OK, lets move on. Earlier we talked about inclinations and that men make every choice based on their strongest inclination.
So here is my vague-ish question.
How are a man's inclinations and God's decree's related?
I.e., did God decree everything that we are inclined to choose? Or did God set into motion an outcome that would be fulfilled by our inclinations? (I'm not really sure if those two things are actually different) Either way, I would like to try to understand the relationship between God's decree and mankinds inclinations (under the Calvinistic perspective).
Oh and I'm getting mighty dry.... can you please order me a Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout?? :cheers:
Bartender, another round over here, please!
Let’s refresh ourselves concerning an earlier portion of my post on the decree:
”AMR” said:
God has decreed to move or to permit free moral agents to act in the exercise of their free moral agency…
…it is vitally important to note that while God’s decree includes the ends, His decree encompasses the means, the causes as well as the effects, the conditions as well as the instrumentalities, for all events that will depend upon the same.
The majority of Calvinists hold to what is known as
compatibilistic freedom:
the view that free will (i.e., choosing according to our greatest desires) and determinism coexist. This view is most clear from Scripture in that Scripture teaches that
God is sovereign and
man is responsible, therefore these two views must not be contradictory, they must be compatible. In fact, attempting to reconcile these two juxtapositions in any other way than their compatibility compromises either the sovereignty of God or the moral free agency of man.
EXCURSUS: In this post, I are going to be shifting terms from what I have previously written. This may cause some confusion if the reader is not keeping up with the discussion. I am introducing a new term,
compatibilism. Whenever I write
moral free agents or
moral agents in this 1:2 discussion, I am always assuming compatibilistic freedom. So, in this post, while I am writing “compatibilists”, I could have just as easily written
moral agents or
morally free agents. The terms will be synonymous in this discussion. In others words, I have not started talking about something different with respect to the
moral agency of man from what I have already written.
Compatibilists choose according to what most appeals to them when they choose. But they are not fully in control of the appeal of each choice before them. As previously discussed, our decisions are in large measure influenced by personal characteristics, likes, dislikes, parents, environment, etc. In other words there are limitations on who a person
is and what the person
desires and
wills. Thus, the person’s freedom is exercised within these limitations. Here the question arises, “
Who set up these factors?”. The proper answer is “
God did.”
Thus, a compatibilist is free to choose among various options. But their
choice will be influenced by
who they are. Their
freedom must be understood as their ability to choose among options in light of who they are.
And who they are is a result of God’s decision and activity. God is in control of all the circumstances (likes, dislikes, parents, environment, etc.) that bear on their situation in life. God may bring to bear (or permit to be brought to bear) factors that will make a particular option appealing, even powerfully appealing, to the moral free agent (the compatibilist).
Compatibilist free will states that a person is restricted and affected by his nature, and this nature, where fallen or regenerated, not only affects his free will choices, but also limits his ability to equally choose among different options.
God’s creatures can do what they want, but what they
want is determined by God because God is working within the person to direct choices according to His plan (the decree). “
He works in us to will and to do, according to his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). An agent who enjoys compatibilistic freedom does not suffer divine compulsion to act in a manner contrary to the desires the agent possesses.
This is the compatibilist or
soft-determinist view, which argues that genuine human freedom and moral responsibility are in fact compatible with divine determinism. According to this understanding, human actions are free if a person is acting voluntarily, according to his or her desires.
God can sovereignly determine these free decisions so long as the causal forces God utilizes do not force the person to choose or act against his or her will. In other words,
God actively, decisively and non-coercively shapes human desires, and then the individual freely chooses to act according to those desires.
Now the reader may wonder, well, if the unsaved person can do nothing but sin, how is that considered
free? The Calvinist will respond, we all agree that God is free and therefore to suggest that man can't make free choices simply because he can do nothing but sin would also imply that God can't make free choices because He can do nothing but good!
God's sovereign choice always intersects with the moral agent’s free choices. This intersection is known within theology as the
doctrine of concurrence. On concurrence, Berkhof, in his
Systematic Theology writes:
The cooperation of the divine power with all subordinate powers, according to the pre-established laws of their operation, causing them to act and to act precisely as they do.
We can see this concurrence illustrated in the case of Pharaoh in Exodus. God tells Moses that he will harden Pharaoh's heart, and we see throughout the narrative that in fact God's does harden Pharaoh's heart. However, we also see in the narrative that Pharaoh hardens his own heart.
In another example, Joseph's brothers did exactly what they wanted to do when they sold Joseph into slavery. God did not
force them to do it.
But, we must not fall into the error of limiting God's freedom. We must admit that God can always thwart human designs. Though we choose according to our desires, our very actions are made under God (with the enabling that God grants us).
We are free, but God's freedom is always larger. We are never autonomous.
The philosopher Sarte argued that God could not be real in the face of human freedom. Sarte’s conception of
freedom was
autonomy and anything less was not
freedom. Autonomy means basically
self rule or
self law, from
auto (self) and
nomos (law). Sarte’s basic idea was that to be truly free we must have no accountability to anyone outside of ourselves.
Naturally such a view would inject a genuine contradiction into Scripture’s teachings (1 Peter 1:19-20, Acts 17:28, Isa. 10:15) concerning God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Instead, the claim of man seeking autonomy is nothing but an illicit reach of dependent creatures seeking to elevate themselves to God’s level. The actual reality is clear when we examine Scripture:
God is free, moral creatures are free, but God is freer than His moral creatures. And when we start to argue a position that assumes God’s freedom is limited by His creatures’ freedom, we are making His creatures sovereign.
How often we have heard someone say: "Well, God saves everyone that He possibly can. God does the best He can, but He will never
violate our will." To this, the Calvinist responds, “
The problem with this sort of sentiment is that before God invaded our hearts, we were but slaves of sin. In regenerating the lost, God elevates our wills.”
AMR
