It’s not difficult to see that the Westminster standards are committed to theological determinism. If the Reformed community wants to have a common voice against Arminian philosophical thought and propagate its own tradition without internal confusion, there needs to be a monster refresh.

I’ve decided to interact with this article by Kevin DeYoung on free will and divine foreknowledge. Although the piece is over fifteen years old and the author may have possibly refined his views since then, I nonetheless believe the article typifies the uncritical handling of this Reformed distinctive among contemporary leaders in the tradition.

Why another article?

My primary lament and the impetus for writing (once again) on this particular subject is due to the lack of doctrinal unity among teachers and pastors in the Reformed tradition when it comes to the rudimentary principles of how God’s sovereignty relates to free will. A related concern is how leaders in the Reformed tradition do not appreciate, or seem to mind, how far we’ve drifted in the formulation and articulation of this essential Reformed doctrine. The current climate is underscored by a widely lauded contemporary commentary by Chad Van Dixhoorn on the Westminster Confession of Faith, which teaches contrary to the Reformed doctrine of the divine decree. What’s significantly impactful is the commentary is being used to train elders in the Reformed tradition. Consequently, theological error on perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Reformed thought is being propagated through the ordained teaching ministry of the church.

To exacerbate matters, the church tends to look to historian types, like Richard Muller, for answers on free will and not to scholastic theologians for reasons that elude my grasp. I’ll leave those curiosities to the more insightful and gifted of our day who are more adept at analyzing trends and making predictions. Maybe they even saw this one coming.

Lastly but still by way of introduction, the understanding of this discussion is so shrouded in confusion that the theological options in the minds of many have been reduced to two, necessitarianism and incompatibilism. Unfortunately, both views are incorrect from a historically Reformed perspective, but more importantly cannot be reconciled with the catholic church’s theology proper when taken to their respective logical conclusions.

A word of caution:

Before proceeding I should warn up front, what follows can appear overly technical, but it’s not. That is not to say that there aren’t terms of art and abstract concepts that first must be grasped in order to appreciate the doctrine under consideration. But that shouldn’t surprise us given that we’re talking about how human freedom relates to God’s will, which is doctrine that must be held with special prudence and care.

With all that aside, I’ll make just a few comments on key excerpts from the article in the hope that more attention might be given not to personalities or choosing teams but to hard and prayerful thinking. It’s high time for us to put down the partisan pom-poms and to get a brain cramp in the pursuit of unity over high theological truth.

Basic definitions:

Some Christians affirm omniscience but deny free will (Calvinists).  Other Christians try to affirm both (Arminians).

Calvinism does not deny free will. Calvinsm denies a particular kind of free will.

Of course, I’m not going to settle such a long standing debate with a single blog post, but I do want to think for a few moments about whether divine omniscience and free will are compatible.  That is, can the Arminian have it both ways and affirm that God knows everything and that we free wills?

DeYoung is defining free will as libertarian free will. (That becomes clear later.) DeYoung undoubtedly should know that Calvinism affirms some concept of free will and that it must somehow be compatible with theological determinism, which from a Reformed perspective grounds God’s knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.

By omniscience I mean that God knows everything. A related term (that can also be used as a synonym for omniscience) is foreknowledge. By foreknowledge I mean that God knows everything that is yet to happen in the future.

Omniscience is not equivalent to foreknowledge both within Calvinism and Arminianism. From a Reformed perspective foreknowledge pertains chiefly (but not solely) to future occurrences, whereas omniscience is a broader concept that includes not just things that will occur but, also, God’s natural knowledge of all necessary truths, including all possibilities. Omniscience even encompasses things that would occur but will not occur. For instance, there are contingent counterfactuals that God has determined to be true and, consequently, freely knows in his omniscience that will never occur in history. Consequently, there are counterfactuals that are not foreknown to occur actually that are nonetheless included in God’s foreknowledge and omniscience. In short, foreknowledge is simply a subset of exhaustive omniscience. They’re not synonymous concepts.

By free will I mean free will as Arminians define it. Arminians argue that we have a libertarian free will, which simply put means that we have the power of contrary choice; or to put it another way, that our choices can be otherwise than they are.

Not all incompatibilist libertarians affirm that every free choice can be otherwise, such as Frankfurt libertarians like William Lane Craig.

The most distinguishing feature of libertarian freedom is not the ability to do otherwise but that genuine freedom is incompatible with theological determinism. Consequently, an innate ability to choose otherwise needn’t be accompanied by an external freedom or temporal ability to do so. (Consider Locke on action and Frankfurt on intention to act.)

Not off to a great start:

Out of the chute, DeYoung’s treatment of the subject does not appear to be as careful as it might be on fundamental definitions and concepts. But before getting into the weeds, let’s address a few less crucial missteps.

Some less consequential clarifications:

Let’s put these terms in a typical scenario. Tomorrow morning I will open my freezer and choose whether to have Eggo waffles for breakfast or Eggo french toast. Arminians and Calvinists (although not Openness theologians) believe that an omniscient God has foreknowledge of what choice I will make.

In passing we might note that there are more options than just two, unless the options are placed in a mutually exclusive disjunct, for instance: Eggo waffles or not Eggo waffles. (The law of the excluded middle is useful here.) Also, in passing, we may note that Open Theists (e.g., Greg Boyd) most certainly do affirm God’s foreknowledge of some free choices prior to their occurrence. Open Theism distinguishes God knowing things early on from before. The system allows for some future occurrences to be settled by “character formation” such as Judas’ betrayal. This view also claims not to deny omniscience per se but exhaustive omniscience. It posits that God knows all truth, but that some choices that would occur aren’t yet true, therefore, they aren’t objects of knowledge. My point is, even heretical views need to be represented fairly.

Back to significant concerns:

I have power of contrary choice. I may choose the waffles; I may choose the french toast. The outcome of my choice is not fixed. It is up to my free will to decide.

DeYoung is depicting Arminianism and intending that remark to be a strike against it but it isn’t. It’s both incorrect and too simplistic. Indeed, (a) it is up to one’s free will to decide and (b) the outcome will precisely be as God foreknows (even if neither waffles nor french toast are chosen). Consequently, in one sense the outcome is “fixed” in Arminianism, just like it is in Calvinism.

This negative remark against Arminianism, that an outcome is up to one’s free will to decide, is misleading in its simplicity. For instance, who killed Saul? Well, Scripture answers this question in two ways by teaching both God and Saul. Consequently, it is false that our choices are not up to us even though they are up to God. In Reformed thought an ultimate cause is compatible with a proximate cause.

In another sense free choices are not necessary. Both sides should agree that their respective theological systems affirm that what an agent would freely choose is only contingently true and as such, free choices are not necessary in a significant sense. Consequently, since both sides should agree on necessity in these two distinct and meaningful ways, it’s hard to find how these observations can be used against Arminianism by Calvinists. In short, Arminianism and Calvinism agree on what’s called the necessity of the consequence while in unison denying the necessity of the consequent.

By this understanding, we are led to believe that divine omniscience, or foreknowledge in this case, is wholly compatible with libertarian free will. God’s knowing what I will choose is simply a knowledge based on foreseen evidence, and this knowledge in no way determines my choice of waffles.

Read More