I will defer somewhat in my discussion of freedom to that which I have just previously mentioned regarding the Fall. Namely, that true freedom is not, as we most often and readily believe, the freedom of contrary choice, but rather the freedom to be and do all that God has created his people to be and do. This is the freedom of God himself, in whose image we have been crafted; not the freedom of capriciousness or mere lack of restraint, but the freedom of God to be fully and completely God; as he is, according to His own divine nature. In the Garden, we were created in the image of Christ himself with the freedom to be fully, completely and profoundly human. Created in the image of, and for relationship with, God, with all the infinite potential of creation and the depths of our own essence laid out before us, ‘God created… and it was good.’ As such, we understand that evil was, and is, in no way necessary. Evil is essentially a void, an absence, an emptiness, and nothing that God created good required the ‘existence’ of evil in order to be, genuinely, good. It is through this lens that we much approach the reality of evil and suffering.
First, we must come to understand that evil, most plainly, is simply that which ought not be. God created all that ‘ought’ to be in accordance with his divine love and purposes. Evil is not a created reality within God’s good intention, but the twisting and degradation of that good. As such, evil has no justification. It has no good end. God cries out along with those who suffer under evil that things simply ought not to be this way. In fact, that is evil’s very definition.
Along with this, we may further come to understand that evil cannot be explained; it essentially makes no sense. To attempt to provide an explanation for evil is to lend it a rationality which it does not possess. To explain evil is to rationalize it, and to rationalize it is to justify it. And evil, as we have just discussed, is essentially and necessarily without justification. It simply shouldn’t be.
Thirdly, in the sovereignty and power of God, when we hand to him ‘that which ought not be’, he is yet able to overcome that evil and put things to rights. God does not justify or ‘turn evil into’ good. God’s response to evil is not justification or explanation, but ACTION; to UNDO that evil. This is, essentially, why evil has no future, because God, in overcoming evil, is able to make it do ‘forced labor’; to undo itself. Sin and evil are essentially that which ought not be and, in the end, they WILL NOT be.
Concurrently, we come to understand that evil is in no way necessary. In rejection of a dualistic paradigm, Christian teaching affirms that evil has no necessary place, even for the operation of free will. As expounded upon in depth earlier, the essence of genuine freedom is not contrary choice, but rather the freedom to be fully and truly that which we have been created to be. Embracing a wrong perception of freedom leads us, in fact to bondage and death.
Fifthly, Evil is essentially parasitic. God alone is the source of existence, and God wills that evil not exist. Therefore, evil has no power to exist but to leach off of, and twist the good. The enemy has been deemed the ‘Father of lies’ for good reason. For a lie has no power; no substance, no reality apart from its impersonation of truth. A lie, perceived as a lie, has no power whatsoever. Once it is revealed for what it is, all of its influence is lost. If a lie cannot be treated with the reality of a truth, it has no power, no effect, and no future. As such, the choice between good and evil is not the choice between two realities, but the choice between a reality and a non-reality. As we choose to participate in evil, we lend it a reality and an existence that it otherwise does not have. In our lives, we make the lie ‘real’ by living as if it were true; as if it WERE, when it is essentially NOT. In contrast, true freedom always leads to freedom. The choice of evil is not freedom, but the choice to throw away our freedom. This is the genuinely heartbreaking tragedy of the Garden; we have sold our eternal inheritance and all the richness of God for NOTHINGNESS.
Lastly, God has not promised that we will not suffer, but that he will make all of our sufferings to be like that of Christ; namely, overcome unto redemption. Scripture tells us that, in the end, every tear will be wiped away. Until then, in the face of evil and suffering we are enabled unto Godly grief and engagement over those things in our world which simply ‘ought not be’, in the fullness of Hope that God, in Christ and in his redemption and sanctification of his people, is actively bringing about the day when these things WILL NOT be; all of creation restored into the fullness of God’s glorious intent. Until that day, those people redeemed and brought into transforming relationship with God through Christ embody this victory by living lives of hope, healing and genuine freedom in the midst of suffering and bondage as a witness to the greater reality over God’s victory over evil in and through Christ, praying as Jesus taught us, ‘Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ Come, Lord Jesus.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Reflection #2: Freedom and the Fall
“In the beginning God created… and it was good… it was good… So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female He created them… it was very good.’ – Gen.1
Human beings, we are told, were created by God, in the image of God. And it was very good. What, however, does this image consist of? Intelligence? Morality? Reason? In Colossians, the Apostle Paul describes Christ as the image of God, IN whom we have been created and TO whom we are being conformed completely through the work of redemption and sanctification. (Hughes) As such, we may surmise, then, that the true image of God, and therefore the foundational essence of humanity, is Christoformity. The intent of God in the creation of humanity was that we, created as the image of that essential humanity present in Godself and embodied by Christ, would, in the natural expression of that essential image, be bound in loving relationship with God; even as Jesus, the Son, is in loving relationship with the Father through the Spirit. ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you…’. God’s creation of mankind was, in essence, an invitation for humanity to participate in the mystery of the divine relationship itself; out of the overflow of that relationship, God created in order that He might share that profound, powerful and life-giving love with us. It is through the lens of this purpose for being that we may accurately know that we are created in the image of God; for, like God himself, we were created for relationship with God.
In the light of this inexplicable holy generosity that compelled creation, we come to realize that it is only through the sovereign will and love of God that such an interaction would ever be possible. For what can the not-yet-created, that which is yet nothing, do to participate in the work or will of the eternal, uniquely pre-existent Creator? That we exist at all hangs upon the will and pleasure of the sovereign God, creator and sustainer, who by his grace holds us above the nothingness from whence we came.
What, then, do we speak of when we speak of the Fall?
Most simply put, Man, created in the image of - for relationship with - God, opted for nothingness and bondage rather than the freedom for which we were created and, as such, denied ourselves that essential relationship upon which our very life and existence hangs. When Calvin speaks of total depravity, he is drawing our attention to the fact that the very image of God in which we have been created – our essential bond and source – has been so corrupted by sin; our rebellion and denial, that who we are presently is totally unrecognizable in comparison to that which we have been created to be. We were created for relationship, and we denied that relationship; this is the essence of the Fall.
But, we may ask, isn’t choice the essence of freedom? If this relationship with God were to be genuine and real, did humanity not need the option of denying it? Is not free will contingent upon this? And if so, can we be judged for simply exercising that freedom in the manner we saw fit?
While this logic rings true for us, this fact exposes the reality that we have thoroughly lost sight of our own essence, having handed it over in exchange for a lie and a world of deception. For the chief lie of the enemy of our souls is that real freedom; that ideal which we hold so dearly, consists merely of CONTRARY choice. The lie that we bought in the Garden was that unless we have the ability to choose AGAINST something (namely, God), then we aren’t genuinely free. In opting for this, the devil’s definition of freedom, what we thought we were purchasing was autonomy and independence, but this freedom was not freedom at all; but merely freedom from existence; from the source of life. This ‘freedom’ was death. It was, and is, bondage. To this day, however, we fail to acknowledge this; seeking to approach God through the same old farce of a definition of freedom. The enemy is laughing.
For the essence of real freedom was not to choose against something; it did not need a ‘No’ in order to be genuine. Rather, the freedom of the Garden, and the freedom of that relationship with God for which we have been created, is the freedom of choosing from among the infinite ‘Yes’s’, the infinite possibilities available within the character and essence of God’s divine, overflowing love and creation. We were created with nothing but potential before us; upheld and spurred on in the sovereign love and will, all of creation waiting to be grown, developed, shaped into the fullness of all that it could be. We opted, rather, for nothingness; and all of creation groans. Because of God’s sovereignty, however, when we hand him evil and nothingness, he knows what to do with it. He has created from nothingness before. The story of our redemption is that of this sovereign, loving God, condescending to our fallenness, in order to take our nothingness, and bring about that fullness of his original intent; for our salvation and life, and for his glory and infinite joy that we might find ourselves in right relationship with Him once again.
Human beings, we are told, were created by God, in the image of God. And it was very good. What, however, does this image consist of? Intelligence? Morality? Reason? In Colossians, the Apostle Paul describes Christ as the image of God, IN whom we have been created and TO whom we are being conformed completely through the work of redemption and sanctification. (Hughes) As such, we may surmise, then, that the true image of God, and therefore the foundational essence of humanity, is Christoformity. The intent of God in the creation of humanity was that we, created as the image of that essential humanity present in Godself and embodied by Christ, would, in the natural expression of that essential image, be bound in loving relationship with God; even as Jesus, the Son, is in loving relationship with the Father through the Spirit. ‘As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you…’. God’s creation of mankind was, in essence, an invitation for humanity to participate in the mystery of the divine relationship itself; out of the overflow of that relationship, God created in order that He might share that profound, powerful and life-giving love with us. It is through the lens of this purpose for being that we may accurately know that we are created in the image of God; for, like God himself, we were created for relationship with God.
In the light of this inexplicable holy generosity that compelled creation, we come to realize that it is only through the sovereign will and love of God that such an interaction would ever be possible. For what can the not-yet-created, that which is yet nothing, do to participate in the work or will of the eternal, uniquely pre-existent Creator? That we exist at all hangs upon the will and pleasure of the sovereign God, creator and sustainer, who by his grace holds us above the nothingness from whence we came.
What, then, do we speak of when we speak of the Fall?
Most simply put, Man, created in the image of - for relationship with - God, opted for nothingness and bondage rather than the freedom for which we were created and, as such, denied ourselves that essential relationship upon which our very life and existence hangs. When Calvin speaks of total depravity, he is drawing our attention to the fact that the very image of God in which we have been created – our essential bond and source – has been so corrupted by sin; our rebellion and denial, that who we are presently is totally unrecognizable in comparison to that which we have been created to be. We were created for relationship, and we denied that relationship; this is the essence of the Fall.
But, we may ask, isn’t choice the essence of freedom? If this relationship with God were to be genuine and real, did humanity not need the option of denying it? Is not free will contingent upon this? And if so, can we be judged for simply exercising that freedom in the manner we saw fit?
While this logic rings true for us, this fact exposes the reality that we have thoroughly lost sight of our own essence, having handed it over in exchange for a lie and a world of deception. For the chief lie of the enemy of our souls is that real freedom; that ideal which we hold so dearly, consists merely of CONTRARY choice. The lie that we bought in the Garden was that unless we have the ability to choose AGAINST something (namely, God), then we aren’t genuinely free. In opting for this, the devil’s definition of freedom, what we thought we were purchasing was autonomy and independence, but this freedom was not freedom at all; but merely freedom from existence; from the source of life. This ‘freedom’ was death. It was, and is, bondage. To this day, however, we fail to acknowledge this; seeking to approach God through the same old farce of a definition of freedom. The enemy is laughing.
For the essence of real freedom was not to choose against something; it did not need a ‘No’ in order to be genuine. Rather, the freedom of the Garden, and the freedom of that relationship with God for which we have been created, is the freedom of choosing from among the infinite ‘Yes’s’, the infinite possibilities available within the character and essence of God’s divine, overflowing love and creation. We were created with nothing but potential before us; upheld and spurred on in the sovereign love and will, all of creation waiting to be grown, developed, shaped into the fullness of all that it could be. We opted, rather, for nothingness; and all of creation groans. Because of God’s sovereignty, however, when we hand him evil and nothingness, he knows what to do with it. He has created from nothingness before. The story of our redemption is that of this sovereign, loving God, condescending to our fallenness, in order to take our nothingness, and bring about that fullness of his original intent; for our salvation and life, and for his glory and infinite joy that we might find ourselves in right relationship with Him once again.
Reflection #1: The Triune God
‘We believe in one God, the Father, almighty, maker of heaven and Earth….’
With this beginning, the Nicene Creed immediately sets Christian teaching apart from an entire world of faith systems; especially in the context of the Roman world from which this new movement was birthed. ‘One God’; in the face of the Roman/Greek/Pagan conception of a polytheistic universe in which a pantheon of gods sought to struggle and vie with one another for power, sexual dominion, and other various forms of conquest, Christian teaching silences this chaos entirely. There is no cosmic competition; no eternal battle for influence in which human beings become merely pawns and casualties. There is but ONE God, one source, one almighty Father and the impetus for all that is. This God is beyond competition; without equal, wholly free and uniquely pre-existent.
‘And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God…’
This oneness of God, however, is not aloneness. From the outset of God’s revelation of himself in scripture, we find that this one pre-existent God is not alone in himself. Rather, within one nature and one unity, we find community. Despite the mystery of this we recognize that, in a God such as the God of scripture, revealed to us in His very essence as Love, it follows that this God in his unique pre-existence would not be essentially ALONE, but necessarily in RELATIONSHIP. As this God is ONE, however, without peer or equal, with whom would this essential relationship have been before the foundations of time and space itself but with Himself? As such, the foundations of our understanding of the Trinity are laid. Who then, is this Jesus; the Son of God?
‘Begotten from the Father before all ages… God from God… not made… of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into existence…’
Jesus is the one who takes us to the Father, and sends us the Spirit. He is the one sent by the Father, conceived by the Spirit, and born of Mary among us. Jesus is the son of the Father, who lives under and in the power of the Spirit. He is the one doing the work of the Father, by the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit. To deal with Jesus is to deal with both Father and Spirit.
The Son, co-inherent and in-existent with the Father and the Spirit, is one with them, although distinct from them. The Son is not created, but eternally begotten and coeternal. The Son receives Sonship, gives Fathership, and exudes Spirit. A variety of heresies have sprung forth from a misunderstanding of this relationship. Most notably Arianism, which proposed that Christ was not one with the Father and Spirit, but rather, created. Based on an anthropomorphization of sonship, Arius concluded that there must have been a time when the Son was not, therefore the Son could not be co-eternal with the Father, and hence the Son could not be one with the Father, but must be something essentially other. From the limitations of language, it may be understandable how Arius would come to this errant conclusion. However, to follow this conclusion to it’s natural end proves disastrous. For if Jesus is not one with the Father, then God Himself is not our savior, as scripture indicates; he sent someone else. As Christ alone is our essential hermeneutic and source of direct revelation of God’s character, if Jesus is not one with the Father, then we actually have no direct revelation through which to be in relationship with God. If this is the case, that, in looking at Jesus, we are not actually finding the revelation of God himself, then our whole discussion; our entire foundation for knowledge and belief is undermined. What begins as is a misinterpretation of language ends in our inability to know God. As such, the teaching of the Church affirms the oneness of the Son with the Father and the Spirit, as revealed by the witness of scripture and by the witness of Christ himself.
‘And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father… and the Son…’
The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God, proceeds from the Father and the Son as the very embodiment of their relationship with each other; the personified relational empowering and enabling within Godself. As such, though it has been a matter of some debate, the center and unity of the Trinity is not found in any one person of the Trinity, which would thus undermine the unity therein, but rather the unity of God IS the trinity. Such was the clarification of Athanasius and others regarding this point.
To lose sight of the unity within the Trinity is to fall into tri-theism; perceiving that there is not one God, but three, essentially throwing ourselves back into pagan pluralism. Everything that God does, He does as one God (ie. The Father creates in the Son, by the power of the Spirit); the works of God are essentially undivided.
To lose sight of the distinctions within the Trinity is to fall into Modalism: the perception that God is actually all one ‘stuff’ only revealed in three distinct expressions. Christian teaching maintains that God is both eternally and essentially tri-personal. These distinctions, within one nature, are that of RELATIONSHIP. The Father begets; giving sonship and receiving fathership. The Son is begotten; receiving sonship and giving fathership. The Spirit proceeds; from both the Father and the Son. These distinctions are not merely a matter of names or appearance, but essential and personal.
To lose sight of the equality within the Trinity is to fall into subordination, as we have already seen and discussed in the missteps of Arianism; to conceive of the Son or the Spirit as something less than God. All of these relationships, though complex and mysterious, are absolutely vital to perceive correctly. For, it is no less than the very essence of revelation of, and genuine relationship with, God that is on the line should we allow ourselves to embrace error. The stakes are far too high. May God guide us in all wisdom.
With this beginning, the Nicene Creed immediately sets Christian teaching apart from an entire world of faith systems; especially in the context of the Roman world from which this new movement was birthed. ‘One God’; in the face of the Roman/Greek/Pagan conception of a polytheistic universe in which a pantheon of gods sought to struggle and vie with one another for power, sexual dominion, and other various forms of conquest, Christian teaching silences this chaos entirely. There is no cosmic competition; no eternal battle for influence in which human beings become merely pawns and casualties. There is but ONE God, one source, one almighty Father and the impetus for all that is. This God is beyond competition; without equal, wholly free and uniquely pre-existent.
‘And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God…’
This oneness of God, however, is not aloneness. From the outset of God’s revelation of himself in scripture, we find that this one pre-existent God is not alone in himself. Rather, within one nature and one unity, we find community. Despite the mystery of this we recognize that, in a God such as the God of scripture, revealed to us in His very essence as Love, it follows that this God in his unique pre-existence would not be essentially ALONE, but necessarily in RELATIONSHIP. As this God is ONE, however, without peer or equal, with whom would this essential relationship have been before the foundations of time and space itself but with Himself? As such, the foundations of our understanding of the Trinity are laid. Who then, is this Jesus; the Son of God?
‘Begotten from the Father before all ages… God from God… not made… of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into existence…’
Jesus is the one who takes us to the Father, and sends us the Spirit. He is the one sent by the Father, conceived by the Spirit, and born of Mary among us. Jesus is the son of the Father, who lives under and in the power of the Spirit. He is the one doing the work of the Father, by the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit. To deal with Jesus is to deal with both Father and Spirit.
The Son, co-inherent and in-existent with the Father and the Spirit, is one with them, although distinct from them. The Son is not created, but eternally begotten and coeternal. The Son receives Sonship, gives Fathership, and exudes Spirit. A variety of heresies have sprung forth from a misunderstanding of this relationship. Most notably Arianism, which proposed that Christ was not one with the Father and Spirit, but rather, created. Based on an anthropomorphization of sonship, Arius concluded that there must have been a time when the Son was not, therefore the Son could not be co-eternal with the Father, and hence the Son could not be one with the Father, but must be something essentially other. From the limitations of language, it may be understandable how Arius would come to this errant conclusion. However, to follow this conclusion to it’s natural end proves disastrous. For if Jesus is not one with the Father, then God Himself is not our savior, as scripture indicates; he sent someone else. As Christ alone is our essential hermeneutic and source of direct revelation of God’s character, if Jesus is not one with the Father, then we actually have no direct revelation through which to be in relationship with God. If this is the case, that, in looking at Jesus, we are not actually finding the revelation of God himself, then our whole discussion; our entire foundation for knowledge and belief is undermined. What begins as is a misinterpretation of language ends in our inability to know God. As such, the teaching of the Church affirms the oneness of the Son with the Father and the Spirit, as revealed by the witness of scripture and by the witness of Christ himself.
‘And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father… and the Son…’
The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God, proceeds from the Father and the Son as the very embodiment of their relationship with each other; the personified relational empowering and enabling within Godself. As such, though it has been a matter of some debate, the center and unity of the Trinity is not found in any one person of the Trinity, which would thus undermine the unity therein, but rather the unity of God IS the trinity. Such was the clarification of Athanasius and others regarding this point.
To lose sight of the unity within the Trinity is to fall into tri-theism; perceiving that there is not one God, but three, essentially throwing ourselves back into pagan pluralism. Everything that God does, He does as one God (ie. The Father creates in the Son, by the power of the Spirit); the works of God are essentially undivided.
To lose sight of the distinctions within the Trinity is to fall into Modalism: the perception that God is actually all one ‘stuff’ only revealed in three distinct expressions. Christian teaching maintains that God is both eternally and essentially tri-personal. These distinctions, within one nature, are that of RELATIONSHIP. The Father begets; giving sonship and receiving fathership. The Son is begotten; receiving sonship and giving fathership. The Spirit proceeds; from both the Father and the Son. These distinctions are not merely a matter of names or appearance, but essential and personal.
To lose sight of the equality within the Trinity is to fall into subordination, as we have already seen and discussed in the missteps of Arianism; to conceive of the Son or the Spirit as something less than God. All of these relationships, though complex and mysterious, are absolutely vital to perceive correctly. For, it is no less than the very essence of revelation of, and genuine relationship with, God that is on the line should we allow ourselves to embrace error. The stakes are far too high. May God guide us in all wisdom.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Preliminary Thoughts: Open Theism
“ Such an impotent view of God understandably strikes fear, if not revulsion, in the hearts and minds of many believers who hear it. In reality, I will now argue, the charge could hardly be further from the truth. I will contend that if we truly believe God is omniscient, possessing unlimited intelligence and knowledge, there is no basis for concluding he is less "in control" if he knows the future partly as a realm of possibilities than he is if he knows the future exclusively as a realm of eternally settled facts. In fact, I shall argue that any view of God which thinks God gains any significant providential advantage simply by virtue of knowing the future exclusively as a realm of eternally settled facts (rather than as partly comprised of possibilities thereby concedes that it has a limited view of God. More specifically, ironic as it sounds, I shall argue that this charge is premised on a denial of God's omniscience.” - G. Boyd
To respond simply to this initial argument of one of Greg Boyd's extensive treatises on 'Open Theism'; it seems to me that Boyd here is engaging the wrong question entirely. This isn’t an issue of figuring out what would make God ‘most providential’; and building a theology to fit that human ideal. It is about coming to understand God as He ACTUALLY IS, as he has freely revealed himself to us, and allowing that God to shape our thinking, not vice versa. This is the God who could describe himself no better than ‘I AM’, the God who ‘WAS and IS and IS TO COME’; the ‘creator AND SUSTAINER’. The essence of this revealed God is nothing short of the act of BEING itself. God is not a static, esoteric reality; God is an EVENT, an UNFOLDING. God is LIFE itself. And apart from this ESSENTIAL life from which all else that is living derives their CONTINGENT life, there is nothing.
‘I AM’; apart from He who is, nothing is. Even the continued existence of the enemy of our souls is contingent upon the sovereign will and pleasure of God. God, we are told, created out of nothing. As such, all that exists is held by the very will of God over that chasm of nothingness from whence it came. If God were to will that the enemy did not exist, he would simply cease to exist. Period. He is utterly dependent on He from whom he would seek to rebel. This is why he is a defeated enemy, his only recourse in the hardened bitterness of his own rebellion but to lead God’s beloved creatures to ‘exchange the truth of God for a lie’; namely that lie that there is ANYTHING of substance apart from God, and that true freedom is NOT that blessed freedom of infinite possibility and potential that God placed before mankind in the Garden, but only the freedom of contrary choice.
For the enemy, if we can’t choose AGAINST something (namely, God), then we aren’t really free. This is the lie from the pit of Hell itself. Taken to it’s fullest expression, it would have us revile the ‘Tyranny’ of a God who has denied us freedom because he did not ask us whether or not we would like to exist! (this is, in essence the assumption underlying ‘The Great Divorce’)
We come to realize that God then, as the source and sustenance of all that IS; past, present, and future; the one in whom we ‘LIVE and MOVE and HAVE OUR BEING’, is fully aware of ALL that he is actively engaged in sustaining. We are told that the hairs on our head are numbered, that God knows every sparrow that falls to the ground. The contents of our very hearts are transparent to this God. He knows all of this, because apart from his upholding, sustaining will, none of it would BE at all. Even to that which is now opposed to him; that which breaks His heart, he continues to lend existence. This is the profundity of the divine LOVE.
To the question of open theism, then, we may now turn. Open theism would propose that, despite the fact that the future, in all its details and intricacies, has NO EXISTENCE at all apart from the conscious decision of God to actively create and sustain it, God is somehow UNAWARE of the full nature of that which he is creating and sustaining. Either, it seems, God is somehow UNABLE (too short sighted or too stupid) to be aware of these things, or He is UNWILLING; purposely covering up something over which he has every ability to be fully aware, but has decided to keep, as it were, from himself. What is the philosophical motivation to propose such a thing? The open theist would answer, because, if God already KNOWS; if our parts are already effectively WRITTEN, then we aren’t truly FREE. If God already knows what we are going to do before we do it, then this all must be one big arbitrary chess match between God and himself, with mankind caught in the middle, unable to do any other than that which has been already decided.
A few points: First, before we start, we must agree that God IS as He IS, and not merely as we would like him to be for the purposes of our own sense of self-importance. Often it feels that open theism largely finds its impetus in a sort of disapproval in thinking of the sovereignty of God operating in such a way that would make me feel like I am not in CONTROL. Simply because we (Americans, especially) don’t like to think that we lack a certain amount of perceived ‘autonomy’ doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Second, KNOWING and explicitly CAUSING are not the same thing. God’s knowledge is not a static knowledge, it is not a merely factual knowledge; it is a PERSONAL knowledge. God knows EXACTLY what I will do in EVERY situation; not because he causes me to do it, but because he KNOWS ME and he knows the situation in such a profoundly complete way that my course of action is absolutely obvious to him, even when it’s not to ME. We laugh at how predictable small children can be; parents know their children personally at such an essential level that they can ‘predict’ the response of their child in a given situation. I may know that my small niece will always choose chocolate over any other flavor of ice cream, even if she herself doesn’t know that about herself. I know my real friends; I know my wife, in some ways better than they know themselves. My knowing how someone I know will act in a given situation doesn’t mean that I MAKE them do it. I just KNOW them. How much deeper and fuller is God’s knowledge?! Will we now sit back and claim that, because we are KNOWN completely, we are therefore not completely free? God is unable to be anything other than God, namely, the God who IS and who KNOWS; we are both free and known, and that is not a contradiction in terms.
Thirdly, what essentially lies behind ‘Freewill Theism’ is a broken and corrupted understanding of free will. Essentially, we have bought the lies of the enemy hook, line and sinker. We fully believe that the only real freedom is the freedom of the contrary. If we cannot choose AGAINST, than we believe that we have no real choice at all. In reality, the ‘free will’ that God invested mankind with as an imprint of his own freedom was that freedom to fully BE; to live fully into the infinite potential of the infinite ‘yes’s’ that God had placed before us. ‘But’ the enemy says, ‘this tyrant God didn’t ASK YOU if you wanted THOSE options… He’s just spoon-feeding you. That isn’t FREEDOM.’ The deistic concept of the battle between good and evil is an essentially inaccurate paradigm for the Garden. We like to picture mankind in a neutral state, in an open field; good to the one side, and evil to the other. If we didn’t have that choice, we say, we wouldn’t be free. Mankind was not, however, in an open field. We were, in fact, standing at the edge of a precipice; the fullness of everything which God had created us for stretching out before us, and nothingness - inhumanity, death, non-existence - behind us. ‘Of ALL of the trees you may eat…’ The enemy convinced mankind that they could, in fact, co-opt the essence of God himself, if only they might loose themselves from that which God had given them without asking their permission; namely, Life. Of course, we didn’t realize that was the choice before us; all we saw was AUTONOMY. REAL freedom. And so we fell. Into death. Into inhumanity. It was only God’s unsearchable love that broke this fall from it’s inevitable end. Because he knew, of course. He knew we’d walk away, and he knew we’d break his heart, and he knew that there would be nothing that we could do about it for ourselves, and he knew that he would have to pay the price for our inevitable transgression. And he went ahead with this whole hair-brained scheme anyway because he knew that, in the end, when he’d done for us that which we could not do for ourselves and finally enabled us to take hold of all that which he’d created us for in order that we might participate in his sovereign, holy glory, it will have been worth it. Every tear wiped away, every transgression forgiven. He knew, so he was able to confidently bear our burdens. He knows, so he is able to journey with us even today; because he already sees us for what we WILL be, and he knows the journey that will take us there.
In failing to grasp this, freewill theism is simply built open the same, essential, prideful lies of Hell that mankind has dined upon since almost the beginning of time. That unless my will is OTHER than God’s will, it isn’t really FREE will. True freedom, however, is quite different. It is when my will finds itself WITHIN God’s perfect, sovereign, all-knowing will that I am truly free to be all that my creator has intended me to be. To take a racecar into a mud pit isn’t freedom; it’s foolishness. It wasn’t built for that. The enemy has made a good living, however, on making us believe that freedom and foolishness are the same thing. May God help us.
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