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Divine Determinism: a Critical Consideration Divine Determinism: A Critical Consideration By Leigh C. Vicens A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Philosophy) at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2012 Date of final oral examination: 4/25/12 The dissertation is approved by the following members of the Final Oral Committee: Keith Yandell, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy Elliott Sober, Professor, Philosophy Steven Nadler, Professor, Philosophy Sarah Paul, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Thomas Broman, Associate Professor, History of Science i Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter I: Arguments for Divine Determinism 9 Section 1: Divine Omniscience 9 Section 2: Divine Creativity 43 Section 3: Divine Transcendence 59 Section 4: Divine Providence 69 Conclusions 91 Chapter II: Problems for Natural and Non-Natural Divine Determinism 92 Section 1: Natural Divine Determinism and Special Divine Action 94 Section 2: Non-Natural Divine Determinism and Human Freedom 128 Conclusions 145 Chapter III: Divine Determinism and the Problem of Evil 146 Section 1: Divine Responsibility and Blameworthiness 147 Section 2: That God is Not Causally Responsible (Privative Evil and Divine Permission) 154 Section 3: That God is Not Morally Responsible (Divine Command Theory) 183 Section 4: That God is Not Morally Blameworthy (Theodicies and Skeptical Theism) 203 Section 5: That Divine Indeterminism Fares No Better 246 Conclusion 262 Bibliography 264 ii To Kate, who taught me to take seriously the question, even if she might not agree with my answer. To Keith, who helped me to hone my arguments with his persistent questions and constructive criticisms. And to George, who helped me find the peace of mind to finish this paper. 1 Introduction In her essay “Why Christians Should Not Be Libertarians: An Augustinian Challenge,” Lynn Rudder Baker expresses her surprise at the apparent consensus among Christian philosophers that divine determinism—the view that every event that occurs in the world is determined or causally necessitated by God—is false. She writes, “The apparent consensus is surprising for two reasons. First, rejection of libertarian [i.e. divine indeterministic] accounts of free will would make the solution to certain philosophical problems for Christians very easy.” Baker goes on to mention some of the problems that she believes would easily be solved by a switch to an account of free will compatible with divine determinism, including how human actions can be “under God’s sovereignty,” and how God can have foreknowledge of all future events. She continues: “The second reason that the apparent Christian consensus… is surprising is that there is a lot of room for the denial of libertarian accounts in the Christian tradition, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant. Indeed… recent theories of free-will libertarianism conflict with central Christian doctrines” (2003, pp. 461-462). While Baker stands as something of a counter-example to the claim that there is such a consensus among Christian philosophers (since she defends divine determinism), she is nonetheless right that a majority of Christian philosophers hold that divine determinism is both incompatible with human freedom and—for this reason among others—false. Such a position sets them apart from a considerable number of contemporary theologians, who claim that divine determinism is not only compatible with human freedom but in fact entailed by central tenets of Christianity. In response to the criticisms of philosophers, who object to certain problematic 2 implications of divine determinism, these theologians maintain that such objections fail to take account of some pretty easy solutions. In this paper I critically examine the arguments on both sides of this debate. Although I write in the tradition of analytic philosophy, I engage the works of theologians as well as philosophers, and attempt to interpret them both as charitably as possible. I begin by considering the most common reasons offered in favor of divine determinism, and argue that these reasons are neither philosophically compelling, nor necessitated by any theological commitments of traditional theism. I then move on to consider what I take to be the most problematic implications of divine determinism, and contend that the solutions that divine determinists normally propose are inadequate. While some of the objections and responses to divine determinism that I consider have been offered before, I also raise what are, as far as I know, novel objections, potential replies, and objections to those replies. Of course, I do not purport to consider every reason that could possibly be offered in favor of divine determinism, or every solution that could possibly be proposed to its apparently problematic implications. I do, however, suggest that unless a more compelling reason in its favor or a more adequate solution to its problems can be found, the thesis should be rejected. Summary of Arguments The most common arguments put forward in favor of divine determinism come in two forms, which I call arguments from authority and arguments from consistency. Religious arguments from authority begin with an appeal to some text considered authoritative within a religious tradition. The texts considered authoritative for Christians are primarily the Christian 3 Scriptures, and secondarily the creeds and confessions of faith developed by the Church, as well as the writings of theologians considered “doctors” of the Church. Obviously, the list of authoritative creeds, confessions, theologians and treatises differ from one Christian denomination to another, and are rejected by many non-Christian theists. Moreover, some of these texts are very difficult to interpret, and are used by divine determinists and indeterminists alike to justify their positions. Thus, arguments from authority have a rather narrow scope, appealing only to those who already take the texts in question to be authoritative, and who agree with the interpretation being offered. For these reasons, my main focus in this paper is not on arguments from authority. Still, I point out in various places that my conclusions are not at odds with the central tenets of the Christian faith expressed in these works. While some of the texts marshaled in to support the opposing view—such as certain writings of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin—may seem clearly to support the divine determinist position, I suggest that the actual story is a bit more complicated. Moreover, I contend that much of the motivation behind these authors’ claims, and the spirit of their works, can be captured without affirming divine determinism. While I thus occasionally engage with arguments from authority, my main focus in this paper is arguments from consistency. What I mean by this is the sort of argument that begins with the assumption that God is a perfect being and ends with the conclusion that the world has a certain property—in this case, the property of being wholly determined by God. The arguments from consistency that I consider can be put in the following form: (1) God, a perfect being, has attribute X. (2) If God has attribute X, then divine determinism is true. (3) Therefore, divine determinism is true. 4 “Perfect being theology,” which utilizes this sort of reasoning, is sometimes considered as question begging as the biblical theology that embraces arguments from authority. After all, as even the practitioners of perfect being theology admit, the enumeration of perfection-making attributes proceeds “largely on the basis of intuition” (Rogers 2000, p. 12), and different people engaged in the practice of this theology often have different intuitions about what attributes would make a being more or less perfect. For instance, while most medieval theologians maintained that a perfect being would be eternal, immutable, and impassible, many modern theologians argue that a being who can act in time, undergo change, and experience suffering is much more to be praised. Still, the conception of God as a perfect being is one that is both expressed in the texts of a wide variety of theistic religions, and also agreed upon by and large by theists and atheists alike. Moreover, there is some convergence of intuitions with respect to the attributes of a perfect being, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness—though there are different ways of fleshing these attributes out. In any case, for the sake of argument I grant the divine determinists who utilize this reasoning the first premise of their arguments, that God does have the attributes they claim. What I call into question is the second premise, that God’s having the attributes in question entails the truth of divine determinism. In Chapter I of this paper, I consider four possible attributes of God that purportedly entail divine determinism: omniscience, creativity, transcendence, and providential activity. I argue that one can consistently affirm God’s possession of these attributes and deny divine determinism. In Chapter II, I draw a distinction between different forms of divine determinism. As I have defined it above, divine determinism is consistent with, but not entailed by, a view called natural determinism, according to which every event that occurs in the world (at least after the 5 first moment of time) is determined or causally necessitated by antecedent events together with the laws of nature. That is to say, one could be a divine determinist and a natural determinist— and so, hold the view that I call natural divine determinism—or, one could be a divine determinist and a natural indeterminist—and so, hold the view that I call (for lack of a better term) non-natural divine determinism. Since some divine determinists defend natural divine determinism, and others non-natural divine determinism, I need to consider what the implications of each form of divine determinism are, and whether one might be less problematic than the other. In the first half of Chapter II, I focus on natural divine determinism, and point to an apparent problem facing this view in particular: that it leaves no room for direct and novel special divine action in the world, at least after the initial moment of creation.
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