I was asked to read and comment on an article. So, let’s take a look:
It begins by stating:
It may seem strange to some that there even is a debate as to what constitutes free will. The average person believes that he has free will. Whenever he is confronted with a choice he believes that he can either choose this way or that, and that either choice is a real possibility. In fact, this is what we generally think of when using the word choice. We think of the power to choose between alternatives. But the simple concepts of choice and free will have unfortunately been confused and complicated by Calvinists.
This is just a bad way of framing the debate. He states that the average person believes that they have freewill. How does he know that? Major sections of the world are made up of secularist and Muslims. Most of them think we don’t have freewill. In ancient times many fatalistic philosophies floated around. Ezekiel 18, for example, shows this. The Stoics were known for stating “What will be, will be”. It isn’t very apparent to everyone that we have freewill. That’s just a mistaken view about history and even the present day circumstances. The notion that the dreaded Calvinist came upon the scene and simply confused the debate is false. Debates like this have existed for thousands of years. It is hardly the case that libertarian thought needs to be taken for granted. Secondly, who cares what the majority of people think are the case? We already started that most people take things for granted without even thinking about these things. Why should we consider that a truth-apt source?
As a result of their commitment to exhaustive determinism, Calvinists deny that the will is free in the sense that most people would naturally understand it to be. Yet, they refuse to jettison these commonly used terms despite holding to a theology that denies these concepts as normally understood.
It is very unpersuasive that terms are understood that way. He states that as a Christian shaped by years of evolutionary western thought about the issue. If his position was so intuitive why don’t Calvinist intuit it?
They simply redefine “free will” so that it becomes essentially meaningless as normally understood. It becomes the “freedom” to do what one must in fact do. It is the “freedom” to do what has been predetermined from all eternity for one to do. It is the “freedom” to do what we have been irresistibly programmed to do (and free will has essential reference to “willing” and not just “doing”, i.e one might be hindered from “doing” what he has freely “willed” to do). It is essentially a necessitated freedom (a “freedom” that means “necessitated”) which betrays the inherent contradiction in the Calvinistic use of terms.
That assumes the libertarian was the definition that is the standard but determinist go as far back as libertarians do. So, libertarians have no monopoly on these terms. One would simply have to know a little something about the history of philosophy to figure that out. Furthermore, the author merely uses loaded terminology in place of an actual argument. The “programmed” and robot sounding nonsense has been dealt with before. The position can’t be reduced to simply affirming “do what has been predetermined from all eternity for one to do” because compatibilism is a thesis that extends to the issue of what kinds of things are determined. Namely, where agents act out desires that reflect their own person without coercion.
Arminians, on the other hand, are able to work with standard definitions in using terms like “free will” and “choice”. To speak of free will is to speak of the power of self-determinism in a person. A person wills to either do this or that, or neither as the case may be. When we use the term “free will” we are describing the freedom the person has to choose from available options. The will is free in so far as it is not necessitated. If the will can only move in one direction, and no other directions are possible, then the will would not in that case be properly called “free”. Freedom of the will has reference to the will’s ability to freely choose. A free will is free from necessity. It has alternative power.
Is Self-determinism intuitive? People often find it intuitive that people do things they desire and intend to do. That actions have motives. What is self-determination? What about problems with libertarian thought?
http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2018/12/27/bruce-ware-on-freewill/
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-disconnect-problem.html
What does it even mean on a libertarian view for an event to be possible? I doubt that the answer will be anything the average man would find intuitive.
It may be better to simply focus on the reality of choices. To speak of a choice is to speak of an agent deciding between two or more possibilities. Again, this is the standard definition that most people take for granted when speaking of choice or the action of choosing. Where there are options to choose from there is choice. If an option is not available, then it ceases to be an “option”, and choice, in that case, ceases to be a possibility.
But, again, things are not so simple when dealing with those who are comfortable using words in ways that are incompatible with (and often the polar opposite of) standard definitions. Calvinists and necessitarians still often want to speak of choices and choosing (there are some Calvinists that freely admit that such language is incompatible with Calvinistic determinism, but at present they are in the minority). But according to Calvinists all of our “choices” have been predetermined by God from before creation and before we were ever born or confronted with anything to choose from. If this is the case, it seems clear that “choice” is emptied of meaning.
Let’s get some definitions of “choice” from some philosophers:
A choice is a … mental action, and when we make choices we typically explain our making them in terms of reasons, where a reason is a purpose, end, or goal for choosing. A reason is a conceptual entity, what medieval thinkers called an ens rationis (literally “object of reason”) or intentional object, which is about or directed at the future and opative in mood (expressing a wish that the world be a certain way that is good. To put this point in technical terms, while a reason is not a desire or a belief, its opative character stems from its being grounded in the content of a desire or belief that represents a future state of affairs and something to be brought about by a more temporally proximate chosen action of the person who has the desire or belief. An explanation of a choice in terms of a reason or purpose is a teleological explanation.
Goetz & Taliaferro, Naturalism, Eerdmans, 2008, pp. 26-27
A choice is the formation of an intention or purpose to do something. It resolves uncertainty and indecision in the mind about what to do.
Kane, For Views on Free Will, ed. Sosa, Blackwell, 2008, p. 33
This leaves us lacking the impression from the concept of a choice we can derive libertarian freedom. The author of the post simply will actually have to argue for such a conclusion.
The Council 