Use your back-button to return.  It's opposite your belly-button!
 

For of him, and through him, and to him, [are] all things: to whom [be] glory for ever. Amen.  Romans 11:36

Mortal creatures think they have free will.  They think they have the ability to choose anything they want to in life. They even think that they have the power of contrary choice;  that they can choose between two completely contrary and opposite alternatives.  Men think that their will is the determining factor not only with respect to where they are in life but also to their eternal destiny!

The most important thing to do in discussing ANY topic is to define terms. There are as many definitions of free will as there are people and many authors fail miserably to define what they mean by the term and end up in confusion. Definition is an indispensable requirement in any discussion.

DEFINITION; Free Will... as defined by most people including religious people who profess Biblical Christianity is; The ability to choose between moral good & moral evil.
In the use of the term 'moral' in the definition, it means morality as it is defined by God in the Bible.

This unavoidably leads to the next requirement, that being the necessity of the existence of God. This is so because when we are talking about MORALITY we have only one of two alternatives.  Either God exists and He decides what is right & wrong... or there is no morality at all; only insanity!  This is so because without God there is no one to declare the terms of morality... except ME;  and with all the 'MEs' that there are in the world the ultimate result can be nothing but madness! Hitler and the Mafia ably demonstrate this along with abortion, homosexuality, divorce & drugs!
 

By this definition God Himself does not have a free will for He absolutely CANNOT make an immoral choice;  at all!  It is this author's conviction that free will according to this definition does not exist!

Free will, as so defined militates against the doctrines of Depravity and the Sovereignty of God.

Place a cup of ice cream, a cup of chicken soup & a cup of cyanide in front of a man and ask him to choose one. Does he have the ability to choose the cyanide? Only if he has a death wish!  Perhaps he may choose the cup of cyanide not knowing what it is and consume it and meet his Maker unexpectedly. But if he had known what was in the cup he most definitely would not have chosen it unless he intended suicide on purpose. Suicide by cyanide is quick & clean but an accidental sip does not show he had free will in drinking it.  It only shows that the will is dependent on knowledge otherwise it is not really free.  If a man drinks cyanide by mistake no one accuses him of exerting his free will and committing suicide. In such a case his 'free will' was his undoing!

Encourage a man to float off the ground under his own power by a mere act of his will.
He may spend a day or a week trying to exert all the force of energy his mind can muster trying to convince his flesh to move upward.  If he knows something of the art of magical illusion he may invoke some gimmick or sleight of hand and fool people into thinking he is actually floating in the air all by himself. But a man cannot choose to defy gravity and float away under his own power. If he can I should like him to give an incontrovertible demonstration of such by stepping thru the door of an airplane 9000 feet up... naked!... and not fall.  When a man can do that I might re-consider the possibility of free will.

We have now shown two important things with regard to the human will.
1. A proper exercise of the will requires proper knowledge.
2. The will is inescapably bound to the nature to which it is attached.

If I hold your loved one hostage & threaten to kill him/her unless you commit murder... and you do it... is that free will? You did make a choice. Was it a free choice? Not really;  you were forced to it. God never forces His creatures to do anything against their wills.

It is the second proposition that will guide us thru most of this study.  The Bible teaches that human beings are, by nature, sinners.  This needs to be expanded a bit in order to properly understand what is meant.  The term 'sinner', is, by the very nature of the case, a MORAL term.  If you don't think so approach any person on the street & call him a sinner & see what reaction you get. He will most likely either get angry & accuse you of being his judge or become piously humble & mutter 'ain't we all' under his breath.

Now if we remain true to the principle that the will is bound to the nature to which it is a part the only sane conclusion is that the will of a sinner can choose nothing else but sin!
This now is the historic reformed doctrine of depravity and is easily demonstrated by Scripture; 

Job 14: 4  Who can bring a clean [thing] out of an unclean? not one.
 
Jer 13: 23  Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may
ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

Rom 8: 7  Because the carnal mind [is] enmity against God: for it is not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
 8  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

We see then that man by nature has no ability to choose anything that is morally good.  By this observation free will, as most people think it to be, falls to the ground. It really does not exist.  Men are bound by their sinful nature and when confronted with a moral choice will choose evil every time... no exceptions!

Dear Mr. Jay; Last week I went to a geriatrics ward & played some music on my harmonica for the people & made them happy for a little while. That sir was most definitely not only good but it was a very very good... thing that I did and everyone was most willing to assure me of how much of a good thing I had done for those poor unfortunate shut-ins.  Further I most willingly did so by the choice of my own free will so your thesis is nothing but pure baloney. What are you, some kind of a religious nut?  Anon...

The above letter overlooks one very important point. There is such a thing as honor among thieves. If pirates on a ship in the ocean treat each other with kindness & consideration... even to the point of taking care of the aged... that in & of itself does not make them any less the sworn enemy of those who they plunder & kill. If they are apprehended and set before the King they cannot plead their esoterical kindness & expect to escape judgment. Al Capone cannot tell the judge how well he took care of his mother!

The world & its inhabitants are enmity against the God of heaven; by nature.  This does not mean that they don't treat each other kindly at times.  What it means is that they hate God and anything to do with Him.  When Anon played his harmonica he did it for selfish reasons & only succeeded in encouraging men in their rebellion against God... unless of course he happened to be a Christian.  We are not considering that yet; we are talking about men in their natural condition as they are born into the world.  But, as we shall see, even a Christian does not really possess free will. In fact God Himself does not have free will by popular definition.

And so, by the popular definition of free will...  when it is said that God commands all men everywhere to repent & believe the gospel... whether or not men obey such a command completely depends on their 'free will' and they may obey or they may reject the gospel & perish. This in effect de-thrones God & makes man the sovereign disposer of his own destiny. Even if this were true it works against them for when they go to the judgment having rejected the gospel they will have nothing else to blame but their own free will.  This view also gives birth to the false doctrine of 'telescopic election' in which God looks down thru time with His telescope to see who will 'accept Jesus by an act of his own free will' and on the basis of this data acquired by God He 'elects' them to salvation.

PRINCIPLE; The reality of depravity in no way discounts or nullifies man's responsibility for his moral choices neither does it impose a necessity upon him that exhonerates him from being responsible for those choices.

Depravity does NOT necessitate or constitute a forcing of the will! Every moral choice the creature makes he makes with a full committment & determination that that is his choice & he will choose no other. When a man rejects God he does so with a full committment that he absolutely, in & of himself, will choose no other.  He is set in his determination to keep God out of his life & take his chances at the judgment.

Even in the light of the truth that it is impossible for men to obey the gospel all by themselves without any help from God... they will still be condemned on the basis of the choices they made in life & no one will ever attempt the excuse... "I couldn't help it God; I had no ability to obey you;   I had no other choice!"  And why will they not be able to say such a thing?  Because the choice to reject the gospel is one that men make most willingly;  with every fiber of their volitional power.  There is not a man in the universe who will stand up at the judgment & claim he was forced, against his will, to reject the gospel.  God forces NO MAN to act against his will.

PROPOSITION;  Depravity and free will, as defined above, are not only incompatibale, they are impossible. They are mutually exclusive.  They nullify each other.  If men are depraved then free will is impossible;  but if free will is true then men are not truly depraved.

If men are depraved then free will is impossible because depravity says that man by nature has absolutely no ability to choose anything good according to God's definition of goodness. He has no ability to anything that is pleasing to God.  Perhaps I should show some more Biblical support in favor of depravity.

Gen 6:5  And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and
[that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.

The last 3 words tell it all dear people. They conclusively exclude any ability on the part of man toward goodness!  This is the present condition of all unbelievers today. If your neighbor, or uncle, or child is not saved this is his condition.

Romans  8:6-8 The mind of the flesh is death... The mind of the flesh is enmity  against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed  can it be...  They that are in the flesh cannot please God.

The words 'can' & 'cannot' are words that denote... ability, or the lack thereof and here Paul tells us that man, in his natural state... that being one of rebellion against his Maker... has no ability to please God.   No wonder Jesus says...

Joh 6:44 No man *can* come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man *can* come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

The Savior Himself teaches man's natural inability to choose anything good toward God.   How anyone can read these passages and still think that man DOES have the natural ability, all by himself, to obey the gospel... is a mystery. If man did possess such an ability we would have to abandon the doctrine of total depravity and conceed that there is indeed some good in man.  These as well as other passages plainly show that free will, according to the standard definition accepted by most people,  is nothing but vapor!  It does not exist.

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                                          FREE WILL & EVIL

The Sovereign Chooser of the universe created men who choose!  Who chooses what determines who is God!

All that has been said respecting free will and depravity can just as well be applied to the doctrines of the Divine Decree and Providence which have been addressed in previous articles. For convenience we can employ the term Determinism to represent the Decree of God.  This is what the Decree actually is... God determining in & of Himself, based on nothing else but His good pleasure... all things whatsoever come to pass.  This includes both the thoughts & actions of all His creatures or else God is not God!

PRINCIPLE; The reality of determinism in no way discounts or nullifies man's responsibility for his moral choices neither does it impose a necessity upon him that exhonerates him from being responsible for those choices.

Determinism does NOT necessitate or constitute a forcing of the will! Neither does it exhonerate a man from his accountability.  Even if God determined evil... and He has, as will be shown shortly... men shall give an account for their sin.

So again, even if free will were true... by definition of Determinism men's choices have already been ordained from eternity; and yet... no man can go to the judgment & try to escape the wrath of God for his sin by hiding behind His Decree. "But God!  You CANNOT condem me for my sin since you yourself DETERMINED, from all eternity that I should commit that sin!" No! Why not? Because folks... determinism does not necessitate a forcing of men's wills to commit sin!  And when men sin they do so most willingly!

Ac 2:23 Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
   God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

Ac 4: 27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to   be done.

These passages plainly teach two things; the doctrine of Divine determinism and the doctrine of human accountability.

It is evident that the activity of the man Judas was predetermined by God in His eternal decree because we are told that the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed! Lu 22:22  So we see that God 'determined' that Judas should do what he did.  But does Judas charge God with sin based on His determining decree? His own words testify against this...

[Judas says], I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What [is that] to us? see thou [to that].  Mt 27:4

Even the chief priests & elders knew enough not to blame God for Judas' sin.  In effect they said... 'That's your problem bub; deal with it.'  And these fellows knew their Bibles.
Nobody, not even Judas tried to hide behind the Decree in order to excuse sin. And neither did they resort to the doctrine of depravity. They all placed the full weight of blame squarely on Judas' shoulders... where it rightly belongs.

But now, an even greater consideration meets us in the light of Determinism; If, as we say, God has determined all things including the so-called 'free' choices of men... what then becomes of the doctrine of free will? How can it be said that a will that is determined is free? Even if man's will were totally sovereign & he did have the innate ability to choose even the good!  Even in this light, if all his choices have been pre-determined... which we shall show that they indeed have been... how then can it be said that the will is free?  In what sense is it free. What does "free" mean with respect to moral choice??? The only,  only,  only   possible answer to this is that the entire concept of 'free' choice needs to be re-defined in terms of Biblical principles.
 to be continued.............