Determinism
or Indeterminism, That is the Question

As a 17 year old, I dropped out of school
and became a mechanic’s apprentice in a shop owned by a Dutch-Canadian
immigrant serving a largely Dutch-Canadian, largely Calvinist, clientele. Of
course we also served clients of other religious orientations. It was here, in
the practicalities of diagnosis and auto repair that my Calvinism was tested
and broadened, recognizing also that Calvinism is not a monolithic entity. Regarding
the failings of their cars the customers often provided their own diagnosis and
my Boss had instilled in me that the customer is always right, even when they
are wrong; I was just to ignore their diagnosis and do my own, but I did store
some of their peculiar attributions in my memory.  Consider the time when called out to do a
service call on a customer, a regular Church going Calvinist, whose car would
not start. Sometimes I might hear something to the effect that it was God’s
will that the car would not start since ultimately nothing happens without
God’s sovereign will. “Maybe God wants me to suffer so I can become a better
person; or perhaps to avoid some unknown greater calamity”; or I might hear,
“Everything happens for my good.” I would meekly query, “You really want me to
try and start your car?” To myself I would silently consider the fear that for
me to try to get that car started might just be contravening the will of God,
or perhaps futile anyway since it was fated not to start. Alter all it is not
nice to meddle with Mother Nature, as some more secular customers might phrase
it. If it’s God’s will that the car won’t start; who am I to meddle with that!
“Yes, see if you can get it running,” the client might say; so I usually could
get the car running, pointing to some determining causes other than God’s will;
but I kept my adolescent theological reflection to myself.

Over the years, I would come to the
conclusion that there was considerable reductionism going on, and that often
the sovereignty issue was confused with fatalism or absolute determinism. Sometimes
I heard logic such as, “I’m not going to spend any money on fixing my brakes
yet; if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go”; or, “God will protect me.”
With some humour I might respond, “Don’t burn out your guardian angels!”   I
could sense that such theology was more sophistry than a true theology.  Such reductionism left out any consideration
of human responsibility or any number of other more technical environmental
determiners. This so-called orthodox Calvinism or secular fatalism in the world
of car repair, I surmised, reflected subjective biases and attributions, often
confusing correlations with causes.  I
worked in a Canadian GM town where there was a popular prejudicial theory that
Chrysler products were inferior and just would not start when it rained. If
called out in the rain to a Chrysler owner whose car would not start, I might
hear such attribution biases, either of a Calvinist or secularist kind,
attributing the problem to the brand, or to the rain, as well as to God’s will.
A Chrysler product owner would usually not blame themselves for choosing to
purchase a Chrysler product in the first place. I would gently steer a root
cause of worn out ignition wires that short out when wet, and to a probable
cause of lack of maintenance by the owner. “The wires should have been replaced
a long time ago!” I might say. Such experiences influenced my reflections on
the relationship between God’s sovereign will for our lives and this world, and
for our daily life’s responsibilities and the choices we make. It is a comfort
to live in a world that is ultimately not a matter of chaos and chance, nor
left up to the autonomous self-interested designs of human beings.  God’s sovereign will for life, however, does
include human responsibility and stewardship, especially to do the good! In my
training as mechanic, learning diagnostic skills and making appropriate repairs
was central, critical. Choices, timely action and interventions are necessary
in the events of our lives. To simply imply that everything happens for our
good, for a reason, as God’s will, and for instance, and not to maintain our
automobiles, is irresponsible. This is as true for our cars as it is for our
environment, our socio-economic and political lives, and for the common good.

I have since finished my academic
education, struggled through a painful divorce and its aftermath, worked in the
criminal justice system for 21 years, and have concluded, that the sovereignty
of God and human responsibility issue is paradoxical and at the core a sacred
mystery. It is a comfort to believe, that we are forgiven our sins, and to
believe that we live in a world that with some thinking, elbow grease, and prayer,
things can ultimately make sense, and that we can find a measure of direction
and meaning in life to go forward. At times we do struggle in finding God’s
will at the level of broken reality, while knowing more clearly at another
level what God’s will ultimately is.  Dr.
Henry Stob (1981), a seminary professor at Calvin Theological Seminary some
years back who had considerable influence on my theological perspectives,
writes in an article on Prayer and Providence, that God’s governance of this
world is not to be understood deterministically or fatalistically because God
is not the sole agent of historical events, nor is God the author of evil. He
notes that “…the plan of God, though fixed upon a determinate goal, is flexible
in the arrangements of its parts” (p. 92). This implies that sovereignty of
God, does not rob human beings of their freedom and responsibility. In regards
to the importance of prayer Stob, suggests that God’s plan is not so iron clad
and rigid “…to prevent the insertion in it of what may be called the
adventitious cries of his petitioning creatures” (p.93).Prayer as communion
with God, calls God to be with us in our human messes, it is not simply a
request  passively relying  on Him to fix things up; it is a call for God
to bless the work of our hands, as feeble and insignificant as that may be.

Professor Stob (1981) writing on miracles
in a scientifically understood world notes that miracles only make sense in a
world in which events are determined by external causes and not merely left up
the chaos or chance. Stob suggests that if we choose to ascribe everything to
miracle we simply negate the sacred intervention as anything special. Miracles,
he says, “…are only possible in a determinate universe” (p. 25); “The God of
order transcends the order he has established and he can act and work in ways
that are miraculous” (p.93). Both prayer and science, as well as automobile
maintenance, make sense because this is God’s world and He has created it with
a determinate order in a basic creation order of grace, an order which He continually
upholds for our good for human flourishing. Our core responsibility is a religious-spiritual
duty to acknowledge God and give him praise and honour for the marvelous
universe he created. However, historically we live in an order distorted by
human and systemic sin, yet one that includes the need for human responsiveness
and agency to act with thankful and responsible stewardship. In the sciences,
we can contemplate and investigate in a sensory way the depth of the marvels of
God’s creation. Because the world is one of grace and determinate order, it
made the diagnosis work during my labours as mechanic possible and meaningful;
there is not an absolute antithesis between nature and grace. In our responsive
imaging of our creator, we reflect genuine creativity even if limited and
sinful. Sometimes, however, things are not all that clear and at times we are
called to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.   Perhaps to use an illustration from the world
of art: human beings were not created to paint by number, but to be creators of
genuine art, artifacts often produced with considerable effort.

The free will discussion thus need not be
reduced narrowly to the religious and metaphysical, and we can speak of human
responsibility being necessary in car maintenance as well as in moral
philosophy. I am not advocating an either/or, dualism, that we shift from an absolute
determinism to another absolute of indeterminism, one typical of our post-modern
secular society, one that that does not acknowledge the active hand of God in
all of life at all. What I would advocate is looking at the theory or model
known as soft determinism, or compatibilism, which suggests that ordinary free will
is compatible with determinism.  Holmes
Rolston III (1972) offers that John Calvin espoused a  form of soft determinism which holds
people  both free and yet determined by
divine grace without incompatibility (p. 95).Moral philosopher William Frankena
(1963) considers fatalism to be to be inconsistent with moral responsibility
but determinism is not, given the absence of totalitarian or other pathological
constraints (pp.59, 61). Normally in a free society, irrespective of external
environmental determiners, suggests Frankena, “…human beings are or, at least,
may be free to do as they choose…in accordance with our own beliefs, desires
and character” (p.61).    Soft determinism acknowledges that there is
often a multiplicity of interacting factors or determiners to any specific
historical event or act, some within human power, some outside the individual
human scope of influence, but they do affect inner human motivation and
perspective. At the historical level of attribution, soft determinism is a useful
theoretical concept indicating human beings as thankful and thoughtful
responsible stewards of God’s gifts. We know ourselves as responsible people,
suggests Rolston III, “…only when we encounter a God of love and become
answerable to his grace. Responsibility is not an obligation, but it is an
invitation; not a task but a gift; not a command to work and choose, but a call
to love and be loved; not so much God’s precept as his promise” (p116).

In our moral philosophy it is important to
avoid reductionism as well as to avoid misattributions which give in to the
heuristic laziness of common, human social-cognitions devoid of empathy and
love: “If it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger”; or in Kantian style,
“when you chose the crime, you chose your own punishment.”   As I moved from hearing attribution-sloppiness
as a mechanic, I came face to face with a more ominous one that supports our
current model of retribution of our modern North American Criminal justice system.
Our system based on the Classical rationalistic Utilitarian theories of Jeremy
Bentham and others, reflects an absolute indeterminism: the criminal simply chooses
to do the crime, based on a personal calculus of punishment or reward, and must
be punished if he or she makes the wrong choice. Circumstances are considered
irrelevant; crime is simply a matter of individual rational choice.  In my opinion, this is simply inconsistent
with the facts of reality as well as it being inconsistent and paradoxical for
a Calvinist confessing God’s Sovereign will determining everything, and then
attributes crime to a simple indeterminate rational choice of an individual. Of
course I would not endorse absolute determinism, as indicated above; but endorsing
“lock stock and barrel” the radical indeterminism in which our modern criminal
justice system is imbedded reflects bifurcated thinking. (I have the same
concern about an easy borrowing of libertarian indeterminism as contained in
our modern socio-economic theories of laisez
faire and neo-liberalism). As well, retributive thinking only looks to a
past event in order to assign blame and punish the perpetrator. How does legal
punishment bring moral goodness forward? Where is the good sense of that; and
where is grace, how is it a labour of love bringing forward that which is due a
person by a gracious God?

A “soft determinism” acknowledges that the
wrongdoer has made a bad choice; but, that there are also possibly a number of
external attenuating circumstances, some social-structural, that have
influenced the decision, and determined the events leading the offence.  This does not render the offender morally
irresponsible, however, but a broadened moral appraisal of the concept of
responsibility is necessary. Popular thought about criminal attribution of
blame considers crime basically, deontologically, a breaking of the law, and
lawbreakers must be punished. However, punishment as a legal category is past
oriented, not very instrumental in producing inner change and motivation to
lead us to a safer more peaceful society. A broader moral use of the concept of
responsibility than “blameworthy” is
necessary, namely the concept of “obligation,” “accountability” to make things
right, or to restore harmed relationships. Such an understanding of
responsibility contains teleological ends, not just legal punitive ones.
Broadened, this would focus not just on broken laws, but on the harm done to
people and their future needs.  This
would require, as ethicist Frankena (1963) suggests, a mixed ethical theory
that combines both the need for rules and laws for the good, and also contain
teleological ends for good results and consequences (p. 59). Frankena
elaborates further, that since most deontologists hold that determinism is
incompatible with moral responsibility, they respond to wrongdoing as
law-breaking, in a retributivist rather than consequentialist manner (59).
However, he holds another opinion, “… that the function of holding people
responsible and applying sanctions is not retribution but education,
reformation, prevention and encouragement” (p.59).  To his list I would add, affirmation of human
worth, healing, reconciliation, and peace. Some circumstances involve a
responsibility for a transformative and restorative response from all of us in
society for structural change. Some circumstances must also be left up to the
mystery of God’s ways and to God’s grace which undergirds all of life….a
primacy of grace, of rectification, not of law, judgment and punishment. We as
human agents must do justice in love and humility and may not play god,
especially the severe god often typical of retributive Calvinism and
evangelicalism, supporting hard law and order policies for crime control.  Neither can we leave the governance of our
social economic and social lives up to laissez faire irresponsibility. In the
area or human responsibility in the area of justice, we exercise it, as Mica
suggests, in humility; as an example and demonstration of love in justice
(Wolterstorff, 2011).

It is common to speak of justice as having
nothing to do with love, mercy and grace. The primacy of a creation order of
grace, however, would imply that rule of law though essential, is not
sufficient.  All too often in evangelical
and Calvinist circles, criminal justice issues are spoken of in a narrow
Kantian deontological sense, a retributive sense. This is true as well as in
general society; however, one would expect the church to champion the cause of
grace and love and restorative justice.  It
seems often that the Bible is read and theology done with the assumption of an
absolute bifurcation of God’s justice and love, a dualism of God’s righteousness
(or justice) and grace. God’s righteousness or justice is often reduced to
wrath, to judgment and punishment, as pain application legally sanctioned. Such
reductionism is the result of reading retributive imperatives into the Bible, imperatives
as absolutes that are just not there. Wolterstorff (2011) has implicated the
ancient myth of reciprocity, of retaliation, lex talionis; Rolston III (1972) points to a bifurcation of law and
grace as theorized by theologians who created the concept of the covenant of
works a generation or so after Calvin. Rolston III, after a thorough reading of
Calvin’s works, concludes that Calvin’s, main emphasis is on the primacy of
grace, not of law. Rolston III maintains that Calvin’s use of the concept of iustitia Dei, God’s justice or
righteousness, is both communicative and distributive, and that law is not
alone, but rather law-in-grace (p.80). Commenting on Calvin’s Institutes, (I,X,2)
he notes, “Calvin thinks of the righteousness of God  as graciously preserving and supporting,
allied with mercy and somewhat an opposite of judgment” (pp. 72-73).  He also points to the ironic fact that in the
traditional Reformed theology as presented in the Westminster Confession,
righteousness is seen the other way around, where “God’s righteousness is posited
as synonymous with judgement and the opposite of mercy” (p. 73). The Judgment
of God, according to Rolston III (1972) is a rectifying response to human
rejection of Him. Punishment is an expression of God’s sovereign will to
express that he has not deserted his creation order of grace, and is also not
going to let sin stand in his way; “Redemption reveals that God has always
willed to be gracious, [and] still  so
wills….”(p.33). 

Some serious thinking by the church about
the morally responsible response to crime and justice in society today is
sorely needed. I am thankful for theologians, moral philosophers, and
criminologists who challenge old myths and worn out beliefs about justice as
punishment. If anything, followers of Christ are called in love, faith, and
hope, to promote and establish Christ’s health giving rule, as an alternative
to the conflicted and bifurcated rule of justice prevalent today. On the
evening news this week, I heard that the victims of a brutal rape in India
believe that hanging the perpetrators, will, as it was expressed, “send a
positive message to society”.  Or again
retributive thinking is reflected in the Alberta case of Travis Baumgartner who
 yesterday (Sept 11, 2013)received a life
sentence without the possibility of applying for parole for 40 years, the
harshest sentence handed down in Canada since Arthur Lucas was executed in
1962. Such harsh opinions and sentences, largely symbolic and expressive, are expected
to heal the pain of loss by the relatives of the victims of horrendous crime, and
it is supposed to appease public sentiment.   Some relatives as secondary victims suggested
that nothing can really address the pain experienced, and others suggested that
a hanging would be the only satisfying form of justice.  I do understand the justice that relatives of
the victims of abuse, homicide and manslaughter really want to experience; but
another physical or civil death, as scapegoat as it were, will not bring a
loved one back; will it really heal?

One must question just how capital
punishment can be a positive response or move life forward in transformed ways.
In the attribution of blame, have all the correlative causes been weighed,
including the social-cultural ones? Has God’s grace any influence?  As it has been said by so many in the
restorative justice field, one can’t get to a good place in a bad way.  God’s will is for rectification and that none
should perish! Civil authorities and the public at large may also need to look
at their own social-structural responsibilities in cases such as this, in terms
of tolerated sexism and domestic violence, or of a culture that is addicted to
consumption and espouses unrestricted possessive individualism. This is an
opportunity for us as Canadians and North Americans to ponder our own
responsibilities in our social governance for the Good.  Stob (1978) maintains, “You cannot live
responsibly by a love which is abstracted and divorced from justice, and from
the rational and structured elements which constitute justice” (p.139). Followers
of Christ, both as individuals and as reflected by the churches to which  they belong, must be champions of a better
way leading to the common good, to peace and human flourishing for everyone in
society, even our most despised criminals. 
Love acts in a dialectal and supportive role with justice, offers Stob
(1978); love never acts unjustly, nor does love bypass justice. He suggests
that the Christian is not free to deny others their rights or past dues.” But, I
am free in Christ to be self-sacrificial and to lay down my very life for the
other… [as] declared by Christ to be a mark of his disciples (p.143).

Works Cited

Frankena, W. K. (1963). Ethics.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Rolston, H. I. (1972). John
Calvin Versus The Westminster Confession. Richmond, Virginia: John Knox
Press.

Stob, H. (1978). Ethical
Reflections. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Stob, H. (1981). Theological
Reflections. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company.

Wolterstorff, N. (2011). Justice
in love. Grand Rapids Michigan: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Company.