A Reverse Proof for contingent freedom

I’ve been wrestling with this idea.

1. God is the only absolute, necessary being (all confessional Christians agree to this).
2. That which is not absolute is contingent.
3. Human choices are not absolute, thus contingent (2).
4. There is both necessity and contingency (1, 3).

Is that the same thing as “free will?”  It is probably not the same thing as libertarian free will, nor have I covered all of the finer points.  I think the propositions stand, though.  All of this is another way to affirm the necessity of consequence and the necessity of the consequent thing.

Scotist Contingency

One of the more exciting concepts I came across in the past few years was Duns Scotus' view of freedom and necessity (cf. Willem van Asselt, Introducing Reformed Scholasticism).  Scotus delivers a model that allows both necessity in God's fore ordination but an aspect of freedom in willing.  The following is taken from John Marenborn's Medieval Philosophy: an historical and philosophical introduction

"Scotus will not allow that God's foreknowledge is caused by the events themselves.  Rather, God's knowledge of contingent truths is based on the knowledge of the free decisions of his own will, which determines which possibilities will be actual...

The libertarian, however, can respond that this doesn't ultimately remove the problem, for God is still causing the situations.  Be it so, but Scotus is simply trying to do justice to the doctrine of God, and he does advance the argument beyond the previous causal paradigms.  Scotus' response is something like this,

He considers that human actions are the joint result of the causality of the human agents and God.  But God is not seen as a direct cause of the human will's acts.  As the first in an essentially-ordered series of causes, God is, rather, responsible for the agent's causality itself: so the human will acts, and it is due to God's will that it is able to act (289, 290).

This allows Scotus to say, given the divine decree, the human will has an element of contingency, yet the integrity of God's decree is not compromised.  Scotus points out that the human will, regardless of the outcome of the divine decree, is logically able to will something differently.   This means that if I will x, it is not logically contradictory that I could have willed not-x. It is only a logical contradiction if I say I will x and not will x at the same time, but that is not what we are saying.   The divine decree does establish the paths events will take, but when we move to the temporal sphere, we are dealing with the modes and historical acting outs of these events.

Scotus' model is not perfect, and even Marenborn is not entirely convinced.  I am not looking for a perfect model, though.  I am looking for one that allows me to formulate the doctrine of God and predestination with integrity.

God's knowledge of future contingencies

Taken from Turretin in rough outline form:

A thing may be contingent in two ways:

• by depending on God as first cause (as all of creation is thus contingent, since God didn't have to create)
• by depending on prior second causes (which produce or not produce their effects).  Turretin is speaking these contingents.

A future contingent implies both certainty of event and mode of production.  As future it is certain, but as contingent in its mode of production.   It has the former from the decree of the First Cause, the latter from the constitution of the second cause.

The mode of production is clarified by the Westminster Confession of Faith V.2:  It identifies God as the First Cause, corresponding with the first point made by Turretin, but notes that the First Cause orders the events to happen in three modes:  freely, necessarily, or contingently. 

See also:  necessity of the consequence (contingent) and necessity of the consequent thing (absolute)

An event can be both infallibly certain yet contingent.  Thus, all things take place by the necessity of consequence, not the necessity of the consequent.  Turretin notes that man's actions can be free because they are spontaneous and follow rational judgment, but necessary because of God's decree (I: 211). 


 

Turretin on different types of freedom

The more I read of Richard Muller and other exponents of Reformed Scholasticism, the more I realize that the Reformation tradition had a rich and full understanding of freedom of choice.  The following is taken from Willem J. van Asselt's Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism.

Contrary to Arminian and Catholic charges, the Reformed view of a "necessary" will is not incompatible with "freedom," provided both terms are understood correctly. Francis Turretin provides six different types of "necessity," four of which the Arminian/Romanist must affirm are compatible with freedom: 1) necessity of dependence of the creature on God; 2) [Asselt intended to list the second type of necessity, but I don't think he did], 3) every creature is dependent on God in terms of the future per God's foreknowledge and decree. 3a) Asselt writes, "However great the creature's freedom may be, these acts are still necessary from this perspective, otherwise God's foreknowledge could be false and his decree changeable." 4) free will must go with rational necessity, for must not a free action be a rational one? 5) Free will relates to moral necessity, or that of habit. If you do an action enough, whether good or bad, it becomes a habit, making it easier to do this action. Few will deny this observation. 6) The necessity of an event or the existence of a thing. If a thing is, it is necessarily.  This is an example of a necessity of the consequence.   It is not an absolute necessity.

In short, freedom can be determined because freedom is not absolute (Asselt, 162-163).

Necessity of the Consequent, Consequence

The necessity of the consequent is the necessity of a proposition behind the "then" in an if...then statement. The necessity of the consequence is the consequence itself. Ie, the implicative necessity. In the implicative necessity, neither the antecedent nor the consequent needs to be necessary. Only the necessity of the implicative relation counts. Take the two propositions:

(1) If I marry Marian, then Marian is my wife.
(2) It is necessary that Marian is my wife (if I marry her).

In proposition (1) it is contingent that I marry Marian. I did not have to do so. Only the implication between the antecedent and consequent is necessary. In proposition 2 it is the result of the conditional proposition that is necessary.

Proposition 1 does not imply proposition 2. Therefore, in an argument of implicative relation of necessity, both the antecedent and consequent can be contingent and not necessary. According to the Reformed scholastics, the necessity of the consequence corresponds with absolute necessity and the necessity of the consequent with hypothetical necessity. In this distinction, the Reformed scholastics combat the charge that the divine decree destroys the contingency and freedom of the world. Therefore, necessity and contingency are compatible and not contradictory.

Most important in this distinction is that it depends on God's will ad extra. If the decision of the divine will is directed to contingent objects ad extra, then God's will is contingent, too. In other words, God contingently wills all that is contingent. Created reality, therefore, is the contingent manifestation of divine freedom and does not necessarily emanate from God's essence. For if this were the case, all things would coincide fundamentally with God's essence, and the actual world would be eternal (198-199).

Two types of theological necessity

necessitas consequentiae (necessity of the consequences):  this is a hypothetical or non-absolute necessity.  It is brought about by a previous contingent act.  It refers to the necessity of the finite order.  There is no absolute necessity that God decree what he decrees, but since he has decreed so, he is bound to fulfill it.

necessitas consequentis (necessity of the consequent):  this is absolute necessity that refers to the opera ad intra.

Practical value of these distinctions:  it allows the theologian to intelligently and without confusion speak of both necessary and free acts.   Our acts are necessary in the sense that Providence is not subject to change.  But our acts are not absolutely necessary, since God was not bound to decree such.