Monday, August 15, 2022

John Laing's Response to Bruce Ware's Appeal to Isaiah 10:5-15 to Support Determinism

 Concerning the Calvinist appeal to Isa 10:5-15 by Bruce Ware et al.

 

Most proponents of libertarian freedom agree that God can bring about events he has predicted/foretold by means of the free actions of his creatures, but they do not affirm that the only way he can do so is by causally determining those free actions. . . . I have often used Habakkuk’s prophecy about God’s use of the Babylonians to judge Israel as evidence of my own view of providence, which combines meticulous divine sovereignty with libertarian human freedom. After Habakkuk complained about the sinfulness of Israel and God’s seeming inactivity, God responded by telling him that he himself will do something so incredible, so unfathomable, that Habakkuk would not believe it if he had not heard it directly from God (Hab 1:5). God will raise up the Babylonians to judge Judah (1:6-11a) but will then judge them for their impetuousness (v. 6b), self-reliance (v. 7), violence (v. 9), and haughtiness (vv. 10-11). God can use the Babylonians to judge and correct his people (v. 12), but he cannot look favorably upon evil (v. 13). In all this, I am sure, Ware would agree with me, but I take God’s displeasure with the Babylonians to indicate that he had nothing to do with their choices, actions, and desires. Although he knew they would attack the Israelites in the circumstances that prevailed, he did not necessarily begin a causal chain that would result in their developing so that they would act in that manner. Further, I hold that God may have been unable to prevent the Babylonians’ actions without violating their freedom (though that was certainly his prerogative). I doubt Ware can say the same thing, since Calvinist thought characteristically sees God as the starting point for the chain of causes leading to human actions, and typically affirms that God could have ensured that persons develop differently so that they would (compatibilistically) freely act differently. (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], 393-94)