Free Will
Vienna and the most beautiful hall in the world
Several hundred years before Christ, Greek philosophers contemplated the human will and whether or not it is free. Are a man’s choices freely made or coerced by circumstance to the degree that choice is not free?
Since the founding of Christianity, debate continues about this. Given that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and all-powerful how can His will possibly be resisted? Two millennia later, division exists with little resolution.
You may recall I wrote about the free will of man a few months ago and contrasted it against the sovereign will of God. That article explored how apparently mutually exclusive conditions can coexist. In this article, I intend to explore in more depth the free will of man and why this subject matters.
To assert that free will is unbiblical is simplistic.
A Christian teacher declared on Facebook that mankind does not possess free will. He based his view on “free will” not appearing in Scripture. He also noted that biblically you are either a slave of sin or a slave of righteousness, then asserted that it’s not possible for a slave to have a free will.
Well, hmm. The word “free” and the word “will” do not appear side-by-side in the Bible. But to assert this means free will is unbiblical is simplistic. The very first humans were told, “You may eat fruit from any tree except that tree. If you disobey, you will die.” From the earliest moments of Scripture, Adam and Eve possessed the capacity, indeed the privilege, and the responsibility of choosing their actions.
I’ve written before that there are approximately 1500 imperative statements just in the New Testament. The crux of an imperative is choice: Will you or won’t you obey? It seems to me human choice is everywhere in Scripture, but is human choice free.
Norman’s studio
If you search online, you’ll read definitions for free will that utilize the word “coerce”. The idea being, if your will is coerced then it’s not free.
I comprehend this definition, but unless we are discussing a vacuum, it’s a worthless definition because it defines nothing. No aspect of life is without tension, influence, i.e., coercion. A definition that defines nothing tells you nothing.
The debate over free will is whether or not a man’s freedom to choose can be so overwhelmed by circumstance or God that the man is rendered powerless, absolutely subjugated, or if freedom of choice is so fundamental to human nature that no matter the circumstance, the freedom, ability, and responsibility to choose remains.
The teacher I mentioned earlier presents slavery—to sin or God—as examples of the universal negation of human free will: If a person is a slave, their free will is eradicated.
Why does free will matter for you?
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl talked about the last freedom, the essential freedom that could not be taken away under any circumstance. He came to his conclusion while incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp, naked, his life work destroyed, and his family murdered. He wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
While slavery has moral and ethical concerns, to assert it overwhelms the “last freedom” is a gross failure to recognize the indominable freedom of choice in human beings even if only attitudinally.
The biblical slavery referenced by the teacher is contrasted in Romans 6:11-23. The actual term is “bond slave.” A bond slave was a person who had been freed, then voluntarily resubmitted himself to a master. So, slavery was the condition of his own choosing.
But the question remains: Why does free will matter for you?
Bluntly: If you do not have freedom of choice, then you have no responsibility, no culpability; you are a passive actor, an absolute victim. Further, you are not a viable individual. You have no existential meaning. Your life doesn’t matter—to anyone, including you.
Switzerland
If this is the case, then any question pertaining to human rights, human struggle, human dignity, human value, relationship, spirituality, morality, ethics, or human existence in general is pointless. As Jean-Paul Sartre concluded, you are nothing more than an accident of nature.
So, when someone comes along, and through whatever reasoning, asserts that human beings do not have a free will, I’m offended. To not be would be to condone abuse.
If you do not have a free will, then not only is your existence meaningless, you are without hope in this life and the next. If there was not the potential for you to choose God when He called your name in the darkness, then the work of Christ is pointless and your ability to appreciate it is vain.
Are you free of coercion—at any point in your life? No. Newton’s Law of entropy states everything tends toward disorder. Life is filled with duress. Scripture is filled with decision making, including your eternity and heaven and hell.
If man has no freedom of choice, then he can neither suffer the consequence of hell or the magnificence of heaven. If there is no meaning for man’s existence, then there is nothing he is capable of either ruing or appreciating.
Relationship is a constant negotiation between people of independent wills.
Frankl described the last freedom as “response-ability.” He understood that if you can take final choice away, then you absolve a person of responsibility—and absent responsibility, there is no meaning to human existence. When Heinrich Himmler, acting on behalf of Adolf Hitler, ordered the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he thought he was conquering Bonhoeffer. As he was led away to execution, Bonhoeffer said to a fellow prisoner, “This is the end—but for me, the beginning of life.”
God designed you with volitional capability. If this were not the case, then God would not describe your relationship with Him in relational terms because a relationship is a constant negotiation between people of independent wills.
What if we add love and redemption into our thoughts? God loves you so much that by His overwhelming omnipotence, while your free will is negated, He chooses you—chooses us all. Does this maintain hope and meaning in spite of running slipshod over your freedom of choice?
I think not.
Irresistible love ruins you in that you are no longer a viable human being. You have no stake in Christianity because you made no investment. Celebrating life in Christ is a charade. Worship is without merit.
Irresistible love turns you into nothing. Why would the all-powerful One in the universe find pleasure relating to a nonentity?
If you have no free will, where does this lead?
To begin with, you get the error of hyper-Calvinism: You are either chosen by God or you are not. One way or the other, there’s nothing you can do to influence His decision yay or nay.
Therefore, live however you wish. There’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain.
This license to sin is the heresy of Gnosticism, a theme in several biblical books. Without choice, you have no culpability because you have no responsibility.
Neither do you have viability. The joy of heaven is a charade, as is the avoidance of hell, since you have no say in either destination. Further, either destination is equally pointless because you are powerless and without recourse.
The notion of greeting Jesus personally? Forget it. You were acquired. You made no informed choice, so dispense with the notion of being valued and desired.
The new identity you have? As grand as it sounds, it’s meaningless because you are meaningless.
You might accuse me of being dramatic, but the first rule of logic is to understand the prosecution’s argument. When I put myself in the devil’s boots, I would exploit a misconstruing of human free will every day of the week.
There is meaning to your existence.
If humans have no viable responsibility, and choice is without merit, then it is a short step to introduce the errors of license, passivity, sinless perfection, universalism, and ultimately, a salvation that is irrelevant.
You say, “Surely not!” And I say, “Consider Christian history and you’ll understand why I’ve written this article.” Each of the errors above blooms from the seed of a compromised human will.
But on the other hand: If human beings are in possession of an ability to respond to either deception or a divine call, and if a sincere volitional choice is made to accept God’s offer of redemption and relationship, then what transpires is a powerful connection not unlike that of marriage. In this, there is respect, hope, growth, viability. In a word, there is meaning to your existence.
Because God designed you with the ability to choose, and because you chose Him when He offered you His life, there is true magnificence. Your new heart is bonded inseparably to the heart of God.
Years ago I asked a brown-eyed girl to go out with me. She agreed—and I began coercing her. I courted her, dated her, treated her; danced with her, cooked for her, held her hand, and opened doors; I wrote to her, listened to her, and I devoted myself to her until she carried herself more nobly. One day, I told her I loved her and she said, “I love you back.”
In time, we stood before a minister who said to each of us in turn, “Do you take this person to be your wedded spouse?” and she and I, each in turn, willfully and without force, replied, “I do.” And with that, two willful souls freely entered into the lifelong negotiation of relationship called marriage.
Scripture states that God desires you, draws you, and does not wish that you [or anyone else] should perish.
Think back: As you considered God’s offer of salvation, did He coerce you, court you, and do all He could to convince you of His love without compromising your freedom to either accept or reject His offer? You bet He did! He wouldn’t have taken on flesh and found you otherwise. But did He run slipshod over your freedom of choice? Did He exert His omnipotence and overwhelm your free will?
Scripture says God determined to win your heart before the foundations of the world were laid. He wanted you—and He wanted you to freely want Him. He drew you to Himself and demonstrated His desire to have you. He made Himself vulnerable, then waited for your response.
Some consider God’s offer and decline. He replies, “As you wish. I respect your decision.”
Then there are others who contemplate God’s offer and say, “Yes. Thank you. I accept.”
Together, then. Two forces, each volitional, negotiate life. Two peas in a pod, sharing a divine nature. Two made one freely dedicated to each other until eternity runs out.