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

5.3 Agent causation
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Paul L. Manata © 2011
But still, libertarianism may look like a sketchy position. To some people it looks
like libertarians are saying that there is no cause at all for why they choose or act
the way they do. Would not this make their choices or actions the result of
accidents or luck? But libertarians deny that just any cause of an action is
freedom removing. It is only certain kinds of causes: the kind that rule out
alternative possibilities, ultimate sourcehood, or both. But other kinds of causes
are acceptable. 51 What are they? Here, the field is divided among libertarians. 52
There are many answers libertarians give for why we choose and act the way we
do, but here’s the most popular among Christian thinkers (though there is not
unanimous agreement): our actions are not uncaused, they are caused by us. We
are the cause of our own actions, the buck stops with us. We choose according to
reasons, though those reasons do not necessitate, and God, who is the paradigm
example of someone who has agent-­‐causal powers, has given us these powers. 53
This view is called the agent-­‐causal view. J.P. Moreland expressed this view
above, when he wrote: “For libertarians it is only if agents are the first causes or
unmoved movers that agents have the control necessary for freedom.” Moreland
and Craig put it more elaborately:
Real freedom requires a type of control over one’s action—and, more
importantly, over one’s will—such that, given a choice to do A (raise one’s
hand and vote) or B (leave the room), nothing determines that either
51 And not all libertarians even agree with this.
52 See Randolph Clarke, “Incompatibilist (Non-­‐determinist) Theories of Free Will,”
in SEP, < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-­‐theories/>, last
accessed 7/18/11.
53 For a libertarian perspective against the tight connection many theological
libertarians draw between God’s freedom and ours, see Timothy O’Connor,
“Freedom with a Human Face,” available online: , last accessed 7/18/11.