No better time than the present to discuss my thoughts on the free will of man.
To put it simply, man does have a completely free will.
Now, if a person somehow thinks this free will of his can thwart, is outside of, or apart from God’s will, he is severely mistaken. Nothing takes place outside of God’s will, ever. God holds everything in the universe together. Every breath (of the saved and the wicked) comes from God.
We have finite minds and our understanding of everything is put against the background of time. As I type these letters (inside the scope of time) they are original, they are my thoughts that I am freely typing. I can decide to stand up right now and if I do stand up it is me doing it, it is my free will to do things. I am not a robot or a puppet. The greater understanding of this is that I know these things are not taking place apart from God’s will. Everything is happening in accordance with God’s will. God does not let things happen (He is not hands off), God does.
So as not to confuse things at the moment, I will not go into the even deeper issue of freedom as one of the elect vs bondage as one of the lost. Suffice it to say, the chosen truly are free whereas someone who has not been regenerated is totally and utterly depraved and is a complete slave to his sinful nature.
While I am on the subject I will comment on some other issues worth thinking about. Do you ever wonder where the idea of free will comes from? Well, nearly all of the Scripture has a tone of free will. What I mean by this is nearly everything that happens in the Scripture supports the idea of free will. Even the men of God in the Scripture (how they interact with God and how the Scripture is worded) support the idea of free will. Yes, there are a few verses that the dorts love to beat into everybody’s head. However, the verses that give an idea of “free will” far outnumber those few verses.
To be clear here, I am in no way stating that God is not Sovereign over everything. You only need to look at my posts on the subject to see where I stand. In addition, I am not talking about two contradicting views. I am stating that these ideas must be reconciled.
Back to the point. Why is it that the men of God we see throughout Scripture do not speak as if they are diehard calvinists (at least in the sense of the mantra/dogma I see calvinists trying to push today)? Would such a calvinist today ask God to change His mind about something that has been predestined? People in the Bible did. Why does the Scripture reveal (some of) God’s nature as one which can be swayed by human interaction?
You see, the arminian viewpoint isn’t just created out of thin air or a misinterpretation of a few verses…nearly all of the Scripture leads them to their viewpoint. They err when they make assumptions about those Scriptures with their “reason” in charge. They further err when the logic they are using dims the clear teaching on the Sovereignty of God. On the other hand, the calvinist errs in that it seems he is so focused on those few verses that teach God’s Sovereignty that he neglects the overall tone of the Scripture. As a man, why should they be overly concerned about things outside of time, by which we are all bound?
Again, I am not stating that the Sovereignty of God be dismissed, on the contrary, I think that teaching the Sovereignty of God is very important. However, I am raising a question about where the focus is and what is overlooked, minimized, or left out. I am raising a question about making assumptions (and creating doctrine) based on a few verses and human logic. We need to let Scripture speak for itself and conform our minds and logic to the Word of God, not the other way around.
Could Christ have died for all and yet only the elect will be saved? Yes.
Can there be only One God and yet three beings that are God? Yes.
Can man have a free will with God being completely Sovereign. Yes.
Can we see as God sees? No.
Can we completely understand the full nature of God? Of course not.
AMDG