Human Evil, Good, and Free Will - the Spirit of Calvinism and Arminianism

When most people talk about free will, they almost always suggest that God has no bearing on their choices. Most people believe that they can choose whatever they like, and as a result many evangelists of today find themselves hard pressed to get people to choose Christ unless they make the deal good enough. This is perhaps the origin of the teaching that Christ suffered on the cross so that no one else that chooses him will ever have to suffer like he did because Christ died so that everyone can live anyway they would like to live under religious freedom that Christ supposedly established from a oppressive and entirely wrong religion known as Judaism. Overall, the problem with such teachings of today is that Jesus even though we know him to be God in the flesh actually said that salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22), and many of the early Christian leaders all got put to death on the cross just like Christ while having so much favor for the Hebrew scripture as to make incredible amounts of references to it.

Free will I would thus argue is not really free because if it was, then we would possess the perfect qualities of God through perfect freedom. Since we would be in error in our decision making because we are not perfect, thus lots of things would have power over us to sway our decisions. Being misinformed about Christ for example and then rejecting him because the person that is misinformed is rejecting the evil of the evangelist, that tries to explain Christ, would for example demonstrate how a person could reject Christ through not having complete or correct knowledge of him. In such a case the freedom of free will would not really be any freedom at all because such a person would be enslaved by their own ignorance as is always the case. Since we do not have the capacity or ability to make correct decisions, then God may be found to be creating people that could never achieve eternal salvation by free will because many are not able to choose Christ because of their ignorance of him.

The fact is that we do not choose our parents, and we do not choose our lives for the most part. We are born to parents even if we would rather be born to someone else if we had the choice, and when we are developing we do not have a choice about most anything but instead we find ourselves with people and objects around us that we did not choose. We are often thus just trying to find how those people and things should relate to us. What I am saying is that if we do have free will, then that free will is strictly bound by many things that have power over us and by our own ignorance.

Consider the free will of Christ in that he could never make a choice that opposed the Father's will because if he did, then Christ would either not be God or God would end. This is not to say that the temptation of Jesus Christ by Satan was not a real temptation because this actually shows how Christ held himself back from perfect knowledge of God in order to be tempted. If the free will of Christ thus emerges from purposely holding himself back from complete knowledge, then that means that God the Father had predetermined all of the actions of Christ prior to him performing those actions. Overall, Christ thus would have both free will and be completely predetermined by the Father to make every choice that he makes.

Like Christ our free will is bound by the free will of God the Father in that the Father has predetermined all actions in human history before creation. The point is that salvation occurs as a result of the sovereign choice of God to save what are known as the elect, but on the other hand God has purposely held us back from a complete knowledge in order that we (who God has chosen through sanctification) can grow into a perfect form when glorified. If God the Father was not in complete control through predestination of all events and all things at all times, then he perhaps would not be God because something else like nature or instinct would perhaps have a more determining factor in what people choose. In other words if God the Father did not determine all things, then he would constantly be fighting against those things that could have power over him.

All of creation is not as a result of our choice, but instead creation is as a result of the choice of God the Father. If for example we find ourselves compelled to express our 'free will' over creation to show God who 'really has the choice', then this will result in sin like in the case of people that choose to have an operation that changes their gender in order to demonstrate their ability to administer choices. What I am saying is that human choice may be another word for sin; moreover, we can see this in the choice of Adam and Eve and the choice of Judas to hang himself.

The scripture actually speaks against human choice by saying that Christ has purchased us with his blood, and the scripture even speaks about Christians as being slaves of Christ. If a slave makes choices, then most likely those choices will be against the will of the master because if the choices had always been for the will of the master, then the person would no longer be a slave but instead would be free (even when he is a slave). Overall, if we do have free will than the purpose of that free will would be to offer it to God in order that he may take such an evil thing and transform it into something good.

According to Jesus Christ the greatest commandment is to, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV). In fact scripture even talks about the believer saying that, "...God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." Romans 5:5 (NIV) Scripture even goes so far as to say, "We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NIV) Overall, the point is that if God has loved the believer first, then as a result the believer loves, and thus the believer satisfies the two greatest commandments thus resulting in our righteousness and ability to love others (all of this depends upon God's sovereign choice to love us).

Scripture talks about this love of God entering us as the light shines into the darkness of our hearts as follows, "For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." 2 Corinthians 4:6-7 (NIV) In other words God's word that made creation out of the evil nothingness of the darkness is the power that gives us the treasure that we store in the jars of clay (our bodies), and this light transforms the darkness in that creation abounds in us as we gain a talent or a treasure that we may invest into others in order to build the kingdom of God so that when the master returns he may find that we have been trustworthy with investing the love of God that he gave us.

Scripture speaks more about the treasures in jars of clay as follows, "...God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?' But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? 'Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory" Romans 9:18-23 (NIV) When the book of Romans says that God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, it is just reiterating what Exodus 33:19 says.

The point of Exodus chapter thirty-three is that God saved the Israelites, and God spoke to Moses saying that if he went with the Israelites even for a moment, then he would destroy them. The Tent of Meeting would be made to shield God from the Israelites in order that he might not destroy them all so that God would dwell among the Israelites without blinding them by his light so to speak. God did however in the chapter show himself to Moses, but Moses was only able to see the back of God because anymore than that would have destroyed him. Overall, the point is that even ancient Judaism taught that God administered a sovereign choice to have mercy on whom he had mercy on and to harden whom he wanted to harden.

Some people have made the case that God has put all people into disobedience in other that he might choose to show his mercy to everyone. Consider the following scripture, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.' As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." Romans 11:25-32 (NIV) Overall, this set of scripture follows the story of the Prodigal Son in that when the Gentiles came back into communion with God like the Prodigal Son the Jews on the other hand became like the Son that stayed with the Father the entire time that felt angry and jealous that the Father would love his brother (the Prodigal as the hated brother had squandered the family wealth and then was later received with open arms by the Father); moreover, the son that stayed with the father felt such bitter feelings since he had always been with the Father but did not even get as much as even an animal to kill to eat with his friends (Luke 15:11-32).

The point to be made is that God will show mercy to all the children of Israel even those that do not believe in Christ yet. God will do this through a creative process of revelation of himself to those that God has chosen, and I say this because the message of the lost sheep taught by Jesus Christ is not that the lost sheep returns on its own accord but instead the shepherd looks for and obtains the lost sheep. Overall, I dare not promote Unitarianism, but God's sovereign choice, to show mercy to people, could be much greater than what most would expect.