Willing to be made willing

freewill If I could ban one phrase from our language I would ban the phrase “free will.”  This little phrase takes scriptural teaching about our moral responsibility and inability and turns it on its head so that nothing but clouds of confusion remain.

The Bible teaches that our wills were irreparably bent away from God’s will at the time of Adam’s fall – that sin has so tainted all our faculties that apart from God’s grace, we are unable – yet responsible to will what God wills.  Nevertheless, in endless Sunday school discussions the last word that hangs in the air as an answer for the hard questions is, “Well, it is because God gave us free will”.

With this frustration in mind, I was grateful for Will Metzger’s insights as he made a “Top Ten Reasons Christians Believe in Free Will” list.  It was his hope that it would help Christians pinpoint their own reluctance to surrender their wills to God’s control.

10. A desire to hold humans responsible for actions

9. Confusion of the philosophical (nonscriptural) concept of free will with “human responsibility”

8. A lack of emphasis on the holiness, righteousness and justice of God

7. Encounters with Christians who play intellectual games about the sovereignty of God without lovingly living this truth

6. The display of outward morality by many non-Christians

5. Dislike for the alternative, which seems to make God responsible for our sin, or even the author of it

4. The concept that the ability to choose Jesus is necessary for doing evangelism

3. A human concept of God’s love that leads to sentimentalism and me-centeredness

2. Neglect by pastors and authors to emphasize the importance of theology and the avoidance of teaching the so-called controversial issues

1. A reluctance to allow God to be totally sovereign

Will Metzger, Tell the Truth, IVP Books, 2002, p. 125