In philosophy class this morning, there was a debate over free will and part of the issue came down to two different senses:

Pre-enlightenment: Freedom is the ability to do what is good in the sight of God.

Post-enlightenment: Freedom is the natural ability to do what one pleases, whether that be good or evil.

Can Calvinists agree that depraved man has free will in the second sense? I suggest yes.

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I would also say yes, but next question Will then be is the Will really free when it only has a limited desire to choose from that being the one bound to sin. Something bound is not free!

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I think any definition of free will needs to include mention of ability. In other words, our will is free, but we are only going to will to do that which is within our depraved ability.

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Daniel
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The second definition is the Arminian view. Man's fallen nature has no ability to choose what is good, but is wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually. If you're considering man as originally created, then, yes, the second definition is true.

Cheers,

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I think the differentiation between moral and constitutional ability would also come into play here--the limits of one's moral nature vs. one's physical nature. Physically, one can do good things; morally, one cannot(assuming said person is unregenerate).

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A will that costs one nothing.

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The second definition leaves what one wants out of the question. The question is whether one could, if so disposed, do good. The second definition was not a concept that anyone before 1700 would have been familiar with. If we define free will as the ability to do what one is disposed to do, I think that we can say yes, this idea is compatible with reformed theology. What is incompatible is libertarianism which says that the will is unconditioned.

Will we have free will in the New Heavens/New Earth?

I believe the Bible teaches the absolute Sovereignty of God. (In control of everything) To me this means our will (the elect) and the will of the reprobate as well.. It was not Pharaoh's free will falling on his total depravity that let him to the choice to not let the slaves go, it was the authority of the living God hardening his heart and making him choose not to let His people go that his wrath might be shown. This is in the bible in many other examples.. God is never caught off guard.

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That's funny, I think Martin Luther lived before 1700, and he refuted the second view in Bondage of the Will. It's good your in college, so that you can help me get my time line straight.

Cheers,

The Arminian, and common, definition of free will must involve the power of contrary choice, i.e. that an action is free iff one has the ability to do otherwise, all other things being equal. Although, I was discussing this with a friend yesterday, and I realized that the libertarian definition must be a little more than this; it must also include the possibility of performing anything which is within one's natural ability.

For instance, operating on the former definition of libertarian free will, one could say that I have three options in front of me (for the sake of argument): I could type an "a," "b," or "c" on the computer screen. If it is within my natural ability to type in a "c," yet my only conceivable options are "a" and "b," then clearly I don't have libertarian free will with respect to typing "c"; some external force must be restraining me. Therefore the ability to do otherwise, strictly speaking, is not a sufficient definition of free will. It must be the ability to do whatever is within one's natural ability at any given moment.

The Reformed and Biblical viewpoint, on the other hand, is basically the second definition you have above, although saying this convinces me to make a qualifier. I don't think either of the definitions in the OP are false definitions of freedom, but I believe they are true with respect to different aspects of freedom. The second definition properly defines freedom in the sense of possessing moral responsibility, while the first properly defines freedom in the sense of appropriately utilizing our faculties associated with moral responsibility. Just as the imago Dei can be spoken of in two senses, having a rational-moral nature, and properly using that nature, so also freedom can be spoken of in two senses.

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Adam,

The second view in the OP is the Biblical view. Arminians appeal to the power of contrary choice (in good Romans 9:19 fashion) as essential to freedom, while Reformed Christians stress that freedom is the ability to act in accord with one's inclinations/"heart."

And, as I said above, freedom with respect to properly utilizing our faculties is correctly defined in the first definition. But this does not imply that freedom with respect to the sheer possession of moral responsibility for actions is incorrectly defined in the second definition.

Ben

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No, that wasn't it at all. What he was refuting is the idea that man, in his natural state, can do good in the sense that he is willing. That is, though man has the natural ability to do good, he does not have the actual or volitional ability to do good.

Free will is the ability to choose the contrary, if one were so disposed. I chose to eat pizza rather than wings tonight because I felt like pizza. Could I have chosen have chosen wings? Yes, if I was so disposed--but I wasn't, so the choice of pizza was inevitable.

The second view states that man has the natural ability to choose good or evil. That may be your view, but it is not the Scripture's, nor the confessional view.

Man does not have the natural ability to choose anything but evil.

Human nature, as fallen, cannot choose anything spiritually good.

Cheers,

No, it states that if man pleases, he may choose good or evil. TD men may not please to do good; therefore they choose only evil.

I should have defined this term from the outset. Natural ability by definition refers to one's capability to perform an action if he desires to do that action. To get this across with an extreme example, God has the natural ability to sin, but He does not have the moral ability to sin. He is not too weak to sin, but too good to sin. He would never desire to sin, but if He did (God forbid), then He would be powerful enough to carry it out.

Agreed. But this is a moral inability, not a natural inability. The distinction has to be made, for there are clearly things we are unable to carry out for which we have moral responsibility (e.g. repentance and faith), and there are clearly things we are unable to carry out for which we don't (e.g. flying without technological assistance).

Free will is the power or ability to do otherwise than we do in some circumstances. Peter van Inwagen defines it as such in his essay How to Think about the Problem of Free Will.

Compatibilism is the view that this ability is compatible with determinism being true; incompatibilism is the view that this ability is not compatible with determinism being true.

Hard determinists are incompatibilists who believe in determinism. Libertarians are incompatibilists who believe we do have free will and determinism is false. Pessimism about free will is the view that whether or not determinism is true, free will is not possible.

Some people interpret "ability or power to do otherwise than we do" in a counter-factual sense: S could have done otherwise if the conditions prior to his committing that act had been different, for instance. A compatibilist might hold to that kind of power of contrary choice.

Others interpret "ability or power to do otherwise than we do" in a stronger sense: S could have done otherwise than he did, all prior conditions being the same. A libertarian might hold to that kind of power of contrary choice.

I lean towards hard determinism or pessimism about free will.

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Steven Nemes
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Doesn't hard determinism ipso facto preclude moral responsibility?

Only if you assume free will is necessary for moral responsibility.

Which I don't.

Remember, I was speaking of free will, which is a separate issue from moral responsibility, though the two are closely related.

Really, I could've added the semi-compatibilist position to the list, which is the view that whether or not free will is compatible with determinism, moral responsibility is.

I could be a pessimist about free will and still believe in moral responsibility, though this view is probably very rare.

I thought compatibilism referred to the compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism, not of LFW and determinism -- for the latter two are excluded by definition.

I think you are equivocating with the word natural. Please tell me what do you mean by natural, and then perhaps we can discuss this. God does not have a natural ability to sin, nor a moral ability to sin; He is impeccable.

When we talk about man's nature, we have to talk about it under the fourfold state. Which one do you want to talk about? To blur the four states is to create confusion.

Cheers,

You are surely correct in your second assertion - LFW and determinism are mutually exclusive concepts. However, I'm not sure you're correct in your first assertion, that compatibilism refers to moral responsibility and determinism. I believe that compatibilism refers to the belief that determinism is compatible with a reasonable definition of free will (although not LFW). Most Reformed, for example, would argue both for determinism and for a concept of free will focusing on freedom from external compulsion.

As you can tell from Steven's post, the discussion has advanced along a number of different lines, not all of which can be placed on a two-dimensional spectrum.

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Free will is what I defined it to be at the top of my post. That's the definition van Inwagen gives.

Compatibilism is the view that that is compatible with determinism. Semi-compatibilism is the view that whether or not that is compatible with determinism, moral responsibility nonetheless is.

If one has the capability of performing an action when he wants, then he has a natural ability to carry out that action. That God cannot sin is not a want of power, but a want of evil in Him. If He desired, He could sin, but since He is perfect He will never desire to sin -- thus He has a moral inability to sin.

I am not talking about any particular one of the four states, but if I were to categorize them, I would say that in all four states man has the natural ability to sin: in the first he has the moral ability to sin and not to sin (at various points in time); in the second he has the moral ability to sin, but not to do good; in the third he has the moral ability to sin and not to sin (again, at various points); and in the fourth he has the moral ability to do good, but not to sin.

And, again, among various actions that humans are incapable of performing, there are some for which our inability is punishable, and some for which it is not. Therefore there must be some non-arbitrary distinction between the two. Hence, natural ability and moral ability.

I'm basically just rehashing Jonathan Edwards here, by the way.

I'm pretty sure the definition I gave was the simplest, most succinct, and best answer. I would know, I have a Bachelor's Degree.

You're absolutely right, Joshua. What was I thinking to doubt you?

That's okay, Jonathan. It happens to the best of us.

Alister McGrath writes the following paragraph in his book Studies in Doctrine concerning the historical meaning of the term (see my blog post here):

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I should have mentioned that Edwards makes the distinction I just made.

Natural here is not the theological natural. It means--within one's power. I have a natural ability to walk around my room even if I don't want to do so. I do not have a natural ability to fly around the room even if I want to do so.

There are some odd statements flying around this thread.

First, God cannot sin. He cannot even be tempted to sin, naturally, morally, or otherwise. He hates sin and is of purer eyes than to behold evil. Perish the thought, whoever suggested the contrary.

Secondly, the discussion is woefully confused between action and the morality of an action. Of course an unregernerate person can choose to do good and abstain from evil so far as actions commanded or forbidden are concerned. Read Paul's account in Philippians 3. But those actions can never be pleasing to God because they are not done for the glory of God or by faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Would you say that this proposition is true? If God desired to sin, He would be powerful enough to carry it out.

I am not advocating for the truthfulness of the antecedent, or even the remote possibility of its truthfulness.

No; it falls into the same category as the "rock too heavy to lift." It is an absurdity. Sin is weakness, not strength.

Right, but a morally perfect being's capability of sinning is an objective impossibility only because of its moral aspect. Sin is moral weakness, not natural weakness.

What moral law could God be bound to so as to desire Himself to break it? It seems like the proposition is meaningless because the terms are self-contradictory.

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No; it is natural weakness, if by natural you mean what is ordinarily conveyed by the moral-natural distinction. Just look at the political spectrum. Sin is the easy choice; there is a temporary pleasure in it, even if it is but for a season.

Are you saying that since God is the standard for moral goodness, it would be meaningless to speak of the possibility of His acting apart from that standard?

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Well, some sins can be physically grueling to carry out, e.g. a mass murder. It would be physically easier, at least in one case, not to carry that out.

But at any rate, by "natural ability" I mean this: one has the natural ability to carry out an action if he can carry it out when he so desires. Moral ability refers to the actual possession of that desire. (God can never possess a desire to sin; therefore He is morally unable to sin.)

I'm saying that, as the Sovereign determiner of law, He cannot be bound to anything other than His own desire. But sin is any want of conformity or transgression of the law. It would require God to want other than He wants to be both lawgiver and lawbreaker. No amount of power can set aside the nature of thinking (laws of logic) itself.

The tension you're describing is one of desires, and how it is impossible for God to desire sin. By definition, that would be referring to His moral inability to sin (with which I'd agree), not a natural inability.

I'm not saying He's powerful enough to change His desires in order to make them sinful, by the way. That would imply LFW, as it would entail the precedence of volition to inclinations.

Your first paragraph conflates physical with natural.

Your second paragraph is closer to the distinction between moral and natural because it looks at the natural as a constitutive ability. However, it is confused because it sees "natural" as referring to ability to carry out an action rather than an ability to choose. The discussion is freedom of the "will," which is solely concerned with the power to choose. "Natural" refers to the ability to make choices as a free agent. "Moral" refers to the quality of those choices as judged by God according to the standard of His law. Again, I would say that God has no such ability to choose sin either naturally or morally.

We must define the will and then freedom. The will is the simply the faculty of choice, or that by which the mind chooses. One can have a will yet not be able to do what he is disposed to do for many reasons. For instance, one with a will might wish to take a walk in the park but not be able to do so due to physical imprisonment or physical disability. In a word, man has a will but I find nothing free about it since in a philosophical sense, there is no such thing as free will for such freedom implies the power of contrary choice. Liberty is another matter altogether. I discuss liberty below.

From my blog:

The question that always lurks behind the objection to the Edwardsian view of God’s determination of the human will is how can man be morally accountable for choices that are necessary and not free? In other words, if it is true that God knows the future choices of men because he has determined them and that free will is a philosophical surd, then how can man be held responsible for any choices whatsoever? The solution lies in the distinction between ability and liberty.

There are four states of man. (1) Man in the garden prior to the fall; (2) man after the fall yet prior to conversion; (3) converted man; and (4) glorified man. In all four states man does not have free will; for man cannot choose contrary to his is strongest inclination at the moment of choice; nor can man choose contrary to the truth of how he will choose. It is not as if prior to the fall Adam had free will and then lost it with sin, regaining it upon conversion, etc. Neither man nor God ever has free will.The seat of moral accountability is (a) liberty (the ability to choose what one wants), AND (b) the want of being able to choose contrary to how one will. With respect to liberty, man is morally accountable when he has the ability to choose as he wants; which is to say, man is morally accountable when he has liberty to act, which presupposes no prohibitors, whether they be economic, intellectual, physical, etc. Given liberty, it is necessary that man always choose according to his intentions and never contrary to them; for to act contrary to an intention is not to choose but to act irrationally, without intention. Accordingly, man is morally accountable when he has liberty yet no free will.

A man crippled in his legs from birth cannot be held responsible for not running around the back yard with his children. The reason being, he could not do so if he wanted. He has no liberty in other words, which is again the ability to choose as one wants. With respect to coming to Christ, God’s election of reprobates unto damnation does not prohibit them from acting according their desires and intentions. A reprobate does not lack liberty, the ability to act according to his desire or want of desire for Christ. Consequently, the reprobate is not at all like the crippled man who is prevented from running even given a desire to do so; for the crippled man cannot act according to a desire to run, whereas the reprobate can and does act according his intention toward Christ. A reprobate chooses to reject God, yet could embrace God if he so desired; whereas a crippled man cannot run with his children given a desire to do so. The difference is obvious. The reprobate has liberty, whereas the crippled man has none.

I’ve addressed the matter of the reprobate coming to Christ only because it is the most important choice one makes in his life. However, one should not become confused and think that some real choices are not determined and not according to one’s intentions and, therefore, "free." Some Calvinists wrongly think that reprobates are "free" except with respect to coming to Christ. That is false. No person is free to choose contrary to how he will, whether in the area of the gospel or in common life.

Ron

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The definition of sin contains an aspect that would make it impossible for God to desire it as a metaphysical consideration. Sin is the transgression of what God has Himself established as the standard of conduct. Therefore, for God to desire Himself to sin, would be to desire against His desire to craft a standard for Himself. It basically asserts a contradictory willing in God's nature, which is not respecting of moral character, but of metaphysical or epistemological possibility.

You said that sin is an easier choice because it has temporary pleasure, and thereby sin denotes a natural weakness. But is not a temporary pleasure a physical thing?

Defined as that, I have no problem with saying God is naturally unable to sin, but I'm not sure how, given that definition of "moral," it is intelligible to speak of moral ability. If we use the word "moral" as it is used in another context, i.e. the judgment of choices, then it doesn't make sense to apply it to an ability. In other words, if the category of natural ability encompasses one's ability to make righteous choices or sinful choices, then there is nothing left to relegate to the purview of moral ability.

And, as I said above, among the actions of which we are incapable, there are some punishable, and some not. What is the distinction that makes sense of this? I contend that natural and moral ability, as I defined above, do this perfectly.

No, it is a state of the mind.

This still doesn't grasp what is meant by the distinction. "Natural ability" is an ability to make choices. "Moral ability" is an ability to "choose good," i.e., choices which God judges as good, spiritually and absolutely.

Well, if you want to make up your own definitions, that is your prerogative, but don't be surprised if no one can follow you.