Free Will

This is my talk I gave for NCFCA this year. I'd like to hear what you think about it. :) (:


Can man do everything he chooses? Can man fly to the moon without a machine? Can he take a deep breath and live under water for a day without oxygen? 

Today I will be talking on the topic of:

Free Will

I shall be dealing with the subjects of predestination, foreknowledge, the sovereignty of God, human ability and free-will. Let me just say that this is a very large and deep subject that has been debated for centuries. My hope today is to persuade you to see how we don’t necessarily have a free-will?

The view that I hold is one that was held by men such as: R.C. Sproul, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Owen, John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, and St. Augustine.

We are going to explore three points today, 1^st Human Will. 2^nd God’s Will and 3^rd The Importance.

First Human Will

Martin Luther wrote a book entitled “The Bondage of the Will.”  He considered it his most important work because it spoke of the issues that he regarded as being, the cor ecclesiae, the very heart of the church. I agree with Luther and that is why I chose this topic. I will get into this more in my last point. This is a matter of proper knowledge of self and God.  Luther pressed the issue of the relationship between God’s foreknowledge and human events.

I love to play chess. When I’m playing there are many moves during a game I cannot predict with absolute certainty.  Although I can consider the possible moves my opponent can make in the future parts of the game.

However, God’s foreknowledge is perfect and absolute.  He doesn’t have to wait a couple moves to see what will happen. In His predestined plan He knows every word before it is formed on our lips.  Luther’s crucial point is that God wills whatever he foreknows and foreknows whatever he wills.

We have a mind and a will. We have a natural ability to choose what we desire.  What’s the problem then?  What’s the nature of our desire behind our will?  Does fallen man, in and of himself, have a natural desire for Christ?  Jonathan Edwards answers “No!” Augustine’s Latin formula was non posse non peccare.  Meaning- after the fall man was morally incapable of living without sin.

Jonathan Edward’s said this, “A man never, in any instance, wills any thing contrary to his desires, or desires any thing contrary to his will.”  -Think for a second about the choices you made today, like coming to judge and why this category?  Perhaps it was because all the other events were full and you had to, which I hope is not the case, but still you had to make the choice to agree to judge anyway.  A choice is made because of your strongest inclination at that moment.  What about sin?  Christians have a desire in their hearts to obey Christ.  Yet we sin.  If we always desired to obey Christ more then we desire to sin, we would never sin.  Rom. 7:19 “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”

Our will is not free in the sense that it’s in bondage to our own desire and our desire is in bondage to our sinful nature.  Our will is free to choose what it desires but our desires our enslaved to sin. Rom. 3:12 says “…no one does good, not even one.”  Our will and abilities are, because of the fall, corrupt and we are completely unable to do what is right. This leads me into my second point.

God’s Will

I’ve come across many people who refer to 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord…not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”  

They imply that God isn’t in complete control because He doesn’t wish that any perish.  He wishes that some things happen and that some things don’t happen.  God is just waiting for us to make a decision toward repentance that He hopes we will make.

In response to these statements we need to define and distinguish God's decreed will from His declared will. We must distinguish between what God actually does will to happen and what He would like to see happen, and both of these things can be spoken of as God's will.

What do I mean when I say the decreed will of God?  This is Gods secret will of decree when he predestined everything that comes to past before the foundations of the world.

What about the declared will of God?  This is Gods revealed will where he declares what we should and shouldn’t do. We all can and do resist this will and fall short of the glory of God.

An example of the two wills of God can be clearly seen at the cross. At the cross we see a difference in what God would like to see happen and what He actually does will to happen.  The Father willed the death of His perfect Son while at the same time forbidding murder. It was according to His decreed will (His plan) but against His declared will (His law).  In other words there is a sense in which God willed the delivering up of his Son, even though the act was sin.  We must distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen.

It is not His declared will that any should perish but it is His decreed will to save some and not others.  "For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." (Rom 9:15-16) The Holy Spirit will work in the lives of the elect so that they inevitably will come to faith in Christ. We do not ‘choose’ to be saved by our own will,

Left to our own fallen-will we are unable to choose without the Father first choosing us. John 6:44 says "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."

Rom 9:17-23 – “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.”

God’s wills are perfect and they affect how we act and what happens.  We need to understand this before we can understand ourselves. Without God’s grace we are going to sin without a doubt. Bottom line, God is God and we are not. Now that I have explained the different wills, we will now look at their importance. My last point…

The Importance.

We need to understand this because when we don’t we tend to fashion a god in our mind who is lesser than the true and all sovereign God.  Instead of God molding us into his likeness we try to mold Him into our likeness. The sovereignty of God, as Luther said, is at the very heart of the Church.  Why is it?  I’ll tell you why. Our fallen nature wants to be in total control and so we fashion a god in our minds who is less than sovereign; we than break the 1^st and 2^nd commandments by creating a false god who allows us to stay in control.

All of us, like sheep, have gone astray and if it wasn't for God’s sovereign and irresistible Hand drawing us to Himself, even while we were dead in our trespasses and sins, we would still be lost.

We don’t come into the world and turn back saying, “Hey, I never said you could make me; why didn’t you ask for my permission?”  Lazarus also didn’t say “I never said you could raise me from the dead.”  Lazarus didn't need to give Jesus permission to raise him from the dead.  "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus"  Eph 2:4-6

On the way to this tournament we prayed that we may have traveling mercies and that God’s sovereign hand may be over us and protect us.  When we pray this way we are admitting and presupposing that God is God, God may intervene, and transcend individual free-will in order to keep us safe.

If we are ignorant of the foreknowledge of God, Martin Luther said.  “Christian faith is utterly destroyed, and the promises of God and the whole gospel fall to the ground completely; for the Christian's chief and only comfort in every adversity lies in knowing that God does not lie, but brings all things to pass immutably, and that His will cannot be resisted, altered or impeded.”

When I’m playing chess, my opponent can set up traps that will destroy me. I cannot foresee all things in the game because I did not foreordain every move my opponent makes. God, however, foreknows and foreordains all things. He cannot be lead astray in His foreknowledge and predestination. Nothing happens outside or against His decreed will and so there can be no free-will in man.

We looked at 1^st Human will. How our will is free to choose what it desires but our desires our enslaved to sin. 2^ndly God’s wills.  God’s wills are perfect and they affect how we act and what happens. Lastly The Importance. We saw that having the wrong view of this can cause us to doubt our faith and limit Gods sovereignty.

In conclusion, can man do whatever he chooses? Can he fly to the moon without a rocket? No. Man's will is not free because it’s limited by his nature.   I hope I’ve persuaded you to go and search the Scriptures. Know where your stand is in this great debate!