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Compatibilism, Free Will and God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Antony Flew
Antony Flew
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Extract

In Chapter VI of his powerful study God and Other Minds Dr Alvin Plantinga deploys what—following a suggestion of mine—he calls ‘The Free Will Defence’. He presents his case there as a reaction to two earlier attempts to overcome that defence. I propose to take this chapter in Plantinga as my starting point here; and, as far as can be, to ignore, though not by that token to repudiate, those by now rather ancient earlier essays.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 185 , July 1973 , pp. 231 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1973

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References

1 Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell U.P., 1967.Google Scholar

2 ‘Evil and Omnipotence’ by Mackie, J. L. in Mind 1955Google Scholar and my ‘Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom’ in Flew, Antony and MacIntyre, Alasdair (eds.) New Essays in Philosophical Theology (London: S.C.M. Press, 1955)Google Scholar. A much shorter version of the latter appeared in the Hibbert Journal for January 1955; and it is this version, slightly corrected, which has since been reprinted in Mavrodes, G. I. and Hackett, S. C. (eds.) Perspectives in the Philosophy of ReligionGoogle Scholar and in Angeles, P. (ed.) Modern Critical Readings in the Philosophy of Religion.Google Scholar

3 This fine formulation was in ‘Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom’ attributed to St Augustine. Dr John Burnaby of Trinity College, Cambridge, pointed out to me that my attribution is insupportable. It may be salutary to others besides myself to be thus provided with one more reminder of the need for the scholarly discipline requiring that precise references be provided always; and—at least occasionally—also checked!

4 Compare my ‘The Presumption of Atheism’ in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. II, No. 1 (09, 1972).Google Scholar

5 Summa Theologica, I, QXXV, A4Google Scholar: the translations from Aquinas are my own.

6 This is the same point as that being made by Plantinga when he writes of ‘certain good states of affairs that an omnipotent God cannot bring about without permitting evil, despite the fact that these goods are not a logically sufficient condition of any evil at all’ (p. 131). For the particular good state of affairs which Plantinga has in mind is that people should be endowed with powers of choice.

7 I said something on both counts in the article cited in Note 2 above.

8 This is in fact a quotation from Mackie, (op. cit., p. 209)Google Scholar. But, as I explained in Section 1 of the text, I am trying to take Plantinga's comparatively recent chapter as my present starting point; and thus to avoid any unprofitable ‘Who-said-what-which-meant-what?’ disputes extending back over seventeen or more years.

9 p. 136.

10 For a fuller account of these ideas see, for instance, my An Introduction to Western Philosophy (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, and Bobbs-Merrill, 1971)Google Scholar, under Creation and First Cause.

11 See, for instance, ‘Dr Clarke's First Reply’ and ‘Mr Leibniz's Second Paper’ in The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, edited by Alexander, H. G. (Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1956).Google Scholar

12 Philosophical Works, translated by Haldane, E. S. and Ross, G. R. T. (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1931), Vol. I, p. 235Google Scholar. Here and elsewhere I have assimilated the spelling and punctuation of passages quoted to that of my own text.

13 p. 134.

14 p. 135.

15 p. 135.

16 Lucas, JohnThe Freedom of the Will (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 See, for instance, G. J. Warnock's paper under this title in Flew, Antony (Ed.) Logic and Language, Second Series (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953).Google Scholar

18 Descartes' contention was criticized by Bayle and by Leibniz. See, for instance, Theodicy, I 50–51 and III 292 ff.Google Scholar; and compare the discussion between Campbell, C. A., Grant, C. K., and Smart, J. J. C. in Mind for 1951, 1952, and 1961Google Scholar, respectively. Schopenhauer's prize essay on The Freedom of the Will is especially savage about the persistence of this contention: ‘in Germany too there is no shortage of ignoramuses who throw to the winds all that has been said about this by great thinkers in the last 200 years, and, … proclaim the freedom of the will as actually given. But perhaps I am unfair to them, as it may be the case that they are not as ignorant as they seem but only hungry; and therefore, for a very dry piece of bread, teach everything that might please a lofty ministry’. The translation is by Kolenda, K. (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1960), p. 44.Google Scholar

19 Boswell, 's Journal for 10 10 1769Google Scholar. Compare Locke in the Essay (II (xxi) 21)Google Scholar: ‘I think the question is not proper, whether the will be free, but whether a man be free’.

20 As I have done in Part Three of my Crime or Disease? (London: Macmillan, 1973).Google Scholar

21 Summa contra Gentiles, III 67.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., III 88–89.

23 The Bondage of the Will, translated by Packer, J. I. and Johnston, O. R. (London: J. Clarke, 1957).Google Scholar

24 As Luther himself very nearly says: ‘the highest degree of faith is to believe that he is merciful, though he saves so few and damns so many; to believe that he is just, though of his own will he makes us … proper subjects for damnation, and seems (in the words of Erasmus) “to delight in the torments of poor wretches and to be a fitter object for hate than for love”. If I could by any means understand how this same God … can yet be merciful and just, there would be no need for faith’ (Ibid., II 7). Later Luther asks: ‘Why then does he not alter those evil wills which he moves?’ But, understandably if unsatisfactorily, Luther offers no answer: ‘It is not for us to inquire into these mysteries, but to adore them. If flesh and blood take offence here and grumble, well, let them grumble; they will achieve nothing; grumbling will not change God! And however many of the ungodly stumble and depart, the elect will remain …’ (Ibid., II 6).

25 It is interesting to compare Kant in the Critique of Practical Reason: ‘… as soon as it is assumed that God as the Universal Primordial Being is the cause also of the existence of substance … Man would be a marionette or an automaton like Vancanson's, fabricated and wound up by the Supreme Artist …’ The translation is that of Beck, L. W. (New York: Library of Liberal Arts, 1956), pp. 104–105.Google Scholar

26 For a fuller development see my ‘Again the Paradigm’ in Feyerabend, P. K. and Maxwell, G. (Eds.) Mind, Matter, and Method (Minneapolis: Minnesota U.P., 1966).Google Scholar

27 Which is precisely what Wootton, Lady does suggest in her Social Science and Social Pathology (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959), Chapter VIIIGoogle Scholar. Compare Hart, H. L. A.'s criticism in his Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), Chapters VII–VIII.Google Scholar

28 p. 133.

29 An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1940), p. 285.Google Scholar

20 In the work mentioned in Note 10, above, Ch. VII §6.