ABOUT FREE WILL
FREE WILL is the
faculty to act according to our own discretion, without the coercion of any
constrain or necessity.
This faculty to choose
was granted by GOD to humanity in order to create for Himself a rational community
of intelligent and sentient living creatures, who freely love Him and take
pleasure in his will, to live with Him eternally.
As creation is eternal,
we do not know how many intelligent creatures have been created by GOD with
power of decision, and to what level. We can only judge that animals and angels
have.
Animals have a limited
freedom according to their capacity of reason, and that is why they have little
preferences, and animals prefer some humans while they dislike others, and
chose a place to sleep instead of another. We don’t know how far it goes, but
animals do not act by ‘instinct’ alone as we have been wrongly told. They make
small decisions, and have a sense of limited guilt according to their capacity
of reasoning. It is for this, that GOD will claim all human life ended by a
deliberate action of an animal, from the guilty animal itself. If an attack to
humans were a product of instinct, then the animal would be unimputable, but he
is not (Genesis 9:5).
In the same way,
we know by the security of the angels of GOD in glory, and the fall of Satan,
that there must have been a time when they had the freedom to chose between
doing GOD’s will or not, and that is when Satan fell from Glory with his
followers. In this case, the guilt must have been greater because they were
created directly by GOD with immense power and infused knowledge, and there was
not tempter, but the disobedience was born from the soul of the angelic beings.
But in humanity,
the thing changes.
Humans were
granted free will to be able to chose to obey GOD and righteousness or disobey
GOD and pursuit hedonism and self-gratification, which created evil and sin
among us. This defined the heart of
every human before GOD, so that only the righteous by nature will be able to
live with GOD eternally, and the ones who rejected his will and holiness, would
not.
ADAM’S FREE
WILL
As Adam was
created perfect and immortal, he never had the desire of disobeying GOD, even
though GOD created him and placed him as the father of humanity knowing that Adam
will eventually fall. There was a reason for that and we will treat it in
another time. But it was necessary to make the sacrifice of Lord JESUS
universal.
Adam chose to
fall to the charms of his own wife, Eve, who induced him to follow her into the
lie Satan had sold her at the foot of the forbidden tree, but he also believed
Satan, as he was with Eve when this happened (Genesis 3:1-7).
Adam and Eve, after
that, became aware of malice, the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ and they lost
the innocence that they possessed before that.
THE
CONDITION OF HUMANITY AFTER THE FALL
After the fall
of Adam and Eve, the whole human race, was destitute from Paradise and their communion
with GOD was broken, descending to an animal state-like, where their spiritual
sense was bloated due to their disconnection from GOD. In fact, that is what
Apostle PAUL says in Romans:
“Therefore,
just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in
this way death came to all people, because all sinned”.
Romans 5:12
This is a clear
reference to an imputed guilt over the whole human race, due to the single sin
of Adam; because if it was a reference to personal sin in Adam’s descendants, death
would not exist for new born children, or mentally handicapped people, or any
other non-responsible human. Nevertheless, death exists even for not born yet fetuses,
showing that this death comes from an imputed guilt over all descendants from
Adam and Eve.
However, even
through physically they lost the primordial balance they were given at
creation, and sickness, old age, deformities, concupiscence and death came over
the whole human race, and their spirit was cast out of glory and communion with
God, humans retained all their faculties as they were given to them by GOD.
Humans retained the
original image of a correct human, one head, two arms, two legs, five fingers
and toes, and the physical metabolism.
They remained
intelligent, and above everything else, they retained their FREE WILL.
Humans could
distinguish between life and death, between white and black, between light and
darkness, between good and evil, between just and unjust. Even after the fall.
And also, they were still able to chose which path to take.
FREE WILL
AFTER THE FALL ACCORDING TO SOME
Centuries later,
theological theories, especially CALVINISM, started proposing that after the
fall humanity was totally corrupted to the core.
Humanity had
lost their free will to do good.
John Calvin
assured that humans were totally incapacitated of electing and follow good, and
their condition was so damaged, that even when they did perform an act of clear
goodness, like saving a life, these actions were considered ‘filthy rags’ in
front of GOD (See TULIP, principles of Calvinism).
According to
this doctrine, humans were unable to believe, to repent, and to make a good
decision for their own good, and therefore, the whole process of salvation was
TOTALLY instigated and carried out by the HOLY SPIRIT, on a selected bunch of
people, even before they were born (Calvin’s Christian Institutions).
The final
result, was a bunch of humans saved from a fallen humanity, entirely by GOD’s
decision and action, so that the ‘saved’ had nothing to do with their own
salvation, except being eternally thankful to GOD.
An ‘elected one’
did not have even the opportunity to accept or reject JESUS, but was ‘made’ or ‘programmed’
to accept JESUS in their life time, as it was prepared and predestined from
even before creation.
WHAT THE
BIBLE SAYS ABOUT FREE WILL
The Bible is
full of warnings given by Lord JESUS and his apostles, that can only make sense
if humans were in control of their own free will.
Passages like:
‘No
temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is
faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you
are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.’
1Corinthians
10:13
‘You, my
brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to
indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.’
Galatians 5:13
‘Let the
wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to
the LORD, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely
pardon’.
Isaiah 55:6-7
And many others
like Revelation 3:20; Matthew 8:34, or 2Peter 3:9.
Even though these
verses are taking as speaking only to the chosen for salvation, and not to the
whole humanity, this contradicts an important part of interpretation, which
says that we should not assume secret meanings, unless told to do so by the
passage itself.
For example,
2Peter 3:9 says:
‘The Lord
is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is
patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to
repentance.’
Here, Calvinists
say that ‘with you’, refers only to the elected Christians reading the epistle,
and not the whole humanity, meaning that GOD will wait the time necessary for
the elected to come to repentance.
HOWEVER, there
is nothing in the passage to assume that it refers only to a selected few, but
on the contrary, as it is written, it can only be assume that the words ‘anyone’
and ‘everyone’ as they stand, are referring to the whole human race.
Other passages
like 1Corinthians 10:13, as it is presented above, where the word ‘you’ is taken
as referring only to the chosen ones, however, the fact that is says that these
tempted are called to ‘endure’ temptation, it shows that they have freedom to
resists or fall. To follow God or their temptation. To sin or not to sin. This
denotes a freedom of choice, which Calvinism denies to humans. If this passage
was destined to only the elected ones, who have no say over their own
salvation, then the warning to resists would be useless, because they would be
programmed not to fall into sin. But instead, this warning, denotes the
capacity of humans to chose the wrong path.
IT would be
extensive to quote every passage mentioned by fatalists, and contest them with
the Scripture that proves Free Will in humans. But it may suffice to say that
they would not fit the warnings, since a warning implies danger, which comes from
disobedience.
INSTEAD, the
Bible speaks of the capacity of humans to judge good from evil, and to choose either
path even after the fall.
Passages like Isaiah
55:6-7, where GOD calls the ‘wicked to forsake their ways’ can only make sense
if they have the faculty to distinguish good from evil and have also the capability
to choose good and reject evil. Otherwise, any warning would be pointless, because
if humans are programmed to obey or disobey, whatever is destined to happen, it
will happen anyway.
WHY ADAM
WOULD HAVE FREE WILL IS ONLY THE ‘ELECT’ ARE SAVED
Another
contradiction in Calvinistic theology, resides exactly in their concept of
irresistible grace for the elected, and the free will they admit Adam had.
If GOD empowered
Adam with free agency to chose good or evil, and as GOD, He knew Adam would
fall, and so He elected from eternity the ones He chose for unfailing salvation.
The final result would be a group of programmed people to accept Christ redemption,
beyond even their own capability of accepting or rejecting this salvation imposed
over them.
If God in his
omniscience decided this even before He created humanity, then why would He
bothered to create a single human with free will?
Why would He
bother in incarnating as human and die as an atonement sacrifice?
If at the end,
the ‘saved ones’ will be a bunch of robots, then certainly He would have created
them pure and deprived from choosing evil from the beginning and take them to
Heaven, sparing Himself the suffering of the passion and death, and us, the
consequences of evil, like wars, famines, and murder and everything else evil
humans do.
It really would
be pointless.
CONCLUSION
There is Election,
and there is Predestination, based not on a capricious whim, but on the
foreknowledge of GOD of our life choices. It is us who place ourselves in the
Book of Life, but it is GOD’s Glory that this book exists and that we can make
a choice. Because to have free will does not dishonor GOD, because He made us
with that capability, to be able to be independent and chose to live with Him,
freely, because we love Him and his will. Not because we were programmed to do
so.
The idea of
total depravation and lack of free will is a wrong idea that looks to destroy
any human cooperation with GOD’s grace, who does not want ANYONE to perish, but
to come to repentance and be saved.
Total Depravation
makes us believe that it is impossible for us to be good, and instead we sit waiting
for salvation been pushed down our throats, while we continue on sinning and
displeasing GOD, under the belief that salvation is already granted to us,
despite our behavior.
God granted Adam
free will to show his true heart, and this capacity passed to all humans for
the same reason, to show our true colors, and be judged worthy of eternal life
or not at the Day of Judgement.
Humans maintain
their natural goodness granted to them at birth, even though they are born
separated from GOD to a certain extent, but not totally, since GOD still
sustains us, and every good decision, every good action born from a good human
heart, has its reward before GOD, because it follows our Creator’s will.
BUT SALVATION,
is only possible through JESUS CHRIST, because through his atoning sacrifice,
He paid for the punishment of the sins we commit, so that when we fail, we can
attain forgiveness through his HOLY NAME.
But it is also
good to remember, that despite our own capability to chose good and evil, this
capability, as the atoning sacrifice, and the whole mechanism of salvation, was
made possible through GOD’s decision alone. Without GOD’s mercy, none of these
would be possible.
‘This day I
call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before
you, life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and
your children may live’
Deuteronomy
30:19
Omar Flores
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