More from Lesslie Newbigin on free will

Here are three short quotes from Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in Pluralist Society, chapter 6, “Revelation in History”, pages 69, 71 & 73 (you can view the Google Preview here, or Find in a Library):

And yet everyone is conscious of exercising the power of personal decision expressed in action. All arguments designed to show that free will is an illusion break down into absurdity. The question how our consciousness of having the power to make personal choices is related to the operation of the cause-effect links which are studied by neurologists, physiologists, sociologists, and economists, of how the mind is related to the brain, is a matter of continuing debate. But no outcome of the debate can be accepted which simply denies our daily experience. Like every human being I know the difference between taking action as a personal decision, and being the victim of a force to which I did not consent.

[...]

Everything that I do is an expression of my mind except insofar as I am compelled by outside forces to act against my will. If, by definition, God is not under compulsion by outside forces, it would seem that everything that happens is an expression of God’s mind. Plainly the Christian tradition affirms that some things which have happened express God’s mind, but not all. God reveals himself in history, we would say, but not all history reveals God. How can these two things be affirmed? In part the answer lies in the subject of our next chapter, the logic of election. In part it lies in our belief about the relation of the world to God. In contrast to the monistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic thinking which is always present as an attractive option, we believe that in his creation of the world God gave it a measure of independence and to that extent limited his own freedom. Things therefore happen in history which are not in accordance with the will of God but represent a contradiction of his will.

[...]

The created world has been given a degree of autonomy, of independence from God’s will which is clearly other than the rapport which exists between the human mind and the body when the whole person is in proper health. Not only are there regularities of cause and effect within the natural world which appear to work autonomously, but—much more significant for our argument—human wills have an autonomy which enables them to act in rebellion against the purpose of their creator.

Related Posts:

• Lesslie Newbigin, "that God created some men for the purpose of destroying them...is quite false teaching";

• Lesslie Newbigin, "God desires only a freely given obedience which is the expression of love";

• Lesslie Newbigin, "The Logic of Election", plus a free ebook.

AW Tozer, "The Freedom of the Will"

Below are two excerpts from AW Tozer, “The Freedom of the Will”, originally published in The Alliance Witness and later included as chapter 7 in That Incredible Christian (which is available in full in PDF at this external link).

[...]

So highly does God regard His handiwork that He will not for any reason violate it. For God to override man’s freedom and force him to act contrary to his own will would be to make a mockery of the image of God in man. This God will never do.

Our Lord Jesus looked after the rich young ruler as he walked away, but He did not follow him or attempt to coerce him. The dignity of the young man’s humanity forbade that his choices should be made for him by another. To remain a man he must make his own moral choices; and Christ knew this and permitted him to go his own chosen way. If his human choice took him at last to hell, at least he went there a man; and it is better for the moral universe that he should do so than that he should be jockeyed to a heaven he did not choose, a soulless, willess automaton.

God will take nine steps toward us, but He will not take the tenth. He will incline us to repent, but He cannot do our repenting for us. It is of the essence of repentance that it can only be done by the one who committed the act to be repented of. God can wait on the sinning man; He can withhold judgment; He can exercise long-suffering to the point where He appears “lax” in His judicial administration; but He cannot force a man to repent. To do this would be to violate the man’s freedom and void the gift God originally bestowed upon him.

Where there is no freedom of choice there can be neither sin nor righteousness, because it is of the nature of both that they be voluntary. However good an act may be, it is not good if it is imposed from without. The act of imposition destroys the moral content of the act and renders it null and void.

For an act to be sinful the quality of voluntariness must also be present. Sin is the voluntary commission of an act known to be contrary to the will of God. Where there is no moral knowledge or where there is no voluntary choice, the act is not sinful; it cannot be, for sin is the transgression of the law and transgression must be voluntary.

[...]

Dr Tozer concludes:

[...]

But someone may ask, “When we pray ‘Not my will, but Thine be done,’ are we not voiding our will and refusing to exercise the very power of choice which is part of the image of God in us?” The answer to that question is a flat No, but the whole thing deserves further explanation.

No act that is done voluntarily is an abrogation of the freedom of will. If a man chooses the will of God he is not denying but exercising his right of choice. What he is doing is admitting that he is not good enough to desire the highest choice nor is he wise enough to make it, and he is for that reason asking Another who is both wise and good to make his choice for him. And for fallen man this is the ultimate use he should make of his freedom of will.

Tennyson saw this and wrote of Christ,

Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, Thou;

Our wills are ours, we know not how;

Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.

There is a lot of sound doctrine in these words—”Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.” The secret of saintliness is not the destruction of the will but the submergence of it in the will of God.

The true saint is one who acknowledges that he possesses from God the gift of freedom. He knows that he will never be cudgled into obedience nor wheedled like a petulant child into doing the will of God; he knows that these methods are unworthy both of God and of his own soul. He knows he is free to make any choice he will, and with that knowledge he chooses forever the blessed will of God.

Further reading:

From That Incredible Christian, I also highly recommend chapter 6, "Faith’s Foundation Is God” (also available online here).

Many of AW Tozer’s books can be found online for free.  Here are two of my other favorites (external links):

• AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God; and
• AW Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy (EPUB) or PDF.

Related Posts:

• An Introduction to Prevenient Grace.
• AW Tozer on Overemphasizing Certain Attributes of God to the Exclusion of Others.