Right off the bat, I want to make you cognizant of the two sorts of will in us--temporal/mundane and spiritual or moral. God has uniquely made man a moral creature because he has a mind and a will, and man alone has the ability to make moral choices for which he is responsible and will be held accountable and judged unless he is redeemed. Spiritual choices pertaining to salvation are subject to the grace of God. We have the ability to choose (or faculty of choice intact) of what sort of cola we want, but we don't have the innate or inherent ability to choose the Way of salvation in Christ apart from the grace of God (John 15:5). If someone says he went to the altar and received Christ all by himself with no aid from Christ or the Holy Spirit, he probably also left the altar without Christ too.
When we are left to ourselves we don't choose Christ. That is the problem, man chooses evil and God did something about it by choosing some (the elect) to be saved by predestination because of His purpose and grace--not because of anything we did (or it would be on the basis of works and merit and election is unconditional and made before we did anything). God could have chosen to condemn everyone (He didn't have to save anyone!), but He decided to show mercy on whom He will show mercy and condemn those He chooses to pass over and withhold grace. Some receive grace and some justice, but God is unjust to no one. Grace and mercy are forms of non-justice, but not of injustice.
God is sovereign over all of creation and made us of a certain temperament and character without our input. There is no maverick molecule, so to speak, in the cosmos. We act according to our nature (choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, bipolar, extrovert, introvert, antisocial, etc.). As an analogy, why do you think a dove prefers seed and a vulture feasts on carrion? So little of the factors of a decision is based upon our choice because God is able to manipulate all circumstances to bring about His will so that His sovereignty is not limited by our freedom. Jesus said in John 15:5, "Apart from Me you can do nothing."
We cannot even believe apart from the grace of God (Acts 18:27 says, "...he greatly helped those who through grace had believed"). "For it has been granted unto you to believe..." (Phil. 1:29). Faith is a gift and not a work, or we would be saved by works and have merit before God to boast of. We don't conjure it up but it comes "by the hearing and hearing by the Word" (Rom. 10:17). Our ultimate destiny, therefore, is in the hands of God. He decided whom to save apart from our input. This is a hard teaching to accept and Jesus said in John 6:44 that no one can come to the Father unless the Father "draws" him. The wooing or enticing of the Spirit is essential, necessary, and sufficient. We cannot come to the Father unless it has been granted,
Martin Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will and said that freedom of the will is too grandiose a term to describe our state. We don't need free will to be saved, but wills set free--we are not born free or innocent, but in bondage and enslaved to sin and our sin nature. Philippians 2:13 (ESV) says, "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." God can make the unwilling willing at will per Psalm 110:3.
I do not believe in determinism, which is robotic coercion. We are not puppets on a string. God never forces anyone to do something against his will--He simply changes your will willingly--we are all voluntary slaves to sin. We have input and are responsible moral agents for our choices. We didn't cease to be men at the fall, but ceased being good--our inclination to good was lost and we are basically evil and sinful fallen creatures, not basically and inherently good. Augustine summed up our state by saying we are free, but not freed (we have lost our liberty). The freedom of the will is a curse and poison because we are bound to choose against Christ apart from His divine intervention. We all act according to enlightened self-interest and according to our God-given nature. God doesn't force us to do anything we don't want to do (i.e., there is no outside force) which would make us robots or automata. We do have self-determination, which is real freedom, in that we make decisions ourselves. The miracle is that God is able to change our heart and transform a heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:27).
If we were really free, we would be able to say: "Henceforth, I will only desire only good and not sin." (We are slaves to sin our will is fallen too and needs to be set free by Christ by grace.) This is where our freedom ends and we suffer the consequences of our own nature. The sinner retains the faculty of choice and will not be able to blame God for his bad choices--he will have no one to blame but himself at the Great White Throne Judgment. Soli Deo Gloria!
When we are left to ourselves we don't choose Christ. That is the problem, man chooses evil and God did something about it by choosing some (the elect) to be saved by predestination because of His purpose and grace--not because of anything we did (or it would be on the basis of works and merit and election is unconditional and made before we did anything). God could have chosen to condemn everyone (He didn't have to save anyone!), but He decided to show mercy on whom He will show mercy and condemn those He chooses to pass over and withhold grace. Some receive grace and some justice, but God is unjust to no one. Grace and mercy are forms of non-justice, but not of injustice.
God is sovereign over all of creation and made us of a certain temperament and character without our input. There is no maverick molecule, so to speak, in the cosmos. We act according to our nature (choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, bipolar, extrovert, introvert, antisocial, etc.). As an analogy, why do you think a dove prefers seed and a vulture feasts on carrion? So little of the factors of a decision is based upon our choice because God is able to manipulate all circumstances to bring about His will so that His sovereignty is not limited by our freedom. Jesus said in John 15:5, "Apart from Me you can do nothing."
We cannot even believe apart from the grace of God (Acts 18:27 says, "...he greatly helped those who through grace had believed"). "For it has been granted unto you to believe..." (Phil. 1:29). Faith is a gift and not a work, or we would be saved by works and have merit before God to boast of. We don't conjure it up but it comes "by the hearing and hearing by the Word" (Rom. 10:17). Our ultimate destiny, therefore, is in the hands of God. He decided whom to save apart from our input. This is a hard teaching to accept and Jesus said in John 6:44 that no one can come to the Father unless the Father "draws" him. The wooing or enticing of the Spirit is essential, necessary, and sufficient. We cannot come to the Father unless it has been granted,
Martin Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will and said that freedom of the will is too grandiose a term to describe our state. We don't need free will to be saved, but wills set free--we are not born free or innocent, but in bondage and enslaved to sin and our sin nature. Philippians 2:13 (ESV) says, "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." God can make the unwilling willing at will per Psalm 110:3.
I do not believe in determinism, which is robotic coercion. We are not puppets on a string. God never forces anyone to do something against his will--He simply changes your will willingly--we are all voluntary slaves to sin. We have input and are responsible moral agents for our choices. We didn't cease to be men at the fall, but ceased being good--our inclination to good was lost and we are basically evil and sinful fallen creatures, not basically and inherently good. Augustine summed up our state by saying we are free, but not freed (we have lost our liberty). The freedom of the will is a curse and poison because we are bound to choose against Christ apart from His divine intervention. We all act according to enlightened self-interest and according to our God-given nature. God doesn't force us to do anything we don't want to do (i.e., there is no outside force) which would make us robots or automata. We do have self-determination, which is real freedom, in that we make decisions ourselves. The miracle is that God is able to change our heart and transform a heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:27).
If we were really free, we would be able to say: "Henceforth, I will only desire only good and not sin." (We are slaves to sin our will is fallen too and needs to be set free by Christ by grace.) This is where our freedom ends and we suffer the consequences of our own nature. The sinner retains the faculty of choice and will not be able to blame God for his bad choices--he will have no one to blame but himself at the Great White Throne Judgment. Soli Deo Gloria!
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