themuzicman said:
Well, the first hint of Christian determinism (which is a specific denial of free will) is Augustine in the 6th century, so this issue goes back much further then the enlightenment.
Augustine was not deterministic. Augustine spoke of the will of men, a volitional aspect of the human nature (i.e. the ability to receive the grace of God, the ablility to make a choice). This is nowhere near the Calvinist perspective (which I might add was not exactly the view that Calvin himself held). Now, Augustine may have had his issues when it came to a very simplistic and crass understanding of sin (i.e. the "original sin" transmitted through the sperm of a man in consception), but Augustine had one thing very right, and that is without the grace of God humanity is in slavery. Augustine's little spat with Pelagius bears through very forcefully to our time. Augustine asked for one very simple ascent from his "dear friend" Pelagius, and that was the admission that unless by grace we are saved, there is no salvation. Augustine was all for the volition of men, but that volition was only possible because of God's freedom (God's grace). Pelagius spoke of the freedom of men, that is the ability of men to change their life, to make right choices and wrong choices, and all of this appart from God.
Humanity never makes a choice outside of the grace of God. God's grace leads to the volition of humanity. For humanity in the garden it is the grace of God that sustains the Creation not through coersion but through humility and love. This means that God does not bring about God's Creation through force; God brings it about by God's very self (from the Father through the Son and the Spirit and back to the Father in praise). From the very beginning the Creation was being established in God, through God and to God. Though humans would go on to reject this, it was not an expression of freedom on their part, but rather their submission to a coersive power (the serpent; a crafty one, who is a reflection of their own craftiness, i.e. a nakedness that must be hidden). They did not exercise freedom in their choice, but rather enslaved themselves to sin (to a life sustained outside of God). They rejected the true Creation of God (which finds its sustanance in God) in order to embrace a creation sustained in itself (a creation which was a parody of the true Creation, for this creation would not thrive but would lead to scarcity and death). Their choice did not change God's plans for the Creation in any way; God would still bring about God's Creation in God, through God, and unto God; humans had simply pulled themselves out of this and into slavery (and with them, as the caretakers of the Creation as a whole, the rest of Creation). But the image of humanity would not be lost, for God would free humans from their slavery (just as he had freed the Creation from slavery to the waters of Chaos in the Creation story of Genesis 1).
themuzicman said:
In fact, you've already given one example of God asking for a free will decision in "I lay before you life and blessing and death and cursing. Choose life." The ability to choose between the two (even with the emploring of God to choose life) is clearly a free will decision.
Once again, it is not "free-will." First there is grace through God's extending to humanity the choice (a light). Only after there is Grace can there be a response (volition; a contingent choice). As I said before, human choice is always contingent upon the freedom of God. God could have presented himself not as the free God of grace (who does not give to humanity as they deserve). Grace saves humanity from destruction in their sin (for God extends to the humanity in darkness a light, so that those who live in darkness might come into the light and be saved from the darkness). If God does not extend light to humanity, humanity has no choice; humans remain slaves of sin. So our volition (contingent choice) always depends upon the God who is free (the God of Grace). Our action is always grounded in God, for if God had not extended grace to us, in preventing us from destroying ourselves, and in continuing to sustain our life for a time in our rebellion(Wesley's "preventing grace"), we would not be able to act or choose; we would be dead (destroyed; utterly wiped off the face of the earth; and we would have done it to ourselves more likely than not).
themuzicman said:
Moving into the New Testament, we see in John 6:27-29 that Jesus tells those asking the question that they should believe in the one that the Father sent. Again, they must choose to believe.
But once again the choice is contingent upon the sending of the Father. The Father must first send if we are to believe. If God does not send the Son, we cannot believe. Without the Son (without the light of God) we a blind humans groping in the darkness in the possible hope of stumbling upon something worthwhile. But in my loose extrapolation of Paul's words in Acts 17 to the Athenians who might embrace this blind grope instead of Christ, "it ain't likely you're gonna hit anything."
themuzicman said:
In John 6:45, we get a clearer picture of what "drawing" is, in that the Father teaches, and we must 'hear and learn'. Those, again, are our free choices, to hear and learn or to not hear and learn.
No, they are not. The first rely on a free God, who by his Grace comes near to us to speak and teach us. If God does not extend the grace, we have no choice. And this is no different for us in the garden. God sustains the Creation by his grace. And our choice to follow God is dependent upon the sustanance of God. If God doesn't sustain us (through grace and love) we have no volition, we have no choice. If God is not free, our life is determined. If God is free, we can be volitional.
themuzicman said:
You're probably looking for the word rather than the concepts, but these are the concepts of free will in scripture.
You're right. I am looking for the specific term in the Christian scriptures when humans and freedom come together. And I will tell you how it is revealed in the scriptures most often (at least in the New Testament): eleuthepoo - to set free, to free. Humans aren't free, in the scriptures; they are set free (freed). This means that they move from a harsh task-master, a tyrant who controls them, to a Master who is truly masterful, for he is the Lord who is above all of us because he cares for us; he is the King because he has no need of anything from us, and as the one without need to take anything from us, he can freely give of himself. And we, who have nothing to offer our God in return (because we are contingent and our being is held entirely in God) can offer the nothing we have (volition) and God will make it something. This is true worship; not us trying to offer praise to God, but us giving ourselves to God that God might make us into something worthwhile! As Paul puts it in Romans 12, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
themuzicman said:
I've studied Greek at the master's level. I know what you're taling about.
So you know that my talk about contingency and volition is grounded in the very grammar of the scriptures.
themuzicman said:
So, you're saying that there are no indicative verbs that describe human actions?
Here's how I will illustrate it to you. Does Christ raise himself from the dead? Or is Christ raised from the dead by the Father? And if Christ's life is only a response to the will of God, how can human action be anything more than this? Christ who could truly claim the freedom that is God's (for he himself is God), this same Christ did not grab hold of his divinity. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the very
morphe of a slave (that is to be made in human likeness). And being found as a man, he humbled himself in obedience, even to the point of death on the cross. Then and only then did God raise him up to the highest place and give him the name that is above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow in Heaven and on Earth and under Earth, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (a wonderful passage found in Paul's letter to the Philipians).
Peace,
Michael
