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

36
Paul L. Manata © 2011
coerce us into doing what we do not want to do, then our free actions are not
incompatible with this determining condition. And, since we do what we want to
do, what we desire to do, God may punish us for sinning. For clearly, we are told,
if someone wanted to steal something and was not forced to steal, then that
person is morally responsible for stealing.
4.2 The Consequence Argument
No doubt the above was an extremely brief run-­‐down of classical compatibilism,
and while it may have brought up more questions than it answered, I hope you
have a feel for how it claims freedom and determinism are compatible. Still,
there is one powerful argument that seeks to show that freedom and moral
responsibility are not compatible with determinism, it’s call the consequence
argument and it argues that essential features of determinism rule out freedom.
In its simplest form, the argument runs like this,
If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of [insert prior
determining conditions] in the past. But it is not up to us what went on
before we were born; and neither is it up to us what the [insert
determining conditions] are. Therefore the consequences of these things
(including our own acts) are not up to us. 45
This says there is nothing we can do to change the past, or to change the past
determining conditions, or to change the fact that what we will do is the
consequence of these things. Therefore, we cannot now do otherwise than we
actually do.
This argument has generated a lot of literature on all sides of the debate. Most
45 Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 16.