Some thoughts on the human condition - free will

In conversations with Christians who disagree, or are uncomfortable with Reformed (or Calvinist) soteriology, the notion that God chooses some, and not others, unconditionally – and God’s choosing (election) is the determining factor of whether someone believes in the gospel - is passionately contested. To rephrase the Reformed position: God elects His people, therefore His people believe. The causation here is not simply related to possibility, but to actuality. This means that God’s elect are 1) enabled (rather than just ‘able’) to believe; therefore 2) will believe. These two aspects are important when contrasted to the state of the non-elect (i.e., the reprobate). They are 1) unable(d) to believe, therefore 2) will not believe.

I know many people have many issues with this necessarily abbreviated formulation (I hope it is clear at least), but in this post I would like to address one of the rejoinders I have heard, which is that this removes the individual’s freedom to accept or reject God, and if individuals do not have this freedom, then God is cruel and unfair. Let us call this the ‘free will’ position. Simply put, every person has only two choices, which carry implications: 1) believe the gospel, or ‘love God,’ and so enjoy all the benefits of being His people; 2) reject God and so face judgment and punishment.

Right, so let us consider the ‘free will’ argument heuristically from the perspective of ‘love:’ since God loves us (all human beings), He gives us free will to choose whether to reciprocate that love. Coerced love is not love. Love – by definition, must be voluntary. Here’s a short clip of renowned Christian apologist Ravi Zecharias articulating this point: 

Ravi says ‘[y]ou cannot have love without the freedom of the will (2:56).’ Although Ravi is not talking about God’s election in salvation, he does touch upon the issue regarding the choice of human beings to love God (i.e., believe the gospel): 

‘If love is a supreme ethic, and freedom is indispensable to love; and God’s supreme goal for you and for me is that we will love Him with all of our hearts, and love our neighbours as ourselves, for Him to violate our free will would be to violate that which is a necessary component so that love can flourish, and love can be expressed […] (3:16).’

Ravi expresses this beautifully, and it seems to make sense. My objection is not that love must be a voluntary act of volition; it is rather than the human will is ‘free.’ What Christians mean when we talk about ‘human free will’ is 1) frequently unclear, and 2) often seems to be contrary to the Bible’s understanding of the human will. To address the first problem, here’s an Arminian’s definition of ‘free will’ which I will adhere to:  

‘Power of contrary choice is the typical Arminian view of free will. In philosophy this is known as non-compatibilist freedom or libertarian freedom. In this view, “free will” means being able to do otherwise. In other words, in this view, you are only acting freely when and if you could do otherwise than you do. And this does not just mean “physical ability” to do otherwise; it means real ability — that you genuinely could have chosen to do something else but intellectually chose the course of action you took even if you actually preferred something else.’

This definition is important, because 1) I think this is generally how Ravi conceives of free will, and 2) in the following extract, I think the author uses the word ‘free’ in this way. This is an extended passage by Richard Hays excerpted from the chapter on homosexuality in The Moral Vision of the New Testament. He writes of the fallen human condition:

‘The biblical analysis of the human predicament, most sharply expressed in Pauline theology, offers a subtle account of human bondage to sin. As great-grandchildren of the Enlightenment, we like to think of ourselves as free moral agents, choosing rationally among possible actions, but Scripture unmasks that cheerful illusion and teaches us that we are deeply infected by the tendency to self-deception. As Jeremiah lamented, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9, RSV). Romans 1 depicts humanity in a state of self-affirming confusion: "They became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools … They know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die - yet they not only do them but applaud others who practice them" (Rom. 1:21-22, 32). Once in a fallen state, we are not free not to sin: we are "slaves of sin" (Rom. 6:17), which distorts our perceptions, overpowers our will, and renders us incapable of obedience (Rom. 7). Redemption (a word that means "being emancipated from slavery") is God's act of liberation, setting us free from the power of sin and placing us within the sphere of God's transforming power for righteousness (Rom. 6:20-22, 8:1-11, cf. 12:1-2).

Thus, the Bible's sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonsense assumption that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable. Quite the reverse: the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen. That is what it means to live "in the flesh" in a fallen creation. We are in bondage to sin but still accountable to God's righteous judgment of our actions. In light of this theological anthropology, it cannot be maintained that a homosexual orientation is morally neutral because it is voluntary (p. 390, underline mine).’

Three comments on the underlined sections:

1)     (First two underlined sentences) I think Hays is spot-on in pointing out that many Christians nowadays approach the Bible with modern presuppositions, which are frequently not shared by the biblical authors. It is detrimental to our reading of the Bible and to our living out its truths if we import concepts which are alien to the Bible. The applicability and relevance of the Bible which transcends the limits of culture and time do not diminish its situated-ness in a particular historical context. We need to be wary of constructing theological categories which are not grounded in Scripture.

2)    (Third underline) I think the key phrase is ‘[o]nce in a fallen state.’ The Bible tells us that the sinner is completely under the power of sin. The uninformed Arminian would disregard the bondage of the human will to sin, and conceive of the natural human being as neutral, that is, they have an equal chance of being good or being bad – this easily leads to either Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, both of which are heresies. The informed Arminian, however, would affirm with the Calvinist that the human will is in bondage to sin and cannot choose God unless He enables them to do so. The distinguishing factor is that in the Arminian view, the freed will can choose to reject the gospel, that is, God’s saving grace is resistible; whereas for the Calvinist, the freed will cannot reject the gospel – God’s saving grace is irresistible. (Perhaps I will write another post(s) exploring the similarities and differences between the two theological systems.)

3)    (Fourth underline) This is the other implication of free will (cf. para. 2). Thus, some Christians contend that if there is no free will, how can one be genuine responsible for one’s actions? Hays debunks the notion that responsibility - being ‘morally culpable’ - is contingent on free will. Here, however, he does not explain why this is the case. (Perhaps I will explore this issue in another post.) I think what Hays writes here can be used as a critique of the ‘popular’ meaning of free will. In other words, there is no free will, but sinners are still morally accountable to God.

To conclude, we began with the topic of election, then moved to the issue of free will, then to the question of the human condition. I hope the trajectory of this post makes some sense as I attempted to show how these theological issues are interrelated. I acknowledge that these are complex questions, and I definitely need to spend more time thinking about them.

But why is this important? Firstly, this is about growing in our Bible reading; secondly, as Christians, we need to remember who we were. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1 ‘and you were dead in your trespasses and sins,’ and in 1 Cor. 6:9-11 ‘don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? […] And some of you used to be like this.’ Nevertheless, in both instances, amazing ‘but’s’ followed ‘but God, who is rich in mercy […]’ (Eph. 2:4); ‘but you were washed […]’ (1 Cor. 6:11). The glory of God’s liberating grace shines ever brighter when we acknowledge the utter darkness of when we were slaves of sin.