Dabney: Free Agency (Syst. Theol)

Chapter 11, pages 120-132.

Thesis:  God accomplishes his purposes not be compelling his creatures, but by operating through their free agency (121).

1.  The soul is the self-determining power.  "A free rational person does properly originate effects" (Dabney 124).  He is spontaenous and determines from within.  Man is not a machine, because the motive power is internal, not external.

This is different from Edwards.  While Edwards does say that man chooses according to his greatest inclination, man is yet within a system of a chain of external causes.

The Will and The Soul

Even though the soul is self-moved, the will is not (127).  The will is induced by some external object of choice, towards which the desire tends.  For example, a gold watch does not itself cause a thief to steal.  The thief's motive causes him to steal.  The gold watch induces his motive.  "The inducement is objective; the motive subjective.  The inducement is merely the occasion., the motive is the true cause" (128).

This is not fatalism or necessitarianism, though.  Dabney writes,

"Inducement is not motive; desire is an activity, and not a passivity of our souls.  Our own subjective judgments and appetencies cause our volitions" (128).

Our teacher Thomas Reid was correct to see that free agency is more than just the privilege to exercise the agency.  It is also seen in actively exercising the agency. Reid erred, however, in seeing the faculty of will and not the soul as self-determined (130).

Conative Powers:  This appears quite often in Dabney's corpus.  They refer to man's active powers of the soul; thus, the soul acts freely but not lawlessly (which corresponds to God's Providence). 

A brief note against skepticism

This is from Moreland's Kingdom Triangle.
A skeptic, to oversimply, is someone who does not believe we can have rational justification for our beliefs. 

The problem of criterion: let’s pretend we would want to put all our beliefs in two categories: the true or justified ones, and the false or unjustified ones. We have a problem, though. Before we can answer our question about the extent of our knowledge, we must first answer the question about our criteria of knowledge. Yet, to answer our question about criteria, we must first already know the extent of our knowledge (139).

So we are back to an old foundationalist problem: if we don’t know how we know things, how can we know anything at all or draw limits to human knowledge? There are three attempted solutions:

skepticism: no good solution exists and there is no knowledge.

methodism: Before I can know some specific proposition P, I must first know some criterion Q, and I must know that P measures up to Q. But this is problematic. It leads to a vicious infinite regress. The skeptic can then asks, “How is it that we know Q and R?” The methodist will have to offer a new criterion Q’ that specifies how he knows Q and another new criterion R’ that tells how he knows R. And the same problem will arise for Q’ and R’.

Particularism: we start by knowing specific, clear items of knowledge. I can know some things directly without needing to know how I know them. Does this beg the question? Not really, for the particularist can turn it around and ask the skeptic to give reasons for his skepticism. If he does that, then the same problem of criterion can be used against him. And we can only doubt if we have prior knowledge--otherwise, exactly what are we doubting? Finally, just because it is logically possible I am in error (or, e.g., I was born five minutes ago with pre-programmed memories) does not mean there are good reasons for believing that. 

Further, I can rebut the skeptic by showing he hasn’t shown his own position to be adequately true. I place the burden of proof on the skeptic.

Charles Hodge Systematic Theology (A Review)

Charles Hodge is the highpoint of American theology. While Dabney searched deeper into the issues, Hodge’s position (if only because the North won) allowed him a wider influence. Thornwell was the more brilliant orator and Palmer the greater preacher, but Hodge was the teacher and systematician. Of the Princetonians Hodge is supreme. His writing style is smoother than Warfield’s and he is deeper than his predecessors.



We rejoice that Hendrickson Publishing is issuing these three volumes at $30. Even with the page-length quotations in Latin, Hodge is strong where American Christianity is weak. A renaissance in Hodge would reinvigorate discussions about epistemology, the doctrine of God and God’s knowledge, justification, and God’s law. We will look at Hodge’s discussion of epistemology, doctrine of God, human nature (including both sin and free volition), soteriology, and ethics.

Common Sense Realism

Far from stultifying the gospel, Hodge’s position safeguards the reliability of “truth-speak” and if taken seriously today, adds another angle to the “convert” phenomenon. A properly basic belief is one that doesn’t need another belief for justification. I’m not so sure if Hodge is making that claim. However, he does anticipate some of Plantinga’s positions by saying that God so constituted our nature to believe x, y, and z. My aim is to show from Hodge’s own words that our cognitive faculties are (1) reliable and (2) made so by God. I will advance upon Hodge’s conclusions: a commoner can read the Bible and get the general “gist” of it apart from an infallible interpreting body. Secondly, to deny the above point attacks the image of God. Thirdly, to deny the above point is to reduce all to irrationality. The practical application: Those who deny this position often find themselves looking for “absolute” and infallible arbiters of the faith. Such a position denies a key aspect of our imago dei.

“Any doctrine [and Hodge is using this word in the technical sense of philosophic and/or scientific beliefs], therefore, which contradicts the facts of consciousness, or the laws of belief which God has impressed upon our nature, must be false” (I: 215).
“Our knowledge of mind, therefore, as a thinking substance, is the first and most certain, and the most indestructible of all forms of knowledge; because it is involved in self-knowledge…which is the indispensable condition of all knowledge” (I: 277).

It is interesting to note his reference to self-knowledge. One is reminded of Calvin’s duplex cognito dei.

Doctrine of God

…[S]tart with the revelation that God has made of himself in the constitution of our own nature and in his holy word. This method leads to the conclusion that God can think and act, that in him essence and attributes are not identical (I: 564).

It’s also interesting to note Hodge’s comment about God constituting our nature in a certain way. Shades of Thomas Reid.

“To say, as the schoolmen, and so many even of Protestant theologians, ancient and modern, were accustomed to say, that the divine attributes differ only in name, or in our conceptions, or in their effects, is to destroy all true knowledge of God…If in God knowledge is identical with eternity, knowledge with power, power with ubiquity, and ubiquity with holiness, then we are using words without meaning (I: 371-372).
The attributes of God, therefore, are not merely different conceptions in our minds, but different modes in which God reveals himself to his creatures…just as our several faculties are different modes in which the inscrutable substance self reveals itself in our consciousness and acts (I: 374).

So what do we mean by simplicity? Rome has a thorough, if ultimately chaotic, answer to this question. Orthodoxy has an outstanding response to Rome, but nothing in terms of a constructive view of Simplicity. Following Turretin, Hodge writes,

The attributes are to be distinguished not realiter, but;”virtualiter, that is, there is a real foundation in the divine nature for the several attributes attributed to him (I: 370).
What does virtualiter mean?

Richard Muller defines it as “literally, i.e., with virtue or power” (Muller 371).
It’s interesting that Muller mentioned “power.” This corresponds with Radde-Galwitz’s interpretation of Gregory of Nyssa. Alluding to Michel Barnes he notes that divine power is the causal capacity rooted in the divine nature; inseparable from the divine nature and gives rise to the divine energies (Barnes 183). Further, each “Good” (or attribute, in our case) entails another.

Human Nature

Charles Hodge’s key argument regarding the free will controversy is this: does infallible certainty of a future event destroy human liberty? He answers no. Hodge gives a lengthy explanation that the Reformed tradition can maintain free agency, yet God’s foreknowledge of future actions is not threatened (Hodge, II: 296-304). Part of his discussion is labored and a bit confusing, for he realizes that “free will” has as many glosses as it does adherents. He explains what is and is not meant by “free will.”

I do not always agree with his defining of the terms. He lists the three options: necessity (fatalism), contingency (free-willism) and certainty (Reformed and Augustinianism). My problem with Hodge’s list is that traditional Reformed orthodoxy made a distinction between the necessity of the consequent (absolute necessity as pertaining to God ad intra) and necessity of the consequent thing (conditional necessity). My problem with his term “contingency” is that it risks confusion: God is a necessary being; man is a contingent one. It is evident, though, that Hodge makes clear he means the semi-Pelagian options. He does advance the discussion forward, though, with his use of the term “certainty.” Hodge is content to show that opponents of the Reformed system cannot demonstrate a contradiction between the proposition “all events are foreknown by God and will happen with certainty,” and the proposition, “Man can make rational choices apart from absolute necessity.” Hodge lists several metaphysical and biblical examples. God is a most perfect being. This is a certainty (else we are doomed!), yet few will argue that God’s liberty is impinged. Jesus’s crucifixion was foreknown in the mind of God, yet the Roman soldiers sinned most freely.

This raises an interesting issue: many semi-Pelagians try to duck the Reformed charge by saying, “God simply foresees who will believe and elects them based on his foreseeing their believing.” Besides being a crass works-righteousness, does this really solve the problem? Is their belief any less certain? If the semi-Pelagian argues that election is God’s foreseeing their faith, then we must ask if this is a certain action? It’s hard to see how they can say no. If they do affirm that it is certain, then they must at least agree (hypothetically) with the Reformed gloss that certainty does not destroy free agency.

So what does it mean for a man to act “freely.” Few people on either side ever define this satisfactorily. Hodge loosely follows the standard Reformed gloss: the will follows the intellect (which is assumed to be fallen). Man can be said to act freely if he acts naturally: man acts according to the way he was created (II: 304).

Imputation

One of the objections to the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ is that the transfer of guilt (ours/Adam’s) and/or the transfer of righteousness (Christ’s) is morally and legally impossible. Hodge answers:

“The transfer of guilt or righteousness, as states of consciousness or forms of moral character, is indeed impossible. But the real transfer of guilt as”a responsibility to justice, and as righteousness which satisfies that justice,’ is no more impossible than that one man should pay the debt of another. All that the bible teaches on the subject is that Christ paid as a substitute our debt to the justice of God” (II: 540-541).

Justification

Vol. 3: 114ff

Hodge gives a wonderful and penetrating treatment on justification. He notes that The nature of the act of justification Does not produce subjective change. It is an Act of God not in his character of sovereign but in character of judge (speech-act?)

Includes both pardon and declaration that believer is just in the sight of the law. It is not saying that the believer is morally just in terms of character. The believer is just in relation to the law–guilt is expiated (120). It is not mere pardon: sinner’s guilt is expiated (125). Mere Pardon does not produce reconciliation (128).

Scriptural usage:
Dt 25:1. Judge pronounces a judgment. He does not effect a character change. Condemnation is the opposite of justify. A sentence of condemnation does not effect an evil character change. Thus, if sentence of condemnation is judicial act, so is justification (123).

Romanist Views
Infusion of righteousness does nothing for guilt (though possibly they would say the guilt is washed away in baptism). Accordingly, justification does nothing for the satisfaction of justice. Even if the Romanist claim that justification makes me holy were true, I would still be liable to justice (133).

Satisfaction of Justice
An adequate theory of justification must account for satisfying justice (130). Nothing “within” me can do that.

Works of the Law
Scripture never designates specifically “what kind of works” (137). The word “law” is used in a comprehensive sense. Nomos binds the heart–law of nature. Not ceremonial. Paul says “thou shalt not covet” as the law that condemns me (Romans 7). Not ceremonial. Grace and works are antithetical. It doesn’t make sense to subdivide works (138).
Ground
The Ground of justification is always what is done for us, not what is in us

• justified by his blood (Romans 5:19)
• by his righteousness (5:18)
• If just means “morally good,” then it would be absurd to say that one man is just because of another (141).
• We say that the claims against him are satisfied.
• When God justifies the ungodly, he does not declare him morally godly, but that his sins are expiated.

Hypothetical Objections Proves Protestant View
Why object over possible antinomianism if faith alone not true (Romans 6; p. 140)?

The Law of God

Like older Reformed systematics, Hodge has a treatment of the Decalogue. Much of it is common fare. What is interesting is the way he handled it. By reading his arguments we see a commentary on problematic cultural issues. Of particular importance, which I won’t develop here, are his expositions of the 4th and 7th commandment. In the latter he specifically deals with Romanist tyranny in marriage.

Throughout the whole discussion he is combating Jesuitism. We do not see that today. Modern systematics, even conservative ones, are scared of appearing “conspiratorial.” Hodge’s age was a manlier age. They called it for what it was. They knew that Jesuits swear an oath to destroy Protestant nations by any means necessary. And they knew that only the Law of God provides spiritual and political liberty.  This is why God doesn’t take conservative, political evangelicalism seriously today.
Hodge is not entirely clear, though. When he wants to prove the Levitical prohibitions as binding today on sanguinuity and close-kin marriage, he argues like Greg Bahnsen. Almost word for word. If he did that today he would be fired. But when he wants to argue against more theocratic penalties, he sounds like a dispensationalist.

Sacraments

Keith Mathison’s book on Calvin’s view of the Supper is now something of a classic, and deservedly so. I am in large agreement with most of the book. I certainly lean towards Calvin. That said, I think one of the unintended consequences of the book is a slighting of Charles Hodge among the “Young Turk Calvinists.” It’s not that I disagree with Mathison or Calvin, but I am concerned about the new interest in Nevin. I used to be a hard-core Hegelian for 3 years. Nevin was also an Hegelian. Granted, Nevin pulled back from the worst of Hegel. I am not so sure Nevin’s modern interpreters fully understand that. I hope to give something of a modified defense of Hodge on the Supper:

“really conveying to the believing recipient, Christ, and all the benefits of his redemption…There must be a sense, therefore, in which believers receive the body and blood of Christ” (III: 622).

However,

Anything is said to be present when it operates duly on our perceiving senses” (637). I am not so sure Hodge is able to dodge Mathison’s charge. I agree with Hodge’s common sense realism, but I don’t think Hodge’s next point follows: “In like manner Christ is present when he thus fills the mind, sheds abroad his love into our hearts…” (638). I suppose the question at issue is this: we grant that Christ fills the mind. We grant that sensory operations also fill the mind, but it does not necessarily follow that Christ is present in the Supper in a sensory manner. In some sense I think all Reformed would agree with that.

Hodge makes the common Reformed point that “what is affirmed to be present is not the body and blood of Christ absolutely, but his body as broken and his blood as shed” (641). This is a decisive point against High Church traditions: when they insist upon a literal reading, “This is my body,” the Reformed can point that Christ’s wasn’t sacrificed yet, so the “body” at issue can’t be the sacrificial body.

Hodge concludes his exposition of the Reformed teaching with “There is therefore a presence of Christ’s body in the Lord’s Supper; not local but spiritual; not to the senses, but to the mind and to faith; and not of nearness, but of efficacy” (643).

The Problem with Nevin

Throughout the work is a running attack on Nevin’s theology. Hodge makes a point that isn’t always grasped by Nevin’s defenders today: if we accept Nevin’s platonic essentialism, especially with regard to the Eucharist and Christology, then we run into huge problems. If Christ assumed the universal humanity, then he also assumed the rules of predicating of genus: the more universal a genus, the less specific it is. If Christ is the universal humanity, then there is nothing specifically human about him!

Evaluation

It is superfluous to sing of Hodge’s greatness. That is a given. I do have some issues with his treatment. Hodge routinely appeals to the “received consensus of the church” for many of his doctrines. There are several problems with this. Aside from the most general teachings from the Creeds, appeals to the Patrum Consensus are problematic and question-begging. Further, the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which Hodge sometimes appeals, would not share his assumptions about Adam’s imputed guilt, for example.

Theonomy Demands Natural Law

Jus Divinum on the Mosaic Judicials .

We answer, the Laws of the Jewish Church, whether Ceremonial or Judicial, so far forth are in force, even at this day, as they were grounded upon common equity, the principles of reason and nature, and were serving to the maintenance of the Moral Law. … The Jewish Politie is only abrogated in regard of what was in it of particular right, not of common right, so far forth as there was in their Laws either a typicalness proper to their Church, or a peculiarness of respect to their state in that Land of Promise given unto them.  Whatsoever was in their Laws of Moral concernment, or general equity is still obliging …[2]

Conclusion:  Whatever else 19.4 might mean, it clearly states that the use of the judicials in today’s society presupposes some understanding and application of natural law and common sense equity.  This doesn’t mean theonomy is necessarily right or wrong.  However, it does shed some light on how American theonomists tell the narrative.   If one adds to the mix a hyper-presuppositionalism and a fear of all things Thomistic, then there is no way he or she can read the judicials in the way that the writers of the Confession intended.

Equity is a natural law concept, full stop.  The anti-scholastic theonomist of today is borrowing from Thomistic categories in order to reject Thomistic categories (the irony of this somewhat Van Tillian sentence is thick).

I will say the problem another way.  There are two hermeneutical worlds (courtesy of John Stott).

Mosaic World                                                                                               Today's Application

(How do you apply the two on issues where there isn't a clear connection between the two?)

Mosaic World ---------------------------Equity--------------------Today's Application

Here is the problem:  even if theonomy is correct on this point, equity is a generic category that doesn't necessarily include Mosaic specifics.  Equity presupposes (!) that one use analogy and accepted ideas of fairness, and it doesn't always tell you what that is.  But the Bible doesn't really give a complete list of generalities on fairness.

This is why something like Reid's Common Sense Realism is inevitable.

Is TAG a Variety of Internalism

TAG is the transcendental argument for the existence of God.  It asks (among other things) “What are the preconditions of intelligibility?” In other words, in order for you to have knowledge, what must be true?  Here we need to clarify that last clause.  Is the presuppositionalist asking, “In order for you to have knowledge, what must you account for to be true”?  This would make the argument thus:  how can your worldview account for logic, science, and morality?  

Knowledge as Justified, True Belief.

Without using all the religious-ese in the statement, it is another way of stating knowledge as “justified, true belief.”  This means that knowledge is I believe something to be true and am justified in that belief.  In other words, I have to give internalist (intellectualist) accounts for knowledge.  Greg Bahnsen clearly holds to this position.  He writes, “To put it traditionally, knowledge is justified, true belief” (Bahnsen 178).  He glosses justification as “sounds reasons (good evidence” for a belief.  At this point Bahnsen is in line with the traditional models of epistemology.

It seems, moreover, that the TAG-ist is asking the skeptic (or whomever; TAG works better on skeptics than it does on adherents of other theistic systems) to account for justifications (or preconditions) within his own worldview. Bahnsen writes, “The Christian claim...is justified because the knowledge of God is the context and prerequesite for knowing anything else whatsoever.  Furthermore, the unbeliever is asked to account for any “theoretical sense” of “any kind on the subject” (262).   It is here I suggest that Van Tillian presuppositionalism--at least in the extreme TAG variety--is a form of internalism.  

Justification seeks the satisfaction of epistemic duty.  Applied to the Van Tillian case, the person must fulfill an epistemic duty in order to have true knowledge; namely, the duty is to “establish the preconditions of intelligibility.”  Further, since it involves the formation of a belief, it is internal (hence, internalism).  Internalism also involves a view of cognitive accessibility (Plantinga 36), but this isn’t relevant to the above discussion.

The Gettier Problem

Edmund Gettier suggested a number of scenarios that show where someone can know something yet not really have justification.  A fourth criterion is needed.  For example, I look at a field in the early morning fog and see what I think is a sheep.  As it happens, it wasn’t a sheep but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Unbeknownst to me, there was indeed a sheep in the field behind the wolf.  Technically, I was correct.  I saw something in the field that I thought was a sheep.  It was true belief and I was justified in holding it, yet it wasn’t knowledge (Plantinga 32).  While this may not be the most powerful Gettier problem, the reader can consult here for more examples.

Externalism, by contrast, notes that many people have knowledge of situations s...z without being able to give ultimate justifications for their knowledge.  They would say, rather, with Thomas Reid and Alvin Plantinga, “ Any well formed human being who is in an epistemically congenial environment and whose intellectual faculties are in good working order will typically take for granted at least three things:  that she has existed for some time, that she has had many thoughts and feelings, and that she is not a thought or feeling” (Plantinga 50).

Conclusion

This paper does not try to show whether TAG is in fact false (I think it is).  Rather, that it rests upon improper foundations.  Furthermore, the challenge given by hard presuppositonalists (e.g., can you account for the preconditions of intelligibility? OR such-and-such thinker is in error because he did not challenge the unbeliever’s foundation) is itself a non-starter.  This paper, in conclusion, merely stated the view of externalism and did not seek to prove it to be true or false, as it is not used by TAG presuppositionalists.

Works Cited

Bahnsen, Greg. Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings & Analysis

Plantinga, Alvin.  Warrant and Proper Function.