There are many words and concepts in theology that suffer from misunderstanding, 
mis-characterization, and misinformation. “Predestination,” “Calvinism,” “Total Depravity,” “Inerrancy,” and “Complementarianism”, just to name a few that I personally have to deal with. Proponents are more often than not on the defensive, having to explain again and again why it is they don’t mean what people think they mean.
The concept of “free will” suffers no less with regard to this misunderstanding. Does a person have free will? Well, what do you mean by “free will”? This must always be asked.
Do you mean:
- That a person is not forced from the outside to make a choice?
- That a person is responsible for his or her choices?
- That a person is the active agent in a choice made?
- That a person is free to do whatever they desire?
- That a person has the ability to choose contrary to their nature (who they are)?
Calvinists, such as myself, do believe in free will and we don’t believe in free will. It just depends on what you mean.
When it comes to the first three options, most Calvinist would agree that a person is not forced to make a choice, is responsible for their choices, and is the active agent behind those choices. They would reject the forth believing that a person is not free to do whatever they desire (for example, no matter how much one desires, he or she cannot read the thoughts of another person, fly without wings, or transport from one location to another just by thinking about the desired location).
It is important to note at this point, there is no conflict. No matter what theological persuasion you adhere to, most of historic Christianity has agreed that the first three are true, while the fourth is false.
It is with the fifth option there is disagreement.
Does a person have the ability to choose against their nature?
This question gets to the heart of the issue. Here we introduce a new and more defined term (hang with me here): “Libertarian Free-will” or “Libertarian Freedom.” Libertarian freedom can be defined briefly thus:
Libertarian Freedom: “The power of contrary choice.”
If you ask whether a person can choose against their nature (i.e. libertarian freedom) the answer, I believe, must be “no.” A person’s nature makes up who they are. Who they are determines their choice. If there choice is determined, then the freedom is self-limited. Therefore, there is no “power” of contrary choice for we cannot identify what or who this “power” might be. I know, I know . . . slow down. Let me explain.
First, it is important to get this out of the way. To associate this denial of libertarian freedom exclusively with Calvinism would be misleading. St. Augustine was the first to deal with this issue in a comprehensive manner. Until the forth century, it was simply assumed that people were free and responsible, but they had yet to flesh out what this meant. Augustine further elaborated on the Christian understanding of freedom. He argued that people choose according to who they are. If they are good, they make good choices. If they are bad, they make bad choices. These choices are free, they just lack liberty. In other words, a person does not become a sinner because they sin, they sin because they are a sinner. It is an issue of nature first. If people are identified with the fallen nature of Adam, then they will make choices similar to that of Adam because it is who they are. Yes, they are making a free choice, but this choice does not include the liberty or freedom of contrary choice.
What you have to ask is this: If “free will” means that we can choose against our nature (i.e. the power of contrary choice), if “free will” means that we can choose against who we are, what does this mean? What does this look like? How does a free person make a choice that is contrary to who they are? Who is actually making the choice? What is “free will” in this paradigm?
If one can choose according to who they are not, then they are not making the choice and this is not really freedom at all, no? Therefore, there is, at the very least, a self-determinism at work here. This is a limit on free will and, therefore, a necessary denial of true libertarian freedom.
Think about all that goes into making “who you are.” We are born in the fallen line of Adam. Spiritually speaking we have an inbred inclination toward sin. All of our being is infected with sin. This is called “total depravity.” Every aspect of our being is infected with sin, even if we don’t act it out to a maximal degree.
But even if this were not the case,—even if total depravity were a false doctrine—libertarian freedom would still be untenable. Not only are you who you are because of your identification with a fallen human race, but notice all these factors that you did not choose that go into the set up for any given “free will” decision made:
- You did not choose when you were to be born.
- You did not choose where you were to be born.
- You did not choose your parents.
- You did not choose your influences early in your life.
- You did not choose whether you were to be male or female.
- You did not choose your genetics.
- You did not choose your temperament.
- You did not choose your looks.
- You did not choose your body type.
- You did not choose your physical abilities.
All of these factors play an influencing role in who you are at the time of any given decision. Yes, your choice is free, but it has you behind them. Therefore, you are free to choose according to you from whom you are not able to free yourself!
Now, I must reveal something here once again that might surprise many of you. This view is held by both Calvinists and Arminians alike. Neither position believes that a person can choose against their nature. Arminians, however, differ from Calvinists in that they believe in the doctrine of prevenient grace, which essentially neutralizes the will so that the inclination toward sin—the antagonism toward Gog—is relieved so that the person can make a true “free will” decision.
However, we still have some massive difficulties. Here are a couple:
A neutralized will amounts to your absence from the choice itself.
Changing the nature of a person so that their predispositions are neutral does not really help. We are back to the question What does a neutralized will look like? Does it erase all of the you behind the choice? If you are neutralized and liberated from you, then who is making the choice? How can you be held responsible for a choice that you did not really make, whether good or bad?
A neutralized will amounts to perpetual indecision. Think about this, if a person had true libertarian freedom, where there were no coercive forces, personal or divine, that influenced the decision, would a choice ever be made? If you have no reason to choose A or B, then neither would ever be chosen. Ronald Nash illustrates this by presenting a dog who has true libertarian freedom trying to decide between two bowls of dog food. He says that the dog would end up dying of starvation. Why? Because he would never have any reason to choose one over the other. It is like a balanced scale, it will never tilt to the right or the left unless the weights (influence) on one side is greater than the other. Then, no matter how little weight (influence) is added to a balanced scale, it will always choose accordingly.
A neutralized will amounts to arbitrary decisions, which one cannot be held responsible for.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that libertarian choice could be made. Let’s say that the dog did choose one food bowl over the other. In a truly libertarian sense, this decision cannot have influences of any kind. Any decision without influences is arbitrary. It would be like flipping a coin. I chose A rather than B, not because of who I am, but for no reason at all. It just turned out that way. But this option is clearly outside a biblical worldview of responsibility and judgment. Therefore, in my opinion, the outcome for the fight for true libertarian free-will comes at the expense of true responsibility!
In conclusion: while I believe in free will, I don’t believe in libertarian free will. We make the choices we make because of who we are. We are responsible for these choices. God will judge each person accordingly with a righteous judgment.
Is there tension? Absolutely. We hold in tension our belief in God’s sovereignty, determining who we are, when we live, where we will live, who our parents will be, our DNA, etc. and human responsibility. While this might seem uncomfortable, I believe that it is not only the best biblical option, but the only philosophical option outside outside of fatalism, and we don’t want to go there.
Acts 17:26-28
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’”
Thoughts? Do you believe in free will?
414 replies to "A Calvinist’s Understanding of “Free-Will”"
Sam,
Again, I am not aruging for all the points of LFW. That most definitely is not my purpose here! For instance I in no way believe that nothing can be known about a given choice until it is acutalized by a person. I think you may be arguing a strawman in this situation.
I am simply arguing that if all things are predetermined by God, there is no such thing as real “free choice, I believe the Bible speaks of men having choice, and I can in no way see how we can be held responsible for something that we have no choice about.
I agree that the Bible teaches determinisn–I also believe it teaches that man has choice. I don’t know how it all fits together. But to negate choice to saying that have the choice to choose something that we really have no choice about is not the answer as far as I can tell.
God did indeed determine Joseph’s brothers to sell him, the difference is in intentions. His brothers’ intentions were evil and God’s intentions were good.
Theirs was evil because they were evil and in bondage to sin. Yes God put them in bondage to sin because they were of the line of Adam.
I am not getting all of these posts read before I make this comment, so if I am repeating someone, I apologize.
The analongy above about the drunk son being held responsible by his Dad for not cleaning the garage being the same as mankind being held responsible by God in the face of original sin just doesn’t work at all for me. The son had the choice right there on the spot to obey or to go and get drunk and not obey. I have no choice at all in the matter of being credited with Adam’s sin and it’s consequences–I can’t go back in history and redo that situation. I think you are comparing apples and oranges.
If under LFW man is a self determining agent, then how can a choice be known before said agent even exists. No matter how you slice and dice it LFW is bogus and should be abandoned.
Joseff,
It is non sequitar because you are saying some A are B therefore all A are B. It does not follow that because God ordains some events he ordains all events.
On Proverbs 16:33
Good proof text. Let’s talk about it. One has to understand this verse in context and I admittedly can’t read Hebrew (or Greek for that matter), but have read a number of commentaries and individuals write on this verse because it is often cited by people for the idea that God determines everything. However, from everything I can tell the context and language used in this verse do not support this conclusion at all. Furthermore, one must understand the genre of literature that Proverbs is (Wisdom literature) and not treat it like one would Historical Narrative or Epistles. The point of this passage has nothing to do with God determining everything. The .NET Bible contains these notes on the passage
“The proverb concerns the practice of seeking divine leading through casting lots. For a similar lesson, see Amenemope (18, 19:16-17, in ANET 423). The point concerns seeking God’s will through the practice. The Lord gives guidance in decisions that are submitted to him.”
“In other words, it’s not that fallen, unregenerate man is willing to repent and believe, but cannot due to some kind of natural inability, but that he’s unwilling to do it from the very outset. it is in this sense he is unable to do it.”
I disagree man does not have the ability to repent because God ordained him to fall and then cursed man to not have this ability. It is in essence no different then God not giving man wings.
“Compatabilist free will says two things are true:
1) God determines everything
2) men make free choices based on what they desire to choose”
By it’s very nature something that has been predetermined by an outside entity is not a free choice. If God has predetermined that it will snow on Monday next week and at 3:30PM I will shovel my driveway then I have no choice but to do so. I cannot choose on Monday to not shovel my driveway because I am compelled to do so by God. It may appear that I am “choosing” to take this action, but this appearance of choice is merely illusory.
Michael, are you a Pelagian, then?
Sam,
You do not believe that God can know all things even before they happen even if He didn’t specifically plan them that way? In other words you think that God can only know the future because it will happen as He planned it, not that He can know what a person will do at any given time even if He didn’t directly order that would happen? That seems to me to be seriously limiting God’s abilities and knowledge. After all, we live in time, He lives in eternity. Why can He not see what will happen one day, month, or year from now even if He didn’t decree that it would happen precisely that way?
“By it’s very nature something that has been predetermined by an outside entity is not a free choice.”
So, because God predestined them to do so, Herod and Pilate can’t be said to have freely chosen to do wicked things to Christ?
(Acts 4:27-28)
“Michael, are you a Pelagian, then?”
Nope if you can’t tell a lot of my arguments are reductio ad absurdum.
Michael, I asked if you were a Pelagian because you seem to think it unjust of God to ask man to repent and believe while man is in his fallen state. You likened this to commanding a person to fly without wings.
So can you clear this up for me. Do you deny original sin? Do you deny that men cannot, in of themselves, with their own natural powers, come to Christ, despite John 6:37 and 44 stating such?
Joseff,
I realize this does need some explanation and I would like to, however the length required and the tangent it would take to this thread would probably not be a good idea. To simply give simple answers yes, I believe in original sin, but I (along with the Eastern Orthodox among others) deny the Augustinian conception of it. No I do not believe men can, of their own natural powers, come to Christ, but yes I believe every man has the ability to come to Christ through Christ’s atoning work on the Christ.
As far as this post is concerned though my chief objection is the idea that God ordained the fall and then gave man this curse, not that man is cursed. That idea that man is cursed gets into preveinent grace and other issues. The issue for Calvinism is how man became cursed.
Cherylu,
You miss my point, its not that God cannot know what He did not plan, He most certainly can. My point is that if man has LFW then man must exist. Like you said man is in time and God is out of time so no big issue there. The issue arises when we see that it was predetermined for Christ to die for man’s sins before man existed. Why?
Again if LFW were true then there would be no reason before the foundation of the world because there was no self determining agent to have actualized a sin. Again the death knell of LFW is scripture itself.
This is simply and age old prolbem that will never be solved this side of eternity. Either side you choose you will find problems with the system. It’s an unsolvable equation (humanly speaking)…. but it is not a contradiction. This is why when I read God’s word and try my best not to have any preconcieved opinion about the meaning of a particular passage (especially related to this issue) (and btw , no matter how i try i still have preconcieved notions) I can’t help but lean strongly in the Calvinistic direction.
The great thing is that I don’t have to solve all of the tention. To me, if i could,that would not allow God to be God.
We must at some point realize that just because a particular postion can’t be fully explained we are not therefore relieved of our responsibility to believe the truth……regardless of which side you take on this issue.
“So, because God predestined them to do so, Herod and Pilate can’t be said to have freely chosen to do wicked things to Christ?”
I think it depends on how one understands predestination in this verse. However I think it is certainly one of the possibilities. However I don’t think that is a necessary interpretation of this verse. Another translation renders the passage this way
4:27
For indeed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, assembled together in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed,
4:28
to do as much as your power and your plan had decided beforehand would happen.
It is possible to interpret this in a collective and event predestination rather than an individual predestination. God had certainly predestined Jesus to die. Yet maybe he placed Jesus at this point in history knowing through Middle Knowledge how Pilate, Herod, the Jews, and the Gentiles would react. Thus well their actions weren’t predestined in a causative sense God predestined Jesus’ death and knew the role they would play in bringing it about.
Sam,
I don’t see why man having a choice eliminates the need for Christ to have been predetermined to die before the foundation of the world. So long as God knew it was going to happen, there was still the need to plan for man’s salvation.
Did you read my comment where I made this statemnet: “Again, I am not aruging for all the points of LFW. That most definitely is not my purpose here! For instance I in no way believe that nothing can be known about a given choice until it is acutalized by a person. I think you may be arguing a strawman in this situation.”
You keep saying I am arguing points that I am in no way even trying to make. I went into some pretty fine detail above about what I was and was not trying to point out here.
Thank you for clarifying that Michael.
I am led to believe that yes, God ordained the fall. Why? Because it seems to me that glorifying His mercy, grace, wrath, and justice was God’s plan from eternity past, not simply a byproduct or a “Plan B” of creating a universe that ended up falling.
In other words, God’s creating was for the purpose of glorifying himself and His attributes. In order to be have mercy and grace be glorified, there needs to be sinners. So God created the a universe knowing there would be sinners. He also needs sin to exist or he can’t glorify his wrath against that sin, and his justice.
He could have created any number of possible universes, even ones that didn’t have the slightest possibility of sinning. He could have prevented the devil from talking to Eve in the Garden. He could have given Adam and Eve no restricting commands so there would be no possibility of commands that could be disobeyed.
But he created this universe. He wasn’t caught off-guard when the devil was tricking Eve. He put the tree there, knowing full well what would happen. He let the devil in. He let the conversation happen. He could have immediately come in and said “whoa whoa whoa, what are you guys talking about?” and prevented the whole thing. The Bible is clear that God has the power to prevent sin (See Gen 20:6) If he has the power to prevent sin, why didn’t he prevent the first sin (and every single sin afterwards?) Obviously that means, in a sense, God wants sin to exist in His own created universe.
Does this all sound like a plan to you? It does to me. Surely God is not so stupid that he was taken by surprise that sin entered the world with so many factors that made it easy for it to do so.
If he intended to create a universe that was sinless, surely he would have locked the devil up, not put a tree there, and not created creatures with curious personalities that are intrigued by the idea of disobeying a limiting command.
Or, to wrap up everything.
“He works all things according to the counsel of His own will”
Does the Fall fit into the category of “all things?” I say yes.
God is absolutely sovereign, down to the smallest details, including the fall.
“Does this all sound like a plan to you? It does to me. Surely God is not so stupid that he was taken by surprise that sin entered the world with so many factors that made it easy for it to do so.”
Yes it does sound like a plan, but not of a God who can in any way be referred to as loving, merciful, or good without doing brutal violence to language. I’m fine with Calvinism as long as it will admit that God is a sadist who gets off on sending billions and billions to hell and eternally tormenting them there. It would seem that you agree with the like of R.C. Sproul Jr. and others who believe that that wrath is a divine attribute and not simply a outflow of God’s righteousness and thus He NEEDS objects of wrath in order to satiate his wrath.
A God who ordained man to be the way man is and then gets angry at him for being that way to the extent that He decides to send the vast majority of men to suffer eternal conscious torment cannot be said to be good in any way shape or form.
Cherylu,
Again man having choice is not the same as man having LFW. My main point of concern is that under LFW the agent is the self determining cause and if you do not have an agent you do not have a cause. So to the person that believes in LFW the question is how and why was Christ predetermined to die for sins of man?
The problem I see is that most people cannot defend LFW so they come up with all these ad hoc definitions and turn it into their own personal idol. We see clear examples of this on this thread.
Amway’s, I will leave it at that and wish you good luck.
Michael, the way you use descriptive, pejorative language when discussing hell leaves me no choice but to ask you the next obvious question:
Do you deny the orthodox, classical position on hell being eternal conscious torment? It must be the case for one to use such theatric emotionally charged language.
Can you clear this up for me?
Sorry Sam,
I didn’t know we had only two choices (no pun intended!) here. I thought we were discussing our understanding of freewill, not necessarily the Calvinist versus the LFW positions.
(Pun intended this time.) Seems you have tried to predetermine the precise arguements under disucssion on this thread for each of us!
To answer your question, it seems clear to me that wrath is an attribute of God.
Rom 9:21-23
(21) 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?
(22) 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,
(23) in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory–
It clearly says in v22 that God is desiring to show his wrath. He makes different pots, like a Potter, for different purposes. Some exist to glorify His mercy, (v23?), some exist to glorify His wrath and “to make known his power”
Though it may be a hard pill to swallow initially, I have no problem with this. Do you? It seems like you do.
Again, please clarify.
Joseff,
The answer is I struggle with it. I’m a believer in Eternal Conscious Torment who wants to be an Annihilationist.
However, this is a tangential issue to what is being discussed. Whether or not I believe in the traditional views of hell has no bearing on whether or not my objections to Calvinism are valid. To suggest so would be to commit the ad hominem fallacy.
You’re right, it is tangential to the actual topic. That what makes it strange that you chose to go off on it 🙂 It seemed like your strategy was this:
“If I paint a bad enough picture of hell, that would make Calvinism look worse, because Calvinism says that God lets people go to hell by not electing them!”
Isn’t this also some sort of logical fallacy? I believe it could be filed under any number of them 🙂
Ahh good ole Romans 9. The good ole trump card in the Calvinists arsenal. This passage has been discussed ad nauseum on this site and many others as well as book after book for the past 300 years. I think there are a couple quick points I will make rather than typing out 20 pages of junk.
1. The Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9 is far from the only interpretation.
2. The traditional view even among most Calvinists has been that wrath is NOT a divine attribute, but rather a outflow of God’s attribute of righteousness.
3. I actually agree that the easiest way to interpret Romans 9 is the Calvinist interpretation. Likewise there are numerous other verses which are much easier to interpret in the Arminian system. I reject the Calvinist interpretation based upon the logical inferences that must flow from the interpretation and the violence that such inferences do to language. As I said in an earlier post to accept the Calvinist God as the real God and then to read the attributes ascribed to him in the Bible as being true would do such violence to language as to render language and the entire Bible with it meaningless and unintelligible. If God can behave like Hitler and still be “good” then I can’t tell you what the meaning of a single word in the Bible is.
Isn’t this also some sort of logical fallacy? I believe it could be filed under any number of them 🙂
It would be if 1) the description was inaccurate, or 2) the description wasn’t followed by the assertion that God is good. Simply painting a picture of the God of Calvinism to suggest Calvinism was false would be a logical fallacy. Suggesting that such a picture is accurate and incompatible with a God who is good is a argument, not a logical fallacy.
Michael, I never argued for certain interpretations of the entirety of Romans 9. I simply pasted 3 simply verses. Regardless which overall hermeneutic to apply to Romans 9, the fact remains that verses 21-23 say what they say.
The principle remains the same, does it not? Whether a person is an Arminian or a Calvinist, God creates vessels for different purposes. God desires to display His wrath and power.
It’s a well written article, except that I didn’t see any explanation about how your view fits within the context of Adam & Eve, pre-Fall. It’s not a real simple issue, from the standpoint of Calvinism, as the following quotes reveal:
John Calvin writes: “But now, removing from God all proximate causation of the act, I at the same time remove from Him all guilt and leave man alone liable. It is therefore wicked and calumnious to say that I make the fall of man one of the works of God. But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man’s future was without God being implicated as associate in the fault as the author or approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.123-124)
Calvinist. R.C. Sproul, states: “But Adam and Eve were not created fallen. They had no sin nature. They were good creatures with a free will. Yet they chose to sin. Why? I don’t know. Nor have I found anyone yet who does know.” (Chosen By God, p.31)
I know it looks like I’m dodging the question and the truth is that I am dodging the question, not because I don’t have an answer, but because I simply don’t want to make this debate about Romans 9. CMP did a post on this passage a few weeks ago and there are 100’s of responses to it there. The Arminianperspectives blog also has numerous articles on this passage. Suffice to say I (along with almost all Arminians) reject your understanding of those verses.
Also the “three simple verses which say what the say thing. Wouldn’t say that – sounds like you’re proof-texting. I can find three verses in the Bible to support just about anything. One must understand the whole counsel of Scripture as well as the context of the passage being cited. It is from a different understanding of the context and point of the entire passage of Romans 9 from which the Arminian objection would arise. Not just looking at those three verses exclusive of anything else.
Here let me give a syllogism which may help you with one of the arguments I’ve made earlier
1. Romans 9 means God created billions of sentient beings solely for the purpose of displaying his wrath by subjecting them to eternal conscious torment
2. God is spoken of many times in the Bible as being “love”, “merciful”, “good”, etc.
3. To describe the God in premise 1 by the adjectives in premise 2 stretches these adjectives so far beyond their ordinary meaningthat they often mean the opposite of their ordinary meaning.
4. This in turn renders the very language God uses to reveal Himself meaningless and unintelligible.
5. This in turn renders Romans 9 itself meaningless and unintelligible
Joseff:
I would agree that at face value, out of context, the three quoted verses in Romans 9 lend to an interpretation such as the one you offered.
Allow me to mention a few verses of my own:
Genesis 18:20-21
Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” (note: this is a record of what God himself said)
These verses “say what they say”. Do you interpret these at face value? If not, why do you not believe what the Bible clearly teaches?
Let’s be honest; there are many individual verses and passages in Scripture that nobody takes at face value, because doing so will contradict everything else the Bible says on the matter. If the doctrine you pull from those three verses was found in various other places throughout the Bible, there wouldn’t be a problem. It isn’t. That’s why extreme Calvinists (I won’t say hyper) constantly and predictably run back to these three verses.
With regards to being credited with Adam’s sin, even though we had no choice otherwise, I believe the simple truth is that even if we were all given the “Eden-state” of Adam, we would all choose sin regardless.
If a person has the ability to sin, he will sin. Maybe not as quickly as Adam (though we really don’t know how quickly that was), but eventually, given the temptation, he will.
God knows this. That is why he’s just in affiliating us all with Adam and his sin.
The only way that a person can avoid sin is to (a) be regenerate (in which case the ability to sin still exists and is always warring) or (b) have a glorified body that is unable to sin. (quick question here…in glorified state do we actually have the inability to sin or just the unwillingess?)
I believe Joseff’s garage cleaning analogy stands up, at least in this way. If the son, who at the beginning had the choice of cleaning the garage or getting drunk, chose to get drunk, then that was his choice. We, in that same position, may have cleaned part of the garage, but eventually we would have been tempted by the drink and fallen in the same way (especially if we were told by the father not to drink it and we really had no idea what it would do to us — and some less-than-honest neighbor told us it was totally safe to drink). So it doesn’t really matter if we are born “drunk” from the outset or not, either way the garage does not get clean.
I do think the analogy has some issues with inability vs. unwillingness, but those were already addressed. (Replace getting drunk with “distracting, attractive bright and shiny object that is more interesting than garage-cleaning” and it may work a little better).
Great post Michael….though I was wondering what “antagonism towards Gog” looks like. 😉
Morning everyone!
Yo Michael!
You said:
—
1. Romans 9 means God created billions of sentient beings solely for the purpose of displaying his wrath by subjecting them to eternal conscious torment
2. God is spoken of many times in the Bible as being “love”, “merciful”, “good”, etc.
3. To describe the God in premise 1 by the adjectives in premise 2 stretches these adjectives so far beyond their ordinary meaningthat they often mean the opposite of their ordinary meaning.
4. This in turn renders the very language God uses to reveal Himself meaningless and unintelligible.
5. This in turn renders Romans 9 itself meaningless and unintelligible
—
First I think I should clarify something. In Romans 9 it clearly says “out of the same lump” some vessels were created for mercy, others for wrath.
Calvinists understand this “lump” to be fallen, sinful, guilty humanity. That is, out of the mass of fallen sinners who all deserve hell, justly, some are given mercy, others are given justice and wrath.
Perhaps this clears things up. It seems like you think Calvinists understand this to simply be saying “God created innocent human beings and then assigned some to heaven or hell without regard to them first being, in His eyes, deserving of either”
In other words, God didn’t make vessels of mercy and wrath out of simply “the human race”, he made them out of the lump of “the fallen human race”.
Therefore, there is no possible way you can convince me that this does damage to God’s loving, merciful character. For He saves, out of the fallen mass of hell deserving humanity, billions and billions, when he SHOULD send them to hell to receive justice.
Giving justice to criminals is not an act that somehow diminishes ones “love”. Justice and love are not enemies of each other. Some guilty sinners receive mercy (Saved by grace alone), some guilty sinners receive justice. Nobody receives injustice at the hands of God.
In response to those who are relying on their “free-will”– one thing I’m thankful for every day is that my destiny is not dependent upon my own will (one that is rather weak and sinful), but rather, has been taken charge of by One powerful enough to protect and guard it and bring it to a good outcome.
Ron, you said about Romans 9: 21-23, “If the doctrine you pull from those three verses was found in various other places throughout the Bible, there wouldn’t be a problem. It isn’t. ”
The doctrine of God’s sovereignty in election– and in all things for that matter—that is clear in Romans 9:21- 23, is also supported throughout Scripture. There isn’t a thing that occurs that is not within God’s knowledge and control. Did God create a world and creatures and leave it to run itself? Scripture answers no. There is a destiny for this world and a reason why He has created all things. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1: 7-10, see also 1 Cor 15:28).”
Jesus said that we ought not to worry about what we shall eat or what we shall wear, because God feeds the birds every day and clothes the grass of the field (Luke 12: 22-31). So in the matter of the eternal destiny of each individual, does God not also exercise control? He will feed and clothe us but leave our eternal destiny alone? Now as even the ones chosen by God continue to war within themselves, as someone above mentioned, then all would surely lose their salvation if salvation was based upon performance.
God is loving, compassionate and merciful yes; He is also holy, righteous and just. He has chosen to be merciful and save some out of a mass of people who were neither deserving nor worthy of His mercy. Our fallen state Scripture describes as being self-inflicted therefore culpable. As Danquo points out, “With regards to being credited with Adam’s sin, even though we had no choice otherwise, I believe the simple truth is that even if we were all given the “Eden-state” of Adam, we would all choose sin regardless.”
I would add that if we really desire fairness, and think that being credited with Adam’s sin and guilt is unfair, we should also object to Jesus’ righteousness and perfect spotlessness being credited to us despite the fact that we have not and could never have earned it.
There have been quite a few comments since yesterday and I am at a disadvantage since my access to the internet is extremely limited (I do not have the internet at home). I will try to address a few of the objections I have noticed that have been directed towards me.
Sam wrote,
Saying that **LFW maintains that we sometimes have the power of contrary (or better: alternative) choice** seems ridiculous. What it practically says is that we SOMETIMES have LFW. That just shows how bankrupt LFW is as a theory.
I don’t see that it makes the theory bankrupt, though it might reveal your understanding of it to be bankrupt. All I am saying is that choice is only meaningful when legitimate options are present. You can choose something if you have nothing to choose from. LFW says that when there are legitimate options present the will has full ability to choose either of two or more existing alternatives. If there are no alternatives there can be no choice. The inherent power remains but cannot be employed when there are no alternatives. That seems rather basic to me and hardly makes free will a “bankrupt” theory.
Also, I would be very careful about calling LFW bankrupt without addressing the serious problems that arise from your own position. Patton has already appealed to mystery twice in order to defend his compatibilism (which I assume you also hold). For several strong refutations of Edwardsian compatibilism, see here.
The work by Whedon is especially devastating in my opinion.
I think you guys see that LFW is bankrupt, but you just keep clinging to this idol. You come up with ad hoc definitions of **sometimes** having LFW and other times not. You admit that one in bondage of sin cannot do otherwise than sin. You have put so many holes in LFW that there really is no use in having it even…
I believe St. Paul when he says that “no one seeks for God.”
I believe Jesus when he says that “we don’t choose Him, but that He chooses us.”
I believe Holy Scripture when it says that “we are not born of blood, nor the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
God is not some sort of puny god that comes to the door like a mendicant begging for us to make a decision about him.
He is a real God who acts. He makes the decisions.
To me, it looks like that death on the cross was the decision.
When we come to faith, God ought get ALL the credit. When we don’t…we ought get ALL the blame.
Sorry, cut off part of my response above…
I think you guys see that LFW is bankrupt, but you just keep clinging to this idol. You come up with ad hoc definitions of **sometimes** having LFW and other times not. You admit that one in bondage of sin cannot do otherwise than sin. You have put so many holes in LFW that there really is no use in having it even if it were real.
You are still missing the point. The Arminian position says that God enables the sinner to put faith in Christ while not rendering it impossible to reject Him. So at that moment a real choice can take place since it creates a framework of possibilities where one can truly choose between genuine alternatives. Again, just because you do not understand LFW doesn’t mean it is “bankrupt”. And I would also strongly caution your rhetoric in calling it an idol. No one here is claiming to worship free will. We only affirm it because we believe it is Biblical and comports with reality. We could just as easily say that your views are driven by a commitment to the idol of determinism.
Would someone that believes in LFW please prove that they have this power of contrary choice?
I would appeal to Scripture where I think numerous passages force the issue. Also, I believe the burden of proof rests on those who want to say it does not exists since we all intuitively sense that we have this power. Even Calvinists tend to admit this. So the one who wants to object to what is such a common experience needs to shoulder the burden of proof in my opinion. I would also appeal to the normal use of words like “choose” which are rendered rather meaningless in a deterministic framework.
The Scriptures make it quite clear that we are born dead in our sins and trespasses. We can certainly choose…but all our choices (concerning God) are bound in sin.
We reject God by nature.
God gives us the gift of faith totally apart from anything that we do, say, feel, or think.
Revisit Jesus’ conversation with Niccodemus.
We could no more choose to be born again, than we could choose to be born the first time.
What was St. Paul doing when he made his decision for Christ?
Like the rest of us, God made GHis decision for Saul (Paul) while he was in active rebellion to Him.
Sam wrote,
And when it comes to God, do we actually believe that his choices are less than perfect. Why did God create… becasue it was the perfect choice. Saying that God had to create out of necessity misses the boat. God created because it was the perfect choice to make for a perfect being.
God is perfect but that doesn’t mean that a certain choice is the only “perfect” choice. Are you saying that it would have been imperfect for God to not create? That seems to suggest that God needed creation in order to be perfect somehow, which threatens His asiety. Also, you would then saying that God’s choice to “elect” you was the only “perfect” choice He could have made. That must make you feel pretty special. Must be hard not to boast in the idea that God’s election of you was necessitated by His perfection.
The really awesome part though is that since natural man is under the bondage of sin he cannot fulfill the law. So what he effectively has is the power to pick from a variety of bad choices that is, if this is an instance where he has LFW. Seeing as SOMETIMES man may not have this LFW.
Right, but this is not to say that we can not make “good” choices in a relative sense. But even those good choices would fall short of God’s holy standard since they would not proceed from an attitude of faith or a right relationship with God.
Thank you Arminianperspectives with your statements above.
I personally reject the idea of prevenient grace, and I think I speak for many people here, because if the will is simply “freed up” and able to choose for Christ, it doesn’t really matter. The person still has a stony, unregenerate heart, and is still hostile towards God, he still finds the gospel foolishness, he is still in the category of “Nobody seeks God”.
So to simply give him the choice between God and sin is not going to do anything for him. Given what we know of the biblical picture of fallen, unregenerate man, we can say with confidence that the man will always consistently choose to reject the God he hates and remain in the sins his loves.
I am firmly convinced that God needs to do more than offer a choice – he needs to change the heart. He needs to implant the desire for Christ, because by nature, it is not there. He needs to make the gospel appeal as beautiful to the person, because by nature, it is foolishness. He needs to make Jesus look wonderful, because by nature, he is the enemy of Jesus.
I say, unregenerate fallen man (even with prev. grace) seeks for God about as much as a criminal seeks for a police officer.
If God gives prevenient grace, and then sits back to see what happens, without actually coming in to do CONVERSION, the entire human race would perish into hell, willingly.
(Tried posting this earlier but don’t think it came through– hopefully this won’t be a double post)….
In response to those who are relying on their “free-will”– one thing I’m thankful for every day is that my destiny is not dependent upon my own will (one that is rather weak and sinful), but rather, has been taken charge of by One powerful enough to protect and guard it and bring it to a good outcome.
Ron, you said about Romans 9: 21-23, “If the doctrine you pull from those three verses was found in various other places throughout the Bible, there wouldn’t be a problem. It isn’t. ”
The doctrine of God’s sovereignty in election– and in all things for that matter—that is clear in Romans 9:21- 23, is also supported throughout Scripture. There isn’t a thing that occurs that is not within God’s knowledge and control. Did God create a world and creatures and leave it to run itself? Scripture answers no. There is a destiny for this world and a reason why He has created all things. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, n according to his purpose, which he w set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1: 7-10, or see 1 Cor 15:28).”
Jesus said that we ought not to worry about what we shall eat or what we shall wear, because God feeds the birds every day and clothes the grass of the field (Luke 12: 22-31). So in the matter of the eternal destiny of each individual, does God not also exercise control? He will feed and clothe us but leave our eternal destiny alone? Now as even the ones chosen by God continue to war within themselves, as someone above mentioned, then all would surely lose their salvation if salvation was based upon performance.
God is loving, compassionate and merciful yes; He is also holy, righteous and just. He has chosen to be merciful and save some out of a mass of people who were neither deserving nor worthy of His mercy. Our fallen state Scripture describes as being self-inflicted therefore culpable. As Danquo points out, “With regards to being credited with Adam’s sin, even though we had no choice otherwise, I believe the simple truth is that even if we were all given the “Eden-state” of Adam, we would all choose sin regardless.”
I would add that if we really desire fairness, and think that being credited with Adam’s sin and guilt is unfair, we should also object to Jesus’ righteousness and perfect spotlessness being credited to us despite the fact that we have not and could never have earned it.
Joseff,
Obviously all Calvinists do not look at Romans 9 the same way you do.
Here is an article by John Piper:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TopicIndex/84_Predestination/125_How_God_Makes_Known_the_Riches_of_His_Glory_to_the_Vessels_of_Mercy/
In it he says:
“Paul has portrayed God as absolutely sovereign. He decides who will believe and undeservingly be saved and who will rebel and deservingly perish. Before they were born or had done anything good or evil, he loves Jacob and gives Esau over to wickedness and destruction (9:11-13). He is free and unconstrained from influences outside himself when he decrees who will receive mercy and who will not (9:15-18).”
Notice he says that God decides who will rebel and perish. Not simply that God passes over some of the already disobedient ones.
And then he goes on to quote from Jonathan Edwards and uses his statement to buttress his position. This quote is under the heading: “Edwards on Why God Ordained That Evil Be”
“Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.”
God actively ordained evil and that some should be rebellious in this belief system that is a part of Calvinism.
Sam wrote,
Do you see how the admittance that man under bondage to sin can only sin is a problem for LFW? You see if you are correct and not having this power of contrary choice means that there is no legitimate choice involved then how can God judge us under LFW theory on what we do? Unless you mean to imply that all mankind has now been freed from this bondage to sin?
No. But God ultimately judges us based on our faith in or rejection of Christ. Even if we could not help but to eventually actualize sin due to the pull of our sinful natures and numerous temptations we face daily, God can hold us accountable for our sins based on the fact that we reject the way of escape and resist the grace and kindness of God that would lead us on to repentance (had we not resisted it). Ultimately, that is what characterizes our sin, a continual resistance of God’s grace and mercy.
Chery, I think you are confusing two things.
In the one case I was defending that the “same lump” was sinful humanity, not “innocent humanity”. In other words, the difference between infra/supralapsarianism.
But in the other case it is not unbiblical to say that God ordained that people be rebellious. You see, fallen people are rebellious by nature. God doesn’t have to “do anything” to get people to be rebellious. They are already like that.
It is in this sense that I believe Piper and Edwards can say with Biblical authority that God chooses who will rebel and perish.
You cannot deny the plain words of Paul on this matter. God raised up Pharaoh for the purpose of displaying his power and wrath in him. To make an example out of him.
Every prominent Calvinist believes in “double predestination” my friend, but what you must understand is double predestination is not symmetrical. It is not two sides of the same coin.
All humans due to the fall are rebellious and reject God. Out of that larger group, God saves some of them. The rest remain in rebellion, not because God is actively preventing them from coming to repentance. But he acts passively to let them remain in the state they desire to be in: rebellion.
All humans, by nature, desire to be in a state of rebellion against God. The question you must ask yourself is, if that is true, how is it that you are saved, then? Because you chose to come out of rebellion? Or because of God’s grace? If the former, how is that possible if the statement is true that all humans desire to be in a state of rebellion against God and find Christ foolishness? Calvinists have no problem answering: because of grace.
CMP,
Your comments in #97 seem like a dodge to me. The free will position makes complete sense of Adam’s sin. Adam freely chose between alternatives that were presented to him (to obey or disobey). The question of Satan is not that hard to answer either. God wanted to provide an environment where Adam and Eve could face a test and prove what they valued more (God or some alternative). They feely chose to value the alternative according to the God given capacity to make a choice. Did they have reasons for doing so? Absolutely. Were there influences at work? Absolutely. But it begs the question to say that these things irresistibly caused their decisions. I find it strange that you are willing to appeal to mystery in so many realms in order to preserve determinism but will not allow for any mystery in the inner workings of the human will. Instead of allowing it to be a unique category or power, you say it must be either determined or random. But in so many other either/or scenarios raised against your own view, it just becomes a matter of “mystery”. Maybe this is just a case of “pick your mystery”. But in such a case we cannot call an opposing system incoherent if we simply appeal to mystery when our own system is shown to be incoherent.
God Bless,
Ben
AP,
ME The really awesome part though is that since natural man is under the bondage of sin he cannot fulfill the law. So what he effectively has is the power to pick from a variety of bad choices that is, if this is an instance where he has LFW. Seeing as SOMETIMES man may not have this LFW.
YOU Right, but this is not to say that we can not make “good” choices in a relative sense. But even those good choices would fall short of God’s holy standard since they would not proceed from an attitude of faith or a right relationship with God.
So man in bondage to sin can do nothing but sin. Even this “relative sense” that you wrote about still amounts to nothing more than SIN. I’m struggling to see how LFW is of any use to this man. Sure he can help an old lady cross the road and maybe in a “relative sense” that is “good”, but even this is still SIN. What exactly does LFW accomplish or do for this man? Sure he can go through life doing “good in a relative sense”, but it still amounts to SIN.
Nice one, Sam!
“All our righteous deeds are filthy rags.”
(and that includes OUR decision for Christ)
(I tried posting the following comments earlier but I think the comment was too long and therefore got deleted or never posted- so I will separate my comments into separate sections and re-post)…
In response to those who are relying on their “free-will”– one thing I’m thankful for every day is that my destiny is not dependent upon my own will (one that is rather weak and sinful), but rather, has been taken charge of by One powerful enough to protect and guard it and bring it to a good outcome.
Ron, you said about Romans 9: 21-23, “If the doctrine you pull from those three verses was found in various other places throughout the Bible, there wouldn’t be a problem. It isn’t. ”
The doctrine of God’s sovereignty in election– and in all things for that matter—that is clear in Romans 9:21- 23, is also supported throughout Scripture. There isn’t a thing that occurs that is not within God’s knowledge and control. Did God create a world and creatures and leave it to run itself? Scripture answers no. There is a destiny for this world and a reason why He has created all things. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, n according to his purpose, which he w set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph 1: 7-10, or see 1 Cor 15:28).”