Free Will

“Free will” is a term that is often misunderstood and often the cause of more heat than light in many Christian circles. Is man able to choose and decide whatever he wants? The answer is obvious. Clearly a person can and does choose whatever they want to do. Is that ability to choose (aka the will) completely free?

Anthonly Hoekema in his book, “Created in God’s Image” is very helpful here because the terms “free” and “will” are two terms that are seemingly at odds against the other. Many have viewed the human “will” as some faculty that operates unrestrained from the rest of the person. This is a very good distinction to make as Hoekema explains:

Each of these two words, free and will, is problematical. To begin with, will is not totally clear and can even be misleading. It seems to suggest that within the human being there is a separate kind of “faculty” called “the will,” the function of which is to make choices or decisions. Some people are thought to have a “strong will” – that is, presumably, a strong faculty of willing – whereas others are through to have a “weak will.” When one asks whether the “will” is free, one assumes that the will is a separate agent in a person that may or may not be free in its actions.

He makes a strong case that the human will is not a separate faculty “but an activity that is performed by the whole person in the process of making decisions.” That is to say that the person’s choosing and deciding will always be deteremined by their entire person (emotions, propensities, intellect, desires, etc). That human volition or will cannot operate apart or freely from the rest of the person as if it is some rogue human faculty. Instead it must operate within the realm of that person’s nature and makeup.

Scripture offers help here in describing our default nature. By default, that is when a person is born, they are in a state of rebellion against God. A person’s default state is not neutral to God nor is it good towards God but instead it is in rebellion towards God. Paul says that we are “by nature children of wrath even as the rest” (Eph 2:3), our default position is against God. The language of Paul cannot be clearer. He describes that our spiritual nature as “dead”, incapable of any activity towards God. In fact the activity we can observe is that people don’t go towards God they go against God. Any parent can make this observation with their children who “naturally”, that is by their nature, oppose God by stealing, cheating, lying all on their own according to their nature. They did not require anyone to teach them how to lie or to steal.

How then can the human will operate favorably towards God when his composition and makeup is against God? From this explanation it seems that “the will” cannot operate outside the nature of the person and if the nature of a person is in rebellion towards God how can that person choose God? It seems that his will is bound not free. It is bound to his human default nature of rebelliousness which cannot choose God. In other words that human will cannot operate on a rogue mission and separate itself from the nature of a person that is at enmity with God and cross over enemy lines and befriend God.

If it is true, that a person’s ability to choose operates within the nature of a person, then the only way a person can choose God is if that nature is made alive and renewed. Paul again in Ephesians 2:4-5 explains “But God being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” A person that comes to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ becomes alive! They are no longer operating in the nature that was once dead and enslaved to a life of rebellion towards God but now united to Christ and able to live a life of obedience to God.

One may object and say that if you leave a life under the dominion of sin and live a new life under the dominion of Christ are you really free? The idea of being united to Christ or under the dominion of Christ’s law seems incompatible with freedom. It boils down to the question of, “am I really free if I’m fenced in by the rule of Christ?” I will leave you with Hoekema’s words to explain True Freedom:

Actually, however, even in the natural world there is no freedom without limitations. A fish has freedom to swim, but only as long as it stays in the water. A violinist is free to produce luscious string tones and glittering cadenzas only if he or she knows how to do proper fingering and bowing. Only after the rules of voice production have been mastered is a singer free to inspire audiences. All good music is a kind of marriage in which loyalty to the laws of composition is joined to freedom of expression. We speak of a “free society,” but a community that would have freedom without limitations (such as civil laws, criminal laws, traffic laws) would breed anarchy. IN the redemptive world it is also true that there is no freedom without limitations. True freedom, in fact, consists of the joyful keeping of God’s law. That law, when observed in gratitude, does not bring us into a new bondage, but leads us into a life that is rich, full, and happy, as we try to keep ourselves in the center of God’s will.