I have been thinking about something and I would very much like to hear someone explain whether or not they think the following narrative is necessarily false and why.
God possesses Libertarian freedom. Therefore a rational Christian will not dispute that Libertarian freedom is logically coherent and metaphysically possible. For example, God was neither pre-necessitated nor efficiently caused by any prior state of affairs or by anything external to His own freewill to create the universe. Libertarian freedom requires that when and if it is possible to do some act then it is metaphysically necessary that it also be possible to refrain from doing that act (e.g., if God can create the universe then God can also refrain from creating the universe). God decides that Libertarian freedom will be part of the image and likeness of Himself that will be created in man. God creates a man, Adam, and declares what He has made to be “good.” Since this creaturely endowment of Libertarian freedom is declared by God to be “good,” God further determines that He shall not remove, usurp, violate, or otherwise finagle with this gracious and intrinsically valuable gift. Since Adam is created upright, without sin or defect, he is necessarily capable of this specific act: Adam can freely will to obey God’s commandment. Moreover, Adam knows that it is right and good to obey God’s commandment. However, since Adam can freely will to obey God’s commandment, it is necessarily and concurrently true that Adam can freely will to refrain from obeying God’s commandment.
So we have these two necessary and concurrently true propositions:
( A) Adam can freely will to obey God’s commandment
(~A) Adam can freely will to refrain from obeying God’s commandment.
It is important to notice that, for Adam, refraining from obeying God’s commandment just is committing the first act of sin (James 4:17).
Furthermore, God, in His omniscience, knows that if Adam is placed into the circumstances of the Biblical narrative then Adam would freely will to refrain from obeying God’s commandment. God decides to place Adam into the circumstances of the Biblical narrative. Adam, being placed into the circumstances of the Biblical narrative, exercises his Libertarian power of self-determination, or power of contrary choice, and decides that the motive to freely will to refrain from obeying God’s commandment is more desirable than the motive to freely will to obey God’s commandment. Therefore, since Adam was neither pre-necessitated nor efficiently caused by any prior state of affairs or by anything external to his own freewill to sin, Adam, as a self-causational and volitional agent (or “unmoved mover”), efficiently causes himself to will to commit the first act of sin instead of continuing in obedience to God’s commandment.
To summarize:
(1) Adam was irresistibly and providentially forced by God to make a choice between obedience and disobedience to God’s commandment.
(2) Adam was irresistibly and providentially forced by God to be capable of freely willing to will to do either act.
(3) Adam was NOT irresistibly or providentially forced by God to freely will to do one act and not the other.
(4) And, lastly, because of (3), given the exact same prior state of affairs in the Biblical narrative, it is genuinely possible that Adam could have freely willed to refrain from committing the first act of sin. If Adam had refrained from committing the first act of sin then God would have foreknown this instead.
If anyone agrees with what I have presented here then know that I have set forth the Arminian/Molinist account of Adam’s first act of sin. If anyone finds this narrative disagreeable then, I ask, is it possible to prove how or why this, or some part of this, is necessarily false in a non-circular argument?
