Response to Turretinfan
This post is in response to Turretinfan's post here. I used gabcast only to cover ground more quickly. Sorry about the "ums" and I recommend turning the volume up.
Gabcast! Dan's blog #5
God be with you,
Dan
Gabcast! Dan's blog #5
God be with you,
Dan
Comments
it is interesting how one sees and feels when listening to the idea rather than reading it.
It occurs to me to write, we are very very limited creations and never will be able to "know" as God.
Even as one conjoined to Christ being now intrinsically a part of His Whole Nature, at my best, I know very little. At this time it is of little value to speed things up.
My answers are up (yonder).
I should point out that I read much faster than I listen, so I'm one of those guys that prefers print media. But you did good job of speaking clearly, much better than I would do if I tried.
-TurretinFan
Quite an excellent piece, you were very succinct and to the point. You also have a very pleasant voice.
I second all the nice compliments to TF - he is indeed one of the rare people that always show great respect and brotherly love to his opponents in debate. I still lament his dissapearance from CW..
Looking forward to further debate with great interest, gentlemen, and May God bless you richly.
Odeliya.
I listened to your talk, you sound much younger than I thought that you were! :-) I think it’s neat that we have the technology to do what you did to get our thoughts across.
I may be mistaken but it seems to be that what your discussion is dealing with is the nature of **agent causation**. And that in order to establish that **we** have agent causation, you are discussing God as an example of how agent causation works. Your comments about being the source of one’s actions go to the idea that we are the source of our own actions. That our actions are not necessitated by external factors, but are freely chosen by us, and actualized by us.
I have said before in discussions with calvinist determinists that God is the perfect example of agent causation. He is a person, actually a pure spirit, without physical parts, who causes His own actions. God’s actions are not necessitated by some external factor. His actions are not determined by antecedent conditions or causal laws that determine His action.
Plantinga defines freely chosen actions as: “If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t.”
What Plantinga says here seems to be exactly what happens when God does His actions. God is free to perform, say creating the universe (or your example, creating a world that will include a May 31st where it rains in a certain place) and free to refrain from performing an action, say not creating the universe (or creating a world that will not include a May 31st where it will rain in a certain place). God is absolute in his nature and attributes, but his intentional actions are not absolute but are contingent upon His sovereignty and what He actually chooses to do.
I will admit that there is a bit of a mystery as to how a purely spiritual being acts, what the mechanics are, but I also have no doubt that He acts and does so for reasons. So He provides a clear case of a spirit that does His own actions. I believe that we are created in His image and so do our actions in a similar way (we are spirits that do our own actions as well). As a substance dualist (the bible clearly presents that human nature includes both physical and immaterial aspects) I do not understand how our spirit interacts with our bodies though I have no doubt that it happens because I have personally experienced it countless times and have observed that other human persons are spirits that control their bodies.
In my interactions with determinist calvinists they seem to understand that if agent causation were true of us, and if it were similar to how God also experiences agent causation, then we would have libertarian free will. Because they understand this, they then feel forced to attack agent causation. And their attacks against agent causation are exceedingly weak at times outright nonsensical. I have found it interesting that some of their arguments against agent causation when it comes to us, completely break down when we consider God. Their other recourse is to admit that God experiences agent causation but then try to claim that we do not.
Dan did you read that section in Plantinga’s famous essay where he directly discusses and argues for agent causation as the position that Christians ought to take? Perhaps I will reproduce it here and we could discuss his comments point by point. He makes very good points and argues that deterministic arguments are extremely weak. Some real good stuff.
Robert
I decided to go ahead and post the relevant section where Alvin Plantinga discusses agent causation and how weak determinism is as a philosophical position. This is part of the fourth section from his famous lecture, readily available on the internet, titled:
[[[“Advice to Christian Philosophers”
IV.Theism and Persons
My third example has to do with philosophical anthropology: how should we think about human persons? What sorts of things, fundamentally, are they? What is it to be a person, what is it to be a human person, and how shall we think about personhood? How, in particular, should Christians, Christian philosophers, think about these things? The first point to note is that on the Christian scheme of things, God is the premier person, the first and chief exemplar of personhood. God, furthermore, has created man in his own image; we men and women are image bearers of God, and the properties most important for an understanding of our personhood are properties we share with him. How we think about God, then, will have an immediate and direct bearing on how we think about humankind. Of course we learn much about ourselves from other sources-from everyday observation, from introspection and self-observation, from scientific investigation and the like. But it is also perfectly proper to start from what we know as Christians. It is not the case that rationality, or proper philosophical method, or intellectual responsibility, or the new scientific morality, or whatever, require that we start from beliefs we share with everyone else-what common sense and current science teach, e.g.-and attempt to reason to or justify those beliefs we hold as Christians. In trying to give a satisfying philosophical account of some area or phenomenon, we may properly appeal, in our account or explanation, to anything else we already rationally believe- whether it be current science or Christian doctrine.
Let me proceed again to specific examples. There is a fundamental watershed, in philosophical anthropology, between those who think of human beings as free-free in the libertarian sense-and those who espouse determinism. According to determinists, every human action is a consequence of initial conditions outside our control by way of causal laws that are also outside our control. Sometimes underlying this claim is a picture of the universe as a vast machine where, at any rate at the macroscopic level, all events, including human actions, are determined by previous events and causal laws. On this view every action I have in fact performed was such that it wasn't within my power to refrain from performing it; and if, on a given occasion I did not perform a given action, then it wasn't then within my power to perform it. If I now raise my arm, then, on the view in question, it wasn't within my power just then not to raise it. Now the Christian thinker has a stake in this controversy just by virtue of being a Christian. For she will no doubt believe that God holds us human beings responsible for much of what we do-responsible, and thus properly subject to praise or blame, approval or disapproval. But how can I be responsible for my actions, if it was never within my power to perform any actions I didn't in fact perform, and never within my power to refrain from performing any I did perform? If my actions are thus determined, then I am not rightly or justly held accountable for them; but God does nothing improper or unjust, and he holds me accountable for some of my actions; hence it is not the case that all of my actions are thus determined. The Christian has an initially strong reason to reject the claim that all of our actions are causally determined-a reason much stronger than the meager and anemic arguments the determinist can muster on the other side. Of course if there were powerful arguments on the other side, then there might be a problem here. But there aren't; so there isn't.
Now the determinist may reply that freedom and causal determinism are, contrary to initial appearances, in fact compatible. He may argue that my being free with respect to an action I performed at a time t for example, doesn't entail that it was then within my power to refrain from performing it, but only something weaker-perhaps something like if I had chosen not to perform it, I would not have performed it. Indeed, the clearheaded compatibilist will go further. He will maintain, not merely that freedom is compatible with determinism, but that freedom requires determinism. He will hold with Hume that the proposition S is free with respect to action A or S does A freely entails that S is causally determined with respect to A-that there are causal laws and antecedent conditions that together entail either that S performs A or that S does not perform A. And he will back up this claim by insisting that if S is not thus determined with respect to A, then it's merely a matter of chance-due, perhaps, to quantum effects in S's brain- that S does A. But if it is just a matter of chance that S does A then either S doesn't really do A at all, or at any rate S is not responsible for doing A. If S's doing A is just a matter of chance, then S's doing A is something that just happens to him; but then it is not really the case that he performs A-at any rate it is not the case that he is responsible for performing A. And hence freedom, in the sense that is required for responsibility, itself requires determinism.
But the Christian thinker will find this claim monumentally implausible. Presumably the determinist means to hold that what he says characterizes actions generally, not just those of human beings. He will hold that it is a necessary truth that if an agent isn't caused to perform an action then it is a mere matter of chance that the agent in question performs the action in question. From a Christian perspective, however, this is wholly incredible. For God performs actions, and performs free actions; and surely it is not the case that there are causal laws and antecedent conditions outside his control that determine what he does. On the contrary: God is the author of the causal laws that do in fact obtain; indeed, perhaps the best way to think of these causal laws is as records of the ways in which God ordinarily treats the beings he has created. But of course it is not simply a matter of chance that God does what he does-creates and upholds the world, let's say, and offers redemption and renewal to his children. So a Christian philosopher has an extremely good reason for rejecting this premise, along with the determinism and compatibilism it supports.
What is really at stake in this discussion is the notion of agent causation: the notion of a person as an ultimate source of action. According to the friends of agent causation, some events are caused, not by other events, but by substances, objects-typically personal agents. And at least since the time of David Hume, the idea of agent causation has been languishing. It is fair to say, I think, that most contemporary philosophers who work in this area either reject agent causation outright or are at the least extremely suspicious of it. They see causation as a relation among events; they can understand how one event can cause another event, or how events of one kind can cause events of another kind. But the idea of a person, say, causing an event, seems to them unintelligible, unless it can be analyzed, somehow, in terms of event causation. It is this devotion to event causation, of course, that explains the claim that if you perform an action but are not caused to do so, then your performing that action is a matter of chance. For if I hold that all causation is ultimately event causation, then I will suppose that if you perform an action but are not caused to do so by previous events, then your performing that action isn't caused at all and is therefore a mere matter of chance. The devotee of event causation, furthermore, will perhaps argue for his position as follows. If such agents as persons cause effects that take place in the physical world-my body's moving in a certain way, for example-then these effects must ultimately be caused by volitions or undertakings-which, apparently, are immaterial, unphysical events. He will then claim that the idea of an immaterial event's having causal efficacy in the physical world is puzzling or dubious or worse.
But a Christian philosopher will find this argument unimpressive and this devotion to event causation uncongenial. As for the argument, the Christian already and independently believes that acts of volition have causal efficacy; he believes indeed, that the physical universe owes its very existence to just such volitional acts-God's undertaking to create it. And as for the devotion to event causation, the Christian will be, initially, at any rate, strongly inclined to reject the idea that event causation is primary and agent causation to be explained in terms of it. For he believes that God does and has done many things: he has created the world; he sustains it in being; he communicates with his children. But it is extraordinarily hard to see how these truths can be analyzed in terms of causal relations among events. What events could possibly cause God's creating the world or his undertaking to create the world? God himself institutes or establishes the causal laws that do in fact hold; how, then, can we see all the events constituted by his actions as related to causal laws to earlier events? How could it be that propositions ascribing actions to him are to be explained in terms of event causation?
Some theistic thinkers have noted this problem and reacted by soft pedaling God's causal activity, or by impetuously following Kant in declaring that it is of a wholly different order from that in which we engage, an order beyond our comprehension. I believe this is the wrong response. Why should a Christian philosopher join in the general obeisance to event causation? It is not as if there are cogent arguments here. The real force behind this claim is a certain philosophical way of looking at persons and the world; but this view has no initial plausibility from a Christian perspective and no compelling argument in its favor.
So on all these disputed points in philosophical anthropology the theist will have a strong initial predilection for resolving the dispute in one way rather than another. He will be inclined to reject compatibilism, to hold that event causation (if indeed there is such a thing) is to be explained in
terms of agent causation, to reject the idea that if an event isn't caused by other events then its occurrence is a matter of chance, and to reject the idea that events in the physical world can't be caused by an agent's undertaking to do something. And my point here is this. The Christian philosopher is within his right in holding these positions, whether or not he can convince the rest of the philosophical world and whatever the current philosophical consensus is, if there is a consensus. But isn't such an appeal to God and his properties, in this philosophical context, a shameless appeal to a deus ex machina? Surely not. "Philosophy," as Hegel once exclaimed in a rare fit of lucidity, "is thinking things over." Philosophy is in large part a clarification, systematization, articulation, relating and deepening of pre-philosophical opinion. We come to philosophy with a range of opinions about the world and humankind and the place of the latter in the former; and in philosophy we think about these matters, systematically articulate our views, put together and relate our views on diverse topics, and deepen our views by finding unexpected interconnections and by discovering and answering unanticipated questions. Of course we may come to change our minds by virtue of philosophical endeavor; we may discover incompatibilities or other infelicities. But we come to philosophy with prephilosophical opinions; we can do no other. And the point is: the Christian has as much right to his prephilosophical opinions, as others have to theirs. He needn't try first to 'prove' them from propositions accepted by, say, the bulk of the non-Christian philosophical community; and if they are widely rejected as naive, or pre-scientific, or primitive, or unworthy of "man come of age," that is nothing whatever against them. Of course if there were genuine and substantial arguments against them from premises that have some legitimate claim on the Christian philosopher, then he would have a problem; he would have to make some kind of change somewhere. But in the absence of such arguments-and the absence of such arguments is evident-the Christian philosophical community, quite properly starts, in philosophy, from what it believes.]]]
I have never seen any calvinist determinist show where Plantinga is wrong here. And I wish everybody could see this for themselves.
Dan it might be an interesting blog article for you to just cite Plantinga's words here and just go point by point over what he says and explain the point he is making and why it is relevant to the debate about whether or not we have agent causation and libertarian free will. Just a suggestion, it is still your ***choice***! :-)
Robert
I smiled at your comment a bit :) looks like it is impossible to determine the apprx age of a christian writer - a few times on some forums right after I was firmly convinced about poster’s age being about 13,judging by his or her responses/logic, a person reports being 64 or so.
Or completely the other way around sometimes!
Probably due in part to the fact that knowledge of God's truth comes by divine ways, by the Holy Spirit. In a sense that extensive studying of theology by itself doesn’t necessarily brings one closer to God’s true wisdom yet, unlike knowledge of math or science, for example, which is generally cumulative, the more we know the more knowledgeable we are in a chosen field.
I've seen so many exceptionally learned while being exceptionally
confused theologians and authors :), fully qualifying for christian "babe".
Yes, this is a good excerpt of Plantinga, I know Dan likes him too. I go to a secular school and am totally amazed at A.P.’s open-mindedness.
I have trouble understanding how responsibility works in compatibilist model.
Maybe Dan and TF will provide more on this in their debate as times goes by.
O.
I think the problem is using the idea of "First cause". If one says that Creation was the first action of God then they set themselves up in a corner, that says.....God must of been inactive before creation.
It would be best to just say "Creation was an Act of God" or "Creation was one of the actions of God".
But greaty post.
JNORM888
I would agree with that being a problem. God is a living God, which does not seem to mesh well with a doctrine of pre-Creation eternal inactivity.
-TurretinFan
A point has been made that God’s actions are necessitated by his “nature”. When I think of a person’s “nature” that is an **abstract term** that we use to **refer** to the set of properties that something or someone has. Or we might say the set of characteristics of the person. When it comes to persons, their “nature” does not do anything, THEY do their actions. It is true that our nature will set limits or parameters on what we can and cannot do. But our “nature” does nothing, we do our actions. And “natures” have no causal power to bring anything to pass. A “nature” is more like a potentiality, tells you what is possible for that being. At the final judgment our “nature” is not going to be held responsible, **we** are. :-) Of course some resourceful excuse makers will be saying their “nature” made them do it, but that won’t fly too well with God! :-)
It reminds me of when someone says: “the White House today issued the statement that . . .” The “White House” is an **abstract term** a term referring to the federal government present where the White House building is located. The building does not issue out a statement nor does the “federal government”. The building has no causal power to do actions like issuing a statement. Rather, some individual person representing or acting on behalf of the Federal government makes the statement. Similarly our “nature” does not do ANYTHING. Rather WE do actions which are limited by the nature that we have.
Similarly, God as a **person** does His own actions, His nature does nothing.
It seems the issue that you are debating Turretin fan about is whether or not one of the properties of God’s nature includes him acting as an agent freely doing his own actions (i.e., whether or not He freely chooses and performs his actions, or are His actions in some way necessitated).
If he does freely choose his own actions, then he could have also chosen to create a world that did not have rain on May 31st. If he does not choose freely, but His actions are necessitated, then he could only create a world where it rained on May 31st.
From listening to you, it sounds like you are saying that Turretin fan said that God could **only have done differently** (i.e. created the world where it did not rain on May 31st) if his nature had been different. So is Turretin fan claiming that God’s actions are necessitated by his nature? If so, he is wrong twice.
First he is wrong that God’s actions are necessitated, they are not. One of God’s properties or attributes is that He does as He pleases, otherwise known as sovereignty. If God’s actions are necessitated then he does not have the property of having a sovereign will. Second, he is wrong that God’s nature necessitates his actions. Again, God has a nature, a set of properties that are true of Him. But this set of properties, both individually and collectively do not do a thing, He does his own actions. God has the property of being omniscient. God’s omniscience does not cause His actions, He does. God has the property of being good. But the property of goodness does not cause any actions. Rather as God is good, He acts in line with his being good. But goodness, omniscience, omnipresence, aseity, mercy, etc. etc. do not cause God to do His actions. Rather, when he chooses to do an action it will be in line with these properties. He does His own self caused actions, he experiences agent causation. And his actions always are in line with (but not necessitated by) his nature (the set of properties that are true of Him). Actually a similar thing is going on with us as well: we do our actions in line with our “nature”, though our “nature” does not necessitate our actions. Our “nature” in fact does no actions, WE DO.
Oh and thanks for sharing that you are thirty, I thought you were in your late thirties! :-) Usually I am pretty good at figuring out someone’s age. So I was almost a decade off! :-)
Robert
Thanks for commenting. I don't have a problem with saying God acts b4 creation, so long as the definition of "act" is not understood as either temporal or causal.
God be with you,
Dan
he is wrong that God’s actions are necessitated, they are not. One of God’s properties or attributes is that He does as He pleases, otherwise known as sovereignty.
Bull’s-eye!!!
Maybe Ashton Kutcher will pop out and say you have been punk'd, but it seems Arminians are defending God's sovereignty from Calvinists and Calvinists God's personal love from Arminians.
God be with you,
Dan
"A point has been made that God’s actions are necessitated by his “nature”. When I think of a person’s “nature” that is an **abstract term** that we use to **refer** to the set of properties that something or someone has. Or we might say the set of characteristics of the person. When it comes to persons, their “nature” does not do anything, THEY do their actions. It is true that our nature will set limits or parameters on what we can and cannot do. But our “nature” does nothing, we do our actions. And “natures” have no causal power to bring anything to pass. A “nature” is more like a potentiality, tells you what is possible for that being. At the final judgment our “nature” is not going to be held responsible, **we** are. :-) Of course some resourceful excuse makers will be saying their “nature” made them do it, but that won’t fly too well with God! :-)"
I agree Rob. It's the person that makes the choices not the nature or essence of the person.
JNORM888
Of course, I agree that God's decree of Providence was free, not necessitated.
-TurretinFan
I had said: “he is wrong that God’s actions are necessitated, they are not. One of God’s properties or attributes is that He does as He pleases, otherwise known as sovereignty.”
You responded:
“Bull’s-eye!!!
Maybe Ashton Kutcher will pop out and say you have been punk'd, but it seems Arminians are defending God's sovereignty from Calvinists and Calvinists God's personal love from Arminians.”
It is obvious that God experiences LFW, that in many situations he can choose to do this or choose to do that (cf. including whether or not it will rain on May 31st). Either choice is something that He can choose to actualize, and the choice is made for reasons (it is not a chance event nor is it irrational), and the choice is up to Him (no necessitating factor causes Him to make the choice He makes). As Plantinga makes clear in the quotes which I shared, God is a perfect example of what agent causation involving LFW looks like.
This means that LFW is closely related to God engaging in agent causation and being sovereign. Sovereignty means that He does as He pleases. And this **presupposes LFW** on the part of God. For example, if “Joe” is terminally ill and human medical help will not save him, God has the choice to miraculously heal him in response to the prayers of believers or the choice not to heal him and not answer the prayer of believers, and that choice is up to God. As He is sovereign He can choose to do either one, whichever choice He wants to do, the choice being completely up to Him. As long as I have been a Christian I have always understood and believed that God is sovereign in this way.
It is ironic that reformed folks who clamor most loudly that God **is** sovereign, will not grant that God has LFW. If you believe that God is sovereign as I do, that He does as He pleases in any and every situation, that means where a choice is present, the choice is completely up to Him. That choice could be what the nature of man will be before man is created (and I believe the biblical evidence is overwhelming that God created us with a nature, a capacity to do our own actions for our own reasons; this capacity is limited but is nevertheless present in all human persons). The choice could be whether or not to save sinners. The choice could concern the timing of certain events including the second coming of Jesus. Etc. Etc. Etc. So God **in fact** has all sorts of experiences of LFW.
I believe that is the primary reason that this Turretin follower is reluctant to admit that God could choose to have it rain on May 31st or choose to not have it rain on May 31st, and that this choice was available to God, and up to Him. I have seen other calvinists/determinists go to great lengths, almost any length, to deny that God experiences LFW. What Turretin follower does not want to admit is that God actually experiences LFW. I am guessing that Turretin follower is one of those calvinist/determinist folks you sometimes run into who likes to claim that LFW is “incoherent”, does not make sense, has problems, does not exist, etc. etc.
You see, if God experiences LFW, and it seems absolutely evident that He does (if He experiences choices where He can sovereignly choose as He pleases for His own reasons) then ***all*** these claims about LFW being incoherent, not making sense, not existing, all fall away rather quickly and are shown to be the dubious and vacuous arguments that they really are. Recall Plantinga (in the quotes provided) made this point as well that the arguments for determinism are extremely weak.
The answer to your May 31st question is really easy: as God is sovereign and experiences choices/LFW, he could do either one, the choice was up to Him.
Some determinists do not want to admit the reality of LFW and so they will argue irrationally and counter to the evidence, that God does not experience LFW. But if God does not experience LFW, then God is not sovereign either, but must do what He is **necessitated to do**. Regarding God’s actions being necessitated: either God’s actions are not necessitated in which case He engages in agent causation and has free will and experiences LFW. OR, his actions are necessitated and He does not have free will (and if He does not freely make His choices then He is not sovereign). God cannot be sovereign unless He has real choices and these choices are up to Him and made for His own reasons (i.e., if you give up LFW with God you also give up His sovereignty). Since I have always believed that God makes choices that are up to Him and for His own reasons, I have never had a problem with the existence of LFW or God being sovereign. So again it is ironic and sad that people who want to most advocate that God is sovereign, based on their erroneous views regarding LFW end up jettisoning both LFW and God’s sovereignty.
Robert
Just another quick thought.
Another place where I see a major inconsistency in the “reasoning” of determinists/calvinists/necessitarians. This stubborn commitment to not admit the reality that God engages in agent causation and experiences LFW, though it is clear that God experiences both agent causation and LFW. Involves the calvinist doctrine of unconditional election. They will argue that God **chooses** who will be saved and who will be damned before they ever exist on this earth. They will say he **chooses** whom to elect and whom to “pass over” and reprobate and that He has his own reasons for making these choices.
In other words, God engages in agent causation involving LFW when selecting eternal destinies of individuals if unconditional election is true (i.e.,the determinist in order to remain logically consistent must affirm both agent causation and LFW if unconditional election were true).
And aren’t these real **choices** available to God? And aren’t these choices made for **reasons**?
Or is someone going to make the unconditional election doctrine even more grotesque and argue that God is **necessitated** in who he elects and whom He damns? It is one thing to argue that God has reasons for why He chooses to elect one and damn another. It is quite another thing to argue that God was necessitated in doing so. The fact is, God’s actions are not necessitated by anything or anyone, He does as He pleases, and His sovereignty presupposes He experiences LFW and engages in agent causation.
Robert
if I might ensenuate myself into your conversation with Dan, I will post your remarks and some verses that should be familiar to us Bible Students and ask you reconcile your remarks with the Words of Scripture.
I won't wait for your acknowledgment, I will just post your remarks and the verses, then, ok? :)
Robert: [This means that LFW is closely related to God engaging in agent causation and being sovereign. Sovereignty means that He does as He pleases. And this **presupposes LFW** on the part of God. For example, if “Joe” is terminally ill and human medical help will not save him, God has the choice to miraculously heal him in response to the prayers of believers or the choice not to heal him and not answer the prayer of believers, and that choice is up to God. As He is sovereign He can choose to do either one, whichever choice He wants to do, the choice being completely up to Him. As long as I have been a Christian I have always understood and believed that God is sovereign in this way.]
The Verses:
Act 12:1 About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church.
Act 12:2 He killed James the brother of John with the sword,
Act 12:3 and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread.
Act 12:4 And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people.
Act 12:5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
Act 12:6 Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison.
Act 12:7 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, "Get up quickly." And the chains fell off his hands.
Act 12:8 And the angel said to him, "Dress yourself and put on your sandals." And he did so. And he said to him, "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me."
Act 12:9 And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.
Act 12:10 When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went out and went along one street, and immediately the angel left him.
Act 12:11 When Peter came to himself, he said, "Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting."
Who caused that, God or man?
“Act 12:11 When Peter came to himself, he said, "Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting."
Who caused that, God or man?”
If you mean who caused the miraculous deliverance of Peter from the prison, the verse you provide, Acts 12:11 seems to give the answer: “the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me . . .”
So if you already knew the answer to your own question then why did you ask it?
So what is your point?
Robert