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

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Paul L. Manata © 2011
Second, the above claim that Reformed theology was never deterministic is
entangled in vagueness and ambiguity. The older Reformers were working with
certain conceptions of fate and determinism that were narrow in scope. Thus,
while tokens of determinism may not fit with Reformed theology that does not
mean that the type does not fit. Here are examples of the vagueness and
ambiguity. Does one simply want to avoid logical fatalism? Well one can on the
model of determinism proposed above in section 3.3. Does one want to have a
sense in which he could have done otherwise? Perhaps he can hold to classical
compatibilism, or even semi-­‐compatibilism’s appeal to doing otherwise when
presented with appropriate reasons. Does one want to avoid the idea that
something outside God determines what we will do, such that our actions are
absolutely necessary? Again, easily avoided on the understanding of determinism
and God’s decrees and providence given above. God could have decreed you eat
grape-­‐nuts; he does not, in all possible worlds, have to decree that you eat Lucky
Charms. Since you could eat grape-­‐nuts in some possible world with a different
decree, this means that there is a sense you really could do otherwise, i.e., you
have the potentiality in your nature to be able to eat one cereal or the other.
It seems to me that the need to deny determinism is simply based on
misunderstandings of the term. As has been established above, determinism is a
hypothetical necessity. At least, the kind I am arguing for is; and this
understanding is pretty standard. However, notice that according to one
advocate of the synchronic view, “The Reformed model of divine agency centers
on the decisions of God. This should not be interpreted as theological
determinism, since it implies only hypothetical necessity in its effects, which