334 RELIGION, MORALITY, FAITH, AND REASONAnn using her microchip then Mary no longer is responsible for what Mary
thinks or does as a result of Ann’s microchip activity.^28 God needs no
microchip. But if every thought or action of Jon’s is caused by God then Jon
no longer is responsible for what Jon thinks and does.
One might wonder if while Ann could not cause Mary’s thoughts and
actions and leave Mary an agent, perhaps God could cause Jon’s thoughts
and actions and yet Jon remain an agent. Isn’t God’s case different? It is,
but not in ways encouraging to the suggestion that a Jon all of whose
thoughts and actions God causes remains an agent. If an omnicompetent
God exists and is Creator, then Jon’s coming to exist, and Jon’s continuing
to exist, depend on God; the remainder of the world in which Jon exists
came to and continues to exist by divine courtesy. Far more so than in the
relation between Mary and Ann, the relationship between Jon and God, if
God causes all of Jon’s thoughts and actions, precludes rather than provides
for Jon being responsible for his thoughts and actions.
Nonmonotheistic determinism will offer a different account:
Scenario 8: Only nonintentional states at T-1 external to Jon are
required to yield Jon’s smiling at Susan at T.
What entirely baffles the libertarian is how, if this scenario is correct, and if
the obtaining of Scenario 7 would preclude Jon being morally responsible,
the obtaining of Scenario 8 would leave Jon morally responsible. True, in
the case of monotheistic determinism, there is Someone Else (someone
with a mind) besides Jon who knowingly causes Jon to think and act as Jon
does, whereas if nonmonotheistic determinism is true there is merely
something else (some non-person distinct from Jon) that causes Jon to
think and act as Jon does. But the libertarian holds that the difference
between Someone Else and something else is utterly insufficient to make
the difference between Jon not being morally responsible for Jon’s
thoughts and actions and Jon’s being morally responsible for Jon’s thoughts
and actions.
The point, then, is this. For all of the compatibilist maneuvering, if God
exists and determinism is true, God and any alleged human agent are
related as Tess and Tricia, at the outset of our discussion, were related, only
(as we said there) more so.