Calvinist
Paul Helm rejects the idea that God had several options from which to choose (i.e.,
several equally good worlds), because he believes this devolves to the claim
that God chose arbitrarily. He wrote, “There seems to be two alternatives:
either he chooses on the basis of some accidental feature of one alternative
lacked by all the others, a feature not related to optimificity, or he chooses
as a result of pure whimsy. Neither of these alternatives is very appealing” (Eternal
God [New York: Oxford University Press, 1988], 180). Helm evidently found
it more appealing to claim that God had to create this specific world because
his voice was constrained by the fact that this is the best of all possible
worlds and it is best for God to create rather than not create. Now, to be fair,
Helm did not use the “best of all possible worlds” language, but that is what
his argument amounts to, and other prominent Calvinists have made use of such
language to describe their own positions, indistinguishable from Helm’s.
The
fatalistic ramifications of such constraints on God’s creative activity should
be obvious. If God is a necessary being, and all his actions flow necessarily
from his unchanging and eternal nature, then the results of his actions are
also necessary. That is, the creation is necessary, and even we are necessary,
even though not in the same wa that God is necessary. His necessity derives
from his eternal nature, whereas our necessity derives from his necessary
action. We remain contingent in a sort of way, but not in the way we normally
think. When I say that I am contingent, I not only mean that my existence is
dependent upon someone else (i.e., God), but I also mean that I might not have
been and that there is nothing about me to suggest that I had to be.
Following Helm’s version of Calvinism, one cannot make the same claims; we are seen
as necessary beings of sorts, but this is closer to pagan fatalism than
biblical faith. So, it seems we must affirm that God created freely and could
have refrained from creating, and while we agree that God must do that which is
best, we can affirm that there are a virtually infinite number of equally good
worlds God could create. If he could have either created or not created or created
differently, then he has libertarian freedom, at least with respect to
creating.
In
addition, if God does not have libertarian freedom, then his providence over history
must be as it is and could not have been otherwise. This means that history is
necessary and the future is not really open or contingent, at least not with
respect to which events will happen and which events will not happen. They are
not only determined by God’s free choice of will, but they are determined by
his nature so that there is really only one option for the future. Even God
could not alter it! To be sure, my Calvinist friends will retort that God would
not want to alter it, for it is the best future possible, but the point is that
these restrictions do seem to limit God’s providence and detract from his glory
and omnipotence in ways that simply saying he cannot do evil, for instance, do
not.
More importantly, though, they also suggest that God had to save those he did, but no one wants to say that! It is a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy to claim that God freely saves those whom he chooses. In a someway ironic twist, it seems that Calvinist soteriology (in at least one way) fits more closely with libertarian freedom, for Calvinists emphasis that there is nothing in the elect that makes or even inclines God to choose them for salvation, while non-Calvinists often refer to something like foreseen faith in those God eventually elects. Calvinists explain that God’s election of particular persons is solely based in his good pleasure and loving grace. Thus, God’s choice of the elect is not typically depicted as one he had to make (or could not have rejected), because that would suggest something unique, special, outstanding, or otherwise worthy in the individuals elected for salvation. But this just suggests that God’s election is a pure libertarian choice, for any necessity in the election would seemingly undermine either God’s graciousness or the sinner’s unworthiness. If he could have saved or not saved particular persons, then he has libertarian freedom, at least with respect to our salvation. (John Laing, “Determinism and Human Freedom,” in Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique, ed. David L. Allen and Steve M. Lemke [Nashville, Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2022], 428-30)
