I want to direct our attention
to an examination of what we mean by those
words "free will." What does it mean
to have a free will? What does it mean to
be a free moral agent, a volitional creature under
the sovereignty of God? First of all, let
me say that there are different views of what free
will comprises that are bandied about in our
culture, and I think it's important that we
recognize these various views. The first view I'm going
to call the "humanist" view of free will, which I would say
is the most widely prevalent view of human freedom that
we find in our culture. And I'm sad to
say, in my opinion, it's the most widely held
view within the church, as well as outside
of the church. In this scheme, free will
is defined as our ability to make choices
spontaneously, that is that the choices that we make
are in no wise conditioned or determined by any prior
prejudice, inclination, or disposition. Let me say that again: that we
make our choices spontaneously, nothing previously -
previous to the choice - determines the
choice, no prejudice, no prior disposition,
or prior inclination, but the choice comes
literally on it's own as a spontaneous
action by the person. Now I see at the outset
two serious problems that we face as Christians with
this definition of free will. The first is a theological,
or moral problem, the second one is
a rational problem. And I should really
say that there are three problems because
the whole lecture will focus on the third one, but
on the - at the outset, we immediately see two problems. The first is, as I said, a
theological, moral problem. If our choices are made
purely spontaneously, without any prior inclination,
any prior disposition - in a sense what we're
saying is that there is no reason for the choice. There is no motivation,
or motive for the choice. It just happens spontaneously. And if that is the way
our choices operate, then we immediately
face this problem: how could such an action have
any moral significance to it at all? Because one of the
things, for example, that the Bible is concerned
about in the choices we make, is not only what we choose,
but what our intention was in the making of that choice. We recall, for
example, the story of Joseph being sold into
slavery by his brothers. And when he has this
reunion with his brothers many years later,
and they repent of that former sin, what does
Joseph say to his brothers? And when he accepts them
and forgives them, he says, "You meant it for evil,
but God meant it for good." So that God made a
choice in the matter. God had chosen, at least,
to allow this thing to happen and to befall Joseph. His brothers made a choice
about what to do with Joseph. Their inclination in the making
of that choice was wicked. God also made a choice in
allowing it to take place, but God's reason, God's
intention in this activity, was altogether
righteous and holy. And so God, in considering
a good deed, for example, not only examines the outward
deed itself (the action), but He also considers the what? The inner motivation, the
intent behind the deed. But if there are no
inner motivations, if there are no intents,
there's no real intentionality, to use the philosophical term,
then how could the action be of any moral significance? It just happens. But even deeper
than that problem, we face immediately the
question of whether or not such a choice could
actually be made, not simply whether it would
be moral if it were made, but could a creature without any
prior disposition, inclination, bent, or reason
even make a choice? Let us look at this by way
of a couple of examples. If I have no prior
inclination or disposition - what is attractive
about that idea is that that would mean
that my will is neutral. It's inclined neither to
the left nor to the right. It's neither inclined toward
righteousness nor towards evil, but is simply neutral. There is no previous bent
or inclination to it. I think of the story
of Alice in Wonderland when she, in her travels,
comes to the fork in the road, and she can't decide whether
to take the left fork or the right fork. And she looks up, and there is
the Cheshire cat in the tree, grinning at her, and she
asks of the Cheshire cat, "Which road should I take?" And the Cheshire cat replies
by saying, "That depends. Where are you going?" And she says, "I don't know." Then what does he say? "Then I guess it
doesn't matter." If you have no intent, no plan,
no desire to get anywhere, what difference does
it make whether you take the left or the right? Well, in that situation,
we look at it, and we think, "Well,
Alice now has two choices. She can go to the left, or
she can go to the right." When in fact, she
has four choices. She can go to the left,
she can go to the right, or she can turn back and go
back where she came from, or she can stand there and
do nothing, which is also a choice, and stand
there until she perishes from her inactivity. So, she has four choices. And the question
we're going to ask is, "Why would she make
any of those four choices?" If she had no reason, or
inclination behind the choice, if her will were
utterly neutral, what would in fact
happen to her? If there's no reason to
prefer the left to the right, or standing there as
far as going back, what choice would she make? She wouldn't make a choice. She'd be paralyzed. And so, the problem we have with
the humanist notion of freedom is that it's the old
problem of the rabbit out of the hat without a hat
and without a magician. It's something coming
out of nothing, an effect without a cause. A spontaneous choice,
in other words, is a rational impossibility. It would have to be an
effect without a cause. Now, just in passing,
I may add that from a biblical perspective,
from a Christian view, man in his fallenness,
is not seen as being in a state of neutrality with
respect to the things of God. He does have a prejudice;
he does have a bias. He does have an inclination,
and his inclination is toward wickedness and
away from the things of God. But just let me say
that, in passing, as we look at various Christian
views of freedom of the will. I personally think that the
greatest book that has ever been written on this
subject, is entitled simply "The Freedom of the Will"
by America's greatest scholar Jonathan Edwards. (And incidentally,
that designation as "America's greatest
scholar" is not my own. That comes from the
Encyclopedia Britannica, that has voted Jonathon Edwards
the greatest scholarly mind that the United States
ever produced, and his work "The Freedom of
the Will", I think is the closest
examination and analysis of this thorny question
I've ever read.) Of course, Martin Luther's famous work
on the bondage of the will is also one that's
very important, that Christians I
think need to read. But let's look for a moment
at Edwards' definition of the freedom of the will. Edwards says that,
"Freedom, or free will, is the mind choosing." Now what he's saying there is
that though he distinguishes between the mind
and the will, he is saying that the two
are inseparably related. We do not make moral choices
without the mind approving the direction of our choice. That is one of the
dimensions that is closely related to the
biblical concept of conscience: that moral choices
are - that the mind is involved in moral choices. I become aware of
certain options, and if I prefer one
over the other, to make, have a preference, before
I can make the choice, I have to have some awareness
of what those options are for it to be a moral decision. So that the will
is not something that acts independent from the
mind, but acts in conjunction with the mind. Whatever the mind deems
as being desirable, is what the will is
inclined to choose. Now in addition to
definitions, Edwards gives us sort of an iron rule that I call
"Edwards' Law of Free Will," and I think this is perhaps
his most important contribution to the discussion
of human freedom. Edwards declares this: that,
"Free moral agents always act according to the
strongest inclination they have at the
moment of choice." To say it another way, we
always choose according to our inclinations,
and we always choose according
to our strongest inclination at a given moment. Let me put it in simple terms. Any time that you sin,
what that action indicates is that at the
moment of your sin, your desire to commit the
sin is greater in that moment than your desire
is to obey Christ. If your desire to obey
Christ were greater than your desire to commit
the sin, what would you do? You would not sin! But at the moment
of choice, we always follow our strongest
inclination, our strongest disposition, or our
strongest desires. Now, it seems to us,
however, in this business of choosing, that
there are lots of times we choose things for no
apparent reason whatsoever. For example, if I
were to ask you, "Why are you
sitting in the chair that you are sitting
in right now?" Could you analyze your
own internal thought processes and responses
to the options that were before you when
you came into this room and say with
clarity, "The reason why I'm sitting
on the end here is because I always like to
sit on the end chair," or "because I wanted
to sit next to Jean," or "I wanted to be
in the front row so I could be on
the video camera," or "this was the
only chair left open, and I didn't want to stand,
and I'd rather sit than stand, and so my desire for
sitting was stronger than my desire for standing,
and so I sat down." What I'm saying to
you is that there is a reason why you are
sitting where you are sitting, and it may have been
a very quick decision. It may have been
simply that you're lazy and you don't like to walk, and
that the chair you saw vacant was the closest one
available to you. Chances are, the reasons
go deeper than that. There are some people, if
you walked them into a park where there is a park bench that
is vacant and room for three people, that these people, if
you walk them into a park bench - or walk them into a park
and there's an empty bench, and they sit down on the
bench, a hundred times out of a hundred, they'll
sit on the end of the bench rather than in the
middle of the bench. In fact, usually it will be on
the left end or the right end, where other people will
always choose the middle. Why? Some people enjoy crowds. They like to be in the
middle of the action. They have a gregarious
personality. Other people like
to stay safely where they can have a safe exit, will
stay on the end of the bench. And let me just say,
we're not always sitting there analyzing
very carefully why we make the choices
we make, but there is a reason for every
choice that we make, and we always act
according to the strongest inclination of the moment. Now, there are two things
that we may raise immediately to object to Edwards'
law of choosing. The first one is,
"Well, I can tell you lots of occasions where
I have done things that I really didn't
want to do, and I have experienced coercion." Well, what coercion involves
is external forces coming into our lives that seek
to force us to do things, that all things being equal,
we would not choose to do. But in most instances,
the power of coercion can usually just reduce
our options to two - they can severely
reduce our options. The gunman comes up
to me on the sidewalk, and he puts a gun to
my head, and he says, "Your money or your life." He has just reduced
my options to two. Okay? By external force and coercion. Now all things being equal,
I was not looking for someone to give my wallet
away to that night, so I had no great desire
to give this man my money. But when the gun's at
my head, and my options are my brains on the sidewalk
or my billfold in his pocket, suddenly I have
a stronger desire to live and lose my money than
to die and still lose my money. And so, at that
moment, my desire level to live might be
stronger than my desire level to resist this man, and
so I give him my wallet. Now there may be people in that
same situation that would say, "I would rather die, than
to give in to coercion, even though I know that if I
refuse to give him this wallet, he's going to kill me anyway
and take my money, still, I'm not going to
help him at all." So they say, "Shoot me." But even then, their
desire to resist is greater than their desire not
to resist, and so they resist. Is that clear? So even when our options
are severely reduced and external forces
change our desire levels - because this is the other point
that we have to be aware of, is that human desires
fluctuate, and they are many. In our situations where
we are making choices, it's rare that we're only
choosing between two options, or even just between a good
option and a bad option. One of the toughest moral
choices for a Christian to make is between rival goods. "We have two
opportunities, but I'm not sure which is the one in which
I can most serve Christ." And that becomes very difficult. We know that our desire
levels change and fluctuate. But the second objection
that I can hear coming is the statement
from the Apostle Paul when he says, "The good
that I would, I do not, and that which I would not
is the very thing I do." And it seems to suggest
right there that the Apostle Paul, by apostolic authority,
is telling us that it is indeed possible for a person to
choose against his wishes, to choose against his desires. I can only say in
response to that that I do not believe it
was the Apostle's intention there to give us a technical
treatment of the intricacies of the working out of
the faculty of choosing; but what he is
expressing is something that we all experience - that
I have within me a desire to please Christ, but that
desire that is present does not always win out when
the moment of truth comes. All things being
equal as a Christian, if you were to say
to me, "RC, would you like to be free from sin?" I would say, "Of course I'd
like to be free from sin." However, I say that now
until the temptation of sin presses in upon me
and my desire for that sin intensifies; and then I
surrender to it, freely. Because when I work and act
according to my desires, I am working and acting freely. All right, let me continue. Calvin, in examining the
question of free will says that, "If we
mean by free will that fallen man has the ability
to choose what he wants, then of course fallen
man has free will. If we mean by that term
that man in his fallen state has the moral power and ability
to choose righteousness, then," said Calvin,
"free will is far too grandiose a term to
apply to fallen man." And with that sentiment
I would agree. Now we've seen Edwards' view,
we've seen Calvin's view, now we'll go into the
Sproulian view of free will by appealing to irony
or to a form of paradox. I would like to make this
statement: that in my opinion, every choice that
we make is free, and every choice that
we make is determined. Every choice that
we make is free, and every choice that
we make is determined. Now that sounds
flatly contradictory because we normally
see the categories of "determine" and "free"
as being mutually exclusive categories, saying that
if something is determined by something else,
which is to say it's caused by
something else, would seem to indicate that it
couldn't possibly be free. But what I'm speaking here
- of what I'm speaking - is not determinism. Determinism means that
things happen to me strictly by virtue of external forces. But in addition to
external forces that are determining factors
in what happens to us, there are also internal forces
that are determining factors. What we're saying all night,
along with Edwards and Calvin, is that if my choices
flow out of my disposition and out of my desires, and if
my actions are an effect that have causes and
reasons behind them, then my personal desire,
in a very real sense, determines my personal choice! Now if my desires determine my
choice, how then can I be free? Remember that I said
in every choice, our choice is both
free and determined? But what determines it is
me, and this we call self - you fill it in - determination. Self-determination, which is
not the denial of freedom, but is the essence of freedom. For the self to be
able to determine it's own choices is what
free will is all about. Now the simple point
I'm trying to make is that not only may we choose
according to our own desires, but in fact we do always choose
according to our desires; and I'll take it even to the
superlative degree and say, in fact, we must choose always
according to the strongest inclination at the moment. And that is the
essence of free choice - to be able to
choose what you want. Now the problem with
the sinner, obviously, is not that the
sinner in his fall has lost the faculty of choice. Sinners still have minds,
sinners can still think, sinners still have desires,
sinners still have wills. And the will is
still free insofar as it is able to do what
the sinner wants it to do. Where is the problem? The problem is in the
root of the desires of the heart in fallen
man, that because he has an evil inclination,
a desire for sin, he sins. Sinners sin because
they want to sin. Therefore, they sin freely. Sinners reject Christ because
they want to reject Christ. Therefore, they
reject Him freely. And before a person can
ever respond positively to the things of God and
choose Christ, and choose life, he must have a
desire to do that. Now the question
is, does fallen man retain any desire
in his heart for God and for the things of God? Quickly, I will introduce
really our next subject which will be the biblical
view of the radical character of man's fallenness with
respect to his desire for the things of God. But before we get to
that lecture, let's just tie this one up by
speaking of another distinction that Jonathan Edwards
has made famous. He makes a distinction
between moral ability and natural ability. Natural ability has to
do with the abilities we have by nature. As a human being, I have the
natural ability to think. I have the ability to speak. I can walk upright. I do not have the
natural ability to fly through the air
unaided by machines. Fish have the ability
to live under water for great periods of time
without tanks of oxygen and so on, and diving equipment,
because God has given them fins and gills. He's given them the
natural equipment necessary to make them able
to live in that environment. Hence, they have a natural
ability that I do not have. God has given natural abilities
to birds that I do not have. All right? But we're talking
about moral ability; we're talking about the
ability to be righteous, as well as to be sinful. Man was created with the
ability to be righteous or to be sinful,
but man has fallen. And what Edwards is saying
is that in his fallen state, he no longer has the
ability in and of himself morally to be perfect
because he is born in sin, in original sin. He has a fallen
nature, a sin nature, which makes it utterly
impossible for him to achieve perfection in this world. He still has the
faculty of thinking. He still has the
ability to make choices. But what he lacks is the
inclination or disposition toward godliness. Now we're going to
see whether or not that's consistent with what
the Bible teaches about man's fallen condition, but I'm
just giving it to you now by way of preview. At this point, Edwards
is merely echoing what Augustine had
taught centuries earlier with a similar distinction. Augustine said that man
had a "liberum arbitrium," or a free will, but what
man lost in the fall was "libertas",
or liberty - what the Bible calls moral liberty. The Bible speaks of fallen men
as being in bondage to sin. And those who are in bondage
have lost some dimension of moral liberty. Still make choices,
still have a free will, but that will is now
inclined toward evil and disinclined
toward righteousness. There is none who does good. There is none righteous. There is none who seeks
after God, no not one. That indicates that something
has happened to us inside. Jesus speaks about
the fruit of the tree comes from the
nature of the tree, that fig trees don't
produce oranges. You don't get a corrupt
fruit from a righteous tree. There is something
wrong inside of us, in where our desires,
our inclinations reside. It is that that is in bondage. But even that
fallenness does not eliminate the
faculty of choosing. So there's really
no difference here between what Augustine is
calling when he says, "We still have free will, but
not liberty," is the same distinction
that Edwards is making between moral
ability and natural ability. All right, I need to stop
because my time is running out, and simply to say that
in our next lecture, we will look at this now
from a biblical perspective to see what the Bible
says about man's moral ability, or
the lack of it, with respect to
the things of God.
