianism now with respect to soft libertarianism I don't think it's as widely used in the literature as the expression soft determinism.

So I'm not all that certain that I can give you a standard understanding of what it means for a libertarianism to be soft As opposed to be hard. That we'll have to see. I don't think it matters for the evaluation of the arguments that we're looking at tonight.

But well the soft hard Terminology is clear for determinism where you can say well, by the way it's a good contrast to draw soft determinists are the ones that are determinists and Compatibilists and that is in opposition to what is called harder determinism.

And that is folks were from determinism and incompatibilism. So there are folks who say we are determined and it is incompatible with moral responsibility and free will. Therefore we don't have free will no one is really blameworthy or praiseworthy.

And so that's that's obviously not the view that I affirm. I affirm soft determinism the one that is compatible is tick. Okay now.

Regardless if People understand what you said or not. With the details and all the intricacies about the definitions I think definitions are important. Everything you said sounds right because of your accent.

So you have the advantage automatically, right? Just saying I don't know about that.

In order to sound smart I'm told you need to have a British. I know but in a French accent. When you have a French Accent I'm told you sound smug which is okay, or maybe arrogant. I don't know.

Alright, or you could just have. I'm Puerto Rican, but I have no accent. So I'm like weird. Yeah, anyway. So, let's jump right into into the issue here so Tim wrote an article kind of critiquing. Some of your your work and his article can be found On his website free thinking ministries and and I would encourage people even as a People who know a little bit about myself in regards to apologetic methodology.

I'm a presuppositional list. And I'm not a classic list, but Tim is a classic list and has great apologetic resources there. So I still find his work very valuable and I encourage people to kind of go there.

You'll find all sorts of articles that would be helpful for apologetics and things like that. Of course, we have the disagreement here on the issue of Calvinism and determinism and how that all hashes out but I've heard Tim say and others say with regards to your work Guillaume that your your work provides perhaps one of the best defenses of compatibilism and so.

That if anything that should encourage people who are interested to check out your book, which is excusing sinners and excusing sinners and blaming God and bookstores. Now it's not a walk-in-the-park sort of read.

I mean you you engage with some pretty. You know complicated issues here and and you deal with some philosophical issues that take a little work to kind of plow through. But it is a worthy read. I'm still in them in the middle of reading it at the moment.

And I Guillaume Guillaume shared with me the other night that when he takes notes, he takes handwritten notes. So so I tried it and I like it. But I don't know if I can plow through a handwritten notes because there's just so much there to write down.

I might have to just punk out and start typing but be that as it may okay. So Tim has a lot to say with regards to your work. But let's jump into his article that he kind of focuses on on your your book here.

And he talks about the consequent argument and if I can give kind of a very brief Lay person's presentation of the argument of the consequent argument. It goes something like this that if determinism is true, then knowledge is impossible, right?

Because no, that's that's not the one. So, okay.

The Consequence Argument and the Ability to Do Otherwise

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the the consequence argument is is not the argument that Tim Stratton actually defends himself. That's right. So the computer van wagons, right? That's correct. Yes. Yes. Yes. So the consequence argument is one very famous argument in favor of incompatible ism.

So in my book I do Engage with Peter van in wagons consequence arguments because I need to explain what I think is wrong with the argument. Okay, so That's that Tim Stratton has written his blog post.

And I will explain what the consequence argument is and what when my response is to the consequence argument. But I first want to point out that that's not even relevant Here because Tim Stratton doesn't engage even a little bit with my treatment of the consequence arguments.

So here's what he said. I mean, do you want to read the the yeah, I'll read it and just real quick to differentiate between.

Tim's argument and Peter van in wagons argument. Peter van in wagons argument if I'm if I'm correct is an argument against naturalistic determinism, right?

Yes, it is. Although it can very easily be modified and hits the theological determinist. So which is what Tim tries to do. Tim. Tim will write so I. I don't know I don't know if Tim has defended the consequence argument because it doesn't really engage with my response in this blog post.

But yes, it's very common to use the consequence argument in favor of incompatible ism. I mean he talks about the laws of nature. But then if you replace that with God's full providential activity you'll find with the exact same situation.

Where it determines the outcome of your choices. The argument. It definitely it would not be a good move for the Calvinist to say well, no, it's not talking about my view. It's not including God. It's just the laws of nature.

No, the argument really hits the Calvinist if it's successful.

Okay. All right. So let me read a portion of the article and then I'll give you an opportunity to respond to it. Okay. All right. So here is a little chunk from the article. He says well, I have read my friendly enemies interaction with the consequent argument.

You are the friendly enemy. To put it bluntly I am unimpressed. This is because being young affirms exhaustive determinism and I'm convinced that Rationality let alone knowledge does not exist if all thoughts and beliefs are ultimately causally determined by something external To the person possessing the thoughts and beliefs.

In fact, I've argued that a determinist cannot possess knowledge that determinism is true. Even if determinism is true. If that is the case then all that remains for the determinist our question begging assumptions, what say you?

Why the Consequence Argument Fails Against Calvinism

Okay, so so it's important to understand. What's the dialectic here? So Peter van in wagon offers an argument in favor of incompatible ism. It's called the consequence argument and we'll get to it in just a moment.

I provide a full response to this argument in my book and here what Tim Stratton does is that he says? There are other reasons to think that determinism is false, right? So he's just he's diving into his arguments the one that you need to be able to freely think otherwise.

So that you could not have knowledge that determinism is true even if determinism is true. So that's his argument, but that's not the consequence argument. So what he's saying is that there's other reasons to think determinism is false.

But that's not relevant to the merits of my response to the consequence argument. Right when I explain what's wrong with the consequence argument the merits of my response have nothing to do with whether incompatible ism is true.

Okay, right because you can suppose for a second that incompatible ism is true. It could still be the case that the consequence argument is a bad way of proving it. So I could successfully show that the consequence argument doesn't work even if its conclusion is true.

And so what Stratton does when he Simply says well, look you affirm determinism and there are reasons not to think that it's false. It does positively nothing to explain why my response to the consequence argument is I quote an impressive All right.

So an easy way to see that is the case is imagine that he is here now in a different context imagine that he's offering His so-called free thinking arguments though the one that we've just read In against determinism and then I response that I I respond that I find his argument unimpressive.

Because Tim affirms libertarian free will and libertarian free will is refuted by Romans 9 don't you know? So that would be changing the topic, right? So it's not supporting at all why it was okay to be Unimpressed by the free thinking argument and the same goes for his response to my treatment of the consequence argument.

So this blog post was really odd in that sense is that he claims to be unimpressed by my response to the consequence argument. But he touches none of it. He simply seizes the fact that I affirm determinism, which is quite obviously true and then says well there are other reasons to think that determinism is false or at least not justified and.

But that's really missing the point of the arguments that I'm offering against the consequence argument. So, okay, so that's.

Let's look at the consequent the consequent argument itself.

What would you what would you how would you respond to that? Okay, so the consequence argument is Peter van in wagons claim that if Determinism is true Then everything that you choose can be seen as the mere consequences of things that preceded you.

And so if you didn't have the ability to change those things, so the past. You no more have the ability to change the unnecessary consequences. So you don't have the ability to do otherwise than you do.

Right, that's that's the gist so when in wagon offers it in different forms as at least three different versions in his essay on free will. But they're all sharing. That's essential that that core of the reasoning is that if you're determined then you are.

Your choices are the consequences of things that preceded you you cannot change what preceded you and therefore you cannot change their consequences either namely things that follow necessarily from those.

So the core of my response to this Requires you to understand a very important distinction Between two things that we call the ability to do otherwise, but they're quite different. So there's two ways of unpacking the ability to do otherwise.

One is the so-called conditional ability to do otherwise. The other one is the categorical ability to do otherwise. So it's it's very important to get that when you engage in conversations on free will and There's this claim that you need the ability to do otherwise or to change.

You know to choose otherwise or to here is the ability well really in van in wagons word. It's the ability to do otherwise. It's that there's the conditional sense of ability which says you Could do otherwise if you had desired to do otherwise.

Okay, so It's a very mild sense of ability. It's simply saying if you had wanted if you had the desires the inclination to do otherwise than you do. Then there's nothing else that would have prevented you from doing it.

Alright, so you can imagine we're taking that's conditional. That's right. That's the conditional meaning of the conditional sense of ability to do. Otherwise, it's it's the one that says if you had wanted to you could have done.

There was nothing but your will to to prevent you so an example of that would be if we're taking a vote and My hands are handcuffed behind my back and We're asking me well why didn't you raise your hand then I can point out that I did not have the conditional ability to do the wise like because even if I wanted to Raise my hand. There was the handcuffs preventing me from raising my hand.

So I did not have the conditional ability to do. Otherwise, so that's a fairly mild sense of ability and then there's a stronger sense of ability to do otherwise, which is the Categorical ability to do otherwise and this one says you must be able to do otherwise than than what you in fact do.

All things being just as they are at the moment of choice. Including everything about you inside and out. That is you're no longer supposing that your desires are different. You're saying like exactly.

Everything your inclination you'll make up your character all the influences working on you at the moment of choice. Being held just as they are you could have chosen otherwise, so that's the categorical sense of ability.

Okay. Okay. And so once you've laid out that there are those two understandings of ability. Here is the key piece the categorical sense of ability. If you have that kind of ability you are indeterminate.

That is that that sense of ability is incompatible with determinism and you can see this fairly straightforwardly. If you are determined then all things about you at the moment of choice Determine the one and only outcome that is possible and that will in fact happen.

So you don't have the ability categorically to choose something else all things being just as they are. Mm-hmm. So the categorical sense of ability is incompatible with determinism and that is the one that Incompatibilists must convince us is necessary for moral responsibility right, but.

And then the conditional sense of ability that one I Agree is necessary for moral responsibility. That is that if I don't even have the conditional ability to do otherwise then I Cannot be praised or blamed for doing what I do or failing to do what I failed to do so the conditional sense of ability is necessary for free will and moral responsibility and The categorical sense of ability is incompatible with determinism.

So you would say the Calvinist has the conditional ability not the categorical, right? So yes, and the Calvinist and and that the conditional the conditional ability is still provides a foundation for.

Moral responsibility. Yeah, so the the conditional sense of ability is necessary necessary for moral responsibility. But it is compatible with determinism and so that's the key so you can you can affirm that moral responsibility and free will Require the conditional sense of ability.

So there is a sense in which the Calvinist says you need to be able to do otherwise. But it's a milder sense of ability than the one that is actually incompatible with determinism. Namely the categorical sense of ability.

So you have those two senses and therefore there's a big fat equivocation in many of the anti-calvinist arguments because they simply speak of the ability to do otherwise without distinguishing which one is in view and.

My big claim against fine in wagon and against a lot of the other writers that I engage in my writing is that if they mean The conditional ability to do otherwise then I don't disagree. I say yes, it's more it's necessary for more responsibility.

But then nothing follows interestingly Against Calvinism or determinism and if they mean categorical sense of ability then they are begging the question Hmm because I don't agree that the categorical ability is necessary for more responsibility and therefore we need an independent Argument for that.

I see. Okay, and that's my response to the consequence argument. All right, and that's why it's important to be.

Is to define our terms and to use those terms. Consistently in these debates people talk about free. It's kind of like the you know when people say, you know Calvinist will sometimes say, you know, we believe in the sovereignty of God as though non-calvinist reject the sovereignty of God and both both parties.

Understand we believe in the sovereignty of God, but there's different understanding same thing with with free will ability and things like that. I think that's very very important to keep in mind. But but Tim goes on he says it's too bad that been young did not conduct the Google search.

Or talk to our mutual friends, which we share many who are aware of the arguments. I've advanced supporting the Incompatibilist thesis these arguments are offered in abundance on freethinkingministries .com.

Don't you know about that website Keon? What's wrong with you to be fair? Although two of these arguments are being published in theological journals later this year. He did not have access to these arguments in published literature before writing his book as noted above.

I will address these arguments soon. But since they do exist been young must account for them and interact with them before jumping to conclusions. That is to say that the burden of proof has been shifted to his Shoulders, so don't you use the internet Guillaume?

Don't you don't you look up? Websites first before you do something foolish like publish a book on the topic of Calvinism and then determinism. What's wrong with you, man? Yeah, it's a bit funny.

So it's actually all in response to one sentence that he took out of context in my book and the sentence was like this. The burden of proof is still firmly on the shoulders of the incompatibilist and we are still looking for an argument to support the Incompatibilist thesis.

So this is something I said in response to the Consequence argument precisely because of what I've just explained that there are those two senses of ability and that people are claiming so as the Conclusion of the consequence argument does it's claiming well if determinism is true.

You don't have the ability to choose. Otherwise boom determinism should not be affirmed because you don't have the ability to do. Otherwise, you cannot be morally responsible. So in my explanation of this Equivocation on the sense of ability I then explained look once we've understood that there are those two senses.

It doesn't suffice for the incompatibilist to tell us that moral responsibility requires the ability to do. Otherwise, it's still begging the question if they mean the categorical sense of ability. And if they only mean the conditional sense of ability then it's compatible with determinism.

So it leads nowhere. And so that's why that's where I say we still need an argument. They still have the burden of proof of for the incompatibility thesis now Tim Stratton says I should have googled him.

So that I would have known learned that there are arguments for incompatibilism. That's funny. Of course. I know there are arguments for incompatibilism. I wrote a full book responding to the best of them.

I mean, he's presumably holding the book. I suppose he's read it. I deal with the consequence arguments the pets and puppets arguments the coercion arguments multiple versions of the manipulation arguments.

The principle of alternate possibilities the direct argument for incompatibilism. All of those are responded to in my book. So i'm aware that there are Arguments for incompatibilism and I don't think I needed to google Tim Stratton to learn that um, but the uh The affirmation that i'm making here when I say that we still need an argument the burden of proof is still on them.

Um is something you can see in many of the incompatibilities, right? Writers they are going to be. Finding the this claim that moral responsibility requires the ability to do. Otherwise, it's called the principle of alternate possibilities.

They find it so convincing because I think the conditional sense of ability is hiding right there. And so it is true and they affirm that but then they slide over to affirm the critique the the categorical sense of ability.

Um, but they find it so plausible that sometimes they just leave it out there as if that's it. That's the the debate is done. And um, they find it obvious and they don't support it. So that's what i'm calling out but uh, you can take a very famous example that I point out in my book uh, jerry walls was a libertarian a very uh, let's say vocal critic of calvinism, uh,.

And uh, and and he affirms that principle of alternate possibility as a properly basic belief that cannot Be supported by arguments. Uh, would you like me to read the quote? Yeah. Sure. Sure the quote by jerry walls.

Okay. This is this is jerry.

Walls is quote. We believe that libertarian free will is intrinsic to the very notion of moral responsibility. That is a person cannot be held morally responsible for an act. Unless he or she was free to perform that act and free to refrain from it.

This is a basic moral intuition and we do not believe there are any relevant moral convictions. More basic than this one that could serve as premises to prove it.

Yeah, so that's the type of claim that I Address here and I say no, it's not obvious. It's not true. And if you need me to buy it, I will need an argument not just an affirmation. And until there's a further argument to support the principle of alternate possibilities.

Then the burden of proof is still on the incompatibilist. So in my refutation of the consequence argument, I say that the consequence argument is successful in showing. And so this is something that tim stratton then quotes, uh, it's successful in showing what I happily concede.

Namely that libertarian free will the categorical ability to do otherwise is incompatible with determinism. But falls short of refuting compatibilism.

Tim Stratton's Free-Thinking Argument and Knowledge

So let's let's take a look at his quote here. Uh where he he makes that that reference here. He says this claim is quite significant. In fact, I believe it is a game changer since binyong affirms that determinism and libertarian free will are logically incompatible.