Free Will
Do all of us have a free will?
No - but we are free moral agents. There's a big difference.
Do We Have a Free
Will?
by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon
If
the 21st century church voted on their consensus concerning
man’s participation in salvation, the overwhelming majority would
state that every person has a free will and exercises that will when the
Gospel is offered to them. But
the question must be asked for clarification, “What exactly, according
to the majority voters, is a free will?”
They mean to say that people, before salvation, have the
capacity, in and of themselves, to choose whether or not Christ may save
them. They believe that
people are able to accept or reject the Gospel according to their own
choice, and either side of this choice, whether to follow Christ or not,
is available to them by nature. These
lost people, they say, have the ability to think about, and then decide,
whether or not they want to follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Does
the Bible agree with those who believe in free-will advocacy that a man
or woman is able, in and of themselves, to freely choose whether or not
to be saved? This is the heart of the question. Many will say that the
Bible is not clear, since the debate about this has been manifest for
1500 years. However, the manifestation of controversy in no way
justified the statement that there has been any real in-depth debate for
1500 years. The fact that
false teachers arise to stir up controversy is by no means a warrant to
assert the truth of their claims. Their appearance on the scene of
church history has only inflamed the truth to stand forth that much
more. For we know that the
Bible teaches a clear and precise answer on this issue which we can
stand on in the truth, and know with certainty.
Every
man is a free moral agent. This I must state at the outset.
Free-will theists who insist that Calvinists do not believe that
men are free moral agents, simply do not know Calvinism. They have believed a caricature.
So at the outset, and right from the beginning, I desire to state
in no uncertain terms that men are free, and they have wills which are
connected vitally to their moral makeup.
In saying this, it must be qualified.
The free-will theists (those who believe God gave everyone a free
will to choose as they see fit, whether good or evil) forget one of the
most important doctrines of the Scripture, and all the logical
necessities which come out of that Bible doctrine. What I am speaking of
is the doctrine of sin, and the affects sin have had on the human race.
Genesis 6:5 states, "the Lord saw that the wickedness of man
as great in the earth and every intent and thought of his heart was only
evil continually." This is a very explicit verse, and quite
important. We are sinners, and our sin captivates our mind totally. That
is why the doctrine of sin, properly understood, is called Total
Depravity; meaning, man is totally affected in all parts of his mind,
emotions and spirit, by the Fall of Adam. It does not mean that we are
utterly depraved, or as bad as we can be.
Rather it means we are totally affected in every faculty of our
being. So, then, the
question arises, if in our natures we are always sinful, how then could
we have the capacity to choose something that we already detest?
How many of your next door neighbors are exuberantly waiting for
you to come over and tell them they "are sinners who are on their
way to hell unless they repent and believe in Jesus?"
I would imagine that no one likes that. The Bible tells us that
people hate that kind of talk. How
many people on the street want to hear about Jesus? They detest it and
will even persecute you for telling them such things.
Some
one may say, "I don't understand? Why would I, or anyone, detest
the Gospel-its good news?!" But that is the whole point. If
you have not detested the Gospel, then it may be that you simply do not
really know the Gospel. The
Gospel, being good news, is detestable to us because we are evil and our
desires are evil. We do have wills, but our wills are always captivated
and controlled by what we desire to do. For instance: I am sitting in
this chair right now because I choose to sit here to be able to work on
writing this short article. If I did not want to write this tract I
would not be doing so. But because my desire to write this tract is
stronger than any other desire I have at this present time, that is what
I do. If my desire was to eat lunch, I would go and eat lunch, but since
I already have eaten lunch, my desire is not to eat but to write. This
may all seem trivial since I am not speaking of salvation. But the point
here is this: my desire controls my will. My will is a fruit of my
desire, not the cause. My will, my actions on a given thing, derive from
my desire. My will is not the cause of my desires. I do not first do
things, then want to do them - that would be backwards. The desires of
my heart control how I think and feel at any given time. I desire
something first, then I will to do that particular thing. When someone
says that an unsaved person, who has a heart of stone, and detests and
rebels against God in every way, is capable of freely choosing something
they do not desire, then they are not understanding that their desire
rules their wills.
The
only way a free-will theist can be right is if his heart is neutral -
that means it is unaffected by anything, good or bad. But the free-will
theist does not see this, and he does not see that this is an
impossibility. No one has a neutral heart; not the devil, not God, nor
you or I. If his heart is
good, then it desires good things. If his heart is bad, then he desires
bad things. If his heart is neutral there would be the appearance that
the heart then could choose good or evil. But there is a great problem
with this idea. Here is an analogy: suppose there is a donkey who stands
in front of two bails of hay; one on his right and the other at his
left. He looks at the one, then the other. Let's say this donkey has a
neutral heart. So which one does he decide to eat? Which one will he
choose to eat? The answer is neither. Since the two bails are both the
same, and his heart is neutral-which means it is unbiased towards
either--then he would never choose to eat either of them, but would just
stand there and starve. Now in reality, the donkey would not starve
because his will is not neutral. It is hungry-so it eats! Maybe he is
closer to the one than the other and decides to eat it.
But if he were standing between two bails of cotton, he would not
eat either because he does not like to eat cotton.
In any case, a neutral free will does not exist. No one's will is
neutral, and the Bible never, ever says that man is neutral. The Bible
emphatically teaches that men have wicked and depraved hearts.
Everyone is biased by the intents and thoughts of their heart
(Gen. 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9). Christ said, "Out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false
witnesses, blasphemies (Matthew 15:19)."
So when we say
someone has a free will, and we think they can choose good or evil, we
are not speaking biblically. What we should say is this: everyone has a
will which is controlled by their heart's desire - they are free moral
agents. If they are unsaved,
and their desire is evil, then they will never choose to follow Jesus
because they cannot and will not - they always choose evil. God must
first change their heart (Ezekiel 36:26; John 3:3) before they are able
to believe. For when the Spirit of God circumcises their heart (Romans
2:29), He then gives that person the capability to believe and hear the
Gospel. And since the person really hears it with a new heart that is
capable of good, then the person believes, is saved, and enters into
eternal glory when they die, if the Lord tarries.
We
never have a neutral free will. We are always a slave to something.
Before we are saved we are slaves to sin.
After we are saved we are slaves of Christ, just as Paul states
in Romans 1:1, "Paul a bondservant of Jesus Christ..." (the
word "bondservant" is "doulos" which means
"slave."). The Westminster Confession of Faith states, "Man, by his fall into a state of sin,
hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying
salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,
and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or
to prepare himself thereunto." So the Confession is telling
us the same thing. Man is unable to will any good thing when he is not
saved. He has an evil heart which is continually desiring to do evil,
and so that is all he chooses.
There
is also another problem; for the free-will theist, free-will theology is
never consistent. You ask someone who believes in free-will if they had
free-will before they are saved. They say "yes." You ask them
if they are free after they are saved, they still say "yes" to
remain consistent. But that poses a problem and a question - if you were
free before salvation to choose or not choose to follow Jesus, what
about after salvation? Can you choose to freely walk away from Christ?
Can you choose to freely reject the salvation He saved you with even after
you have been converted? Is the power of Jesus Christ's cross
nullified by your "free-will?" If they are consistent with
their theology they must answer "yes." (If they see the error
they are making then all we need to do is show them that free-will is
inconsistent before salvation as well as after.) Then their theology
suffers harshly when we ask the same question upon entrance into heaven.
After you enter heaven do you still have free will? To be consistent
they must say "yes." Then can a person freely walk out of
heaven? They shudder to answer that one. But you see the problem. When
does God take away your free-will? He must at some point. If any real
security of salvation is to be found, free-will in this manner must be
erased from our minds. Philippians
1:6 would be wrong. "He who began a good work in you will continue
it until the day of completion" would not be true. We would have to
rewrite it to say, "You who have begun some kind of free-will work
in yourself and believed on Christ will hopefully continue to believe it
until the end or else you will fall away."
That does not show forth very much security and des great
injustice to the finished work of Christ. Or what about Jesus' words in
John 10:28, "And I give them eternal life and they shall never
perish; neither shall anyone them out of my hand." Words like these
are secure for believers because they show forth the power of Christ,
and the power of His saving hand, not our "free-will." The
idea of free-will is completely foreign to the text. You must remove
these texts, and hundreds of others for free-will theists to be right.
There
are always objections. People say, "but I feel like I am free." Our
subjective experience of feeling is never a warrant for biblical truth.
Some people would say that the offer of the Gospel is not sincere if
people are not free-to-choose. But that is not a logical assumption. God
never changes His commands to suit our needs. His requirement for us has
always been "Be Holy as I the Lord am holy." (Leviticus 19:2) But God knows that we do not have the capability in our
fallen state to be holy, yet He still requires us to be just like He is
in holiness. Just because
people do not have the spiritual capability to believe the Gospel does
not make God's offer invalid. Even though men cannot believe, they are
still without excuse. The
offer stands even though people cannot respond without God’s sovereign
intervention.
There
are many of you who have just read this pamphlet who will go away
saying, "He's nuts. I don't believe him." But, you prove my
point just the same. Your will is captive to your desire. Your desire
not to listen to the biblical advice presented in this article
demonstrates you are being captivated by your own hearts desire - which
is to believe in free-will theism - even though the Biblical evidence
tells you otherwise. So you
choose to disbelieve because of your desire to hold onto your so called
"free-will."
It
is true, I believe we are all free moral agents, and we do have a will – but they are wills captive
to our hearts desire. We are free to choose, but only free to choose from the disposition and
intent of our hearts. If a
person is unregenerate, or lost, then they will choose evil.
If they are regenerated, or born again, then they can choose evil
or good. The Christian
experiences the war of the flesh and the Spirit.
He is in a constant battle to submit his will unto Christ. But all men, good or evil, all choose freely what their
heart’s desire. Their
will is the water which springs from the fountain of their heart’s
nature.
Encouragement
in Christian circles is lacking, so encouragement is what I offer here.
If you do not believe that what has been taught in this article is the
truth, then I would encourage you to study the Scriptures very carefully
in order that the Holy Spirit will teach you about the freedom of the
will. Acts 17:11 states,
"The Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians for they
received the message with great eagerness, and searched the Scriptures
daily to see if what Paul was saying was true." This is more than a
sundry or casual reading of text - this was studying the text. The
Bereans were especially gifted in study being “noble” and of
“noble-birth.” They
were skilled in study, and I pray that you are skilled in the same.
Without study, we will never understand what God has ready for us
to discover. And we cannot
simply take another’s word for it.
I would also encourage you to read 3 treatises dealing with the
will: one written by Martin Luther called The Bondage of the Will,
a second written by John Calvin The Bondage and Liberation of the
Will, and thirdly, Jonathan Edwards’ work, The Freedom of the
Will. Each of these
will help greatly in the reader’s understanding of the manner in which
the will operates. Between
these three works, and the Bible’s infallible witness to the truth,
there should be no question on the manner and operation of the human
will.
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