Brennon's Thoughts: Argument for Freedom

My brother-in-Christ, Brennon has posted a good  post an attempt to argue for freedom. I'd like to respond with a few questions and comments. My response is in bold.

1) We are only morally responsible for our actions if we have freedom in the libertarian sense.





How do we know that this is true?

2) God says we are morally responsible for what we do.


Agreed


3) God is inerrant and infallible.

Agreed
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4) ∴ we have freedom in the libertarian sense.
Hold it a second.

I rely on Peter Van Inwagen's consequence argument to show that premise 1 is correct. It states:

If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us.¹

I think premises 2 and 3 are uncontroversial for Christian theists. Therefore, the conclusion follows deductively.


1 Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 56.

I agree with Brennon that premises 2 and 3 is indeed true! However I have a problem with premise 1. If I understand correctly "libertarian free will" is the ability to choose to do something or otherwise. The issue is that no way can I make make sense of it because the Bible says that we are slaves to sin and unable to free ourselves. 

¹⁸Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. ¹⁹For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
 ²⁰The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, ²¹so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. - Romans 5:18-21

and

 ¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
 ²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God's law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
      So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. - Romans 7:14-25

The Bible says in multiple passages that we are stuck in our sins until Jesus frees us. Therefore I can't say that I have the freedom to do what I want in all situations. Therefore there can't be libertarian free will because we can't choose to live a life completely free from sin. We can only work towards it and only if the Holy Spirit empowers us.


Brennon's Thoughts: Argument for Freedom