podcast 82 – Dr. Oliver Crisp on libertarian Calvinism and universalism

Interesting discussion. I might write another blog post on this.

Two thoughts:

1. Berkouwer was a Calvinist at one point in his life (and at that time he was a determinist)’ later, though, he moved away from confessional Reformed theology and became more Barthian. But even here, he did claim that divine determinism (for him, a kind of teleological determinism) was not like mechanistic causal determinism, and it’s the latter he specifically rejected. In any case, I don’t think Berkouwer should be used as an example of variety within the Reformed tradition, especially when Crisp is attempting to show that it is consistent with *Westminster* Reformed theology, something Berkouwer really moved away from.

2. I appreciated Oliver’s attempt to take on the objection that libertarian Calvinism (LC) is problematic because it must affirm that we are morally responsible for not having faith even though some people *cannot* have faith. he begins with his analogy used in the book that the non-elect are like drug addicts and we often hold drug addicts responsible for their “enslaved” choices. Dale then rightly points out that libertarians will say that the addict is only responsible because we can trace back his enslaved choices to a prior libertarian free choice on his part to become enslaved by the drug. Now, Oliver correctly understands that he has no analogue like that with respect to those enslaved to sin, since there *never was a time* when they were not enslaved to sin, unlike the drug addict. His move here though, which really interested me, was to say that he doesn’t have a *unique* problem here. He doesn’t because this is ultimately a problem of original sin, and *all* sides need to explain how this works.

Okay, so here’s my initial thought. It’s popular to break original sin OS into two component claims:

OS = all post-fall humans are guilty of Adam’s sin (OG) and corrupted by Adam’s sin (OC).

So on this view, OS = OG & OC. Now, many libertarians reject OG. Reason: you can’t be guilty for something you didn’t do. Interestingly enough, Oliver reject OG in many places—at least where we mean by OG that we have inherited *Adam’s* guilt. That leaves OC. But note here that we are not guilty or morally responsible for OC. But, I take it that, on any viable libertarianism, if you are not responsible for X (in context, X here will = the corrupt nature that renders you unable to repent and believe), and you’re not responsible for ‘X entails Y’ (in context Y here will = S is unable to repent and believe), then you are not responsible for Y. Now, there is a way out here for libertarians who want to accept that man is *unable* to repent and believe yet responsible for not repenting and believing. They invoke *prevenient grace* (PG). Here, PG sort of “erases” that natural inability making all people able to choose to repent and believe. Of course, PG is not an option for LC though.

So the first problem here is that *Oliver* must find LC incoherent. He needs us to be *morally responsible for* our corrupt nature, but of course he does not think that this idea is just. On classical Arminianism, God does something that overrides (or neutralizes) our natural inability, making is able to repent and believe. Indeed, God *must* do this because we are *not* responsible for having that corrupt nature. So LC needs to show how we can be *morally responsible* for having that corrupt nature. I don’t think Oliver thinks this can be done, so I think he needs to think that LC is a non-starter.

Now, Oliver is correct that compatibilist Calvinists have to tell some story here. He is aware of the various stories we have to tell (e.g., federal theology, Edwardsian metaphysical unity). He doesn’t think, and most people agree, that these are just—let alone their being incompatible with the desiderata *libertarians* need to meet. Be that as it may, there are factors that will *necessarily* rule out candidate explanations that a libertarian can give and that do *not* necessarily rule out answers compatibilists can give. For example, a compatibilist will deny the validity of above inference (i.e., Nr(X); Nr( X => Y); Nr(Y). Moreover, some compatibilists (e.g., me, on odd days of the week), will deny the sorts of *historical* constraints that libertarians and other compatibilists will say need to be in place to chain moral responsibility together. So compatibilists have to give a story here, but the point is that there are things LFW necessarily rules out that compatibilism does not. So the parity (or, as Oliver called it, “ad hominem”) argument Oliver used doesn’t work. It’s not just that we all have to tell a story that’s the problem, it’s that certain moves are *ruled out* of the LC story, but the LC *cannot* tell a consistent story *without* making one of those off limits moves. The compatibilist isn’t in this position. He can tell a story, and it will be an unpopular one to the mind of the contemporary evangelical Christian, but he can at least *tell one*. I’m saying that the LC cannot even *tell* a story (or, at any rate, cannot tell one without appealing to moves ruled off limits by libertarianism).