John 5:40
There was a radical change in Adam's will in the fall, and he was enabled to return to God by another radical change. It was not Adam who sought God, but rather God who sought Adam. The enslaved will cannot of itself love God. Men who love God, then, do so because God first loved them (I John 4:10).
The enslaved will is controlled by its affections, which are evil, earthly, and sensual (James 3:15). As Adam's will acted according to his nature after the fall, so every sinner's will is free only to act according to his nature. The action of the will is determined by the nature of the person making the choice. The carnal mind is at enmity against God (Rom. 8:7). The grace of God alone can change the will that is enslaved to sin and cause it to become enslaved to Jesus Christ. True freedom is found only in this slavery: "For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant" (I Cor. 7:22). The Scriptural witness to freedom is limited to man's relation to God.
Man's enslavement signifies not impotence but rather sin, guilt, rebellion, and alienation from the omniscient One. Man's sin manifests not his freedom but his slavery. The first lesson a person must learn is that he has neither the will nor the power to save himself. God gives both in regeneration. The change of the will in regeneration is as radical as was the change in Adam's will when he fell. He enjoyed freedom prior to his fall; then his will became enslaved. No person since Adam has ever had a free will. Men are free agents, but they do not have free wills. A person who ascribes salvation to man's free will knows nothing of free grace.
One who adheres to the doctrine of the free will of man recently made the following statements: Unfortunately God has no power over the will of man; that is, God cannot save a person against his will; but at the same time, He is unwilling that any should perish. God has made it possible for all men to be saved, but the Bible indicates that salvation depends on man's willingness to be saved. It would be a kind of tyranny if God saved people against their wills. And because of man's free will, it is obvious by the very definition of things that man can deny the will of God and frustrate His benevolent plan.
The above statements are often made by people who believe in free will. They dishonor the sovereign God and exalt fallen man. The facts are that the will of every unsaved person is enslaved to sin. He is free to go in only one direction. Like a waterfall, he is free to go down. Sinners are free to act according to their depraved natures. Man has neither the will nor the ability to come to Christ: "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him..." (John 6:44). "And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life" (John 5:40).
Controversy has existed and continues to exist over the (1) nature, (2) freedom, and (3) power of the will:
1. Those who believe the nature of man's will is such that he can be saved any time he so desires follow the teaching of Pelagius. Arminians believe the will determines itself. They make the will sovereign, declaring it to be the determiner and the determined. Hence, their belief makes the will stand apart from the other faculties and places it first in the order of the powers of the human soul.
Semi-pelagianists believe that man's will is free but it needs some assistance from the Lord. One of the dogmas of Roman Catholics places them in this category concerning the nature of the will.
During the Reformation, between the years 1545 and 1563, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church met intermittently to formulate their dogma. Their fourth canon law stated, "If anyone sayeth, that man's free will, moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, no wise cooperates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as sometimes inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema." The purpose for the council's meetings was not only to define doctrine as they believed it but to condemn the Reformers.
The early Reformers taught that there were two faculties of the human soul - understanding and will. They truthfully stated that understanding is first the cognitive, or perceptive, ability of the mind, and the understanding is comprised not only of the intellect but also of the conscience of man. However, further study of the subject revealed that there were three faculties in the human soul - understanding, sensibility, and will. Later, theologians believed the three faculties were better expressed by referring to them as understanding, affection, and will. (Affection was inserted in the place of sensibility.) And so, we see that the soul is a trinity: Its intellect is the power of knowing; its affections are the power of feeling; and its will is the power of choosing. The will is influenced by what is heard and understood; the affections are affected by the understanding; and the will is influenced to volition.
Man's will cannot be determiner and determined, cause and effect, or sovereign and servant. That would place the will first in the order of the powers of the soul. To assert that the will stands apart from the other faculties of the soul is asserting that there is a man within a man who can reverse the man and fly against him to break him in pieces. The idea that the freedom of the will orders, determines, and influences itself to choose is contradictory. If the will is influenced, or determined, as Arminians claim, something must cause it to be influenced, or determined.
The will is a self-determining agent, but it is not both determiner and determined. How can the mind act first and, by its own act of choice, determine what motive shall be the reason for its choice? Eve's choosing and eating the forbidden fruit was influenced: Satan enticed her, by telling her she would be like the gods. Therefore, her intellect was influenced; her affection went to the forbidden thing; and she chose to take it. Her taking the fruit was an act of will, but her will was influenced.
Man has the power to discern, discriminate, and express himself. The intellect perceives what shall be done; the conscience instructs the mind in what should be done. Therefore, the understanding is the stationary faculty of the soul. It can be perverted through improper instruction, but it cannot be radically changed.
Adam retained his intellectual capacities after his fall, and continued making natural choices. Every sinner chooses natural things. Nevertheless, he cannot make spiritual choices because he is depraved, is an enemy of God, hates God, and his will is not inclined toward God. He hates the light and will not come to the light lest his deeds be reproved (John 3:19-21).
Every unsaved person is self-centered and hates anything that interferes with his concentration on self. He desires his own will, is unconcerned about the will of others, and despises God's will. His will remains in that condition until it is changed by the grace of God. The naturally hard heart must be removed by God and replaced with a new heart (Ezek. 36:26).
Although the Israelites were God's chosen people, they had to be brought to the end of themselves. God's providence caused them to go to Egypt and serve under taskmasters until they knew their helplessness. God gave them the desire for deliverance, and they cried to Him for it. God hears the cry of every person in whose heart He has wrought the work of grace, and gives the desire for deliverance from worldly things and a delight in spiritual things. No person desires salvation in vain, because God who gives the desire also satisfies.
The person who desires to hear the gospel and is attracted to the fact that God so loved him that He gave His Son to die in his place as Substitute has a work of grace already in his heart. The will, the last faculty of the soul, is determined by preceding things - understanding of the mind and affection of the heart.
After one has begun the Christian walk, his desire for the Lord and the things of the Lord never diminishes. Instead, zeal increases with growth in grace and knowledge. Assurance, stability, and hope are gained through knowing that God brings to fruition whatever He begins.
2. Controversy exists over the freedom of the will. Pelagians maintained that there is absolute freedom of the will. Semi-pelagians believed that God gives equal ability to all men, that some use it to become Christians, and others use it to reject Jesus Christ.
The dictionary defines free will as the doctrine that human action expresses personal choice and is not determined by physical or divine forces.
Arminians define free will as a power in the human will by which a person may accept or reject salvation. Their belief that man's free will enables him to choose good or evil denies depravity. (The majority among religionists are classified with Arminians.)
Scripture, however, states that no one can resist God's will (Rom. 9:19). If a person outside of Jesus Christ has the capability in his will to accept or reject Jesus Christ, he has greater ability than a Christian does, for a Christian's will is subject to the will of God (Phil. 2:12, 13).
Advocates of free grace properly distinguish free agency from free will. Man's will is not free. Because of his fall, man's will is naturally biased toward evil. It is always inclined toward that which dishonors God. Fallen man is free to act according to his depraved nature. He is free from righteousness and free to sin: "For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness" (Rom. 6:20). Even right and honorable things (from the standpoint of civic righteousness) are performed from selfish motives and not for God's glory. One must possess the grace of God to do anything for God's glory.
A free agent has the power to will and to act as his will dictates. Free agency is the power to decide according to one's character. Every person is a free agent because he is not forced from without, but he does not have a free will toward God. Every individual is bound from within and can act only according to his own depraved nature.
Free will assumes an ability in the will itself to choose good or evil. That cannot, of course, be true of a depraved will. A will that spontaneously and of itself chose holiness could not be called depraved. But no such will exists in any human being. No person can embrace Jesus Christ of his own volition. Human will is naturally depraved. An individual does what his will desires. He goes downhill like a car without a motor until God by His grace changes his course. One who exercises his will to accept Christ, then, has already been given a new, changed will in regeneration.
Man did not lose the faculties necessary to make him a responsible person in the fall. He did not lose his reason, conscience, or freedom of choice; but he did lose his moral freedom, the power to make spiritual choices. Man is not a free moral agent because he cannot choose between good and evil. He chooses only evil.
Adam's self-determination to evil began and ended with himself. God was not involved in it. Conversely, the radical change that occurs in regeneration is self-determination prompted by the Spirit of God. In regeneration, the hardness that prevents the will from acting in the direction of God is removed (Ezek. 36:25-27). Therefore, by the power of grace, the will that was once inclined to evil is now inclined to God. God's operation on the enslaved will is not forced from without. He makes the will tender and pliant from within. The Holy Spirit is the efficient cause, and the human spirit is the recipient of the Spirit's involvement in the will's inclination toward God.
3. Controversy exists over the power of the will. Arminians believe the will has the ability to order, determine, and influence itself to act in respect to good or evil. They believe that man cannot be free without that power. But they confuse man's willingness with his ability.
If one admits free will (in the sense that absolute determination of events is placed in the hands of men), he would acclaim man greater than God, making man's will primary and God's will secondary. But we know that God's will precedes man's will. It is dependent on the will of none. The Arminian makes a god out of his own will. Consequently, he must believe there are as many gods as there are free wills, which is a kind of polytheism.
There is no validity in the Arminian statement that God gave the same ability to all and some use it to accept Jesus Christ while others use it to reject Him. This confuses man's unwillingness to respond to Christ with his inability. However, the two must remain separate.
Augustine denied that fallen man has the ability of himself to come to God. He made some important statements concerning the human will: (1) Man's liberty before the fall was the potential to sin or not to sin. (2) Since the fall, man has liberty to sin but no ability to do good. (3) In heaven, man will have liberty to do good but not evil.
Augustine is correct in his denial that fallen man has the ability of himself to come to God. His distinctions concerning the human will are also correct. In contrast to Augustine, professing Christendom is far removed from the teaching of the early church. The further men get from the early apostolic teaching, the greater their apostasy. Augustine stated that man's liberty before the fall was the ability to sin or not to sin. This is the same as saying God gave man power to persevere or not to persevere. (Adam was a peccable person and did not persevere.) Augustine distinguishes between free agency and free will in his statement that since the fall man has the liberty to sin. As a free agent, man has the liberty to sin, but he does not have the ability to do good. As Augustine stated, man will have the liberty to do good in heaven.
Before the fall, Adam was a free agent. Man is a free agent now, and he will be a free agent in eternity. But he is fallen now and cannot cease from sin: "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin..." (II Peter 2:14). Man in grace has conflict with sin (Rom. 7), but he may confess his sins and thereby be restored to fellowship with the Lord. The general course of man in grace is always up: "...the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. 4:18). In heaven, man will have the liberty to do good, but he will be unable to do evil. Throughout eternity he will use his free agency to praise and honor the Lord.
The Reformers taught that free agency belongs to God, angels, saints in glory, fallen men, and Satan himself. The Puritans affirmed that man does not have the ability to change his moral state by an act of will.
The Reformers were correct in their assertion. God is a free agent, but He cannot do evil. He does as He pleases but can do nothing contrary to His nature. Choices can be made only according to one's nature. Therefore, man outside of Jesus Christ can make no positive spiritual choices. A person may improve his circumstances and environment, but without a change in nature, he can not improve his spiritual status. In fact, his end will be worse than his beginning (Matt. 12:43-45; II Peter 2:20-22).
Satan cannot recover lost blessing by an act of his own will; neither can man. No provision was made for Satan's recovery, and no provision is made for the recovery of fallen angels. Fallen angels are reserved in chains awaiting punishment (II Peter 2:4; Jude 6). When God elected some of the angels, He kept them from falling. He did not, however, prevent all mankind from falling in Adam. Some from among fallen mankind were chosen to be saved. Therefore, there is hope for the elect in Jesus Christ from among mankind, but there is no hope for the fallen angels.
Satan had the power of self-determination. He was not tempted from without as Eve was (or as Adam was tempted through Eve). There was nothing outside of Lucifer to tempt him. That is the reason his fall left him without hope.
The Puritans correctly stated that man does not have the ability to change his moral state by an act of will. Man must be a free agent to be accountable to God. However, one cannot attribute moral agency to man. Free agency is the power to decide according to one's character. Free will is the power to change one's character by volition or choice. Free agency belongs to every man, but the power to change one's character by the exercise of the will does not belong to mankind. Man is free to use his hand, but the hand is not free. It does only what the man commands it to do. It is a slave to his muscles. An unsaved person must act in harmony with his deceitful, wicked, depraved nature. He cannot act contrary to that which is commanded by his heart.
The same God who has ordained all events has ordained the free agency of man in the midst of the course of events He foreordained. The gospel is not forced on the elect against their wills (Ps. 110:3). Their wills are changed through regeneration, which makes them willing to accept the gospel.