Compatibilism and Christian Thought – It Bugs Me

Someone defined compatibilism as a reconciliation of the theological proposition that every event is causally determined, ordained, and/or decreed by God in conjunction with the free will of man. Well, that makes about as much sense as when I’d take my toddler to a shopping mall, put her down and let her roam “free”. I was in fact directing her to the next store I wanted to shop at. It’s a non-sequitur within compatibilism that people make free-will choices in anything as very event and action has already been predetermined by God and for his reasons alone.

Within the doctrines of Calvinism, nothing happens which hasn’t been causally determined, decreed or ordained by God. John Piper references the “no maverick molecule” concept wherein if any molecule or spec of dirt only moves through the air as it does because God determined it would. Someone came up with the nice little acronym “EDD” (exhaustive divine determinism) to best express this concept in which God causally determines every single thing and nothing happens which He didn’t determine would happen.

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