Freedom to choose?

In a discussion elsewhere, we’ve been talking about how God’s sovereignty and our own freedom fit together. Some there have been defending a total absence of human freedom, with God directing every event in Creation. I find this incompatible with my understanding of Christian faith. Even the milder version, which allows humans freedom to act but denies them any part in their salvation (reserving all responsibility for this to God) seems to me to be a mistake.

Perhaps here the fundamental problem is encapsulated in the following query, posted there in a comment:

The First Question is merely this – does man choose or does man not choose?

I do not believe that this is The First Question. It can never be The First Question. Whether or not we can choose comes a long way after a great many other questions have been answered – it’s a derived answer, not a fundamental answer. So, I believe that we must start with the Incarnation and reason from there; we must not start from philosophy and apply it to God.

It’s been suggested there that I am giving only lip service to God’s sovereignty, because I believe that humans have freedom of action even in their salvation. However, I don’t agree. Indeed, I believe that understanding God’s sovereignty in a power-based way (that is, picturing God as imposing His will always and everywhere throughout Creation) actually limits our understanding of God! My belief in God’s sovereignty is strong enough to survive a belief that we can choose – I need not eliminate human choice in order to leave God in charge. As to what “God’s sovereignty” means, I believe that it means that God created and sustains the world, and that God has plans for Creation that will come to pass. Nothing can prevent God’s purposes from being worked out. But that in no way requires every event in Creation to be foreordained and desired by God. God isn’t limited to a mechanistic way of working, as that implies. God is sustainer, not mechanic.

Ideas of “election” commonly erect a barrier between us and God that is based in God’s unwillingness to move towards us – God saves only those of the Elect, often based on no criteria at all (making the “election” essentially arbitrary and random); the non-Elect are rejected not because they are sinful but simply because they are not chosen. This, it seems to me, is at odds with the Incarnation. Rather, I believe (and I believe I am here in line with traditional Christian belief) that the barrier between us and God is our own sinfulness. God always desires us to come to Him, and comes as close to us as He can.

Many of us believe that humans can make real choices – our difference lies in the spheres in which those choices are possible. I believe that our choices may affect (but not effect) our salvation. That is, we have a say in our salvation, but God is the one who causes it to happen. I see no other way to understand an Incarnate God than in relationship. I could believe that a God who remained transcendent, ruling from on high, would impose His Will on Creation. But the God revealed in Christ Jesus does not work that way – the life of Jesus makes that plain in His every word and action. This God is one who walks among us, becomes one with us, becomes one of us, in order to redeem us from sin and death. There is no hint here of divine fiat, no sign that we are mere actors. Rather, Jesus imbues human beings with the dignity and responsiblity to act for themselves – and, crucially, brings us the power to act in accordance with His will. The two are inseparable, both God’s will and our action. Not, however, because God over-rules us but because God loves us and works with us.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 10:10am on 05 April 2006
Category: Faith, Musing