For years I believed in the doctrine of free will. But honestly considering (1) Scripture, (2) Church history, and (3) personal experience forced me to abandon it.
Below are quotes from three of my heroes from Church history that urged me to reconsider what I had so hastily embraced.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892):
“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.”
“…it has already been proved beyond all controversy that free-will is nonsense. Freedom cannot belong to will any more than ponderability can belong to electricity. They are altogether different things. Free agency we may believe in, but free-will is simply ridiculous. The will is well known by all to be directed by the understanding, to be moved by motives, to be guided by other parts of the soul, and to be a secondary thing. Philosophy and religion both discard at once the very thought of free-will; and I will go as far as Martin Luther, in that strong assertion of his, where he says, “If any man doth ascribe aught of salvation, even the very least, to the free-will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus Christ aright.”” (from the sermon “Free-Will: A Slave” preached on December 2, 1855)
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758):
“…principles [do not] derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed; and so the act of choosing that which is good is no further virtuous than it proceeds from a good principle or virtuous disposition of mind; which supposes that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice; and that therefore it is not necessary that there should first be thought, reflection, and choice before there can be any virtuous disposition. If the choice be first, before the existence of a good disposition of heart, what signifies that choice? There can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle but from mere self-love, ambition, or some animal appetite.” (Jonathan Edwards, Complete Works Volume 1 (Edinburgh, Banner of Truth, 1974), p. 177.)
George Whitefield (1714-1770):
“I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave freewill in man and make him, in part at least, a Saviour to himself. My soul, come not thou near the secret of those who teach such things . . . I know Christ is all in all. Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to do of His good pleasure.”
The guts of Spurgeon’s argument was that free will undermines grace because it mingles merit into the plan redemption when Scripture clearly presents salvation as by grace alone. His assertion that the two are incompatible rocked me. As did the statement that “Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.” Man is free to reject Christ. But to accept Him and adore Him requires a work of indelible, effectual, saving grace.
The guts of Edwards’ argument was that actions are governed by decisions and that decisions were governed by the disposition and inclination of each person. To paraphrase him, regeneration must precede faith. For if faith precedes regeneration, this means that unregenerate man is capable of faith apart from the Holy Spirit. And if that is the case, then the decision to believe upon the Lord is an act of the flesh. Edwards was contending that the flesh cannot produce faith. Only the Spirit can. The idea that regeneration is what gives birth to faith and obedience shattered my paradigm of free will.
The guts of Whitefield’s argument was that because man is a slave to sin, he is free only to go to hell. That is, nothing in his nature restrains him. But everything in his nature restrains him from choosing Christ. This, Whitefield argued, was the work of saving grace alone. Whitefield was notorious for magnifying the sinfulness of man and the free and saving grace of God. He elevated it to an art form.And his insistence on human depravity and the power of saving grace laid an axe to the root of my assumptions concerning free will.
Spurgeon, Edwards, and Whitefield were some of the most influential leaders in the last few hundred years of Church history. And their wholesale rejection of the doctrine of free will should be humbly and honestly weighed by our generation.
Emma
Aug 1, 2011 -
WOW! thanks Dalton. The amount of times i have urged (mainly in my heart but sometimes verbally) for someone to use their free will to make a decision for Christ… when in actual fact regeneration preceeds faith so it it impossible without the work of the holy spirit. oh how my prayer life will change! thanks again.
J.C. Thibodaux
Aug 23, 2011 -
Spurgeon’s commentary is a bit nonsensical: Why would freely believing be meritorious rather than simply a condition? Not all conditions are merits. Spurgeon was an excellent preacher, but a sloppy theologian.
@For if faith precedes regeneration, this means that unregenerate man is capable of faith apart from the Holy Spirit.
This is a non-sequitur: The Holy Spirit must operate in one’s heart before he can believe, but it doesn’t follow that what must be done is regeneration. He’s also missing the ramification to his own argument: since Christ dwells in us by faith, then to say we’re regenerated prior to believing is to say that we’re spiritually alive prior to (and therefore apart from) Christ.
@But everything in his nature restrains him from choosing Christ.
Agreed on that point, which is why God must draw the sinner first. But again, the Bible identifies this as grace, not regeneration. Free will then does play into the process of coming to faith, as many have been shown to resist the Spirit (cf Acts 7:51).
Dalton
Aug 23, 2011 -
JC,
You’re assuming that man is capable of faith without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and apart from the new birth. And that’s a hard case to make Biblically.
You’re saying “God makes man savable.” And I’m saying “God saves man.” You’re saying “Man must be ineffectually drawn by Christ to be saved.” And I’m saying “Man must be effectually born again to be saved.” You’re saying “Our faith produces our regeneration.” And I’m saying “Regeneration produces faith.”
So the question comes down to “How bad is man?” and “How glorious is grace?” And on a spectrum we’re on opposite sides. You say “Man isn’t that bad” and I say “Completely depraved.” You say “Grace gently draws us” and I say “Grace soundly saves us.” Herein lies our differences.
In the Beloved
Dalton
J.C. Thibodaux
Aug 24, 2011 -
@that’s a hard case to make Biblically.
With God’s grace upon him, I don’t see what case you could make that he couldn’t.
@You’re saying “God makes man savable.” And I’m saying “God saves man.”
God drawing someone who is subsequently willing to believe and be saved by God is in fact saving him. It’s a rather bizarre twist of semantics to assume “God saves man” must suddenly mean “God irresistibly saves man.”
@You’re saying “Man must be ineffectually drawn by Christ to be saved.”
You’re equivocating, “resistible” is not the same thing as “ineffectual.”
@I’m saying “Regeneration produces faith.”
Such a doctrine finds no support in scripture.
@You say “Grace gently draws us” and I say “Grace soundly saves us.”
Logically, the two thoughts aren’t in conflict.
@You say “Man isn’t that bad”
I clearly never said any such thing. Pardon my forwardness, but is your position so indefensible that you have to rely upon defeating strawmen?
Dalton
Aug 25, 2011 -
You lost me at “Spurgeon is a sloppy theologian.”
As I said in the other post, the main distinction is that I believe God actually saves people whereas you believe He merely woos them but ultimately leaves it up them. By definition, that is not how you save something. And that is not the Biblical articulation of ‘salvation’ (or ‘ransom,’ ‘redeem,’ ‘purchase’ or any of the other effectual salvific terms in the NT).
You’re suggesting the Lord built the proverbial machine and asks us to operate it. I don’t read that in the Bible. That’s just naturalism with a ‘grace’ sticker on it. I see God saving sinful men who, apart from sovereign grace in the form of regeneration (2 Cor. 4), would never ever ever on their own accord or by their own faculties or inclinations look upon Christ with love and dependence.
At the core it’s the issue of supernaturalism vs. naturalism. Either God does it or man does it. Call it semantics and straw men if you must, but that’s the jugular.
J.C. Thibodaux
Aug 25, 2011 -
@I believe God actually saves people
So does everyone who believe some people are actually wooed by Him. You can reinterpret “actual” as “irresistible” all you like; all you’re doing is playing a semantic game.
@By definition, that is not how you save something.
Yes it is; one who saves people on the basis of whether they accept the offer to be saved is still saving them. Your argument defies grammar, sound semantics, intuition and logic.
@You’re suggesting the Lord built the proverbial machine and asks us to operate it.
I can’t make sense of that analogy in this context….
@would never ever ever on their own accord or by their own faculties or inclinations look upon Christ with love and dependence
Question: why do Calvinists, even when they recognize that we believe that God’s grace must necessarily be at work in the hearts of sinners before they can believe, always switch into amnesiac mode and say things like “their own faculties”? Are you interpreting God’s grace as one of our own faculties?
@Either God does it or man does it.
You’re employing the either/or fallacy. There is nothing that precludes man from believing and God saving on the basis of faith.
@At the core it’s the issue of supernaturalism vs. naturalism.
Naturalism? Can you even tell how you come to this rather fanciful conclusion (especially since naturalists generally reject free will!)? Explain this please, because your arguments at their core thus far appear to be based mostly upon confusion.
Daniel
Nov 30, 2011 -
Yes, that doesn’t make sense; how could Spurgeon say “everything in unregenerate man resists God” ??? Why did the woman break the alabaster box, before being regenerate? All “the heroes of the faith” (so-called) from Hebrews 11, were unregenerate”, too — unless you count all people “to whom the Word came” as being “born from above”. Herein, you would find contention with Scripture, however, since Hebrews 12:23 says they are “the spirits of just men made perfect” — their justness does not equate to perfectness, which was brought through Christ.
Not only that, but at one point, he says, “free will brought many souls to hell, but never to heaven” — so, free will exists when it pertains to men choosing hell, but not choosing heaven? That kind of makes me laugh.
Dalton
Dec 4, 2011 -
To say that Mary of Bethany was not regenerate is quite an incredible statement. I’m not sure you should be “laughing” considering the weakness of your argument.
Dalton