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THE PROBLEM OF DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM
by Ray Shelton
I. INTRODUCTION
The term “determinism” is from the Latin determinare [“to set bounds or limits”]. It entered philosophical terminology through Sir William Hamilton (1788-1856), who applied the term to view of Thomas Hobbes, in order to distinguish it from fatalism. Determinism is the view that every event or occurance is “determined,” that is, they could not happened other than they did. This view is opposed to indeterminism and to some concepts of free will and freedom. The term “freedom” is from the Middle English freedom [“the state of being free”]. Freedom is the state of not being constrained by fate, necessity or determinism.
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
Democritus (460-370 B.C.) held to a form of physical determinism, holding that causal necessity is the explanation of any event. There is causal necessity governing the arrangements and changes among the atoms. The present situation is the outcome of antecedent situations and the motion of the atoms leading to those situations and from those situations to the present one.
Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) followed Democritus’ views about atoms, departing from a strict determinism in allowing the atoms to swerve slightly and spontaneously from their determined path, creating swirling motions and, eventually, worlds. Relying chiefly on efficient causation, operating through the change of position, collision and conjunction of atomic particles, the swerve of the atom allows freedom in man, and keeps Epicurus from a strict determinism. For this power to initiate a causal situation, spreading throughout the universe, means that it is not possible even in principle to predict the total future. Hence, the future is in some measure open; partly fixed, partly free.
Lucretius (c.99-55 B.C.) followed Epicurus in all respects. Atoms are naturally in motion; and this motion, incredibly rapid, is initially downward and in parallel lines. The atoms have the power, however, to swerve slightly from their down direction dictated by their weight. This swerving allow the birth of worlds and the appearance of composite things. The same power is used by man in mental decisions.
Diodorus of Cronos (4th century B.C.), of the Megarian School, based his determinism on the logical grounds that the idea of unactualized possibility is incoherent. He argued that the possible does not exist either in the present or in the future, since all that is, is real (and therefore actual). Since every proposition is either true or false, a true proposition in the future tense states an unavoidable event, and a false proposition about a future event states an impossibility. Propositions about the past obviously have a truth value that cannot be changed. And it is obvious that some propositions about the future are true and cannot be made false and are about actual events. But if some propositions about the future are unchangeable and actual, why should it be thought strange that all are. Therefore all propositions about the future are unchangeable and actual. And since a true proposition about the future is, at a given moment, about the possible, then the possible is actual; and since a false proposition about the future is about the impossible, then the impossible are not actual. This restriction of the possible to actual Diodorus used in a defense of determinism, since there are no unactualized possibilities in his view. Thus pure logic supports determinism.
Although it is somewhat difficult to determine Plato’s view of freedom, Aristotle‘s view, although recognizing freedom of choice, sees a man as free only when his choices are true to his developed rational nature. Thus man’s freedom consists partly in limitation and partly in rational fulfillment; together these qualities allow a life of independence and freedom.
This view of actions in terms of one’s rational nature is clearly expressed in the NeoPlatonic tradition, and possibly in Plato as well. In this tradition, freedom and automony are related, and this supposes the realizing in the self of the quality of the eternal to which the self belongs in any event.
Stoicism held that the world, including man, is rational determined by universal reason, and it is man’s responsibility to understand and accept his place in the scheme of things. The determinism is both rational and physical, indissolubly linked together.
Carneades (214-129 B.C.), an opponent of Stoicism, added the idea of self-determination to the analysis of motion, holding that the so-called uncaused motion is caused by the person himself.
Hobbes (1588-1679) defended a strict physical determinism based on causal necessity. He held that all reality is corporeal and is controlled by rigid causal laws. Hence every event has a sufficient reason; as part of a causal determined the whole man too is casual determined. In the common sense meaning of freedom, man is not free. Hobbes compared man’s freedom to water running freely in the sea. In an analogous sense man can be said to be free although his actions are determined.
Descartes (1596-1650) was the founder of mechanism. In his search for clear and distinct ideas he concluded that nothing better satisfied this criterion than the concept of the machine. Hence he sought to interpret the world as a machine and he became convinced that he had proved that it was. The French physician Julien O. de la Mettrie (1709-1751) published in 1748 his work entitled Man the Machine. La Mettrie was not only an exponent of the new Newtonian world view but of mechanism which he believed could explain everything, and in particular, man. This philosophy of mechanism was widely accepted and has had many followers since the eighteenth century, even to today.
The most important implication of mechanism is determinism, for a machine operates precisely according to physical laws, that prescribe exactly what the machine will do. That is, mechanism implies that the present positions and motions of its individual parts determine the future positions and motions. Now since the whole universe functionns according to precise laws, then the course of world is determined. For each event there is a fixed preceding and consequent events. As the French mathematican Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827) put it in his Essai philosophique des probabilities (A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities) (1814),
“We may regard the present state of universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all the forces that aninate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom: for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain; and the future like the past would be present before its eyes.”
That is, an omniscient mind knowing the state of the universe at any instant could, by applying the laws of mathematics and physics, recreate the past and predict the future. The destiny of everything is established with a certainty as sure as two times two is four. Mathematics describes this destiny, for everything in the universe is determined by number, motion, and force. In a mechanized, determined world there is no ends or purposes; everything just goes on existing. Ideas, volitions, and actions are the necessary effect of matter acting on matter. The human will is determined by external physical and physiological causes. There is no free will; it is a meaningless conjunction of words. The will is bound fast in the fetters of matter in motion. Chance is also nothing but a word invented to express the known effect of an unknown cause. This is a very disturbing conclusion that even the materialist tried to modifiy its severity. Some said that man’s actions, not his thoughts, were determined. This dualism is not very satisfactory; it makes thinking useless because it can not determine one’s action; man remains an automaton. Others reinterpreted the meaning of freedom, in order retain some semblance of it; Voltaire wrote, “To be free means to be able to do what we like, not to be able to will what we like.”
Or as Spinoza (1632-1677) concluded: freedom is simply a matter of accepting the universe because you understand its necessity. If this is done, one has peace of mind, free from anxiety about what one can not change. Thus Spinoza finds man’s freedom in living under the aspect of eternity, sensing the universal in the particular experiences of one’s life. Spinoza finds it possible to combine this sort of rational autonomy with causal determinism of the most extreme form.
One of the primary characteristics of the Newtonian world view is its determinism; the clockwork universe is determined from the beginning to the end of time. But when Louis Victor de Broglie (1892-1987) proposed in 1924 that a particle of matter such as the electron also has wavelike properties and these waves were interpreted by Max Born (1882-1970) in terms of probability, the deterministic Newtonian world view was destroyed. According to the quantum theory some events such as electrons emitted from atoms in the photoelectric effect can not be predicted. There is no physical law that will ever tell us when an electron is to be emitted; the best that the physicist can do is to give us the probability of its emission. The smallest wheels of the great clockwork, the atom, do not obey deterministic laws. This non-deterministic characteristic of the science of quantum wave mechanics is expressed by the Heisenberg uncertainty relations. These relations were proposed in 1927 by one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976). One of these relations asserts that it is not possible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron. If the electron was an ordinary object, one would be able to determine simultaneously both its position and velocity. But the electron is not an ordinary object; it is a quantum particle and is not subject to the laws of ordinary macro objects. These uncertainty relations follow from the probablistic character of quantum wave mechanics; all the laws of quantum physics are of a statistical nature.
Einstein objected very strongly to this character of quantum wave mechanics, despite the important role he played in the development these ideas. Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize in 1921 for his contribution to quantum theory: his explanation of the photoelectric effect. But Einstein never accepted the universe was govern by chance; his belief was summed up in his famous statement in his letter to Max Born, December 12, 1926, “God does not play dice.” Niels Bohr’s response was sharp, scolding him, “Einstein, don’t tell God what to do.” Both physicists were pretty close to being atheists; it would seem unlikely that either of them would think that a deity sitting on cloud is trying to role a seven. Quantum mechanics says nothing about a deity. What Einstein was objecting to in his statement was the introduction into science of the element of unpredicability or randomness, chance. This for Einstein made quantum mechanics unacceptable. But most other scientists were willing to accept quantum mechanics because it agreed perfectly with experiment. In fact, it has been an outstanding successful theory and underlies nearly all of modern science and technology. It governs the behavior of transistors and integrated circuits, which are the essential components of electronic devices such as televisions and computers, and is also the basis of modern chemistry and biology. The only areas of the physical sciences into which quantum mechanics has not been properly incorporated are gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe.
In the intellectual history of western thought, it is possible to distinguish three different meanings of freedom: liberty, indeterminism, and freedom of will and decision.
The word liberty is from the Latin libertas, which comes from the Latin verb libero [“to set free, liberate”]. The term, like freedom, has two senses: one is the metaphysical capacity to make decisions freely, and the other is the social fact of having a certain amount of elbow-room within society. In early modern period, the word “liberty” in both English and French was used to express both these senses; and this is the case with the French word “liberte” to the present day. In English, although the word “liberty” is used in both sense, the tendency is to use the word “freedom” in the sense of the metaphysical capacity of choice, and the word “liberty” to refer to the area of non-constraint granted man (or which should be granted man) within society.
The British philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) held that in those relations we term causal are the constant conjunction of two or more successive impressions. What leads us to connect two successive events in a causal mannerr is a habit or custom which has developed in us through experience. This is the origin of the sense we feel. A similar tendency to go beyond experience leads us to believe in the existence of substances as the source of our impressions, and their continued existence when not related to us through experience. Our belief in probability and that similar situations will yield similar results, the basis of the principle of induction, goes beyond experence in exactly same manner.
The problem of personal identity, or psychical substance, is in exactly the same case. Experience reveals us to be a succession of impressions, ideas, and emotions, memories and anticipations; and one does not experience a unifying framework for this succession. It is memory which leads us to believe in our identity through time; but memory lapses with consciousness. Consistent with these uncertainties, liberty is defined as action in keeping with our desires or wishes, in contrast to constraint, and not essentially opposed to the idea of necessity.
The English philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) in his striking essay “On Liberty” argues for a maximum of liberty in society in order that new truths, and novel ccontributions in society, not be prematurely crushed. In his work on government, he argues for a type of representative government in which the better educated and more responsible would have a greater voice than other members of society. His concern in both cases was the tyranty of the majority, a force favoring the conventional.
The word “determinism” usually means the view that everything that happens is determined. But the meaning of the word “determined” is not very clear. In the context of everyday usage, “to be determined” usually means “to be decided,” as in “I was determined to arrive there on time no matter at what cost.” But in the philosophical context, “to be determined” usually means “to be caused.” Determinism, then, is the view that everything that happens has a cause. The determinist is simply the person who holds to the Causal Principle in one or another of its forms.
Indeterminism denies that everything has a cause. The indeterminist is a person who denies the Causal Principle in one or another of its forms. But no matter what version he takes, he is at disadvantage from the start; he cannot point at any causeless event, but only point at events for which no cause has been found. With regard to these, the indeterminist can reply, “Not all of them are determined. For many events we have found determining causes, but not for all; may it not be that the reason for this is that they (some of them, at any rate) have no causes? If you can’t find gold, this may be because it escape your scrutiny, or it may be also because there is none to be found.”
This is the conclusion that some indeterminist have drawn from the scientific developments in the science of quantum wave mechanics such as Heisenberg’s “Principle of Indeterminancy,” that indeterminism holds even there. As to events in the higher inorganic physical realm, the indeterminist is likely to leave these to the determinist. He says, “Maybe the path of projectiles and planets is determined, but with events on a higher level it is otherwise. This is particularly true of human behavior. There is surely no conclusive evidence for determinism in the realm of human actions. We have never found any exceptionless generalizations about human actions, and those that have been formulated are so vague and general that almost any kind of behavior could occur without falsifying them. Human behavior is predictable to only a very small degree. The 99.99 percent that we can’t predict may, as the determinist says, be due to the complexity of the causes, but it may also due to a genuine indeterminism in human beings themselves. If this is true, then even a complete knowledge of the causal factors influencing a person would not enable us to predict whether, in a situation of choice, he would choose A or B. That decision remains free.”
One might object that if there is no conclusive evidence for determinism in the realm of human actions, neither is there evidence against it. Then why does the indeterminist continue to reject the determinism? The chief motive underlying this rejection, in almost every case, is the belief that human beings have freedom of choice — “free will” is the usual term for it — and that if determinism were true, then they would not have freedom. Not all human actions are free, of course, but (according to the indeterminist) some are. If you are faced with a difficult moral choice, between two alternatives, A and B, then morality makes no sense unless you are really free to choose between them. Freedom of choice is the most precious of human possessions. Determinism, if it were true, would make freedom impossible. Determinism, therefore, is false, for free-will does exist.
Now a careful analysis of decision reveals that every act of decision involves three elements:
(a) the agent making the decision,
(b) the alternatives to be decided between, and
(c) a criterion to decide by.
The third element of every decision, the criterion by which the choice is made, means that every human decision involves a reference to a criterion in or beyond the self. In other words, behind every human decision as to what a person should do or think, there must be a reason. And the ultimate reason for any decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person’s god. In this sense, every man must have a god, that is, an ultimate criterion of decision. Thus in the very exercise of his freedom, decision, man shows that he is such a being that must necessarily appeal to an ultimate criterion, a god. In fact, his every uncoerced decision implies this ultimate criterion.
From this point of view, no man is an atheist in the basic meaning of that word (that is, no god). Every man must have a god. Man is a religious animal who must necessarily have some object of ultimate allegiance and trust which functions as his guide of truth and his norm of conduct. Every man must choose a god. Though free to adopt the god of his choice, no man is free to avoid this decision. Every attempt to do so turns out to be not a denial of having a god but an exchange of gods. Every man must choose and have a god. To ask whether one believes in the existence of God is to completely misunderstand the issue. The issue is not whether one should choose between theism or atheism, that is, to believe in the existence of God or not, but whether one should choose this god or that god as the true God. Atheism wants you to believe in his god and his god is that God does not exist.
Since everyone must have a god, the crucial question for every man is: Which god is the true God? Or to put the question differently: How are we to distinguish between the one true God, on the one hand, and the many false gods on the other?
In other words, by what means can we determine which of all possible gods are pretenders and which is the true one? The clue to the answer to these questions may be found in a further analysis of freedom.
As we have already seen, every man by the structure of his freedom must have a god. That is, in every one of his choices a person must necessarily appeal to some criterion by reference to which the decision is made. And the ultimate criterion by which a person makes his choices is his god. Clearly then the choice of one’s god is the most basic and fundamental choice that a man can make, it lies behind and is presupposed by every other decision as to what a man will do or think; it is clearly the most important exercise of his freedom.
What should one choose as his ultimate criterion of decision? Negatively, he should not choose that as his ultimate criterion
which will deny, destroy or limit the very freedom of choice by which it is chosen. And positively, he should choose that ultimate criterion which will enhance and fulfill that freedom. Any ultimate criterion that denies or takes away the very freedom of choice by which it is chosen cannot be the true God. The choice of such an ultimate criterion is a contradiction of man’s basic freedom of choice; such a god is fatal to man’s freedom.
By freedom, we do not mean purposeless caprice or chance, indeterminism, but rather the ability of choice, freedom of will and decision, self-determination. Neither is this freedom an abstract entity, “freedom-in-general,” Freiheit, but rather the concrete decision of someone, of a free agent. The most appropriate word for such a being who has such freedom is the word “person.” A person is a being that is self-determining, not determined, who has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. A person is to be distinguished from a non-person, a thing, an “it”, a being that is determined, not self-determining, that has no freedom, no free will, no ability to choose.
A god that is a thing has less freedom than the person who chooses it as his god. Such a god does not have as much freedom as the one who chooses it to be his god. Now a god who does not have at least the freedom that man himself has cannot be the true God. It cannot do any more for them than they can do for themselves. Such a god is only the projection of the whims and fancies of its worshippers because it is in reality inferior to them. As a minimum criterion, therefore, a god can be recognized as a false god if it has less freedom than man himself. To choose such a god as one’s ultimate criterion of choice would be a denial of one’s freedom of choice and the worst kind of bondage. Thus having used his freedom to give this god his ultimate allegiance, the worshipper finds his freedom denied to the point of extinction and himself bound in a miserable slavery. As long as the false god remains his ultimate criterion of decision, he will not have the grounds for rejecting that god, since that god has not allowed him to have freedom of choice to do so. His power of choice having been effectively taken away from him, he is unable to reject the false god and free himself from its bondage. The commitment to such a god is the denial of human freedom. Therefore, a false god can also be recognized by the effect that it has upon the freedom of the one who gives it his allegiance; it limits the freedom and puts into bondage the one who chooses it as his god. The true God, on the other hand, sets free the one committed to him and fulfils and enhances his freedom. The true God must be at least a person in order to have at least as much freedom as the one who chooses Him as his god. But the true God must not only be a person, He must also have unlimited freedom if He is to be able to do the things He promises and to deliver the one who cries to Him in trouble and need. A god without unlimited freedom might not be able to keep his promises or to save the one who cries to him. Therefore, a god that does not have unlimited freedom must be a false god. The true God, on the other hand, has unlimited freedom; He can do whatever He pleases (Psa. 115:3; 135:6); He can save when He is called upon (Isa. 43:11; 45:15-17). The true God, therefore, is a person (or persons) with unlimited freedom.
It is this knowledge of what the true God must be like that lies behind all primitive religions, with their anthromorphic gods. Primitive man knows what a god must be like in order for it to be the true God. This knowledge derived intuitively from the nature of his freedom makes him uneasy about the things that he worships as god. He knows that the true God must be a living God. But having failed to encounter such a God, he fills the vacuum with what he imagines to be a facsimile of Him. And since the highest living being he knows is himself, he makes gods in his own image. He also knows that the true God must be a God of unlimited power, not limited like himself. He therefore identifies these anthropomorphic creations with the powerful forces that he sees in the physical world about him. Beyond the simple and profound suspicion that such a God does exist, he is at the end of his knowledge (“…whom ye ignorantly worship…” Acts 17:23 KJV).
In what way can man find any additional knowledge of the true God? In the same way in which he gets knowledge about another person: by what the other person says and does. But the initiative lies with the other person. If he remains silent and inactive, no knowledge is available in addition to the fact that he is there. Therefore, if man is to know anything additional about the true God, God must take the initiative and reveal Himself in word and/or deed. And the true God has taken the initiative and has revealed Himself in word and deed. The Bible is a record of the “words and the mighty acts of God.” The true God is not silent and He is not inactive; He has spoken and He has acted. This is recorded for us in a book, the Bible. And we know that these are the words and deeds of the true God because they are the words and the acts of a God who is a personal being and has unlimited freedom and power. The God who is revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is the living God who created all things.
(The living God – Joshua 3:10; I Sam. 17:26; Psa. 84:2; Jer. 10:10; Matt. 16:16; Acts 14:15; I Thess. 1:9; I Tim. 3:15; Heb. 10:31;
The Creator – Gen. 1:1; 2:3-4; Ex. 4:11; Neh. 9:6; Job 38:4; Psa. 90:2; 102:25; 104:1-5,24; Isa. 40:28; 44:24; 45:11-12,18; 48:12-12; Jer. 10:11-12; John 1:1-3; Acts 17:24; I Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2,10; 11:3; Rev. 4:11).
Because He is a person, He is alive; and because He has unlimited freedom, He is the all powerful Creator of all things. The God of the Bible is the true God, and all other gods are false.
There are two forms of theological determinism: the Augustinian doctrine of predestination and the doctrine of original sin. The doctrine of original sin lays the basis and provides the presupposition of the doctrine of predestination.
This system of theological determinism was developed by Aurelius Augustine (354-430 A.D.), bishop of Hippo in North Africa near Carthage. The doctrine of original sin was developed during the course of Augustine’s controversy with the British monk Pelagius. Pelagius claimed that man was created with free will and was able to earn salvation or eternal life by the merits of his good works. Augustine attacked this view of salvation by pointing out that the free will with which man was created had been lost when the first man, Adam, sinned, the first or original sin, and this original sin was passed unto all of Adam’s descendants as a corrupted or sinful nature. As the result of this sinful nature all men since Adam cannot do any good work to earn salvation or eternal life. All men have sinned and “is not able not sin” [non posse non pecare]. Augustine interpreted the verse in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans (5:12) to teach that all men sinned in Adam. Augustine based this interpretation on a mistranslation from Paul’s Greek original of this verse into the old Latin. Augustine taught that through the sacraments (baptism, the Lord’s Supper) man can receive the grace of God which will overcome the sinful nature and enable the man who receives this grace to earn salvation or eternal life by the merits of his good works. Not all men choose to receive this grace because God has not chosen all men to be saved. Only those that God has chosen to be saved (the elect) will receive a prevenient grace which allows the receiver of this grace to choose to receive the grace of the sacraments. By God’s sovereign choice He chooses who will be saved and who will be left to the consequences of the sinful choices, eternal death and hell. Predestination was the implimentation of this sovereign choice of God; God brings about what he willed in eternity. From all eternity God knew all things which He was to make. He does not know them because He has made them, but rather the other way around: God first knew the things of creation though they came into being in time. The species of created things have their ideas or rationes seminales in the things themselves and also in the Divine Mind as rationes aeternae. God from all eternity saw in Himself, as possible reflections of Himself, the things which He could create and would create. He knew them before creation as they are in Him, as Exemplar, but He made them as they exist, that is, as external and finite reflections of His divine essence. Since God did nothing without knowledge, He foresaw all that He would make, but His knowledge is not distinct acts of knowledge, but “one eternal, immutable and ineffable vision.” In virtue of this eternal act of knowledge, of vision, to which nothing is past or future, God sees, “foresees,” even the free acts of men, knowing them “beforehand.” Thus God predestinates all things, including the salvation of the elect.
During the Middle Ages this strict theological determinism was modified. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) viewed God as the primary cause of all things, but in the world that God has created there operates secondary causes. But there are two kinds of secondary causes: those that are natural and necessary, and those which are voluntary and contingent. Thus there is free will and it is compatible with the foreknowledge of God and His causation of all things. Also Aquinas reinterpreted the doctrine of original sin; in his act of original sin Adam did not receive a corrupt or sinful nature, but only lost the original righteousness that he had by creation. All of Adam’s descendants are born without this original righteousness and without righteousness man cannot merit eternal life. The Augustinians called this semi-Pelagenism.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) opposed Erasmus (1467-1536) who had argued for free will on the basis that Church doctrine required it. Luther argued that the will of man is in bondage and that only God can set him free from this bondage. Luther limited predestination to salvation and allowed that man had freedom of will in matters not pertaining to salvation.
John Calvin (1509-1564) stated the doctrine of predestination with an Augustinian interpretation, but reinterpreted grace as unmerited favor and modified it to emphasize the place of faith. The followers of Calvin carried out the logic of Calvin’s views. This development reached a climax in Calvinism/Arminianism theological controversy. This controversy began in the early seventeenth century when a Dutch theologian named Jacob Hermann (1560-1609), better known by the Latin form of his last name, Arminius, tried to show the unscriptural character of some aspects of the dominate Calvinistic theology of his day. His disciples, called Arminians and Remonstrants, several years after Arminius’ death, expanded his doctrines into five main points known as the Five Points of Arminianism. The Arminians presented to the Dutch Parliament a Remonstrance, a carefully written protest against the Calvinistic or Reformed Faith, and a National Synod of the Dutch Church was convened in Dort in 1618 to examine the teachings of Ariminius. After 154 sessions, which lasted seven months, the Five Points of Arminianism were found to be heretical. The Synod of Dort reaffirmed the Calvinistic theology as consistent with Scripture, and formulated a summary of Calvinistic theology known as The Five Points of Calvinism. These have been set forth in the form of an acrostic, forming the word TULIP.
The following are the “Five Points” of Calvinism:
1. T – Total Depravity or Total Inability
2. U – Unconditional Election
3. L – Limited Atonement
4. I – Irresistible Grace
5. P – Perseverance of the Saints
These present the fundamentals of the theological system known as Calvinism. They form a coherent and logically consistent system of theology. Given the acceptance of the first point, Total Inability, the other “Points” follow logically and necessarily. Since all men are unable to save themselves because of their sinful nature (Total Inability), then God must sovereignly choose who will be saved and who will not be saved (Unconditional Election). And since only the ones chosen (the Elect) must have their sins atoned for if they are to be saved, Christ need die only for the sins of the Elect (Limited Atonement). And since the Elect can do nothing because of their sinful nature to turn to Christ and receive His atonement for their sins, God alone in His grace can overcome the resistance of their wills and give them a new nature by which they willingly receive Christ’s atonement (Irresistible Grace). In order to guarantee that all of the Elect will finally be saved, God sovereignly keeps the Elect from doing anything by which their salvation may be lost (Perseverance of the Saints or The Eternal Security of the Believer).
Arminius rejected the Unconditional Election of the Five Points as unscriptural. He argued that God chooses those to be saved whom he foreknew would believe in Christ. According to Arminius election is conditional; God’s choice is conditioned by His foreknowledge of whom will believe. Calvinists reject this Conditional Election arguing that God foreknows only what He has sovereignly willed to take place. They argued that everything that takes place including the choices of man was immutably determined and fixed by God in eternity, and that all that happens is nothing but what He had ordained to be before anything was created. God’s foreknowledge then depends upon the purpose and plan of God and that God foreknows only what he has willed to take place. Arminians reject this determinism arguing that it leaves no place for man’s free will which God gave to man when He created him, and also it makes God the cause of sin and evil in the world. The Calvinist attempt to counter this argument by replying that sin is caused directly by man and the evil in the world is caused by Satan and his fallen angels; God is therefore not responsible for sin and evil. God wills only the good, because His nature is good, not evil or sinful. “But,” the Arminians asks, “where did the evil and sin come from? If God wills everything, then God must have willed the evil and sin.” The Arminians argue that man and the angels must have free will and that sin and evil are caused by the wrong choices which they make by the exercise of their free wills. Thus sin and evil is not caused by God but by those beings that God has created with free will.
Arminius did not reject the Total Depravity or Total Inability of the Five Points. He believed profoundly in original sin, understanding that the will of natural fallen man is not only maimed and wounded, but that it is entirely unable, apart from prevenient grace, to do any good thing. He believed that by the fall man has lost his free will and his nature has become corrupt or sinful. Man is thus totally unable to do anything to merit salvation. His followers have not always agreed with him on this point, and have modified the doctrine of original sin to teach that man since the fall is partially unable to do any good thing. In order to allow for man’s free will, they teach that man’s sinful nature does not determine his choices, but is only a tendency to sin. The sinful nature only hinders man from doing the good.
Arminius also rejected the Limited Atonement of the Five Points as unscriptural. Christ’s atonement is unlimited. He understood such scriptures that say “he died for all” (II Cor. 5:15; compare II Cor. 5:14; Titus 2:11; I John 2:2) to mean what they say. Some Calvinists, such as the Puritan John Owens, argue that the “all” means only all of those who have been elected to be saved. Arminius also rejected the Irresistible Grace of the Five Points, arguing that saving grace can be resisted and rejected. Since some men have resisted God’s saving grace and rejected it, these men are lost and not saved. They are not saved because God did not choose them but because they did not choose God; they resisted and rejected the saving grace of God. Arminius also rejected the Perseverance of the Saints of the Five Points arguing that since the believer still has free will after conversion, he could reverse his decision of faith in Christ and reject Christ, and thus loose his salvation and be eternally lost.
The following are the “Five Points” of Arminianism:
1. Partial Depravity or Tendency to Sin
2. Conditional Election
3. Unlimited Atonement
4. Resistible Grace
5. Conditional Security of the Believer
It may seem from the above discussion that Arminianism is defined by way of negation of Calvinism. And in some cases this may be true. But Arminius’ view was based on a positive affirmation that all men are free moral agents both before and after conversion. This conviction has been called Pelagian by Calvinists. Arminianism is not Pelagian; it does not teach salvation by works any more than Calvinism does. Although it does not reject salvation by works in the same way as Calvinism does, Arminianism still does rejects salvation by works. It rejects salvation by works because man’s works fall short of the divine standard of holiness and therefore man cannot be saved by them. Calvinism, on the other hand, rejects salvation by works on a different basis: because of his sinful nature man is not able to earn salvation.
Click HERE to read an evaluation of Calvinism and Arminianism.
Both Calvinism and Arminianism see the need for salvation in legalistic terms. They believe that man needs to be saved because he is a guilty sinner and a sinner by nature. Although disagreeing over the doctrine of Total Depravity, they both hold to a doctrine of the sinful nature. But even here they understand the sinful nature differently. Calvinism defines it in such a way that man cannot do anything to save himself and thus God must sovereignly choose who will be saved and who will be lost (Unconditional Election). Arminianism defines the sinful nature in such a way to allow for man’s free will and thus as only a tendency to sin and a hindrance to doing good. In order to allow for man’s free will, they teach that man’s sinful nature does not determine his choices, but it is only a tendency to sin. The sinful nature only hinders man from doing the good; thus man falls short of divine perfection, the holiness of God. But in spite of these difference they both see that man needs to be saved because he is a guilty sinner, a sinner by nature. But according to the Scriptures man does not sin because of a inherited sinful nature, but because of spiritual death received from Adam.
“12 Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, because of which all sinned: — 13 for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of him who was to come.” (Rom. 5:12-14 ERS).
Man’s nature is not sinful or good, but is what he choose it to be; if he chooses a false god as his ultimate criterion of his choices, his choices will be sinful. Since men are spiritually dead, that is, not spiritually alive in a personal relationship to God, they will choose a false god as their ultimate criterion of their choices of how they will think or act. God opposes man’s basic sin of idolatry and the sins that follow from it; this opposition is the wrath of God. And if a man continues to serve his false god, refusing the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, he will receive eternal death, the wages of this slavemaster. This has nothing to do with merit or demerit, nor with the execution of justice in paying the penalty for law breaking. Romans 6:23 is about the slavery of sin and its consequences; the word “sin” in the singular there refers not to the sinful nature but to sin as a slavemaster, who pays the wages of eternal death. And this eternal death is not the penalty of sin, but is the wages paid by sin as a slavemaster.
“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23).
Sin as a slave master is the false god that a man chooses as his ultimate criterion of all his choices. Thus all men sin in choosing a false god and from this false god as their slavemaster they receive the wages of this slavemaster, eternal death. God does not choose just some to be saved, leaving the rest to be damned. But each man chooses his god and lord; if he chooses a false god that becomes his slavemaster, then he will receive the consequence of that choice, eternal death. But if he chooses to receive the true God as his God and His gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, His Son, acknowledging Him as his Lord, he is saved. God has chosen to save all men, if they will receive that salvation. God has not chosen just a few to be saved, but all men. But not all men will be saved, not because God has not chosen them, but they have not chosen Him. Each man must make his own choice of which god he will have as his ultimate criterion of choice, to be his god and lord. God does not make that choice for him. In the preaching of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of the spiritually blind and sets their wills free from the slavery of sin to their false god, so that they can choose the true God. Then if they refuse to choose the true God and to receive His gift of life, they are left in spiritual death and in their sin.
The slavery of sin is not a sinful nature but the choices made in following a false god; it is not a determinism by one’s nature but the self-determinism by one’s personal choice according to one’s false ultimate criterion. And salvation is not a determinism by God that overrides the determinism of the sinful nature. God’s sovereignty in salvation is not a determinism but the setting of man free from the bondage of sin to a false god so that he is free to choose the true God. Biblical theology is not deterministic in either sense. Calvinism misinterprets God’s sovereignty deterministically in such passages of Scripture as Rom. 8:29.
“Those whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
The Greek verb here translated “foreknew,” proginosko, means “to know beforehand.” It is used in general to refer to knowledge that is previously had (Acts 26:5; II Pet. 3:17). The Greek verb is used only 5 times in New Testament, two times in the letter to the Romans; here in Rom. 8:29 about believers and in Rom. 11:2 about Israel. The fifth occurrence is in I Pet. 1:20 about Christ “having been foreknown before the foundations of the world.” The Greek noun, prognosis, translated “foreknowledge,” occurs twice in the New Testament, in Acts 2:23 about Christ and in I Pet. 1:2 about believers as the elect or chosen ones. Paul uses the verb here to refer to God’s knowledge of believers before they knew God. It is equivalent to choosing beforehand someone as God did Israel (Rom. 11:2). It does not refer to the omniscience of God whereby God knows all things before they happen. Paul is here talking about God’s personal knowledge and not His objective knowledge of all things. The Greek verb here translated “foreordained,” proorizo, literally means “to set boundaries beforehand,” hence, “to decide upon beforehand, to appoint, designate, and choose beforehand.” It is used 6 times in the New Testament, twice in chapter 8 of Romans (in verses 29 and 30) twice in Ephesians 1 (in verses 5 and 11), Acts 4:28 and I Cor. 2:7. In none of these places does it mean a causal determinism that makes free will impossible. As Paul says in Eph. 1:11, God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Although some theologians have interpreted these words as teaching such causal determinism, Paul’s choice of words do not say that all things are causally determined by God. The translation of this Greek verb proorizo as “predistined” makes Paul seem to teach this determinism.
Calvinism is wrong in interpreting the slavery of sin as a determinism of the sinful nature and Arminianism is wrong in not taking the slavery of sin seriously in their stress on the freedom of the will. Neither of them recognize the Biblical truth that the basic sin is idolatry and that man sins in choosing a false god as his ultimate criterion of all his decisions because he is spiritually dead. They both distort the Biblical theology of salvation in their dispute about man’s free will. Salvation is neither a monergism on God’s part nor a monergism on man’s part; it is the free gift by grace on God’s side that is received through faith on man’s side.
“8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it [salvation] is the gift of God; 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9 ERS).
But the Scriptures do teach that Adam as the head of the human race brought spiritual and physical death on the whole human race (Rom. 5:12-19; I Cor. 15:21-22); but this was not a punishment for the sins of the human race, neither personally for their own sins nor as a participation in Adam’s sin ( Rom. 5:13-14). Neither does the Scriptures teach that man inherited a corrupt or sinful nature from Adam. On the contrary, the Scriptures teaches that man inherited death, spiritual and physical, from Adam ( Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22). And according to Rom. 5:12d (“because of which [death] all sinned” ERS) all men sin because of death (“the sting of death is sin”, I Cor. 15:55-56). And this death is not the sinful nature. These are two totally different concepts. The sinful nature is the nature of man that is sinful and the nature of man is what man is – that which makes man what he is and what he does. The nature of anything is that essence of the thing that determines what it is and how it acts. The sinful nature is that nature of man, and because it is sinful, makes him sin. Death, on the other hand, is a negative relationship of separation. Physical death is the separation of man’s spirit from his body, spiritual death is the separation of man’s spirit from God, and eternal death (“the second death,” Rev. 20:14) is the eternal separation of man from God. Spiritual death is the opposite of spiritual life, which is to know personally the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:3). That is, spiritual death is not to know personally the true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. Knowledge is a relationship between the knower and that which is known; it is not a nature nor the property of a nature. Now it should be clear that spiritual death is not the sinful nature; it is a negative relationship between man and God and not the nature of man.
Spiritual death is not the necessary cause but the ground or condition of sin, the choice of a false god. The Greek preposition epi translated “because” in the last clause of Rom. 5:12 means “on the condition of” or “on the basis of”. It does not imply any necessary or deterministic causal connection between death and sin. Man sins by choice, not of necessity. In this state of spiritual death, he chooses freely his false god and thus sins. Then his false god puts him into bondage; he becomes a slave of sin, his false god being his slave master. The Calvinistic doctrine of Total Depravity or Total Inability misinterpretes this slavery of sin and equates it with the sinful nature or the results of the sinful nature, and turns the slavery of sin into a determinism and the denial of human freedom of choice.
31 Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you shall truly be my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not continue in the house forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31-36)
These words of Jesus clearly identifies freedom as freedom from sin, and sin as a slavery. This freedom comes about through the knowledge of the truth. And the truth is the Son of God. As Jesus tells his disciples later, “I am … the truth, …”
5 Thomas said to him [Jesus], “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him,
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known the Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.” (John 14:5-7)
What is truth? In the history of philosophy, there have been two main theories of the nature of truth: the correspondence and the coherence theory. Both these theories of the nature of truth are theories of propositional truth. That is, truth is a property of propositions or statements. Both theories attempt to say how a proposition may be true.
In the examination of these theories of propositional truth, we see that there is an another kind of truth: ontologial truth. The problem of propositional truth raises the problem of ontologial truth, the problem of the criterion of reality: how do we decide what is real? Thus the choice of the criterion of propositional truth leads to and involves the choice of something as real. That is, the truth of propositions are based on the reality of something that is the criterion of reality, ontological truth. Further more, each epistemology makes an ontological assertion as to what is real. Empiricism asserts the reality of the object (Realism) that is known through the senses. Rationalism asserts the reality of the rational (Idealism). Empiricism appeals to the reality of the object beyond the senses to establish the truths of the senses. Rationalism appeals to the reality of the rational, the universal and necessary, to establish the truths of reason. For both of these criteria of knowledge involves an appeal to something that is assumed to be real.
This raises the question: what is real? To answer this question an appeal must be made to a criterion of reality, the Truth. Thus the problem of the criterion of truth raises and involves the problem of ontological truth: what is the criterion of reality? The criterion of reality answers the question: what is real? Whatever is the criterion of reality is the Truth and the Truth is the criterion of reality; it is ultimate reality, the really real. Realism asserts that the objects of senses are ultimately real, the Truth; Idealism asserts that mind or the rational is the ultimately real, the Truth.
The analysis of the problem of ontological truth shows that both empiricism and rationalism make an appeal to a criterion of reality, the Truth, as the criterion of propositional truth: empiricism to the reality of the objects of sense knowledge, and rationalism to the rational, the universal and necessary.
But both empiricism and rationalism ignore the freedom of human choice in determining the criterion of knowledge of the truth. The criterion of knowledge is not rationally necessary nor empirically given; it is chosen. Both of these epistemologies allow no place for this choice.
Now an analysis of human choice discloses the fact that choice involves a reference to a criterion of choice and ultimately to an ultimate criterion of choice. The choice of what statements or propositions are held to be true depends ultimately on the choice of this ultimate criterion. This observation raises the question: what is the ultimate criterion choice?
1. Negatively: Any ultimate criterion which denies or destroys the freedom of choice by which it is chosen can not be the true ultimate criterion of choice. Such an ultimate criterion is a false criterion. All false criteria imply and result in a denial, diminution and lost of the freedom of those who choose them.
2. Positively: Only that ultimate criterion which maintains and guarantees the freedom of choice by which it is chosen can be the true ultimate criterion of choice. What ultimate criterion can guarantee and fulfill that freedom of choice?
Since an impersonal or non-personal reality (Nature or Reason) does not have this freedom, only another person who has the freedom of choice can be this ultimate criterion. But not only must this person have freedom of choice but he must be committed to the preservation of freedom of the one who has chosen him, that is, he must motivated by love. And in order to be able to preserve that freedom, his freedom must be unlimited. This implies that this person must also be the basis and ground of the rest of reality; that is, he must be ultimate reality (God) and the criterion of reality. And since the Truth is the criterion of reality, that person will be the Truth. Thus the Truth is a person. And if we are to know this person, that is, who he is and that he exists, he must reveal himself. For the only way we can know another person is only by what he says and does. But the initiative lies with the other person. If he chooses to remain silent and inactive, no knowledge can be had of him in addition to the fact that he is there. If this person who is ultimate reality (the Truth) is to be known, He must reveal Himself. The Bible claims that He has taken the initiative and He has revealed Himself in word and deed, and that the Bible is the record of that revelation. Who is this person that is the Truth? The Biblical answer is that Jesus Christ is the Truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6).
He is the source of the knowledge of God. That is, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the way to God, the revelation of God, the Father, the Creator of all reality except God Himself. Through Him, as the pre-incarnate Word of God, were all things made and He is basis and ground of the rest of reality that God has created (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:15-17). He is the criterion of the real, the Truth, because through Him God has determined by His sovereign creative choice what is real. And as such He is committed to the preservation and fulfilment of our freedom.
“And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free … So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:32, 36).
The Truth that will make you, a person, free is the person, the Son of God. He sets free and perserves the freedom of one who chooses Him as their ultimate criterion of the reality, as the Truth.
Click HERE to read the conclusion of the evaluation of Calvinism and Arminianism.