Concerning Free Will
By what is man moved to do the things that he does: to accept
or reject Christ; to good, to God and to glory? By his own will? Can I, as a sinner,
choose the good and then do it? Can I move myself to accept the Grace of God if
I choose? Such questions are basic to the Presbyterian (and generally Christian)
doctrine of Predestination. They involve what theologians call "The Freedom
(or Bondage) of the Will." To answer them, we have asked a modern theologian
to compile a series of quotations from the great theologians of the past showing
what the Christian Church has always believed at this point. Here is true Biblical Theology! — Ed.
GORDON H. CLARK, Ph.D.
MARTIN LUTHER
"God foreknows nothing by contingency... He foresees, purposes,
and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By
this thunderbolt Free-will is thrown prostrate and utterly dashed to pieces... Are
you not the person, friend Erasmus, who just now asserted that God is by nature
just and by nature most merciful? If this be true, does it not follow that He is
immutably just and merciful? That as his nature is not changed to all eternity,
so neither his justice nor his mercy? And what is said concerning his justice and
mercy, must be said also concerning his knowledge, his wisdom, his goodness, his
will, and his other attributes. If therefore these things are asserted religiously,
piously, and wholesomely concerning God, as you say yourself, what has come to you
that, contrary to your own self, you now assert that it is irreligious, curious,
and vain to say that God fore- knows of necessity? ... Do you believe that He foreknows
against His will, or that He wills in ignorance? ... From which it follows unalterably
that all things which we do, although they may appear to us to be done mutably and
contingently, and even may be done contingently by us, are yet in reality done necessarily
and immutably with respect to the will of God. For the will of God is effective
and cannot be hindered."
"The words of the law are spoken, not that they might assert
the power of the will, but that they might illuminate the blindness of reason, that
it might see that its own light is nothing and that the power of the will is nothing...
Man by the words of the law is admonished and taught what he ought to do, not what
he can do; that is, that he is brought to know his sin, but not to believe that
he has any strength in himself, unless God freely gives us His Spirit." (From
THE BONDAGE OF THE WILL).
JOHN CALVIN
"Augustine plainly confesses that the will is not free,
since it is subject to lust, and cannot be free until liberated by divine grace."
"The will, therefore, is so bound by the slavery of sin
that it cannot excite itself, much less devote itself to anything good. If a necessity
of doing well does not impair the liberty of the Divine Will, and if the Devil,
who cannot but do evil, nevertheless sins voluntarily, who will assert that man
sins less voluntarily because he is under a necessity of sinning?"
"I deny then that sin is the less criminal because it is
necessary; I also deny that it is avoidable because it is voluntary. Similarly the
wills of the elect angels, though they cannot swerve from good, are still wills.
Those who defend free will make an improper transition from what is voluntary
to what is free. These two are not the same." (The INSTITUTES).
JEROME ZANCHIUS
"Predestination is to be preached because the grace of God
(which stands opposed to all human worthiness) cannot be maintained without it...
Thus argued St. Augustine against the Pelagians, who taught that grace is offered
to all men alike, that God for His part equally wills the salvation of all, and
that it is in the power of man's free-will to accept or reject the grace and salvation
so offered. Which string of errors do, as Augustine justly observes, center in this
grand point: that God's grace is not free but the fruit of man's desert. Now the
doctrine of predestination batters down this Babel of free- will and merit. It teaches
us that, if we do indeed will and desire to lay hold on Christ and salvation by
Him, this will and desire are the effect of God's secret purpose and effectual operation,
for He it is who worketh in us both to will and to do His own good pleasure, that
He that glorieth should glory in the Lord. There neither is nor can be any medium
between predestinating grace and salvation by human merit." (From ABSOLUTE
PREDESTINATION).
JOHN GILL
"The liberty of the will of man, in every state he has been
is, or shall be, lies not in an indifference to good and evil. In his state of innocence,
as he was made after the image and in the likeness of God, so the bias of his soul
was only to that which is good, which he performed willingly in obedience to the
will of God... In his regenerate state, there is, indeed, an inclination both to
good and evil; but this arises from two different principles in the regenerate man.
The new man, or principle of grace is inclined, bent, and determined to that which
is good only; and yet freely serves the law of God. The old man, or corrupt nature
is inclined, bent, and determined to that which is evil only; and yet freely serves
the law of sin. In the state of glorification, the saints will be impeccable, cannot
sin, can only do that which is good... whence it follows, that the liberty of man's
will does not lie in an indifference or indetermination to good or evil; but is
consistent with some kind of necessity and a determination to one.
"If liberty is not consistent with necessity in any sense,
then it is not consistent with the decrees of God, nor even with the foreknowledge
of God... For if there is not a necessity of things coming to pass, which are foreknown
and decreed by God, then his foreknowledge is uncertain, and is but mere supposition
and conjecture, and his decrees must be frustrable and precarious. It is said that
this was of old the chief argument of the fatalists, espoused of late by Mr. Hobbes,
and is still made the refuge of the predestinarians. Be it so; if the fatalists
and Mr. Hobbes meant no more by necessity than we do, namely, a necessity of the
immutability and unfrustrableness of God's foreknowledge and decrees, and not of
coaction upon the will of man; we have no reason to be ashamed of the argument they
made use of; and instead of making it a refuge or mere shift, shall think ourselves
obliged to defend it, and abide by it." (From THE CAUSE OF GOD AND TRUTH).
* * * * *
AUGUSTUS M. TOPLADY
"I was lately introduced to the acquaintance of a very learned
and sensible Armenian, with the sagacity to perceive and the integrity to acknowledge
the prodigious lengths to which the Free-Will scheme, if carried as far as it naturally
leads, must inevitably push its devotees. He sees its consequences clearly; he swallows
them without difficulty; and he avows them very honestly. 'God does all He possibly
can' — these were the gentleman's own words to me in conversation — 'God does all
He possibly can to hinder moral and natural evil, but He cannot prevail. Men will
not permit God to have His wish.' Then, said I, the Deity must certainly be a very
unhappy being. 'Not unhappy in the least,' replied the ready philosopher. 'God knows
that in consequence of the Free-Will with which He has endued His national creatures,
He Himself must be disappointed of His wishes and defeated of His ends, and that
there is no help for it, unless He had made us mere machines. He therefore submits
to necessity and does not make Himself uneasy about it.’ See, on what tremendous
shoals Free-Willers, when honest, run themselves aground! Is their god the Bible-God?
Certainly not. Their god 'submits' to difficulties which He 'can- not help' Himself
out of, and endeavors to make Himself 'easy' under millions and millions of inextricable
embarrassments, uncomfortable disappointments, and mortifying defeats. Where- as,
concerning the God of the Bible, it is affirmed that He hath done, and will always
continue to do, whatsoever He pleaseth." (From COMPLETE WORKS).
JONATHAN EDWARDS
"Unless God foreknows the future acts of men's wills, and
their behavior as moral agents, all those great things which are foretold in both
Old Testament and New concerning the erection, establishment, and universal extent
of the Kingdom of the Messiah, were predicted and promised while God was in ignorance
whether any of these things would come to pass or no, and did but guess at them...
"Unless God foreknows the volitions of moral agents, all
the prophecies of Scripture have no better foundation than mere conjecture; and
that, in most instances, a conjecture which must have the utmost uncertainty...
It also follows that if this notion of God's ignorance of future volitions be true,
in vain did Christ say (after uttering many great and important predictions): 'Heaven
and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away'...
"It follows, therefore, that these events are necessary,
with a necessity of connection or consequence...
There must be a certainty in things themselves, before they are
certainly known, or (which is the same thing) known to be certain... God's foreknowledge,
therefore, is necessarily the cause of those events which He knows." (From
FREEDOM OF THE WILL).
These quotations do not fully explain the doctrines alluded to.
The purpose has been to present a witness to the theology of the Reformation. Perhaps
some readers will be interested enough to examine the books from which these selections
have been taken. The further the discussion is followed, the clearer the whole doctrine
will become.
At any rate, one will soon learn that God is not so impotent
as to have to sit back, after offering the Gospel, and wait and see who will accept
it. It will be clear that the Holy Spirit operates on the will of man, changes his
likes and dislikes, takes away his heart of stone and gives him a heart of flesh,
in fact gives him faith. God does not sit back and do nothing: He regenerates —
He controls man's will. Such is the Gospel; the other view is not.
As the Psalmist said, "Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee" (Psa.65:5). God causes men to turn to Him. No one else can.
*****
Butler University.
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