Thursday, January 15, 2009
The Problem of Freewill
G.S. Bryan's post on Driscoll brought me to another topic: Calvinism, or Predestination. I know I've heard Bryan's thoughts in the past but it may have changed, and I haven't heard my new blogging friend's opinion. In the punk world, everything is DIY, freewill reigns (actually MY will reigns), but when you become a Christian invariably SOME of you if not ALL is given to God's will, so how did you both deal with that transition? And on top of that, how much of life/us do you believe God controls and does it go as far as the Calvinist definition of predestination, where before you are born no matter what you do, God decided, ELECTED, who would go to heaven and who would go to hell, getting us awfully close to that Robot problem we spoke of earlier.
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I took the liberty (hey free will!) of titling the post.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. Firstly, I think this line of thinking is somewhat wrongly labeled as Calvinism, who was re-iterating Luther, Augustine, the Apostles and Christ ;).
The Bible presents to us somewhat of a paradox.
God 'predestined' the Jews and selected them as the chosen people of the old covenant. He then fulfilled his promise to bring a new covenant in Christ. Christ chose (predestined) 12 disciples, including one that he knew all along would reject him. Christ in his Gethsemane prayer says that the Father 'gave' followers to Him.
But. Then later we are told in the great commission that we must go out into the world and preach the truth. Paul, was chosen by God while riding on the road to Damascus. Paul clearly believed that Christians were chosen by God (see Romans 8:28-30). But Paul was a missionary.
I think the answer to this is actually fairly simpler than the problem suggests. Yes. God knows all. God also controls all. God at the same time gave us the choice to sin. However we are cursed by that choice and unable to make the right one. Therefore, in our fallen state (will anyone argue that all people are not sinners), we need God's intervention not only to be saved, but in order to even make the choice to be saved.
God knows the choices we will make, but we still make them. But those are choices such as, who will I marry, will I sin when confronted with this problem, will I adopt a kid etc. We cannot, in our fallen state, choose God. The OT, Christ and Paul make this abundantly clear. In that matter, God choses us, but, here is the key, he uses Christians as his emissaries. Hence the Great Commission.
In other words, while we undeniably have freewill, which results in our total depravity, we cannot find Christ without God's intervention, which he often achieves through placing other Christians in our way.
Christ also tells us that God knows our prayers. But he repeatedly tells us to pray. Same type of paradox. Same answer. God wants us to know that he is in control, but also wants us to do some work for it.
Sorry so long. Went stream of conscience. Answer to the real question, how does that feel for the whole 'punk' thing? Its kind of a game changer obviously. I have faith that there is a purpose and an end to my life. It has meaning. I will certainly not get what I 'want' which I take to be the sort of libertarian point of freewill. But I will get what I need and should get.
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