Here’s a 54 minute teaching I just recorded on the often misunderstood theme of “Free Will.”

(repost)

Chapter 6 of the book “Twelve What Abouts” by John Samson

Why are you reading this? Yes, this particular sentence. There are billions of sentences out there just waiting to be read, in many different languages. But right now, you are reading this one. Why?

Well, it could be that some Reformed and crazed individual has put a gun to your head and told you that if you did not read these words he would shoot you. He would definitely be what some refer to as a caged stage reformer: after coming to understand the doctrines of grace, for a period of a couple of years or so, he needs to be locked up in a cage. His zeal for Reformation truth needs to be augmented with sanity in human relations! He sends books, tapes, CD’s, mp3’s, DVD’s, and e-mails to all unsuspecting victims, regardless of whether or not they have ever shown an interest in these things. Christmas is his favorite time of the year, for he’s been eagerly waiting for this opportunity to send R. C. Sproul’s book “Chosen by God” to everyone he knows. He’s on a mission alright, but the best thing would be for him to cool down for a couple of years in a cage!

However, even with the crazed reformed nut with a gun scenario, you are still making the choice to read these words rather than face the contents of the gun. You prefer to read this rather than to feel the impact of the bullet. Even now, you are reading this because you want to – right now you do, anyway. In fact, because this is your strongest inclination, there is no possible way for you to be reading anything else at this moment. It is impossible that you would be reading something other than this right now, and this will continue to be the case until you have a stronger desire to do or to read something else.

So what exactly is free will? Do people have it? Does God have it? How free is God’s will? Can He do what He wants? Can we do what we want?

These kinds of questions are not new, of course. They have been the source of countless conversations and debates amongst ordinary folk and the chief theologians of the Church throughout history. Martin Luther, in looking back over his ministry considered his book on the subject of the will to be his most important work. In Luther’s mind, to misunderstand the will is to misunderstand the Reformation doctrine of sola gratia. He stated, If anyone ascribes salvation to the will, even in the least, he knows nothing of grace and has not understood Jesus Christ aright. (Luther, quoted by C.H. Spurgeon – New Park Street Pulpit, Sermon 52, Free will – a slave, Vol One, p. 395)

I don’t believe the issue is particularly complicated, which is why I am attempting to write a brief chapter on it here. This is not an entire treatise on the will. However, I think enough can be said in a short time to get all of us thinking. Continue reading →

In his very helpful book, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, John Calvin stated that there are four expressions regarding the will which differ from one another:

“namely that the will is free, bound, self-determined, or coerced. People generally understand a free will to be one which has in its power to choose good or evil …[But] There can be no such thing as a coerced will, since the two ideas are contradictory. But our responsibility as teachers is to say what it means, so that it may be understood what coercion is. Therefore we describe [as coerced] the will which does not incline this way or that of its own accord or by an internal movement of decision, but is forcibly driven by an external impulse. We say that it is self-determined when of itself it directs itself in the direction in which it is led, when it is not taken by force or dragged unwillingly. A bound will, finally, is one which because of its corruptness is held captive under the authority of its evil desires, so that it can choose nothing but evil, even if it does so of its own accord and gladly, without being driven by any external impulse.

According to these definitions we allow that man has choice and that it is self-determined, so that if he does anything evil, it should be imputed to him and to his own voluntary choosing. We do away with coercion and force, because this contradicts the nature of the will and cannot coexist with it. We deny that choice is free, because through man’s innate wickedness it is of necessity driven to what is evil and cannot seek anything but evil. And from this it is possible to deduce what a great difference there is between necessity and coercion. For we do not say that man is dragged unwillingly into sinning, but that because his will is corrupt he is held captive under the yoke of sin and therefore of necessity will in an evil way. For where there is bondage, there is necessity. But it makes a great difference whether the bondage is voluntary or coerced. We locate the necessity to sin precisely in corruption of the will, from which follows that it is self-determined.

(John Calvin, The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine of Human Choice against Pighius pp 69, 70)

Article by Dr. John Piper (original source here)

Before the fall of Adam, man was sinless and able not to sin. For God “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). But he was also able to sin. For God had said, “In the day that you eat of it [the tree] you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

As soon as Adam fell into sin, human nature was profoundly altered. Now man was not able not to sin. In the fall, human nature lost its freedom not to sin.

Why is man not able not to sin? Because on this side of the fall “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6), and “the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7–8, my translation). Or, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

Notice the word cannot twice in Romans 8:7–8, and the words “is not able” in 1 Corinthians 2:14. This is the nature of all human beings when we are born — what Paul calls the “natural person,” and what Jesus calls “born of the flesh.”

Too Rebellious to Submit to God

This means, Paul says, that in this condition we “cannot please God,” or, to put it another way, “we are not able not to sin.” The basic reason is that the natural person prefers his own autonomy and his own glory above the sovereignty and glory of God. This is what Paul means when he says, “The mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit . . . ”

Glad submission to God’s authority, and to God’s superior value and beauty, is something we are not able to do. This is not because we are kept from doing what we prefer to do. It is because we prefer our own authority, and treasure our own value, above God’s. We cannot prefer God as supremely valuable while preferring ourselves supremely.

The reason for this idolatrous preference is that we are morally blind to the glory of Christ, so that we cannot treasure his glory as superior to our own. Satan is committed to confirming us in this blinding preference. “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). So when the natural person looks at the glory of God, whether in nature or in the gospel, he does not see supreme beauty and worth.

To Believe We Must See Beauty

This is the basic reason that the natural person cannot believe in Christ. Believing is not just affirming the truth of Jesus, but is also seeing the beauty and worth of Jesus, in such a way that we receive him as our supreme treasure. The way Jesus expressed this was to say, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). There is no saving relationship with Jesus where faith does not consist in treasuring Jesus above your dearest earthly treasures.

Where this wakening to the supreme glory and value of Jesus (called “new birth”) has not happened, the fallen human heart cannot believe in Jesus. That’s why Jesus said to those who opposed him, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44). In other words, you cannot believe in Jesus while you treasure human glory over his. For believing is just the opposite. Believing in Jesus means receiving him as supremely glorious and valuable (John 1:12). Continue reading →

Article by A. W. Pink (original source here)

“It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” Phil. 2:13.

Concerning the nature and the power of fallen man’s will, the greatest confusion prevails today, and the most erroneous views are held, even by many of God’s children. The popular idea now prevailing, and which is taught from the great majority of pulpits, is that man has a “free will”, and that salvation comes to the sinner through his will cooperating with the Holy Spirit. To deny the “free will” of man, i.e. his power to choose that which is good, his native ability to accept Christ, is to bring one into disfavour at once, even before most of those who profess to be orthodox.

And yet Scripture emphatically says, “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” Rom. 9:16.

Which shall we believe: God, or the preachers?

But some one may reply, Did not Joshua say to Israel, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve”? Yes, he did; but why not complete his sentence? — “whether the gods that your fathers served which were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell” Joshua 24:15! But why attempt to pit scripture against scripture? The Word of God never contradicts itself, and the Word expressly declares, “There is none that seeketh after God” Rom. 3:11.

Did not Christ say to the men of his day, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” John 5:40? Yes, but some did come to him, some did receive him. True and who were they?

John 1:12,13 tells us: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”!

But does not Scripture say, “Whosoever will may come”? It does, but does this signify that everybody has the will to come? What of those who will not come? “Whosoever will may come” no more implies that fallen man has the power (in himself) to come, than “Stretch forth thine hand” implied that the man with the withered arm had ability (in himself) to comply.

In and of himself the natural man has power to reject Christ; but in and of himself he has not the power to receive Christ.

And why?

Because he has a mind that is “enmity against him” Rom. 8:7; because he has a heart that hates him John 15:18. Man chooses that which is according to his nature, and therefore before he will ever choose or prefer that which is divine and spiritual, a new nature must be imparted to him; in other words, he must be born again. Continue reading →

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” – Prov. 21:1

“If Yahweh is sovereign over the greatest human will, He is sovereign over all human wills.” – Dan Phillips

In this brief clip from his teaching series Knowing Christ, R.C. Sproul explains why we can’t choose God, even though we have free will.

Transcript

I was interviewed yesterday for a series of programs that were being presented about Reformed theology, and the person who was running this program asked me what the basic issue was between Augustinian theology or Reformed theology and historic semi-Pelagianism. I said I think it comes down to a different understanding of freedom and of free will. I think the principle problem that people have with divine sovereignty with divine election is immediately they say ‘Well, we believe that man has free will.’ Well, I don’t know any Augustinian in all of church history who didn’t strongly affirm that we have free will. We are volitional creatures. God has given us minds and hearts, and He’s given us wills. And we exercise that will all the time. We make choices every minute of the day, and we choose what we want. We choose freely. Nobody’s coercing us, putting a gun to our head—we’re not robots. Robots don’t have minds. Robots don’t have wills. Robots don’t have hearts. We’re human beings. We make choices. That’s why we’re in trouble with God because the choices that we make in our fallen condition are sinful choices. We choose according to our desires which are only wicked continuously the Bible tells us. That we are as it were, dead in sin and trespasses even though biologically we’re very much alive, and we’re walking according to the course of this world—according to the Prince of the power of the air—fulfilling the lusts of the flesh is what the Bible tells us.

And so, the Bible makes it very clear that we are actively involved in making choices for which we are responsible and which expose us to the judgment of God. And yet at the same time, the Bible teaches us that we’re enslaved. We’re free from coercion, but we don’t have what Augustine called “royal liberty.” We are not free from ourselves. We’re not free from our own sinful inclinations, and our sinful appetites, and our sinful desires. We’re slaves to our sinful impulses. That’s what the Bible teaches us again, and again, and again. The humanist doctrine of free will, the pagan view of free will says that man is free not only from coercion, but man is free in the sense that his will is indifferent. It has no predisposition, or inclination, bias, or bent towards sin because the pagan and the humanist deny the radical character of the fall. But the Bible teaches us that we are fallen creatures who still choose and make decisions, but we make them in the context of our prison of sin. And the only way we can get out of that prison is if God sets us free.

A Beginner’s Guide to ‘Free Will’ – Article by John Piper (original source man was sinless and able not to sin. For God “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). But he was also able to sin. For God had said, “In the day that you eat of it [the tree] you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

As soon as Adam fell into sin, human nature was profoundly altered. Now man was not able not to sin. In the fall, human nature lost its freedom not to sin.

Why is man not able not to sin? Because on this side of the fall “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6), and “the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7–8, my translation). Or, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

Notice the word cannot twice in Romans 8:7–8, and the words “is not able” in 1 Corinthians 2:14. This is the nature of all human beings when we are born — what Paul calls the “natural person,” and what Jesus calls “born of the flesh.”

Too Rebellious to Submit to God

This means, Paul says, that in this condition we “cannot please God,” or, to put it another way, “we are not able not to sin.” The basic reason is that the natural person prefers his own autonomy and his own glory above the sovereignty and glory of God. This is what Paul means when he says, “The mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit . . . ”

Glad submission to God’s authority, and to God’s superior value and beauty, is something we are not able to do. This is not because we are kept from doing what we prefer to do. It is because we prefer our own authority, and treasure our own value, above God’s. We cannot prefer God as supremely valuable while preferring ourselves supremely. Continue reading →

Article: Luther, God’s Law and Uncle Rico Syndrome by Aaron Denlinger (original source who until then had proven reluctant to challenge Martin Luther publically, finally caved to pressure from Rome to employ his literary talent against the impudent German Reformer who had caused, and was still causing, the institutional church of his day such problems. Erasmus chose to attack Luther where he believed the Reformer to be most vulnerable; he chose, that is, to challenge Luther’s assertion that sinful man was wholly unable to contribute anything to his own salvation, and for such required not only Christ’s atoning work on his behalf, but also the Holy Spirit’s work of enabling him to believe in Christ and so appropriate Christ and his benefits.

Erasmus’s defense of human free will — his defense, that is, of man’s innate ability to cooperate with God in his own salvation — employed a well-worn Pelagian argument. The humanist scholar argued that biblical commandments imply an ability on (sinful) man’s part to actually fulfill said commandments. So, for instance, appealing to Gen. 30:19 (“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live”), Erasmus commented: “What could be put more plainly? God shows what is good, [and] what is evil, shows the different rewards of life and death, [and] leaves man free to choose. It would be ridiculous to say, ‘Choose,’ if the power of turning one way or the other were not present, as though one should say to a man standing at a crossroad: ‘You see these two roads, take which you like’ … when only one was open to him!”

To be sure, Erasmus’s argument has a certain logic to it. One would hardly excuse me as a parent if I ordered my three year old daughter Geneva to change the oil in the family car and then punished her when she failed to fulfill the required task(s). Commandments to fulfill impossible tasks, and subsequent consequences for failure to deliver, do seem cruel. Surely, then, God would not order man to “choose life” if such a choice genuinely lay beyond man’s ability.

Luther’s response in his 1525 Bondage of the Will takes cognizance of how high Scripture actually sets the bar for man’s moral conduct (“You must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” Matt. 5.48) as well as rather clear biblical statements that reflect man’s spiritual depravity and (hence) inability to clear that bar (“Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin,” John 8.34). The Reformer’s response also, however, employs a very careful explanation for why God apparently commands sinful man to do things that sinful man has no ability to do.

That explanation begins with recognition that one critical component of natural man’s perverse disposition and enslavement to sin is natural man’s deluded perception of his own freedom and, if not moral achievements, at least ability to produce such achievements should he put his mind and energies to the task. “Man,” Luther notes, “is not only bound, wretched, captive, sick, and dead, but in addition to his other miseries is afflicted, through the agency of Satan his prince, with this misery of blindness, so that he believes himself to be free, happy, unfettered, able, well, and alive. […] Accordingly, it is Satan’s work to prevent men from recognizing their plight and to keep them presuming that they can do everything they are told.”

In Luther’s estimation man suffers from a spiritual version of Uncle Rico Syndrome. Uncle Rico, a character in the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite, is a man utterly convinced of both his past and present abilities on the football field. In one memorable speech delivered in the film, Uncle Rico affirms his ability in earlier days to “throw a pigskin a quarter mile.” After subsequently demonstrating his skills by hurling an overcooked steak at his bike-riding nephew Napoleon’s head, Uncle Rico looks wistfully at the mountain range several miles distant and asks: “How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?”

Rico is seriously deluded about his own abilities. But how might one best go about disabusing Rico of his delusion? One could, of course, reason with him about the actual distance of those mountains, the average distance that even professional quarterbacks can throw a ball, etc. A much quicker solution, however, would be to simply hand Rico a football and issue him a command: “Do it.”

This, according to Luther, is essentially how God deals with natural man’s delusion regarding his freedom and abilities in Scripture. Faced with sinful man’s persuasion that he can, at any time he chooses, perform the works necessary to merit eternal life, God essentially tells man: “Do it.” Luther explains: “Human nature is so blind that it does not know its own powers, or rather diseases, and so proud as to imagine that it knows and can do everything; and for this pride and blindness God has no readier remedy than the propounding of his law.” God’s command to “choose life,” then, implies no ability to do so. “By this and similar expressions man is warned of his impotence, which in his ignorance and pride, without these divine warnings, he would neither acknowledge nor be aware of.”

Thus Luther undermines Erasmus’s claim that commandments are somehow cruel if issued to persons incapable of fulfilling them. A commandment to Geneva to change the oil in the car, for instance, assumes a different character when one knows my daughter, a three year old possessed of more than her share of self-confidence. Geneva’s favorite words at present are “I can do it myself.” I have more than once in the last several weeks invited Geneva to do exactly what she claims herself capable of purely in the interest of disabusing her of her inflated confidence and guiding her towards the humble art of asking for (daddy’s) help. I’ve not, to be sure, asked her to change the oil in the car. But on the off chance she tells me tomorrow that she’s capable of doing so, I may very well invite her to do so, simply to rein in her perspective on her own innate abilities.
Similarly, divine commandments that are not actually matched by (fallen) man’s ability reflect no cruelty on God’s part. They are, rather, instances of divine kindness. It would be cruel for God to leave man in his state of delusion regarding his own freedom and abilities. It is kindness to lead man experientially to a knowledge of his inability and (hence) dire state, and so ultimately to lead man to seek salvation not in himself but in the work of Christ on his behalf. In Luther’s words: “The work of Moses or a lawgiver is … to make man’s plight plain to him by means of the law and thus to break and confound him by self-knowledge, so as to prepare him for grace and send him to Christ that he may be saved.” We’re all born with spiritual Uncle Rico syndrome, and to varying degrees we suffer from it until the day we die. One function of God’s law is to (kindly) disabuse us of our confidence in our ability to throw moral footballs over metaphorical mountains, and so to lead us to place our confidence and hope wholly in him who not only could but did