I used to think Calvin might have believed that unbelievers did not bear the image of God, because of something he says in Institutes 1.14.18: “For as believers are recognized to be the sons of God by bearing his image, so the wicked are properly regarded as the children of Satan, from having degenerated into his image.”
But that needs to be taken along with 3.7.6, where Calvin speaks of “the image of God, which exists in all, and to which we owe all honor and love.” He then contrasts “all” in general with “those who are of the household of faith” for whom “that image is renewed and restored in them by the Spirit of Christ.” So basically, for Calvin, all human beings bear the image of God, but believers bear it more distinctly.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
Thursday, December 13, 2018
A Note on Free Will
At the beginning of The Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards mentions that the will is a concept taken for granted by most people. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that needs a lot of rigorous thinking in order to understand. But since philosophers have said so much about it, he feels compelled to make his own contribution to the topic.
I’d like to mention something else along those lines: Arminians often take the term “free will” for granted, as if it’s clear to everyone what that means. But I think the notion of free will is actually quite nebulous, and difficult to define on its own terms. I say this because free will is so often defined with reference to determinism. That’s curious to me. It’s as if definitions of free will depend on a counter notion of determinism.
To illustrate, let’s look at a few basic definitions of free will. I realize that some of these aren’t from philosophically sophisticated sources, but I think they still represent the standard way in which most people would define free will. This first one is from Dictionary.com:
Here’s another definition from The Oxford Dictionary of English:
Now look at a definition from a source that is more philosophical in nature – William Reese’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion:
I’d like to mention something else along those lines: Arminians often take the term “free will” for granted, as if it’s clear to everyone what that means. But I think the notion of free will is actually quite nebulous, and difficult to define on its own terms. I say this because free will is so often defined with reference to determinism. That’s curious to me. It’s as if definitions of free will depend on a counter notion of determinism.
To illustrate, let’s look at a few basic definitions of free will. I realize that some of these aren’t from philosophically sophisticated sources, but I think they still represent the standard way in which most people would define free will. This first one is from Dictionary.com:
Free will: “the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.”If this definition were limited to only the first half, then Calvinists could accept such a notion of free will: “the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice.” But then the definition goes on to further define free will in a way that explicitly precludes any notion of determinism: “and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.”
Here’s another definition from The Oxford Dictionary of English:
Free will: “the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion”We can say basically the exact same things about this definition of free will. Calvinists could agree with one half: “the ability to act at one’s own discretion.” But the other half explicitly precludes determinism: “acting without the constraint of necessity or fate” (or providence, we might add).
Now look at a definition from a source that is more philosophical in nature – William Reese’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion:
Freedom: “The quality of not being constrained by fate, necessity, or circumstance in one’s decisions and actions.”Wow. Here’s a definition that is totally dependent on determinism. Freedom might as well have been defined as “the thing that makes all forms of determinism not true.” Isn’t this a little bit odd? Why is it that free will must be defined with reference to determinism, rather than on its own terms? Can it be adequately defined any other way? If this kind of definition is insisted on, it means that when a person says “I believe in free will” all they’re really saying is “I don’t believe in determinism.” They’re not positively affirming anything; they’re just denying something else.
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Monday, January 8, 2018
“Eyes For Me”
Anxious souls will hope for crazy things
When no one sees the phantoms they can see
And I’d be chief among them to believe
That a day will come when she has eyes for me
But daylight burns and I’ll write stupid songs
Camouflage the writing on the wall
And wonder just what I would have to be
For a day to come when she has eyes for me
See in the dark the memory of the light
Another face, another aimless fight
And I get the feeling the last thing that I need
Is a day to come when she has eyes for me
But I don’t walk in my sleep; just wake and dream
I don’t walk in my sleep; just wake and dream
Several things that I don’t understand
Eagles, snakes, a woman’s way with man
Or what it takes to wake up from the dream
Of a day to come when she has eyes
For me
When no one sees the phantoms they can see
And I’d be chief among them to believe
That a day will come when she has eyes for me
But daylight burns and I’ll write stupid songs
Camouflage the writing on the wall
And wonder just what I would have to be
For a day to come when she has eyes for me
See in the dark the memory of the light
Another face, another aimless fight
And I get the feeling the last thing that I need
Is a day to come when she has eyes for me
But I don’t walk in my sleep; just wake and dream
I don’t walk in my sleep; just wake and dream
Several things that I don’t understand
Eagles, snakes, a woman’s way with man
Or what it takes to wake up from the dream
Of a day to come when she has eyes
For me
Saturday, January 6, 2018
Book Brief: God Rest Ye Merry
God Rest Ye Merry: Why Christmas Is the Foundation for Everything by Douglas WilsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Enjoyed it. As usual, Wilson has a lot of good thoughts. I've heard that his books these days tend to be compilations of stuff from his blog, and I can see that here. It reads like a series of loosely-connected essays about different topics related to Christmas. Which isn't a bad thing, it's just different.
#vtReadingChallenge (2/52) "A Book Of Your Choice"
View all my reviews
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Book Brief: Portraits of a Pastor
Portraits of a Pastor: The 9 Essential Roles of a Church Leader by Jason K. AllenMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Pretty good. #vtReadingChallenge (One down, fifty-one to go.)
View all my reviews
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Why Auburn Should Not Make The Playoff
And now for some wrangling over trivial matters.
Auburn and Alabama had the most objectively similar schedules you could possibly ask for between two teams this year. Consider the following: They both play in the SEC West, so they both faced six common opponents for that reason alone. Moreover, they both faced two SEC East opponents. They both faced a decent ACC team at the beginning of the year: Auburn facing Clemson, and Alabama facing Florida State. (I know, Florida State pretty much tanked the rest of their season. But that was largely due to Francois’s season-ending injury.) And finally, they both had three “cupcake” games a piece, relatively easy matchups in which they were heavily-favored.
At the end of these remarkably similar schedules, and prior to the Iron Bowl, Auburn had suffered two losses (to Clemson and LSU) and Alabama had suffered exactly zero.
Of course, Auburn ended up defeating Alabama in the Iron Bowl. So at the moment, Alabama is 11-1 and Auburn is 10-2. But now Auburn has a chance to defeat Georgia (a second time) in the SEC championship. If they manage to do this, good for them. But it still doesn’t make them playoff-worthy. Auburn would still have no more wins than Alabama already has, and would still have more losses.
If Auburn does end up winning the SEC this year, what the committee needs to do is exactly what they did last year, when they gave the one-loss Ohio State precedence over the two-loss conference champion Penn State, despite the fact that the latter had defeated the former. Virtually the same scenario could play out this year between Alabama and Auburn, respectively, yet the committee appears more than ready to give Auburn the edge, should they win the SEC.
But clearly this whole “conference championship” system is quite broken. It very often doesn’t pit the two best teams in the conference against each other in the title game. Nobody seriously thinks Florida was the second best team in the SEC last year. Yet with a 9-3 record, they played for the conference title. Sure, they got obliterated by the undefeated Alabama. But what if they had caught Bama on a bad night and pulled off an upset? Would that have made Florida the best team in the SEC? Hardly.
And yet this weird “conference championship” thing is what’s making everyone think Auburn is having a more successful year than Alabama, even though Auburn has less wins and more losses. Conference titles muddy the waters of the playoff committee’s decision-making, and shouldn’t be getting in the way like they are. Conferences like the Big 12 are now forced to go back to having a conference championship, just to ensure that their conference has a chance at making the playoff. Which doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
Personally, I think every conference should forego a title game, and instead schedule an additional regular-season cross-division conference game for each team. I don’t foresee that happening any time soon, if ever. But I do think it would give the playoff committee a more sensible set of data to work with.
Auburn and Alabama had the most objectively similar schedules you could possibly ask for between two teams this year. Consider the following: They both play in the SEC West, so they both faced six common opponents for that reason alone. Moreover, they both faced two SEC East opponents. They both faced a decent ACC team at the beginning of the year: Auburn facing Clemson, and Alabama facing Florida State. (I know, Florida State pretty much tanked the rest of their season. But that was largely due to Francois’s season-ending injury.) And finally, they both had three “cupcake” games a piece, relatively easy matchups in which they were heavily-favored.
At the end of these remarkably similar schedules, and prior to the Iron Bowl, Auburn had suffered two losses (to Clemson and LSU) and Alabama had suffered exactly zero.
Of course, Auburn ended up defeating Alabama in the Iron Bowl. So at the moment, Alabama is 11-1 and Auburn is 10-2. But now Auburn has a chance to defeat Georgia (a second time) in the SEC championship. If they manage to do this, good for them. But it still doesn’t make them playoff-worthy. Auburn would still have no more wins than Alabama already has, and would still have more losses.
If Auburn does end up winning the SEC this year, what the committee needs to do is exactly what they did last year, when they gave the one-loss Ohio State precedence over the two-loss conference champion Penn State, despite the fact that the latter had defeated the former. Virtually the same scenario could play out this year between Alabama and Auburn, respectively, yet the committee appears more than ready to give Auburn the edge, should they win the SEC.
But clearly this whole “conference championship” system is quite broken. It very often doesn’t pit the two best teams in the conference against each other in the title game. Nobody seriously thinks Florida was the second best team in the SEC last year. Yet with a 9-3 record, they played for the conference title. Sure, they got obliterated by the undefeated Alabama. But what if they had caught Bama on a bad night and pulled off an upset? Would that have made Florida the best team in the SEC? Hardly.
And yet this weird “conference championship” thing is what’s making everyone think Auburn is having a more successful year than Alabama, even though Auburn has less wins and more losses. Conference titles muddy the waters of the playoff committee’s decision-making, and shouldn’t be getting in the way like they are. Conferences like the Big 12 are now forced to go back to having a conference championship, just to ensure that their conference has a chance at making the playoff. Which doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
Personally, I think every conference should forego a title game, and instead schedule an additional regular-season cross-division conference game for each team. I don’t foresee that happening any time soon, if ever. But I do think it would give the playoff committee a more sensible set of data to work with.
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