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?? thoughts on free will ??
Published by bryan | Filed under Don Answers your ???s
Don,
Huge fan of your books and am eagerly anticipating the arrival of “To Own a Dragon†to arrive on my doorstep.
I was raised Methodist and most of my friends are Baptists. Many of them now are Reformed and argue that we are predestined and have no free will. This is something I really struggle with. One thing that bothers me is that my reformed friends seem more concerned with studying about predestination and the teachings of Calvin and Jon Piper rather than the teachings of Jesus. In my mind the idea that we have no free will doesn’t sit well with me. It sounds to me like God makes us sin. I am a firm believer that God knows what path we will choose but doesn’t move us around like chess pieces.
I guess my question would be, what are your thoughts on predestination and free will. I noticed you mentioned earlier that Imago is a reformed church.
Thanks,
Jared
Jardog,
I agree with you that a study of Jesus in scripture is more valuable than studying John Calvin. This is a hard question for me to answer, though, because the question of predestination and free will have never been important to me. I am deciding to type these words, therefore I have free will, and if God has predestined that I type them, that is His business, and there is nothing I can do about it, therefore, why study it or try to prove that idea to the world. The only motive I could have would be to try to convince people I am right or smart. That said, Paul defends the idea, but I think he is defending the goodness or rightness of God, which is a different debate. The goodness becomes the major, and the predestination becomes the minor, or the symptom of a great character. I have to live under the assumption of free will, regardless. But that isn’t my biggest problem with the debate, my biggest problem is Chesterton’s problem of attempting to get “heaven into our heads” rather than “our heads into heaven.”
Don
June 21st, 2006 at 12:51 pm
jared,
i have had some similar concerns with the doctrine of predestination. not only does it seem to make God the author of original sin, which was the primary concern of the Arminian reaction, but to me it seems to call into question the goodness of God. it is hard for me to see God as anything other than a capricious egotist, bringing glory to himself while absolutely screwing certain segments mankind in the process, if the doctrine of predestination is true.
my struggle has been to allow God to be himself and not to create him in my own image, according to what is easy or comfortable for me to believe. i currently find myself with more questions than answers, and more fear than hope. that has, however, been the course of my life thus far, so it comes as no surprise. i pray that God continues to reveal himself and that we are transformed in the process.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:02 am
Man, I agree. Predestination is an issue that has caused so many people to dwell on impossible question instead of focusing on the splendid and wonderful privilege to serve a loving God.
June 24th, 2006 at 1:54 am
There is another perspective on these issues… check out:
http://www.tentmaker.org
I’m not saying they’re right, but this perspective also has scriptural footing. I think it’s worth prayerfully considering.
June 28th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I wonder if what Paul is talking about in Romans is more a “group thing.” And I think this may help solve the whole predestination thing. Let me explain. In Romans Paul talks about Israel rejecting God in their rejection of Jesus. And Calvinists say that it’s like Paul is saying that God caused that to happen. But I don’t think that Paul is saying that God caused every member of the nation of Israel to reject Him individually. I think he is saying that God knew all along what was going to happen with the nation of Israel since the beginning. He knew that they were “stiff-necked” people: true representatives of the rest of humanity (myself included.) So God takes this nation anyway, rescues them from slavery, gives them their own land, they rebel anyway, He woos them again, they rebel and then He finally sends His Son, who is the purest reflection of His nature, and they reject Him. Then the message of gospel is taken to the rest of the world as a result. What does all this say about individual free will? I don’t think it says that much, except that God knows what we are going to do, before we do it and therefore plans accordingly. We might feel like complete tools (and we are in a more literal sense of that word) in the face of such Genius, but who are we to talk back to God who is that unimaginably sovereign?
June 28th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Rock on Don!!!! Your response was so up my alley!!! I have lost friends because I have said “Who cares.†& “Does it really matter?†The doctrine of man is his way of putting God in a box.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:53 am
I wondering if maybe this issue is so difficult to wrap our minds and hearts around because we are trying to view it in from the paradigm of time. As the human race, on this side of eternity, time is the lense by which we look at ourselves, at history. God is not bound by time like we are. Is predesination something that is part of God’s world and plan, yet He sees it streamlined with free will? He knows what choices we will make, and yet He also determines those choices ahead of time. A mystery?, Absolutely, but a Bibical one to be sure. A mystery that is not limited by the constraints of time. In the same way, can I wrap my brain around the Trinity? Around the concept of Eternity?No, because there is nothing in my experience that even begins to help me to understand those aspects of God. I would be worried if I could understand it all. It would make God somehow “less than”- My pea sized brain isn’t supposed to understand everything about my beautiful, all powerful, loving, Holy Creator.(that is what humility is all about) Predestination, the Trinity and eternity are all Bibical mysteries that I accept as being true, even though my understanding is limited.
February 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
Don’t think so, arup (#3). Universalism is crap teaching. Ditch it.