ECT God's Free Will

[nikolai_42]

In the debate over free will, it always seems to focus on man. There is an assumption or two that may not be valid with this approach, though. The one I'm thinking of is assuming that God has free will. Before jumping to conclusions here, remember that this is more about the definition of free will than the apprehension of it. Consider the following declaration by God :

The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.
The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Psalm 33:10-11

There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.
Proverbs 19:21

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.
Isaiah 46:9-11

Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Romans 9:19

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12-13

God, it seems, is absolutely free in what He can do. But on further examination, that is saying more that He is Sovereign. The difference may be slight, but it is there. Consider what is said about God - both what He declares expressly about Himself and what some inspired writers say of Him :

For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Malachi 3:6

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
James 1:17

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Hebrews 13:8

The fundamental argument behind the idea of libertarian free will is that one can choose to do something or not do something as he wishes at the moment. He is not bound to choose one way or the other. But does even God have that?

I was listening to a talk show in which a man called in and asked a simple question about why Satan sinned. If he was created good, why did he go bad? The answer came back - God gave him free will. Suppose, then, that God has this same quality of free will. What guarantee do we have that He will not all of a sudden decide to turn bad...to be like the mythological gods that are unpredictable and can only be calmed by some appeasement? If God has this same free will that (we are told) led to Satan's downfall (and man's), what is keeping Him from doing the same?

We just quoted scripture that said He won't. That said He can't. There are scriptures that speak of God's goodness, His holiness, His righteousness, His perfection etc... and these all remain. Lucifer had great glory as well...and it was his undoing :

Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
Ezekiel 28:17

If Lucifer was like this, how much more God? And if God is bright, how much more of a temptation is potential for Him to change and simply become self-absorbed? (This is questioning only to serve to show the necessity of the conclusion - it cannot be for scripture to be true).

One possible answer might be that God defines what is right and wrong by virtue of being God. His very essence is righteousness, so whatever He does is right. He is, after all, Sovereign. But if He is also changeable, then what is right today may not be right tomorrow. And if He is changeable, the scripture is not true and all bets are off. God may have determined what is right and wrong, but not by caprice. It simply is impossible to be.

So if God didn't make some decision one day as to what is good and what isn't, then that Law can't flow (merely) from His decision. It must be grounded in something - in what He has established. And what was established? The cosmos. He spoke it into existence. And the predictability of such things as planetary motion and biological growth testify to the laws built in to Creation. The earth doesn't unpredictably stop rotating, but continues as God has decreed. There may be miracles at times in which supernatural things occur, but these are simply more evidence of God's Sovereignty over nature. Is the ground of all this regulated activity based in a decree God made on a whim? Or is it grounded even further in who God actually IS?

In other words, isn't all this founded in God's nature?

That may be an anti-climactic conclusion, but it seems inescapable that God's actions and will are all founded in His nature. And if He has "free will" (in the libertarian sense) then it must be subordinated to who God is. In other words, that libertarian free will is not really libertarian.

Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
Titus 1:1-2

For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,
Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.
And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
Hebrews 6:13-19

What hope do we have...what SURE hope do we have...if God has libertarian free will? All this is founded in who God IS.

So in light of that, if man really has free will, then how does he base his choices? On what basis does he choose what to have for breakfast? On what basis does he choose God or self? If it isn't nature, then of what value are those choices? They are whims and fancies that can just as easily be contravened by a future whim or choice.

So it is that the free will that man wants to cling to so desperately is the very thing that got him into trouble in the first place. And now, unless man is inherently good, the ground of his choices is based on corruption.

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Romans 3:10-12

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6

O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.
Daniel 9:18

So if God's acts and choices are not based on libertarian free will, why do we insist ours must be? And if they are, why do we think that is a good thing?

 

[sermonindex]

Interesting thoughts.

 

[Cross Reference]

Interesting thoughts.

. . . and, though mis-guided, interesting in seeing how far one without will go to support his unbelief.

 

[Cross Reference]

In the debate over free will, it always seems to focus on man. There is an assumption or two that may not be valid with this approach, though. The one I'm thinking of is assuming that God has free will.

Before jumping to conclusions here, remember that this is more about the definition of free will than the apprehension of it. Consider the following declaration by God :

Obviously, you must have some doubt or why raise the issue?

God, it seems, is absolutely free in what He can do. But on further examination, that is saying more that He is Sovereign. The difference may be slight, but it is there. Consider what is said about God - both what He declares expressly about Himself and what some inspired writers say of Him :

The fundamental argument behind the idea of libertarian free will is that one can choose to do something or not do something as he wishes at the moment. He is not bound to choose one way or the other. But does even God have that?

Can there by any argument with God if, as the scriptures state, God is LOVE? What moves God that His judgments are without argument, righteous? Given His Absolute Attributes, can He ever perform unrighteously? Question: What is man that God seeks the same of him?

I was listening to a talk show in which a man called in and asked a simple question about why Satan sinned. If he was created good, why did he go bad? The answer came back - God gave him free will.

God gave him freewill to choose, exactly as He gave Adam! See any similarities in what the reason might be??

Suppose, then, that God has this same quality of free will. What guarantee do we have that He will not all of a sudden decide to turn bad...to be like the mythological gods that are unpredictable and can only be calmed by some appeasement? If God has this same free will that (we are told) led to Satan's downfall (and man's), what is keeping Him from doing the same?

That is like saying is God is NOT absolute in all of His attributes.

By knowing only love can create and God is Absolute LOVE Whose desire is to "impute" Himself in His creation, does it not stand to reason He, of necessity, MUST prove His subjects before doing so?

We just quoted scripture that said He won't. That said He can't. There are scriptures that speak of God's goodness, His holiness, His righteousness, His perfection etc... and these all remain. Lucifer had great glory as well...and it was his undoing :

But, Lucifer was without the "imputation" of the Godhead for reasons I have stated.

 

[nikolai_42]

Obviously, you must have some doubt or why raise the issue?

Just trying to bring some clarity to it. If free will must be maintained at all costs, what guarantee do we have that the new earth "wherein dwelleth righteousness" will stay that way? What guarantee (which is the question raised by the very notion of which I am very skeptical) do we have that God won't change? We have His Word...yes. But why do we trust that? Because He is implicitly trustworthy. It is who He is that makes it so. Anything else and the foundation of our hope is shaky. It is His nature. Being made in His image and having that violently corrupted, that says something significant about the goodness of our (free) will and about the dubiousness of our being able to properly understand our predicament (naturally speaking).

Can there by any argument with God if, as the scriptures state, God is LOVE? What moves God that His judgments are without argument, righteous? Given His Absolute Attributes, can He ever perform unrighteously? Question: What is man that God seeks the same of him?

Is it possible for God to decide to act against His nature? This is not an "argument with God" but rather trying to understand how man's will (however free it may be) squares in the big picture. If we are to be conformed to the image of God's Son, but are already made in the image of God, what God seeks of us is not the question - rather, what is the nature of the gap between the two? If already made in the image of God, what happened that that image was thoroughly marred such that man has to be, in essence, re-made (born again, made into a new creation)?

God gave him freewill to choose, exactly as He gave Adam! See any similarities in what the reason might be??

And therein lies the rub. If Satan fell because he freely chose so to do and he acted according to that free will, one question arises is if he was created good and corrupted himself or if he was created flawed. The prophecy in Ezekiel 28 implies he was created perfect but fell. Jesus said Satan was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. But was he created that way? If we accept that "beginning" here means the beginning of the world and not the beginning of his existence, then we see a creation that was created perfect (again, assuming Ezekiel 28 is at least partly about Satan) but freely turned from that perfection. Adam fell in a similar way - freely choosing rebellion. While it is ludicrous to assert God could rebel against Himself, the exaltation of a free (libertarian) will above nature is where we have serious problems. And that is what many appear to do. Free will needs to be preserved at all costs or nothing else (they say) matters. Coming from a fallen creature that fell of its own free choice by following another that rebelled according to its own free will, the heritage of the (libertarian) free will is not very encouraging. Subordinated, however, to the nature (and thus not free in the sense it seems many want to make it), man's salvation is no longer a matter of God rolling the dice and hoping He wins.

That is like saying is God is NOT absolute in all of His attributes.

Absolute He most certainly is. But when it comes time to determine if He is free to change His own Laws by the Sovereignty He has - and controvert His promises - does that freedom trump His Word? Does His nature prevail or His freedom? Only one can - it can't be both. The scriptures say He has exalted His Word above His name. The impugning of His character is something He submits Himself to (willingly) for a season so that His Word remains inviolate. His Word - once established - must be absolute. And to do so, He cannot be free in the libertarian sense (i.e. to change on nothing so much as a whim or because He doesn't like the way things are turning out).

So what it comes down to is that He IS absolutely Absolute in all of His attributes. Which is the very reason those attributes (i.e. His nature) is the determining factor in His action. NOT some libertarian free will.

And again I point out that the record for libertarian free will (if that is what it is) is not looking too good. God has a will subordinated to His nature (and I fully grant that this does not imply conflict or a will that desires to contravene His nature - but then again, that's part of the reason the nature HAS TO be determinative) where Satan and man have wills that are (supposedly) unbound and free without any (self-originating) restrictions.

By knowing only love can create and God is Absolute LOVE Whose desire is to "impute" Himself in His creation, does it not stand to reason He, of necessity, MUST prove His subjects before doing so?

Does love cut the tether and provide no directing principle? Does love "respect" that which sets itself up in direct opposition to what is good and right? Love may tolerate rebellion, but it does not exalt freedom over truth and what is right. Man has already proven what he is apart from God (i.e. free). God is not waiting for one of those free creatures to, perchance, stumble over and walk in the truth.

But, Lucifer was without the "imputation" of the Godhead for reasons I have stated.

I'm really not sure I understand this comment, but what distinction do you place between Lucifer and Adam?

 

[nikolai_42]

Absolute He most certainly is. But when it comes time to determine if He is free to change His own Laws by the Sovereignty He has - and controvert His promises - does that freedom trump His Word? Does His nature prevail or His freedom? Only one can - it can't be both.

I hope it is recognized that this is necessarily a temporal view of an eternal matter. So when I say that God's nature trumps His freedom, I'm not saying He doesn't have freedom to decree, but rather that the libertarian free will that many seem to want to assert would be catastrophic if it were attributed to God and it were to "override" His nature as a means of determining His ways. God may well have choices, but His absolute nature absolutely determines those choices. He is not a "prisoner" of those choices, but all He is is in concert with His purposes and is the driver behind what we may see as choices He makes. And there is admittedly much we don't see.

 

[Cross Reference]

Just trying to bring some clarity to it. If free will must be maintained at all costs,

You need to learn to start from a proper starting position.

Freewill is an absolute and, though infected with "Self" by Satan which needs to be overcome, making necessary the new birth, doesn't need to be maintained.

 

[Cross Reference]

I hope it is recognized that this is necessarily a temporal view of an eternal matter. So when I say that God's nature trumps His freedom, I'm not saying He doesn't have freedom to decree, but rather that the libertarian free will that many seem to want to assert would be catastrophic if it were attributed to God and it were to "override" His nature as a means of determining His ways. God may well have choices, but His absolute nature absolutely determines those choices. He is not a "prisoner" of those choices, but all He is is in concert with His purposes and is the driver behind what we may see as choices He makes. And there is admittedly much we don't see.

"In Jesus there is Liberty". Why?? Address that to understand what God was after by creating Adam.

 

[nikolai_42]

You need to learn to start from a proper starting position.

Freewill is an absolute and, though infected with "Self" by Satan which needs to be overcome, making necessary the new birth, doesn't need to be maintained.

I don't follow. What is it that doesn't need to be maintained?

 

[Cross Reference]

I don't follow. What is it that doesn't need to be maintained?

"Freewill is an absolute and, though infected with "Self" by Satan which needs to be overcome, making necessary the new birth, doesn't need to be maintained"

 

[nikolai_42]

"Freewill is an absolute and, though infected with "Self" by Satan which needs to be overcome, making necessary the new birth, doesn't need to be maintained"

That's how I read it...but then do you not believe that libertarian free will is essential?

 

[Cross Reference]

That's how I read it...but then do you not believe that libertarian free will is essential?

Define what that is if different from "ordinary" freewill??

 

[nikolai_42]

Define what that is if different from "ordinary" freewill??

This appears to be a good definition :

Libertarian free will means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God

{from http://www.theopedia.com/Libertarian_free_will}

And obviously, when talking about God, the second half of the definition doesn't apply.

 

[Cross Reference]

This appears to be a good definition :

Libertarian free will means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God

{from http://www.theopedia.com/Libertarian_free_will}

And obviously, when talking about God, the second half of the definition doesn't apply.

Why not? Are you implying I have no choice when it comes to obeying God? Lucifer was given a choice as well as Adam and Jesus and anyone else who had a relationship with Him.

 

[nikolai_42]

Why not? Are you implying I have no choice when it comes to obeying God? Lucifer was given a choice as well as Adam and Jesus and anyone else who had a relationship with Him.

The fact that Lucifer was given a choice is what raises the whole question. If he had free will, is that an inherently good thing? Doesn't our trust in God hinge upon His nature - not upon His freedom?

So one of the questions I'm pushing is :

Is it possible for man and Lucifer to have been given free will by a God who doesn't have that same freedom?

So if God chooses according to His nature, doesn't it follow that we do as well (assuming the answer to the above question is "no")? If subordinated to nature, then will is not free (in the libertarian sense).

 

[Cross Reference]

The fact that Lucifer was given a choice is what raises the whole question. If he had free will, is that an inherently good thing? Doesn't our trust in God hinge upon His nature - not upon His freedom?

In summary, God agapes those who agape Him. His choice depends on that and it being the only requirement.

 

[nikolai_42]

Why not? Are you implying I have no choice when it comes to obeying God? Lucifer was given a choice as well as Adam and Jesus and anyone else who had a relationship with Him.

Another point (and this is a rabbit trail...not directly related to the case I made) is that God's actions and decisions are eternal. An eternal decision that we see the ramifications of is one that was made "long ago" from our perspective. So it holds eternally because made by God (in eternity past....again, from our perspective). But we are temporal and our choices reflect a nature that is naturally changeable. It is subject to whims and fancies and our decisions today may not be the same as our decisions tomorrow, but they (overall) reflect the way God sees us eternally - either in Christ or not. So your obedience today may or may not be - in the bigger, eternal picture - a fair representation of your nature.

To use an analogy, imagine a statue being dragged "through" a piece of paper. Anyone living in the plane of the paper will only see the slices of the statue as it passes through. Any one slice may or may not be a good microcosm of the statue as a whole. We see this in Daniel's vision. The statue has a head of gold but gets progressively baser as you proceed to the feet - yet it represents many hundreds of years of this power holding sway. Just in different forms. Yet to God, He sees the whole thing for what it is - in its entirety. I see no reason to believe He doesn't see us much the same way.

 

[nikolai_42]

In summary, God agapes those who agape Him. His choice depends on that being the only requirement.

Not even that...

Jacob have I loved...

We love Him because He first loved us...

 

[Cross Reference]

Not even that...

Jacob have I loved...

We love Him because He first loved us...

Only those who have His indwelling Love are able to say that because His indwelling Love is an enablement.

 

[Cross Reference]

Another point (and this is a rabbit trail...not directly related to the case I made) is that God's actions and decisions are eternal. An eternal decision that we see the ramifications of is one that was made "long ago" from our perspective. So it holds eternally because made by God (in eternity past....again, from our perspective). But we are temporal and our choices reflect a nature that is naturally changeable. It is subject to whims and fancies and our decisions today may not be the same as our decisions tomorrow, but they (overall) reflect the way God sees us eternally - either in Christ or not. So your obedience today may or may not be - in the bigger, eternal picture - a fair representation of your nature.

To use an analogy, imagine a statue being dragged "through" a piece of paper. Anyone living in the plane of the paper will only see the slices of the statue as it passes through. Any one slice may or may not be a good microcosm of the statue as a whole. We see this in Daniel's vision. The statue has a head of gold but gets progressively baser as you proceed to the feet - yet it represents many hundreds of years of this power holding sway. Just in different forms. Yet to God, He sees the whole thing for what it is - in its entirety. I see no reason to believe He doesn't see us much the same way.

"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." John 17:20-23 (KJV)

Please explain what such a oneness Jesus prayed for was purposed to accomplish?