Guillaume Bignon. Excusing Sinners and Blaming God: A Calvinist Assessment of Determinism, Moral Responsibility, and Divine Involvement in Evil. Pickwick, 2018. See here to purchase the book.
Guillaume Bignon is a French analytic philosopher and computer
scientist. He used to be an atheist but is now a Calvinist. I am sure
that is an interesting story and am happy to find that it is on the
Internet, on various sites.
In Excusing Sinners and Blaming God, Bignon attempts to
respond to a notorious criticism of Calvinism. If Calvinists are
correct that God has foreordained all things, including evil, the
criticism runs, does that mean that evildoers lack personal
responsibility for their evil acts? How can God judge them for doing
what God essentially decreed or caused them to do? Bignon also
addresses the question of whether God is a moral monster for
foreordaining evil.
Bignon employs a variety of arguments in responding to these
questions. First, Bignon argues that God is not compelling people to
commit evil acts against their will: they are acting willfully and
voluntarily, knowing that what they are doing is wrong. That makes them
responsible. Second, Bignon states that the burden of proof rests on
those who claim that a person must be able to make the opposite decision
in order to be responsible for his or her evil deed. As far as Bignon
is concerned, that burden of proof has not been met.
Third, Bignon contends that non-Calvinist Christians run into the
same problems that they accuse Calvinism of having. Do they believe
that one needs to have libertarian free will—-the neutral ability to
choose one path or another—-in order to be personally responsible? How,
then, can they consider God to be praiseworthy for God’s good deeds,
when God is unable to do evil? How can they believe in original sin,
which inclines people’s hearts towards sinfulness? Even though they
believe in that, they still hold that human beings are responsible for
their evil deeds, for Christ died for their sins. Do they think that
Calvinism incoherently posits two wills in God (a decreed will and a
moral will about what is right and wrong for humans to do)? Do not they
do the same thing when they maintain that God desires free-will, on the
one hand, and moral righteousness on the other, yet tolerates evil in
the belief that free will is a positive good? Arminians criticize the
Calvinist God for causing evil, but does not their God permit evil?
Bignon settles on two answers to the questions that the book
addresses. First, Bignon believes that God can decree evil and yet be
blameless because God is God: God has concluded in God’s wisdom and
foresight that a world with evil is better, at this point, than a world
without it. Critics of Calvinism try to critique Calvinism by comparing
the Calvinist God to human beings who cause evil, even for a good
purpose, and Bignon maintains that those are apples and oranges.
Second, Bignon holds that God does not directly cause people’s evil
decisions but simply withholds God’s grace, allowing them to fall back
on their innate sinful desires. They are making the sinful choices, in
short, and God is letting them do so by withholding God’s grace. When
they do good, that is a result of God’s grace, so they have no cause to
boast. At the same time, perhaps because the Bible itself praises doing
good and criticizes doing evil, Bignon still tries to maintain that a
person who does good is praiseworthy.
Occasionally, Bignon interacts with Scripture. He refers to passages
in which God somehow causes events, through either intervention or
refraining from direct intervention. Near the beginning of the book, he
interacts with Romans 9:17-23, in which Paul likens God to a potter
shaping clay, in discussing God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. In
response to those who inquire how God can find fault with anyone if God
operates that way, Paul asks, “Who art thou that repliest against God?”
(KJV). Bignon disputes Arminian interpretations of that passage because
he believes that Paul would not have received the objection that he
did, or answered as he answered, had he been saying what Arminians
claim. Bignon backs away from saying that Paul’s response is “Shut up
and don’t question!”, for Bignon states that Paul is responding to those
who try to excuse their evildoing by chalking it up to God’s
providence.
The book has a lot of logical arguments—-and by this I am not talking
so much about the quality of his arguments, but rather his practice of
using letters and symbols for premises and conclusions, both in his own
arguments and in conveying (or improving upon) the arguments of others.
At the same time, there is also a lot of lucid prose in the book.
Moreover, Bignon engages Arminian or non-Calvinist philosophers and
thinkers, even going so far as to highlight nuances in their positions.
Readers may find the book to be informative on that front.
On the whole, the book is somewhat unsatisfactory. Bignon was
asserting that the burden of proof rests on those who claim that
libertarian free will is essential for there to be moral responsibility,
but he seemed to be making claims that certain elements were necessary
for moral responsibility (i.e., knowledge that an act is wrong), without
really defending them (as far as I can recall). (I should add, though,
that Bignon at one point declines to offer an all-encompassing basis
for human responsibility, as Bignon doubts that he can find one that
encompasses every situation.) Bignon spent a lot of time highlighting
the contradictions in non-Calvinist perspectives, but the book would
have been better had he himself engaged certain questions, such as: Why
exactly is God praiseworthy, if God is only doing what God by nature
does and cannot do otherwise? Why does God blame humans for acting
according to their human nature, which is sinful? There were resources
from which Bignon could have drawn to address these questions, such as
Jonathan Edwards (and Bignon did refer to Edwards, Calvin, and other
Calvinist thinkers elsewhere in the book).
Bignon never claims to be making a comprehensive defense of
Calvinism, at least in this book. Rather, his goal is to dismantle the
objection that, under Calvinism, humans are not responsible for their
evil deeds. Still, the book would have been better had Bignon at least
provided possible reasons that God might ordain evil: what good end is
God seeking to accomplish? (Bignon has written a book on suffering, so
that might be worth reading.)
And, ultimately, while Bignon may have a point that God ordains evil
for a righteous purpose, his discussion does not leave me with the
impression that humans are truly responsible for their actions, in his
scenario.
Those who have read a lot about Calvinism may not find much that is
new in this book. It is still a thoughtful engagement of arguments,
even if I cannot point to any insight in it that swept me off my feet,
or blew my mind away.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.