Not too long ago we looked at a very specific definition of the term “free will” in The Bondage of Free Will, Part One. Today, we have another, very different, definition to consider!
As we move on to the second definition of free will, instead of starting with the definition, we will start with the general position. Succinctly put, it is “power to the contrary.” This is free will in the most radical sense of the term. What it means is that the same exact person in the same exact situation is perfectly free to choose either of two options. And not just any two options, but even two mutually exclusive options – for instance, good or evil.
The argument goes something like this: take the case of a murderer. God’s law says “Thou shalt not kill,” right? So we’re looking at someone who has violated that command. Backtrack to the moment before he violated it. He was looking then at two choices, at least: one good, one evil. He chose the evil one, in this scenario; but, says the radical free willer, he could have chosen the good one. Because – and here’s the whole reason for this definition – if a person doesn’t have the ability to keep a command, then the command should never have been given.
Let’s look at an extreme example of that. A one-year-old is unable to lift a heavy object – say, a ten pound sack of flour. Suppose some authority figure decides to command him to do so. Of course, the child fails. Now, everyone would agree that it would be in the highest degree immoral for that child to be punished, or even reprimanded, for his inability. He’s incapable of obeying the command! It’s an unreasonable order that should never have been issued in the first place.
So we seem to be left with a general principle that impossible commands are immoral commands. Assuming for the moment that God is good, just, and unchangeable, as He is described in the Bible, then the conclusion follows that everything He commands is possible, right? But it’s clear that His commands aren’t always obeyed. There are murderers, despite the fact that He has said, “Thou shalt not kill.” Therefore, the only way to reconcile this with the idea that everything God commands is possible, is to conclude that it would have been perfectly possible for the murderer to have chosen a different option.
But wait… let’s look at this again. We seem to be saying that no one could have known ahead of time what option the murderer was going to pick. No one – not even God! Doesn’t this run into some troubles, when we look at clear Scripture statements speaking about God’s omniscience – i.e., that He knows everything?
Well, when the Bible says that God is all-powerful, that may seem to mean that He can do everything. And of course, that is what it means. But it doesn’t mean that He can make two plus two equal to five. It doesn’t mean that He can create a square circle. It doesn’t mean that He can make a stone so big that He can’t lift it. These things would all be contradictions – impossibilities. God doesn’t contradict Himself or go against His own nature, and His nature is fundamentally logical and consistent.
So maybe, in the same way, saying that God is omniscient just means that He knows everything that can be known, just like His being all powerful means that He can do everything that can be done. Since, looking at our previous arguments, no one can know what the (potential) murderer will pick, God can’t know it either, and we’re all good (except for the fact that somehow God did know that the people who were going to murder His only begotten Son were certainly going to do it… or was that just a lucky guess? Well, let’s leave that for later…). Certainly, God doesn’t plan the murder. He didn’t plan the fall, or any of the evil that happens in this world (except for the greatest sin of all time, the murder of Jesus Christ… and I guess there are a few other prophesied sins… but we’ll can leave that for later too, right?). He has nothing to do with all of that, and if it were up to Him, this world would be lovely and wonderful. That’s the kind of God you want, isn’t it? The kind that would make everything beautiful if we’d just give Him a chance, but, instead, is having to watch powerlessly from the sidelines as men keep choosing the wrong things?
One last point before we come to a concrete definition: why would God create beings with this big question mark when it came to what they would do? Well, what makes love special? The fact that it’s voluntary, right? If you could force someone to love you, it wouldn’t really be love any more. God wanted people to love Him, and in order to do that, He had to leave the options open. So the argument is: you had to be able to not love Him; otherwise, love would hardly be love anymore!
Now that we’ve looked at the general position, we can move on to the definition. Free will in this sense is: The self-determining character of the will whereby without regard to motives, emotions, and previous character a rational being can under any given circumstances act in either of two mutually exclusive ways.
Let’s run over that quickly.
The self-determining character of the will: the will is self-determining. It decides what to do. No one and nothing else can get in its way.
Whereby without regard to motives, emotions, and previous character: again, completely self-determining. Nothing in the past or present is influencing the will. Is this starting to sound ridiculous? Has the definition been over-stated? Actually, it’s a legitimate conclusion, that if the same person in the same circumstances can choose either of two mutually exclusive options, then obviously that person’s background and identity are completely irrelevant when it comes to the choice.
A rational being: we’ve looked at this earlier, and noticed that it excludes animals, and includes humans, angels, and God. But here we do have a problem, because God – at least the God of the Bible – can’t choose two mutually exclusive options. He can’t sin. Neither can the unfallen angels, nor the saints in heaven. So incidentally, by this definition, God, the angels, and humans in heaven, don’t have free will. – Are they still able to love?
Can under any given circumstances: here again, the circumstances are irrelevant when it comes to determining the choice. It doesn’t matter what’s going on outside, the person can make a free choice in whichever direction his will happens to be blowing that day. Of course we don’t mean that the person can successfully carry through with whatever choice. But he can make the choice, and then try.
In either of two mutually exclusive ways: we’re not just talking about small choices like between chocolate or strawberry ice cream (wait… did I just call that a small choice?), but even big, mutually exclusive options, like to murder or not to murder, to do good or to do evil, to believe in Christ or be an atheist.
We’ll wrap up our look at this second definition by considering how it answers the questions we asked at the beginning of part one.
First of all, do humans have free will? As we pointed out in our discussion of the first definition, we need a lot more than a simple definition of free will to answer this question; but from my point of view, which I believe is a Biblical point of view, no, humans do not have this kind of free will. Your choices are not independent of who you are and where you are. Your will is not self-determining. You cannot choose either of two mutually exclusive things. You may not know ahead of time which one it is that you are incapable of choosing, but you’ll figure it out eventually.
Incidentally, most worldviews would agree with that assessment. You have to be very radical to believe that the human will is self-determining, because that means that human action is totally random; that there is no responsibility, and therefore no morality (you can get there the opposite way too, of course; human actions could be all the result of naturalistic laws, in which case again there is no responsibility, and no morality – fulfilling the proverb, that extremes meet! – but getting there this way is even more crushing to any sense of meaning). But there is a lot of confusion as people flop between definitions of free will in their conversation and thinking, often without even realizing it, using whichever one is handy for the time being.
Continuing to our next starting question: if humans did have this kind of free will, could their acts be predicted ahead of time? We’ve basically already answered this: but no, they couldn’t. There are absolutely no indicators, prior to the actual choice, which would point to what that choice will be.
Could an omniscient God know what a person with free will would do next? Again, no. Or maybe we should say, probably not. After all, God knows what’s going to come next out of the random number generator, right? So maybe He knows what’s going to come next out of the random act generator that the human will has become. But the typical answer is no, because foreknowledge implies either that God planned it, or someone else bigger (and pretty much by definition, there is no one bigger than God) planned it. You can’t foreknow things that haven’t been planned.
Could an all-powerful God plan what a person with free will would do next? Of course not; that’s what free will is – utterly unplannable.
If a person has free will, does that mean that he is responsible for his actions? How could a person with a self-determining will be responsible for his actions? He’s not the one determining his will – he’s not the one deciding – it’s his will that is doing the deciding! (Is this confusing? It ought to be! Your will is a part of you, not some schizophrenic self-determining add-on that does what it feels like doing!)
If man doesn’t have free will, can he claim freedom from responsibility? Certainly, there are conceivable options where, without this kind of free will, man could have responsibility. On the other hand, with it, there is no responsibility.
Does free will – the power of choice – mean the same thing as ability – the power of doing? In this case, yes. Your will looks at two options and is able to choose either one. Of course external uncontrollable circumstances may interfere; but the ability is there.
Is the human will self-determining, or is it determined by the person’s character? Obviously, the answer to this was right there in the definition: the human will is self-determining.
Next time – Lord willing! – we will take a look at which of these definitions has the best right to the term “free will,” which one actually reflects a faculty men possess, and what the Bible has to say on the subject. Along the way, we’ll look at some of the difficulties and objections that each definition has to address. And yes, that may take us more than one post…
If you missed it before, you might be interested in reading The Bondage of Free Will, Part One. Or check out some of the other articles I’ve written:
Geneva D 
(1) Free will is when we decide for ourselves what we “will” do, when “free” of coercion or other undue influence.
There are three impossible freedoms: freedom from causation, freedom from oneself, and freedom from reality. Because these are impossible, it would be unreasonable to require any use of the word “free” to imply any one of these three.
For example, if the will were free from reliable cause and effect, then it could not reliably cause any effect, and it could never implement its intent. And if the will were free from oneself, then it would be someone else’s will. And if the will were free from reality, then it would no longer be a “will”, but only a “wish” within a dream.
(2) Prediction does not imply control. The man sits down with his wife to eat in a restaurant. He spends time mulling over the menu. Meanwhile, his wife, who’s known him for years, could easily tell you what he will choose. Nevertheless, the man will not know what he will choose until he chooses it.
(3) The point of commands (rules) is to produce the best outcomes for everyone. (Matthew 22:35-40). The goal of morality is to achieve the best good and the least harm for everyone. And that is the criteria by which we morally compare two different rules.
(4) The point of penalty is to restore justice. A just penalty seeks to (a) repair the harm to the victim if possible, (b) correct the behavior of the offender, (c) protect others until the behavior is corrected, and (d) do no more harm to the offender than is reasonably required to accomplish (a), (b), and (c). The role of free will in determining penalty is short and simple: If someone was holding a gun to your head forcing you to commit a crime, then all that is required to correct your behavior is to remove the threat. But if it was a deliberate act of your own free will, then it may take a long time and rehabilitation to correct how you think about your choices.
(5) The penalty of eternal torment in Hell cannot be justified. There is nothing anyone can do in a finite time on Earth that could justify even having one’s knuckles rapped for eternity. At some point even that penalty will surpass the harm done. That’s how I ended up rejecting the theology I was raised with.
Sounds like we agree on some points and disagree on others. 😉
(1) I think we agree there. When free will is used to mean “power to the contrary,’ then it’s being used in a sense that is inconsistent with the obvious fact that a person’s will can’t be free from their own character.
(2) I would like to add that, while it doesn’t imply control on behalf of the person doing the predicting, it does imply that someone controls (or something, of course; in theory it could be an impersonal force). The world got here somehow, and whatever got it here, by starting it, by arranging certain rules, obviously controls the outcome (once we have agreed that outcomes are not totally random). It may be a laid back, uninteractive control, but even that is control.
(3) The point of rules is the greatest good… yes, in a sense, I agree with that. But I think it’s important to note that that’s an impractical criterion when it comes to deciding what sent of rules to follow. As a finite being, it’s absolutely impossible for me to know the complete effect of any action of mine. Even posting this comment; I have no idea what effects it may have on whom. Broader choices, like what kind of career I should have, who I should marry – totally unhelpful to tell me to decide based on which is the greatest good for the greatest amount of people! Even things that may seem obvious… do I embezzle twenty thousand dollars when I get the chance? Well, I could argue that that will give me and my family way more pleasure (supposing I first manage to kill my conscience, of course) than it will give pain to the people I steal from. A big company – maybe the government – they can spare the money and hardly even notice. How do I measure my pleasure vs. someone else’s pain? Or may pain vs. someone else’s pleasure? So basically, I can’t take that theory and come up with a set of rules. I need someone who knows everything to do that for me. Thankfully, He has; and He has told me what I must do in His word, the Bible (it’s also implanted inside me, in my conscience; but it’s even clearer in the Bible). If I reject that, and try to argue that some rule or another is inapplicable because from my very limited standpoint it doesn’t seem to be the greatest good, then I’m basically saying that I know better than God. I don’t think He’s going to like that very much.
(4) “The point of penalty is to restore justice.” Actually, justice can’t possibly be restored to the point where it was before the crime was committed. Once a crime has been committed, no penalty, no reparation, can ever undo it. This is especially the case in crimes such as murder, for instance, but even “smaller” crimes – stealing a candy bar, for example – still can’t be undone. So in that sense, I disagree that the point is to restore justice. I think the point is to do justice, which may seem like arguing over words but honestly we have a very different idea of justice and punishment here (which ties into number five) so I want to be careful explaining my position from the get go.
God is just. He is unchangeable. He knows all things. He can’t just forgive sin. Many people are under the sad misconception that all you need to get into heaven is to be forgiven. But that’s not true. No man will see the Lord without holiness (Hebrews 12:14). (As sinners the only way for us to be holy is by having the holiness of Jesus Christ imputed to us; i.e. counted as though it were ours.) Even God’s love and goodness work to this same end. If you were a judge in a courtroom, and you just ‘forgave” a murderer (for instance), you can’t hide under a mask of love; because by doing that, you’re not being loving to the victims, to society as a whole, etc. From your illustration, I’m sure you understand this.
Here’s an example before I go over the points in depth: two men, stranded on a deserted island. One up and kills the other. (a) Obviously no reparation can be made; any amount of suffering/effort won’t bring a dead man to life, (b) there’s no one else to kill, so the behavioral pattern doesn’t need correction, (c) there’s no one that needs to be protected. Does that mean that this murderer doesn’t need (deserve?) any punishment for that crime? The example is hardly extreme; it’s probably actually happened.
a) As I’ve already hinted, and as you yourself obviously recognize by tacking on the words, “if possible,” in almost, if not in every, instance, repairing the harm to the victim is not possible. This is not to say that the victim cannot be as happy, or even happier, than before, once it has been resolved (or even before then). But restoring the victim’s equanimity, happiness, or whatever you prefer to call it, is not the same as repairing the harm. The harm has been done, and the criminal ought to suffer for it.
b) I respectfully disagree here. Judicial punishment is not a corrective. There is a sort of “paternal punishment,” if I may call it that – usually termed chastisement in the Bible – that is corrective; punishment that is carried out specifically to teach, carried out for the precise time necessary (to the best knowledge of the person punishing), carried out in a sympathetic, personal way. But the goal of this kind of punishment is not doing justice, but a reformation of the person, bringing them to a realization of what they have done wrong. It’s a completely different kind of punishment than what I believe takes place in hell, for instance, or what the government does (or ought to do; I can find plenty of faults with the current system, as I’m sure you can too!) to criminals. The idea of rehabilitation starts off on the false premise that it’s possible for human beings to “correct” other human beings’ immoral tendencies. I believe that it’s false to assume that a criminal just needs a little kindly chastisement. He needs a change of heart, not rehab. I’m not saying that rehab can’t help, that it’s not good to offer, or that it can’t be the means to a change of heart; I’m just saying that it’s insufficient. The issue is a heart issue, and outside glossing (even if effectively applied) is not enough. It’s not an automatic 2+2=4, you be nice to an offender, show him the errors of his ways, and he’ll change. Basically, (b) to me is an important issue in the case of any offender, one that should be addressed, but one that is quite independent of the justice that should be meted out.
c) Protecting others is certainly an important part of punishment. I view it more as a corollary, something that happens whenever justice is administered, rather than as a motive for administering justice (as I also view the deterrent power of a correct administration of justice, which should deter others from committing the same or similar crimes).
d) It seems to me that there is a huge gap in this theory of punishment. In essence (correct me if I’m wrong!) it seems like your concept of punishment (of restoring justice) is subjective. It’s for the good of the offender, the good of the offended, and the good of the potentially offended. But what about the law? What about the objective moral standard that says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die?” (Ezekiel 18:4) What about the wages of sin being death? (Romans 6:23) It is not true that sin, even if committed in outer space, with no one to be harmed by example, with no reparation possible, with no one left to be protected, with no further sins of the same type to be committed (that is, no behavior to correct), still demands a judicial punishment because of the objective standards of right and wrong – standards established by God’s own moral character, and therefore unchangeable and unchanging?
Why did the only begotten Son of God come and die on a cross (if you believe that He did so) – bear the wrath of His Father – take upon Himself an infinite, agonizing penalty – if the point of punishment is just to correct people? In fact, what need do we have of a savior? All we need is a little teaching, maybe a slap on the wrist, and we’ll learn quick enough, right? After all, deep down we all want to do right. We just need someone to show us the way.
I don’t know about you, but unfortunately, that’s not the world I’m living in. People aren’t basically good. Basically good people don’t do bad things. Basically good people don’t crack under a little temptation, don’t succumb to a bit of poor example. “You shall know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16) We need – I need – you need – much more than just rehab. We need a change of heart; we need someone to take the punishment we deserved; and we need someone to live the perfect life we didn’t live, and thus be able to give us the righteousness we can never achieve.
5) While you probably disagree with much of that, I hope that, after it, you can see how it is that I believe that hell is real and eternal. One single sin against an infinite God deserves an infinite punishment; not because there is someone who needs to be repaid (although sin is compared to a debt in some senses, the Bible recognizes significant differences between breaking a moral law and owing a debt), not because there is a hope of making the sinner better, not because there are others that need to be protected, but because God’s justice demands satisfaction. What is one sin – even the smallest sin? It is spitting in God’s face, arrogating to ourselves His throne and dominion, claiming to possess knowledge beyond His, attempting to overreach His government and achieve our own ends irrespective of who we trample on in the meantime. The smaller the sin is, the more astounding it must be that for such a small thing we would be willing to defy the Almighty, reject the All-Loving, and think ourselves wiser than the All-Knowing.
What is hell? It is the just and inevitable penalty of our rejection of God. It is being rejected by Him for eternity. Physical pain? Yes, I believe there will be physical pain. But it will pale in comparison to the pain of being without God and without hope – the pain of an eternal death.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I’m sorry I went so long, but I hope you can understand my position. 🙂
The key question with punishment is how do we know how much is enough? If the child steals a cookie, after we’ve clearly told him not to, then how shall we decide whether to scold him, deprive him of future cookies, whip him, cut off a finger or hand, or put him to death for his evil nature?
This would all depend upon what we wish to accomplish by the punishment. What is our goal? What is our purpose? What is the point of penalty?
When you suggest that we, or God, want to achieve “satisfaction”, then what “ought” to satisfy us?
A crime is wrong because it unnecessarily harms someone, or denies them their rights. For example, the parent has a right to manage the cookie jar and the child’s nutrition. The parent also has the responsibility (and thus a right) to make sure the child doesn’t grow up thinking that stealing is okay, so he doesn’t end up robbing banks.
If our goal is to reduce unnecessary harm, then we have our answer to “how do we know how much is enough?”, because any harm we do to the child that is in excess of “what is reasonably required to correct his behavior and prevent him from doing further harm” would itself be an “unnecessary” harm.
Thus we have a natural limit to punishment, a point at which we OUGHT to feel satisfied.
You brought up an interesting problem that I had not thought of before. What if we were down to the last two men on Earth, and one murders the other? Well, I’d like to answer that with a question. What do you wish to accomplish in the penalty?
One more thing. The Bible suggests that one of the reasons for after-life punishment is to satisfy the thirst for justice of the innocents and those who kept the commandments. Is the vindictiveness that craves to see others suffer consistent with a Christian heart?
Well, to be honest, I don’t think we do or can know how much is enough. That’s why vengeance is God’s, not ours. (Romans 12:19) In the case of a child punished by his parent(s), yes, I agree that the punishment has as its purpose that the child be taught not to repeat the offense. But this is a different type of punishment from the judicial punishment that breaking God’s law requires.
My argument is that while there certainly is a type of punishment with that as its goal (chastisement), there is also a judicial punishment with the purpose of satisfying an objective standard of justice and goodness rooted in the nature of God. Nothing satisfies this type of justice other than complete separation from all goodness, i.e. primarily separation from God, which is eternal death.
Human rulers aren’t capable of punishing in this way, for various reasons; and the Bible gives pretty clear indications of how most types of crimes ought to be punished. I don’t believe that we should rip Old Testament punishments out of context and apply them to our society, but I do believe that the broad principles are definitely there and we should look carefully at them when structuring our laws and punishments.
I do not believe that chastisement (punishment with the purpose of correcting) always or automatically works. Sin is a heart issue. You can use punishments to modify outward behavior; people learn pretty quick not to do things that bring quick and painful or even just annoying reprisals – but you haven’t really changed the person. Sin – evil – badness – or whatever you choose to call it, is not a matter of actions so much as of attitude. You’ve probably seen an “obedient” child, doing what they’re told through fear of punishment, but utterly surly, rebellious, and frankly disobedient inside. That doesn’t even satisfy a parent (in the sense of making him happy), and certainly won’t satisfy God. If it were possible to take a person, punish them “enough” for them to repent (i.e. feel sorry for their wrongdoing – not sorry that they got punished, but actually sorry for the wrong – and resolve not to do it in the future), then yes, that might be a good place to say, okay, this is where even judicial punishment becomes revenge. But there is no such point. Punishment doesn’t lead to repentance. It can work in tandem with rational forms of conviction to help someone realize that they should repent, but it’s not automatic. I mean, why would it be? Why would getting hurt make me feel sorry for what I’ve done? I may feel sorry for getting caught, but that’s different. Why would it make me unwilling to do it in the future? I may be unwilling to get caught again – and that may effectually deter me from repeating the crime – but that too is different. Punishment is a pretty ineffective way to reach the goal of repentance. Rational conviction – talking to the person, for instance – will likely go farther in actually changing them… at least, it won’t go less far. Punishment just changes behavior; it’s conviction that changes character.
Punishment in other words is not designed to make a person repent. In this life, and particularly in the case of paternal punishment, it has a deterrent character, as you say, to keep the person (and others who may profit from example) from repeating whatever they did wrong (thus protecting potential victims). But that has not changed the person or their sinful attitude. It’s not enough to just not commit murder:Jesus says that it’s wrong to hate your brother in your heart. It’s not enough to just not steal: it’s wrong to covet. How could punishment correct these heart attitudes? It can’t. Therefore either heart attitudes ought not to be punished (caveat: I certainly don’t believe that human governments have any responsibility or right to punish heart attitudes, which can only be known certainly by God), or else punishment must have some design beyond correction.
I believe that the point of penalty is the satisfaction of an objective standard of justice that decrees death and separation from God upon all who offend against the transcendent standards of righteousness that God has imprinted on man’s hearts and also revealed in His word, the Bible. I believe that those who do wrong ought to suffer for it, independently of whether or not they or anyone else will be benefited by the suffering. This being the purpose of punishment, even the murderer of the second to last person on earth deserves death.
I’m not sure that it’s fair to say that one of the reasons for after-life punishment of the wicked is to satisfy the thirst for justice of the innocents in heaven; however, the Bible certainly portrays it as being satisfactory to them. I understand it rather as those in heaven, having seen God’s name, works, attributes, word, and works dragged through the dust so to speak, despised, rejected, trampled upon, and ignored by the unrepentant, and having themselves a zeal and a burning desire to see God magnified and worshiped and exalted as He deserves, are pleased, and rightly so, to see God’s justice and His wrath meted out to those who would gladly have cast Him down from the throne of the universe and crowned themselves in His place. In so far as they feel it as a personal vengeance, it is as they have been striving to exalt God in their own lives and are vindicated over those who would have thwarted them.
It’s been good to think about this subject a little more in depth and I appreciate your challenging questions!
I think Christianity has a great advantage in dealing with the heart. And I agree with you that changing the heart changes everything that is important. Although I find Immanuel Kant very difficult to read, and have read very little, he makes an important point about human virtues. He says that any virtue, such as courage or intelligence or honor, could be used as easily for evil as for good. For example, a bank robber may require courage and intelligence to plan and carry out the robbery, and honorably split the loot. But the only virtue which can be said to be good in and of itself is a “good will”, the desire to do what is good and right. And that is something that Christianity is especially effective at cultivating.
But I find it worrisome that you would so easily place the criminal in the unredeemable category, especially after being taught the parables of the Ninety and Nine and the Prodigal Son. In the church that raised me, the Salvation Army, it was constantly drummed into us that even the worst sinner could be saved.
I’m not suggesting that we should simply forgive, “seventy times seven” times. But there are practical factors that influence a person’s deliberate choice to commit a crime. And these factors can be effectively addressed through addiction treatment, education, counselling, job training, post-release follow-up, and other rehabilitation programs.
And we shouldn’t lazily presume they work. We should follow-up on ourselves by keeping track to seek which programs are working best and which programs are working least. And if it turns out that recidivism rates are too high for certain categories of offenders, then we would need to increase their prison sentences, especially for violent offenders, if only to protect ourselves from further harm.
I find some of your language disturbing (even for someone raised under the flag of the “fire and the blood”). You say, “I believe that those who do wrong ought to suffer for it, independently of whether or not they or anyone else will be benefited by the suffering.” For me, I believe that unnecessary suffering, suffering for no good purpose, is a morally bad thing, and to inflict such suffering for one’s own satisfaction is morally wrong.
There is a second issue. Sometimes people take offense, when none is given. For example, when you say,
“I understand it rather as those in heaven, having seen God’s name, works, attributes, word, and works dragged through the dust so to speak, despised, rejected, trampled upon, and ignored by the unrepentant, and having themselves a zeal and a burning desire to see God magnified and worshiped and exalted as He deserves, are pleased, and rightly so, to see God’s justice and His wrath meted out to those who would gladly have cast Him down from the throne of the universe and crowned themselves in His place.”
You sound like you are stirring up a sense of offense, even where none is given. An atheist, for example, with a good heart, may lead a good life and treat others as he would be treated. Nevertheless you accuse him of “despising”, such that he will be despised, and “trampling”, such that we should trample him.
Well, it’s important to bear in mind that when I say criminal, referring to God’s law, I say everyone. Since Adam’s fall, from a Christian perspective, every human being – except Jesus Christ who was not born of ordinary generation – has broken God’s law. In a sense, we are all unredeemable – we couldn’t save ourselves. Can a leopard change his spots? (Jeremiah 13:23) And since we were all in the same boat, we couldn’t save each other. If the blind lead the blind, they’ll both end up in a ditch. (Matthew 15:14) But God sent His son to redeem humans, by living the perfect life we didn’t live and dying the death we deserved to die, so that all those who believe on Him can have everlasting life. (John 3:16) Therefore, even the worst sinner can be saved. I absolutely believe that! But he won’t be saved or made repentant by being punished. That was what I was trying to bring out earlier. Salvation and repentance don’t come through suffering.
Rehabilitation programs, etc, can work very effectively outwardly. They can change behavior, they can convert an addict into a respectable member of society, and they should certainly not be neglected. But from a Christian perspective, the root problem is not whether or not a person commits sins; it’s whether or not he’s a sinner in his heart. In other words, is the person following God’s law, or is he setting himself up as lawgiver in God’s place?
Nice point there from Kant (who I also have read very little of and find quite difficult!). Many things that are good in themselves, such as strength and knowledge, can be used for evil when the person wielding these virtues is evil.
We use the word satisfaction in different ways; when I say satisfying justice, I’m not talking about satisfying, i.e. giving pleasure to, a person; I’m talking about fulfilling the requirements of a law. Suppose there’s a law that says that stealing $20 lands you 3 years in jail; I steal $20, I spend 3 years in jail, and the law has been satisfied. That doesn’t mean that the judge takes some sort of cruel pleasure in my sentence!
However, on the whole, we obviously disagree on the subject of what punishment is or should be. I believe it is inflicted on the basis of an objective standard that transcends circumstances, time, and place; from what I understand, you believe that circumstances, time, and place have a crucial role to play because the goal of punishment is not satisfying an objective law, but subjectively improving the quality of life for those within the sphere of influence which the punishment/crime has.
I believe I “get” where it is you’re coming from. It’s nice to think that people are pretty good, that they just need a little training, and that that training can be provided through judicious punishment. But after all what’s important is what is true, not what it would be nice to believe. And I can’t come to a conclusion for you, and you can’t come to a conclusion for me. We each need to candidly face up to the facts, and I would emphasize the importance of taking special notice of the facts that are contained in the revelation God has given to us of Himself – the Bible.
Well to be fair, I’m not speaking my own ideas in that last paragraph (of my previous comment). It was Jesus Christ who said, “He that is not with me is against me.” (Luke 11:23) (Even if you don’t believe that Jesus said that, at any rate it didn’t originate with me.) I mean, just logically, it’s one of those things you can’t be on the fence about. Either God is King and Ruler of your life or He isn’t. People who reject God’s lordship over their lives are trampling and despising (unless they’re right in rejecting it, which in turn would be either because He doesn’t exist or He’s for some reason not worthy of worship). In plain English, I don’t believe in a good atheist. Hypothetically he may be very good in his relationships with other people, but he’s terrible in his relationship with God.
Am I better than them? Absolutely not! I was as bad as the worst. Not too many years ago, I had myself on the throne of my heart; I wanted dominion over my own life; I refused to recognize any authority over me. To return to my first comment, I was spitting in God’s face, in the utmost pride and arrogance thinking that I knew better how to run my life. But thank God, He changed my heart. What’s more, He provided a sacrifice to take the punishment I deserved and a perfect substitute to give me the righteousness I needed before I could stand before Him.
It would therefore be utterly inconsistent for me to hate or despise anyone who is in the position I was in of rejecting God. For one thing, I’m no better than them; for another thing, I don’t know their hearts nor when or if they may change their minds. I don’t hate them; I desire that they would turn and worship the God I worship, accepting what I have been convinced is the truth.
I use the word “penalty” to refer to both the punishment and the corrective measures.
I agree with you that punishment itself is not corrective. At best it carries a strong social message that what someone was doing is wrong and will not be tolerated. But it must be accompanied by programs that make it possible for the offender to make different choices in the future. This is pretty much the same underlying philosophy for handling the child stealing the cookie. It is not enough to scold. One must also provide the loving guidance needed to show what he could have and should have done differently.
I would hope that it would never be true of a child, but it is often true of the adult criminal offender that their behavior and attitudes are too habitual and ingrained for them to change.
Judges are generally given some leeway in assigning penalty. Background information on prior criminal history, not available to the jury, may be used by the judge to estimate the likelihood of reform. Ironically, the criminal with the worst history, a history that some may be tempted to use to excuse his behavior, would be more likely to get a longer prison sentence. And that makes sense.
Policies like “three strikes and you’re out” which insures long prison sentences for repeat offenders also reflect this practical issue of protecting society from the incorrigible.
I think we disagree about what distinguishes objective from subjective judgment. As a Humanist (singing in a Unitarian Universalist choir) I view the Bible as the work of men rather than the literal word of God. This makes it easier to understand the evolution of the rules from the Old to the New testament. Peter and Paul had different views on circumcision and diet. Paul had to deal mostly with Gentile converts.
I remember viewing a book my parent’s had (they were Salvation Army ministers) called “Dispensational Truths”. It suggested that God’s relationship to man changed over time as man was more able to understand. He walked in the Garden with Adam. Then delivered the ten commandments with Moses and specified animal sacrifices. Then offered salvation for the asking through Jesus, the final lamb of God. (Hmm. Just checked, and Wikipedia has an article on “Dispensationalism”)
But, to me as a Humanist, it seems more likely that the Bible was written by different men in different times. Thus the requirements in Leviticus are different from those in Matthew. So, I cannot accept that the Bible is an “objective” authority.
Yet I do believe in the possibility of objective morality. All person’s of good will share a common purpose to seek good, and to seek it for others as they do for themselves, and all our rules are ultimately judged by these two goals. (my Humanist translation of Matthew 22:35-40).
To the degree that we can objectively know what is good for us and what is harmful to us, we can, at least in theory, objectively know which of two rules or two actions is morally better than the other.
It’s hardly surprising then, that coming from such different perspectives, we have pretty different ideas on the subject of justice and punishment. We agree however in differentiating punishment and corrective measures, which is good. Only, we don’t exactly agree on the correct administration of punishment proper. I wonder how exactly you draw a line though? Why is punishment ever necessary; why not just use corrective measures, and detention until the corrective measures work? (Perhaps detention counts as punishment? To my thinking, it would fall more under corrective measures, perhaps protective measures if viewed in respect of the rest of society; but not really punishment.)
As a humanist, how do you view “the good”? What is good? Who gets to say what is good? You seem to believe in an objective good – that is, something that’s good, not just from your point of view, but something that holds true for every human being. Where did that standard come from? Is it impersonal, or is it the expression of the character of a personal God? If it’s impersonal, how can we know or discover it? A standard of good may be out there, but it doesn’t do us much good unless we have some means of reaching it, or it has some means of reaching us.
I’m not a dispensationalist, though I do believe that God revealed himself progressively, i.e. as time went on and more and more of the Bible was written as He continued to speak to men more and more was known about Him. From the beginning, however, enough was there for men to trust God rather than themselves for their salvation, which is the essence of Christianity. However I don’t believe that His revelation contradicts itself at any point. He knew the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:1) and didn’t make mistakes.
Obviously therefore I don’t believe that the Biblical rules evolved from man’s ideas over time, still less do I believe that they are different in one part of the Bible than in another, though they may be expressed differently – in particular, expressed more fully later on. I’m sure we could argue about that all day and bring up dozens of particular instances (Peter vs. Paul on diet, for instance; but Peter’s views required to be corrected, and were corrected; the Bible doesn’t in one place say that he was right and in another that he was wrong, any more than there is a contradiction between Saul visiting the witch of Endor and God’s command not to do so – commands are normative, not examples), but the essence of it boils down to: how do we know what we know? The answers are a) we don’t know anything (skepticism) – but it’s impossible to know that you can’t know anything; b) we know by experience: our minds were blank at birth but then we began to learn by interacting with the world (empiricism) – but a blank mind can’t organize real-world impressions even to form a concept, let alone a complete and abstract thought – where on earth did the laws of logic come from, for instance? c) we know based on an a priori system (such as Kant’s) of categories and structure that we are born with – but how do we know that this system reflects the way things really are, instead of creating a distorted impression of reality in your brain – if there even is a reality… d) someone who knows all things has given us a revelation of truth (and because He is truth, of Himself), a revelation which provides us with a basis for believing that our reasoning systems do not deceive us, because we were created in the image of God, who is truth.
All four of these systems require faith, not in the wishy-washy sense of faith as many think of it, but in the sense of a strong conviction. After all, every person’s thinking must start somewhere, must start with some axiom(s). This axiom cannot be proved (though it can in theory be disproved, of course); if it could be proved, then it wouldn’t be an axiom, it would be a theorem, and something else would be the axiom. The question isn’t, will you believe, but what will you believe? I believe that God has revealed himself in the Bible and that as a consequence we can know truth, we can know what is good, and we can know God – to know whom is to have eternal life. (John 17:3)
I’ve pasted two posts from my blog that define “good”, “morality”, and “ethics”.
We call something “good” if it meets a real need that we have as an individual, a society, or a species. The key words here are “real” and “need”.
The context of “need” is life itself. Life implies need. One evidence of life is an organism’s activity to fill a need. An amoeba extends its pseudo-pod seeking food. A tree grows roots into the ground for water. A flower opens and twists to face the Sun. A newborn baby gasps for air and cries out for warmth and food.
The meaning of “real” is also key. We may want cake, but we really need food. Many things that “feel good” or “taste good” are actually bad for us. So “moral good” cannot be determine from pleasure.
Nor can it be determined by the avoidance of pain. Many things that are painful, like removing a splinter or applying antiseptic, may be necessary to our well-being. Childbirth, while painful, is essential for our very existence.
The other side of the definition is what is “morally bad”. We call something “bad” if it unnecessarily harms the person, impairs cooperation, or endangers the species.
Morality is the intent to achieve good, and to achieve it for others as well as for ourselves. Ethics is the pursuit of the best rules, those that will most likely achieve the best possible results for everyone.
To see the distinction, consider the Jewish family of Anne Frank hiding in the attic during Nazi occupation. The soldiers knock on the door and ask if there are any Jews. It would be unethical to lie, but it would be immoral not to.
Moral judgment considers the evidence of probable benefits and harms to decide a course of action. This judgment is objective to the degree that the harms and benefits are easily observed and compared. But the ultimate consequences of a decision are not always known. Two good and honest individuals may differ as to what course of action will produce the best result. A democratic decision can be made to determine a working course of action, which can be further evaluated based on subsequent experience.
Ethics are about rule systems. Rules include customs, manners, principles, ethics, rights and law. When one speaks of “morals” or “moral codes” one is usually speaking of ethics. But morality is not the rule, but rather the reason for the rule, which is to achieve good.
Throughout history, rules have changed as our moral judgment evolved. Slavery was once permitted, but later outlawed. The equal rights of women to vote was established. The right to equal treatment without regard to races, gender, or religion was established.
Different cultures may have different rules. But all rules move slowly toward the same goal, to achieve the best possible good for everyone. And, to the degree that moral judgment is based in objective evidence, all variations are moving toward a common, ideal set of rules and rights.
In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest principle?”, and Jesus said the first principle is to love God and the second principle is to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
A Humanist translation would be to love good, and to love good for others as you love it for yourself.
But Jesus said one more thing, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words, this is the source, the rationale, the reason, the “Why?” behind every rule and every right. It is the criteria by which all other principles, ethics, and rules are to be judged.
Nice to see your developed thoughts on these issues. Your faith in the progress of rules towards the good intrigues me… I’m not sure how you can be confident that rules are always moving in that direction, or that there is any definite standard to move towards. Nor am I sure why from your perspective any one individual should try to achieve the best possible good for everyone, rather than the best possible good for himself. Just a couple things that jumped out at me.
Ah! Then that would be covered in my post on “God and Good”:
We are born into a world of good, which we did not create. Not just material things, but ideals, like justice, liberty, and equality. And spiritual values, like courage, joy, and compassion.
We benefit from what others, in good faith, have left for us. In return, we sacrifice selfish interest when necessary to preserve this good for others. For the sake of our children, and our children’s children, we seek to understand, to serve, to protect, and perhaps, humbly, to enhance this greater good.
It is an act of faith to live by moral principle when the greedy prosper by dishonest means. It is an act of faith to stand up for right when the crowd is headed the wrong way. It is an act of faith to return good for evil.
We have seen Hell. We have seen gang cultures whose rite of passage is an act of mayhem or murder. We have seen racial slavery, persecution, and genocide. We have seen revenge spread violence through whole communities.
We envision Heaven, where people live in peace and every person is valued. It can only be reached when each person seeks good for himself only through means that are consistent with achieving good for all.
If God exists, then that is His command. If God does not exist, then that is what we must command of ourselves and of each other. Either way, whether we achieve Heaven or Hell is up to us.
I forget where the saying comes from, but someone said, or represented someone else as saying, “Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.” Under a humanist theory, it seems that it’s up to each individual to choose which way to direct his life. Something like the dualistic principle… good and evil, maybe, but one isn’t better than the other. Each person chooses which path to take. Wide fields of speculation… I’m glad that I can rest in the conviction that there is a God who will reward good and punish evil.