The Bondage Of The Will

"If any man will to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine..." (John 7:17, KJV).  


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.

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 the flesh, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. " "The way of man is not in himself, it is not in man who walks to direct his steps." "A man devises his thoughts, but the Lord directs his steps." (Cf. Prov. 20:24; Jer. 10:23; John 1:13; Rom. 9:16)

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. God does not make us do evil, we do it on our own initiative and willingly. There is no outside force making us do something, that would be determinism or coercion. We are free "to choose our own poison" (So to speak). We are free to go to hell.

According to Martin Luther, the will is enslaved to the old sin nature and not free. St. 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 (known as coercion), 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 ..." "Who were born not of the flesh, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." "For the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." (Jer. 10:23) 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. If you are different or virtuous, that is God's gift to you, not vice versa. "What do you have that you didn't receive [cf. 1 Cor. 4:7] Who makes you to differ?" "The heart devises the way, but the Lord directs his steps." That means God is sovereign!

This is one of the oldest debates in Christendom. Pelagius and Augustine debated it and so did Luther and Erasmus von Rotterdam (who wrote "In Praise of Folly" and made the Greek text of the New Testament available to scholars). The prevalence of the doctrine of freedom of the will in today's church is due to the influence of the Wesleyan Arminians. Don't let anyone make you think that the bondage 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. We are free moral agents, though, because we are individually responsible to God and without excuse for our sin.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Free Will 1

My understanding is that we are free to make decisions such as preferences and inclinations and tastes, but not free to make decisions for Christ. That is why Augustine said we are free, but not freed. (We don't have the liberty to change ourselves and our nature.) Our inclination to do good was lost at the fall. We were not free to choose our nature, e.g., choleric, sanguine, melancholy, or phlegmatic, but we do and can make choices. We distinguish natural freedom (making choices) from moral freedom. ("No one can [has the ability to] come to Christ unless it has been granted him by the Father.")

This is a very tough subject and I do not claim to be an expert, because nobody can explain the sovereignty of God. We are free to act according to our nature, but remember that God is the potter and we are the clay. "We are free to choose our own poison," is what John MacArthur says, and I agree. We are free to go to hell. No one ever thwarts God--Rom. 9:19 says, "For who can resist His will?" We simply cannot do anything good in God's estimation apart from His grace.

We did not choose Christ before He chose us (John 15:16). (Predestination means to mark out ahead of time.) God needs to work on us before we can choose Him. We are not automatons, robots, nor chatty dolls. No one can say he came to Christ apart from the aid of the Holy Spirit. If left to ourselves, none of us would come to Him. When Arminians say some simply desire to come to Christ they are actually attributing merit to the equation, and salvation based on works.  Soli Deo Gloria!

Free Will 2

Martin Luther claimed that the doctrine of the will was the "heart of the gospel." It is a clue to seeing grace at work. God is no man's debtor, as would be the case in Rome's view that faith is a meritorious work. Faith is a work, a work of God (cf. John 6:29). The Bible makes it clear that faith is a gift (Phil. 1:29; Acts 18:27; Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 12:3; 1 Pet. 1:1).

How did free will help Esau, and how did it affect Jacob, who were destined before they were born? The will can only do evil and Jesus said that without him we can do nothing (even believe) as he said in John 15:5. We cannot do anything good apart from God's grace. We are free to choose our own poison! Evangelists insist we need free will (free will and sovereign grace cannot coexist), but we need wills made free. We are enslaved to our old sin nature and need to be set free. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

Augustine said we are non posse non peccare, which means we can only sin and that we cannot but sin. (This is the inability not to sin.) All of our nature is affected by evil and that includes our will. See Is. 1:5-6, "from the soul of the foot to the head there is no soundness in it."  Soli Deo Gloria!

Arminianism Basics

The Arminian believes that results speak for themselves and that in evangelizing what is important is to get decisions regardless of the quality (but Jesus was never interested in quantity over quality). God ordains the means as well as the ends. We should feel privileged to have the opportunity to work for God and pray and witness. God is omniscient because He knows all that could possibly be and could not be sovereign if He didn't. ("For who can resist His will?") God is omnipotent in that He can do anything He wills to do according to His plan. God is just in that He is no respecter of persons and everyone has the opportunity to respond to the light that they have.

God is loving in that He shows common grace to all and is good to all. Jesus had compassion on the crowd. But love is God's essence and everything He does is in love. He doesn't send people to hell; they send themselves. (The Arminian believes that some people desire to get saved while others have no such desire for God. This is hogwash because without grace no one would desire God--there's no place for merit.)

We were all enemies of God and God overcame our reluctance by irresistible grace and an effectual call. We are not any more virtuous by believing or it would be meritorious. (Rome has tried to make faith a meritorious work.)   Believing is the work of God. We don't conjure up our faith either, it comes by the hearing of the Word of Christ. We believe through grace and it was granted to us to believe.  Acts 18:27; Phil. 1:29) We can get with the program if we want to because God certainly can get His will done without us, but He has ordained that we are used for His glory. God is so omnipotent that He can melt any heart. The formula is: Melt me, Mold me, Fill me, Use me!

God can do anything that makes sense, anything He wants to and is concordant with His nature. The faux dilemma that asks if God can create a rock so big He can't move it is ridiculous. God loses either way. Logic says that both cannot simultaneously exist. God cannot stop being God; that would be going against His nature of sovereignty. Everything God does must work together with His other attributes. He is not a private party like we are that can be biased. This is the simplicity (He is never torn in two directions) of God and He never is in a dilemma! God is self-sufficient and doesn't need anyone, but He has decided to make His glory known and show his love.

John 7:17 says, "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know..." (and that is the key of sincerity). That doesn't guarantee salvation but, nevertheless, must be present to find God. He doesn't want to be found by triflers. ("God's chief quarrel with man is that he doesn't or cannot seek Him.")  But the wonder of His grace is that He found us and He was found by those who weren't even looking (cf. Is. 65:1).

No one is going to be able to say that they were on the wrong list. Because God gives everyone the opportunity and time to repent. The goodness of God leads to repentance. (Rom. 2:4) We wonder at the prosperity of the wicked, well, God doesn't want them to have any excuse! The Bible teaches both the efficacy of prayer and the sovereignty of God and so we have to affirm both. We are part of the plan! No one has an excuse with God. God has never left the world or the person without a witness (Acts 14:17).   Soli Deo Gloria!

Determinism

Everything is determined in some respect by something. The question is whether our will is restrained or not in the process. If I do something to you that causes you to do something as a direct result, that can be a sort of determination. According to Jonathan Edwards, God is 100 percent sovereign and there are no "maverick molecules" in the universe, (Edwards says, "I like to ascribe absolute sovereignty to God"), to use an illustration. God never forces us to do something we don't want to do, though (that would be coercion or determinism), but He does influence us and let us act according to His plan. Like Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." This is concurrence or the working together of our wills with God's ultimate will. The Pharisees were playing right into God's plan when they arrested Jesus and had Him crucified. So even the most dastardly act in history was foreordained by God.

"God is at work within you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13) We are moral beings responsible for our decisions, but things of a mere matter of taste or preference we are not. You are not going to die before your time even if you make a bad choice, like Chinese food and choking on it. A good Bible verse is Ps. 110:3 which says " Your troops shall be willing in the day of Your power." Col. 1:29 says God is mightily at work in us. Who made you prefer Chinese food? All our freedom means is that God doesn't force us to do something we don't want to do, but can change our nature and make us willing to do what He wants us to do.

Self-determination is at the heart of our will in this sense. No one can say, "I didn't make that decision!" We also reap what we sow (the law of the harvest) and God lets us suffer the consequences of choosing Chinese food if we don't know how to chew that well in our eating habits. God, of course, is free to intervene, but He doesn't have to (that would be mercy). The Westminster Confession states that everything that happens is God's ordained will or decree and that in allowing it to happen it has to be His will in some sense.

Wycliffe's tenet was that "everything comes to pass of necessity." It is fore-ordained to happen in God's divine decrees. God is both sovereign and we are free agents in the sense of having a will that makes choices. We make decisions on what seems best to us at the moment, all things considered. God manipulates the circumstance.

I'm not a fatalist, but I believe God's will must be done. There are different kinds of wills of God. The will of disposition is what God desires or what is pleasing to Him. He desires all to be saved in this sense. But God doesn't act according to this since all are not saved. God has a preceptive will, which we read about in the Bible. God also has a secret or decreed will which is none of our business. For instance, God never explained to Job why he as suffering. We do not have the ability to frustrate God and God is not so impotent that He cannot accomplish whatsoever He wills. God does what He pleases, both in the Heavens and on the earth (Ps. 135:6). This is one of the perks of being God--He can do as he wills. God is never frustrated in His will either.

I know I elaborated a little, but I don't think anyone understands the sovereignty of God, just like the Trinity or the glory of God. He is incomprehensible. The finite cannot penetrate the infinite. Nothing outside of us ever forces us to do anything we don't want to do. There is no effect without a cause! God is not an effect! (He is self-existent, has no history, and is not confined to time, matter or space, which He created.)

Free But Not Freed

St. Augustine said that our wills are "free but not freed." He is not playing word games but is trying to say that we are voluntary slaves of sin and do not have liberty. We are either slaves to Satan or to God, there is no middle island of neutrality. We cannot say: "From henceforth, I will only be good!" That is where our freedom ends. We have no inclination to good. God could not say the opposite of that statement and is necessarily good, while the devil is necessarily evil. We have natural freedom but not moral freedom. We retain our natural ability to make choices but make the wrong choices. We can only choose good with God's grace.


The Arminian believes some people desire to be saved and to know God, and that is their explanation for their salvation. Calvinists believe no one seeks God and no one is good or inclined to good. "Paul lumps all men together" according to Luther. When we get to heaven we will have real freedom to the ultimate degree and will not desire evil or have that inclination. The question is where did that desire to choose Christ come from? Arminians believe God woos all men, but cannot explain why some respond other than that they believe of their own free will or merit and have something to boast about.

Our freedom is like being on a train on which God sets the destination and we are free to sin to our heart's content but have to stay on the train, only God can transfer us to the train to heaven.

The key to understanding the TULIP points is in insisting on absolute total depravity if you give man any abilities to please God by himself or by works, the points break down. Pelagius (a 5th-century British monk) insisted that man was basically good and that Adam's sin affected him only.

We don't need a free will, we need wills made free, as I have said before. We are into Satan and his kingdom before being set free by the Son. "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Think of ultimate free will this way: In Heaven, we will be free to be sinless and will not be free to sin, but we don't want to either. Adam was free to sin or not to sin, but we inherit the birthright of a fallen nature.

A Will, But Not A Freed One

The bottom line is that we don't need free will--we need WILLS MADE FREE. "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." There is no outside force making us do something we don't want to, for that would be determinism, and we are against that. God's coercion is love. (He is able to quicken faith within us and overcome our unwillingness to make us willing.) We make a willing choice, that's it. God is able to change our dispositions, though.

We have a will, it's just not free to do good apart from God, it can only do evil. But we are free moral agents, which means we are responsible for our decisions and a choice is given us--we are not chatty dolls or automatons or robots without a will.  The point is that the will is enslaved to the old sin nature and corrupted through and through, and cannot do any good apart from the grace of God.

When we are born again our nature changes. Faith is the result of the new birth, not the cause of it. Regeneration precedes faith according to the great theologian J. Edwin Orr. We don't believe in our own strength and then God owes us regeneration. Otherwise, we make God our debtor. God is no one's debtor. He doesn't have to give grace to anyone; it's a miracle anyone is saved.

"The Lord directs a man's steps, how then can he understand his way?" "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free ." " We are born not of the will of man, nor the will of the flesh ...." It is not of him that wills ...."   Jer. 10:23, Prov. 20:24, Ps. 37:23, Prov. 16:9 and Prov. 21:1 all make it clear that God is in control ("The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, He turns it whithersoever He wills"). Jer. 10:23 says, "The way of man is not in himself, it is not in man who walks to direct his steps." The Council of Trent in 1545-63 pronounced a curse (anathema) on those who refused to accept the doctrine of free will and of our "cooperation" with God unto salvation. We contribute nothing to our salvation, says Luther, because Jonah 2:9 says, "Salvation is of the Lord." (It doesn't say that salvation is of the Lord and of us.)    Soli Deo Gloria!

The Will To Change

The Bible never attributes to man the ability to change his heart. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spot, then neither can you do good who are accustomed to evil" (cf. Jer. 13:23). "You WILL not come to Me ..." (Cf. John 5:40, emphasis mine). Freedom of the will is contradictory to the sovereign grace of God; they both cannot exist. Either man is in control of his destiny, or God is. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." (Cf. Zech. 4:6)

The question is what makes man willing? God must work in the heart. We cannot do anything to merit grace or prepare ourselves for salvation. God is not man's debtor.

We cannot change of our own volition or will, we are volitionally defiant. But no one is so sinful or so hardened that God cannot save him. (He can take a heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh according to Ezek. 36:26.)  Arminians give themselves the credit for responding positively to the gospel as if they took advantage and made good on the grace of God while others don't. They actually pat themselves on the back for their salvation!

To believe in free will and the sovereign grace of God, is biblical, and you are confused to dichotomize them, and you are ignorant, and if you believe you were saved by both.   Face it, God made you willing and able to believe and wooed you to Himself. Had it not been for the Holy Spirit, you would not have believed.   Soli Deo Gloria!

The Will Of Man

"Man has not ceased to be man, he has just ceased to be good," according to Martin Luther. The will is not sovereign, but operates subject to the disposition of the person. When we talk of the total depravity of man we are not saying we are as bad as we can be, just that we are as bad off as we can be; all of our nature is sick with sin, including the intellect, will and emotions. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint" (cf. Isa. 1:5).

A definition of the will by Jonathan Edwards was that it was that by which the mind chooses. We always choose according to the strongest desire at the time to suit our own best interest, all things considered. God never coerces us to do something we don't want to do. We never do something we don't want to do.

The trouble is no one wants to receive Christ apart from the grace of God. He woos us and makes us willing and able to believe by grace. Arminians think that we cooperate with God in our salvation, but Calvinists maintain that "Salvation is of the Lord." He does it all and gets all the credit--we don't contribute anything to our salvation. "He is at work within you both to do and to do according to His good pleasure." No one can say they came to Christ uninfluenced by the Holy Spirit! There is no such thing as prevenient grace given to all to enable them to make a decision. God is the enabler and is able to overcome the most reluctant, hardened, and sinful heart. (Think of Paul's conversion!)

We are free to choose our own poison, as it were. We are not chatty dolls or automatons but are free moral agents responsible for our choices.

This doctrine according to Luther is the very heart of the gospel. If you fail to realize that you really aren't grace-oriented. There cannot be both free will and sovereign grace at the same time. We don't meet God half-way, but he only rescues us like a lifeguard rescuing a drowning swimmer, when we give up trying to save ourselves. A good example of our will is like the difference between a dove and a raven; the dove has no desire to eat the raven's carrion--it is against his nature.  We did not choose our nature either.

The Council of Trent in the 16th century said that anyone who does not affirm that the freewill cooperates with God in salvation is anathema. This was the Arminian position in opposition to the Reformers (Refer to the Synod of Dort in 1618).

We are voluntary slaves who have lost our inclination to do good at the fall. There is no point of neutrality that we can cling to and have free will. We cannot change our God-given nature. There is no place of "moral equipoise" or neutral territory that we can stand on.  We are not neutral and able to equally choose to be good or evil--we're prone to evil, not inclined to good!   Soli Deo Gloria!

Freewill?

 "... Why then does He still find fault?  For who can resist His will?"  (Rom.9:19, HCSB). 

Martin Luther said that the freedom of the will is too grandiose a term and fit only for God. Our wills are enslaved to the old sin nature, biased toward evil, and prone to do nothing but evil. We cannot do any good apart from God: "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (cf. John 15:5). "All our righteousness is as filthy rags" (cf. Isa. 64:6). Saint Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, said that we are "free but not freed."  No mind game--just emphasizing that we don't have liberty, though we are responsible agents. We are free in the sense that we are not coerced from any outside force to do anything we don't want to do, that would be determinism (without our free input).

The trouble is is that we only want to do evil. Augustine also said that we are non posse non peccare, which means unable not to sin--we can only do evil. The freedom of the will is a curse in other words because we only act according to our fallen nature.  That is to say, we don't need a free will; we need wills made free.

God is perfectly free, yet unable to sin!  In glory, we will be ditto.  God's will overrides ours and His sovereignty isn't limited by our freedom (cf. Jer. 20:7).  "For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for His good purpose"  (Phil. 2:13, HCSB).  A man in prison is free to play cards, but not free to leave or do as he desires--our freedom has limits and, though we maintain moral ability to choose, we have lost the ability to choose God apart from grace working in our hearts in the wooing ministry.  

There are several Bible verses that come to mind: "It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God who shows mercy." "Who were 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, it is not in man that walks, to direct his steps" (cf. Jer. 10:23). "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him ..." (Cf. John 6:44). "No one can come to Me unless it has been granted of the Father..." (John 6:65). Does that sound like free will? "Who makes you to differ? What do you have that you didn't receive?" (Cf. 1 Cor. 4:7). (cf. Prov. 16:9; 20:24; Ps. 37:23.)   Soli Deo Gloria!

Freewill Or Power To Choose?

Do you think you came to Christ merely of your own volition? God makes the unwilling willing. Why do you think it says, "You are not willing to come to Me?" (cf. John 5:40). Isa. 63:17 says, "O LORD, why do you make us err from your ways and harden our hearts, so we fear you not." God hardens whomsoever He wills, according to Romans 9:18. So why does He then still find fault? (Cf. Rom. 9:19); we are made culpable. "The elect attained unto it, the rest were hardened" (cf. Rom. 11:7).

The question is not that you were willing and pat yourself on the back, but who or what made you willing? You act according to your nature only and God created your nature. For example, if you are nice, that is God's gift to you of being nice. Whether you are phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, melancholy, introverted or extroverted, God made you that way. If you have a mental illness also--God is your maker. He is the potter, we are the clay. "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, like rivers of water, He turns it whithersoever he will." (Prov. 21:1) You are only free in the sense that God doesn't force you to do evil, you do it on your own. You can do nothing good to please God (Isa. 64:6; Rom. 8:7-8).

Jesus said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing." So you think you can be saved anytime you want? "For now is the day of salvation...." John 6:44 says, "No one can come to the Father, unless who sent Me He draws him." God must woo us. Arminians can never figure out why God doesn't woo everyone and why some do respond favorably. It is all God's grace. "Salvation is of the Lord" (cf. Jonah 2:9). It is not of the Lord and man, nor of man.

Freewill can do nothing but evil, according to Martin Luther. We are unable to do nothing but evil: Augustine says:  we cannot not sin, or in Latin non posse non peccare.  John 1: 11-13 and Rom. 9:16 clearly say that salvation is not of man's will, but of God ("It is not of him who willeth, nor of him who runneth, but of God who showeth mercy"). "Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man...." "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts...." Ps. 110:3 says He makes us willing in the day of His power. David prays for a willing spirit in Psalm 51:12.   "He works in us both to do and to will of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).   Soli Deo Gloria!