The Question of Free Will

During several years when I taught a Bible class of high school students, we discussed many topics. I tried to encourage them to ask questions, share their views, debate issues–in general to use the brains God gave them.

I found that students freely acknowledged their doubts and questions about all kinds of ideas and issues found in the Bible. They questioned every imaginable point of Christian doctrine at some point, at least to hone their own understanding of what the Bible teaches.

There was one “doctrine,” however, that no one ever questioned. In fact, these students fought vehemently for one foundational, central, bedrock truth of the Christian faith. What was that truth?

Free Will.

Ok, I’m overstating it a bit. But not by much. You’d think that free will was right up there with the virgin birth and the deity of Christ in their hierarchy of important Christian doctrines. Truthfully, my students had more certainty about the existence of free will than almost any principle in the Bible.

Does free will exist? Absolutely. We choose to trust in Christ freely (Acts 16:31). Is free will absolute and autonomous? Absolutely not. In fact, we can only choose Christ because God chose us first through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:4-7).

I read a passage from the Canons of Dordt this morning that struck me as particularly helpful on this issue. The Synod of Dordt met 154 times from November of 1618-May of 1619 (if you’re doing the math, they met approximately every other day for seven months!) to resolve the issue of Arminianism, which had cropped up through the teaching of Jacob Arminius in the years leading up to the synod. Arminius had died, but his followers presented the “Five Points of Arminianism” to the synod for approval. These points were:

1. The partial depravity of man
2. Election conditional on foreseen faith
3. The universal atonement of Christ
4. The resistibility of grace
5. The ability to lapse from grace.

The conflict between these principles and the historic teaching of Calvinism threatened to split the church and plunge the Netherlands into civil war. Upon the completion of their extensive deliberations, representatives at the synod roundly condemned Arminianism, and came up with what are now known as the “Five Points of Calvinism:”

1. Total Depravity
2. Unconditional Election
3. Limited Atonement
4. Irresistible Grace
5. Perseverance of the Saints

There is one passage in the confessional statement that arose out of that synod that I want to share with you. It comes from “The Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine: Of the Corruption of Man, His Conversion to God, and the Manner Thereof, Article 16”:

“But as man by the fall did not cease to be a creature endowed with understanding and will, nor did sin which pervaded the whole race of mankind deprive him of the human nature, but brought upon him depravity and spiritual death; so also this grace of regeneration does not treat men as senseless stocks and blocks (I love that phrase), nor takes away their will and its properties, neither does violence thereto; but spiritually quickens, heals, corrects, and at the same time sweetly and powerfully bends it; that where carnal rebellion and resistance formerly prevailed, a ready and sincere spiritual obedience begins to reign, in which the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will consist. Wherefore unless the admirable Author of every good work wrought in us, man could have no hope of recovering from his fall by his own free will, by the abuse of which, in a state of innocence, he plunged himself into ruin.”

I know the language is a bit antiquated; here’s the upshot. The regeneration of the Holy Spirit doesn’t eliminate our free will. In fact, it “bends it” toward God. Without God’s sovereign action, we would always choose to please ourselves and our sinful flesh and would simply repeat the error of Adam and Eve over and over again. God didn’t leave us to that. Instead, through the Covenant of Grace, He rescued our free will along with every other aspect of our humanity. And so not only could we choose to trust in Christ when we were converted, but we can continue to choose to glorify and enjoy him as sons and daughters. What a miraculous gift!

Head and Heart

I recently read an interview in Modern Reformation magazine with Joseph Byamukama, founder and team leader of Veracity Fount, an organization in Kampala, Uganda (where he lives). Joseph has an Mdiv. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is currently working on a PhD. in New Testament intertextuality from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. As someone who has wrestled with the issue of affections vs. intellect in the American church, I found this brother’s perspective (who has studied and served in the church on three continents) fascinating.

Joseph explained that Ugandan Christians prioritize the heart over the mind, almost universally. Close to 90% of Ugandan pastors have no formal theological training and don’t think they need any. I have trained pastors in Nepal who were starving for training, so I find this shocking and disturbing. Many Ugandan Christians have adopted the perspective of a friend of Joseph’s who warned him about seminary in the US by expressing his concern that “the text will overcome the Spirit.” This man had 2 Corinthians 3:6 in mind, but Paul warns about the letter killing, not the text. The text of the gospel is the water of life (John 4).

Joseph points out that this mindset has opened up the Ugandan church to dangerous cults, false teaching, and postmodern notions that undermine the reality of truth. It has allowed the proliferation of the prosperity gospel to the extent that in many areas there are no churches actually preaching the Bible in any serious way. Many Christians there have been driven to atheism and agnosticism because they have been frustrated with the disparity between the promises of the hucksters and the reality of life in a broken world.

Joseph, in citing Deuteronomy 6:5 (“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”), points out that the Hebrew text of that verse does not include two words for heart and mind. It has one word for both. The heart, according to Bruce Waltke, “denotes a person’s center for both physical and emotional-intellectual-moral activities.” As Joseph puts it, “in biblical language, the intellect and the emotions are inseparable…we cannot properly love God with what we call our hearts without loving him with what we call our minds.”

Joseph is hopeful for the continent of Africa, as so much of the church is composed of young people (the median age in Uganda is 16 years), and literacy rates are increasing. The greatest challenge is resources, both money and people. The need is great, and the laborers are few.

It occurred to me that the challenges in the American church are similar, though less extreme. Our resources are infinitely greater, though not as much here in the “nosebleed” section of the country. The danger of false teaching and shallow teaching is the same, and the burden on pastors is great. Even though we live in a spiritually barren part of the country, New Hampshire enjoy a far greater number of solid Bible teaching churches than exist in the 2/3 world.

Also, while we recognize the danger on one side, we see the equal and opposite tendency for theologically rich churches to keep their (financial and human) resources to themselves. We see an over-emphasis on the mind to the detriment of the emotions. We see orthodoxy championed and orthopraxy neglected. Far too many solid Reformed churches are content to feed their own sheep while leaving evangelism and mercy ministry to other evangelicals. This both impoverishes our people of opportunities to enlarge their hearts for God and neglects our calling to extend God’s kingdom.

I’d like to challenge myself and all of us to redouble our commitment to live out Deuteronomy 6:5. We have a tremendous heritage of theological and Biblical commitment in the PCA. I believe that we have borne that well at CTR. We also have a commitment to express the gospel with passion in worship and with purpose in our city. Let’s not fall prey to a false choice between head and heart. Let’s pursue our God and our community with both.