Is There Justification For Evil?

"Who can say to Him, 'What have you done?" Job 9:12 

"What's wrong with the world?  'I am. sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton.'"

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Pogo, in Walt Kelly's cartoon. 

NOTE: THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF EVIL (MORAL AND NATURAL), I AM CONCERNED WITH THE MORAL ASPECT. 

FIRST:    God justified giving mankind free will when He planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and commanded Adam not to eat of it. Notice that there was one, simple rule to follow!   If there had been no test of obedience, one could say that true love and obedience couldn't exist.  It is impossible for evil to exist with free will and no one choosing it.   

Thus, God gave mankind the right to choose evil without being coerced or inclined in that direction and then prevent them from choosing it. If evil had not existed, then we would have no choice but to obey God and wouldn't be freewill moral agents but mere automatons, puppets, dolls, pets, or robots of God. 

The Bible clearly says God allows evil for His own purposes (Prov. 16:4) and even uses it to glorify Himself and can turn short-term evil into long-term good (Acts 2:23:4:28). All things happen according to God's design and plan (Eph. 1:11).  All things are going according to plan!  (Isaiah 37:26).   We must acknowledge nothing can happen without God's permission if we realize God is sovereign.  If God isn't ultimately in control, what kind of God is He?

But we tend to complain to God when we are the victims of evil: "Why me Lord?" Job probably never contemplated God's justice in allowing evil till it happened to him!  He said, "Must we accept good times from God and not bad times?" (Job 2:10).   "God turns the wrath of man to praise Him!" (Psalm 76:10) and that means God has ultimate purposes we cannot know and everything is for the final glory of God (Romans 11:36) for we were created for the glory of God (Isaiah 43:7). 

We wonder if God has done anything about evil and don't realize we can do something ourselves: God made you! Realize that Jesus was indeed the victim of evil and didn't complain to His Father that He had gotten bad karma or something He didn't deserve: remember, Jesus signed up for the Via Dolorosa and the Passion to the cross for our sakes. He was a willing target of Satan. 

We see in the crucifixion, a gross evil event perpetrated by wrongdoers and malefactors doing Satan's bidding via Rome, but God knows what He is doing and that "all things work together for good for them that love God that are called according to His purpose," (Rom. 8:28). But God allows short-term evil for long-term good. As when he told Joseph about his brothers, "Your brothers meant it for evil but I meant it for good," (Gen. 50:20). 

Evil must run its course because there is an angelic conflict in the spiritual arena between God and Satan and we are in the middle of it and sign up as combatants when we get saved. Good overcomes evil and will defeat it in the end, for Satan is already a defeated foe because of the victory of Christ at the cross and especially in His  resurrection, the victory over death itself. We are to equip ourselves with the weapons and armor of God and fight in Jesus' name. 

At the end of history, evil will be cast away into the lake of fire and will be silenced forever. But it is better in God's eyes to have defeated evil with His goodness than never to have allowed it to enter the equation in the first place. This way, all of us can participate in this war in heavenly places and be rewarded for our own victories with crowns and rewards.  

Only in Christianity is evil actually given meaning and given some sense of justification.  But we must not merely justify evil's existence but find what the answer to it is for the sake of argument: we must not just philosophize about it, grin and bear it, or become mere stoics but have faith in face of evil; this means that the prima facie answer is knowing a Person, namely, Jesus, not words of man, but the Word of God!   

In the final analysis, if God were to eliminate all evil in the world immediately, none of us would be left; only God is good.   Soli Deo Gloria! 

Does God Have Free Will Since He Can Do No Evil?

 We have the ability to make choices, just not spiritual ones. Our free will is a curse because we don’t choose God. Free will is not defined as being free to sin. In heaven, saints will not want to sin anymore and free from its power, unable to sin just like Christ on earth. There will be no temptation to sin and we won’t want to.

God’s free will consists in His ability to do whatsoever He desires: “My counsel shall stand, I will do all my pleasure.” (Cf. Isaiah 46:10); “Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that he did…” (cf. Psalm 135:6). God simply wills no evil. “But he stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases,” (cf. Job 23:13). “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him,” (cf. Psalm 115:6). Nothing nor no one can thwart His will or plans (cf. Job 42:2).

God alone can exercise whatsoever He wills but restricts it to His nature which cannot be contradicted due to His holiness, the attribute that regulates the others, the attribute of attribute. In other words, God always acts in character and there are no arbitrary, capricious, or whimsical actions possible.

“For the good that I would that I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” (cf. Romans 7:19–20). God doesn’t coerce us to do anything we don’t want to do. We cannot do whatever we want because we are enslaved to sin. Even if we were without sin, we could not do anything. So free will is not absolute in any sense. But in heaven, we will be free to do what we want to and we won’t want to sin but to glorify God.  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Freedom To Choose

"I know, LORD, that a man's way of life is not his own; no one who walks determines his own steps."  (Jer. 10:23, HCSB).
"A man's heart determines his way, but the LORD determines his steps" (Prov. 16:9, HCSB).
"A man's steps are determined by the LORD, so how can anyone understand his own way?" (Prov. 20:24, HCSB).
"For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose" (Phil. 2:13, HCSB).  

NB: GOD COULDN'T HAVE GIVEN US FREE WILL WITHOUT HAVNG THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHOOSE EVIL AND REBEL AGAINST HIM.  

Life is full of choices.  We've all heard the order by Joshua:  "Choose this day whom you will serve!"  If there were no choice, we'd have no freedom!  Deut. 30:19 says, "...Now choose life...."  Our life is full of choices or decisions if you will:  "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley decision!  For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision," (Joel 3:14, NIV).  Most people balk at making the big decisions in life (career path, marriage, buying a home, college to attend, but especially becoming a member of a religion and more specifically becoming a Christian).  We should be hesitant at such climactic times that could make or break us!

Now, why were we given this faculty of choice in the first place?  Adam had the power not to sin and the power to sin, after the fall, he had the inability not to sin, and after salvation, the ability not to sin and the ability not to sin again.  But Christ has the inability to sin!  He is fully incapable of sinning, while the natural man is fully incapable of not sinning!   As the Bible does reveal, there was a rebellion in heaven and the devil was cast out for his pride and revolt at doing God's will.  The issue is why does evil exist and there is no simple answer.  To say that it just shows who the bad guys are is too simplistic.  If we had no choice (i.e., free or independent will or our own) we'd be automatons or robots or puppets on a divine string pulled by God!

God never created evil; He created its possibility! (No choice to make means no real free will to obey).  If people weren't free to disobey Him, they'd be robots without a free will or faculty of choice.  With the existence of objective good comes the necessary existence of objective evil!  When you have equality, inequality will exist, whether realized or not, at least in concept.  We must see evil as a parasite on good and not its opposite, though.  It couldn't exist apart from good.  For example, we have inequity, injustice, unrighteousness, lawlessness, unfairness, un-sportsmanship, et cetera! But the good news is that good triumphs over evil and there will be a final end to its influence in the world in the Day of the Lord.   But God just chooses to let it run its course--that's His way of defeating it and showing that it cannot win no matter what. 

And so, the freedom of choice or free will cannot exist without a choice to be made or the existence of evil as well as good.  And we did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we are all are involved in this battle against evil and its influence on the world. What we lost at the fall was the inclination to do good and inherited the inclination to do evil. And so we haven't ceased to be human, just to be good!   There is no outside force to influence us (that would be coercion or determinism), but God is able to work with our will to accomplish His will (cf. Rom. 9:19; Prov.16:9; Prov. 20:24, Jer. 10:23; Prov. 21:1).

We can only see good in light of evil!  There must be something to compare goodness to!  God is the Supreme Good you might say and we compare all goodness to Him.  Evil is the absence of good, therefore, and that's why we are evil because we lack perfect goodness in God's eyes and are sinners!

But our wills are enslaved to sin and need salvation just like the rest of our evil hearts.  We don't need free will to be saved, but wills made free--we are not born free but the slave of sin and in bondage!  As Augustine said, we are "free but not freed."  That is, we've lost our liberty like being a man in prison who still has a will of his own!

In a sense, everything is determined, even as it was written of Judas to betray our Lord, but God is not deterministic, that is to say, there is no determinism or coercion to do what aren't wont to do, but act fully voluntarily.  You may say that we act according to our nature or upbringing, (nature vs. nurture), but God determines both!  The vulture and dove eat according to their nature in a voluntary manner, because of their nature.   We cannot change who we are, but God can transform us into new creatures in Christ.

"... Now choose life that you and your children may live"  (Deut. 30:19, NIV).  To have no choice to make is inhuman and foreign to freedom and will.    
   Soli Deo Gloria!  

On The Enslaved Will

The bondage of the will or what Martin Luther called the enslaved will was the subject of his book "De Servo Arbitrio." A diatribe was written against the scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam a well-known prototype "Arminian" and protagonist of "free will" as the Romanists defined it.  The Remonstrants objected to Reformed theology and were answered by the Canons of Dort in 1618, which delineated the so-called five points of Calvinism.  Jacobus Arminius was the architect of the Arminian heresy, which deviated from orthodox theology stemming from the days of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.

Martin Luther said that the freedom of the will is a grandiose term and fit only for God. Our wills are enslaved to the old sin nature and inclined to evil. They are biased and prone to evil, not good. Luther said that man has not ceased to be man, but ceased to be good. We are only free in the sense that God doesn't force us to do evil--we do it on our own volition.

Augustine of Hippo said that we are free but not freed. This is not a mind game, but only stressing that we don't have liberty, though we are responsible moral agents. We concur with our evil and no one forces us to do evil, which would be determinism or coercion. We are voluntary slaves to evil. God doesn't force anyone to do something he doesn't want to do.

There are many Bible verses that stress the lack of freedom to respond to Christ on our own without the wooing of the Spirit. "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy." "Who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. " "The way of man is not in himself."

The freedom of the will so to speak is a curse, since we are free to do evil. Augustine said that we are non posse non peccare, which means we can only do evil. Luther said the will can only do evil, too. Augustine said we are "free, but not freed;" we have a free will in a sense, but not liberty.  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Bondage Of The Will

Did you get set freed by Christ or not, that is the question.

According to Martin Luther (cf., The Bondage of the Will), the will is enslaved or in bondage to the old sin nature and not free. Augustine of Hippo said that the will is "free but not freed." He wasn't playing mind games but saying that we are responsible agents to God for our choices, but don't have liberty. He doesn't force us to do evil, because we do it on our own initiative. The freedom of the will is a curse because we can only do evil according to Luther. Where did free will help Esau?

There are many Bible verses that show that man doesn't have free will as far as the ability to choose and come to Christ apart from grace and the wooing of the Spirit. "For who can resist His will?" (Rom. 9:19). "It is not of him that willeth ..." (Rom. 9:16). "Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). "For the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps" (Jer. 10:23; cf. Psalm 37:37).

We are biased or prone to evil, not good. Martin Luther said we have not ceased to be man, but have ceased to be good. The whole matter can be summed up in the phrase: "We don't need free will--we need wills made free!" We are inclined to evil, not good--the ability lost at the fall. We are biased. We are still human but not good-natured. The doctrine of total depravity ensures that we are not inherently good, but spoiled throughout with evil.

This is one of the oldest debates in Christendom. Heretic British monk Pelagius and Augustine debated it and so did Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam. The prevalence of the doctrine of freedom of the will in today's church is due to the influence of the Wesleyan Arminians (founded by patron saint Jacob Hermann, better known as Jacobus Arminius). Don't let anyone make you think that the enslavement of the will is a new doctrine or that it is not orthodox, because it is the original doctrine defended by the church fathers and the reformers.

In the final analysis, we don't need free will to be saved, but wills made free!    Soli Deo Gloria!

Common Sense On The Will

There has been debate over the will of man for centuries. Martin Luther debated Erasmus of Rotterdam in a diatribe The Bondage of the Will, and Jonathan Edwards wrote the book entitled The Freedom of the Will. Most of the problem lies with semantics because people don't understand the definitions. No one is saying we are automata, chatty dolls, or robots, so to speak.

But Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hands of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will." Jer. 10:23 (cf. Prov. 16:9) says, "I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps." Prov. 20:24 says, "A man's steps are from the LORD, how then can man understand his way?" "...Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" (Rom. 9:19). There are numerous passages that seem to indicate that God is in control.

There are two kinds of free will. The will to do the divine and to do the mundane. We have not lost the free will to do a secular activity. We do not have the desire or inclination to choose Christ apart from a work of grace (God woos us). "No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..." (John 6:44, cf. 65 known as the "hard sayings of Jesus). "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Rom. 9:16). Our destiny is ultimately in God's hands and He chose us according to His foreknowledge before time began. (This refers to the doctrines of election and predestination.)

Is His sovereignty limited by man's freedom? The most fanatic Calvinist will admit that man is free to do what he desires to do. God never forces anyone to do anything he doesn't want to do--that would be coercion or determinism. He feels no outside force but God is still able to influence Him to do His will. "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13; cf. Col. 1:29; Heb. 13:21). The will is defined as that by which the mind chooses and is the referee, as it were. Finally, Prov. 16:9 says, "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Freedom Of The Will

"For who makes you to differ?  What do you have that you didn't receive?"  (cf. 1 Cor. 4:7).
"Apart from Me you can do nothing"  (cf. John 15:5).
By definition:  the will is the choosing faculty of the mind that makes decisions as it desires, apart from feeling any outside force--the issue is how free it is; basically, it's free to make mundane decisions but has lost ability to make divine choices to choose God apart from His work on our heart. What is important is that we still have self-determination; i.e., we make a decision for or against God voluntarily.   

Jonathan Edwards wrote a book by the above title, but he was a Calvinist, or as some call Reformed theologian par excellence, and wasn't propagating Arminianism or that grandiose idea or notion of a so-called free will  (liberum arbitrium).  "We are free but not freed," said Augustine--meaning we have retained the power to make choices and decisions, but have lost our liberty--we're voluntary slaves!  We sin and rebel against God precisely because we want to!  We are fallen creatures who have lost our inclination to good completely and totally--what so-called good we do is tainted (cf. Isa. 64:6) by evil motives and self-interest, like the applause of man.  We feel no outside force, though, which would be coercion or determinism.

Sin is rebellion against God's divine order and nature and anything that is repugnant to His holiness!  Martin Luther wrote the book, or diatribe,  De Servo Arbitrio, or, The Bondage of the Will, to refute Erasmus and the Catholic ideas of free will.  This word is never mentioned in Scripture, except for free will offerings, meaning voluntary ones.  We don't need a free will, but wills made free; we are not born free but born slaves to sin!  We get set free upon salvation and the Son is the only one who can adequately do it (cf. John 8:32,36).

In our decision making, the will is only a small part of the equation:  environment, heredity or genes, custom or tradition, pressure, etc. all play a role.  We all owe God for being born in America and most of us to Christian parents!  The thing about God being our Maker is that He designed our nature:  sanguine, choleric, melancholy, impetuous, happy-go-lucky, etc.  The point is that we didn't choose our nature!  We always act according to our nature, even whimsically or in an arbitrary manner sometimes.   As an analogy from nature:  the dove eats seed by nature; the hawk kills prey by nature; the vulture eats carrion by nature.  They will not act au contraire!   God is able to make us willing, though, and do so that we become believers (even against our former will), if He chooses to--God made a believer out of you and me, and it wasn't because we were virtuous or intelligent or even wise--we "believed through grace" (cf. Acts 18:27).

When we get saved, our whole soul and spirit gets saved: our heart, mind and will:  we become willing to do God's will; and able to comprehend God's Word, and able to love with our hearts and worship God with our spirits.  Our mind, heart, and will are all depraved--this is called total depravity (the first point of the Reformed acrostic TULIP).  If you deny total depravity you cannot maintain consistency with any of the other points in TULIP.  The will is wicked and stubborn (cf. Jer. 17:9; Isa. 46:12),   and needs redemption also--the heart of man is desperately sick and evil and we cannot know it (cf. Jer. 17:9).  God literally takes our stony hearts and makes them hearts of flesh (cf. Ezek. 36:26).

God bends our wills to His will by an act of sovereign grace ("grace reigns" cf. Rom. 5:21).  Our wills are not neutral in that they are able to weigh the pros and cons and make a freewill decision without any influence or wooing from the Holy Spirit to convict us and open our hearts to believe (cf. Acts 16:14).  Man was intended to have a mind to know God, a heart to love Him, and a will to obey Him, but this was lost at the Fall, but is restored at salvation. Note that we never ceased to be men, but ceased to be good--after the Fall man is inclined towards evil.


Acts 18:27 says that we believe through an act of grace--it's a gift per 2 Pet. 1:1 and God grants it to us according to Phil. 1:29.  God gives each of us a measure of faith according to Romans 12:3.  The people that believe in free will think that God's sovereignty is limited by our wills!  They also claim some desire to be saved while others don't--no one seeks God per Rom. 3:11!   God's sovereignty is total and He reigns and rules over all--what kind of God wouldn't be in control of all?  Our destiny is in God's hands, and He decides who will get saved, not us--it's not a matter of sincerity or of willpower!  Some very strong-willed seekers will never come to faith because they simply rely on themselves--it's not a matter of trying, but of trust.  Note the hard saying of Jesus in John 6:44 and 65 that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws and grants it.

Salvation is monergistic, not synergistic, that is, it's solely an act of God apart from our cooperation--we don't contribute to our salvation nor do any presalvation works.  We are dead spiritually and God quickens faith within us and regenerates us so that we can believe in our hearts.  We weren't elected because we believe (prescient view) but we are elected unto belief, so that "Salvation is of the Lord"  (cf. Jonah 2:9).  It is not of man and God working jointly or in concert, nor of man's sole effort, but of God alone!  We don't save ourselves--there's only one Savior!   God wants all the credit and glory and we cannot even say that we wanted to get saved apart from His grace--without which no one would believe.  The almighty and sovereign God is able to change our disposition so that we desire Christ!   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Romanist Dogma Of Free Will

Meditate on the following (emphasis added):

"So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" (Romans 9:16, NKJV). 

 [W]ho were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God [we don't will ourselves saved]"  (John 1:13, NKJV).

"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake"  (Philippians 1:29, NKJV). 

"... And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed"  (Acts 13:48, NKJV). 

 "... [But] the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded [hardened]"  (Romans 11:7, NKJV, emphasis added).

Luther was an Augustinian monk, and Augustine said that we are "free but not freed." We maintain our power to make choices as humans, but we have lost our liberty--we are slaves to sin, and, as he said, we are unable not to sin (non posse non peccare)--a double negative.  It's like being in jail and having the freedom to play cards, but not to walk outside for recreation at will--there is a limit to freedom and it's not absolute.  We are slaves to sin and our sin nature. We are free to choose our own poison and are, what has been termed by theologians, voluntary slaves--we love our sin and have no natural inclination to seek God or to love Him and only a work of grace in our hearts changes it from a "heart of stone to a heart of flesh" (cf. Ezek. 36:26).

We are still free to act according to our desires, but they are the wrong desires.  As Ovid, the Roman poet of antiquity wrote:  "I see the better things and I approve them, but I follow the worst."  The law of God is written on man's heart and he is culpable for breaking it (cf. Romans 2:15).  Romans 3:11 is God's pet peeve:  "[N]o one understands; no one seeks for God."

Most believers have wrongly assumed and appropriated the Catholic view of free will, that we have the capability to gain entree to God's grace or admittance into His presence by the merit of a positive attitude and willingness to cooperate with Him in our salvation, known as a pre-salvation work; however, "Salvation is of the Lord" [not of man alone nor of man and the Lord as in a cooperative or synergistic venture] (cf. Jonah 2:9). That statement of Jonah is the summation of Reformed theology and we must never think that we would've responded to the gospel call without God's wooing. We have lost the inclination to please God and do His will. We were elected unto faith, not because of it (known as the fallacious prescient view repudiated in Romans 8:30), because this would be grounds for merit. "No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draw him" (cf. John 6:44).

In today's humanist worldview man is exalted and seen as having the free will to do as he wishes or wants to.  Martin Luther told Erasmus in his tome, The Bondage of the Will, that "free will" was too grandiose a term to ascribe to our power of choice or to make decisions from our depraved, fallen volition.  You must define terms when you speak of free will, because we do have the power to disobey God and to choose our desserts, but we cannot believe in Christ apart from God's grace and work in our heart.

Adam and Eve had free will and blew it: they had the power to sin and the power not to sin, while a fallen man can only sin and is unable not to sin. Adam made the choice for us to disobey God in our place, and we are in Adam and held accountable for his failure and this is known commonly as original sin--this inherited virus which is our birthright as humans--we have remained human, but are no longer good, but maintain solidarity in Adam and we share his predicament he had the fall--i.e., the natural inclination to good has been forfeited.

In defining total depravity, one must take into consideration that the mind is corrupt and faulty, the emotions are perverted and easily swayed by evil and corrupted, and the will also is defiant and disobedient to God and this means our whole nature--intellect, emotions or heart, and will or volition--is depraved and there is nothing meritorious or righteous in us to be worthy of salvation--"... And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6, NKJV) and "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?  Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23, ESV).

God is able (He's omnipotent and you cannot limit God) to make the unwilling, willing according to Scripture:  He works irresistible or efficacious grace in our hearts according to His will ("For it is God who works in you, both to do and to will of his good pleasure," cf. Phil. 2:13). God never makes us do anything we don't want to do (that is coercion or determinism when we don't have input), and there is no outside force working on us like we're puppets on a string or automatons.  We all act according to our nature, and God is our Maker and preordained and predetermined our nature, whether melancholy, choleric, or sanguine, for example.

If you think about it, the will have very little input into a decision compared to other uncontrollable factors like circumstances, DNA, and the environment (the old nature vs. nurture debate).  It is a fallacy to assume we need free will to be saved, we need wills made free!  "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed"  (cf. John 8:36).  We are not "born free" as some postulate, but born into a state of slavery to our sin nature. Left to ourselves, we would not choose Christ, as Pascal said:  "I would not have searched for Thee, if Thou hadst not found me."

Our freedom is a curse because we choose the evil and the wrong course and God must intervene and change our heart, by taking the initiative and making the first move of grace.  We are free to act as we choose according to our nature, just like a dove naturally eats seeds and a raven goes for the carrion.  Our will is free in that we act voluntarily, and not by compulsion.  We're voluntary slaves!   God remains sovereign in spite of our free will and we cannot thwart His decrees or will and upset His plan--our freedom doesn't restrict God's sovereignty:  "...Who can resist His will?" (Cf. Romans 9:19).

To think that we can act independently of God's will and disturb His plan is blasphemous and exalts man and dethrones God--this is the agenda of Secular Humanism, which believes man is the measure of all things and is the starting point of our understanding of reality, and not God the source of all truth ("In the beginning God...").

St. Augustine of Hippo said, "We are free but not free."  This isn't a clever play on words but saying that we do as we choose but have lost our liberty.  It's like being in jail and having the freedom to do anything according to the rules.  Our natures are corrupt and we act according to our natures that need regeneration by God to a new birth of faith and repentance.  We are free but in our depravity we choose evil!  Apart from God's intervention and grace no one would get saved and believe. 

In summation, God never coerces us to do anything we don't want to do--that's determinism, not destiny.  We have input unlike the blind fate of Muslim kismet.  However, God is able to make the unwilling willing and to change our hearts and minds to do His will for He is stronger and can influence us for the good--it's when He withdraws His grace that we turn evil.  We must confess as did Jeremiah in Jer. 20:7, NKJV, "...You are stronger than I, and have prevailed (cf. Isa. 63:17; Phil. 2:13).  It is said that He compels us to come in (literal translation of the Greek elko or woo).    Soli Deo Gloria!

The Grip Of Sin

Before salvation we are subject to a sin nature that we have no power to defeat; in fact, all we can do is sin and we are unable not to sin. Roman poet Ovid said, "I know the good and approve it, but I follow the worst."  Paul summed up the plight of man in Romans 7:24 (ESV) as:  "Wretched man that I am.  Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?  Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23, ESV).  "All our righteousness is as filthy rags"  (cf. Isaiah 64:6) and counts as nothing compared to the purity of God's standards, which are manifest in Christ's person.

All we need to know of righteousness is exemplified and personified in Him, the exact replica and image of God (cf. Col. 1:15). Our good works, done in the flesh, count for nothing at Judgment Day and are praiseworthy by our fellow man, who gives us his kudos and; however, they count for nothing in God's eyes, namely because they were done with the wrong motives and God takes this into consideration (cf. Proverbs 21:2)--most men do good deeds simply for the applause and acceptance of man and to ingratiate himself in God's eyes; however, there is nothing we can do to gain God's favor or to "brownnose" God.

We are all in the same boat and lumped together (cf. Rom. 3:23), regardless of our own assessment or appraisal, or of what others think considering their evaluation and estimation of our worthiness. What is esteemed in men's eyes is despised in God's eyes; for man admires high self-esteem and self-respect, not God-esteem and God-respect, and even individualism and independence--"lift yourself up by your own bootstraps," which is a do-it-yourself proposition common to all religion, on good works to gain the approbation of God. We couldn't be worse off in God's estimation of man--note that our total depravity of heart, will, and mind is God's estimation of man, not man's estimation of man. The grip of our sin nature or depravity must be solved threefold:  its ignorance by virtue of Christ the Prophet, its guilt by virtue of Christ the Priest, and its dominion by virtue of Christ the King.

God is not against good works per se, for they benefit us and we all owe a lot to so-called good men who have contributed to our well-being, but they are not good enough to gain entree into God's heaven or for salvation itself.  But God is indeed against good deeds done in the power of the flesh, by man's own effort and strength, as opposed to those done in the power of the Spirit, of which are worthy of reward at the bema (Greek for judgment seat) or tribunal of Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:10; Romans 14:10-12).  Jesus said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing..." (cf. John 15:5).  God must give us the power (cf. Phil. 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Christ...") to do works in His name (cf. Isaiah 26:12 says:  "...[You] have done for us all our works"--only that which is done by the power of the Spirit and in His name is worthy of reward, and this goes for believers as well, as 1 Cor. 3:15 indicates that some of their works are only "wood, hay, and stubble" and will burn up in the fire of judgment and the believer will suffer loss of reward, though he is saved as if by fire.

Cain was warned by God in Genesis 4:7 that sin "crouches at the door" and waits to destroy him and we must all realize this:  We are still subject to our sin nature as believers and must constantly renew ourselves in the filling of the Spirit--it's not a one-time event, but a continuing experience of  being filled [cf. Eph. 5:18].  Even Christians can and do backslide, but God can heal them of this tendency, inclination, and weakness--He will heal the backslider (Hosea 14:4 says, "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely"). "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh"  (Gal. 5:16, ESV).   Hosea says that "sin has been your downfall."  Yes, we still have sin in us as believers and this is the old man or old sin nature, the result of Adam's sin which we inherit as original sin.

We are no longer inclined to do good but must walk in the Spirit to overcome the evil one.   Many Christians do live defeated lives and have never learned to walk with the Lord in fellowship, even as Enoch and Noah did.  We must all realize our area of weakness--the sin which so easily besets us, according to Hebrews 12:1--and admit our shortcomings and failures to God--to come clean in repentance.  We have no one to blame but ourselves, for we are our own worst enemy and shouldn't be blaming the devil-like they say, "The devil made me do it!"  We have no one to blame but ourselves for our failures, because God is on our side and, as believers, we have power over sin and to overcome the sin nature.

Unfortunately, some believers are recurrent backsliders and God says to them:  "... Your sins have been your downfall!"  (Cf. Hos. 14:1, NIV).  We are not punished for our sins, nor for our parents' sins--we are punished by our sins, and God doesn't deliver us from their natural consequences because we still sow what we reap and take responsibility for our own behavior--just because a thief is forgiven, doesn't mean God is going to keep him from jail time.

The only way to be set free is to know Christ:  "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed!"  (Cf. John 8:36).  Unbelievers have no power over sin and act according to their nature, though everyone isn't equally as bad, they are all as equally bad off--we cannot save ourselves nor do any pre-salvation work!  We are all totally depraved in all of our being and nature, though we are not utterly depraved or as bad as we can be.  It has been said by theologians that we are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners!

Man is only acting naturally when he sins just like Satan is acting according to his nature when he lies, for he is a liar and the father of liars, and there is no truth in him.  The sequence of salvation is that at conversion we are set free from the penalty of sin, in time from the power of sin, and in eternity from the presence of sin.  In other words, we have been saved from sin, we are being saved from sin, and we will be saved from sin (our position, condition, and expectation).

The whole point of the Christian life is a changed life or a conversion experience--although some regard this as an acceptable way to have a nervous or mental breakdown now, it is an experience to be reckoned with and that is as dramatic as a cowboy changing hitching posts because of his change of attitude and no longer visits the brothel or saloon, and instead attends chapel.  We learn to hate sin as God hates it and to love righteousness as God does, and as we get to know God and love God, we want to be like Him.  We are all works in progress, but there is a dramatic change that occurs as a testimony of the conversion experience.

Therefore,we must learn to be patient with other believers because God isn't finished with them yet!  God is working on us like a silversmith purifies his silver:  When he sees himself he is done!  God wants to see Himself in us and won't stop working on us till He does: "Christ in you, the hope of glory"  (cf. Col. 1:27).  God is like a sculptor who makes a figurine out of a slab of marble and does it by taking away everything that doesn't resemble the figurine. Some people are just more challenging and have a further way to go, by virtue of less virtue or faith, but God is determined to make all of us in Christ's image.

Man is no free spirit (however, he's a free moral agent) that can do as he wills and come to God in his own power and free will, God must woo him and draw him to the cross and do a work of regeneration in his heart of repentance and faith--no one would come to Christ of their own power; it is totally of grace and Soli Deo Gloria, or to God alone be the glory.  It is by grace alone, through faith alone, in the person and work of Christ alone, with the Scripture as the authority alone, and God alone getting the glory.  It is summed up in the monergistic (not cooperative) and not a synergistic (co-operative) phrase of Jonah:  "Salvation is of the Lord."  It is not a cooperative venture, whereby we get a little of the credit, but God works it in us and sovereignly saves us totally by grace and not merit of any kind. There are only three possibilities:  Of man alone; of God and man; or of God alone.

The first is religion, the second is legalism, and the third alone is total grace.  As Paul says in Romans 5:21 that "grace reigns through righteousness."  God's grace is irresistible and efficacious or does what He intends--make believers out of us and change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh (cf. Ezek. 36:26). God's grace always works the desired result (cf Romans 5:21), unlike man's work, and is never in vain--you can resist the Holy Spirit and harden your heart, but not God's gracious work in your heart, no more than you can resist the woman of your dreams.

It is an ill-conceived to think we are "born free" and have "spiritual" free will--we must be set free! We aren't saved by an act of the will:  "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:16, ESV).  "[F]or it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure"  (Phil. 2:13, ESV).  We don't need free wills to be saved, but wills made free (even our wills our stubborn, rebellious, and depraved and incapable of pleasing God without God quickening of faith in them--we were dead in trespasses and sins (cf. Eph. 2:1) and God made us alive, and a dead person can do nothing to please God!

We had no inclination to come to Christ and no desire for Him until God worked this grace in us and granted us the privilege of coming to Christ: "No man can come to me unless the Father, who sent me, draws him," and "No man can come to me unless it has been granted of the Father" (cf. John 6:44).  These are hard sayings and many believers stumble over them and cannot accept that God is ultimately in charge of our destiny--they like to think they are in control of things; however, God is sovereign over all and what kind of God would He be if He weren't?  Note Romans 9:19 (ESV) that says, "... 'Why does he still find fault?  For who can resist his will?'" "Christ is the Captain of our soul and the Master of our fate."

Man's so-called free will doesn't limit God's sovereignty, and God is the one who made the final choice as to whom He would save--called His elect in Scripture.  It is an important point of doctrine that Romans 8:30 (ESV), which says :  "[A]nd those whom he predestined he also called...," militates against the prescient view that God elects us because we believe, but God elects us unto faith, I repeat, not because of our faith! He can make a believer out of anyone if it's His will (Tyre and Sidon would've repented had they seen Christ's miracles!).  But people are still responsible for rejecting God and are personally accountable at Judgment Day because God didn't impel nor compel them to reject Him--they rejected whatever light they had.

We all have feet of clay or weaknesses not readily apparent and we cannot be good until we realize how bad we are or how bad off we are, and we will never realize this unless we attempt to be good and find out the power sin has over us as a master.  We never ceased to be human who can make choices, but we ceased to be good with any inclination toward God--no inherent goodness (we are not basically good!).  In Reformed theology, man, left to himself, will not choose God, and we didn't choose Him, He chose us (cf. John 15:16).  As Blaise Pascal said:  "I would not have searched for Thee if Thou hadst not found me."

We can be glad though: God doesn't grade on a curve and we all fall short of His holiness, and He sees through the veneer to our solidarity in Adam.  It's not that we are good enough to be saved, but bad enough to need salvation!   Of course, if the run-of-the-mill sinner compares himself to Adolf Hitler, he would think himself a saint, but the standard we are held to is Christ, and He doesn't grade on a curve! Indeed, we must recognize that we are bad, but not too bad to be saved!  Caveat: Freedom in Christ is not permission to live in the flesh, but the power to live in the Spirit!   And remember we have nothing to boast:  "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? ..." (1 Cor. 4:7, NIV).  Soli Deo Gloria!

True Conversion

We are not born free and innocent (with a tabula rasa or blank slate) as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others allege, we are born in slavery to sin and in bondage; Augustine said that we are "free but not freed."  That is interpreted as meaning that we retain the ability to make choices, but they are limited and defined by God (only if I throw a ball, do you have the choice to catch it!).  We have lost our "liberty" in other words.  Adam had the ability to sin, and the ability not to sin, while after the fall only had the inability not to sin--or he could only sin!   Only Christ has the inability to sin and proved it at the temptation from Satan. On the other hand, we are constantly in a state of rebellion!  When we are saved, it is irresistible and efficacious, because no one is able to resist God's will (cf. Romans 9:19) and grace is sovereign and reigns (cf. Romans 5:21).

God doesn't control us like a puppet on a string--we are not automatons--and God never forces with an outside influence us to do something we don't want to do; however, He made our nature and we act accordingly (God is the one who made us so choleric or melancholy, for example). This is seen by analogy when you observe a dove eating seed and a raven feasting on carrion--note that they both eat according to their desires and what they want; i.e.,  they are both acting according to their nature, which God created.  We were not consulted in the makeup of our nature--God is the Potter and we are the clay in His hands.

Our will has been compared in analogy to a prisoner in jail who has the privilege to play poker with the guys, or to smoke in the lounge, but not to go out to exercise, except when given permission, and certainly, he cannot leave the grounds at will, nor does he have free rein, and you could also compare our will to a man on a train playing cards and not knowing where he is going or where the train is headed and must be awoken by the conductor to make him cognizant of this.  However, you can be converted, even in jail, as the Lord's freeman and be free in spirit--remember, analogies can break down if over-analyzed.  We don't need free wills to be saved!   We need wills made free!  

Today's parlance defines conversion as merely a change to a more "responsible lifestyle" to cope with your life; however, in authentic conversion (which involves regeneration, faith, and repentance), our whole being is converted--even our wills are depraved and unable to please God.   Conversion is more than an acceptable way of having a nervous breakdown, and of "getting religion." It is a change from the inside out so that the person becomes a new person with new desires of the will, as well as a new heart for the things of God and a new comprehension with the intellect of His will and what pleases Him. Only man has the heart to love God, a mind to know Him, and a will to obey Him and all must be converted:  Our whole nature is involved, not just our emotions--so don't think you are saved just because you "love Jesus." He may simply be a Jesus of your own creation, imagination, or fabrication.

We must obey (an act of a will made free) Jesus to prove our love, as He said, "If you love Me, you will obey My commandments." If we are disobedient, it proves we do not believe:  "Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes"  (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred by the Nazis). The two are linked and correlated and so our wills must be changed to be willing to do God's will--after salvation, we learn to obey!  We are able to make the choice as to whether we are willing to do God's will as a sign of positive inclination, but no one is inclined to come to Him apart from the wooing of the Spirit, according to John 6:44, ESV ("No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..."). John 6:65, ESV says, "... [N]o one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.")

Naturally, we do not love God and are not inclined to come to Him in love, we are incapable of comprehending the gospel message apart from being enlightened, and the eyes our heart is opened, and we do not want to obey God, because of a rebellious will that we are born with, as we are born in sin and are not sinners because we sin, but sin because we are sinners!  We are only acting according to our nature, and our nature needs conversion--no one is good and does God's will!  Our wills are in defiance or you could say we are volitionally defiant and out of God's will and plan as lost sinners until we get converted, and are found by Christ the Great Shepherd.  We can do no good as lost sinners to please God and all our works are as filthy rags according to Isaiah 64:6.  We were lost but now are found (by God--i.e., we didn't find Him at our salvation!).

Conversion involves the whole person which means the whole heart (which represents the whole being of man in Scripture--emotions, will, and intellect).  God makes the unwilling, willing and all God's people shall be willing (Psalm 110:3 in the ESV says,"...Your people shall offer themselves freely in the day of your power").  Paul says it plain as day in Philippians 2:13 that God is always at work within us to make us willing to do His will and in Col. 1:29 that God powerfully works within him.

If it were not for Christ, none of us would be saved nor have the desire (had He not softened our heart and turned it from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh according to Ezekiel 36:26. We were not more meritorious than others, more intelligent, talented, nor willing!  We were destined unto salvation according to the good pleasure of His will.   No one can take credit for his salvation as Jonah said, in Jonah 2:9 that "Salvation is of the LORD." This means we didn't even cooperate and do anything--if we had to do anything, we would mess it up.  God does all the work and gets all the glory as He gives us the gift of faith.

Jesus told His disciples, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" in John 15:5 and this means we are helpless to do God's will and our wills are in bondage, as Martin Luther declared in his book that shook the Reformation era, The Bondage of the Will.  He said that calling our will free was too grandiose a word for it and is misleading--God is ultimately in charge and in control of our destiny, not us, as He is the One who chose us--we didn't choose Him (cf. John 15:16).  Believing you came to Christ of your own free will is like taking credit for your salvation and giving yourself some of the glory that alone belongs to God--if you came to Him alone, you probably left Him alone, too.  Jesus through the power of the Spirit compels us to come into His Father's house (compelle intrare).

And so when you say you have "free will" be sure to make it clear what you are positing, because you don't have the power, will, nor the inclination to please God or do His will of receiving Christ apart from the grace of God.  We do retain the natural freedom to make choices like what we want to eat, but spiritual and moral freedom is curtailed and limited because of our total depravity, which includes total depravity of the will, as part of the makeup of our human nature.  In summation, Paul said, "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy" (Romans 9:16, ESV).  Soli Deo Gloria!

The Few, The Chosen

Christian theologians don't have any problem realizing that God chose Israel, or even that He only saved a remnant that He preserved; however, they have consternation over believing that God can choose Christians and predestine their salvation.  We were not chosen because of our works, but according to the purpose of His will (cf. Eph. 1:5).  It wasn't anything in us that merited salvation--it was grace all the way, from beginning to end.  Jesus said in John 15:16 that we didn't choose Him, but He chose us.  Matt. 22:14 says:  "Many are called [the outward gospel call], but few are chosen [elected]." This is so we have no basis of pride! 

People generally believe they are protecting God's reputation by denying predestination, because they perceive it as making God out as a despot.  We are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, which means God loved us personally before salvation. We are elected unto faith, not because of faith (which is the prescient view that Romans 8:29-30 militates against).  Election must be unconditional or it opens the door to merit, it had to be by grace alone and God saw nothing good in a totally depraved man.  We were not inclined to come to Him but only came because of the wooing of the Holy Spirit ("No man can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him," John 6:44).

Yes, this does mean our ultimate destiny is in the hands of God and God left nothing to chance or out of His sovereignty (Jonathan Edwards said he liked to assign absolute sovereignty to God):  This means there isn't even "a maverick molecule in the universe!"  Grace is sovereign because it is irresistible according to Reformed tradition--this is stated in Romans 5:21, where it says "grace reigns through righteousness."

Who is the promise of salvation designated for, then?  "For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself"  (Acts 2:29, ESV). There are two callings here:  The outward call that we announce to the world of sinners and the inner calling that is effectual that God does.  "Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?"  (cf. Isa. 53:1).  Doctor Luke says, "as many as were appointed to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48, ESV).  God does reserve the right to have mercy on whom He will (Rom. 9:15,18).   God quickened or kindled faith within the elect so that they got born again and exercised faith and repentance unto salvation. If left to ourselves, none of us would come to Christ or believe in Him.

Philippians 2:13 says that God is at work within us both to do and to will of His good pleasure--God woos us and works on our hearts to make believers out of us and turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, because He is the Potter and we are simply clay in His hands. God can make the "unwilling" willing or the unbelieving believe!   God has given man a choice, but we do not have the ability to respond favorably to the gospel message apart from the grace of God working in our hearts ("Apart from Me you can do nothing," says John 15:5), and grace prevails over our reluctance.

No one is able to resist God's will according to Romans 1:19 and God has mercy on whomever He wills and hardens whomever He wills (cf. Rom. 9:18). We have a destiny:  "For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9, ESV; cf. Jude 4; 1 Pet. 2:7).  Note the order of God's sanctification prior to faith:  "[Because] God chose you as the first-fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth" (2 Thess. 2:13, ESV).  Who got saved? "What then?  Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.  The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened [blinded]" (Rom. 11:7, ESV).

We don't necessarily need free wills to be saved then, but wills made free!  "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." (John 8:36).  We are not born free and innocent but enslaved to sin and totally depraved.  Only the Son can set us free and the truth is the agent.  There is temporal will like what foods you like and you do have the power to choose them, but spiritual and/or moral freedom is not granted--Adam had it and lost it and we are in Adam, our representative who lost it for us before salvation, when we are in Christ and set free.  John 6:44 says that no one can come to the Father unless He draws him and v. 65 says it must be granted by the Father.

Apart from Christ, we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5).  If left to ourselves, none of us would've chosen Christ!  No one can resist God's will according to Romans 9:19 and our salvation doesn't depend upon human will according to Romans 9:16. ("It is not of him who wills.....").  God's sovereignty is not compromised nor sacrificed because of our wills--He remains 100 percent in control of all events and things per Ephesians 1:11 (ESV), which says God "works all things according to the counsel of his will."

The only way our will could be considered free is that we feel no outside force and never do anything we don't want to do--God doesn't coerce us against our wills but makes the unwilling willing.  We are never forced to do what we do not want to do.  We do make choices but God decides what the choice is and He knows how we will respond and can manipulate or orchestrate whatever events He wills to precipitate His divine, decreed, sovereign will. Free will must be seen only as the ability to make choices based on our desires uncoerced. 

In sum, our salvation does not depend upon our wills (they are so little of the equation that depends on God being sovereign anyway--as He orchestrates all events providentially):  "So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy" (Romans 9:16, ESV).   Soli Deo Gloria!

In Adam's Fall, We Sinned All

The title is from The New England Primer and shows how Adam represented us all in his willful sin. He was posse non peccare and posse peccare or able not to sin and able to sin according to Augustine. God gave him the free will to choose to love Him; however, it is not that Adam chose evil as some suggest, but that he chose self over God.  He was the head of his wife and is the head of our race and we would've done the same thing.  His sin was a prototype of all sin in rejecting God's divine nature.  Especially His wisdom, love, justice, and omniscience.  

They rejected God's authority, doubted His goodness, disputed His wisdom, repudiated His justice, contradicted His truth, and spurned His grace (someone has said). Eve was deceived and may have been confused, but Adam knew what he was doing and chose to be on Eve's side rather than God, probably because of his love for her and not wanting to lose her to death.

God had every reason to place a test in the garden (note that the first sin was committed in a perfect environment) and there was only one command to obey--anyone could've kept it.  God, for sure, didn't want obedience without love and wanted man to love of a free will or voluntarily  (I use the term free will sparingly because of Martin Luther's book The Bondage of the Will (De Servo Arbritrio) in which he says it is too grandiose of a term.  (By the way, Calvin was in agreement.) There is a natural will and a spiritual will.  Free will has been debated since St. Augustine of Hippo, who said we are "free but not freed." He meant we do have free will in a sense, but no liberty.  

Our nature is enslaved to sin and even the will is depraved and unable to please God. God gave Adam free will that we don't have anymore and he sinned.  It is reckoned that he represented us and we have been deemed sinners because of him.  Yes, we had free will in Adam and blew it when we chose self and became sinners by nature, by choice, and by birth.  Sin is our birthright and there is no escape!  There is no position of neutrality for our will--it is tainted with sin (cf. Rom. 1:32; 7:15).

God was not inviting trouble or taking a chance on the so-called "risky gift of free will" because He is sovereign and omniscient and had planned for this to happen and took it into consideration--there was no plan B.  If we are reckoned sinners in Adam we have become enslaved to this sin in our whole being (total depravity) and Adam lost his free will and got an enslaved will. Only God has the ultimate free will (a term not mentioned in Scripture except for free will or voluntary offerings) and yet God is unable or not free to sin or be the agent of evil.  We, on the other hand, are incapable of doing good or anything that pleases God (cf. Is. 64:6). The Arminian believes some do desire to repent and be believe the gospel, while the Reformed tradition holds that God quickens that lost desire within us.

We don't need free wills to be saved, we need wills made free.  God's salvation went according to plan and we love Him because He first loved us!  God chose us, we didn't choose Him (cf. John 15:16).  God's dilemma:  No one chose Him, and so He was obliged to elect some according to His purpose and grace and the good pleasure of His will (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9;  Eph. 1:5).  You may say:  "I came to Christ of my own free will and by myself [without any wooing or divine intervention]!" That person probably left Christ all by himself too.  What God is able to do is make the unwilling willing ("[For] it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure," says Phil. 2:13, ESV) and God can turn that heart of stone into a heart of flesh. "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them" ("Ezek. 36:27, NKJV). Remember:  We are called and chosen unto salvation as Mathew 22:14 says, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Our destiny is ultimately in God's hands; God reserves the right to have mercy on whom He will--He isn't obligated to save anyone or it would be justice and not mercy (cf. Rom. 9:15).  Romans 9:16 says:  "So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."

Now, after the fall, man is non posse non peccare (unable not to sin or only able to sin!) according to Augustine.  [Note that we are not talking in reference to the natural faculty of choice but spiritual will.]  God doesn't coerce us or force us to do anything we don't want to do by any outside force (called determinism), but His grace is irresistible or efficacious and does God's will.  Adam had the inclination to do good but lost that at the fall--man is still human, not an automaton, but has lost this inclination to do good. We are free to act according to our nature, but God made us the way we are like clay in the hands of a potter, and determined our nature.  

Adam chose against God, but He saved him anyway.  We are free in our state of sin in that we are voluntary sinners and our real freedom is to choose our own poison.  Romans 9:19 says that no one can resist God's will--His omnipotence overpowers us.  There is "not one maverick molecule in the universe" that is left to chance--God doesn't play dice with the universe, according to Einstein, and leaves nothing to chance.

You cannot say, "From now on, I will be good."  All things being equal, that doesn't last any longer than a diet with good intentions.  Apart from the Holy Spirit ("No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him," says John 6:44, ESV) without His wooing, no one can choose Christ, and God must intervene and work grace in our hearts.  We are slaves to act the way we want to and are in rebellion against God in our old sin nature.  We are indeed free to choose whatever we desire, but we do not desire Christ without grace.  "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know..." (John 7:17). That work is called redemption and causes us to repent and believe the gospel in the process known as conversion.  A spiritually dead man cannot believe or choose anything spiritual.  God must open our spiritual eyes to the truth ("I was blind, but now I see").

The essence of freedom is self-determination and we do make a decision ourselves and in this sense, we are still free. We never act by compulsion or as a programmed robot, but willingly.  We sin according to our own volition.  But whenever you look at a sinner you should say, "There but for the grace of God, go I" as George Whitefield said.   We can thank God for changing us and softening our hearts by grace ("... [Gr]ace might reign through righteousness," says Rom. 5:20).

Let me cite an everyday example of wooing:  In the process of courtship you fall in love and entice your lover to marry you (by an act of free will, of course), and you never interfered with her free will but got her to marry you and get your will done--she couldn't resist your proposition and was converted!

We all can act naturally according to enlightened self-interest in our old sin nature.  A sure sign of genuine saving faith is a heartfelt love for God and this is impossible without a relationship with Him--no one loved God before salvation.  We are not elected because we want to believe or we do believe (that would be merit-based and is called the prescient view, which Rom. 8:29-30 militates against), but we believe because we are the elect (cf. 2 Thess. 2:13, 1 John 5:1, Rom. 8:29-30). 

In the Reformed tradition of the order of salvation or ordo salutis, regeneration precedes faith!  Scripture clearly says, "We love Him because He first loved us." The unsaved, lost, and unregenerate man has no desire to repent, believe in the gospel, and choose Christ or he would have something to boast in his salvation before God.  No one will say, "I wanted to believe, but couldn't!"  This is because Reformed theology teaches that if left to ourselves, none would choose Christ.

Salvation is totally of God and He gets all the glory.  Soli Deo Gloria! According to C. H. Spurgeon the essence of Reformed theology is:  "Salvation is of the Lord, [it is not a cooperative venture, as theologians say, "monergistic, not synergistic"]" says Jonah 2:9.  God must change us and do a work of grace and regeneration, quickening our spirits to believe and repent because we have no inclination to obey God before salvation--we must be born again.  When we are saved we are set free: "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed (cf. John 8:36)." We are not born free, we are set free--we are born slaves!   Soli Deo Gloria!

Are We Puppets On A String?

To Christians misinterpreting predestination, it seems like we are saying God is a despot and we are puppets on a string, robots, or automatons. Robots don't have a will as we do; however, we do not have a neutral volition, but one biased to evil.   Does God just pull the right strings?  He does know how to push the right buttons just like you do to someone you know, like spouses.  Are we stronger than God's will and is God's sovereignty limited by our freedom? (Cf. Rom. 9:19)  No!

These are age-old disputes and what kind of a God wouldn't be 100 percent sovereign?  He doesn't just reign on a throne, but He rules all things great and small, such that there is not even a rebel molecule in the cosmos.  Before preceding, I would like to point out two kinds of will:  mundane or natural; and moral or towards God.  It is in the latter that God makes the final decision as to whom will be regenerated by belief because no one can come to the Father unless the Father draws them and it is granted by Him (cf. John 6:65:44).  

John 15:5 says that we can do nothing apart from Christ. It is as if all of us choose to go the way of the devil and God had to choose out of His mercy to save some and demonstrate His grace and justice in action. We were all free (in Adam as our representative) and we chose the wrong path!  We are, therefore, sinners by choice, by birth, and by nature.  

Predestination means that our destiny is ultimately in the hands of God ("we are not the captain of our souls nor the masters of our fate"), and that if we were left to ourselves, none of us would want to be saved or have the will to believe--even our desire for Christ is of God.  God reserves the prerogative to save whom He will and show justice to whom He will (cf. Rom. 9:18).  Some men receive justice and some mercy. Romans 9:19 says that no one can resist His will.  God's will is always done with or without our cooperation.   

Now, our will have little to do with our believing in Christ, for we are simply clay in the hands of the Potter and God is the one who decided our character and personality.  Just like a dove will voluntarily choose seeds to eat and a vulture will feast on carrion, so God knows us and we are fearfully and wonderfully made to His specs. In the same manner, we act voluntarily and not by compulsion, and never act unwillingly so as not to be culpable.

We did not choose our nature, and it is our nature that primarily, along with nurture that determines our fate and consequent choices.  No one will deny having made their own decisions.  There is no such legitimate doctrine as determinism whereby God makes us do something we don't desire or there is an external force acting upon us--that is coercion and the opposite of freedom.  

But just as all man can only do evil and sin (non posse non peccare or the inability not to sin or that he is unable to please God in the flesh or is dead in a moral/spiritual sense), man is free in the sense of self-determination (he has to admit he made the decision or confirmation).  God is also free but He cannot sin and we will be free in heaven without the ability to sin too.

The British monk Pelagius thought that man had the ability to make a free decision apart from grace, but Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, said we are "free but not freed."  We have lost our liberty like a person in jail that is free in the sense that he still makes decisions apart from being a robot.  We are free to act according to our God-given nature, but we've lost the inclination to do good; therefore, we are still human, just not good.  

What this entails is that we don't need an absolute free will, but wills made free--that is the crux of the doctrine because if the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed (cf. John 8:32).   We still remain human with the faculty to make choices, such as what we want to eat, but we have lost all ability to please God and to believe in Him!

Jesus clearly said that we didn't choose Him, but that He chose us in John 15:16 and Matt. 22:14 (ESV) says:  "For many are called, but few are chosen."  We wouldn't have chosen Christ, had He not first chosen and loved us.  The problem with our freedom is that it is a curse because we didn't choose Him  (Adam is our representative) and God had to choose us.  We were free but didn't choose Christ and we wouldn't have come to Him unless He had wooed us and drew us to Him, taking the initiative. 

God took the initiative and the first step in such a way that we never did anything we did not want to do, and without any outside coercion or force acting upon us.  Our righteousness, including faith and repentance, is God's gift to us, not our gift to God (we have nothing to offer Him but our sin):  "Who makes you to differ?  What do you have that you didn't receive?"  (1 Cor. 4:7).

Love must be voluntary to be love and we loved God because He first loved us and God worked in our hearts a regeneration that loves Him willingly--we never do anything we don't want to do and in this sense, we are not robots but free agents.  However, God is able to make us do His intentions by His omnipotence, which is stronger than our will.  For example, He can turn the king's heart like a stream of water (cf. Prov. 21:1). 

Again: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps"  (Prov. 16:9, ESV).  Jeremiah 10:23 says, "I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps."  In the example of loving a mate, we can think that it was all voluntary, but God knew what we wanted and couldn't resist and brought them into our life--so whose in control?

We can never frustrate God and catch Him off guard, not being able to run His universe at will.  Just like you can manipulate your friends to do you a favor, God knows how to work His will in you. God can make you love Him without violating your free will or making you do it against your choice.  We do indeed have the power of choice and must choose Christ, but we cannot do so of our own power because of our depravity--our wills are depraved too.  ("... [H]e greatly helped those who through grace had believed," says Acts 18:27.)  

We cannot believe apart from grace as God gives us the power.  The whole Christian life is not hard, it is impossible and we could never live it without the power of God in our life. Humanists and semi-Pelagians or Arminians argue, however,  that the will is not affected by sin and is not depraved, but absolutely and totally free.

We didn't come to Christ of our own independent and free volition, but were called and drawn by the Father with efficacious grace or what Reformed theology calls irresistible grace (better named efficacious grace that works what God intends)--i.e., He intervened. This saving grace is demonstrated in Philippians 2:13 (ESV) saying. "[F]or it is God who works in you, both to will [God changing our will or making us willing] and to work for his good pleasure." And in Psalm 110:3 (ESV) as:  "Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power...." (Also refer to Jer. 20:7; Heb. 13:21 and Col. 1:29.)   

We were chosen by God according to His good pleasure, "according to His own purpose and grace," (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9).   Jesus used the analogy of the wind blowing where it wills, and that is how one is born of the Spirit.  The bottom line is that, though we possess a depraved will capable of decision, God can cause us to believe in Christ and repent according to His good pleasure.   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Freedom And Bondage Of The Will

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!

How Free Is Free Will?

NB:  There are two kinds of will:  mundane and spiritual.  My premise is that we cannot choose Jesus apart from the grace of God completely on our own--it is a divine work in us to change our nature.

Martin Luther wrote one of the most influential books of the Reformation, The Bondage of the Will, to refute the Catholic scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (In Praise of Folly). The Roman Catholic Church, in the Council of Trent (the Counter-Reformation), 1545-63, pronounced this doctrine anathema and aimed their guns at it.  However, the debate has its origin with the bishop Aurelius Augustine of Hippo and the British monk Pelagius during the fifth century.  Much of the controversy lies in a problem of semantics, nevertheless, the debate rages on and is considered by some a doctrine that divides, since there are sincere believers (Arminians) who believe otherwise.

Verses to ponder by way of introduction:  Isaiah 63:17 says, "O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our heart so that we fear you not?" (where is the free will [a term, by the way, not in Scripture except freewill offerings to mean voluntary and not compulsive] in that?).  The anticipatory question of Paul:  "...Why does he still find fault, for who can resist his will?" (Rom. 9:19b, ESV).  We are born into slavery in a hopeless situation [it couldn't be worse!]:  "Wretched man that I am.  Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24, ESV).

Augustine is famous for saying that we are "free but not freed."  Martin Luther said that to call it "free will" is too "grandiose" a term.  Actually, granted we have so-called "free will," the Bible makes it clear that we are "in Adam" before our salvation, and he, therefore, represented the race of mankind and chose evil when he was given this free will.  Our wills are also depraved and spoiled by the sin nature in us.  We are enslaved to sin prior to salvation and must be set free as prisoners of ourselves, sin, and Satan.  We are not born free, as some think, but must be set free.  "For you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free"  (John 8:32).  Adam chose the devil's way and ever since we do the same "in Adam" and are no different.  God granted us free will, as it were, but we chose Satan. Yes, we certainly make our choices willingly, they are not made for us--we only have ourselves to blame for our failures, not God.

What is God to do, but elect and choose to save some unconditionally and not by any merit of their own "according to the good pleasure of His will."  Remember that Jesus said, "You did not choose me, but I chose you" in John 15:16.  If there were any reason in ourselves such as a tendency or bias toward good (we are inclined toward evil and sin), then the choice would not be by grace but by merit. We do not deserve salvation and nothing makes us worthy: Some people don't just desire to be saved and others don't--it's not that simple (that would be a basis of merit).  God didn't choose us because He foresaw that we would believe (the prescient view, would be according to our works --cf. Titus 3:4-5)--that would be the beginning of merit and we'd have something to brag about in God's presence.  God made believers out of us and quickened faith within us, even making the unwilling willing and turning hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

We are still responsible for our decisions and the road we take, and can't claim to "be on the wrong" list" because we all have adequate light to be culpable and make a decision for or against God--I do not believe in coercion or determinism, where we have our decisions made for us, like robots, or are made to do something we don't want to do.  The limit of our will is the ability to make decisions of the one available to us:  If I throw a ball, you have the choice to catch it or let it pass by.  But I decided which ball and when to throw it, etc.  We are free to "choose our own poison" in other words. The freedom of the will is a curse in other words because it has worked against us.  The problem with most theologians is that they jump to the conclusion that just because we can make decisions and are not robots, therefore we are free in the absolute sense and have "free will."  For example, this line of reasoning is like an animal acting according to its will, if you will,  and not doing anything it doesn't want to do; therefore, this means it has "free will."

Our Freedom is like a felon in prison believing he didn't act according to his free will and his rights are being violated in prison--he has the free will to make life decisions they give him (like what to eat, what TV channel to watch, what God to worship, etc.), but not the freedom to get out of prison.  Or it is like a man with a ticket on a train that thinks he has free will but doesn't even know where the train is going--that's up to God, as it were (our destiny is ultimately in God's hands).  Our freedom cannot say, for instance, "Henceforth, I will only do good."  Paul says, "I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do"  (Rom 7:15).  We are natural slaves to sin before salvation, and afterward, we are slaves to righteousness! The locus of our default inability is our nature we are born with (old nature vs. nurture debate).

But God thought it "worth the risk" as Paul Little says, decided we would be in the image and likeness of Him. Is God "free" because He cannot sin?  Are we free in heaven where we cannot sin? We are "voluntary slaves" and enjoy our slavery to sin. Some say that if we cannot choose of our own volition for God then we don't have free will--Jonah 2:9 says, "Salvation is of the Lord."  It is not a joint venture, but God gets all the credit.  (Soli Deo Gloria! or to God alone be the glory!)   We don't cooperate in our salvation, to merit it in any way--we don't add merit to grace as Catholics do.  Now, sanctification is another matter, whereby we cooperate with God to increase in godliness and holiness and in our personal fellowship and walk with the Lord.

"Know that the LORD, he is God!  It is he who made us, and we are his..."  (Psalm 100:3, ESV). "But now, O LORD, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand" (Isaiah 64:8, ESV).  We are not self-made men but should look to the rock from which we were hewn and the quarry from which we were dug (cf. Isaiah 51:1).  We act according to our nature, (e.g, temperamental, impetuous, impulsive, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, garrulous, introverted, demonstrative, reserved, melancholy, etc.) and God decides our nature (like the difference between a dove and a vulture desiring different food by nature); we are hot-wired to divine spec!  God is our maker and we cannot ask Him why He made us the way we are.

So little of our decisions is because of the will that God can manipulate circumstances and use Providence to get His will done through anyone He chooses. Some people are vessels of honor, some of the dishonor.   We didn't decide where we were born, who our parents were, what schools we went to, what our heritage is, et alia. (There are many variables and control factors to take into account in the equation.)   God is free to act according to His divine nature and we are free to act according to our God-given tainted and fallen human nature.

Our wills have limits according to Scripture ("No man can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them..." according to John 6:44) and no man can do nothing apart from Christ's grace ("Apart from Me you can do nothing" according to John 15:5).  We have a will, but not the ability to choose or will Christ apart from the grace of God.  The condition for coming to Christ is recognizing our inability and of being unqualified.

The sum total of our circumstances and resultant life decisions are laid out before we are born and written in God's book (the eternal decree) as certain to happen (Psalm 139:16).  "My times [future] are in your hands" (Psalm 31:15).  "I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps" (Jer. 10:23, ESV). "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps"  (Prov. 16:9, ESV).  "A man's steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?" (Prov. 20:24, ESV).  To sum up:  We have a destiny, but not a fate, which is impersonal and needs no input from us to achieve--in a destiny, we cooperate with God, fate leaves us no choice at all and will happen regardless.

The bottom line is that we don't need free will to get saved, we need wills made free, as you will see if you are grace-oriented.  We don't come to Christ of our own free will--He draws us (It says, compelle intrare or force them in.)  Furthermore, Romans  9:16 says it is "not of him who wills...." We can't reform ourselves or prepare ourselves for salvation.  John 1:11 says that we are "born not of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh" We cannot change our nature or in any way prepare ourselves for salvation: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?  Then neither can you do good who are accustomed to evil" (Jer. 13:23).

However, we are, nevertheless, "free moral agents" and this means we are culpable and God gives us a choice to make.  Plato was wrong when he thought man would only choose the good because man is depraved and willingly chooses evil.   We are not "basically good" but inherently evil through and through. Martin Luther says, "We have not ceased to be man, but ceased to be good!"

 [Appropriate history lesson:  The Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1545-63) declared that anyone who doesn't affirm that we cooperate with God by our own free will is anathema (cursed)!  This Arminian position was condemned at the Synod of Dort in 1618.]

Jesus said, "You will not come to Me ..." (John 5:40).  God is "no man's debtor"(He will authenticate Himself!) and God "no respecter of persons" and makes us willing and able to respond to the gospel; however, He gets all the glory. We do not have the inherent ability to equally choose between good and evil--we are biased toward evil (not inclined to good anymore after Adam's sin) and need grace! This is one of the so-called  5 Onlys:  Soli Deo Gloria!  We simply would never have believed apart from grace:  We are those "...who through grace [have] believed" (cf. Acts 18:27, ESV).  Soli Deo Gloria!