[BBC List] should free willers pray?

[Mike Abendroth]

Libertarian Free Will & Prayer 


by John Feinberg


Excerpt from John Feinberg, HYPERLINK
"http://www.gnpcb.org/product/1581342756" \nNo One Like Him: The Doctrine of
God, Foundations of Evangelical Theology, pp. 705-706.

If I [believe in libertarian freedom and] plead with God to remove my
friend’s illness, that is not absurd, for God can answer that prayer without
negating anyone’s freedom. But what about the request that God change the
attitudes and actions of my friend’s tyrannical boss? What about petitions
that ask God to move those processing applications for graduate school to
accept my friend? Or what about prayers that ask God to keep my enemies at
work from bothering me? And what about pleading with God to save a dear
relative or friend? In all of these cases, what am I asking God to do, if
libertarian free will obtains? I am either asking God to override others’
freedom, or I am asking him to move them to do something freely in spite of
the fact that my belief in libertarian free will means that I believe Gold
cannot get anybody to do anything freely. If I truly value libertarian free
will as much as libertarians say they do, why would I ask God to override it
just because of my petition? . . . Libertarians may be asking God to try to
persuade their friends, but I repeat that God can only guarantee their
persuasion by casual determinism, and that abridges libertarian free will.

On the other hand, if I am not asking God to override someone else’s
freedom, then I’m asking him to do something which I believe he cannot do
(make it the case that someone else does something freely). I may ask him to
try to persuade the person, but I know that without God overriding their
freedom, he cannot guarantee that they will change. In fact, since at the
moment of free decision making nothing decisively inclines their will,
regardless of what God or anyone else does or says, the matter may be
hopeless. In light of such problems with interceding with God to change
someone’s incompatibilistically free actions or attitudes, there is good
reason for anyone committed to libertarian free will who understands the
implications of the position to think twice before offering intercessory
prayers of the kind mentioned. In fact, prayer to change either our or
others’ actions seems problematic.

 

 

 

Charis, 
  
Mike Abendroth 
  
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.  Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."

 - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer 

 

HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org 
  

 


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