In the philosophical world, discussions of human freedom can be heated, difficult, and complex. Most of the time, in the Christian world, thinkers come down in favor of one of three possible positions: Hard Determinism, Libertarianism, and Soft Determinism (or Compatiblism, as I will be calling it here). I will do what I can, here, to demonstrate that Libertarian freedom is an incoherent philosophical position. Let me first say, however, that anything I say here is dwarfed by Jonathan Edwards' brilliant tome (which to my knowledge has never been adequately answered) in defense of compatiblism,
The Freedom of the Will. Written while Edwards ministered to the indians at Stockbridge, Mark A. Knoll once stated that Edwards' book single-handedly restrained the spread of Arminianism in the American colonies for nearly a hundred years. That being said, few have the patience for Edwards' difficult language and meaty philosophical rigor. I say all of this because, truly, if Libertarian freedom is to be an academically acceptable notion, it must be able to tackle Edwards' arguments, and I believe this still has yet to be done.
On with my arguments against Libertarian freedom:
Compatiblists define freedom as "being able to do whatever one desires at any given moment." Libertarians, in contrast, define freedom as "being able to do otherwise than what one actually does."
1. For Libertarianism to be true, the will must be able to make decisions contrary to prior inclinations. This is because in order for the will to be free in the libertarian sense, it must be arbitrary and turn in the face of preceding causes. For example, it must be possible for someone to be presented with two choices and have either choice be equally probable that either could be chosen. However, this is incoherent, because everyone always has a prior reason for the decisions that they make, whether it be disposition at the moment, instilled moral code, or simple preference at the time of decision. This leads in somewhat to my second argument.
2. For Libertarianism to be true, it must be possible for a volition to occur without a cause to its existence. The reason this is so is that if a volition has a prior cause, then the volition could never have been otherwise than what that prior cause had determined. In other words, in a Libertarian schema, Dave may at the given moment prefer chocolate and yet still decide to take the vanilla instead. But this makes no sense. It is literally a contradiction to say that at the given moment Dave's strongest desire was for chocolate, but his strongest desire was for vanilla. Some may say, "But that happens all the time. Sometimes people just want something different or want to 'mix it up.' " However, the question we must come back to is "Why?" Why did Dave pick the vanilla instead? It is because (though he had a prior preference of chocolate) his desire was strongest at that moment (for whatever reason) to try vanilla. This is classic Compatiblistic free will at work. Our decisions are always conditioned by something, and if our decisions are never free of prior causation, then Libertarian freedom is again, as I have charged, incoherent.
I should point out, again, that God's certain foreknowledge of future events (and human decisions in particular) renders Libertarian freedom impossible. The very existence of Open Theists, I would surmise, is evidence that one must deny God's exhaustive foreknowledge of future free human decisions in order to preserve and consistently protect this philosophical notion of Libertarian free will. I could use many other arguments, (examples include Edwards' argument that every effect has a necessary and sufficient cause of its existence) but this is a blog and not a book, so for now I will end with a quote from Edwards which, in my view, sums up the absurdity of the Libertarian position:
It is indeed as repugnant to reason, to suppose that an act of the Will should come into existence without a Cause, as to suppose the human soul, or an angel, or the globe of the earth, or the whole universe, should come into existence without a Cause. And if once we allow, that such a sort of effect as Volition may come to pass without a Cause, how do we know but that many other sorts of effects may do so too?" (Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will Part II Sect. III)
That's right; this is what my mid-life crisis looks like: since I can't buy a sports car, I'm collecting records and riding a bicycle to work, my idea of an affair is my man-crush on Larry Mullens Jr., and my idea of a wild party is having two cups of coffee instead of one whilst listening to a Beach Boys record.
