Posted on 02/24/2003 9:12:32 AM PST by Frumanchu
PREDESTINATION seems to cast a shadow on the very heart of human freedom. If God has decided our destinies from all eternity, that strongly suggests that our free choices are but charades, empty exercises in predetermined playacting. It is as though God wrote the script for us in concrete and we are merely carrying out his scenario.
To get a handle on the puzzling relationship between predestination and free will, we must first define free will. That definition itself is a matter of great debate. Probably the most common definition says free will is the ability to make choices without any prior prejudice, inclination, or disposition. For the will to be free it must act from a posture of neutrality, with absolutely no bias.
On the surface this is very appealing. There are no elements of coercion, either internal or external, to be found in it. Below the surface, however, lurk two serious problems. On the one hand, if we make our choices strictly from a neutral posture, with no prior inclination, then we make choices for no reason. If we have no reason for our choices, if our choices are utterly spontaneous, then our choices have no moral significance. If a choice just happens—it just pops out, with no rhyme or reason for it—then it cannot be judged good or bad. When God evaluates our choices, he is concerned about our motives.
Consider the case of Joseph and his brothers. When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, God’s providence was at work. Years later, when Joseph was reunited with his brothers in Egypt, he declared to them, “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). Here the motive was the decisive factor determining whether the act was good or evil. God’s involvement in Joseph’s dilemma was good; the brothers’ involvement was evil. There was a reason why Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. They had an evil motivation. Their decision was neither spontaneous nor neutral. They were jealous of their brother. Their choice to sell him was prompted by their evil desires.
The second problem this popular view faces is not so much moral as it is rational. If there is no prior inclination, desire, or bent, no prior motivation or reason for a choice, how can a choice even be made? If the will is totally neutral, why would it choose the right or the left? It is something like the problem encountered by Alice in Wonderland when she came to a fork in the road. She did not know which way to turn. She saw the grinning Cheshire cat in the tree. She asked the cat, “Which way should I turn?” The cat replied, “Where are you going?” Alice answered, “I don’t know.” “Then,” replied the Cheshire cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
Consider Alice’s dilemma. Actually she had four options from which to choose. She could have taken the left fork or the right fork. She also could have chosen to return the way she had come. Or she could have stood fixed at the spot of indecision until she died there. For her to take a step in any direction, she would need some motivation or inclination to do so. Without any motivation, any prior inclination, her only real option would be to stand there and perish.
Another famous illustration of the same problem is found in the story of the neutral-willed mule. The mule had no prior desires, or equal desires in two directions. His owner put a basket of oats to his left and a basket of wheat on his right. If the mule had no desire whatsoever for either oats or wheat he would choose neither and starve. If he had an exactly equal disposition toward oats as he had toward wheat he would still starve. His equal disposition would leave him paralyzed. There would be no motive. Without motive there would be no choice. Without choice there would be no food. Without food soon there would be no mule.
We must reject the neutral-will theory not only because it is irrational but because, as we shall see, it is radically unbiblical.
Christian thinkers have given us two very important definitions of free will. We will consider first the definition offered by Jonathan Edwards in his classic work, On the Freedom of the Will.
Edwards defined the will as “the mind choosing.” Before we ever can make moral choices we must first have some idea of what it is we are choosing. Our selection is then based upon what the mind approves or rejects. Our understanding of values has a crucial role to play in our decision-making. My inclinations and motives as well as my actual choices are shaped by my mind. Again, if the mind is not involved, then the choice is made for no reason and with no reason. It is then an arbitrary and morally meaningless act. Instinct and choice are two different things.
A second definition of free will is “the ability to choose what we want.” This rests on the important foundation of human desire. To have free will is to be able to choose according to our desires. Here desire plays the vital role of providing a motivation or a reason for making a choice.
Now for the tricky part. According to Edwards a human being is not only free to choose what he desires but he must choose what he desires to be able to choose at all. What I call Edwards Law of Choice is this: “The will always chooses according to its strongest inclination at the moment.” This means that every choice is free and every choice is determined.
I said it was tricky. This sounds like a blatant contradiction to say that every choice is free and yet every choice is determined. But “determined” here does not mean that some external force coerces the will. Rather it refers to one’s internal motivation or desire. In shorthand the law is this: Our choices are determined by our desires. They remain our choices because they are motivated by our own desires. This is what we call self-determination, which is the essence of freedom.
Think for a minute about your own choices. How and why are they made? At this very instant you are reading the pages of this book. Why? Did you pick up this book because you have an interest in the subject of predestination, a desire to learn more about this complex subject? Perhaps. Maybe this book has been given to you to read as an assignment. Perhaps you are thinking, “I have no desire to read this whatsoever. I have to read it, and I am grimly wading through it to fulfill somebody else’s desire that I read it. All things being equal I would never choose to read this book.”
But all things are not equal, are they? If you are reading this out of some kind of duty or to fulfill a requirement, you still had to make a decision about fulfilling the requirement or not fulfilling the requirement. You obviously decided that it was better or more desirable for you to read this than to leave it unread. Of that much I am sure, or you would not be reading it right now.
Every decision you make is made for a reason. The next time you go into a public place and choose a seat (in a theater, a classroom, a church building), ask yourself why you are sitting where you are sitting. Perhaps it is the only seat available and you prefer to sit rather than to stand. Perhaps you discover that there is an almost unconscious pattern emerging in your seating decisions. Maybe you discover that whenever possible you sit toward the front of the room or toward the rear. Why? Maybe it has something to do with your eyesight. Perhaps you are shy or gregarious. You may think that you sit where you sit for no reason, but the seat that you choose will always be chosen by the strongest inclination you have at the moment of decision. That inclination may merely be that the seat closest to you is free and that you don’t like to walk long distances to find a place to sit down.
Decision-making is a complex matter because the options we encounter are often varied and many. Add to that that we are creatures with many and varied desires. We have different, often even conflicting, motivations.
Consider the matter of ice cream cones. Oh, do I have trouble with ice cream cones and ice cream sundaes. I love ice cream. If it is possible to be addicted to ice cream then I must be classified as an ice cream addict. I am at least fifteen pounds overweight, and I am sure that at least twenty of the pounds that make up my body are there because of ice cream. Ice cream proves the adage to me, “A second on the lips; a lifetime on the hips.” And, “Those who indulge bulge.” Because of ice cream I have to buy my shirts with a bump in them.
Now, all things being equal, I would like to have a slim, trim body. I don’t like squeezing into my suits and having little old ladies pat me on the tummy. Tummy-patting seems to be an irresistible temptation for some folks. I know what I have to do to get rid of those excess pounds. I have to stop eating ice cream. So I go on a diet. I go on the diet because I want to go on the diet. I want to lose weight. I desire to look better. Everything is fine until someone invites me to Swenson’s. Swenson’s makes the greatest “Super Sundaes” in the world. I know I shouldn’t go to Swenson’s. But I like to go to Swenson’s. When the moment of decision comes I am faced with conflicting desires. I have a desire to be thin and I have a desire for a Super Sundae. Whichever desire is greater at the time of decision is the desire I will choose. It’s that simple.
Now consider my wife. As we prepare to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary I am aware that she is exactly the same weight as she was the day we were married. Her wedding gown still fits her perfectly. She has no great problem with ice cream. Most eating establishments only carry vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Any of those make my mouth water, but they offer no enticement to my wife. Aha! But there is Baskin Robbins. They have pralines and cream ice cream. When we go to the mall and pass a Baskin Robbins my wife goes through a strange transformation. Her pace decelerates, her hands get clammy, and I can almost detect the beginning of salivation. (That’s salivation, not salvation.) Now she experiences the conflict of desires that assaults me daily.
We always choose according to our strongest inclination at the moment. Even external acts of coercion cannot totally take away our freedom. Coercion involves acting with some kind of force, imposing choices upon people that, if left to themselves, they would not choose. I certainly have no desire to pay the kind of income taxes that the government makes me pay. I can refuse to pay them, but the consequences are less desirable than paying them. By threatening me with jail the government is able to impose its will upon me to pay taxes.
Or consider the case of armed robbery. A gunman steps up to me and says, “Your money or your life.” He has just restricted my options to two. All things being equal I have no desire to donate my money to him. There are far more worthy charities than he. But suddenly my desires have changed as a result of his act of external coercion. He is using force to provoke certain desires within me. Now I must choose between my desire to live and my desire to give him my money. I might as well give him the money because if he kills me he will take my money anyway. Some people might choose to refuse, saying, “I would rather die than choose to hand this gunman my money. He’ll have to take it from my dead body.”
In either case, a choice is made. And it is made according to the strongest inclination at the moment. Think, if you can, of any choice you have ever made that was not according to the strongest inclination you had at the moment of decision. What about sin? Every Christian has some desire in his heart to obey Christ. We love Christ and we want to please him. Yet every Christian sins. The hard truth is that at the moment of our sin we desire the sin more strongly than we desire to obey Christ. If we always desired to obey Christ more than we desired to sin, we would never sin.
Does not the Apostle Paul teach otherwise? Does he not recount for us a situation in which he acts against his desires? He says in Romans, “The good that I would, I do not, and that which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7:19, KJV). Here it sounds as if, under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, Paul is teaching clearly that there are times in which he acts against his strongest inclination.
It is extremely unlikely that the apostle is here giving us a revelation about the technical operation of the will. Rather, he is stating plainly what every one of us has experienced. We all have a desire to flee from sin. The “all things being equal” syndrome is in view here. All things being equal, I would like to be perfect. I would like to be rid of sin, just as I would like to be rid of my excess weight. But my desires do not remain constant. They fluctuate. When my stomach is full it is easy to go on a diet. When my stomach is empty my desire level changes. Temptations arise with the changing of my desires and appetites. Then I do things that, all things being equal, I would not want to do.
Paul sets before us the very real conflict of human desires, desires that yield evil choices. The Christian lives within a battlefield of conflicting desires. Christian growth involves the strengthening of desires to please Christ accompanied by the weakening of desires to sin. Paul called it the warfare between the flesh and the Spirit.
To say that we always choose according to our strongest inclination at the moment is to say that we always choose what we want. At every point of choice we are free and self-determined. To be self-determined is not the same thing as determinism. Determinism means that we are forced or coerced to do things by external forces. External forces can, as we have seen, severely limit our options, but they cannot destroy choice altogether. They cannot impose delight in things we hate. When that happens, when hatred turns to delight, it is a matter of persuasion, not coercion. I cannot be forced to do what I take delight in doing already.
The neutral view of free will is impossible. It involves choice without desire. That is like having an effect without a cause. It is something from nothing, which is irrational. The Bible makes it clear that we choose out of our desires. A wicked desire produces wicked choices and wicked actions. A godly desire produces godly deeds. Jesus spoke in terms of corrupt trees producing corrupt fruit. A fig tree does not yield apples and an apple tree produces no figs. So righteous desires produce righteous choices and evil desires produce evil choices.
Sproul, R. (. C. 1986. Chosen by God. Tyndale House Publishers: Wheaton, IL
Not at all corin...All men do exactly as they will to do..Every man will act in accordance to his nature and his preferences.
The fallen nature was not "given" by God..It was a result of the fall a consequence of it
God indeed knows our preferences because he placed them in us before the foundation of the world..He knows what we will choose....as Romans tells us we are sinful beings that will never choose to do good..never. Unregenerate man will always chose to sin..that will always be his choice.
Corin do you think God does not know what sins you will choose to committ?
I think we have to keep going back to Judas..God made Judas in such a way that Judas would be a conflicted man..I believe sincere in his admiration of Christ..but much of that love being founded in Judas own pride and desire for power and money..when it came the moment for God to remove the restraing hand on Judas so the true nature of the man would choose Judas chose exactly as God had expected and predestined by that creation..
Yet Judas at that moment had the same free will all men have..but he acted in a way consistant with his nature
Acts 2:23 This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge
Of course He knows. But, unlike the Calvinists, I don't believe He wants me to sin.
"God is in control of history and it goes where He directs it. Though He does not desire that people sin, He makes room it. Since He is in absolute control, He could have made a world where people did not sin. But since He did allow for it, then sin is, by default, in His plan. God desires that no one sin, yet He made plans for its occurrence. In other words, it is part of the plan of God. If it weren't, it would not have occurred. Therefore, we can plainly see that God can desire one thing and even ordain another by giving it a place in His sovereign plan. Therefore, God can desire all be saved, but not ordain that all are by making provision in His plan for their damnation: "The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil," (Prov. 16:4)." ( From the Calvinist corner)
Seems like "The Calvinist Corner" (whoever the heck they are) also agrees that God makes people sin.
God makes no one sin, Corin. While God's Plan takes sin into account as a necessary part of it, God did not cause it. If it were not part of God's Plan, it wouldn't have happened, plain and simple. God's Will is that you not sin. Man's will is to sin. Adam made that choice, and we're all victims of his bad choice. But Adam's sin did not take God by surprise. God knew that Adam would sin. That in no way makes God the author of sin, as you keep trying to accuse Calvinists falsely of teaching and believing. You claim to have sat under Calvinist teaching for a time. Consider that it may not have been taught by a qualified or skilled teacher, and that would explain why you obviously don't understand Calvinist teaching, despite our repeated attempts to explain it. You really do not understand it. Of course, in order to be taught, one must have a teachable spirit and an open mind, neither of which you have displayed on this thread. That is not an attempt to insult you, it is a statement of fact which can be seen by all who have participated here. I apologize in advance if that offends you, as it wasn't meant to do so.
I do not usually wear the label of Calvinist, and some on these threads would say I'm a 4/5th Calvinist. I prefer to be labeled as a Christian who loves the Lord and serves Him, but if it makes you feel better to call me a Calvinist, then I'll take the label and wear it. That's not worth arguing or striving over. But I will vigorously stand in defense of the Word of God against all who would twist, distort, or corrupt its truth, no matter how right they may think they are. Not because God needs me to defend it (He doesn't), but because in so doing, I grow, I learn, and I understand better the God whom I serve, and whose I am. I retain an open mind, an open heart, and a spirit willing to be taught. As long as I do that, God will not allow me to be led into error, but into truth. That's the faith I have in Him, and in His Word.
There's no need to be patronizing just because your crowd can't defend your theology.
Sorry, I've also been on these threads for over a year now. The way your buddies have presented Calvinism, we sin because God makes us.
Now, if that's not what you believe, good. 'Cause it ain't right.
But even though no one will state it honestly, that's what has been taught here as Calvinism. And when we point it out you squeal like a stuck pig.
Patronizing? Hardly! Merely pointing out what I see and hear. It is obvious to me that you do not have a clear understanding of the Calvinist position, and that you haven't learned the finer points of constructing a logical argument. You drop "bombs" designed to supposedly "answer" arguments, or "disprove" someone else's position, but you don't engage in actual logical presentation of your position and why you believe it to be right. You're more content to act as a "yes man" for ftD than to actually present a cogent and logically laid out statement of your belief and why you believe it. Just quoting "proof texts" isn't going to cut it, because we can lob those back and forth at each other all day long.
Saying that God makes man sin is like saying that because you allowed your teenage son to drive the car, and he has an accident, that you caused him to wreck the car; or, because you allowed your daughter to go out on a date, and she has sex and gets pregnant, that you caused her pregnancy. That is precisely the logic you are employing, and it is obviously wrong. No Calvinist I know of would hold to such a position, that God causes man to sin, or that God is the author (originator) of sin. That connection exists within your own mind, due to faulty understanding of the Calvinist position.
You accuse others here of dishonesty, and I can't help but wonder about the three fingers on your pointing hand that point back at you when you make that accusation....
I see absolute foreknowledge coming to exactly the same conclusion.
Now you're playing the same game as ftD. You can't just give a straightforward answer. Do you agree that the will is governed by desire? Yes or no?
All agree that God abhors sin, but all must also agree that God in some manner must tolerate sin or there would BE no sin. If God had an absolute intolerance for sin, He never would have created us in the first place.
So, if both sides agree that God must tolerate sin, we must both answer the question above as to what greater purpose would have God tolerate that which He hates. Both sides also have to explain why God restrains some sin and allows other sin to happen.
Making the logical leap that because Reformed theology has God somehow willingly permitting sin He must be the author of that sin is foolish because non-Reformed theology must address the exact same permissiveness on the part of God. Classic pot and kettle situation.
And you know the response I get back from the Calvinists here?
Could I have stopped the wreck? After all, I could've prevented him from driving the car, couldn't I?
So I must've wanted him to have the wreck and must've wanted the daughter to get pregnant.
Right?
Funny that's the "answer" you give in response to my question.
Not foolish at all. It goes back to the Sovereignty issue.
I believe God allows sin to happen. When I've used the examples of 9-11, the holocaust, Andrea Yates, etc., I've gotten the "Could God have stopped it if He wanted to?" implying that God wanted it to happen.
God allowing something to happen and wanting something to happen are two entirely different things.
The Calvinist brethren here have told me for over a year that God wanted it all to happen for His good pleasure.
No, Corin. I've already answered the question you asked several times in the forum. You want the answer, you go back and look. I posted what I did because your response to my previous post was not to comment on its validity or soundness, but rather to jump on to something else. My post wasn't to answer your question, it was to show how you're being evasive (which is only perpetuated by #292).
That's my understanding of Calvinism as well. And I simply can't read that any other way than to believe that it means God decides what sins people will commit and then causes them to commit.
That is not what that says corin..Would you rather that God not foreknow sin?
So if your daughter gets pregnant that child can not part of Gods plan?
Corin does God have any say at all in the affairs of man?
Rn, it's not the foreknowing that's the issue with us.
It's the fact that it is part of God's plan. If you can show that you're simply talking about foreknowledge, I'd like to see that quote.
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