Abstract
McCullough's Freedom and Sin is an engaging and welcome addition to the literature on divine providence. The core of the book is an articulation of a view of divine providence that, to my knowledge, hasn’t previously been marked out in the theological or philosophical terrain. McCullough defends a view he calls “indeterministic compatibilism.” As a form of compatibilism, it holds that human freedom is compatible with God's determination of what humans freely choose. We could be free, and morally responsible, even if theological determinism were true. But McCullough doesn’t think that theological determinism is true, given that at times God allows humans to defectibly make choices apart from divine determination—hence the “indeterministic” element. All creaturely choices to sin are actions that were not determined by God. In fact, they could not be (28) and thus don’t call into question divine goodness. For McCullough, one's “be[ing] damned for what you were force to do [even by God's determining activity] is not justice” (206).
This fundamental asymmetry in God's relationship to creatures’ good and evil acts runs throughout the book. McCullough writes that “the aim of this project is to hold together God's opposition to evil and God's noncompetition with creatures” (5). He thinks that these two elements contain no “intrinsic opposition” but instead are “complements” (5). Since God could determine everything, including creaturely free choices, God is sovereign over all of creation. However, since given the above-mentioned asymmetry God does not and could not determine sinful actions, divine goodness for McCullough does not face the challenges it does for theological determinists. God has power over all evil and yet is not implicated in bringing any of it about.
God's noncompetition with creatures, even when God determines their actions, is a result of McCullough’s underlying (neo)-Platonic view where all evil is a privation of the good. All creaturely goodness both derives from and participates in the divine goodness. When we sin, we impede God's non-deterministic activity, thereby making our actions lack good that God would will them to have.
McCollough admits early in the book that he's focused on the “explanation” for evil, and “not necessarily [its] justification” (13). But his indeterministic compatibilism raises a central question: If God could always and infallibly work good in creaturely wills but sometimes does not, what reason does God have for failing to do so? There is a good made possible by the possibility of sin; but this good can’t, given McCullough's compatibilism, be the good for free will. Instead, it's the good of self-creation. There is good in our rightly using our faculties for the good even when we could have chosen otherwise. But here too McCullough insists that “we create these goods in ourselves by not negating God's gift of them to us” (153). When we freely choose the non-divinely determined good, we participate in God's creative activity and we, like God, control some of the contingent outcomes of God's creation. Because of this possibility for self-creation, “we are able to ‘introduce’ defects or nonbeing into the being to which the Spirit moves us, a sort of negative determination of the will (negative quaedem determination) that is not itself pre-determined by God's provision, or not, of assistance” (41). McCullough's rejection of strong voluntarism, where the will can choose independent of the perceived good, is clear in chapter 2. When we so act, we are the efficient cause of our sinful willings, and the good for which we act is the final cause since nonbeing or privation cannot be the final cause of any act. If one seeks to explain why the human will chooses in such a way in at least some of those cases where it is not efficiently caused to will the good by God, one will fail since such choices lack exhaustive contrastive explanations.
McCullough's book is engaging and left me wanting more, seeking to know how his view would address some related questions. First, why think that the good of self-creation, and the goods that it makes possible, justify the evils that result when God fails to cause us to will the good? This is especially pertinent given that, in chapter 4, McCullough argues that the self-creation of the Incarnate Christ need not involve the possibility of evil. So what is it about self-creation in humans that are not also divine that justifies God's allowing evil when God could determine it to not happen? Second, though related, the view of providence McCullough allows for universal salvation of all, although it is not clearly endorsed. Here I wondered why not, given that McCullough's view could easily establish such a claim. What would help answer each of these questions is a larger treatment of axiology, particularly as it relates to issues of theodicy.
All books have their limits, and wanting more isn’t intended as a criticism. In fact, this desire stems from my positive evaluation of the book. It draws carefully on a wide range of theologians, both historical and contemporary, and philosophers. The book is full of interesting details and arguments that I haven’t been able to summarize here. For instance, his discussion of the church as the Body of Christ and its role in God's providential activity is fascinating and provocative. Freedom and Sin is an impressive book that deserves to be read closely, by both philosophers and theologians.