Determinism and the author of sin¶

The Reformed position¶

Reformed theology affirms that God "from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass" (Westminster Confession 3.1). It immediately adds that God is "neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein," and that "the liberty or contingency of second causes" is not taken away but established (3.1; 5.2).

The two affirmations are held together by a compatibilist account of freedom: an act is free if it is caused by the agent's own desires and character, even if those desires are themselves determined by God. Jonathan Edwards is the classic defender: the will is determined by the strongest motive, and that determination is compatible with moral responsibility.

So the Reformed claim is: God ordains all things, including sinful acts; human beings act freely and are responsible; God is not the author of sin. The distinctions that carry the weight are decree vs. command, primary vs. secondary causation, and compatibilist freedom.

The problems¶

1. The distinctions explain the vocabulary, not the reality¶

"God ordains whatsoever comes to pass" plus "God is not the author of sin" is a pair of assertions, not an explanation. The Confession does not tell us how both can be true; it tells us that both must be affirmed.

The standard moves:

"God commands what is good and decrees what he will bring about, including sin." This distinguishes God's preceptive will from his decretive will. But the distinction does not change the fact that, on this account, God decreed the sinful act and the agent could not have done otherwise. Calling the decree "permissive" does not help if the permission is infallibly certain and the agent's will is determined by God.
"God is the primary cause; the creature is the secondary cause." This is a real metaphysical distinction, but it does not relieve the problem: if the primary cause infallibly determines the secondary cause's act, the primary cause is the ultimate explanation of the act. A man who programs a machine to kill is the cause of the killing, however many gears intervene.
"Compatibilist freedom." This is the strongest move, and it is a real philosophical position. But it redefines freedom. On compatibilism, a person is free if he does what he wants, even if God gave him the wants. That is not the freedom the Bible assumes when it says "choose this day whom you will serve" (Josh 24:15) or "why will you die, house of Israel?" (Ezek 18:31).

2. Calvin himself rejected "bare permission"¶

It is often said that God merely permits sin. Calvin will not have it:

"Here they recur to the distinction between will and permission, the object being to prove that the wicked perish only by the permission, but not by the will of God. But why do we say that he permits, but just because he wills? Nor, indeed, is there any probability in the thing itself, viz., that man brought death upon himself merely by the permission, and not by the ordination of God." — Institutes III.23.8

And in III.23.7:

"Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it."

This is not a caricature; it is the founder of the tradition, rejecting the escape hatch that later popular Calvinism uses. If God arranges the fall "at his own pleasure," the "author of sin" question is not answered by saying God merely permitted it.

3. The problem of evil becomes a problem about God¶

Classical theism's answer to the problem of evil is the free-will defense: God permits evil because a world with free creatures is better than a world without them, and he will ultimately bring good out of it. That defense is not available to the theological determinist, because on determinism there are no free creatures in the libertarian sense. The determinist must instead say that God decreed the evil for a good purpose — which is a different theodicy, and a much harder one.

The sharpest form: if God decreed the rape and murder of a child for his glory, then the distinction between decree and command does not make the decree good; it only makes God's command inconsistent with his decree. The non-Calvinist does not have to explain why God permits evil (that is hard enough); he does not have to explain why God plans it.

4. The "greater good" theodicy is unfalsifiable¶

If every evil, including pointless-seeming evil, is ordained for a greater good, then no amount of evil counts as evidence against the theory. That is not necessarily a refutation, but it means the theory cannot be confirmed by the evidence it is supposed to explain.

5. The moral responsibility problem¶

Scripture holds people responsible for their sins and commands them to repent. On determinism, the agent's act is the necessary outworking of a decree; the agent could not have done otherwise in the relevant sense. Compatibilism says this is enough for responsibility. But the Bible's own language of responsibility assumes that the person could have done otherwise — "if I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin" (John 15:22); "they would have repented" (Matt 11:21); "you were not willing" (Matt 23:37).

6. The problem of God's own temptations¶

James 1:13: "God cannot be tempted with evil." If God decrees the sin, is he tempted by it? Not in the ordinary sense, but the decree makes God the ultimate source of the desire that sins. The distinction between "decreeing the act" and "desiring the act" is doing a great deal of work, and it is not obvious that it holds.

The best Reformed reply¶

The strongest Reformed response is not "God merely permits." It is:

God's decree is one eternal act, not a series of decisions. He ordains the whole story, including the means and the free agency of creatures, in one act.
Compatibilism is a genuine account of freedom, and it is the account Scripture assumes when it says that people act according to their desires (James 1:14-15) and that God works in us "both to will and to work" (Phil 2:13).
The cross is the paradigm: the greatest evil was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23), and those who did it were "lawless men" who acted freely and were responsible (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). If God can ordain the crucifixion without being the author of sin, he can ordain other evils.
Mystery is legitimate at the point where finite minds cannot reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

This is a serious reply. The casebook's response is that it works best for the cross, where the good purpose is revealed, and least well for the ordinary evils that no revealed purpose explains. And it still leaves the question: if God ordains all things, why does he command what he has decreed not to happen?

The non-Calvinist alternative¶

God is sovereign over all things, but not the immediate cause of all things. He creates, sustains, governs, and overrules; he permits evil, limits it, and turns it to good (Gen 50:20; Rom 8:28).
Human beings are genuine agents. Their choices are real, not illusory; this is what makes love, repentance, and responsibility meaningful.
The cross is the center. God's response to evil is not a decree that produced it but a self-giving that absorbs it (Col 2:15; 1 Pet 2:24).
God's permission is not his pleasure. He does not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek 33:11); he grieves over it (Gen 6:6; Luke 19:41).
The end is secure. God's purpose will be accomplished (Isa 46:10; Eph 1:11) — not because he micro-manages every choice, but because he is able to bring good out of evil and to redeem a people for himself.

This view has its own mystery: why does God permit so much evil? The casebook does not claim to solve the problem of evil. It claims that the non-Calvinist has one mystery (why God permits) rather than two (why God permits and why he decrees).

What this does and does not prove¶

It proves: that the "author of sin" problem is not a caricature; that Calvin rejected the "bare permission" escape; that the free-will defense is unavailable to the determinist; and that compatibilism redefines the freedom the Bible assumes.

It does not prove: that God is not sovereign, that evil is autonomous, or that the non-Calvinist has a tidy theodicy. The casebook's aim is to show that the Reformed solution buys its coherence at a price the Bible does not authorize.