Hi Derek,

Thanks for the response. So you concede that you have never had a thought or desire that was not pre-determined by God? Remember you are trying to argue that compatibilism is fundamentally distinguished from hard determinism because it doesn’t collapse into causal determinism. In fact you said I was being “unfair” to suggest that compatibilism and hard determinism both result in causal determinism. You now admit that the very “wants” and “desires” that make the cogs of compatibilism go round and round are themselves determined by God via a sovereign foreordination “of everything about my life” that you were not free to resist…or think, desire or act contrary to. There is no mystery or paradox. Everything has been determined!

So tell me again how compatibilism doesn’t collapse into determinism? Let’s deal with this before we move on to your “use of means” and then your misappropriation of Romans 3.

Shalom.