Blogging the Institutes Day 52: 2.4.7 -2.5.3

The idea of unabated human free will is not biblical; Free will to chose God, free will to do good, free will to make any choice based solely on your own. It's just not. Any semi-serious study of Romans, the Words of Jesus, and the entire Old Testament's pointing to God's redemptive history will prove this. Scriptures continually state that God wills some hearts of flesh and other hearts of stone and that grace is through faith, a gift from God and not of works.

If you believe that free will indeed exist, and that you are the final decision maker in your faith, or that you have the ability to chose good over evil, I honestly pray for you. For if that is the case then you are leaving your faith, and your eternal future in your own hands, your own sinful hands. And where there is sin there is punishment, all the works in the world will not cover up that stain.

"The abettors of this error would see a still better refutation of it, if they would attend to the source from which the apostle derives the glory of the saints -- 'Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and who he justified, them he also glorified' (Rom 8:30). On what ground, then the apostle being judge, are believers crowned? Because by the mercy of God, not their own exertions, they are predestinated, called, and justified. Away, then, with the vain fear, that unless free wills stands, there will no longer be any merit! It is foolish to take alarm, and recoil from that which Scripture
inculcates. 'If thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?' (1 Cor 4:7). You see how everything is denied to free will, for the very purpose of leaving no room for merit. And yet, as the beneficence and liberality of God are manifold and inexhaustible, the grace which he bestows upon us, inasmuch as he makes it our own, he recompenses as if the virtuous acts were our own."

Augustine puts it like this, " If you are to receive your due, you must be punished. What then is done? God has not rendered you due punishment, but bestows upon you unmerited grace. If you wish to be an alien from grace, boast your merits."

I wish to be no alien from grace, but a current and forever resident of grace!

Blogging the Institutes Day 44 2.2.8 - 2.2.11

There is no such thing as free will, there is only will freed by God.

"Without the Spirit the will of man is not free, inasmuch as it is subject to lusts which chain and master it. And again, that nature began to want liberty the moment the will was vanquished by the revolt into which it fell. Again, that man, by making a bad use of free will, lost both himself and his will [Adam]. Again, that free will having been made a captive, can do nothing in way of righteousness. Again, that no will is free which has not been made so by divine grace. Again, that the righteousness of God is not fulfilled when the law orders, and man acts, as it were, by his own strength, but when the Spirit assists, and the will (not the free will of man, but the will freed by God) obeys.

Calvin goes so far as to warn the use of the term "free will" because of its immediate implied meaning. "Declaring that the freedom of man is nothing else than the emancipation or manumission from righteousness, he seems to jest at the emptiness of the name [will]. If any one, then, chooses to make use of this term, without attaching any bad meaning to it, he shall not be troubled by me on that account; but as it can not be retained without very great danger, I think the abolition of it would be of great advantage of the church. I am unwilling to use it myself; and others, if they will take my advice, will do well to abstain from it.

This entire discussion of free will was for the end purpose of creating a foundation on which true understanding of humility can be built. Once we understand that "free will" is nothing more than our freeing from compulsion, and is not our ability to equally choose good over evil, we will see that without divine grace we can do no good. No good, that is the foundation of humility. Calvin puts it this way, "Here however, I must again repeat what I premised at the outset of this chapter, that he who is most deeply abased and alarmed, by the consciousness of his disgrace, nakedness, want, and misery, has made the greatest progress in the knowledge of himself. Man is in no danger of taking too much from himself, provided he learns that whatever he wants is to be recovered in God." As Augustine once said, "As the orator, when asked, 'what is the first precept in eloquence? answered, Delivery: What is second? Delivery: What the third? Delivery: so, if you asked me in regard to the precepts of the Christian religion, I will answer, first, second, and third, Humility."

We see that our ultimate goal is humility, but this is not the humility that leaves us secluded in a room all ours of the day, with no interaction. As Calvin says, "I do not ask, however, that man should voluntarily yield without being convinced, or that, if he has any powers, he should shut his eyes to them, that he may thus be subdued to true humility; but that getting quit of the disease of self-love and ambition, under the blinding influences of which he thinks of himself more highly than he ought to think, he may see himself as he really is, by looking into the faithful mirror of Scripture."

Blogging the Institutes Day 43 2.2.4 - 2.2.7

In discussion of "free will" it is important to come to a consensus on the meaning of the word. The common opinion of those who Calvin referenced was free will is the "power of reason to discern between good and evil; of will, to choose the one or other." Calvin's ultimate purpose is not to refute each of the stances he observed, but to simply list them as to provide context for his argument leading up to the idea that free will is not the ability to choose equally between good and evil, but to the extent of which it frees us from compulsion. "In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. This is perfectly true; but why should so small a matter have been dignified with so proud a title?"

Calvin's problem was not solely with the idea of free will, but the definition and the words themselves. He felt that ascribing this idea of "the extent to which we are free from making decisions based on compulsion" was not worthy of the the title of "will". And this is why, "How few are there who, when they hear free will attributed to man, do not immediately imagine that he is the master of his mind and will in such a sense, that he can of himself incline himself either to good or evil? It may be said that such dangers are removed by carefully expounding the meaning to the people."

Calvin's wanted to break down this idea of free will so that when people heard the term, they did not assume it was referencing the total free ability to choose good over evil, but simply the extent to which we do not respond immediately to compulsions.