Excuse me, every one and then I just have to wax theological.
It always intrigues me how people picture God.
Some picture God in very negative terms. For instance, God is that deity that is out to trick me, test me, hide from me, and the like. This God does not seem to desire our good, but to make life as difficult as possible so that but a few with secret knowledge can merit his or her benevolence and good will. Or as my college roommate mate’s mother would say, when he had done something she saw as wrong, would say, “God will get you for that.” This mean God seems to be popular with the type of evangelist that lays out the hoops a human being must jump through in order to earn their way into God’s graces and therefore earn eternal life. Theologian call this efficacious grace, you effect your own salvation through you acts of belief and actions. Even Jesus seems to picture the difficulty of getting into God’s graces when he says, “The path is narrow and few can follow it.” (I’ll get back to this sometime in the future if I don’t forget.) Some of the aforementioned evangelicals seem to say, “Ha, ha, ha, I’m saved and you’re not.” Is the path to salivation a competitive struggle, that only the most gifted may attain? Blalderdash! Egotistical balderdash.
Others see God as essential good wanting the absolute best for each and every human being and has devised a means by which the best for each and individual person is not only attainable but is assured; assured even before they were conceived of and born. To me, this is the God I see reflected in the scriptures. A God who seems hopelessly and passionately in love with each and every human being and seemingly blind to all that they would do to separate themselves from God.
Here we get to the free will discussion. The discussion generally begins with our definitions of our free will; egotists do that. But I would contend that is the wrong place to begin. We need to begin with God’s will and God’s intent. The biblical record of both the old and new covenants reveal this intent of God. “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Period. No discussion, ifs, ands or buts about it. You are my people. And God then proceeds to set about making this loving, intimate relationship possible for all eternity.
Many folk at this point stop and look at God’s commands to his people to enlist the faithfulness and happiness. They list all the” thou shalts” as tests we human beings must pass in order to be right with God. They miss the point. The ten commandments we a gift God gave to an enslaved people that would help them live as a free people after years of enslavement to other human beings. God lists the things that keep us away from a good relationship with God’s self and each other. The commandments and all of the law is to help us live well, happily and productively with each other not tests to pass to merit God’s love. God loves us anyway, even if God gets pissed with us from time to time. Living the good life is not just following the commandments of God but being grateful for the gifts of God and saying thanks and maintaining our most important relationship.
Thus the typical writer on the subject of free will talks about ability to say yes or no to God as the demonstration of free will. I in my independence can yes or no to God. If I say yes, then God owes me salvation for my great act and if I say no to God, I can do as I damned well please. Bullshit.
We must return to God’s will. I believe it is God’s will being to have an eternal relationship with all of his creatures that is full and abundant. And God put’s a plan in place that will absolutely assure that. Since, we human beings constantly alienate ourselves from God (wanting to be God), God provides a means by which that alienation is fixed. That is the gift of Jesus, a being who is both God and man, whose divine will and human will are the same; a unique human being. In that being God reconciles all human beings to him forever. Death is the symbol of the great separation from God and humanity, God being eternal and we being finite. Jesus dies and then is resurrection fixing that broken connection permanently. This is God’s will and it cannot be stopped, such is the nature of God.
Free will for human beings is not the ability to say no to God, but the ability to say yes to God. Theologians and layfolk alike constantly get that backwards. Saying no is no great trick, any two year old can do it. Saying yes is a great trick. A act that is so impossible for human beings it is only by God’s grace that we can say yes. That is saving grace.
Bondage to the will, our will, is to be enslaved to our own selfish ambitious, ideas, and the like; it is to say no to God and what God offers. Freedom of the will is to be freed by God’s grace to say yes to God and God’s intention for your life now and eternally.
Enough for now.
One wrote it this way. I'm free, free to do anything I want eat candy all day long. But if I eat candy all day long I'll get cavities and my teeth will hurt and I won't feel free and all and have to go to the dentist.
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