In his Inclinations, Dispositions, Motivations, Chris accurately explains my reason for denying freedom of the will in any circumstance. As he expresses my view, “...libertarian free will means, by definition, that the faculty of will– as distinct from the person– is actually making its own choices.” He then goes on to state that neither he nor, he doubts, any one else ever intended to say this. The affirmation of [libertarian] free will is nothing more than a statement that “the person choosing chooses.” And he’s right. I can’t think of any self respecting libertarian who would try to argue that a faculty, rather than a person, is doing all the choosing. But that wasn’t my point. I do recognize the validity of linguistic shortcuts and colloquial forms of speech. However, when the question itself concerns a definition of the will, it is better to be precise about what is meant. It appears to Chris that I’m quibbling here and filling my idea of the will with too many complexities. Hopefully, I will be able to offer a clearer explanation in this post and show that this is not the case.
I have described the will as a faculty that cannot move or be moved except as the person inclines it. Chris writes, “From my point of view, it looks like making a decision and inclining the will are one and the same.” I could say the same thing. In speaking of inclining the will, I am looking into just what happens when a decision is made. Reading further into his post, though, it seems that Chris and I do not mean the same thing. Evidently, he understands “inclining the will” as a figure of speech or just another way of saying “making a decision.” He writes, “To will just is to act voluntarily. The will is not acted upon by the person, for there is nothing there to act upon. What there is is an ability, not a mechanism.”
Perhaps Chris is correct, but I don’t believe that this was the Church’s view of the will when it condemned monothelitism (which is the belief that Clifton has accused monergists of holding). Recall that monothelitism is the doctrine that Christ has only one will. Considered in itself, this shouldn’t be that important, since “will” can be taken several ways. In this case, however, all parties to the controversy understood will as something associated with the natures, or, as some would have it, nature of Christ. Monothelitism was an indirect means of affirming monophysitism, i.e., the doctrine that Christ had only one nature. Had it been understood that the will was an ability, the same conclusion would not have followed. Natures do not have abilities, persons do. Consequently, rather than reflecting orthodox doctrine, Christological dithelitism would have implied Nestorianism, i.e., the doctrine that Christ was two persons. If Chris’ view of the will is correct, if there really is nothing there to act upon, then some form of monothelitism should be deemed orthodox. The important point is that the one person to two natures ratio be maintained as far as our understanding of Christology. Even so, I think that the Church had it right. The will is connected to the nature and, as such, is something that can be acted upon. “Inclining the will” is not a figure of speech for “making a decision.” It is a description of what happens when a decision is made.
Earlier in his post, Chris had mentioned a point that we both reject, which is that moral responsibility requires libertarian freedom. In denying this, however, I do not mean to imply that moral responsibility is possible for anyone other than a free agent. I affirm free agency for all morally responsible persons. Libertarians may wish to deny me the term, not only over our difference concerning compatibility with the decree of God (although, this is by no means insignificant) but also over the question of moral limitations on natural ability. When I speak of free agency, I am describing the unimpeded connection between what a person wants to do and the subsequent movement of his will toward that end. As long as a person is able to incline his will according to his desires, he is a free agent and morally responsible for whatever he may do. A person can be excused of moral responsibility for his actions, or lack thereof, if and only if something stands between his desires and the inclination of his will. An able bodied man next to a swimming pool can be blamed for not jumping in to rescue a drowning child. This is not the case if the man is lame.
Compatibilism recognizes the distinction between natural and moral inability. Chris, it appears, does as well when he writes, “I also affirm that the possibilities for how I can incline my will in a given situation (i.e., what decisions I can make) depend on what sort of a person I am. God cannot incline his will toward unrighteousness, and a sinner cannot incline his will in any direction without sinning (i.e., cannot choose good).” Here, the libertarian disagrees. True free agency, with its corresponding moral responsibility, is only the case when all possibilities for a given decision are open. Contrary to what Chris’ says further down in his post, the incompatibilist libertarian claim that libertarian free will is possible (because they are using these words to define the will as the person choosing) is not true. Nor is it the case that the force of my assertion that libertarian free will is impossible is lost against the incompatibilist. I may have conceded free agency, which is all that they mean by free will, but I have not conceded everything that the incompatibilist includes in the concept of free agency. Their idea of free agency is, in my estimation, far too broad. It is not enough that a person is able to act according to his desires, but, in order to be held morally responsible for his actions, it must have been possible for him to desire any one of the full range of natural options related to that choice.
I have placed free agency in the unimpeded connection between personal desire and the inclination of the will. The libertarian, however, does not recognize this distinction. Instead, personal desire and the inclination of the will are both wrapped up into the singular event “the person choosing.” Understandably then, free agency, for the libertarian, cannot be found in the same location. Instead, it is placed in the unimpeded connection between the person choosing and the full compliment of possible options related to that choice. Chris may claim that the possibilities for how a person inclines his will depend on what sort of person he is. However, by viewing the inclination of the will as nothing more than a figure of speech for “the person choosing,” he loses the force of any argument he may have against the libertarian that a choice from this limited range of possibilities constitutes free agency, free will, or whatever else he or they may want to call it. Any distinction that a libertarian may recognize between natural and moral inability must, for all practical purposes, be a distinction without a difference. Both prevent the individual from accessing the full range of natural possibilities. By accepting the relatively vague notion of “the person choosing,” Chris has opted to play according to non-compatibilist rules. Should the libertarian object that limitations based on nature or the sort of person one is are actually infringements of free agency; should they claim that these limitations describe, not freedom of choice, but de facto determinism, Chris has no strong counter-argument.
The relevant difference between natural and moral inability lies, not in what these are, but in whether or not they prevent a person from acting according to his desires. Natural inability, which interferes precisely at the point where personal desire would otherwise have been translated into action, is exculpatory. Moral ability and inability, on the other hand, account for who or what a person is. This, in turn, accounts for what a person is capable of desiring. If free agency is properly located in the unimpeded connection between personal desire and subsequent action, then moral inability, because it cannot affect this connection, is no impediment to free agency.
To summarize up to this point, I do not view the will as a mechanism for the mere thrill of complicating matters and defying Occam. Instead, I believe that it is better described as a mechanism rather than an ability because a) this description is more consistent with how the Church must have viewed the will when it condemned monothelitism, and b) it provides a more satisfying harmonization between free agency and compatibilism.
In an earlier post, I had conceded (and still do) to the idea that God’s choice to elect whom he elected was libertarian free in a sense that our choices and even the rest of his choices (with the arguable exception of creation) are not. That is because this choice precedes (or is a part of), and, therefore, does not need to be compatible with, the divine decree. Everything else that God does, such as actually doing something about those whom he has elected, must conform to what he has decreed. Everything that we do must and does conform to what God has decreed. That being said, conformity to the divine decree does not fully encapsulate the essence of compatibilism. Against the libertarian, who argues that free agency is only possible in the absence of all constraints, the compatibilist argues that free agency is compatible with the moral limitations of the agent himself. That which applies to one free agent rightly applies to all. If sinners should not be blamed for their sin because they are morally incapable of not sinning, neither should God, because he is morally incapable of doing otherwise, be praised for his righteousness. To get back to the point, my concession that election was a libertarian free act as far as the divine decree is concerned does not imply that it was not also an example of compatibilism. To whatever extent I have portrayed compatibilism as actions that are determined by the nature of the agent, this has been inaccurate. On the contrary, compatibilism simply means that an agent’s actions must be compatible with his nature. Libertarian choice, which can be defined as full access to all conceivable options for a given decision, is entirely possible when all of these options just happen to be compatible with the nature of the agent.
Now to Adam’s will before the fall. Contrary to most Reformed theology, which defines the fall in terms of a change in human nature and a forensic declaration of guilt, I have kept the forensic declaration but have substituted the change in human nature with the removal of the Holy Spirit. Recall that the claim launching this debate was Clifton’s assertion that monergism implies monothelitism. According to monergists, synergism in regeneration is impossible because the unregenerate man, by his very nature, cannot will the good necessary to cooperate with his salvation. The natural man cannot not sin. Since Christ has a human nature, but he cannot sin, it follows according to a monergistic understanding of human nature that Christ must be acting against his human nature. His human will has been so subdued as to be irrelevant. And so we have virtual monothelitism. The immediate Protestant response to this is to point out that Christ and other people do not have the same nature. Whereas other people have a fallen human nature, Christ’s human nature was unfallen. Problem solved.
Well, no . If there is any doctrine in which Eastern Orthodoxy has displayed a better understanding than the rest of Christianity it is in this point of Christology: that which is not assumed is not healed. If there is a substantial difference in human nature as it existed before the fall and as it exists after the fall, and if Christ did not assume the human nature that we actually possess, then his incarnation does not benefit our humanity. It cannot be the case that Christ assumed a pre-fall human nature that is not the same as that human nature, which is currently ours. Yet, to say that Christ assumed a post-fall human nature brings up another problem. According to standard Protestant understanding, which can be traced back at least as far as Augustine, our corrupted human nature constitutes original sin. We can’t very well have Christ being sinful by virtue of his incarnation. Reformed theology emphasized a concurrent concept of original sin, which was the forensic declaration of the guilt of Adam’s transgression upon all who were in him. To address the problem of Christ’s incarnation, I have suggested that we move our understanding of original sin to an exclusively forensic concept. The question of pre- or post-fall human nature is no longer relevant for the simple fact that, in the fall, no such change occurred.
We still have to account for the dispositional difference between fallen man and Adam. While it is the case that man in his natural and fallen state cannot not sin, this could not have been true of Adam. If Adam was created in such a way that he had to sin, then he was undoubtedly ill-made. For the reasons mentioned above, though, something other than a change in human nature must account for the difference. The only thing that comes to mind is to place this difference in the presence or absence of the Holy Spirit. Adam was not created in confirmed righteousness; otherwise, he could not have fallen. Instead, he was created with a nature that was compatible with a wide variety of choices. I do not believe that Adam’s nature was such that he could have kept from falling without the aid of the Holy Spirit; however, this is not a statement against the craftsmanship of his nature. Rather, it is a recognition both of design and of the necessity of the Holy Spirit to righteousness. If the Holy Spirit is necessary to righteousness, and not a mere convenience toward that end, then it is impossible for any created being to achieve an acceptable standard of righteousness without his assistance.
Other than my previously mentioned confusing account of nature determining action when I should have been speaking in terms of nature being compatible with actions, I see no reason why my understanding of Adam’s condition before the fall implies that he had to sin and was, therefore, ill-made. On the contrary, leaving aside the decree of God for the sake of argument, I believe that the choices compatible with Adam’s nature when it came to whether or not he would keep the covenant of works did, for all practical purposes, approach libertarian standards. To put it another way, the fall was among the least determined decisions in human history.
Finally, Chris has been presenting the fall in terms of Adam choosing to do something that, though good in itself, was per accidens sinful. He prefers this over the idea that Adam’s motivation was to do something sinful. I have two points of response. First, assuming that this scenario is possible, what about my account of Adam’s nature before the fall would make it impossible? All options are equally open to Adam yet he falls by choosing an option that is per accidens sinful. The second point concerns my disagreement with the distinction that Chris has made. I do see the theoretical distinction between doing something because it is sinful and having good motivations for doing something that is per accidens sinful. As I understand him, though, Chris is saying that, when Adam fell, he did not intend to sin. But I can only equate lack of intent with ignorance of the status of his action. If this was invincible ignorance, then how is God just in condemning him? As to vincible ignorance, it’s not as if God didn’t tell Adam outright what he expected. We may live in a complex society where we have to do a some digging to discover what is expected of us, but this was not true of Adam. If he didn’t know what was expected of him, then the intelligence of the clay was not substantially altered when God breathed life into it. I do not doubt that, when Adam fell, this involved good motivations towards an act that was, in itself, good. I cannot conceive of a being created by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit opting for pure evil (so Adam’s condition wasn’t that libertarian after all). Nevertheless, along with these good motivations, Adam knew what he was doing, he knew that the action he was about to take was against the express command of God, he had both the moral and natural ability not to act, and yet he chose to sin anyway. The fall was not determined and God was just in judging it as he did.
Before dealing with the content of Clifton’s Vacuous Notes, I’d like to start with a clarification that he makes in the comments section. In an earlier exchange, Chris had offered the following syllogism:
1) It is not the case that the Son might not have existed.
2) Therefore it is not the case that the Son might not have been begotten.
3) Therefore it is not the case that the Father might not have begotten the Son.
This seems fairly straightforward. The point of the syllogism was to clarify what Clifton meant in his assertion that the Father wills to beget the Son. Is it or is it not the case that this willing is to be understood in the libertarian sense such that the Father might not have willed to beget the Son? Clifton, having stated that we have no way of knowing whether the Father might not have begotten the Son, Chris countered with his first premise. I was rather surprised at Clifton’s response. He wrote: “Your syllogism fails from the very first premise: ‘We know, 1) It is not the case that the Son might not have existed.’ In fact, we know nothing of the sort.” Chris’ response was, in my estimation, appropriate. By denying the first premise and, consequently, its conclusions, Clifton had affirmed the possibility that the Son might not have existed. And this is, for all practical purposes, Arian.
But now it looks as though this is not at all what Clifton meant. He writes, “Now this revelation to us [i.e., the Son’s revelation of the Father and of the Holy Trinity] makes it impossible for us to say that the Son might not have existed.” As it turns out, Clifton’s objection to Chris’ first premise is not over its substance but over the fact that he prefaced it with the words “We know.” Clifton’s distinction between epistemic and revelatory claims is, in the context of this discussion, about as unhelpful a tangent as anyone could have devised. Had Chris prefaced his syllogism with “We accept by faith on the basis of divine revelation” rather than “We know” the truth content of his premise would not have been affected. And this in turn should settle the question of whether the Father’s freely willing to beget the Son (per Clifton’s claim) can be understood in the sense that it could have been otherwise.
Still, Clifton cannot be completely exonerated of Arian sympathies until we consider this statement from the same exchange with Chris:
“On the other hand, if we reason that God the Father could not have done otherwise, what consequences result from that? I cannot see but that God the Father's mode of willing becomes identified with his natural will shared by all the Persons of the Trinity. But if that be the case, we are back in the realm of modalism.”
Here we have Clifton stating the negative consequences of reasoning that the Father could not have done otherwise (i.e., could have willed not to beget the Son). However, if he has problems with this point of reason, he must have equal problems with his own statement of faith, “Now this revelation to us makes it impossible for us to say that the Son might not have existed.” You can’t have it both ways. Either the Father could not have done otherwise, or the Son might not have existed. That one of these statements is presented as a matter of reason and the other as a matter of faith is irrelevant. What ultimately matters is whether or not they are true.
All those who accept the truth of Clifton’s faith statement, that we cannot say that the Son might not have existed, must also accept the truth of the premise that the Father could not have willed not to beget the Son. Assuming, then, that Clifton places a high priority on his own statement of faith, he is left with one option. He needs to rethink the connection he sees between claiming that the Father could not have done otherwise and modalism. If the Father could have willed not to beget the Son, then it is acceptable, even required, to say that the Son might not have existed. On the other hand, if we cannot say that the Son might not have existed, then we must accept the premise that God had no option in begetting the Son.
Whatever Clifton means in saying that the Father freely willed to beget the Son, this cannot include the idea of libertarian free will such that the Father could have done otherwise. For that matter, it can’t include any form of compatiblism either. Both theories of the will involve the notion of “could have done otherwise.” The only kind of willing that makes sense if the existence of the Son could not have been otherwise is one that comes after the fact. It is not a willing that causes things to happen, but one that approves of what has already happened. Yet, if this is the only kind of willing that is involved, I must admit that I have completely lost the connection to monergism and monothelitism. When I made a similar observation in my last post in this thread, Clifton responded: “Kevin’s failure to grasp the implications for monergism of Trinitarian person-nature dogma is not any proof that such a dogma has nothing whatsoever to do with monergism. It is simply prima facie evidence of the poverty of his imagination.” However, the issue is not whether there is a connection between monergism and Trinitarian person-nature dogma, but whether this connection exists between monergism and the Father willing or not willing the begetting of the Son. Barring any evidence to the contrary, I maintain that there is no connection. The well being of my imagination aside, Clifton’s response is a simple case of misdirection.
Here, I’d like to move on to Clifton’s discussion of the distinction between “the divine will [which is] the same natural will among all the Persons of the Godhead” and the “personal employment of the natural will [which] is the mode of willing unique to each person of the Godhead.” What I see described here is a distinction between the faculty of the will and the personal use of that will. God, having only one nature, there can be only one will. However, since the persons are truly distinct, both from the divine nature and from one another, there must be three different employments of that will. If I have understood Clifton correctly, then I agree with him.
It seems, however, that Clifton doesn’t think so. According to him, my argument “ultimately must conclude [that] the mode of willing is identical to the divine natural will.” Throughout his discussion, Clifton uses the Father willing to beget and the Son willing to be begotten as examples of the different modes of willing in the Trinity. And this is where Clifton gets confused. He believes that, because I had already rejected his example, I must also reject the distinction he was illustrating. This might follow, except for the fact that, by connecting the two concepts, Clifton has fallen into a category mistake. The question is not, “What does the begetting of the Son say about the personal employment of the divine will?” It is, “Does the begetting of the Son say anything about the divine will at all?” I answer that it does not.
Those who have kept up with this soteriology debate will have noticed that it contains more than one strand. There is the main thesis that monergism entails the heresy of monothelitism and modalism, there is a side bar on personhood and the Trinity, and there is an in house debate on the monergistic side over whether God has libertarian free will and the nature of the fall. You might think that this last strand would detract from the debate or even undermine my own position. And you would be wrong. If a topic is worthy of debate, then that debate must be honest. The ultimate goal, after all, is to determine the truth. It is not to defend one’s position at all costs. And so when my premises are questioned by someone who essentially takes my position in the main debate, I can only count this as a good thing. So far in that strand, I haven’t been convinced. However, in a single comment to this post, which was my latest contribution to the strand on personhood, Chris has managed to demolish the argument that I made in that post. Despite the fact that I will have to re-present my case, perhaps not as effectively as I thought I had done, I still welcome Chris’ contribution to the discussion.
The substance of my post concerned Clifton’s denial of the thesis, “It is not the case that the Son might not have existed.” I was of the opinion, and still am, that this statement implies contingency and, therefore, that the Son was a creature. My strategy was to take the opposite statement- It is the case that the Son might not have existed- and show that the perfect tense structure thereof makes no sense unless it is possible to latch on to a time when the Son actually was not. Clifton had affirmed that the Son has actually existed throughout all eternity; however, the necessity that he ascribes to the Son’s existence is an eternal necessity of the present. I agree with the concept of the necessity of the present, but I do not believe that this type of necessity necessarily implies absolute necessity; that is, it can be true of a contingent being. Extending this type of necessity into eternity does nothing to change this. I believe that anything that is not absolutely necessary, but is contingent in some other sense, cannot be anything other than a creature. It appears from Clifton’s denial of the thesis that he doesn’t agree- an eternal necessity of the present is sufficient. Rather than argue directly against this point, I attempted to take the concept of the necessity of the present, combine it with the present perfect tense of the counter-statement, and demonstrate that this could not describe an eternal being. And if not an eternal being, then a creature. Clifton’s denial of the thesis would then be shown to entail Arianism.
Chris brought up the point that, although he might not have been elected, there was no time when God hadn’t made up his mind on the matter. I may have been able to get around this one by distinguishing between what is actual and what is guaranteed. It’s the other point that was fatal. It had never occurred to me that anything contingent on the will of God could be coeternal with God. But, as I thought about it, however unlikely it was that God would ever will such a thing, I had to conclude that it was not impossible. I’m not convinced that he would be able to create an eternal creature that actually did anything. Creatures, to change or do something, must exist in time. No matter where we plot point B on this creature’s timeline, it would never be able to get there from point A, which would be an infinite distance behind it. An eternal creature would have to be absolutely changeless and motionless. Basically, if God had wanted an eternal creature, he would be stuck with something like a pet rock. Still, I can’t very well approach Clifton and claim that his position can only be true if we posit that Christ is a rock in ways far more literal than Scripture ever intended. I would have to assume my conclusion that willing something into existence entails creating it. So Chris is right, Clifton’s position does not entail Arianism.
This, however, is a technicality based on the fact that Arianism claims that the Son was not eternal. Subsequent forms of semi-Arianism don’t. I am in full agreement with Chris’ own argument against Clifton’s denial of the thesis. “Necessary existence, no less than eternity, is conceptually inseparable from divinity.” I imagine that Clifton would agree, but then claim that an eternal necessity of the present is sufficient. If so, I offer for consideration God’s pet rock. I would also like to put Chris’ statement in terms of possible worlds, to, perhaps, offer another perspective. If Clifton is correct in denying the thesis, then there is at least one possible world in which the Son does not exist. It is conceptually impossible that a divine person would not exist in all possible worlds.
Chris also writes, “Although I’m sure Clifton says ‘begotten, not made’, the word ‘begotten’ is drained of its meaning when he says, ‘begotten, but not by nature.’” I agree; however, I wonder if it may not be too soon in the overall debate to make this argument to Clifton. One of the very points in question is our conception of ‘nature.’ If only we could grasp what Clifton means by it, we would readily see the error of our own monothelitist ways.
One of the benefits of argument is found in the increased ability to be more precise in one’s own position each time it is challenged. This is, in fact, the only way to make progress. Anything less results in repetitious circles. I realize from Chris’ latest response that my idea of just what an inclination is has not been coming across very well. This may also have something to do with Clifton’s charge that I subsume person under nature. I need to make a sharper distinction between what gets inclined and who does the inclining. Related to this, I also need to attempt a clearer delineation between person and nature. In a causal relationship, which comes first? For this, it will be necessary to see both the relation and distinction between the nature and the will.
Chris begins his post by noting a lack of important disagreement regarding God’s libertarian freedom. And I was ready to let it go at that until he said, “I see no reason to posit any third thing in addition to nature and will, so Occam’s razor inclines me to think that God’s libertarian freedom is properly thought of as freedom of will.” This is one thing that I have not conceded, nor that I could concede without serious damage to compatibilism. It is essential that I establish the freedom of all moral agents, i.e., persons, as substantive. True freedom exists when it possible for a person to act according to his desires. Not inclinations, but desires. That a person may not have access to the full palate of possible desires is irrelevant. God’s natural ability far exceeds that of any human. This also goes for the number of things that it is possible for him to do. Nevertheless, the range of possibilities is broader for humanity than it is for God. Though he has the ability, God cannot desire and therefore finds it impossible to do anything immoral. This is not in his nature. Whereas human nature, as such, does nothing to restrict natural ability, God’s nature necessitates him to always do that which is good. This does not mean, however, that God’s nature dictates exactly which option he must choose. The possibilities for good actions are vast.
On the other hand, when it comes to the inclination of the will, the possibilities are not as generous. There is a single option. The will moves in the direction that it is inclined. When speaking of inclinations, we make think either of that inclination immediately prior to the will or of all the causal factors leading to that particular inclination. I have been expressing my view of inclination in the broader sense. In this case, the concept includes desires and along with these the struggle for predominance within morally bipolar beings. Even where the moral struggle is not necessarily an issue, it is possible to include appetites or environmental factors in the list of those things that influence personal desire. However, as long as a person’s choice is according to what he wanted to do, it is free. Whenever a person is compelled to action that is not according to desire, only then is there a lack of freedom.
The use of inclinations in this broader sense makes it possible to speak of their relative strength or weakness. While I believe this to be a legitimate use of the term, it has not been the most helpful in this discussion. Throughout this discussion, I have tried to limit the will to a faculty that is properly a part of the nature. Considering that monergism was saddled with monothelitism in the opening post of this series, this seems to be the only possible option against that charge. In itself, the idea that Jesus had two wills instead of one is purely academic. It should not rise to the level of heresy. As should be evident from this discussion, we have not come to consensus about the proper place of the will. Is it a faculty of the nature, or should it be understood as the person choosing? The answer to this will determine whether, in each particular case, it is monothelitism or dithelitism that is heretical. However, the church did not leave this option open. It declared monothelitism to be heretical. Why? Because it was recognized that monothelitism was intended to introduce monophysitism; i.e., the belief that Jesus had a single nature. Had it not been understood all around that the will attaches to the nature and not to the person, then the connection never would have been made. Either the pronouncement of heresy would have been qualified, or, a consensus being found in the opposite direction, dithelitism would have been the heresy of choice.
If the church was correct in declaring monothelitism heresy, and I believe it was, it must follow that the will is part of the nature. Jesus had two natures; therefore, Jesus had two wills. The will is a faculty, nothing more. So when Chris says that “God’s libertarian freedom is properly thought of as a freedom of will,” I have to conclude there is lack of communication and he is using the word in a different sense. I am, after all, very reluctant to believe that he is a monophysitist. Chris uses Occam’s razor to make his decision between nature and will. Generally, however, the razor doesn’t work when a genus/species or whole/part relationship exists between the perceived options. There are not two options here, just one. Consequently, Occam shouldn’t be too upset if we introduce a second. I nominate the person. God the Father, desiring to elect, inclines the divine will in such a way that the action inevitably follows.
I will stipulate that the act of election was different from all acts of any other person and most if not all acts of God in that, being prior to or a part of the decree of God, it did not have to be compatible with that decree. I will call this an example of libertarian free agency. The Father freely chose to elect with nothing determining whether or not he would. But I will not call this libertarian free will. The will cannot choose at all, much less in a libertarian sense. It is a faculty and not a person. It moves in whatever direction the person has inclined it. And here is where I should have been using “inclination” in the narrower sense. An inclination is that which is the immediate cause of any movement of the will. Put another way, it is the person inclining the will in one direction or the other. In a sense, it is virtually identical to decision. Whenever a decision has been made, the will has been inclined. As there is only one decision at a time, there is also one inclination at a time. The relative strength of an inclination is not a factor. It has nothing against which to compete. An inclination of the will [will as object] is either there or it is not. All issues must be resolved (at least for the moment) by the person before he can incline the will in any direction. Once he does, a corresponding decision has been made. If he does not, then nothing happens. The will is not autonomous and cannot act on its own.
If making a decision and inclining the will are so closely related, why not just choose the simpler option and say that they are the same thing? Why go through all the bother of saying that the will is inclined when a decision is made? Both views allow for the freedom of a person to do whatever he wants to do. The seemingly simpler view does not account, however, for the total depravity of unregenerate man or of the impossibility of God to do evil. In the libertarian view, freedom is not possible unless it is possible for a person to do anything that is within his natural ability. Ought implies can and there is therefore no distinction between being able to do something and it being possible to do something. In the compatibilist view, a person is still free even when natural ability has been limited to what is morally possible. Ought does not imply can. Furthermore, even while the unregenerate man’s moral inability makes it impossible for him not to break God’s commandment, the fact that he is naturally able to fulfill it makes him morally responsible.
For the reasons stated, I believe that libertarian freedom of the will is incoherent. This would be rendered false by counterexample. The libertarian free will of God in election would provide just such an occasion. However, I have no intention to concede such a point unless it can be proven. It is sufficient to say that God did whatever he wanted to when he elected; that election or non-election were equally good and, therefore, unrestricted by God’s moral nature; that God was a free moral agent with nothing, not even his own decree to determine how he would act in this case. But it cannot be the case that his will moved or was able to move in any other direction than that to which he inclined it. A unique case of non-compatibilist freedom, yes, but not libertarian free will.
We can finally get to the part where Chris does claim substantive disagreement with me; namely, Adam’s will. Chris begins with a critique of the necessary connection between acting on an inclination to do something sinful and acting on a sinful inclination. I had written, “the command being both given and understood, acting on the same inclination [an inclination not inherently sinful] cannot be separated from acting on a simultaneous inclination to disobey God.” I am still convinced of the substance of this statement; however, I need to reword it to reflect my further explanation of an inclination. Where (X) is an inherently good act, and (Y) is an act forbidden by God, it is possible that these acts are numerically identical (XY). (XY) being a single act, it will only take a single inclination of the will to bring this about. The question now is what factors or combination of factors that would so incline the will are actually possible. For the inability to think of a better word at the moment, I’m going to call these factors ‘dispositions.’ [These can include anything from libertarian free agency (not will) to the strictest compatibilism.] (X1) will now represent the disposition to do something sinful and (Y1) will represent acting on a sinful disposition.
Worst case: Adam isn’t hungry at all and has no good reason to eat of the tree. He just wants to disobey. In this case, (Y1) would suffice to incline his will in the required direction. We know that this was not the case for Eve, who saw that the tree was good for food. I am not aware of this much information on Adam, so the scenario is possible. Guilty.
Adam hasn’t eaten all day; however, he knows the command not to eat of this tree but decides to disobey. (X1Y1) Guilty.
Adam hasn’t eaten all day; however, he knows the command not to eat of this tree. Eve has eaten of the tree without his knowledge. That afternoon, she presents him with a wonderful fruit pie. Adam, having no reason to distrust his wife, freely partakes. In this case, I am going to invoke the concept of invincible ignorance. ( X1) Not guilty.
Adam hasn’t eaten all day; however, he knows the command not to eat of this tree. Strolling through the garden, he notices his wife putting all sorts of fruit into a basket, including the forbidden variety. Later that evening, she serves fruit salad. Upon being confronted, Adam expresses shock that the woman God gave him would do such a thing. Vincible ignorance. Definitely (X1) and my vote is also on (Y1), though Chris my disagree. In any case, guilty.
Adam hasn’t eaten all day; however, he knows the command not to eat of this tree. His disposition to obey God in this regard ranges anywhere from just under (X1) to none at all. This is essentially the same as Chris’ supposition about his own ravenous hunger. There, he admits that a weak inclination (disposition) to obey God indicates that there is something morally wrong. In Chris’ self example, he is defending the idea that (X1) and (Y1) can be separated when considering (XY). (X1) is to be considered by itself in support of a guilty verdict. We both agree that this scenario could not apply to Adam, but for entirely different reasons. Chris maintains that a weak inclination to obey God, being an indication that something is morally wrong, would be impossible in pre-fall man because this would entail Adam being ill made. His alternate scenario would still have Adam being charged for (X1); however, the inclination to obey God would either be equal to X1 or incomensurable, or it would be stronger with the understanding that it is impossible to follow a weaker inclination. In neither of these options could God be charged with faulty workmanship.
My own rejection of this scenario is based on the absence of a tertium quid. When is ‘little to no inclination to obey’~(IO) separable from ‘an inclination to disobey’(ID)? Let’s keep the narrow definition of inclination. Let us also assume a specific command to be obeyed. There are three situations in which ~(IO) can stand alone. 1) Invincible ignorance of the command. Not possible with regard to Adam: God wouldn’t be that sloppy. 2) Being asleep or otherwise unconscious. If one is rendered temporarily incapable of having any inclinations, it follows that
~(IO) would also be the case as would be ~(ID). [(ID), however, would not be the case, since no inclinations are possible at the moment.] 3) The immediate opportunity to commit the act is not available. This says nothing about what the dispositions would be if the opportunity were available.
In all other cases, not only is the separation gone, but the distinction exists in name only. If the command is given and I understand that I am forbidden to do something that is otherwise good; if, all things being equal, (X1) comes into play, then my knowledge that (X)=(Y) requires me to consider (Y1). There are, again, three possibilities. 1) (X1) is diluted or replaced and I reject (Y1). My will is not inclined toward but is inclined away from (XY). 2) I keep (X1) and accept (Y1). My will is inclined toward (XY). 3) I keep (X1) but never make up my mind on (Y1). My will is not inclined toward (XY). It isn’t inclined away from it, either. However, until it is inclined toward (XY), then it will be impossible for me to commit this act. [ This possibility will either resolve into one of the first two or the continuous contemplation of (Y1) will be replaced with the acceptance of (Y1jr.): I will not actually commit (XY), but I will be guilty of lusting after it.] My point is this: knowledge of the command necessitates deliberation of that command when considering an act that would break that command, though otherwise good. ~(IO) by itself is not a possibility. The deliberation implied by the knowledge of the command must result in intentional disobedience in the event of (X1).
Chris is quick to point out that “X=Y does not entail knowledge of X= knowledge of Y.” And he is, of course, correct. Nevertheless, this does not apply to the fall of Adam. The identity of the forbidden tree was not a secret. God told Adam that X=Y. Having been informed of the connection, Adam cannot contemplate X without also contemplating Y.
Next, Chris restates his position that it is possible to act on inclinations other than the strongest at the moment of decision. I must admit my own weakness here. Although I understand the meaning of the words, I cannot conceive of a situation in which this would be true. My own observation that Adam’s inclination to obey God at the moment of the fall could not have been the strongest is regarded as question begging. I’ll except the criticism. As long as I keep saying no to his yes, neither of us will get anywhere. Chris breaks the cycle by introducing a new concept (or, at least one that I had not picked up on before); namely, ordered inclinations.
We both agree that Adam could not have been created in an incorruptible state. According to Chris, though, he “affirm[s] that they were created in a state such that there was nothing morally wrong with them.” Perhaps one should infer from this that I do not affirm the same thing. I do insist that Adam was not created perfect; however, I do not equate imperfect creation with having something morally wrong. I am willing both to say and believe that Adam was created with nothing morally wrong. Still, as has been the case several times throughout this discussion, it isn’t so much a matter of what a person professes to believe as it is of the logical consequences, perceived or actual of other things he professes to believe. So we should probably look into whether or not my scheme does require disordered inclinations in Adam as he was created.
Based on the more restricted definition of inclination given at the beginning of this post, this cannot be the case. Inclinations don’t even exist until the will is activated. God could hardly have created Adam with disordered inclinations if, by definition, they cannot exist until after he has finished creating him. This is, perhaps, unfair. When Chris made the charge, I had not explicitly restricted the scope of an inclination. So let’s consider the possibility of disordered dispositions.
What then makes for disordered dispositions? They can be disordered when the disposition to obey God is weaker than any other disposition. Remember that on Chris’ account, this is not the case. Adam is able to sin despite the fact that his disposition to obey God is not weaker than any other disposition. I claim that, not only did Adam have a weak disposition to obey God at the fall, but he had a stronger disposition to disobey him. How is this not disordered? Consider the source of the disposition. If God had created Adam with this disposition, then I concede that he was ill made. But I deny that this is the case. Chris, however, will not let me get away with this. He quotes my own concession to his argument, “...if Adam always acts according to his strongest inclinations, then the fall was ultimately necessitated by the way God made Adam and the situation in which he placed him.” Along with this concession, I had also invoked the WCF III.1- God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Chris objects. The secret will of God, with which he agrees, is not the same thing as an unbroken chain of necessary causation. Perhaps, but I don’t see why it can’t be. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to explain the confessional denial that God is the author of sin. On the other hand, if I hold to the secret will of God and do not link it to such a causal chain, then I am at a loss to explain how it is has anything to do with what happens in the world. Either way, something’s missing. Moreover, since I am convinced that the doctrine of God’s secret will is taught in Scripture, I cannot toss it out in order to open up other options. It appears that this causal chain from decree to creation and through Adam’s choices to the fall is within the bounds of the confession.
There is, perhaps, another way to refute Chris’ charge of disordered inclinations that is consistent with the view that the will is never libertarian free but must be inclined in one direction or another from outside of itself. I could steal Chris’ answer to a question that he asks toward the end of his post. He had suggested that we ask what causes the will to choose between two conflicting inclinations. I will have to restate this since it represents an unacceptable personification of a faculty. What causes the person to incline the will in only one of two conflicting directions? “My answer is: in some case at least, nothing apart from the secret will of God.” Since I have conceded the libertarian free agency of God in election, why not allow this for other acts of God or even acts of other persons? The inclination of the will is an effect and so, I must insist on sufficient causation. But it is not necessarily true that inclining the will is an effect. Unless someone can show that this is incoherent, I can deny libertarian free will and affirm libertarian free agency at the same time. Either the causal chain is broken as soon as we move back from the inclined will to the person, or the person was free to have broken it. Nothing necessitated that Adam fall. It could not have been his nature, since the range of moral options was equal to that of his natural ability. Not only was Adam able to not sin, but it was possible for him to not sin. His inclinations were not disordered and he was not ill-made.
Chris responds to my last post in our part of the soteriology debate both in the comments section and in a post over here. I’m going to consider the comment first. Chris is right: my third paragraph is muddled. I believe that the decision is either the exercise of the will itself or the immediate evidence that the will has been exercised. It is not prior to the exercise of the will. I should have chosen the word “inclination” instead of “decision.” In that case, the question is not about any prior restraints on the relative strengths of God’s inclinations, but whether, one of these being the strongest when the will was actually exercised, that will could have been operated contrary to it. I maintain that it could not. To answer a question brought up in the addenda to his post, I agree with Edwards- the idea of libertarian freedom is incoherent.
But I do need to qualify that. Chris goes on in his comment to say that, on pain of infinite regress, there must be something about God’s volens creare that is libertarian free. Despite the fact that I adore the principle of sufficient causation, I’m going to have to agree with this. Something must exist prior to the exercise of the will that is not itself an effect. The exercise of the will itself, however, is an effect that must be according to the strongest inclination. The denial of libertarian free will is not a repudiation of libertarian freedom as such but of the idea that the faculty of the will is ever libertarian free in its operation. It is not, indeed, it cannot be. The faculty of the will has no will of its own. It does not operate anything but is itself operated. [Just as a side note- I believe that there actually was a prior reality such that God could not have not created. I don’t argue the point here because, even if I could prove it, there would still be the matter of why God chose to elect whom he did; and I’m not willing to deny unconditional election.]
And now to the post itself. Chris gives a syllogism for libertarian free will. It is valid; however, the first premise is untrue. God’s nature, N, was prior to his choice, C. So the second premise is correct. However, while a nature can exclude certain options, it does not, in itself, determine between those options that it allows. Still, there was a reality prior to the exercise of God’s will and consistent with his nature that determined the direction in which his will was moved. God wanted to create; he was inclined to do so, and, as a consequence of this inclination, his will could be exercised in no other direction.
Next we turn to my views on Adam. My own syllogism is: 1) The inclination to sin in someone with a perfect nature is zero. 2) Adam sinned. 3) Therefore, Adam did not have a perfect nature. Chris suggests two options for an unspoken premise: a) Adam would not have sinned unless he had an inclination to sin [or sinful inclination]. b) Adam would not have sinned unless he had an inclination to do something sinful. Chris has distinguished between these, but, to me, this is a distinction without a difference. Chris’ explanation of “something sinful” is that which, in itself is not sinful but is made so by the command of God. The desire to eat fruit is a good thing. God’s designating a certain tree as off limits does nothing to change this desire. So far, so good. Absent the command, acting on this inclination is not sinful. However, the command being both given and understood, acting on the same inclination cannot be separated from acting on a simultaneous inclination to disobey God. That is, while it is possible for a person having a perfect nature to desire something that, in abstraction from the commandment, is good, it is not possible that he could act on this unless he were also inclined to disobedience. An example of this can be found in my post immediately prior to this one. When Christ was in the garden, he had an inclination not to be crucified. This is perfectly understandable; in fact, I share it. However, this is as far as it went. He did not refuse, much less argue with the Father. Instead, he immediately submitted to the Father’s will.
Chris’ argument also fails on another point. He quotes himself: “ Since God created [Adam & Eve] good, their desire to obey him was stronger than their desire for what was pleasing to the eye and good for food. Notice that none of their desires is bad. God gave them the desire for what is pleasing to the eye and good for food, and that desire was good. What was evil was their choosing to follow the desire for the lesser good.” He explains that he was using “desire” to mean “inclination.” If it is the case that, in order for Adam and Eve to be created good, the inclination to obey him was stronger than the inclination to have what was pleasing to the eye (a thing in and of itself not bad), then the only way to act on the lesser inclination would be in combination with a stronger inclination. For most trees, the inclinations Chris mentions are compatible. In the case of the forbidden fruit, they are not. Just as the [good] activity of eating is, in this case, inseparably linked to disobedience to God, even so, the inclination to eat is now inseparably linked to the inclination to disobey God. Either way, whether the sin was found directly in choosing the lesser good or whether it was accompanied by the inclination to disobey, the inclination to obey God at the time was not and could not have been the strongest. And if even this one time it failed to be the strongest inclination, it must follow that neither Adam and Eve were created in an incorruptible state.
I do not deny that man was created good. However, the qualifications for good need to be reexamined in light of the context and overall design. The goal for the creation of man is perfection through the incarnation and resurrection of Christ. In the final state, incorruptible will be the standard for what constitutes good, but not before. Had Adam been create already corrupt, he would have been ill made. This was not the case, though. He was created corruptible, which is significantly different. Nor does corruptible imply that Adam’s nature necessitated the fall. To fall or not to fall were both equally viable options. The point of my theory on the Adam’s nature before the fall was that it must have been constituted so as to make the fall possible. Equating this with making the fall necessary is reading too much into it.
Next, Chris goes to where I directly argue for Adam not being made perfect. While I did not reference an Edwardsian theory of the will, I have no objection to the idea that it will not work without it. My claim is that any fundamental change in our nature must be supernatural. Chris disagrees, saying that this “is doubtful when it comes to a change from moral perfection to moral corruption.” But this is part of my point. If supernatural intervention is required for a fundamental change in nature, then God is responsible for that change. It would be against God’s moral nature for him to create fresh evil in someone by corrupting his nature. Therefore, Adam's fundamental nature could not have changed. Furthermore, it appears that Chris has a different understanding of moral perfection. It can either mean not actually corrupt or not able to become corrupt. If the first, then a change from moral perfection to moral corruption is possible without divine intervention. However, this would not constitute a fundamental change in nature. The nature would already have been such that the change was possible. This would only be a change of position and would be no different then Chris’ hypothetical pin. Falling in either direction changes the position of the pin. It was already part of the pin’s nature to fall in one direction or the other whet poised on its point on the edge of a table.
Before the fall, Adam was able to become sinful without supernatural intervention. This would not constitute a change in nature since the possibility was already there. Things are different in the other direction. While the idea of a man in Adam’s position maintaining his original condition by not sinning is possible (if statistically less likely over time), confirmation in righteousness or the change to an incorruptibly righteous nature would require divine intervention. Adam was only able to fulfill the legal conditions for this change under the promise of God. It would be up to God to keep his word by effecting the change.
Even if I did not believe that libertarian freedom was incoherent, that God in some case could exercise it, my theory on the fall would still stand. There is a difference between equal options that a single nature will allow and options not possible given a particular nature. If Adam’s nature were incorruptibly perfect, sinning would not have been a viable option.
On the subject of angels, I agree that they were all created with the same moral nature; that this nature, while it did not determine that some would sin and others would not, made both options possible. In other words, each angel had about the same odds that Adam did.
Clifton and I are in substantial agreement on at least one point in his Personhood Backwards and Forwards and Monergism’s Essence; namely, that the starting point for any discussion of human personhood is found in the revelation of the Trinity and the Incarnation of Christ. We both agree that our understanding of these will inform our conception of a human person. I must disagree, however, with the idea that our understanding of human personhood can always be mapped backward onto Christological and Trinitarian doctrine. To be sure, our understanding of persons as such can be transferred between the three categories of persons; i.e., divine, human, and angelic. Still, even if we accept Clifton’s claim that my own view of human personhood does not match up with this standard, it is up to him to demonstrate that this difference is a question of substance rather than accidents. If this cannot be done, then his claim that monergism’s ‘understanding of human personhood necessarily results in a deficient Trinitarianism and Christology” is false.
Clifton still believes that I identify person with nature, my objections to the contrary notwithstanding. These objections are, he says, mere assertions and not argument. But I have presented an argument, one which Clifton quotes only to promptly miss the point. Part of Clifton’s strategy has been to claim that my views logically entail modalism. [I tried to say that the most he could claim was unitarianism; however, he has rightly pointed out that since I do profess a belief in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then my views, if they are unitarian, must also be modalistic.] If person is identified with nature, then God’s nature, since it is one, can only be associated with one person. Orthodox Trinitarianism becomes impossible.
In an attempt to disprove my claim that the two wills of Christ were always directed toward the same object, Clifton introduced the Garden of Gethsemane in which Jesus says, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Clifton explains, “For if they willed the same thing, then Jesus had no need to deny the object of his human will (drawing back from death), and would simply have acquiesced to the Father’s will.” This makes no sense. If the wills of Christ both willed the same thing, then there must be a numerical identity in the object of those wills. If Jesus denies this object, then he is denying the object both of his human will and of his divine will. The initial disagreement lies, not between the two wills of Christ, but between the persons of the Father and of the Son. This is not a state of affairs that can be maintained when the inclination of one of these persons is put into action and so the Son submits to the Father.
It is true, as Clifton mentions, that the original context of this exchange was the nature-willing schema rather than the person-nature schema. My defense against the charge of modalism is not found directly in my reply itself but in the necessary assumptions behind that reply. By accusing me of modalism, Clifton affirms that I believe God has a single nature. This much is correct. The faculty of the will is numerically associated, not with the person, but with the nature. Since Christ has two natures in one person, then the belief in monothelitism constitutes a denial of these two natures (most often replaced with a single morphed nature that turns out to be neither human nor divine). Within the Trinity, the situation is reversed. Here, we want a monothelitism of sorts because the single divine nature can only be associated with a single faculty of the will.
Keep this in mind: the three persons of the Trinity possess the same faculty. In my reply to Clifton’s take on what happened in Gethsemane, I have gone so far as to claim that, before their will was actualized toward a single object, their was a brief disagreement between two persons of the Trinity as to what that object should be. This happened despite the fact that, by nature, they share the same faculty of willing. Whether or not my claim is correct is irrelevant right now. The point is the possibility of even making such a claim. It requires certain presuppositions; namely, that there exists a distinction, not only between the persons of the Trinity, but between each of these persons and the divine nature. If I identified person with nature, then there is no way that I could maintain that these persons, whose nature is numerically identical, could talk to one another, much less that they could disagree. Now, because I agree that our understanding of divine personhood should inform how we conceptualize human personhood, I map this distinction between person and nature forward onto humans.
This leads to another objection to Clifton’s backward mapping of my views of human personhood onto the Trinity. It is more difficult to demonstrate the distinction between person and nature when the ratio is 1:1 rather than 3:1. It is not legitimate to move from the more obscure to the less obscure. If, confining myself to human persons, I have not been able to demonstrate the person/nature distinction to Clifton’s satisfaction, then he must leave it at that. This is nothing more than a communications failure and there is no warrant in making it contradict what I have been able to show about Trinitarian personhood.
But Clifton will argue that my identification of person and will is proven my denial of libertarian freedom. In fact, he has: “In other words, substantive personhood makes real libertarian free will. If you hold one, I contend, you must hold the other. Obviously, I do not think Kevin’s is a substantive view of personhood, but is, if you will, a two-dimensional construct.” For Clifton, substantive personhood implies libertarian free will and libertarian free will implies substantive personhood. This is rather circular, though. And, no, I’m not referring to the “p if and only if q” aspect of his argument. I had a larger circle in mind. Specifically, this is a premise that Clifton needs to prove in order to make his argument against monergism. I don’t believe that he has succeeded, although, in all fairness, I do believe he has tried.
Let me see if I can restate the attempt. Monergism implies a denial of libertarian free will at least at the point of regeneration. Even in sanctification, which most monergists will agree is synergistic, libertarian free will is rendered impossible by the teaching that the ultimate perseverance of those who are regenerate is assured. Monergism coupled with the perseverance of the saints implies a compatibilistic view of the will. Now throw into the mix an explanation for how compatibilism works, which is that the exercise of a person’s will is always determined by his nature. But if this is true, says Clifton, then, at best, person is identified with nature if not completely superceded by it. I hope that I have captured the essence of his argument. If not, he can correct me and we’ll start over.
Now let’s try another one. Synergism implies the affirmation of libertarian free will, perhaps even to the exclusion of any example of compatibilism. Actually, let’s just get to the point. Clifton has already stated that a substantive view of personhood implies libertarian free will and vice versa. In libertarian free will, the will is not determined by the nature; consequently, there is no danger that the nature could ever supercede the person. But if the will does operate independently of the nature, then I am at a loss to explain the purpose of a nature. It is just as easy to suppose that libertarianism also equates person with nature if it doesn’t practically eliminate the nature altogether. It all depends on how you look at it.
In another thread within this overall debate, I am having a discussion with Chris as to whether or not God has libertarian free will. Chris is a fellow compatibilist, at least as far as the human will and most cases of the divine will. He claims, however, that on at least two occasions, the decisions to create and to elect, God must have exercised libertarian free will. This is because he locates the necessity for compatibilism in the decree of God, whereby he has ordained everything that comes to pass. The decisions to create and elect logically fall before the decree: there is nothing with which to be compatible. I agree as far as it goes. Chris’ account is in line with Reformed theology. It is sufficient to affirm the necessity of compatibilism between the human will and the decree of God. Overcoming agnosticism as to how, exactly, this works is not required. It is, however, possible and, in my estimation, Edwards has provided a philosophically satisfying account. If it is the case that personal action is always determined by a person’s nature, then this is true whether or not there is a divine decree with which to be compatible. The decisions to create and elect, while technically not examples of compatibilism, are also not examples of libertarianism. Despite all this, Chris’ account, if not true in my estimation, is, at least, coherent. He has provided a rational basis for believing that the possibility of libertarian free will in one case need not imply the necessity thereof in all others. And if there is no necessary connection, then Clifton’s backward mapping is once more proven invalid.
The most that can be gathered from monergism is that compatibilism is necessary in the people getting saved. It is not possible to argue that this compatibilism is part of the substance of personhood. At best, it is an accident made necessary by the fall. Not wishing to subject myself to another red herring charge, I freely admit that I do, in fact, believe that compatibilism is a matter of substance and not accident. However, while I may use this to support my monergistic tendencies, it is not possible to derive this belief from monergism itself. I state outright that none of the persons within the Trinity has libertarian free will. So even if it could be done, there’s no need to backward map my views of human personhood. Perhaps Clifton could modify his thesis from “Monergism is heresy” to “Kevin is a heretic.”
In the second part of his post, Clifton considers the essence of monergism. I do believe that the essence of monergism is about God having done everything that there is to do. Still, I must concede Clifton’s point: the practical working out of monergism cannot escape a specific view of the human will. Fair enough. Still, I must insist that this view of the will cannot be backward mapped onto the Trinity. Clifton, if he wishes to maintain his position that monergism is heresy, would probably do better with a more direct approach. I’d be willing to consider as evidence an ecumenical condemnation of the doctrine. As it is, his attempt to connect it with legitimate heresy isn’t working out all that well.
First, a statement of the obvious: my response time is slow. And now on to the post. Clifton begins his third Soteriological Sidebar in gratitude for my harmonization of Gregory of Nyssa and Athanasius. Nevertheless, from what I can tell, his interpretation of this harmonization and my interpretation are two different creatures. My account of Athanasius is this: The Son is eternally begotten of the Father and it is impossible that this could have been otherwise. I did not give any reason to believe that Athanasius taught a “not involuntary generation of the Son.”
Clifton is correct to point out that I place our respective views of the begetting of the Son within the nature/will debate. My own claim is that the eternal begetting of the Son is tied to the nature of the Father. I understand Clifton’s views of the monarche of the Father to be “the idea of God willing to beget the Son.” He objects to this because I shouldn’t be putting it in terms of nature vs. will. The proper place, as he sees it, is in the personal ekstasis of the Father. Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it actually is possible to transcend the nature/will distinction in favor of the Father’s person. I’m still left wondering something. Does the hypostasis of the Father beget that of the Son as a matter of definition or because he just happened to decide on it?
Bottom line- it is not possible to remove this question from the nature/will debate. But, as long as Clifton contends that it is, I have another question. What does this have to do with the larger debate? The subject is monergism and its relationship to the will. A significant ground of my own argument for monergism is the impossibility of libertarian free will. Whatever can be predicated of any person as such can be predicated of all persons. Consequently, if it can be demonstrated that the Father, a person within the Trinity has libertarian free will, then we must allow the possibility that any other person may have libertarian free will. If Clifton can demonstrate that the begetting of the Son is a matter of the Father’s will as unconstrained by his nature, he will have succeeded in shaking my own argument for monergism. Oddly enough, though, he removes the question from the nature/will debate. Which leads me to wonder just what, in his mind, the connection is. Either the Father’s begetting of the Son is a matter of libertarian free will, or, whether as an example of the will exercised according to the nature or not an example of the will at all, it is not relevant to the discussion.
Still, despite his quest for irrelevance, Clifton has not succeeded. The question of the Son’s begetting cannot be removed from the nature/will debate and, despite his objections to the contrary, Clifton’s own explanations place him squarely on the side of will. They also create a situation of far more consequence than the debate between synergism and monergism. The point of my harmonization between Gregory and Athanasius was to show that their use of the will could not be the same. The essence of Arianism is found in the proposition that there was a time when the Son was not. If this statement is true, then the Son cannot be God. If it is not, then the Son must be God.
Clifton affirms the necessity of the Father begetting the Son. He claims that this begetting is, in fact, eternal. This is, as far as it goes, orthodox. However, the necessity of which Clifton speaks is only the kind wherein that which actually is the case is necessarily the case. While this is a legitimate use of necessity, it says nothing about whether something had to be that way in the first place. Every contingent thing is necessary during its actual state of existence. But nothing says that it actually had to exist. In denying the premise presented by Chris in the comments section, that “It is not the case that the Son might not have existed,” Clifton attempts to be consistent with his view of the necessity of the Son’s generation. Even though the Son has always existed, this did not have to be the case. The distinction between this view and that of Arius is that Arius flat out denies that the Son always existed. Clifton does not, in fact, he affirms that the Son has always existed. Unfortunately for his case, however, this is an affirmation that, logically, cannot be maintained.
Clifton denies the possibility of knowing how God might otherwise have been. We cannot know, by his account, whether or not the Father might have existed without the Son. This is wrong. The actuality of the Son’s eternal existence proves the impossibility of the contrary. At the moment I am typing this (which must be distinguished from the moment anyone may be reading this) I am the only one in my immediate vicinity. There is no one that I have ever known for whom I can say with absolute certainty, “This person is currently alive.” From my limited perception of how things are at this moment, the statement, “Human person X might not exist” is true. It is not, however, true of me. I know that I’m alive right now; therefore, it is necessary that this be the case. There is no way that it might be otherwise. Even though I cannot say that I might not exist right now, I can say that I might not have existed right now. There are any number of ways that I could have been eliminated before now. Furthermore, I might not have existed at all. God could have chosen not to exercise the Kevin option. My existence could have been prevented all together.
For any point in my life, it is possible to say that I might not have existed. It is not possible, however, to pick any point from my conception up to the present moment and claim the possibility that I did not exist then. My actual existence throughout my life dictates the impossibility of the contrary. Admitting the possibility that I might not have existed is not the same as claiming the possibility that I never came into existence. Why not? Why is it that the present perfect and the simple past tense are not different means of expressing the same idea? First, I have limited the past tense to my actual existence. But I could have just given some dates. Given the propositions, “It is possible that I did not exist in 1960" and “It is possible that I did not exist in 1980" anyone who does not know me would have to agree. They may make educated guesses, but the possibility of both would remain. On the other hand, those who do know me well enough would also know whether the contrary disproved one or even both of these statement. They are, in fact, compelled to disagree with the second statement. The information content of the past tense is limited by how far back I decide to take it and by the prior knowledge of my readers as to my actual time of birth. The present perfect does not work in the same way. I cannot limit this tense to a particular time of my choosing. Instead, it latches on to a time when the contrary to my existence actually obtained. Despite appearances, the use of the past perfect here is not so much about ignorance of what might otherwise have been as it is of knowledge about what actually was the case at one time. “I might not have been” is a concept inseparable from “At one time, I wasn’t.”
If we affirm that the Son has always existed, then we cannot say that he might not have existed. If we say that the Son might not have existed, then we must affirm that he has not always existed. The denial of the proposition “It is not the case that the Son might not have existed” logically entails the proposition “There was a time when the Son was not.”
It wasn't my intention to completely drop the debate in which I had been engaged; nevertheless, there were more pressing obligations that took my time away. Since I have some of it free for awhile, I would like to continue by responding to Chris' Choice and Sin. I begin with a relatively short explanation for denying that God has libertarian free will under any circumstances and continue with a lengthier and more detailed defense of my contention that there is no difference between created and fallen human nature.
Chris begins by asking why I object to calling God's freedom libertarian. I answer that God's status as a free agent is not at issue; the operation of his will is. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the choice between creating and not creating was equal, that both of these options were so well within the boundaries of God's nature that it could not be a factor determining which choice was made, that, in effect, there was nothing prior to this choice, I would still be unable to say that this choice constituted an example of libertarian free will.
The question is not about any prior restraints on God's decision, but, whether, the decision having been made, his will could have [been] operated contrary to it. The will of any person is synonymous neither with the person nor with the the person desiring. The will is a constituent faculty of the nature. Because there is always a prior reality (i.e., the decision to act on a desire that is within the bounds of natural ability) such that the will cannot be exercised other than it has been, it follows that the will can never be "libertarian free." So long as the connection between the personal desire to act and the exercise of will remains intact the person remains a free agent responsible for his actions. Interfere at this point and personal liberty has been violated. Restrict natural ability and, even though personal liberty remains intact, personal responsibility may be mitigated
And then there is moral ability or inability, which precedes, not only the exercise of the will, but also the personal desire itself. This is where Adam comes in. Persons with perfect natures, such as God or people in heaven, are incapable of sinning. It isn't that they lack the natural ability to sin, nor is it that the connection between desire and the will is broken. Rather, they are morally incapable of desiring sin. Insofar as desire is the immediate and necessary antecedent to the exercise of the will, it is impossible that the will be exercised in a sinful direction if the desire to do so is lacking. The relative strength of one's inclinations is beside the point. The inclination to sin in someone with a perfect nature is zero. Adam sinned; therefore, Adam did not have a perfect nature. Saying that Adam had a perfect nature that was able to sin is not going to work. Perfection in this case, where the standard of comparison is the aforementioned group of people who cannot sin, is an absolute quality admitting of no degree. The most we might say about Adam before the fall is that the liklihood of his sinning was considerably less than that of post-fall humanity. If we do, though, it will be necessary to account for his diminished capacity (or our increased capacity) to sin.
The first candidate is environment. Our circumstances are inferior to those that existed in the garden of Eden; consequently, we are more likely to sin at any given time. Yet, while I will not deny a demonstrable link between environment and sinful acts, I will deny that such an environmental change constitutes the essence of the fall. If it did, then we would be forced to conceive of sin in the shallowest of terms. The only real power in the environment to affect sin is found in its enhancement or restriction of natural ability. Its power consists solely in external restrictions on the exercise of the will. It has no effect on moral ability. A theology that locates the fall in the environment has failed to address the desires of the heart. But this is where moral culpability is located- in that which is immediately prior to the exercise of the will. It only matters that this internal desire is necessary for the will to function. That it may be insufficient to affect the will due to external restrictions on natural ability is beside the point (by the same token, when the internal moral desire is to do good, failure to act is not blameworthy if this failure results from restrictions on natural ability).
There is an even greater problem with explaining our fallen state in terms of environmental factors. One's view of the fall is directly related to his view of salvation. If our sin problem is due to the environment, if it is explained by the fact that, in Adam, we lost access to the garden, then the solution is to change the environment. Whether found in the social gospel of theological liberalism or in the cultural transformationalism of neo-Calvinism the underlying assumption is the same-- salvation is found in the efforts of fallen humanity to recreate Eden out of their natural condition. But even if such a return were possible, I do question the value of a salvation that includes the possibility of falling again.
Our fallen condition needs to be explained, not in terms of the relative strength of our natural ability to sin, but in terms of our moral inability not to sin. The problem of sin is found neither in the environment nor in a faulty connection between the desire and the will. The blameable location of sin is found in the heart before the will is ever exercised. Sinful man, although free to will anything that falls within his natural ability, is actully unable to will the good because he is incapable of desiring the good. While natural inability may mitigate guilt, moral inability does not.
Salvation is insufficient unless it results in the perfection of moral ability; that is, it must result in the inability to desire and therefore to will evil. Because it involves a change in that which is necessarily prior to the will it cannot result from an exercise of the will. The will, because it never has libertarian freedom with respect to the antecedent desires of the heart, would be incapable of so exercising unless the change had already taken place. The only hope for salvation is found in the external and supernatural act of God in changing that which is inaccessible to the human will.
If the solution to the fall must be supernatural, then the cause of the fall could not have been anything that might be fixed naturally. Environment as the explanation for the human propensity to sin is out. And here we come to an explanation of the fall that does require a supernatural solution-- Posit a fundamental difference between human nature as created and human nature as fallen. This is, in fact, the standard orthodox account and one which I was always willing to accept. Nevertheless, as is evident by the fact that we are even having this conversation, I have changed my mind. To see why, allow me to examine the presuppositions behind this view.
First, Adam was created as he was intended to be throughout eternity. That is to say, there will be no difference between human nature as it will be in heaven and human nature as it was created. Salvation is the supernatural restoration of what was lost. The fact that we will not sin in heaven is due more to the removal of the object of probation than to the fact that we will possess an inate inability to sin, which Adam did not have. Had Adam not sinned, he would not have fallen but would have remained in the same condition in which he was created.
Still, this notion suffers from the same problem as environmental views of the fall. Environment is only able to restrain natural ability as far as willing sin. It has no ability to control the internal desire. And if Adam had the internal desire, as evidenced by the fact that he did sin when given the chance, there is no reason to suppose that anyone possessing Adam's nature would necessarily be free of that desire, even though he would never have the opportunity to exercise his will accordingly. The solution to this is to see Adam's probation as a test. If he passes, nothing more need be done. He's just fine as is. If he fails, then his salvation, in order to be eternally effective, must include an improvment on his nature as created. While this is an improvement over the idea that there is no difference between human nature as created and as redeemed, I am uncomfortable with the idea that this difference only comes into play if Adam falls. It's as though the creation of man was such an enormous endeavor that God would need at least two attempts to get it right. This view would rightly fall under Chris' objection that nothing God makes is ill-made.
There is, I believe, a better way. The WCF refers to Adam's probation as a condition or a "Covenant of Works." Implicit in this terminology is the notion that Adam is working, not to retain what he has, but to gain what he does not have. In other words, there is a real difference between created human nature and human nature in the heavenly state, but this difference is a part of God's original intent for man. Salvation goes beyond restoring what man once had and gives him everything that unfallen man could have gained. The end of our salvation is not described by the condition in which Adam was created but by the condition for which he was created.
In securing our salvation, Christ does two things. First, he pays the penalty for sin that is ours due to the fall. But this can only bring us back to our original condition. To gain for us what Adam might have had, Christ must also fulfill the terms of the Covenant of Works. Since Christ has done all that is possible for our salvation his righteosness is imputed to us in justification. However, contrary to what many in the Reformed community may think, forensic imputation is not the end of the story. Even though the declaration of God grants us the right to have our nature translated into a state of perfection, it can do nothing to actually effect the change. This comes about, not from what Christ does, but from who Christ is. He is the incarnate Son of God. The purpose for which man was created goes beyond the perfection of human nature. It is eternal communion with the triune God as a result of being made partakers of the divine nature. While the necessary and logical distinction between the Creator and his creatures must always remain intact, we are, nonetheless, destined for apotheosis.
Even if Adam had fulfilled the Covenant of Works, thereby making it unnecessary for Christ to fulfill it himself or to pay the penalty for sin, it still would have been necessary for the Son of God to take on human nature. The most that we could hope for in an unfallen world without the incarnation is that the Holy Spirit would perform a supernatural work of glorification and thereby render us morally incapable of desiring sin in any form. Yet, while this is a desireable goal, it isn't all that God had in mind. The Holy Spirit is the supernatural agent of our glorification; nevertheless, it is not sufficient to our chief end that he glorify our human nature as it was created. Rather, he must glorify our human nature as it has been united to the second person of the Trinity in the incarnation.
There is, then, a fundamental change in our human nature from creation to final apotheosis. The work of a man, namely, the Federal Head, sets this change in motion. It is not, however, sufficient. There must also be the declaration of the Father, the hypostatic union of the Son, and the glorifying work of the Holy Spirit.
This is as far as I dare go with this line of thought for fear of taking the discussion completely off track. I have spoken of the change that exists between human nature as created and as originally intended along with what is necessary to effect that change. All this by way of contrast with what I have denied, which is that there is no difference between created human nature and fallen human nature. My first argument is this: any fundamental change in our nature, while it may be conditioned by human works, is ultimately supernatural; that is, its final cause can only be found in the direct intervention and work of God. This is fine if we are talking about a sanctifying change. It is, however, an entirely different matter for God to recreate human nature into that which, by design, necessitated sin.
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I am well into writing more in defense of my views on human nature; however, since it is too late in the evening to finish, I will consider this a natural breaking point and save it for the next post.
Chris begins his response by agreeing that "God did not transcend his nature when he decided to create." Yet, he follows this up by claiming that God exercised libertarian freedom on the occasion of creation. Many of God's actions are predetermined by his own word. As an example, it is not an option for God to forgo the second advent. At some point, however, we arrive at a point where God is not so constrained. He could have decided not to come at all. Chris has identified creation as one of these points where God's decision is equally unconstrained. I won't argue the point; however, I do object to calling this 'libertarian freedom.'
My objection is not to the notion that here God is acting as an absolute free agent. It is that this free agency does not costitute an exercise of libertarian free will. The will itself is a faculty. No matter how we answer the question of the relation between person and nature, whether a person must act in accordance with his nature, it is still the case that the person's faculty of choosing is limited by what the person desires to do. [Yes, I could have replaced 'desire' with 'will,' but this is an altogether different sense of the word. In the larger context of this discussion, which includes Clifton's claim that monergism implies monothelitism, I am concerned to identify precisely the kind of will of which Christ has two.]
I do reject Chris' assertion that deliberation does not involve "taking action that might indirectly fix my inclinations upon a final choice." Nor do I have any problem seeing this as a side effect. Chris writes, "When I deliberate 'should I go left or right' the content of my deliberation is not 'should I increase/decrease the strength of this or that inclination of my will?' The content of my deliberation is simply 'should I decide to go left or right?' And it seems I can directly make this decision, without first altering the relative strengths of my inclinations." I won't argue appearances. In fact, I can't recall a time in my own deliberations when I thought of them as "altering the relative strengths of my inclinations." Nevertheless, if it is the case that the will is exercised according to strongest inclination, then deliberation either alters the relative strengths of the inclinations or it is unrelated to the final decision. What may seem to be happening at the moment is beside the point. As to Chris identifying some cases of deliberation as consent rather than choice, I disagree. Deliberation is a cognitive act. Once he has found himself deliberating, it is a matter of choice whether or not to continue. And I fail to see the efficacy of any deliberations that are accomplished before he's aware of them.
Chris effectively demonstrates that if Adam always acts according to his strongest inclinations, then the fall was ultimately necessitated by the way God made Adam and the situation in which he placed him. But that point was already established once I accepted the WCF III.1-"God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:". Assuming that he accepts the confession at this point, I leave it to Chris to demonstrate how identifying such a chain of events (in which the only thing necessitated is Adam's faculty of choosing) makes any less likely the subsequent portion, which reads-"yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."
I have made the claim that Adam's nature before the fall was just that of any believer after the fall. While I doubt that Adam's motives for the act that caused him to fall were "just because it was wrong," it would not surprise me to find that these motives were what we would now term 'sinful.' This would not be possible under the traditional view that the fall involved a change in nature or constitution. But this is no longer true if the fall is seen as nothing more than a change in forensic status.
One reason I have given for denying any change in Adam's nature after the fall is that a perfect nature before the fall is incompatible with the will always operating according to its strongest inclination. Such a will would have no inclination to sin. Chris ends his post by listing possible ways in which " the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [was] more attractive than any other at the moment when Adam and Eve sinned." Nothing he mentions- proximity to the tree when the Serpent came along, curiosity, or the desire for knoweldge- serves to refute Edward's thesis. These can be read as a litany of strongest inclinations. On the other hand, they fail to explain how someone with a perfect nature could have sinned. Chris, as would any one else, may feel more inclined to eat what is placed before him than any thing else. Nevertheless, the analogy is somewhat lacking. If Chris had been told by a credible source, "This steak is for someone else," then his eating it anyway would have evidenced his sin nature. If Pandora had had a perfect nature, the box would have remained shut.
Clifton provides several points to consider in the conclusion of his Till...We Have Faces:
But given all these, to me, logical entailments of his position, then his denial of equating personhood with nature, while genuine and sincere, cannot follow from his own understanding of nature and will. Indeed, if we map these entailments onto God we end in modalism, and if onto Christ, we end in monotheletism. But if Kevin gives up his monergistic schema, and adopts hypostatic personhood, he can preserve that which he seeks to maintain.
Concerning those "logical entailments," Clifton writes, "I am, perhaps, overstating the case somewhat, ascribing to Kevin an Aristotelian notion of personhood that he doubtless will reject. But I wonder if he doesn't see what I take to be the logical entailments by which I reach my conclusion." Let's just say that my imagination does have its limits. His connections are rather weak. Clifton has spent most of his post trying to show that I do equate personhood and nature. He reasons from this that my view of personhood must be prosoponic and then goes on to map such a position onto God and Christ. If I want to maintain my position, then my only consistent theological options are modalism and monothelitism, which, of course, are heresies. Finally, Clifton blames my difficulties on my monergistic schema. If I would just abandon this view then all problems would be solved.
From what I can tell, Clifton's understanding of my view of personhood is colored by an unspoken assumption; namely, that substantive personhood is only possible where there is libertarian free will. He writes:
I will grant that Kevin can make an argument for ultimate moral responsibility for a will that is free only insofar as it is constrained by its nature--though I, myself, find such arguments thin--but I fail to see how his understanding of personhood can be hypostatic as opposed to prosoponic. The person here seems to me to be only in such a way as to instantiate a particular human nature. It is the will of the nature that does all the work. The person, even if real in a certain way, is little better than a name by which is identified a particular instance of a nature.
Clifton is mixing up personhood as an instantiation of a particular nature with a prosopon. At first, the identification of these concepts is acceptable being, perhaps, only a matter of semantics. The substance of Clifton's response to me is an an argument that I regard personhood as an instantiation of a particular nature. Any prosoponic references are to be understood in this sense: as a name for the instantiation of a particular nature. But when, after arguing for what he believes my postion to be, he tries to show that it ends in modalism by mapping it onto God, Clifton has thrown in an unwarranted equivocation for the use of prosopon. If I believed that a nature and a person were the same thing or even if I subscribed to hypostatic personhood but believed that the relationship between the hypostasis and the ousia was such that there could only be a one to one correspondence, this would not be enough to convict me of modalism. At most, mapping these views onto God would result in unitarianism, that is, a denial of the Trinity. While modalsim also denies the Trinity, it offers the added bonus of trying to explain God's manifestation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in terms of various modes or masks. Hypostasis and prosopon are not set against each other in either/or fashion; rather, a single hypostasis manifests himself at various times in one of three prosopa. Whether or not there is too close an identity between hypostasis and ousia is irrelevent to the concept of a prosopon in modalism.
[Clifton also claims that mapping the identification of personhood and nature onto Christ results in monothelitism. This is a possible result, but certainly not necessary. Monothelitism will only be the case if this identification of personhood and nature results in monophysitism. But it could just as easily result in a form of Nestorianism. Both positions begin with too close an identification between hypostasis and ousia. However, while the one starts from the single hypostasis and concludes a single ousia, the other starts from two ousiai and assumes two hypostases. The prosopon is introduced, not on the monophysitist side, but on the Nestorian side. Just as in modalism, prosopon and hypostasis are not set in opposition to one another. Rather, the incarnation results in two hypostases and two ousiai (each hypostasis being associated with its own ousia) appearing together under a single prosopon.]
Clifton's attempt to map my views of personhood onto God and Christ is, at best, backward. Consider the charge of modalism. In light of my interpretation of Jesus' prayer in the garden, this cannot be the case. Whereas Clifton has presented the statement, "Not my will but yours be done," as an interplay between the two wills of Christ- human and divine, I have presented it as an example of the Second Person of the Trinity talking to the First Person of the Trinity. Whatever legitimate criticisms anyone may have for this interpretation, "modalistic" is not one of them. No modalist is going to claim that one person of the Trinity can have a meaningful conversation with another person of the Trinity. In fact, modalists interpret all of the prayers of Christ in precisely the same way that Clifton has interpreted the prayer in the garden: Jesus' human nature is praying to his divine nature. But this interpretation has its own set of problems, which can be seen if I turn the tables and map Clifton's understanding of human willing onto Christ. I will agree with Clifton that willing, of any kind, is a function of personhood rather than nature. Note carefully, however, that I do not predicate the same thing of the will. Willing and the will are not identical. The one is a conscious act perfomed by a person. The other is the the faculty of choosing. As far as I have been able to tell, Clifton's primary mistake is found in confusing the two. He has applied dithelitism, not to the faculty of choosing, but to conscious desire. Go back to his objection to monergism (or, more specifically, to the compatibilist views of the will underlying some forms of monergism) and to his interpretation of Jesus prayer in the garden. Monergism = practical monothelitism. Why? Because, if it is the case that human nature is such that the human will cannot cooperate with the divine will, then, even if Christ technically had two wills, his human will must have been suppressed so that only his divine will was functional. Clifton's solution? Posit libertarian free will. Which is fine except that he takes the concept far too literally. Rather than granting Christ libertarian freedom as to his person, he gives this libertarian freedom to his human will. Thus, when Jesus prays, "Not my will but yours," his human will, instead of being involuntarily suppressed as [supposedly] would be the case if compatibilism were true, submits itself to his divine will in a libertarian free act. This presents a problem. The issue is not whether the human will of Christ had libertarian freedom but that Clifton has even allowed for the possibility. It would be just as bad if he believed that the human will of Christ had compatibilist freedom. These are options predicated, not of the faculty of choosing, but of a person. If the human will of Christ is capable of free submission to Christ's divine will, then, it is not a faculty of choosing but is the conscious exercising of choice. On this reading, Christ's human will has done something that is only meaningful as a function of personhood. In order for Christ's wills to function in the manner that Clifton has predicated- either freely submitting or requesting submission, each will must have its own hypostasis. How this understanding of the interactions between the wills of Christ is not Nestorian is beyond my ability to explain.
Finally, there is the matter of monergism. Even though Clifton only mentions it in the last paragraph of his post, it is the main topic of the series. He wants to identify monergism as heresy; however, his focus is too narrow- specifically, the relation between monergism and the will. In any event, the will does not become a primary factor in the defense of monergism until we get to the intra-Protestant debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. Here, the question concerns the relationship between faith and regeneration. What is the order? For the Calvinist, regeneration precedes faith. In Reformed theology, faith alone is the instrument of our justification. The order, then, is regeneration, faith, justification. This should not be taken to imply that faith is something that we must do in order to be justified. No one who is not justified is saved; however, all who are regenerated are saved. It is not the case that, of the those who have been regenerated, some might fail to exercise faith and thus fail to be justified. This is not so much a temporal order of conditions as it is a logical order of results. Faith, which is sufficient for us to be declared righteous, is the necessary evidence of our regeneration. Regeneration results from our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. We are regenerated because he is risen. This union results in our actual righteousness, which, before the return of Christ exists in an already/not yet state and which, after his second advent, will be made complete. Justification is the legal declaration that this righteousness is the case. Faith is the instrument of the legal declaration and not of our actual possession of righteousness. The actual possession of righteousness is that, without which, faith cannot be exercised. Once regeneration has occurred, the question of our salvation is settled. Because we have nothing to do with that regeneration, salvation is monergistic.
Staying within Protestantism, I'd like to consider the Arminian side. First, though, I need to narrow it down a bit. The term "Arminian" has come to include a broader category than may be historically justified. As a result, it is often used to mean any non-Calvinistic Protestant. This can cover anything from a full-blooded Pelagian to a terminologically challenged Calvinist. Historical Arminianism is synergistic and teaches that it is possible to lose one's salvation. One simply stops doing that which he did to obtain salvation. If that thing is exercising faith, then the explanation for apostatization is that someone who no longer believes what he did believe at one time. The Calvinist, on the other hand, would explain apostatization as evidence that faith was never present in the first place. Having said this, I'm not concerned with Pelagianism or historical Arminianism. My focus in on that group of Protestants who, with the Calvinists, believe that salvation can never be lost, but, against the Calvinists, believe that faith precedes regeneration. [This group can be further divided into those who teach "easy-believism" or "Lordship salvation." Other than noting that the former has some serious sanctification problems, I will leave it at that since what they have in common is more important to this debate.]
It is in reference to this group, and this group only, that the issue of total inability of the will becomes primary in a discussion of monergism. [Even then, there is the question of whether we are even talking about monergism at all.] Within these confines, all sides are agreed that justification is by faith alone. Now the question is whether faith is seen in opposition to works or as the only work that justifies. Logically, the belief that faith is the one work that we bring to our salvation would seem to follow from the proposition that faith precedes regeneration. However, many, if not most, who hold to this proposition would also deny this conclusion. And here is where I think monergism.com is, perhaps, being a bit unfair. On the one side, "work" is defined as that which I do prior to regeneration. On the other, "work" is defined as that which takes some effort on my part. The parameters of monergism can, perhaps, be a bit too exclusive. It should not be a matter of Calvinsim alone = monergism. Even if all the points don't add up exactly, if someone confesses monergism, we should, as far as possible, take his word for it. For, if we are agreed that faith is the sole requirement for justification, we cannot add onto this the requirement that we understand everything that that faith entails. It is sufficient that we have it. When Paul writes that our salvation by grace through faith is "not a result of works, so that no one may boast," he is talking about legitimate boasting.
Where Calvinism is in dialogue with those whose most significant soteriological difference is the order of regeneration and faith, there we can start talking about total inability. Whether they see themselves as synergists or monergists our answer is the same. The unregenerate are dead in their sins and are, therefore, unable to comprehend what the object of their faith should be. They cannot will to have faith because they cannot see what it is that they are supposed to believe. As I said, though, this is an intra-Protestant debate. The end result is that not all monergists believe in total inability of the unregenerate will. Most are quite happy to affirm libertarian free-will. If Clifton is going to attempt a connection between monergism and monothelitism, he will have to limit his critique to Calvinistic monergism. Since I consider myself a Calvinistic monergist, I will not attempt to duck his criticisms of my beliefs based on the fact that other monergists have different views of the will. My point here is that Clifton's explanation for just how monergism is heresy cannot serve as a blanket critique of all monergists. Clifton is certainly free to modify this discussion into the claim that Calvinism is heresy due to an alleged connection to monthelitism. If, however, he wants to maintain the thesis that monergism is heresy, he will have to explain why it is heretical to believe that faith in the finished work of Christ, no matter how that faith is conceived, is the only requirement for justification.
While belief in the total inability of the unregenerate to exercise faith is sufficient to a conclusion of monergism, it is not necessary. That which separates monergists from undisputed synergists is not found in our respective views of the will, for many monergists and synergists are agreed about the will. Monergism is not predicate on a human inability to cooperate with divine grace. It is not a matter of what anyone might be willing to do in order to help out in their own salvation. For the sake of argument, let me agree with the most un-Calvinistic of monergists and deny both total depravity and total inability. I will only affirm that everyone is sinful enough to stand in need of salvation. What is it then that makes synergism impossible? It is this and only this: everything that can be done has been done. As I have stated before, monergism is not the denial of a synergy between the human and the divine in the work of salvation. This synergy is found in the incarnate Word. The triune God has done everything necessary for our salvation. Even if we wanted to contribute, even if Calvinists were completely wrong and the will were not an issue, monergism would still be true for the simple fact that, when it comes to our salvation, there is nothing left for us to do. All of these discussions about the will and its relation to soteriology, Christology, and Trintitarian theology are fine in their own right and worthy of debate. Yet, inasmuch as they do not address the deeper point of monergism, which is not about the will, they have nothing to do with Clifton's thesis that monergism is heresy.