Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology - Analytic ...

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Paul L. Manata © 2011
choice is made. Rather, the agent himself must simply exercise his own
causal powers and will to do one alternative, say A (or have the power to
refrain from willing to do something). When this happens, the agent either
could have refrained from willing to do A or he could have willed to do B . .
. He is the absolute originator of his own actions. . . . [H]e is a first or
unmoved mover. 54
As with everything in this paper, the above is an extremely truncated overview of
libertarianism. No doubt I did not do the view justice, but I hope, again, to have
touched on some key themes and given a fair overview. Given this view of
freedom and responsibility, what can the Reformed Christian say in response?
She can appeal to several reasons in rejecting libertarianism, some of which I will
discuss shortly. But first, an excursus: There is a movement afoot in the Reformed
world to claim the Reformed view of the will was a kind of libertarianism. Since
this directly contradicts my thesis, I will offer some critical remarks on this view.
Excursus: Reformed Libertarianism (or something near enough)?
E.1 Introduction
A topic I initially tried to avoid directly discussing, but one that a reader of an
earlier draft thought would be good to address, is the issue of what I will call
“Reformed Libertarianism (or something near enough).” The view is that
Reformed theology, especially during the scholastic period, taught what we can
call for lack of a better word, ‘libertarianism (or something near enough).’ The
reason the designation is sketchy is that those who espouse the view we will
discuss claim that it is not libertarian. But, they claim this given an odd and
54 J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations For a Christian
Worldview (IVP Academic, 2003), p. 270.