RELIGION AND MORALITY 333Monotheistic determinism
Suppose that determinism is true and that God exists.^26 If determinism is
true of God’s creation, then God made it so. God, then, directly or
indirectly determines, for each thing, that it shall exist when and where and
as long as it does, and for every property of every thing, that it has that
property rather than not, and for how long it has that property. Since
events are matters of things having properties, God determines all events.
Our supposition that determinism is true and God exists is the supposition
that God exists and causes everything whatever that occurs. Since God is
omnicompetent, God will not be caught causing things that God was not
aware of causing. So every conscious state of Jon, and of every non-divine
person, is the product of a conscious state internal to God – God’s intention
that it obtain, or the like.^27
If every thought Jon has is a thought God knowingly caused Jon to have,
every act Jon performs is one that God knowingly caused Jon to perform,
and indeed every state of any sort Jon is ever in is a state God knowingly
caused Jon to be in, a compatibilist must hold that Jon can nonetheless be
free and morally responsible with regard to his actions. Theologians and
philosophers are sometimes drawn to this view because otherwise God is
the agent of evil actions. Sometimes they think that some version of
materialism is true, and that materialism entails determinism.
The libertarian, and the determinist who is also an incompatibilist, of
course deny this. They will hold it to be false that Jon acts freely. Jon is
perhaps a being through whom God acts, but Jon is not an agent at all. Jon
does not act; God acts through Jon.
Consider this scenario regarding Jon’s smiling at Susan at time T;
suppose its full cause is:
Scenario 7: God’s conscious state of deciding that Jon shall smile – a
conscious state external to Jon – and whatever non-
intentional states external to Jon also occur as parts of
the deterministic chain to yield Jon’s smiling at Susan.
Consider this plausible contention: if those intentional states are caused by
someone who is capable of making Jon do whatever they want, and that
someone produces them knowing that Jon will thereby be caused to smile
at Susan, then Jon is not morally responsible for smiling at Susan – not
even if smiling or not is a matter for moral praise or blame. When Mary
was not sending her letter, it was rightly said to matter whether Ann
interfered or not – whether Ann activated the microchip and thereby
caused Mary to act. If any thought or action of Mary’s is brought about by