Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology - Analytic ...

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Paul L. Manata © 2011
determinism. 40 But given the confessional statements and their explications,
conjoined with our definition of determinism, Reformed theology is
deterministic. Call this ‘determinism simpliciter,’ if you like.
Thus, while Taylor and Kane’s definitions are fairly broad, that is to their credit.
Notice that these definitions do not commit a Reformed determinist to some
specific model of determinism. The Reformed confessions seem to rule out at
least some models of determinism. For example, chapter nine of the Westminster
Confession reads: “God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that
it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good,
or evil.” Even regarding causal determinism, the idea that every event is
necessitated by antecedent events or conditions, our definition doesn’t commit
one to a specific model of causal determinism. For instance, it need not commit
the Reformed Christian to any sort of mechanistic, natural or physical causation,
which would add in natural laws to the above definition of causal determinism.
As John Feinberg points out,
Though some think determinism in the physical world also applies to
human action, it is dubious that it does. Moreover, it is critical to
understand that Calvinistic determinists with respect to human actions do
not mean by determinism the sort that operates in the natural world.
Because Calvinist determinists are not postulating that physical
determinism governs human actions, objections to Calvinist determinists
that misconstrue it as physical determinism are simply misguided and in
40 The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Collier-­‐MacMillan, 1967) Vol. 2 cites numerous
forms of determinism: (i) ethical determinism, (ii) logical determinism, (iii)
theological determinism, (iv), physical determinism, (v) psychological determinism,
pp. 372–373; but there’s more, e.g., (vi) causal determinism, and (vii) teleological
determinism, and each of these sub-­‐sets of determinisms admits of sub-­‐sets of
models.