Hi First Presbyterian,
It’s time for our Mid-Week Meet-Up! If you’ve been worshiping with us on Sundays, you know that I’ve recently been preaching on freedom through Christ, which Paul writes about in the book of Galatians. Tonight during my Bible Study, I’ll be addressing the questions, “Is human free will the result of all the evil on earth?” and “Will we have free will in the next life?” As I sit here this week dwelling on these concepts of freedom in Christ as described in Galatians and the questions of human free will we’ll be answering in Bible Study, I’m acutely aware of another question: “What is the relationship between God’s predestination and human free will?” As Reformed Presbyterians, we traditionally have held to the belief in predestination, that God has chosen us for salvation before we were ever even aware of our need for salvation (“before the foundations of the world,” Ephesians 1:4) and that, based on God’s foreknowledge and sovereignty, God has indeed predetermined all of human history. Many theologians throughout history have drawn out slight nuances in the doctrine of predestination and many have held to the doctrine with varying degrees of acceptance. I don’t personally believe in predestination the way that John Calvin (and other sixteenth-century Reformers) described it. I tend to agree more with the twentieth-century Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth’s concept of it. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the differences in how the doctrine has been expressed over time, I want to simply reflect with you on the question, “What is the relationship between God’s predestination and human free will?”
I’ve been repeating during my sermons recently the refrain from Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” So, what kind of freedom do we actually have, if we’re all predestined and human history has been predetermined? Aren’t we all just sort of acting out the script of God’s master narrative? Even for Calvin who believed that all of human history is, indeed, predetermined (which I don’t necessarily agree with), he believed that humans do have self-determined, voluntary choice but that nothing humans choose is ever against God’s will (even it it’s evil). So, we can see, that even Calvin believed in some degree of human free will. Others who hold to a less strict definition of predestination that Calvin would obviously have more room than Calvin in their beliefs for the possibility of human free will.
For me, one of the most important aspects of the doctrine of predestination is that it is almost entirely philosophical and theoretical, as opposed to practical and experiential. In other words, as you and I try to go about living our lives, we have no way of knowing whether our choices are 100% our own or in some part predetermined by God. If they are predetermined by God, we really have little way to know that. For example, I thought it might be a good idea to write to you today about the relationship between free will and predestination. I assume having that idea is my own free choice, but perhaps God predetermined that I would send this email ong ago. I would have no way of knowing that. And so… the responsibility for our actions must ultimately remain our own, whether we believe in predestination or not! We cannot abdicate responsibility for our actions by claiming, “God made me do it!” any more than we can by claiming, “The devil made me do it!”
So here’s my encouragement to you today. Whether you are a Calvinist or not, you have freedom of choice. So…use whatever freedom you have to try to grow love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control in your lives, and trust that God’s grace will make your efforts effective.
Peace to you,
Pastor Aaron