The Incoherence of Compatibilism

One disturbing trend I have found within Christendom is what I call the "New Calvinism." Advocates of this view, such as James White, believe that all human behavior is determined, meaning that no one has a will autonomous of God's will. They also believe that we have free choice, and that determinism is compatible with free will. I find this trend very disturbing, and I want to see it stopped. Here is an argument against compatibilism, based on an argument by Peter Van Inwagen. However, this version of the argument avoids the flaws found in earlier editions of Inwagen's argument, and thus improves upon it. First, let's begin by defining two things.

Free choice: Something is a free choice if it is up to us. If some fact is up to us, we have the ability to render it false. For example, the fact "Drew is wearing a white shirt" is up to me because I can render it false (such as, by taking it off).

Entailment: The relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (X) requires the truth of the other (Y). If X entails Y, then if X is true, Y must be true. If Y is false, X must be false.

Theistic Determinism: The idea that all things are determined by the decree of God. The divine decree entails all facts.

Now on to the argument:

If theistic determinism is true, then here are the following implications:

1. The eternal decree of God is not up to us.
2. The fact that the eternal decree of God entails all future facts is not up to us.

The theistic determinist would gladly assent to these two premises. To them, God's will is autonomous, and ours is not. This leads us to premise 3 of my argument.

3. If some fact X is not up to us, and X entails some fact Y, then Y is not up to us.

or stated more simply:

3'. If something is not up to us, anything it entails is not up to us.

which means:

3''. If we cannot render a certain fact false, then we cannot render something that the fact entails false.

From premises 1, 2, and 3 we get:

4. No future facts are up to us.

But Compatibilism states:

5. There are future facts entailed by the eternal decree of God that are up to us.

Therefore

6. Compatibilism is false.

Premise 3 is to say that if we cannot render some fact X false, and X entails Y, then we cannot render Y false (modus ponens). This is logically equivalent to saying that if we can render Y false, then we can render X false (modus tollens).
Let's plug in some examples to illustrate this point.

If the fact that the sun is yellow is not up to us, and the fact that the sun is yellow entails the fact that the sun has a color, then the fact that the sun has a color is not up to us. Or stated more simply,

If the fact that the sun is yellow is not up to us, then the fact that the sun has a color is not up to us.
or
If the fact that President Lincoln was assassinated was not up to us, then the fact that President Lincoln was killed was not up to us.
or
If the fact that the moon orbits the Earth is not up to us, then the fact that something orbits the Earth is not up to us.

Premise 3 should seem obviously true, yet I have discussed this with compatibilists who think it is false. So are there any additional arguments we can make for this premise? Well, let's assume that the premise is false.

Let's assume there is some fact X that is not up to us, and X entails some fact Y, but Y is up to us.

we could restate this as:

Some fact Y is up to us, X entails Y, but X is not up to us.
which means:
We can render some fact Y false, X entails Y, but we cannot render X false.
This is to say that X entails Y, and Y is false while X is true, which is a contradiction.

Here is an example to illustrate, the fact that you are wearing a shirt entails the fact that you are not naked. If premise 3 is false, it would lead to situations where you could be naked but not shirtless (for example). This is incoherent. If the fact that you are wearing a shirt entails that you are not naked, then you cannot be both naked and wearing a shirt.

If premise 3 is false, it leads to a contradiction. Therefore, Premise 3 cannot be false.

And hence, compatibilism is false.

Answering Shmuley Boteach: Did Paul Dupe the Apostles?

In his new book Kosher Jesus, Shmuley Boteach argues that Jesus died and was buried. The Jesus movement was on its last legs, until Paul came on the scene, preaching some new crackpot revelation about Jesus.

In defiance of their teacher's own words, Paul preaches a total break from all the Torah's principles. More and more gentiles embrace the new belief-based religion. As much as the old disciples would like to distance themselves from the stranger's new ways, they find they cannot. He has brought new life to their dying movement, injecting new blood and new funds. The rabbi's disciples have long suffered in extreme poverty, and the Roman converts come with gold.

When I was reading through a book on evangelism by Earley & Wheeler, I noticed a passage about the martyrdom of Jesus' apostles.

Stephen was stoned to death about AD 34. James, the brother of John, was beheaded about AD 44. Philip was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified about AD 54. Matthew suffered martyrdom by the sword about AD 60. James, the brother of Jesus, was beaten, stoned, and had his brains bashed out with a club. Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem and then beheaded. Andrew was arrested and crucified on a cross, two ends of which were fixed transversely in the ground. Mark was dragged to pieces by people of Alexandria in front of Serapis, their pagan idol. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul gave his neck to the sword (about 64). Barthomew was beaten and crucified in India. Thomas was thrust through with a spear by pagan priests. Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece. Jude, the half brother of Jesus, was crucified in Edessa in about AD 72.

If the original disciples were willing to lie about their master's fate and embrace some new teaching by Paul because of material gain, at what point would they have realized this wasn't working? Early Christianity was a very dangerous religion to embrace. Once it ceased to be recognized by the Roman government as a branch of the protected religion of Judaism, the persecutions and mass executions began, and did not stop until shortly after the year 300.

The time from the earliest apostle's martyrdom to the last is about 40 years. Generally, conspiracies only last until a key member is caught and interrogated. Martyrdom, on the other hand, is a sign that the martyrs believe what they are dying for. Liars make terrible martyrs. However, the disciples of Jesus, on Shmuley's account, knew Paul's gospel was a lie and preached it anyway.

How then do you explain this willingness of the apostles to die for this faith? I would expect that at least one of these apostles would have admitted the scandal to save his life. It would be quite profitable for an apostle to save his life by turning on the early church and exposing the fraud to the Romans who wanted to wipe out Christianity.

But of course, this is Shmuley's work. You didn't think he would let something like plausibility get in the way of a good story, did you?