Here is the first quotation:
Brakel: In Greek Free Will is referred to as α ὐ τΕξυσία (aut Exusia). This word is not to be found in Scripture, but was introduced into the church by Platonic philosophers who had been converted to Christianity. In its essential meaning it means as much as self– determination, self–worthiness , or to be one’s own master. As such it can only be properly used in reference to God. However, in some respects it may be used in reference to man as well. In Latin the words liberum arbitrium are used, which translates as free judgment or free will.
Right away, there's a couple of things that need addressing. I'm going to speak for myself. That's a good and a bad thing. It's good because I can just be honest about my approach. It's bad because I may be missing something. But that's life! In this blog, I'll do the best I can with what I've got, and take the corrections as they come.
First, I don't really care that α ὐ τΕξυσία is not in Scripture. That's not why Christians come to be libertarians (in my experience).
Second, I'm not sure that I care that the word was introduced by converted Platonic philosophers. To disqualify it on that score seems like the genetic fallacy. Perhaps the implication is that Platonism is explicitly or implicitly incompatible with Christianity. Certainly, there are aspects of Platonism that are incompatible with Christianity. The idea that our souls are imprisoned in our bodies isn't a Christian idea. Perhaps the hard, uncompromising, sharp split between the material and the immaterial is something that the ancient Hebrew would have had no conception. I have sympathy with this worry. However, I think we need more than a 'lack of conception'. For example, the ancient Hebrews had a scientifically inaccurate cosmography; they lacked a conception of the cosmos that was factual.
(I still can't avoid the idea that God is immaterial. If God was material, would He, other things being equal, be subject to entropy? Would God need to be vigilant about His gradual, inevitable, clockwork slippage into incremental, unmistakable disorder and have to ceaselessly stop such petty innocuous deterioration by a repetitive, irksome miracle, from eternity past and on to an endless future? The idea sounds fantastic. A critic might respond: our resurrection bodies will be material to a certain extent. More precisely, Paul calls such bodies spiritual. To be a spiritual body means - among other things - that it isn't subject to decay. It is not subject to decay because the old laws of nature will have been uprooted and replaced. Perhaps God is material in this sense. But if so, this wouldn't any longer be the Greek conception of matter. If so, then God's Pauline materiality might be materially equivalent with the Greek idea of immateriality. But even this is met with some reservations. Paul is talking about the resurrection body of which Christ is the first fruits. Surely Christ assumed His resurrection body at a time before which He hadn't yet had it. This seems to imply that God, or at least the Son, was material in a Hebrew sense that was not quite a Pauline sense. I will have to return to this.)
Third, as yet, self-determination and self-worthiness are not defined. I'm not sure that the former isn't wholly opaque to a Calvinist. The reprobate determine their just condemnation. Even when critics note that God ordains their condemnation (so as to salvage sovereignty), they are quick to correct the idea that God is at fault. And compatibilism would have no problem (so far as I can see) with the idea that self-determination is coterminous with God's decree. As for the latter, this has to do with merit. I deny that having faith is meritorious and so this to me is a groundless description of the kind of free will I subscribe to. Why did I, and not a reprobate, have faith? I freely chose to exercise it. Why? Because I saw how hopeless I was on my own apart from the Gospel. Were you smarter? I wouldn't say smarter; I'd say prudent. I'm not sure what is meant by smart. I love that many of those who become Christians are not the intelligentsia. Is not prudence a good that you wisely cultivated, that God reliably spied, and that worked with God to make you alive in Christ? Doesn't this mean that God pathetically stands on the sidelines (having done all He can), dependent on a possibly ineffective, unimpressive, adolescent wooing, redolent of the unrequited love between a doting teen and his unattainable Beatrice? No. It's much more complicated than this and much more beautiful. I will try to get to my picture of what's going on in a future blog.
Fourth, does God have libertarian freedom? Well, it depends. I don't think God can sin. Does that mean God doesn't have libertarian freedom? Not for me. The assumption is that a necessary condition for libertarian freedom is the ability to do otherwise. While I think it's a sufficient condition (if taken to be a categorical, as opposed to a hypothetical, ability), I don't think it's necessary. What's necessary is a certain kind of control over your actions. God has what has been called freedom of integrity, according to which God has the power of not being able to sin. We'll have this blessed, glorious, mighty, thunderous, burning, passionate power one day as well. But it'll come after a long life involving the Holy Spirit painstakingly and punctiliously sanctifying us into the image of Christ. I believe sanctification is synergistic. Thus, I believe it involves libertarian free will. If were deterministic, the consequent change wouldn't involve the freely given sacrifice of self or the consequent transformation once such sacrifices reach their apotheosis. It will have been coerced, either by internal states or external forces, either by belief/desire states or God's direct puppetry. If you think the second disjunct a canard, I'll drop it. But I can't deny the transitivity of puppetry if I go with the left disjunct. That is, if a causes b, and b causes c, then a causes c. If God causes or determines a creature's desires, and the creature's desires cause or determine her action, then God causes or determines the creature's action. I can't see how to interpret this as anything other than incoherence. To ensconce yourself in mystery here is a trifle unsatisfactory. The Calvinist will argue that Scripture impels them to such paradox. This is an honorable move. I just don't (at present) see why that's so. Without getting into the prickly details, I think that the Molinistic theory of providence elegantly solves the thorniness of the issue and situates the mysteries where it appears they should snuggly repose.
Fifth, I'm not sure what it means to be my own master in this context. A chattel slave could still have libertarian free will while in his chains. This is the oft-repeated conflation of free will and free action. Someone could paralyze your body. You could have locked-in syndrome. And this would do absolutely nothing to your will. Of course, your will to move is thwarted. But remember: movement is an action. The inability to move has nothing to do with your willing to move. Action results from willing. But action doesn't always flow from willing. In fact, if desires cause actions, then desires limit my freedom of action. If desires cause willings, I don't will anything: the desire-state does. I am more than a desire-state; I am an agent with a desire-state. But if that's the sense in which I'm enslaved to desire-states, this seems to me to be another instance of my freedom of action being delimited. The Calvinist wants the desire-state to enslave, not just my actions, but my willings. If I don't like my willings, then why can't I exercise my volition to weaken the willings I find horrid, and strengthen the ones I find attractive? Either the willings that are directed toward the willings I find horrid/attractive are themselves enslaved to desire-states or it is my actions that are enslaved to the desire-states (with my willings having the control required for putting out unwanted desire-state-fires or propping up wanted desire-state-fortifications). If it's the former, I think it's false and involves the abolition of the kind of free will required for moral responsibility and meaningful, robust, thick praise/blame institutions.
That's all for now.
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