Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Stephen T. Davis and Eric T. Yang on the Problems of Theological Determinism to Explain the Inspiration and Preservation of Scripture

 

Theological Determinism

 

One way of ensuring that the Bible contains all the words God intended would be by appealing to theological determinism, which is the view that every event has been guaranteed to have been given some aspect or attribute of God, either his will or his foreknowledge. Theological determinism enables us to quickly solve the puzzle of how Scripture can be both the words of God and the words of human beings. The answer is that God determined that the human authors wrote down exactly what he wanted them to write, and so Scripture is a product of both humans and God. Usually those who make this sort of claim endorse a view known as compatibilism, which claims that humans can be free and responsible even though their actions have been determined by God. So, the human authors freely wrote down what they did, but God guaranteed that the words of Scripture are as he intended them to be because he determined that the human authors acted according to his divine will.

 

There are some concerns over this approach. The first, of course, comes from those who reject theological determinism. Some reject is for purely philosophical reasons, usually offering arguments for incompatibilism, which claims that human freedom and responsibility are incompatible with determinism. Given incompatibilism, if the human authors wrote their part of the Bible down freely, then their actions cannot have been determined by God; and if God determined their actions, then they cannot have acted freely

 

Another concern raised against theological determinism is in the difficulty of squaring the view of the so-called problem of evil. That is, of God could determine human actions such that he could guarantee that people act exactly as he wants while retaining human freedom then how could there be any evil in this world since God could guarantee that all human beings choose what is good? Moreover, if God could ensure that everyone would freely choose hum, then why do some people end up in hell? Because of this last problem, some argue that theological determinism implies universalism, that everyone will eventually make it to heaven . . . Given these considerations, some philosophers argue that an incompatibilist view of human freedom allows for a more promising way of responding to the problem of evil (though this claim is quite contentious!)

 

Considerations of free will aside, there is another reason why we think appealing to theological determinism is not a satisfactory theory, or at least why it provides an incomplete answer to divine inspiration even if one accepts theological determinism. For, if theological determinism is true, then God not only determined the words of Scripture but also the words of The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy [RB: or the foundational works of false religions, like Islam’s Qur’an or the theological works of John Thomas], for God determined that Homer (or whoever the author was) and Dante would write exactly what they did—especially if one believes that God determined every action and event in the world. But clearly the latter two works, great as they are, are not inspired in the same sense that Scripture is said to be inspired. So merely determining what the biblical authors wrote does not by itself provide an adequate theory of inspiration, even if it ensures that they wrote exactly what God wanted—for that would be true for every author and every book, especially if God determines every human action. So theological determinism requires significant supplement if it is to work as a viable theory of divine inspiration. (Stephen T. Davis and Eric T. Yang, An Introduction to Christian Philosophical Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2020], 40-41)


Further Reading


Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura