If God isn't a useless bastard, predestination, by His foreknowing, is universally positive; all shall be well, for all. Which being damnationist, Dame Julian didn't add.
As far as I understand it, though, the RCC does believe in predestination but it isn't as big an issue as it is in the Reformed traditions -
And except among the very conservative Reformed (and some groups that latch onto to TULIP Calvinism while ignoring much of the rest of Calvin’s theology), it isn’t as big or central an issue within the Reformed tradition as people outside the Reformed tradition seem to think it is.
and as @Jengie Jon has helpfully reminded us several times, the Arminian position is actually a subset of that (in a small r reformed way I'd imagine).
Nope, in a capital-R Reformed way, at least originally. Jacobus Arminius and the original Arminians were Dutch Reformed. And this provides a good opportunity for a reminder that while Calvin is certainly a big—if not the big—figure within the Reformed tradition, he’s not the only figure, much less a binding one.
Although we generally don't admit it, Protestants actually do rely on "tradition," . . .
Some of us have been admitting it around here for years.
. . . but we treat it differently in, I think, two ways:
1. The corpus of work considered valuable for interpretive assistance is different, and probably smaller and certainly less clearly defined.
2. We treat it not as authoritative, but as the insights of other brothers and (maybe a few ghost-writing) sisters in Christ.
I’d say some of us do treat “tradition” as authoritative; it just doesn’t have the same level of authority as Scripture, but rather is subordinate to Scripture.
The Reformed, for example, certainly treat various confessions and catechisms as authoritative—the Belgic Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, for example. As has often been said (at least in my corner of the Reformed world), they are subordinate standards, but standards nonetheless.
And some of those standards—the Second Helvetic Confession quickly comes to mind, but others too—draw the Nicene, Apostles’ and Athanasian creeds into their ambit, as well as decisions of at least the first four ecumenical councils.
In comparison with the lethal headache Boethius received? (See Wiki article for gruesome details).
...
Did he see something? Or was this just a 6th century attempt to “square the circle”?
According to Stanford, it was an attempt to address the issue of theological fatalism
Fatalism is the thesis that human acts occur by necessity and hence are unfree. Theological fatalism is the thesis that infallible foreknowledge of a human act makes the act necessary and hence unfree. If there is a being who knows the entire future infallibly, then no human act is free.
by proposing that "God and his beliefs are not in time".
The way Boethius describes God’s cognitive grasp of temporal reality, all temporal events are before the mind of God at once. To say “at once” or “simultaneously” is to use a temporal metaphor, but Boethius is clear that it does not make sense to think of the whole of temporal reality as being before God’s mind in a single temporal present. It is an atemporal present in which God has a single complete grasp of all events in the entire span of time.
But noting that:
The Boethian solution does not solve the problem of theological fatalism by itself, but since the nature of the timeless realm is elusive, the intuition of the necessity of the timeless realm is probably weaker than the intuition of the necessity of the past. The necessity of the past is deeply embedded in our ordinary intuitions about time; there are no ordinary intuitions about the realm of timelessness. One possible way out of this problem is given by K.A. Rogers, who argues (2007a, 2007b) that the eternal realm is like the present rather than the past, and so it does not have the necessity we attribute to the past.
...
Hmm. Don't keep me guessing. What do you see as relevant in Catala's quote to the situations you credited with having brought her quote to mind?
There's no guessing involved. Reading the room gave me a headache. You've already indicated how it made you feel.
Er. Ok.
Reading the room indicated to me where people are on the issues of the OP, but I've been reading this room for over a year. I've been reading other rooms for years and years. Learning the universal ethic, so to speak.
So, perhaps you are refering to my willingness to keep it theoretical, rather than get pummeled, by saying what the community will not tolerate? Possibly. We can get so practiced at that task, that we forget we are even doing it.
But sticking to the theoretical can be good exercise, examining and weighing the componants. For those very reasons I liked what @Barnabas62 said about Berdyaev arguing against his own position.
Maybe I am pulling a Berdyaev myself and strengthening my "Hm. I don't know about that" in a more informed way.
Fair enough. Though, while the concept of free will is theoretical, it was your post that pointed out to me that human beings experience freedom practically - it seemed reasonable to me to take other factors affecting our experience of freedom into consideration in a discussion about free will (although there appears to be some ambiguity in the framing of the discussion).
@Nick Tamen - I fully accept that the Reformed tradition has a broader range of concerns than those outside it may acknowledge. I've acknowledged that plenty of times on these boards.
Nevertheless, I think it's pretty much the case that in places like England and Wales where Presbyterians are pretty rare, the most likely form of Calvinism that we are likely to encounter are the more hard-line or conservative elements.* And yes, I do know that the Reformed tradition doesn't just draw on Calvin.
* By their very nature these groups and individuals are going to be more vocal as they need to rally around a set of markers both for purposes of identity and for a hook on which to hang their particular presentation of the Gospel.
My comment about perceptions of those outside the Reformed tradition was intended as a general observation, @Gamma Gamaliel. It was not directed at you specifically.
Ok. Apologies for assuming particular election ...
But my more general point was one of 'critical mass'. We all have our toxic fringes and I suspect it is possible to avoid those more easily where you have greater numbers and larger congregations of whichever Christian tradition we are talking about. My impression is that, for all the rise of the 'nones' and so on, church-going is likely to be more widespread where you are than it is here in the UK.
@Barnabas62 and @Gamma Gamaliel thank you both very much for your gracious replies.
Time is too short this week to prepare a response to the topic. But in the meantime, please accept my humble thanks for your kindness.
I have attempted to digest the long article on Foreknowledge and Free Will and I now have a headache!
What impressed me the most is that the philosophical debate in ongoing! I remain a compatibilist. I’m also impressed by both the length of the debate and the effort put in by both compatibilists and incompatibilists.
It’s clearly been an important theoretical debate which mattered to many people. Which raises the important question. Why does it matter?
I’m also impressed by the conclusion that Foreknowledge and Free Will issues are part of the more general problem of time and causation. That seems absolutely right to me.
. . . but we treat it differently in, I think, two ways:
1. The corpus of work considered valuable for interpretive assistance is different, and probably smaller and certainly less clearly defined.
2. We treat it not as authoritative, but as the insights of other brothers and (maybe a few ghost-writing) sisters in Christ.
I’d say some of us do treat “tradition” as authoritative; it just doesn’t have the same level of authority as Scripture, but rather is subordinate to Scripture.
The Reformed, for example, certainly treat various confessions and catechisms as authoritative—the Belgic Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, for example. As has often been said (at least in my corner of the Reformed world), they are subordinate standards, but standards nonetheless.
And some of those standards—the Second Helvetic Confession quickly comes to mind, but others too—draw the Nicene, Apostles’ and Athanasian creeds into their ambit, as well as decisions of at least the first four ecumenical councils.
Yeah, I need to include an asterisk and qualifier (*as I'm familiar with) whenever I say anything about Protestantism*. I'll try to keep that in mind.
The various, similar Baptist churches I've spent my life in have been consistent in their treatment of "tradition". Few Baptists* use confessions, much less know about them, and shudder at the word "catechism" in any context. Churches* normally have doctrinal statements, which are relatively consistent, but have not been developed the way the confessions were and are not treated with the same allegiance that I see in my experience in the one PCA church I've ever gone to (for the past 3 years). There is far less emphasis on consistency and conformity of belief in Baptist* churches. However I think that is changing at least among the now early middle aged members, who have been strongly influenced by the "new calvinist movement." And among their large broods. I'm used to variety of thought that seems unwelcome in the PCA*.
Fair enough. Though, while the concept of free will is theoretical, it was your post that pointed out to me that human beings experience freedom practically - it seemed reasonable to me to take other factors affecting our experience of freedom into consideration in a discussion about free will (although there appears to be some ambiguity in the framing of the discussion).
Got it. Thanks.
I think it's essential to take other factors into consideration. Something like freedom, human freedom, seems meaningless to me, divorced from human experience. We can talk about ideals as such. As something to strive for. But to make claims about what freedom itself is - not just a definition or theory of freedom - requires reference to human experience of it, which is never without constraint.
[This is the point at which I can hardly refrain from soap-boxing about the need for greater diversity in all fields of academia.]
As a woman in the West, I still have social and cultural constraints on my "freedom" that are different because of my sex, for example. There are better examples, but this one is mine. Personally.
If we're going to talk about determinism, predestination and freedom at all, I would expect them to have a connection to actual human experience. Which is something that @martin54 does regularly, I believe, with his references to determinism.
I have attempted to digest the long article on Foreknowledge and Free Will and I now have a headache!
What impressed me the most is that the philosophical debate in ongoing! I remain a compatibilist. I’m also impressed by both the length of the debate and the effort put in by both compatibilists and incompatibilists.
It’s clearly been an important theoretical debate which mattered to many people. Which raises the important question. Why does it matter?
I’m also impressed by the conclusion that Foreknowledge and Free Will issues are part of the more general problem of time and causation. That seems absolutely right to me.
I read the article back when @pease posted it, but haven't gotten back to it to review. Sorry. No memory of it. If the discussion revives, I'll look it over again.
But @Barnabas62, as Enquiring Minds and I, wants to know, "Why does it matter?"
FWIW and *in my experience also, I'd say that mainstream Baptist churches in the UK have a similar attitude towards 'confessions' and councils - although they are more likely to have charismatic than neo-Calvinist influence.
It also wouldn't be unknown here for individual Baptists to dabble in things like pilgrimage or contemplative prayer and practices associated with more Catholic traditions - although in a fairly restrained way.
What we don't tend to have are the big brood Baptist families of the kind you describe.
Anyhow ...
If we are to revive this spread, what direction should we take it in?
If there is a question as to why it matters, then why does it matter?
I'd suggest that it only matters if you are out to defend or define particular issues that became a source of contention within Western Christianity at the Reformation and its aftermath.
It's not that these issues were unknown or not discussed prior to that but they became a battleground during the 16th and 17th centuries with aftershocks and rumbles continuing into the 18th and 19th centuries to re-emerge in a somewhat different form in the 20th.
@Nick Tamen has observed that debates about predetermination, freewill etc etc don't tend to feature that often in his neck of the Reformed woods. I suspect this is because things are more 'settled' and there's less need to set a stall out or define how they might differ from RCs on the one hand or other Protestant groups on the other.
I'd also say it matters if you are out to defend a particular soteriology.
You'll want to make doubly, doubly sure that there is no dint or hint of human effort and 'works' so an elaborate 'Election' schema, if we can put it that way, enables you to do that. Hence TULIP, hence Dort.
If you aren't wedded to that kind of soteriology it becomes less of an issue.
I'd suggest that these concerns have become more of a 'tribal marker' than anything else.
A bit like the filioque controversy. I might get exercised about that as an Orthodox Christian but it's no big deal to some of my brothers and sisters in other Christian traditions.
I say I am a "calvinistic-leaning Baptist." To make every point of TULIP a bright line, again, doesn't square in my mind with human experience. Piper, on the other hand, has no problem eliminating human experience from his theology. He went ahead and followed up his book "Desiring God" with "When I don't Desire God" in which he blames the reader, if they don't feel it, and finally suggests in the last chapter, that if the lack of desire is maybe the result of depression - the kind not caused by sin - one might maybe could need to see a mental health professional, which he confesses not to understand.
My sense is that anyone who holds a strong view of predestination isn't going to admit it here anyway.
My sense is that anyone who holds a strong view of predestination isn't going to admit it here anyway.
I do but I've already explained the context within which it's possible for me to hold both Free Will and Predestination in the same framework.
It's always come down to Occam's razor for me. All of these things can't be true at the same time - One Life to Live, Free Will, Predestination, All Knowing God, All Powerful God, All Loving/Benevolent God, and Evil Exists. At least one of these has to be discarded, and the one that makes all the others fit into place is One Life to Live.
Even if I didn't have memories, the cognitive dissonance of trying to hold all of these premises as truth would force me to reject the least problematic assumption and align my point of view with the billion and half other people who don't have any difficulty with these questions or with seeing themselves as transmigratory souls.
I reserve the right to disagree with the authors of the scriptures of any and all faith traditions if the lived truth of my personal experience contradicts their assertions, no matter how well intended. To me, these things are supposed to be easy to understand and to make sense of. I don't believe we're supposed to trust "the mystery" when we've been endowed with the faculties to understand, and the realtime lived experiences that show us the plain facts about ourselves if we have the courage to take them at face value.
AFF, I think Christianity operates largely within an ego-based sense of identity, although also offering liberation from it. However, some religions see the ego as an impediment, and an irritant, and view the Self as universal, and beyond time. Intellectually, of course, this all turns into nonsense. What can we do?
A further point, that I think AFF is using a vertical system whereby the soul continues through different identities, whereas I have gone with a horizontal system, whereby there is one identity in everything. Sorry, if I've misconstrued.
AFF, I think Christianity operates largely within an ego-based sense of identity, although also offering liberation from it. However, some religions see the ego as an impediment, and an irritant, and view the Self as universal, and beyond time. Intellectually, of course, this all turns into nonsense. What can we do?
There's no question in my mind that a "sense of identity" - that is, an awareness of an "I" that operates as "me, myself" - is essential in order to form any kind of impression of reality as a shared experience among other beings operating also as "me, myself".
I don't agree that identity is an impediment unless it makes itself an impediment. It's OK to dismantle an identity that no longer serves the well being of the percipient, and several traditions make bank in giving people a how-to on the demolition process. Less so on the renovation or construction of the new.
I agree that intellect is capable of reducing any numinous experience to nonsense, which is why it's important to be able to rank the importance of information arising from experience, and to organize it for future reference if it can't immediately be parsed into one's narrative framework.
We all tell ourselves stories about what is, who we are, and what happened. A coherent narrative is an essential tool - hopefully it acts as both a lens to view reality through, a mirror that shows ourselves to ourselves, and a projector to show others what we are made of.
@Nick Tamen has observed that debates about predetermination, freewill etc etc don't tend to feature that often in his neck of the Reformed woods. I suspect this is because things are more 'settled' and there's less need to set a stall out or define how they might differ from RCs on the one hand or other Protestant groups on the other.
That’s part of it. But as I’ve said many times, another part of it, perhaps the larger part, is that it’s simply not as central to the mainstream Reformed tradition as people outside that tradition seem to think it is.
You'll want to make doubly, doubly sure that there is no dint or hint of human effort and 'works' so an elaborate 'Election' schema, if we can put it that way, enables you to do that. Hence TULIP, hence Dort.
Well, technically, hence Dort, hence TULIP, as TULIP purports to be a mnemonic summary of the Canons of Dort. As I have noted before, TULIP is a British-American concept that first arose in the 19th Century, 200+ years after the Synod of Dort. It can be argued—very persuasively, I think—that it is a mangling and distortion of Dort and a major mangling and distortion of Calvin. TULIP simply isn’t a thing, much less a central thing, outside Anglospheric Reformed; it’s mostly a thing among the conservative English-speaking Reformed and others outside the Reformed tradition who adopt this particular aspect of “Calvinist” soteriology, while ignoring pretty much all other aspects of “Calvinism.”
My sense is that anyone who holds a strong view of predestination isn't going to admit it here anyway.
I have, many times, and as @chrisstiles says, others have as well.
The challenge is, as @A Feminine Force suggests, is that different people have different understandings about exactly what is meant by predestination.
And speaking for myself, even when I have explained how I understand it, I find that many people continue to apply their own understandings to what I say. I’d suggest that if there’s any hesitation in admitting to strong views of predestination, it comes from that—the tendency to impose one’s own understandings despite what others say.
Fair enough. Though, while the concept of free will is theoretical, it was your post that pointed out to me that human beings experience freedom practically - it seemed reasonable to me to take other factors affecting our experience of freedom into consideration in a discussion about free will (although there appears to be some ambiguity in the framing of the discussion).
Got it. Thanks.
I think it's essential to take other factors into consideration. Something like freedom, human freedom, seems meaningless to me, divorced from human experience. We can talk about ideals as such. As something to strive for. But to make claims about what freedom itself is - not just a definition or theory of freedom - requires reference to human experience of it, which is never without constraint.
[This is the point at which I can hardly refrain from soap-boxing about the need for greater diversity in all fields of academia.]
As a woman in the West, I still have social and cultural constraints on my "freedom" that are different because of my sex, for example. There are better examples, but this one is mine. Personally.
If we're going to talk about determinism, predestination and freedom at all, I would expect them to have a connection to actual human experience. Which is something that @martin54 does regularly, I believe, with his references to determinism.
I have attempted to digest the long article on Foreknowledge and Free Will and I now have a headache!
What impressed me the most is that the philosophical debate in ongoing! I remain a compatibilist. I’m also impressed by both the length of the debate and the effort put in by both compatibilists and incompatibilists.
It’s clearly been an important theoretical debate which mattered to many people. Which raises the important question. Why does it matter?
I’m also impressed by the conclusion that Foreknowledge and Free Will issues are part of the more general problem of time and causation. That seems absolutely right to me.
I read the article back when @pease posted it, but haven't gotten back to it to review. Sorry. No memory of it. If the discussion revives, I'll look it over again.
But Barnabas62, as Enquiring Minds and I, wants to know, "Why does it matter?"
Even without reference to the body of the article, it's possible to observe that there are over 100 people identified in the bibliography, which made me think about the issue of constraint.
Suppose you were one of those philosophers engaged in philosophising about foreknowledge and free will. Were you all equally able to philosophise, to pursue a career or promotion to senior positions or tenure? Or were some more constrained, by virtue of being patronised, marginalised, or discriminated against in some way? Were all your circumstances equally conducive to philosophising? Or were some less free to pursue promising trains of thought because they had to care for elderly parents or pick children up from school?
Or suppose that you have been accepted for training as a minister of religion in the denomination of your choice. During your training, you will likely encounter theological positions, possibly on foreknowledge and free will, with which you disagree - are you able to fully engage in robust defence of your own beliefs during discussions or when writing essays? Or are you constrained by the idea that being too disputatious could prevent you successfully completing the training, or affect your subsequent vocation?
@Kendel - I'd have identified myself as a small c calvinist at one point, or a 4-point TU IP as the L petal was missing ...
I think @Nick Tamen is right that certain movements and traditions that claim to be based on Calvin's teachings tend only to have a 2-dimensional view of what those actually were.
I'm still not a Calvin fan but certainly don't see him as a complete monster, which is how many non-Calvinists see him.
There are certainly things I admire about the Baptist tradition too, even though I'm no longer part of it.
I was describing how I'd have described myself not necessarily ascribing any of this to Calvin - other than to acknowledge, whether we like it or not, that this was how Calvinism was generally understood at a 'popular' level.
To be fair, I was vaguely aware that Dort was said to have gone further than Calvin did but wouldn't have claimed to be an expert.
I don't make any such claims now, either.
We did tend to think though, that the more full-on TULIP types tended to be in the US, Ulster and some of the Western Isles of Scotland.
I knew of a Reformed Baptist Church which was quite hard-line but they always felt that visiting speakers they had over from the States were more full-on than they were. They used to sing some modern worship songs and choruses - but not in a charismatic way - and US visitors were often surprised at that.
Why does it matter? I can only really answer for myself. It’s interesting to see the continuing academic interest but that’s not where I’m at.
Self-determination for me makes sense out of life. I worked for a decade as a project manager (all critical path analysis and PERT charts) and discovered the fundamental truth that plans are not predictions! Anyone who has ever worked in the field has discovered both the imperfections of time estimates and the effect of the completely unexpected and unforeseen on all our plans. If you aren’t resourceful when you start work in project management, you either learn to be or need to look for another occupation.
And for me, that is a microcosm of living. Decisions make a difference. And it’s significant that they do!
Does it make a difference if all of the decisions we make, and the associated freedom to make other decisions, are part of the “robust illusion”? Well, it matters to me.
I was describing how I'd have described myself not necessarily ascribing any of this to Calvin - other than to acknowledge, whether we like it or not, that this was how Calvinism was generally understood at a 'popular' level.
I know you were describing how you’d have described yourself, and I know that whether we like it or not, TULIP/Five-Point Calvinism is how Calvin and Calvinism are often popularly understood.
But to be honest, it seems that much more often than not on the Ship, if Calvin/Calvinism are mentioned, TULIP/Five-Point Calvinism aren’t far behind, and the popular conception/misconception is reinforced. Add in a thread with “predestination” in the title, and I’ll acknowledge I probably read the thread with an expectation of references to Calvinism that owe more to popular conceptions than to actual familiarity with either Calvin or the Reformed tradition.
I know I can be something of a broken record on this. But there really aren’t that many of us Reformed/“Calvinist” types on the Ship. And it’s been pointed out numerous times by some shipmates who aren’t Reformed that Reformed churches are thin on the ground where they live, and therefore not familiar. Likewise, some others who are places Reformed churches can easily be found have said they’re not particularly familiar with the Reformed tradition; it’s only been a month or two since a shipmate said they were unsure what “Reformed” meant or included.
So I’m admittedly perhaps a bit too reactive and trigger-happy when it seems to me that the TULIPs keep blooming. I’ll try not to be so quick with my gardening tools in the future.
Originally posted by Nick Tamen: But there really aren’t that many of us Reformed/“Calvinist” types on the Ship.
As a member and ordained elder of the Church of Scotland, I am a member of a Calvinist church. I have never heard the T.U.L.I.P. acronym used in church. I don't think I have ever heard a sermon preached on predestination, or limited atonement, or The Elect. I'm familiar with them from the wider culture surrounding the church, in terms of e.g. discussions of church history. For example, I've read Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner more than once and I've heard enough passing references to it to believe it's been widely read. I would assume that most Scots with an academic interest in history or literature, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof, would have a concept of predestination / the Elect etc. Personally, I am far, far more likely to encounter it in an academic context (conference / lecture / article) than I am in a church context.
If I stood up in our next Kirk Session (meeting of the ministers and ordained elders of the church) and asked everyone what T.U.L.I.P. stood for I would put good money on 50% not recognising the acronym, 30% knowing what it was but not being able to list the points, and only 20% being able to make a stab at it.
Elders in the Church of Scotland sign the Westminster Confession when they are ordained. But again, I suspect that if I asked our Kirk Session about their knowledge of the contents of the Westminster Confession, the results would be patchy at best.
... I've already explained the context within which it's possible for me to hold both Free Will and Predestination in the same framework.
... To me, these things are supposed to be easy to understand and to make sense of. I don't believe we're supposed to trust "the mystery" when we've been endowed with the faculties to understand, and the realtime lived experiences that show us the plain facts about ourselves if we have the courage to take them at face value.
Regarding having the courage: presumably, given an infinite timeline, there is ultimately no "if", there is only "when".
AFF, I think Christianity operates largely within an ego-based sense of identity, although also offering liberation from it. However, some religions see the ego as an impediment, and an irritant, and view the Self as universal, and beyond time. Intellectually, of course, this all turns into nonsense. What can we do?
I think that many expressions of Christianity don't offer liberation from an ego-based sense of identity so much as convincing the individual that through denying it, they can be free of it. Whereas, what happens is that the individual pulls a cloak of invisibility over it and merely hides it from their conscious self.
...
We all tell ourselves stories about what is, who we are, and what happened. A coherent narrative is an essential tool - hopefully it acts as both a lens to view reality through, a mirror that shows ourselves to ourselves, and a projector to show others what we are made of.
Maybe a coherent narrative is more that an essential tool - in some ways, the coherent narrative might be the self (especially if the ego is hidden from view).
NB AFF, there are other aspects of this post about which I'm reflecting.
...
Self-determination for me makes sense out of life. I worked for a decade as a project manager (all critical path analysis and PERT charts) and discovered the fundamental truth that plans are not predictions! Anyone who has ever worked in the field has discovered both the imperfections of time estimates and the effect of the completely unexpected and unforeseen on all our plans. If you aren’t resourceful when you start work in project management, you either learn to be or need to look for another occupation.
And for me, that is a microcosm of living. Decisions make a difference. And it’s significant that they do!
Does it make a difference if all of the decisions we make, and the associated freedom to make other decisions, are part of the “robust illusion”? Well, it matters to me.
I find it interesting, to see people in organisations (ie with management, plans and meetings about plans) making what they perceive to be a series of what they believe to be self-determined decisions which, from another viewpoint, look inevitable. If an observer is able to accurately predict another person's decision, or series of decisions, to what extent are those decisions self-determined?
Elders in the Church of Scotland sign the Westminster Confession when they are ordained. But again, I suspect that if I asked our Kirk Session about their knowledge of the contents of the Westminster Confession, the results would be patchy at best.
Right, but the fact that there a confession there in the background means there's no real need for further definitions.
FWIW the only time I've heard the acronym in Reformed and Lutheran circles is during (adult) Sunday School in the context of 'you may have heard this but it isn't what we believe' and that was only once we were well into the depths of things, so it was probably a minority sport.
Maybe a coherent narrative is more that an essential tool - in some ways, the coherent narrative might be the self (especially if the ego is hidden from view).
Now you're getting what I'm driving at.
It may be worth noting at this point that I regard self and identity as two separate "operating systems". The narrative is IMO the identity, and the framework within which it perceives itself to be real and the operating principle of "I".
This is why it's so dangerous to challenge what people believe about the reality they operate in - the risk is annihilation of the identity that appends to the believed narrative. Identity, once it feels itself to be the "star" of the story, will fight like a cornered animal for its right to say and operate as "I, me, myself, mine". Remove the story - remove the need for the identity as operating main character.
The self is, in my own experience, the one who watches. It is the audience. It is the one who sits in silence and observes the one who is thinking and doing. It is the one to whom the internal monologue appeals for validation. I call this operating state "Observer mode".
You rightly point to the ability of identity to conceal itself from view. To make a play on Freud's own vocabulary - it's an id-entity. Once the narrative framework is constructed, it operates invisibly within it, and unless one is able to "take a step back" and enter "Observer mode", it can run one's entire life without at any moment being checked or audited.
It might also be worth noting that it is possible to operate within competing narratives. To be "of divided mind" on a topic points to the incoherence of two competing versions of "I" and their equally compelling narratives and demands for the attention of the self or the Observer.
I must be a very simple soul. None of this makes much sense to me. I get up in the morning, do the stuff I planned to do, barring having my plans changed, and never really think about narratives, frameworks, selves, identities or anything like them. I'm given to wonder sometimes how chemistry and physics conspire to create actual consciousness, but I don't think that's a question that can be answered with our current state of knowledge, so I don't let it get in the way of just living.
I must be a very simple soul. None of this makes much sense to me. I get up in the morning, do the stuff I planned to do, barring having my plans changed, and never really think about narratives, frameworks, selves, identities or anything like them. I'm given to wonder sometimes how chemistry and physics conspire to create actual consciousness, but I don't think that's a question that can be answered with our current state of knowledge, so I don't let it get in the way of just living.
Who says that any of these musings get in the way of living?
Certainly they don't get in the way of my living. Being present in the moment is one of the chiefest pleasures of my life.
Since I don't think that chemistry and physics give rise to consciousness, but rather, the other way around, neither do I give much thought to them. Chemists and physicists and biologists are in their own ways looking for the same answers I do. I just think they approach the problem from the wrong starting point.
I was eight years old when I first observed myself thinking. I asked my mother "Which one is me? Am I the one who is watching the thinker or am I the thinker?" She had no answer, so I asked my life to show me the answer.
Everything I've experienced in my life has been like assembling a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, whose pieces continually drop in. I can do what I like with them and it amuses me to experience that "aha!" moment when a piece finds its place.
It's fairly obvious to me that I am both the thinker and as a reflective being observing my own thought processes - and that observing is itself just another thought process - you can take it through as many layers as you want. There seems no need to postulate multiple entities or to decide one of them is me - they all are. Perhaps my background in computing where we frequently have multiple processes running concurrently monitoring other processes all running on the same CPU makes me see it that way.
Many things in life are random and relate to nothing. Shit happens. Nice things happen. Not everything has significance.
It's fairly obvious to me that I am both the thinker and as a reflective being observing my own thought processes - and that observing is itself just another thought process - you can take it through as many layers as you want. There seems no need to postulate multiple entities or to decide one of them is me - they all are. Perhaps my background in computing where we frequently have multiple processes running concurrently monitoring other processes all running on the same CPU makes me see it that way.
Many things in life are random and relate to nothing. Shit happens. Nice things happen. Not everything has significance.
One of mentors said to me once "Fem, everything has deep meaning, it is only we who are shallow".
Another told me "Meaning? There is no meaning. Only experience."
And so I oscillate between these two viewpoints. Life is an ocean, and I can be a surfer or a diver. Both are equally as exciting and exhilarating, and each comes with its own specific risks and rewards.
Perhaps my background in computing where we frequently have multiple processes running concurrently monitoring other processes all running on the same CPU makes me see it that way.
I've just seen/read so many "X is just a computer" analogies that I view them as misleading at best (and probably completely off base when it comes to neurological processes simply because we've had a very hard time understanding them using those analogies).
Perhaps my background in computing where we frequently have multiple processes running concurrently monitoring other processes all running on the same CPU makes me see it that way.
I've just seen/read so many "X is just a computer" analogies that I view them as misleading at best (and probably completely off base when it comes to neurological processes simply because we've had a very hard time understanding them using those analogies).
I don't see brains as computers. I was just saying my computing background may be vaguely relevant to my not seeing a need to postulate multiple entities to have both thought processes and observation of those thought processes. I can't see why a single entity cannot be doing both.
Just what it says. Someone with more age wisdom and experience than I who I felt had interesting and carefully thought through perspectives on the questions I was asking, and who I spent time with in order to undertand how their viewpoints satisified their own particular questions.
One was a university professor who studied the importance of myth and storytelling on ancient civilizations, and the other was a business associate who was an electrical engineer with a particular skill in observing human behaviour.
Thanks for your comments @North East Quine and @chrisstiles. They confirm my sense that my experience is not unusual, and that my sense that tying Calvinism or the Reformed tradition writ-large to TULIP isn’t really accurate.
Just what it says. Someone with more age wisdom and experience than I who I felt had interesting and carefully thought through perspectives on the questions I was asking, and who I spent time with in order to undertand how their viewpoints satisified their own particular questions.
One was a university professor who studied the importance of myth and storytelling on ancient civilizations, and the other was a business associate who was an electrical engineer with a particular skill in observing human behaviour.
AFF
YMMV, but my mental health and stability are never more vulnerable and at risk than when I start giving into the temptation to see significance in random events.
YMMV, but my mental health and stability are never more vulnerable and at risk than when I start giving into the temptation to see significance in random events.
Right. So then surf, don't dive. Simple. I said each has its own risks you have to recognize them and adjust accordingly.
Thanks for your comments @North East Quine and @chrisstiles. They confirm my sense that my experience is not unusual, and that my sense that tying Calvinism or the Reformed tradition writ-large to TULIP isn’t really accurate.
I think some context might help here. All three of you, North East Quine, Chrisstiles and Nick Tamen appear - to me at least - to be moving in mainstream denominations rather than in independent groups that would also lay claim to the 'Reformed' title.
In a UK context I'm thinking of independent non-Baptist Union 'Reformed Baptist' churches or independent evangelical groups such as the FIEC.
Or, groups such as Reform (are they still going?) in a CofE context.
Don't forget that many of us here on the Ship come from evangelical backgrounds where the only 'Reformed' people we tended to meet came from other flavours of evangelicalism.
These were the people who were always banging on about TULIP and so on in a way that wouldn't have been happening in the URC, say or the Church of Scotland.
So we can be forgiven, I think for associating the Reformed tradition with particular forms of neo-Calvinist tropes.
In the same way we might have considered the RCs to be all about Mary and not much else or the Orthodox to be all about icons and not much else.
Also,in an effort to latch onto things that gave a semblance of greater depth and scholarliness, many evangelicals and charismatics tended to look to neo-Calvinist authors such as Piper.
I think things have changed a lot over the last 20 or 30 years but there are some memories that linger.
Maybe a coherent narrative is more that an essential tool - in some ways, the coherent narrative might be the self (especially if the ego is hidden from view).
Now you're getting what I'm driving at.
It may be worth noting at this point that I regard self and identity as two separate "operating systems". The narrative is IMO the identity, and the framework within which it perceives itself to be real and the operating principle of "I".
Unfortunately, I'm very familiar with operating systems, which means your analogy suggests a wide range of possibilities to me. (I'm tempted to propose an analogy with "host" and "guest" operating systems, but I think chrisstiles is right.) In any case, I take the point that identity and self are different things, and each is different with respect to narrative.
However, having read your post a few times, I'm unable to reach a consistent understanding of the terminology you use, although this might not be too surprising, as I started with terms borrowed from quetzacoatl's post. (Which is to say that, personally, I'm not wedded to them).
This is why it's so dangerous to challenge what people believe about the reality they operate in - the risk is annihilation of the identity that appends to the believed narrative. Identity, once it feels itself to be the "star" of the story, will fight like a cornered animal for its right to say and operate as "I, me, myself, mine". Remove the story - remove the need for the identity as operating main character.
The self is, in my own experience, the one who watches. It is the audience. It is the one who sits in silence and observes the one who is thinking and doing. It is the one to whom the internal monologue appeals for validation. I call this operating state "Observer mode".
You rightly point to the ability of identity to conceal itself from view. To make a play on Freud's own vocabulary - it's an id-entity. Once the narrative framework is constructed, it operates invisibly within it, and unless one is able to "take a step back" and enter "Observer mode", it can run one's entire life without at any moment being checked or audited.
It might also be worth noting that it is possible to operate within competing narratives. To be "of divided mind" on a topic points to the incoherence of two competing versions of "I" and their equally compelling narratives and demands for the attention of the self or the Observer.
I'm happy to drop any Freudian references. (For one thing, I thought your account looked more Jungian, but I don't think it's that either). The element I'm particularly unable to integrate is the self as watcher or observer. At this juncture, I started looking for some external reference points regarding narrative identity (and/or narrative self). One such reference that looks promising is The Metaphysics of the Narrative Self
Your metaphysics incorporates significant additional elements, but this description might serve as a useful basis. In particular, the concepts of autobiographical identity and autobiographical self and/or true self might be relevant.
Maybe a coherent narrative is more that an essential tool - in some ways, the coherent narrative might be the self (especially if the ego is hidden from view).
Now you're getting what I'm driving at.
It may be worth noting at this point that I regard self and identity as two separate "operating systems". The narrative is IMO the identity, and the framework within which it perceives itself to be real and the operating principle of "I".
Unfortunately, I'm very familiar with operating systems, which means your analogy suggests a wide range of possibilities to me. (I'm tempted to propose an analogy with "host" and "guest" operating systems, but I think chrisstiles is right.) In any case, I take the point that identity and self are different things, and each is different with respect to narrative.
However, having read your post a few times, I'm unable to reach a consistent understanding of the terminology you use, although this might not be too surprising, as I started with terms borrowed from quetzacoatl's post. (Which is to say that, personally, I'm not wedded to them).
This is why it's so dangerous to challenge what people believe about the reality they operate in - the risk is annihilation of the identity that appends to the believed narrative. Identity, once it feels itself to be the "star" of the story, will fight like a cornered animal for its right to say and operate as "I, me, myself, mine". Remove the story - remove the need for the identity as operating main character.
The self is, in my own experience, the one who watches. It is the audience. It is the one who sits in silence and observes the one who is thinking and doing. It is the one to whom the internal monologue appeals for validation. I call this operating state "Observer mode".
You rightly point to the ability of identity to conceal itself from view. To make a play on Freud's own vocabulary - it's an id-entity. Once the narrative framework is constructed, it operates invisibly within it, and unless one is able to "take a step back" and enter "Observer mode", it can run one's entire life without at any moment being checked or audited.
It might also be worth noting that it is possible to operate within competing narratives. To be "of divided mind" on a topic points to the incoherence of two competing versions of "I" and their equally compelling narratives and demands for the attention of the self or the Observer.
I'm happy to drop any Freudian references. (For one thing, I thought your account looked more Jungian, but I don't think it's that either). The element I'm particularly unable to integrate is the self as watcher or observer. At this juncture, I started looking for some external reference points regarding narrative identity (and/or narrative self). One such reference that looks promising is The Metaphysics of the Narrative Self
Your metaphysics incorporates significant additional elements, but this description might serve as a useful basis. In particular, the concepts of autobiographical identity and autobiographical self and/or true self might be relevant.
Thank you for this reference it's very interesting indeed. Going to take time to read and reflect.
There are a couple of methods I use to enter "Observer mode". Some might call it a kind of dissociation, but this word implies a kind of pathology that is the involuntary result of trauma, not a deliberately induced state of awareness for the purpose of focusing attention on and correcting, discharging, overriding or rewriting certain undesirible or subconsciously operating states of being or behaviors.
I don't really think that here is the place to share this rather sensitive personal information but I would be willing to share more privately if you like.
I think the points you make are valid ones, @Gamma Gamaliel. But I think there is a more fundamental thing going on, and that’s the question of what exactly is meant by “Reformed” (or “reformed”) and “Reformed tradition.” The same can go for what exactly is meant by “Calvinism.” Not every church with “Reformed” in its name would be recognized as “Reformed” by churches in the “Reformed tradition.” (Just as I’m sure we’d agree that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is not an Orthodox Church.)
The question is perhaps illustrated by this bit of your post:
In a UK context I'm thinking of independent non-Baptist Union 'Reformed Baptist' churches or independent evangelical groups such as the FIEC.
Or, groups such as Reform (are they still going?) in a CofE context.
Don't forget that many of us here on the Ship come from evangelical backgrounds where the only 'Reformed' people we tended to meet came from other flavours of evangelicalism.
These were the people who were always banging on about TULIP and so on in a way that wouldn't have been happening in the URC, say or the Church of Scotland.
So we can be forgiven, I think for associating the Reformed tradition with particular forms of neo-Calvinist tropes.
I would not think of Reformed Baptists as being in the Reformed tradition, nor would I think of the CofE as being within the Reformed tradition. The same goes for the FIEC. While Reformed Baptists (who go by different designations in the U.S.) and the FIEC may embrace aspects of “Calvinist” soteriology, and while historically—see the XXXIX Articles—the CofE shows the influence of Reformed thought, I don’t think those bodies would generally self-identify as being part of “the Reformed tradition,” though some individuals in them certainly might.
I’m not trying to create a No True Scotsman delimma, and I fully recognize the lines may not always be easy to discern, perhaps especially with the Reformed Baptists. But I do think that most within what I’ll call the historical Reformed bodies—continental Reformed (like the Dutch or French Reformed), Presbyterians and Congregationalists—would say that being part of the Reformed tradition is about more than just a Calvinistic understanding of predestination/election or the Five Points. And beyond select soteriological understandings, I don’t see much from the Reformed Baptists or FIEC, and nothing from the CofE, that indicates any self-identification of being part of the Reformed tradition, or as you sometimes say, “Capital-R Reformed.”
I’m thinking that a good, general rule of thumb could be that if a denomination or association of churches isn’t a member of the mainstream World Communion of Reformed Churches (200+ denominational members) or the more conservative World Reformed Fellowship (80+ denominational members) or International Conference of Reformed Churches (30+ denominational members), then it may be safe to assume that denominational or association, while perhaps adopting aspects of Calvinistic soteriology, does not self-identify as part of the Reformed tradition. (I’ll note that the WCRC includes some “united” churches with Baptist and/or Anglican predecessor bodies), and the ICRC includes some “Reformed Baptist” bodies, though not any from the UK or North America.)
And to be clear, I’m happy to be corrected with regard to UK bodies I have only academic familiarity with.
Sure, and whilst I'm obviously not as au fait with all of this as you are, I've certainly come across articles online - many years ago now - arguing that Reformed Baptists shouldn't really be considered Reformed. If I remember rightly there were vociferous responses from Reformed Baptists claiming that they most definitely were.
There used to a canard about the URC here in the UK that it was 'neither United nor Reformed.'
It tended to be touted by neo-Calvinist types in independent evangelical churches.
I wouldn't pretend to be able to pontificate as to whether Reformed Baptists 'deserve' the Big R title or not. Their credo-baptism approach puts them outside of historic 'magisterial' Reformed practice, of course.
I'd agree that the CofE isn't Big R Reformed but there are both Big R and small r influences there of course. I suspect members of the Reform group within the CofE would beg to differ and insist otherwise.
But then there are Anglo-Catholics of course who, despite the 39 Articles would insist that the CofE is a Catholic rather than a Protestant church.
As far as the Anglican Communion goes I agree with Dermot MacCullogh that it really ought to be given a category of its own. It doesn't 'fit' with either Big C Catholicism - I would suggest - nor Big R Reformed criteria.
We are moving away from the predestination and determinism theme now though.
Comments
Nope, in a capital-R Reformed way, at least originally. Jacobus Arminius and the original Arminians were Dutch Reformed. And this provides a good opportunity for a reminder that while Calvin is certainly a big—if not the big—figure within the Reformed tradition, he’s not the only figure, much less a binding one.
Some of us have been admitting it around here for years.
I’d say some of us do treat “tradition” as authoritative; it just doesn’t have the same level of authority as Scripture, but rather is subordinate to Scripture.
The Reformed, for example, certainly treat various confessions and catechisms as authoritative—the Belgic Confession, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, for example. As has often been said (at least in my corner of the Reformed world), they are subordinate standards, but standards nonetheless.
And some of those standards—the Second Helvetic Confession quickly comes to mind, but others too—draw the Nicene, Apostles’ and Athanasian creeds into their ambit, as well as decisions of at least the first four ecumenical councils.
Different from the current “prima scriptura v sola scriptura” thread?
More specifically But noting that:
And that's without bringing God in to the equation.
I do. It's b(> in the future).
Nevertheless, I think it's pretty much the case that in places like England and Wales where Presbyterians are pretty rare, the most likely form of Calvinism that we are likely to encounter are the more hard-line or conservative elements.* And yes, I do know that the Reformed tradition doesn't just draw on Calvin.
* By their very nature these groups and individuals are going to be more vocal as they need to rally around a set of markers both for purposes of identity and for a hook on which to hang their particular presentation of the Gospel.
But my more general point was one of 'critical mass'. We all have our toxic fringes and I suspect it is possible to avoid those more easily where you have greater numbers and larger congregations of whichever Christian tradition we are talking about. My impression is that, for all the rise of the 'nones' and so on, church-going is likely to be more widespread where you are than it is here in the UK.
But to return to the OP ...
Time is too short this week to prepare a response to the topic. But in the meantime, please accept my humble thanks for your kindness.
I have attempted to digest the long article on Foreknowledge and Free Will and I now have a headache!
What impressed me the most is that the philosophical debate in ongoing! I remain a compatibilist. I’m also impressed by both the length of the debate and the effort put in by both compatibilists and incompatibilists.
It’s clearly been an important theoretical debate which mattered to many people. Which raises the important question. Why does it matter?
I’m also impressed by the conclusion that Foreknowledge and Free Will issues are part of the more general problem of time and causation. That seems absolutely right to me.
I’m illuminated! Many thanks.
Thank you also. The dangers of unconscious male privilege and educational privilege are always with me. And sometimes I slip.
As I’ve just discovered, this thread can cause headaches! It will be good to see you posting again, whether here or elsewhere.
Yeah, I need to include an asterisk and qualifier (*as I'm familiar with) whenever I say anything about Protestantism*. I'll try to keep that in mind.
The various, similar Baptist churches I've spent my life in have been consistent in their treatment of "tradition". Few Baptists* use confessions, much less know about them, and shudder at the word "catechism" in any context. Churches* normally have doctrinal statements, which are relatively consistent, but have not been developed the way the confessions were and are not treated with the same allegiance that I see in my experience in the one PCA church I've ever gone to (for the past 3 years). There is far less emphasis on consistency and conformity of belief in Baptist* churches. However I think that is changing at least among the now early middle aged members, who have been strongly influenced by the "new calvinist movement." And among their large broods. I'm used to variety of thought that seems unwelcome in the PCA*.
Not sure why you're asking me in order to inform me.
No. I am not familiar with that thread. I've hardly had time for this one.
Got it. Thanks.
I think it's essential to take other factors into consideration. Something like freedom, human freedom, seems meaningless to me, divorced from human experience. We can talk about ideals as such. As something to strive for. But to make claims about what freedom itself is - not just a definition or theory of freedom - requires reference to human experience of it, which is never without constraint.
[This is the point at which I can hardly refrain from soap-boxing about the need for greater diversity in all fields of academia.]
As a woman in the West, I still have social and cultural constraints on my "freedom" that are different because of my sex, for example. There are better examples, but this one is mine. Personally.
If we're going to talk about determinism, predestination and freedom at all, I would expect them to have a connection to actual human experience. Which is something that @martin54 does regularly, I believe, with his references to determinism.
"Human experience" brings me back to @Barnabas62
I read the article back when @pease posted it, but haven't gotten back to it to review. Sorry. No memory of it. If the discussion revives, I'll look it over again.
But @Barnabas62, as Enquiring Minds and I, wants to know, "Why does it matter?"
@Gamma Gamaliel thanks for all the material on "mystery."
*in my experience
It also wouldn't be unknown here for individual Baptists to dabble in things like pilgrimage or contemplative prayer and practices associated with more Catholic traditions - although in a fairly restrained way.
What we don't tend to have are the big brood Baptist families of the kind you describe.
Anyhow ...
If we are to revive this spread, what direction should we take it in?
If there is a question as to why it matters, then why does it matter?
I'd suggest that it only matters if you are out to defend or define particular issues that became a source of contention within Western Christianity at the Reformation and its aftermath.
It's not that these issues were unknown or not discussed prior to that but they became a battleground during the 16th and 17th centuries with aftershocks and rumbles continuing into the 18th and 19th centuries to re-emerge in a somewhat different form in the 20th.
@Nick Tamen has observed that debates about predetermination, freewill etc etc don't tend to feature that often in his neck of the Reformed woods. I suspect this is because things are more 'settled' and there's less need to set a stall out or define how they might differ from RCs on the one hand or other Protestant groups on the other.
I'd also say it matters if you are out to defend a particular soteriology.
You'll want to make doubly, doubly sure that there is no dint or hint of human effort and 'works' so an elaborate 'Election' schema, if we can put it that way, enables you to do that. Hence TULIP, hence Dort.
If you aren't wedded to that kind of soteriology it becomes less of an issue.
I'd suggest that these concerns have become more of a 'tribal marker' than anything else.
A bit like the filioque controversy. I might get exercised about that as an Orthodox Christian but it's no big deal to some of my brothers and sisters in other Christian traditions.
It's all down to context.
I say I am a "calvinistic-leaning Baptist." To make every point of TULIP a bright line, again, doesn't square in my mind with human experience. Piper, on the other hand, has no problem eliminating human experience from his theology. He went ahead and followed up his book "Desiring God" with "When I don't Desire God" in which he blames the reader, if they don't feel it, and finally suggests in the last chapter, that if the lack of desire is maybe the result of depression - the kind not caused by sin - one might maybe could need to see a mental health professional, which he confesses not to understand.
My sense is that anyone who holds a strong view of predestination isn't going to admit it here anyway.
I do but I've already explained the context within which it's possible for me to hold both Free Will and Predestination in the same framework.
It's always come down to Occam's razor for me. All of these things can't be true at the same time - One Life to Live, Free Will, Predestination, All Knowing God, All Powerful God, All Loving/Benevolent God, and Evil Exists. At least one of these has to be discarded, and the one that makes all the others fit into place is One Life to Live.
Even if I didn't have memories, the cognitive dissonance of trying to hold all of these premises as truth would force me to reject the least problematic assumption and align my point of view with the billion and half other people who don't have any difficulty with these questions or with seeing themselves as transmigratory souls.
I reserve the right to disagree with the authors of the scriptures of any and all faith traditions if the lived truth of my personal experience contradicts their assertions, no matter how well intended. To me, these things are supposed to be easy to understand and to make sense of. I don't believe we're supposed to trust "the mystery" when we've been endowed with the faculties to understand, and the realtime lived experiences that show us the plain facts about ourselves if we have the courage to take them at face value.
AFF
There's no question in my mind that a "sense of identity" - that is, an awareness of an "I" that operates as "me, myself" - is essential in order to form any kind of impression of reality as a shared experience among other beings operating also as "me, myself".
I don't agree that identity is an impediment unless it makes itself an impediment. It's OK to dismantle an identity that no longer serves the well being of the percipient, and several traditions make bank in giving people a how-to on the demolition process. Less so on the renovation or construction of the new.
I agree that intellect is capable of reducing any numinous experience to nonsense, which is why it's important to be able to rank the importance of information arising from experience, and to organize it for future reference if it can't immediately be parsed into one's narrative framework.
We all tell ourselves stories about what is, who we are, and what happened. A coherent narrative is an essential tool - hopefully it acts as both a lens to view reality through, a mirror that shows ourselves to ourselves, and a projector to show others what we are made of.
AFF
Well, technically, hence Dort, hence TULIP, as TULIP purports to be a mnemonic summary of the Canons of Dort. As I have noted before, TULIP is a British-American concept that first arose in the 19th Century, 200+ years after the Synod of Dort. It can be argued—very persuasively, I think—that it is a mangling and distortion of Dort and a major mangling and distortion of Calvin. TULIP simply isn’t a thing, much less a central thing, outside Anglospheric Reformed; it’s mostly a thing among the conservative English-speaking Reformed and others outside the Reformed tradition who adopt this particular aspect of “Calvinist” soteriology, while ignoring pretty much all other aspects of “Calvinism.”
I have, many times, and as @chrisstiles says, others have as well.
The challenge is, as @A Feminine Force suggests, is that different people have different understandings about exactly what is meant by predestination.
And speaking for myself, even when I have explained how I understand it, I find that many people continue to apply their own understandings to what I say. I’d suggest that if there’s any hesitation in admitting to strong views of predestination, it comes from that—the tendency to impose one’s own understandings despite what others say.
Suppose you were one of those philosophers engaged in philosophising about foreknowledge and free will. Were you all equally able to philosophise, to pursue a career or promotion to senior positions or tenure? Or were some more constrained, by virtue of being patronised, marginalised, or discriminated against in some way? Were all your circumstances equally conducive to philosophising? Or were some less free to pursue promising trains of thought because they had to care for elderly parents or pick children up from school?
Or suppose that you have been accepted for training as a minister of religion in the denomination of your choice. During your training, you will likely encounter theological positions, possibly on foreknowledge and free will, with which you disagree - are you able to fully engage in robust defence of your own beliefs during discussions or when writing essays? Or are you constrained by the idea that being too disputatious could prevent you successfully completing the training, or affect your subsequent vocation?
I think @Nick Tamen is right that certain movements and traditions that claim to be based on Calvin's teachings tend only to have a 2-dimensional view of what those actually were.
I'm still not a Calvin fan but certainly don't see him as a complete monster, which is how many non-Calvinists see him.
There are certainly things I admire about the Baptist tradition too, even though I'm no longer part of it.
To be fair, I was vaguely aware that Dort was said to have gone further than Calvin did but wouldn't have claimed to be an expert.
I don't make any such claims now, either.
We did tend to think though, that the more full-on TULIP types tended to be in the US, Ulster and some of the Western Isles of Scotland.
I knew of a Reformed Baptist Church which was quite hard-line but they always felt that visiting speakers they had over from the States were more full-on than they were. They used to sing some modern worship songs and choruses - but not in a charismatic way - and US visitors were often surprised at that.
Why does it matter? I can only really answer for myself. It’s interesting to see the continuing academic interest but that’s not where I’m at.
Self-determination for me makes sense out of life. I worked for a decade as a project manager (all critical path analysis and PERT charts) and discovered the fundamental truth that plans are not predictions! Anyone who has ever worked in the field has discovered both the imperfections of time estimates and the effect of the completely unexpected and unforeseen on all our plans. If you aren’t resourceful when you start work in project management, you either learn to be or need to look for another occupation.
And for me, that is a microcosm of living. Decisions make a difference. And it’s significant that they do!
Does it make a difference if all of the decisions we make, and the associated freedom to make other decisions, are part of the “robust illusion”? Well, it matters to me.
But to be honest, it seems that much more often than not on the Ship, if Calvin/Calvinism are mentioned, TULIP/Five-Point Calvinism aren’t far behind, and the popular conception/misconception is reinforced. Add in a thread with “predestination” in the title, and I’ll acknowledge I probably read the thread with an expectation of references to Calvinism that owe more to popular conceptions than to actual familiarity with either Calvin or the Reformed tradition.
I know I can be something of a broken record on this. But there really aren’t that many of us Reformed/“Calvinist” types on the Ship. And it’s been pointed out numerous times by some shipmates who aren’t Reformed that Reformed churches are thin on the ground where they live, and therefore not familiar. Likewise, some others who are places Reformed churches can easily be found have said they’re not particularly familiar with the Reformed tradition; it’s only been a month or two since a shipmate said they were unsure what “Reformed” meant or included.
So I’m admittedly perhaps a bit too reactive and trigger-happy when it seems to me that the TULIPs keep blooming. I’ll try not to be so quick with my gardening tools in the future.
But there really aren’t that many of us Reformed/“Calvinist” types on the Ship.
As a member and ordained elder of the Church of Scotland, I am a member of a Calvinist church. I have never heard the T.U.L.I.P. acronym used in church. I don't think I have ever heard a sermon preached on predestination, or limited atonement, or The Elect. I'm familiar with them from the wider culture surrounding the church, in terms of e.g. discussions of church history. For example, I've read Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner more than once and I've heard enough passing references to it to believe it's been widely read. I would assume that most Scots with an academic interest in history or literature, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof, would have a concept of predestination / the Elect etc. Personally, I am far, far more likely to encounter it in an academic context (conference / lecture / article) than I am in a church context.
If I stood up in our next Kirk Session (meeting of the ministers and ordained elders of the church) and asked everyone what T.U.L.I.P. stood for I would put good money on 50% not recognising the acronym, 30% knowing what it was but not being able to list the points, and only 20% being able to make a stab at it.
I think that many expressions of Christianity don't offer liberation from an ego-based sense of identity so much as convincing the individual that through denying it, they can be free of it. Whereas, what happens is that the individual pulls a cloak of invisibility over it and merely hides it from their conscious self.
Maybe a coherent narrative is more that an essential tool - in some ways, the coherent narrative might be the self (especially if the ego is hidden from view).
NB AFF, there are other aspects of this post about which I'm reflecting.
I find it interesting, to see people in organisations (ie with management, plans and meetings about plans) making what they perceive to be a series of what they believe to be self-determined decisions which, from another viewpoint, look inevitable. If an observer is able to accurately predict another person's decision, or series of decisions, to what extent are those decisions self-determined?
Right, but the fact that there a confession there in the background means there's no real need for further definitions.
FWIW the only time I've heard the acronym in Reformed and Lutheran circles is during (adult) Sunday School in the context of 'you may have heard this but it isn't what we believe' and that was only once we were well into the depths of things, so it was probably a minority sport.
Agreed. Absolutely.
Now you're getting what I'm driving at.
It may be worth noting at this point that I regard self and identity as two separate "operating systems". The narrative is IMO the identity, and the framework within which it perceives itself to be real and the operating principle of "I".
This is why it's so dangerous to challenge what people believe about the reality they operate in - the risk is annihilation of the identity that appends to the believed narrative. Identity, once it feels itself to be the "star" of the story, will fight like a cornered animal for its right to say and operate as "I, me, myself, mine". Remove the story - remove the need for the identity as operating main character.
The self is, in my own experience, the one who watches. It is the audience. It is the one who sits in silence and observes the one who is thinking and doing. It is the one to whom the internal monologue appeals for validation. I call this operating state "Observer mode".
You rightly point to the ability of identity to conceal itself from view. To make a play on Freud's own vocabulary - it's an id-entity. Once the narrative framework is constructed, it operates invisibly within it, and unless one is able to "take a step back" and enter "Observer mode", it can run one's entire life without at any moment being checked or audited.
It might also be worth noting that it is possible to operate within competing narratives. To be "of divided mind" on a topic points to the incoherence of two competing versions of "I" and their equally compelling narratives and demands for the attention of the self or the Observer.
AFF
Who says that any of these musings get in the way of living?
Certainly they don't get in the way of my living. Being present in the moment is one of the chiefest pleasures of my life.
Since I don't think that chemistry and physics give rise to consciousness, but rather, the other way around, neither do I give much thought to them. Chemists and physicists and biologists are in their own ways looking for the same answers I do. I just think they approach the problem from the wrong starting point.
I was eight years old when I first observed myself thinking. I asked my mother "Which one is me? Am I the one who is watching the thinker or am I the thinker?" She had no answer, so I asked my life to show me the answer.
Everything I've experienced in my life has been like assembling a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, whose pieces continually drop in. I can do what I like with them and it amuses me to experience that "aha!" moment when a piece finds its place.
AFF
Many things in life are random and relate to nothing. Shit happens. Nice things happen. Not everything has significance.
One of mentors said to me once "Fem, everything has deep meaning, it is only we who are shallow".
Another told me "Meaning? There is no meaning. Only experience."
And so I oscillate between these two viewpoints. Life is an ocean, and I can be a surfer or a diver. Both are equally as exciting and exhilarating, and each comes with its own specific risks and rewards.
The fun, for me, is navigating between them.
AFF
I've just seen/read so many "X is just a computer" analogies that I view them as misleading at best (and probably completely off base when it comes to neurological processes simply because we've had a very hard time understanding them using those analogies).
I don't see brains as computers. I was just saying my computing background may be vaguely relevant to my not seeing a need to postulate multiple entities to have both thought processes and observation of those thought processes. I can't see why a single entity cannot be doing both.
Just what it says. Someone with more age wisdom and experience than I who I felt had interesting and carefully thought through perspectives on the questions I was asking, and who I spent time with in order to undertand how their viewpoints satisified their own particular questions.
One was a university professor who studied the importance of myth and storytelling on ancient civilizations, and the other was a business associate who was an electrical engineer with a particular skill in observing human behaviour.
AFF
YMMV, but my mental health and stability are never more vulnerable and at risk than when I start giving into the temptation to see significance in random events.
Right. So then surf, don't dive. Simple. I said each has its own risks you have to recognize them and adjust accordingly.
AFF
I think some context might help here. All three of you, North East Quine, Chrisstiles and Nick Tamen appear - to me at least - to be moving in mainstream denominations rather than in independent groups that would also lay claim to the 'Reformed' title.
In a UK context I'm thinking of independent non-Baptist Union 'Reformed Baptist' churches or independent evangelical groups such as the FIEC.
Or, groups such as Reform (are they still going?) in a CofE context.
Don't forget that many of us here on the Ship come from evangelical backgrounds where the only 'Reformed' people we tended to meet came from other flavours of evangelicalism.
These were the people who were always banging on about TULIP and so on in a way that wouldn't have been happening in the URC, say or the Church of Scotland.
So we can be forgiven, I think for associating the Reformed tradition with particular forms of neo-Calvinist tropes.
In the same way we might have considered the RCs to be all about Mary and not much else or the Orthodox to be all about icons and not much else.
Also,in an effort to latch onto things that gave a semblance of greater depth and scholarliness, many evangelicals and charismatics tended to look to neo-Calvinist authors such as Piper.
I think things have changed a lot over the last 20 or 30 years but there are some memories that linger.
However, having read your post a few times, I'm unable to reach a consistent understanding of the terminology you use, although this might not be too surprising, as I started with terms borrowed from quetzacoatl's post. (Which is to say that, personally, I'm not wedded to them).
I'm happy to drop any Freudian references. (For one thing, I thought your account looked more Jungian, but I don't think it's that either). The element I'm particularly unable to integrate is the self as watcher or observer. At this juncture, I started looking for some external reference points regarding narrative identity (and/or narrative self). One such reference that looks promising is The Metaphysics of the Narrative Self
Your metaphysics incorporates significant additional elements, but this description might serve as a useful basis. In particular, the concepts of autobiographical identity and autobiographical self and/or true self might be relevant.
Thank you for this reference it's very interesting indeed. Going to take time to read and reflect.
There are a couple of methods I use to enter "Observer mode". Some might call it a kind of dissociation, but this word implies a kind of pathology that is the involuntary result of trauma, not a deliberately induced state of awareness for the purpose of focusing attention on and correcting, discharging, overriding or rewriting certain undesirible or subconsciously operating states of being or behaviors.
I don't really think that here is the place to share this rather sensitive personal information but I would be willing to share more privately if you like.
AFF
The question is perhaps illustrated by this bit of your post: I would not think of Reformed Baptists as being in the Reformed tradition, nor would I think of the CofE as being within the Reformed tradition. The same goes for the FIEC. While Reformed Baptists (who go by different designations in the U.S.) and the FIEC may embrace aspects of “Calvinist” soteriology, and while historically—see the XXXIX Articles—the CofE shows the influence of Reformed thought, I don’t think those bodies would generally self-identify as being part of “the Reformed tradition,” though some individuals in them certainly might.
I’m not trying to create a No True Scotsman delimma, and I fully recognize the lines may not always be easy to discern, perhaps especially with the Reformed Baptists. But I do think that most within what I’ll call the historical Reformed bodies—continental Reformed (like the Dutch or French Reformed), Presbyterians and Congregationalists—would say that being part of the Reformed tradition is about more than just a Calvinistic understanding of predestination/election or the Five Points. And beyond select soteriological understandings, I don’t see much from the Reformed Baptists or FIEC, and nothing from the CofE, that indicates any self-identification of being part of the Reformed tradition, or as you sometimes say, “Capital-R Reformed.”
I’m thinking that a good, general rule of thumb could be that if a denomination or association of churches isn’t a member of the mainstream World Communion of Reformed Churches (200+ denominational members) or the more conservative World Reformed Fellowship (80+ denominational members) or International Conference of Reformed Churches (30+ denominational members), then it may be safe to assume that denominational or association, while perhaps adopting aspects of Calvinistic soteriology, does not self-identify as part of the Reformed tradition. (I’ll note that the WCRC includes some “united” churches with Baptist and/or Anglican predecessor bodies), and the ICRC includes some “Reformed Baptist” bodies, though not any from the UK or North America.)
And to be clear, I’m happy to be corrected with regard to UK bodies I have only academic familiarity with.
There used to a canard about the URC here in the UK that it was 'neither United nor Reformed.'
It tended to be touted by neo-Calvinist types in independent evangelical churches.
I wouldn't pretend to be able to pontificate as to whether Reformed Baptists 'deserve' the Big R title or not. Their credo-baptism approach puts them outside of historic 'magisterial' Reformed practice, of course.
I'd agree that the CofE isn't Big R Reformed but there are both Big R and small r influences there of course. I suspect members of the Reform group within the CofE would beg to differ and insist otherwise.
But then there are Anglo-Catholics of course who, despite the 39 Articles would insist that the CofE is a Catholic rather than a Protestant church.
As far as the Anglican Communion goes I agree with Dermot MacCullogh that it really ought to be given a category of its own. It doesn't 'fit' with either Big C Catholicism - I would suggest - nor Big R Reformed criteria.
We are moving away from the predestination and determinism theme now though.