Understanding Free Will: Choices, Desires, and Divine Alignment

The first view I'm going to call the "humanist" view of free will, which I would say is the most widely prevalent view of human freedom that we find in our culture. And I'm sad to say, in my opinion, it's the most widely held view within the church, as well as outside of the church. In this scheme, free will is defined as our ability to make choices spontaneously, that is that the choices that we make are in no wise conditioned or determined by any prior prejudice, inclination, or disposition. [00:00:46]

If our choices are made purely spontaneously, without any prior inclination, any prior disposition - in a sense what we're saying is that there is no reason for the choice. There is no motivation, or motive for the choice. It just happens spontaneously. And if that is the way our choices operate, then we immediately face this problem: how could such an action have any moral significance to it at all? [00:25:51]

We recall, for example, the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. And when he has this reunion with his brothers many years later, and they repent of that former sin, what does Joseph say to his brothers? And when he accepts them and forgives them, he says, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." So that God made a choice in the matter. God had chosen, at least, to allow this thing to happen and to befall Joseph. [00:03:29]

Edwards says that, "Freedom, or free will, is the mind choosing." Now what he's saying there is that though he distinguishes between the mind and the will, he is saying that the two are inseparably related. We do not make moral choices without the mind approving the direction of our choice. That is one of the dimensions that is closely related to the biblical concept of conscience: that moral choices are - that the mind is involved in moral choices. [00:09:47]

Edwards declares this: that, "Free moral agents always act according to the strongest inclination they have at the moment of choice." To say it another way, we always choose according to our inclinations, and we always choose according to our strongest inclination at a given moment. Let me put it in simple terms. Any time that you sin, what that action indicates is that at the moment of your sin, your desire to commit the sin is greater in that moment than your desire is to obey Christ. [00:11:18]

Now, just in passing, I may add that from a biblical perspective, from a Christian view, man in his fallenness, is not seen as being in a state of neutrality with respect to the things of God. He does have a prejudice; he does have a bias. He does have an inclination, and his inclination is toward wickedness and away from the things of God. [00:08:21]

Calvin, in examining the question of free will says that, "If we mean by free will that fallen man has the ability to choose what he wants, then of course fallen man has free will. If we mean by that term that man in his fallen state has the moral power and ability to choose righteousness, then," said Calvin, "free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to fallen man." [00:19:11]

I would like to make this statement: that in my opinion, every choice that we make is free, and every choice that we make is determined. Every choice that we make is free, and every choice that we make is determined. Now that sounds flatly contradictory because we normally see the categories of "determine" and "free" as being mutually exclusive categories, saying that if something is determined by something else, which is to say it's caused by something else, would seem to indicate that it couldn't possibly be free. [00:20:09]

Self-determination, which is not the denial of freedom, but is the essence of freedom. For the self to be able to determine its own choices is what free will is all about. Now the simple point I'm trying to make is that not only may we choose according to our own desires, but in fact we do always choose according to our desires; and I'll take it even to the superlative degree and say, in fact, we must choose always according to the strongest inclination at the moment. [00:22:46]

He makes a distinction between moral ability and natural ability. Natural ability has to do with the abilities we have by nature. As a human being, I have the natural ability to think. I have the ability to speak. I can walk upright. I do not have the natural ability to fly through the air unaided by machines. Fish have the ability to live under water for great periods of time without tanks of oxygen and so on, and diving equipment, because God has given them fins and gills. [00:25:36]

Augustine said that man had a "liberum arbitrium," or a free will, but what man lost in the fall was "libertas", or liberty - what the Bible calls moral liberty. The Bible speaks of fallen men as being in bondage to sin. And those who are in bondage have lost some dimension of moral liberty. Still make choices, still have a free will, but that will is now inclined toward evil and disinclined toward righteousness. [00:28:03]

The Bible speaks of fallen men as being in bondage to sin. And those who are in bondage have lost some dimension of moral liberty. Still make choices, still have a free will, but that will is now inclined toward evil and disinclined toward righteousness. There is none who does good. There is none righteous. There is none who seeks after God, no not one. That indicates that something has happened to us inside. [00:28:09]