Is Compatibalism Mutually Exclusive with Arminianism?
Yes, they are mutually exclusive. Both can't be true at the same time.
Compatiblism is the idea that determinism is compatible with human freedom. Determinism is the idea that everything that happens had a preceding cause such that it necessarily happens and the opposite cannot happen. Freedom (as compatiblists explain it) is freedom from compulsion. IE no one is forcing you to do something you don't want to do. You are able to act according to your strongest desire. However you are unable to act contrary to your strongest desire. And that desire comes from our nature and our nature comes in part from God's creating us the way He did and in part from God putting us in the circumstances He does, and in no part from us as an indeterministic cause of our actions.
Arminianism is both a philosophical and a soterialogical system. As a philosophical system, it embraces libertarian free will and denies determinism outright. This can be seen clearly from the writings of its founder James Arminius and any Arminian who writes about free will.
As a soteriological system its not compatible with compatiblism. The point were this is perhaps easiest to see is resistible grace. Now it's true that God could create us with a nature capable of resisting some amount of grace. Calvinists agree to this. But under compatiblism that grace could never be said to be:
1) suitable for the salvation of those who will be lost (because their nature is to reject it)
2) intended by God for their salvation (because God gave them that nature which rejects)
3) something they are able to respond to (because they are still not able to act contrary to their nature)
4) what makes salvation possible (because it's impossible that they should act contrary to their strongest desire)
5) rightly called grace (because it was not intended for their eternal benefit, but rather to make their eternal judgement more severe)
Closely related to the resistible grace point is the point on conditional election. If compatiblism is true, God cannot be said to conditionally elect, but rather to unconditionally elect. He chooses what nature to create man with and what circumstances to put him in to shape that nature. So He has predetermined whether or not they will believe and they are unable to do otherwise than what He has predetermined for them.
So with resistible grace and conditional election we can see that compatiblism is incompatible with Arminianism.
The other three points of Arminianism: Christ dieing for all, conditional security and depravity are consistent with compatiblism. This can be seen in the cases of
Amyraldian (who taught Christ died for all):
http://www.theopedia.com/Order_of_God
Augustine (who taught people can fall from grace):
http://www.geocities.com/freewilltheology/agustineonfallingfromgrace.html
and Calvinists who teach man are depraved.
Dan
Compatiblism is the idea that determinism is compatible with human freedom. Determinism is the idea that everything that happens had a preceding cause such that it necessarily happens and the opposite cannot happen. Freedom (as compatiblists explain it) is freedom from compulsion. IE no one is forcing you to do something you don't want to do. You are able to act according to your strongest desire. However you are unable to act contrary to your strongest desire. And that desire comes from our nature and our nature comes in part from God's creating us the way He did and in part from God putting us in the circumstances He does, and in no part from us as an indeterministic cause of our actions.
Arminianism is both a philosophical and a soterialogical system. As a philosophical system, it embraces libertarian free will and denies determinism outright. This can be seen clearly from the writings of its founder James Arminius and any Arminian who writes about free will.
As a soteriological system its not compatible with compatiblism. The point were this is perhaps easiest to see is resistible grace. Now it's true that God could create us with a nature capable of resisting some amount of grace. Calvinists agree to this. But under compatiblism that grace could never be said to be:
1) suitable for the salvation of those who will be lost (because their nature is to reject it)
2) intended by God for their salvation (because God gave them that nature which rejects)
3) something they are able to respond to (because they are still not able to act contrary to their nature)
4) what makes salvation possible (because it's impossible that they should act contrary to their strongest desire)
5) rightly called grace (because it was not intended for their eternal benefit, but rather to make their eternal judgement more severe)
Closely related to the resistible grace point is the point on conditional election. If compatiblism is true, God cannot be said to conditionally elect, but rather to unconditionally elect. He chooses what nature to create man with and what circumstances to put him in to shape that nature. So He has predetermined whether or not they will believe and they are unable to do otherwise than what He has predetermined for them.
So with resistible grace and conditional election we can see that compatiblism is incompatible with Arminianism.
The other three points of Arminianism: Christ dieing for all, conditional security and depravity are consistent with compatiblism. This can be seen in the cases of
Amyraldian (who taught Christ died for all):
http://www.theopedia.com/Order_of_God
Augustine (who taught people can fall from grace):
http://www.geocities.com/freewilltheology/agustineonfallingfromgrace.html
and Calvinists who teach man are depraved.
Dan
Comments
Hi. This is Wes again.
:) Well… I believe Arminianism, as a soteriological system, is not necessarily incompatible with compatibilism.
Here are my thoughts. In my compatibilist Arminianism scheme, God created us (our natures, or our souls) to be free in a compatibilist way, or more accurately, to be responsible in a compatibilist way.
The usual notions, that in compatibilism, God is ultimately accountable for the acts and thoughts of His creatures, and God’s universal offer of salvation is not sincere, are not completely right. At least as it seems to me, especially when I could advance the claim that before the creation of His creatures, the usually omniscient God was somehow (How? Maybe God withheld His knowledge, or He factored certain contingencies in, or we can simply say He had created us free [in a compatibilist sense]) ignorant of the future choices of His would-be-created creatures.
In other words, God created us, but in a way that our natures (or souls) are not predetermined by His act of creation.
Peace.
Wes
Humm... Based on what you are saying it seems your views might indeed be Arminian, but now I am not so sure they are 100% full fledged compatibilist.
Let's see... Whey you say:
"God created us, but in a way that our natures (or souls) are not predetermined by His act of creation."
Do you mean our acts are predetermined by some other act of God besides creation?
Are they predetermined by someone or something other than God?
God bless,
Dan
I probably didn’t describe my view clearly enough, above.
When I said “God created us, but in a way that our natures (or souls) are not predetermined by His act of creation”, I actually meant something akin to what a poster of theologyweb forum, Tercel, had said in this post of his:
“God has natural knowledge. God decides he wants to create a world. God creates the souls of the people that are going to be in that world by an indeterministic process (thus God doesn't know the outcome until it happens). The agents themselves, once created, have compatibilistic free will. Therefore immediately after the creation of the agents God gains middle knowledge. (What makes middle knowledge not natural knowledge is that God can't know it prior to the creation of the agents because the creation of the agents is indeterministic) God, in his middle knowledge, examines all the possible univeses and creates the one he likes best.”
For your questions, God predetermined every act of ours, subsequent to His creation of us.
Peace.
Wes
I plan on responding in a seperate post.
God bless,
Dan