X. Of Free-Will

What the Scotist Has Been Doing Lately

Dr. Bates of Anglican Scotist continues in his book reviewing ways. He and the author of the book he is presently reviewing have many anatomically insightful things to say about Anglicanism. Check it out if you have a chance.

An Opportunity in Moral Theology: Further Comment on Article IX

Although I would consider the strongly homologous analogy between individual and his city especially seen in The Republic of Plato to be received by Apostolic Tradition, it seems not to have weathered well through the struggles of the Church with caesaropapism and papicaesarism (for that matter). Thus, the logical consequent homologous analogy between what we call individual evil and systemic evil never has the foundational place in more recent moral theology (last 1500 years or so) that it should. It's very easy to do an incomplete job when faced with an antagonistic state, but such a basis for a moral theology seems downright unfashionable when the state appears morally positive or neutral. Am I wrong? It occurred to me at *Christopher's place that I should be able to say that Biblical critiques of sexual conduct in a particular society logically should be both critiques of individual sexual conduct and the social milieu in which such conduct becomes logical and permissible in some sort of carnally coupled and metaphysically unified system.

This, of course, based on *Christopher's suggestion following various Fathers (e.g., St. John Cassian) that our sexual temptations and conduct are epiphenomenal of something deeper. It occurrred to me that all of our temptations and outward conduct likely are epiphenomenal of whatever is the essence of our fallen nature. Aquinas finds the heart of natural law in the innate rules of conduct which tend to our self-preservation. As a Christian who has received some aspect of Darwinian theory, I note that evolutionary processes "at their best" likely would tend to self-preservation. And when I say at their best, I suspect I mean ceteris paribus omnia tempora (with all things being equal at all times). But the workings of nature are such that everything is not equal at all times. Moreover, if evolutionary processes were "at their best" as I have posed them, there would be neither change in biological organisms nor life itself. Thus, we have a contradiction. The equality of resources and stresses that would tend to the preservation of species limits their diversification, reducing the probability of rational creatures capable of "friendship" with God to nil. Thus, evolutionary processes "at their worst" in a moral sense likely are evolutionary processes at their best in the pre-Fall divine economy. Thus, the imperative of natural law prior to reason is really self-preservation (in genes as well) to the exclusion of all others. I am not sure how these primal imperatives were mediated in Adam and Eve before the Fall, but after the Fall, it would be entirely possible for the old primal imperative to recur but for fallen reason to mistake ever so many things as tending to preservation. And man, now being capable of planning complex schemes for the future, would seek to enhance his competitiveness in a world of limited resources.

Thus man's fallen nature could consist in the flawed primal imperative I have derived (to become like God, the ultimately self-preserving, curvatus in se etc. seem equivalent statements) but his possession of reason drives his ambitions toward the collection of resources far greater than he could gain for himself. As the Philosopher says, "There is no end to the art of acquisition" ( Politics ) and telos here likely has both its ordinary and philosophical meaning here. Thus, we are selfish beings and yet in need of much. So we seek to be in societies, which inevitably become subject to carnally and metaphysically entangled systems of communal and individual evil. But God calls us to repentance and reformation by seeking to create exemplars of just society on Earth through Israel and the Church but also by offering us abundance through sacrifice in the example and merits (I embolden, lest anyone accuse me of Pelagianism) of Christ Jesus. For Christian soteriology at its best clearly untwists the deadly combination of the fallen evolutionary imperative with reason. Our theorized natural imperative is the consequence of the inherent wealth and scarcity that nature provides with its limited resources. God offers us abundance.

The account I have given explains why I think young Earth creationists have it so easy and are quite insightful to continue in their resistance to the discoveries of the historical natural sciences. The consequences for Christian moral theology could be staggering. Yet when I find myself in "social justice" churches that preach about the "economy of abundance," I realize that I am hearing a revolution in moral theology that sounds familiar and hopeful in this direction but somehow unmoored and half-accomplished. And the most glaring sign of its incompleteness is what these churches usually say about abortion... There's an opportunity here. Perhaps, this is something the Liberal Catholicism, Anglican Modernism, and Anglican Radicalism of which the Scotist speaks should seek to take advantage of, remembering that we cannot say we have no need of the Evangelicals and Classical Anglicans.

Speaking of Those Anglican Evangelicals

Here's a piece by Paul F.M. Zahl from Modern Reformation about differences between Roman Catholic and Confessional Protestant thinking on justification issues and how they are still insurmountable. There are handy-dandy charts at the end, which will prove to any reader of the blog that I lean to the more Catholic side of the issues. And if you are getting a little tired of these debates about faith vs. grace, infusion vs. imputation, do what I do: say to yourself what a good Roman Catholic friend of mine once said to me, "You know we are not justified by faith or works but by Christ." I grimaced the first time I heard that, but he was right, of course, and keeps such issues in their proper perspective when the spirit is losing charity and the mind is wearied.

Prefatory Notes on Article X

The last conversation I had about free will involved Descartes, Kant, and the usual tired prattlings of college students who really should have a beer (or hard cider, which I like better) lest they continue their fruitless speculations on the nature of the divine omnipotence. I have a psychologist friend, who believes there is empirical proof that we do not have free will, which involves experiments in which nerve impulses in the limbs anticipate signals from the brain to move them and vice versa . And, of course, who could forget Augustine's discourse early in City of God , when he concludes simultaneously that we have free will and God is omniscient.

Thus, it seems the question of free will that occupies the philosophical landscape most of the time is whether or not our conscious thoughts freely willed direct our external actions. The "freely willed" bit asks the further question of outside influence or whether a Newtonian universe (or whatever source of outside influence you will) set in motion by God permits truly freely willed actions. Article X only has a tangential relation to these issues, which really come to the fore in Article XVII on Predestination and Election. Article X seems merely to be a continuation of the investigation into our fallen nature and the remedy it has in Christ. But these more familiar issues of free will are relevant here. They simply are not addressed directly.

X. Of Free-Will

The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God.

A more meaty version of this idea can be found in Article XVIII of the Augsburg Confession . Muslims, not believing in Original Sin per se, say that man is both naturally inclined to faith but also to forgetfulness. Thus, it is only necessary that humans be constantly reminded of God and our obligations to Him. The post-Pelagius Pelagians likewise believed that humans still were inclined to faith, needing no activity of the Spirit within us to continue in it. The proof text of Article XVIII of Augsburg and the implicit one of this Article is 1 Corinthians 2:14, "An unspiritual person refuses what belongs to the Spirit of God; it is folly to him; he cannot grasp it, because it needs to be judged in the light of the Spirit."

Of course, the things Paul says belong to the Spirit of God in this particular place is the salvation of the world through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the general theological implications thereof. Thus, faith in the chief and lately revealed things of God is impossible without the working of the Spirit. Considering Paul's view of the Gospel as "a stumbling-block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks" and the slightly less ancient formula usually attributed to Tertullian, " credo quia absurdum est ," faith in these latter things surely seemed impossible for our fallen natures to comprehend without aid. Such an assertion thus is more inspiredly empirical than rigorously philosophical.

We also hear in the Acts of the Apostles a variety of accounts of the relation between faith in Christ and the activity of the Spirit. The Spirit came upon Cornelius' household as they were hearing the Gospel preached by Peter, which functions both as a sign that salvation is meant to come to the Gentiles and an indication that the Spirit may soften up those who hear the Gospel. Yet we hear in the case of the Samaritan converts that they were baptized quite willingly without receiving the Holy Spirit. But surely Peter understands Jesus better in Acts than he did in the Gospels...and Stephen accuses his persecutors of resisting the Spirit as their ancestors did. Multiple examples in the Old Testament [1 Samuel 1, for instance] suggest that effectual faith in the God of Israel did not require being filled with the Spirit, though it certainly helped. So the question remains: Is the working of the Spirit necessary to Christian faith?

[Note: I argued in the discussion to Article V that the Holy Spirit should not be understood so much as anima Dei , mainly because this gives us an incorrect impression that the Holy Spirit is flimsy and possibly may lead to an incorrect understanding of the relations between the Persons. Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, for sake of analogy, does treat the Spirit as anima Dei , but the evolving Trinitarianism seen in the rhetoric does not take anything away from the truth of what Paul says. The Spirit, being active in the world and in the believers, truly is the medium by which the truth about God is brought into the world at present, though we would expect each Person to be equally and perfectly knowledgable of the other.]

Theoretically, Jesus actually might understand the degree of our inclination against faith. I would argue that His most relevant teaching we have on the subject is probably his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.

Here we hear the familiar analogy between those born of the Spirit and the wind, sensible and yet unintelligible. This is not far off the Pauline sentiments we have discussed about the spiritual and natural man. Here, it is the faithful that are unintelligible not the faith. But this is followed by what might be called the proof-text of the faith: John 3:16. If anyone wants a one sentence explanation of the Christian faith, this is the best one to give them. But we should point out that it is the summary of the same faith the natural man cannot believe by his own aid alone. John 3:17 makes it clear that God wishes the world to be saved and not judged worthy of destruction. But it is John 3:18-21 I find so interesting and relevant to our discussion. I simply wanted to point out that the discourse it is in is clearly very important to Jesus' teaching.

John 3:18-21 (KJV): "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."

The name of the only begotten Son of God is, of course, Jesus, which means in Hebrew, God saves. Thus, believing in his name also could mean believing in his salvific power. But the rest of this passage is quite challenging. It suggests that our fallen nature's inclination against faith stems from our wish to deny what we do is evil. In surprising contrast to the previous verses, Jesus poses Himself as the light of God's judgment, in which we do not want to see ourselves. But the last verse suggests that he "that doeth truth" will want to be seen in the light so that his deeds will be shown to glorify God. And the most likely implication of he that doeth truth is one who believes in Christ and is his imitator and subordinate reconciler with the world. Thus, the passage does not explain how we come to faith, only how our evil deeds turn us away from the faith and those who are faithful will do good. Nor should we simplify this to good people come to Christ and bad people do not. If we are all equally human, we are all equally depraved (Christ excepted).

The Augsburg Confession, however, suggests (possibly to answer this question) that it is possible for us to obtain a civil righteousness through reason. Thus, by reason, it should be possible for us sinners to dare to walk into the light of faith. Yet civil righteousness in itself is insufficient because it frames our outward acts not our inward affections. Of course, this sounds quite good and amenable to much we have said before. But it seems to be an insufficient solution to the problem. And I suspect that the Articulators of the 39 Articles say nothing on this particular subject, because there were other explanations. I will provide one of my own at the end of the discussion of the Article.

Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.

The above sentence contains the germ of one of the most troubling Christian doctrines to many earnest non-Christians. It is often summarized, "All acts by people who do not believe in Christ are evil and worthless." Taking a Pauline tack, I would say that the usual doctrine of crime in the civil law is this: a crime consists in committing an actum reum with a mens rea , but the power of God surpasses civil power, and the punishment and reward He offers surpasses that of any earthly sovereign, thus His standard for crime is higher. Thus, crime consists either mens rea , actum reum , or both. [I think this is quite in line with Christ's teachings, especially in Matthew.] Of course, this can be fleshed out in various directions, perhaps exploring how outward righteousness without the inward righteousness of God can be problematic in the midst of changing social expectations, but if you say that, you usually hear objections to the idea of eternal law etc. But imagine if there was some perfect scientifically rational moral code, which humans followed simply to earn the approbation of their fellows. Well, this would be all well and good until you and your contemporaries died. As Job says, "What use is being pious if you are dead?" This is unsatisfying for non-Christians, because they don't buy into the whole Big Plan.

But we do. We long for that day when God will be all in all, when the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of Our God and of His Christ. And thus we, the envoys of the Kingdom, seek those things in body and in mind that are beautiful, good, and most of all eternal. For whatever reason (I think it's being stretched myself), the universe isn't headed in a good direction. But it is being turned to the good and we will see this at some future instant. And the Spirit of God working in us leads us toward that good somehow. It is not that non-Christian acts are all irredeemably evil and disordered, it is more that Christian acts have a nearly infinitely greater potential to do what is good and pleasant to God. But let us be clear: all of this is very dependent on the Spirit working within us. Our flesh obviously still has fight. The good we do is merely potential. For justly can such righteous non-Christians as Mohandas Gandhi often say of us, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." We are very poor icons of the Master. We, like the rest of mankind, still too much "follow the devices and desires of our own hearts." But we are not helpless either and thus have less excuse for our outward wickednesses.

An Alternative to Civil Righteousness by Reason As the Good Soil of Faith

The title I think should convey the idea that I would argue that fruitful faith arises because of the planting of the Gospel in good soil, as it says in the Parable of the Sower. But how is such soil prepared? The Augsburg Confession suggests it originates from civil righteousness that is suggested by reason (presumably that of your own and that of your betters). This is a partial explanation. I think the other part lies in our negligence. Now, some would say that the theory that we transgress out of ignorance of the consequences of our actions or some such thing is a little too Greek to be Biblical. But God was quite open in the Old Covenant to the idea of unwitting transgressions as we can see from the sacrificial regulations of the Torah. Nor can we argue convincingly that such unwitting transgressions only were due to ignorance of the literal commandments of the Torah. Would a midrashic tradition have developed? Would Jesus exclaim in amazement at the ignorance of other religious teachers? Christ's Crucifixion likewise seems to fall in this category of unwitting transgression. Unwitting transgressions are not diminished by their gravity, which can exceed that of more intentional acts, but they are diminished in terms of our responsibility for them.

I saw a movie last night called Pretty Persuasion , which has been panned by critics because of its general lack of believability. I was more impressed by it. Without giving too much of the plot, it involved the exploitation of human frailty and our quotidian unwitting transgressions for an end the critics seemed to have found petty. But it made much sense to me. For the moral world of the movie was not simply a world of negligence, unwitting transgressions, and petty malice. Instead, what made the moral world of the movie all the more sophisticated and the petty malice far more weighty was that it was a world without mercy, without forgiveness, and without repentance of one for another. Such a world is far more potentially iniquitous, since it allows human frailty to be exploited more effectively. Is there any greater power in this world than to hold another's sins over their head? This is one reason why the seal of the confessional ought to be so inviolable. Thanks to be God in Our Lord Jesus Christ that we live under a world of the first conditions and not the second!

And thus it occurs to me that we are made good soil by negligence. In the Last Judgment narrative of Matthew 25, both the sheep and the goats ask when it was that they were merciful unto Christ. And He tells them that if they were merciful unto the least, they were merciful unto Him. Moreover, He says elsewhere whoever is not against us is for us. Thus, we can imagine someone who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked etc. without faith in Christ, who furthers the Kingdom by negligence, not knowing the end to which their actions tend. Thus, I think the Gospels suggest we first participate in the Kingdom unwittingly. As one baptized as an infant, this seems quite logical to me. I saw the Kingdom lived around me before I came into the full acceptance of the faith. I am still coming to realize how much the Kingdom was lived around me during my childhood. But because the world does seem to be full of good and charitable people on their good days, I think it is important to spread the seeds of the Gospel, not only by reason and reproof but by exhortation to further the Kingdom wittingly.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that the Spirit working within you will do more than anything you can ask for or imagine, indeed bringing you into the fullness and abundance of the Kingdom of Our God and of His Christ.