PAPER NO. 97

FREEDOM AND PREDESTINATION

A Concise Critical Analysis

  1. Locus of the problem

    1. Is there freedom with respect to the use of reason to see what is clear about God?

If I want to use my reason, can I use my reason?

  1. Does ‘want’ imply ‘can’ here?

The problem is not to be relocated at a secondary level where ‘want’ does not imply ‘can.’

  1. The problem becomes: because I have shut my eyes, I cannot see.

Because I do not want to see, I cannot see.

  1. At the basic level, ‘want’ implies ‘can,’ always.
  2. The problem is not in the power of reason itself, or in the power to use reason, but in the power to see without the use of reason.
  1. Definition of freedom: liberty and ability

Liberty, at the basic level, is not the ability to do otherwise.

Liberty is doing what I want.

  1. ‘Which do you want?’ is the same as ‘which do you choose?’
  2. God is free: God does what he pleases; God cannot do evil.
  3. Freedom as the ability to do otherwise requires that what I do is uncaused.

If the cause is present, the effect necessarily follows. I could not have done otherwise (cf. history of libertarian freedom).

If ‘my act’ is uncaused by me (my beliefs and desires), then it is not my act and therefore not my free act. Freedom is impossible.

Reason as a cause is not possible.

If one event can be uncaused, all events can be uncaused, and there is no way to know if any event is in fact caused.

  1. Objections and responses

    1. Even if I can’t want otherwise, still I get what I want, always. If I always get what I want, there is no basis for complaint.
    2. If I can’t want to use reason, then I can’t use reason, and therefore I am not using reason. But I am now using reason.
    3. “Why have you made me so?” If this is a call for help, then there is help. If this is an attempt at self-justification, then it is not intelligible: “I want a reason why I don’t want to use reason.”

This paper was originally developed for a Philosophy of Religion course.


© 1999 Logos Papers Press