Suppose a writer thinks that it is time for Richard, a character in his story, to die. There are many ways he can make this happen. He can write, without any explanation, "Richard died." And Richard would be dead. He can drop a boulder from the sky and crush Richard into the ground. He can simply stop mentioning Richard, and although the readers and the other characters in the story might not be aware of it, he would be dead in the writer's mind. But we are here for drama, so let us make it more interesting. The writer can introduce Tom into the story. He covets Richard's wife, and in the course of a complicated and unlikely plot, Tom shoots Richard in the head and kills him.
It would be absurd to "metaphysically" distance the writer from the evil in this story by using Tom to explain the whole thing. The writer is the one who conceives Tom in his own mind and introduces him into the story. The writer is the one who makes him covet Richard's wife and then shoots Richard in the head. Moreover, the writer is the one who makes Richard die. This is the part that many theologians and philosophers forget when dealing with metaphysics. It is not really Tom who kills Richard. It is not really the bullet that kills Richard. In a story where the writer wields omnipotent power, Richard does not have to die just because someone shoots him in the head. And if Richard dies, the writer can raise him from the dead. In fact, the writer can raise Richard from the dead and have him kill Tom just by giving him a disapproving look.
This is why, as metaphysical explanations, so-called secondary causes are meaningless. When the discussion is limited to the relationships within the story, then it is acceptable to say that Tom kills Richard. But when a metaphysical explanation is needed, we must say that the writer causes Tom to pull the trigger, causes the bullet to launch from the gun, and causes Richard to die. These events are metaphysically independent, and are related only in the context of the story. That is, the relationship between these persons and events exist only in the writer's mind, and is then written into the story. Any event occurs only by the direct cause of the writer. An object within the story cannot write its own lines and produce an effect on another object within the story.
It is true that the writer kills Richard by using Tom, and it is true that Tom voluntarily shoots Richard. Tom acts on the strongest desire of the moment, and is not coerced by any other factor within the story. In fact, he is not even coerced by the writer, but this does not mean that he has free will, and it would be silly to mention that his desire and action are "compatible" with the writer's control, because the writer is the one who writes in the desire and action in the first place. Compatibilism is not so much false as it is irrelevant, because it misses the point. He is not coerced by the writer because coercion requires resistance in the one coerced, but Tom does not even have the freedom to exhibit any resistance to the writer's will. His desire is written into his mind by the writer, and then an action that is consistent with this desire is written into the story. To say that Tom's desire, choice, and action are compatible with the writer's authorship is to say nothing more than that the writer is compatible with himself, or that the exercise of his control is compatible with his possession of this control. This is irrelevant and unhelpful to the compatibilist's agenda.
Unless Tom is free from the writer, Tom is not free in any meaningful sense of the word. He might be free from other characters in the story, but even this is so only because the writer makes it so. Within the story, there is indeed an apparent relationship between Tom's action, the physics of the gun and the bullet, and Richard's death. But again, this is so only because the writer makes it so in that particular instance. In other words, there is no necessary relationship between Tom's action or the bullet, and Richard's death. The relationship is established, in appearance if you will, for the purpose of the story, or drama. In reality, the will of the writer is the sole explanation for any condition or event in the novel.
Tom possesses a relative freedom – he is free from the control or interference of other objects and characters in the story to the extent that the writer decides that he should be free from them. This relative freedom has nothing to do with Tom's moral responsibility toward the writer. If Tom is held accountable for anything, it is because the writer decides to hold him accountable, not because Tom possesses some kind of freedom. The writer is able to hold him accountable precisely because Tom is not free. If Tom is entirely free, even from the writer, then Tom would be accountable to no one. Tom's moral responsibility rests entirely on the writer's sovereignty and decision. As it is, the writer can express his disapproval of adultery and murder by arranging an especially gory fate for Tom. If he wishes to introduce a spiritual dimension, the writer can even send Tom straight to hell in the story.
From: Vincent Cheung, God the Author