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  • Writer's picturebrandon corley

The Best Resources for Understanding Compatibilism

Updated: Jul 13, 2022



http://www.romans45.org/articles/cause.htm (Focuses on whether, "Calvinism makes God the author of evil"…I think Phil could've brought out the asymmetry more by making clear that God is the efficient cause of good)



https://frame-poythress.org/free-will-and-moral-responsibility/ (Compatibilism, free will, and moral responsibility...one of my favorite articles all-time).



https://www.gotquestions.org/compatibilism.html (Explains Compatibilism for those who don't know what it is/means).







http://www.romans45.org/articles/sup_infr.htm (Supralapsarianism & Infralapsarianism...Logical order of God's decrees. I'm an Infralapsarian 51% of the time, but I could go back and forth and I don't think this point really matters. Turretin has the best arguments against Supralapsarianism in his Institutes except where he argues along the lines that it is "contrary to God's goodness". These arguments from harshness and injustice also fail because the angels were elected supralapsarianly https://modernreformation.org/resource-library/web-exclusive-articles/on-infra-and-supralapsarianism-a-primer/ thus proving that God may justly do this to creatures in accordance with His goodness. See also Aquinas: "it matters nothing in respect of the notion of predestination whether one is predestined to life eternal from the state of misery or not.notion of predestination whether one is predestined to life eternal from the state of misery or not." I am not entirely satisfied with either position)

The author-analogy is probably the best way to understand this. In the same way that an author isn't morally responsible for the things he writes in his story, so God isn't morally responsible for decreeing evil. He is, however, responsible for the good we do though because within the story that He writes, He is the character who causes us to do good (by giving us grace), however, He never writes Himself as the character who causes us to do evil. Separating the ultimate-author-level (where God decrees all things and is morally responsible for none) from the secondary-storyline-level (where God is morally responsible only for good and never evil) is the easiest way to understand this and roughly corresponds to Phil Johnson's article on ultimate vs. efficient causes.


Finally, I haven't actually read anything by him except certain passages here and there, but I know Gordon Clark is really good here.


Recommended Books: "The Potter's Freedom" by James White, "The Bondage of the Will" by Martin Luther (and Jonathan Edwards' "Freedom of the Will", though not all of it), "Excusing Sinners and Blaming God" by Guillaume Bignon is honestly one of the best books I've read on this. After writing a lot about this offline in trying to explain this to others, I discovered that Bignon's book was articulating the exact same things that I was writing about...and although I don't have it (yet), I'm sure "What About Free Will?" by Scott Christensen is helpful, as I'm pretty sure it's just saying the same things I've already posted here. See too Calvinism and the Problem of Evil




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