From: Adrian Teo <ateo@whitworth.edu>
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 08:39:08 -0700
I've been thinking about your gasket analogy, and am wondering if the
rules
that you imposed as the programmer is analogous to the physical laws that
God has written into the Universe. These laws are expressions of God's
usual
activity and in that sense, He is truly sovereign. Our material existence
is
thus constrained by God's usual activity, but within those constraints,
we
act freely. However, the outcome will ultimately be in accord with God's
will as a result of the complex interactions of agents and natural
laws/constraints in the Universe. This freedom is necessary for moral
accountability, but however, I don't think the Bible speaks of the same
kind
of freedom.
"The Truth will set you free" implies that some are not free, but it
cannot
mean that some have lost that possibility of choosing an alternative, for
otherwise, they are not morally accountable. Scripture does not seem to
speak of freedom as the arbitrary, autonomous choice making. Freedom in
Scripture appears to be living true to one's God-intended nature, which
is
to exercise our will that is in conformity to God's will, without
pressure
to do otherwise. It is more like fulfillment.
On Friday, 7 Apr 2000 10:24:38 -0700 Joel Z Bandstra
<bandstra@ese.ogi.edu> writes:
> In the "Preprogrammed" and "Gasket" posts of late the idea of God's
> sovereignty being an overview sovereignty has seemingly been
> expressed.
> For example, God being not sovereign over our particular choices
> but only
> over some sort of general pattern. This, I think, is inappropriate.
> I
> wrote earlier on the matter expressing a duality existing between
> human
> free will and God's sovereignty, one that could not be resolved via
> human
> reason. I think I should qualify the phrase "God's sovereignty" by
> the
> word immanent. God's plan is not simply for the pattern of our
> lives but
> rather God's hand is present in all that we do.
>
Since the matters overlap, I'll comment on both posts at once. It seems
to me that Joel is requiring that all "choice" be a matter of God's
immediate sovereignty, with no chance for human understanding of what is
involved. This seems a common [ultra-]Calvinistic approach, but does not
seem to fly. If God's sovereignty controls human choice, then there is no
choice. It is rather like entrusting election to a random number
generator with 0-7 damned and 8-9 elect. It doesn't even make as much
sense as a farmer deciding that one cow is to be kept for breeding and
another sent to slaughter, for the farmer presumably has rational
criteria. Election is arbitrary.
It also follows that Adam's choice was no choice, Lucifer had to fall,
and Jesus "Come unto me . . ." was a farce. We are simply automata with a
programed and mistaken feeling that we choose.
A rational approach is that human beings are responsible, that their
choices count, for either control by random input or external
determination excludes responsibility. I cannot ascribe moral evil to a
pseudo-random number generator that did not produce the winning lottery
ticket, or to a bullet whose inertia carries it to injure a person. I can
condemn the individual who chose to gamble or to fire a gun carelessly.
It must be a real choice. However, all that goes on is based on God's
creative initiation and providential care, which is where his sovereignty
resides.
Failure to recognize this produces the nonsense of the
infralapsarian-supralapsarian conflict, for it subtly draws a God in the
image of man, constrained by time. The natural outcome is something like
process theology, which is not properly theistic.
How does "the truth will make you free" fit in? Adrian is right in
rejecting choice for some and not for others. Part of the problem is that
we popularly consider freedom to require arbitrary action without any
restraints. I think it was Hegel who called this negative freedom. Of
course, it is pretty much of a fiction, for we are strictly constrained
by natural law. There is also positive freedom, the freedom that comes
from acting according to law. For example, a neolithic individual could
knap flints, but could not forge a steel blade. He had an understanding
of how flint fractures, but not of smelting. He could use the former
principles, even though they may not have been rigorously formulated, but
did not even dream of the latter possibility. More recently, Babbage and
Ada Byron Lady Lovelace had an idea for a computer and its program but
never built it, for the mechanics were prohibitively complicated and
expensive. The first practical computers were built with vacuum tubes
(thank you Edison and DeForest), though the operators spent more time
testing and changing tubes than computing. Only with the advent of
transistors and chips could computers become almost ubiquitous and usable
by those of us who can neither design nor program them, nor understand
much of their workings. But there are those who have grasped truths and
granted all of us new freedoms.
In the spiritual realm, there is the new birth, which transforms the
believer. It does not free him from sin, but introduces a new reality
with its opportunities. There is the freedom to come to God in prayer and
freedom from the dread of death, to name only two. There is the positive
freedom of growth in this new life. The ungodly look on and think that
the Christian is limited, can't do this and can't do that. The truly
converted don't see the limitations because they no longer want to do
those things. They have been freed by the truth, by the One who is the
Truth.
Dave
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