Doctrine of Creation (Part 11): Critical Assessment of Three Views of Divine Providence

A Critical Assessment of Three Views of Divine Providence

Last time we discussed three competing accounts of divine providence: Calvinism (which posits a universal divine causal determinism coupled with a compatibilist view of human freedom), Arminianism (which postulates libertarian human freedom coupled with simple foreknowledge of the future so that God foreordains what he knows will take place), and finally Molinism (according to which God knows what any free person would freely do in any set of circumstances in which God might place him and thus by choosing to create certain persons in certain circumstances God can so providentially order the world that his purposes are ultimately achieved through the free decisions of creatures).

Let's turn to an assessment of these three views.

First, the Calvinist view depends, as you recall, upon universal divine causal determinism of events in order to explain divine providence. And here I want to raise five points of critique.

1.            First of all, I do not think that universal divine causal determinism offers a coherent interpretation of Scripture. You can reconcile universal divine causal determinism with human freedom by interpreting freedom in compatibilist terms. The problem is that adopting compatibilism achieves reconciliation with human freedom only at the expense of denying what the scriptural texts seem clearly to affirm, that is to say, genuine indeterminacy and contingency of our free choices.

Interestingly enough, many of the classical Reformed theologians freely admit this. They acknowledge that the reconciliation of scriptural texts which affirm human freedom and contingency are irreconcilable with scriptural texts affirming divine sovereignty. They would say it's a mystery. It is inscrutable and simply beyond our ability to formulate. So the first criticism is that universal divine causal determinism cannot really give us a coherent model of the scriptural teaching on divine sovereignty and human freedom.

2.            Secondly, universal causal determinism cannot be rationally affirmed. There is a sort of dizzying self-defeating character to determinism. For if you come to believe that determinism is true, then you have to believe that the reason you believe determinism is true is because you were determined to believe it. You have not, in fact, been able to freely weigh the arguments pro and con and make up your mind on that basis. So the difference between a person who believes the arguments for determinism and the person who rejects the arguments for determinism is simply that the one has been determined to believe the arguments and the other one has been determined not to believe them. When you come to realize that your decision to believe in determinism was itself determined and that even your present realization of that fact is itself also causally determined, then a sort of vertigo sets in because everything you think (even that very thought itself) is outside of your control. Determinism, on this view, could be true. This doesn't show determinism is false. Maybe everything is determined. But it's very hard to see how determinism could ever be rationally affirmed because its affirmation would undermine the rationality of that affirmation. So the second point is that universal causal determinism cannot be rationally affirmed.

3.            The third point is that universal divine causal determinism makes God the author of sin and undercuts human responsibility. Curiously some Reformed theologians seem to admit as much. For example, the Calvinist theologian Herman Bavinck admits that if we construe divine conservation as God's re-creation of the world at each successive moment (in other words, occasionalism), then, he says, “All created beings would then exist in appearance only and be devoid of all independence, freedom and responsibility. God himself would be the cause of sin.”[1] But given determinism, there's no more independence, freedom, and responsibility than on re-creation at every subsequent moment, for on the deterministic view even the movement of the human will is caused by God. God moves people to choose evil, and they cannot do otherwise. God determines their choices and makes them do what is wrong. If it's evil to make another person do something wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but he becomes evil himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been obliterated because our choices are not really up to us. God causes us to make them, and therefore we cannot really be responsible for our actions, for nothing that we think or do is up to us. So the third criticism is that universal divine causal determinism makes God the author of sin and undercuts human responsibility.

4.            The fourth criticism is that universal divine causal determinism nullifies human agency. Since our choices are not up to us but are in fact caused by God, human beings cannot be said to be real agents. They are mere instruments by means of which God produces some effect, much like a man using a stick to move a stone. Of course, the secondary instrumental causes retain all of their properties and powers as intermediate causes, just as a stick retains its powers and properties which make it suitable for the purpose of moving a stone with it. So the Calvinist thinkers do not need to be occasionalists like Malebranche or the medieval Muslim theologians. They can affirm that these intermediate secondary causes have real powers and properties. But notice that these intermediate causes are not agents themselves. They are mere instruments, mere instrumental causes, for they have no power to initiate action on their own. Hence, on determinism there really is at the end of the story only one agent in the world and that is God. The Reformed theologian of the 19th century, B. B. Warfield, affirms “the reality and real efficiency of all second causes . . . as the proximate producers of the effect that takes place.”[2] So he affirms that these secondary or instrumental causes have real efficiency and reality; but he doesn't answer the objection that in a deterministic world these intermediate secondary causes are mere instruments and therefore does not answer the objection that in a deterministic world there is only one agent, namely God. But this conclusion not only goes against our knowledge of ourselves as agents, but it also makes it inexplicable why God then would treat us as agents, holding us responsible for what he caused us to do and used us to do. So the fourth criticism is that universal divine causal determinism nullifies human agency.

5.            Finally, the fifth criticism is that universal divine causal determinism makes reality into a farce. The whole world becomes a vain and empty spectacle. There are no free agents in rebellion against God, no free agents to whom God speaks to win them through his love, no one who freely responds to that love and freely gives his love and praise to God in return. The whole spectacle is just a charade whose only real actor is God himself. To illustrate, I remember seeing several years ago an arresting cartoon which depicted a marionette with strings attached to him standing behind a podium giving a speech. The marionette was saying, “Now concerning the Reformed doctrine of predestination. . . .” and the audience listening to the marionette were all marionettes, too! As you look at the picture, the whole thing just looks like a farce. It was just nonsensical. So I'm convinced that far from glorifying God, Calvinism actually denigrates God for engaging in such a farcical charade. It's insulting to God to think that he would create beings who are in every respect causally determined by him and then treat them as though they were free agents, punishing them for the wrong actions that he made them do, or loving them as though they were freely responding agents. God on this view would be like a little child that sets up his toy soldiers and then moves them around in his play world pretending that they are real persons whose every motion is not, in fact, of his own doing and then pretending that they somehow merit praise or blame. So the fifth criticism is, again, that universal divine causal determinism makes reality into a farce.