Free Will and Redestination

Commentary on the distinction between free will and predestination in a context of faith inevitably fails to satisfy to the degree it attempts to argue the logic of one mode of human experience over another. Despite evidence of sincerity of purpose and erudition in the collection of essays edited by Basinger and Basinger, the reader who privileges logic in discourse must come to the conclusion that the most appropriate way of reconciling free will, predestination, and fahth is to yield, not so much to the logic of one of the three elements as decisive or to the logical ratio of their encounter as to the logical primacy (oddly enough) of paradox.

What makes the privileging of logic and paradox problematic in exploration of Predestination & Free Will is that its editors specifically and programmatically eschew presentation of what they call "paradox positions" about the nexus of free will and divine sovereignty. Instead, they present essays by four different commentators that claim, with one emphasis or another, that those two elements are "logically compatible." Each of the four main essays in the text uses a different logical path to come to its particular conclusion about how the logic of free will and determinism operates, and each essay applies that logic to fictitious case studies of "Fred" and "Mary," who are each in crisis about what to do with their lives. All of the essays are followed by rebuttal/rejoinders on the part of the other three commentators.

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re is also the problem of evil, which any discussion of free will and predestination is bound to reach. What that problem comes down to is the famous line from MacLiesh's play J.B.: "If God is God, he is not good; If God is good he is not God." For the determinists, the leap of faith in the ultimate goodness and omnipotence of God and an assertion that everything happens for a reason is meant to overcome the facts of reason and experience. That evil may come from human agency is more or less consistent with Feinberg's and Geisler's insistence that human beings have free will. Yet why such great evil may have such success in a cosmos governed by God remains a problem. Further, it is hard to see in natural disasters the presence, let alone the mind, of a God who is either good or omnipotent. Feinberg's and Geisler's arguments force one to the conclusion that evil is illusory nonexistent, or if it exists it must be placed at the foot of men. All that is, is good; dvil is an unreal abstraction but is carried into the phenomenal world by the free will of mankind. God knows all of this, but the question arises whether he is unwilling or unable to prevent it, and neither Feinberg or Geisler is willing to deny God anything. Moreover, huma

Category: Philosophy - F