Harry G. Frankfurt

Over the years, my friend Nathan Tierney and I have had a long interchange on a number of issues.  He’s frequently tempted me, with great finesse, to reconsider my initial intuitions. So now that my current project on spiritual autonomy has nudged me towards a compatibilist position on the question of freewill, Nathan once again has pointed out some angles worth considering:

“The main problem that libertarians have with compatibilists is that it is simply hard determinism in disguise, and is also incompatible with a Christianity for which free will is central.”

Both these points are worth engaging in a serious way, though philosophers these days typically ignore the second. But that’s where I’d like to start.

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