The “Free Will” of Man
25th June 2005
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
June 25th, 2005 at 22:13
I agree, man does have free-will, but post-lapsarian (fall) he will only choose self. Augustine provides a wonderful definition of sin: he calls it concupisence (self-love) positively, and negatively he identifes it as “privatio” (privation) of “original righteousness.” It is this continual inward focus of man’s will that Luther picks up on in “Bondage of the Will”. In other words there are competing affections at work in the heart of man, all motivated by “love of self” (so concupisence); until something (one) extrinsically breaks in upon this vicious circle of self–it will continue on receiving its just reward–eternity separated from God (hell). For Luther, this extrinsic force of course is God, and He uses the instrumentality of His Word to enflame the heart of the recipient with His love–once this occurs, the stirred heart is now able to respond back in love (cf. 1 Jn 4:19) being captured by the love of Christ.
June 29th, 2005 at 19:06
Christian Carnival
Politics Viewpoint tries to explain why Doug Ireland, an Atheist, makes the claim that Christians shouldn’t be imposing their moral and religious views on others. Thomas Jefferson’s authorship of the Declaration of Independence tops the list of what …
July 1st, 2005 at 20:49
[…] f Jesus, as this and a more recent post explores. Christendom Blogosis discusses what the The Free Will of Man really means in relation to the Scripture and God’s Sovere […]
November 1st, 2005 at 13:30
This is sad, to say the least. I am (tongue in cheek) appalled to see that you feel you can correct Luther & Edwards in one fell swoop…..and that without any exegetical work in the scriptures….well…..without scripture at all.
When you infer that there are scriptures on “this side”, but there are more on “that side”, this shows your lack of understanding. ALL the scriptures are on one side of this issue OR the other, period. If they are not, then the ‘Word of God’ is indeed contradictory, and so much for ALL your arguements. If one finds scriptures that “appear” to teach contradictory doctrine, ONE has not “rightly divided the Word of Truth”!
November 13th, 2005 at 22:03
DOGpreacher,
First off, I hold to the fact that Scripture is the only authority. Though I do read what Christians have written historically, I do not put as much weight on those writings as some may. However, I was not trying to “correct” anyone as I wasn’t trying to factor in what someone has written historically on this subject.
Also, I did not see fit to start quoting 100s and 100s of verses on the subject matter. This debate has raged on for 100s of years and godly men on both sides have written on the subject. I was merely stating my opinion/position on it.
In addition, I was in no way stating that this is some sort of balance scale and if more verses are on one side then that side wins. That is ridiculous. On the contrary, I was stating that there is only one truth and that truth may violate human understanding. (i.e. man has 100% free will and God is 100% sovereign).
In fact, it is the Word that is true, not your finite mind (comprehension/understanding) or my finite mind or any other person’s finite mind.
So if you want to argue that everything must make sense to you then you can, however, I disagree. The Word of God is the only thing that is true and all our understanding must bend to that truth. I will say it again, the Word of God never contradicts itself. Something that may appear to be a contradiction is actually a lack of human understanding (comprehension). In fact, we may not even have the ability to fully understand it.
In addition, if you somehow think you can rightly divide the Word of God like no other man has been able to…I would challenge you on that. If that were the case, you should be able to put an end to some of the long debating subjects within Christendom.
AMDG