Free Will
“Free will” means humans have the ability to think independently and act accordingly. Day-to-day human functioning presumes this is true. But a free will is not arbitrary. Regardless of whether you are a hawk or a dove, you believe that a guided missile should be guided. A “free” missile is merely an unpredictable hazard with a predictably high cost. The same thing can be said about cars and hammers and boxes of Cheerios. Even unguided Cheerios end up as a mess on the kitchen floor, drawing critters and spreading germs.
Humans are more dangerous than missiles. In the book of James we read, “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” (James 3.10) Guided humans bless; unguided curse, whether by words or works.
A man standing on the rail of the Wissahickon Memorial Bridge may look down at the creek below and say, “I am free to jump if I want. It is my right. What a thrill it would be to fly. I want that thrill.” Another man may walk the same bridge, entertaining similar thoughts but, then reasoning, “This is crazy. A jump would surely kill me.” This may feel like a choice, but as a practical matter it is not.
The Wissahickon jump is a dangerous thought, but it is an easy choice. Hard choices are the ones where it is not clear which one will turn out better. Some people deliberate for five minutes, waitress at shoulder, deciding whether to drink tea or cranberry juice. Some people deliberate less than five minutes over whether to marry or take a new job in California.
In any case, when we choose, we always try to make the better choice. The more understanding we have, the better we are equipped to recognize that best choice. In this sense, wisdom is the most important element of freedom.
God Grants Humans the Ability to Choose
This is evident everywhere in Scriptures. Here are a few text examples:
“If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the lord.” (Joshua 24.14,15)
“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” (Philippians 1.21-24)
“I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.” (1 Corinthians 10.15)
The ability to make choices is a key element of what it means to be human. Our choices impact how our lives progress, the quality of our relationships, and profoundly effect who we become. The filters we apply to our decisions change who we become.
“We talk of wild animals; but man is the only wild animal. It is man that has broken out. All other animals are tame animals; following the rugged respectability of the tribe or type. All other animals are domestic animals; man alone is ever undomestic, either as a profligate or a monk.” – G.K.Chesterton
Thankfully, we are not locked into our decisions, some of which are simply terrible. This is one of the important manifestations of God’s grace. Consider Peter, who chose to deny Jesus, abandoning him at the great crisis of his earthly life. This betrayal could have been a back-breaker for Peter, but Jesus forgave him, and Peter responded with a deep sense of gratitude. Peter, after the resurrection, was not only much more humble but, oddly he was also genuinely more courageous, and an amazing servant of Christ and the Church. Grace allows for correction.
God’s Sovereignty is Crucial
God’s sovereignty is necessary…not logically necessity, but as a practical matter for humans. Human hope is based on God being both good and all-powerful. If God is good but not all-powerful, then our hopes are more like wishes as opposed to confident expectations. Imagine a good but limited god. Superman would serve as an example. Having Superman around would be great, but if he is off saving Lois Lane from Lex Luther, how will he help me when a meteor is racing towards my town. Even if he manages to rescue Lois and then fly to deflect the meteor, there are just too many things going wrong all the time for Superman to keep up. Eventually he will lose all of us (even if we don’t die from natural causes). Confident hope depends on a God much more powerful than Superman.
Understanding that God is sovereign also is very important as we come to grips with how salvation is possible. We can perform good works till we’re blue in the face, but deliverance from all the damages we have done, and deliverance from the natural corruption of death, are only possible as gifts from a gracious, all-powerful God. Some people are better than others, just as some people can long-jump further than others. But no one can long-jump the Grand Canyon. Earning our salvation is less possible than long-jumping the Grand Canyon.
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (John 6.44)
“By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2.8)
“For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9.15,16)
Free Will Is Not a Christian Problem; It is a Human Problem
The idea of free will is nettlesome, no matter what your ideology or faith may be. Free will is most problematic for scientific materialists. From the perspective that the universe is strictly material, options and choices are illusions. Humans who evolve from the primal goo are composites of the chemical processes of their pasts and the influence of their environments. Human will to survive is instinct; human moral passions are mere habits, or are decisions based on pleasant internal chemical reactions, inherited for the purpose of survival. Moral outrage expressed by a materialist is utter nonsense. At any rate, in such a mechanized view of existence, no free will is possible. Of course, no meaning is possible, either, and hope is pure delusion.
For free will to be possible, humans must possess a spiritual nature which, however profoundly connected to the body, must also be independent of the body. As a human, you must either think of yourself as a necessary byproduct of the physical universe, which is to say, a pointless cog in a meaningless history, or you are a spiritual being with a body. The question of the source of the spirit is far too important to be ignored.
Arminian vs. Reformed
The Christian church is divided over the question of free will. The Arminian perspective is that people have free will even prior to regeneration; the Reformed view is that salvation is only possible when God acts to open the eyes of individuals.
The reasons for the Reformed position have been discussed above. But what is the reason for Christians holding to the Arminian view? The fundamental concern of Arminians is to protect the goodness of God. In one sense, God needs no protection; no human court has authority or power over him. On the other hand, Christians are called to be God’s witnesses. “Witness” in common parlance usually means “evangelist”. But more fundamentally, “witness” is a legal term for one who stands before a court of law, providing testimony. So the point of Christians being witnesses is that they are to tell the truth about God.
God speaks about himself as the very essence of justice, as the defender of justice, and as one who insists on justice in the world. If this is so, how can salvation and punishment of humans be decided by his seemingly arbitrary choice? If his choice is not arbitrary, on what basis does he make his choice? If his choices are based on the character of those he chooses, isn’t he, the Creator, the one who determined that character in the first place? Where is the justice? This sort of reasoning has led many to the conclusion that God puts real decision-making power into the hands of humans, in order that they are the ones responsible for being saved. From this perspective, people choose or reject God.
“Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice.” (Job 34.12)
“Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9.24)
Can the Dilemma Be Resolved?
From a practical standpoint, there is no point in wondering about whether we are free. Whatever uncertainties we may have about the source or sources of our decisions, we all make choices every minute that impact our lives and the lives of those around us. I eat an apple or I eat a candy bar….or I eat 12 candy bars. I get to work on time or I decide to call in sick. I respond in kindness or impatience. I bring my neighbor a tray of cookies, or I shoot him (or I ignore him altogether). Most of us suffer from our own bad habits…but we are not prisoner of our habits. Sometimes we choose against our habits; sometimes we learn to master our bad habits. We know it is possible to assert our wills for good or evil.
For us, wisdom means choosing well and not using weakness as an excuse. In our weakness we can obtain help. In our weakness we can call on God himself to provide help, or to firm our resolve to do well. It is important that we live as if we have control over our own actions, even as we recognize that our wills are conflicted and we sometimes do things in spite of ourselves.
Is it possible that God created a universe in which some humans are responsive to his voice and some are not? Yes, it is possible. Is it possible that God has decided that you will be stubborn and unresponsive to his calling? Yes, it is possible. Is it possible that you are in a state of disbelief about God and are angry about his tampering in human affairs? Sure. Is it possible that he will prevail by convincing you that he is worthy of trust? Certainly so. You would be one of many who have fought Jesus Christ, only to succumb to the weight of revelation.
“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen [College, Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.” – C.S. Lewis
Can people complain about not being given faith? No. Life on earth is a gift. For God to give great gifts in some cases and small gifts in other cases does not make him unjust. “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.” (Romans 9.21-23)
The only way I can escape from the morbid notion that I am just a complicated accident bouncing around in a complicated material environment is the belief that God has created material reality, that he has factored a spirit nature into humans that is undetermined by materialism, and that the design is so elegant that humans can make real spiritual decisions even as God retains sovereignty. I don’t really get it. I just hope it. At some point I just have to face the fact that, if I believe in an all-knowing God, then it also must be true that he manages ideas beyond my understanding.
The universe is clearly apathetic, or maybe a better word would be “unaware”. There is nothing to trust in an apathetic universe. God, on the other hand, describes himself as being “good”. He has demonstrated the depths of his goodness through Jesus Christ, who both lived and died for the sake of obedience to the Father, and for the salvation of all of God’s people. The resolution, then, is not in logic (not that I am ready to abandon it, but that I believe my reasoning capacity insufficient for the problem), but trust in the love and power of the God-Man, Jesus.
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