What makes our will "free"?

         

Eventually an addictive thinker like me has to talk about "free will". It is one of the more interesting topics people discuss, often serving as the foundation to one's "religious beliefs". I have noticed that it is quite common for people to be offended if someone challenges the notion of whether we have it or not. To think that we do not have "free will" goes against our sense of reality, but mainly it seems to diminish our concept of "self". It's just again another indication of the carnal mind, our human nature that drives our sense-making in contradiction to our faith in who God is and what He claims.

Let's look closer at the two words, "free" and "will", to see what we can see.

First, what is "will"? In human psychology the will is one of three elements of our soul, the part of us a doctor can't see with examination. In addition to the mind, our "thinker", and emotion, our "feeler", the will is our "chooser." So of course we have a will, the ability to choose. We decide what toothpaste we use, what time we go to bed. However, we do not choose our parents, where we grow up, or whether we get the flu. The question is not do we have choice, but to what degree is it "free."

In this case when something is "free", we don't mean it doesn't cost anything, we mean it is unconstrained. So, to what degree are our choices unconstrained? Well, we have laws and rules that put constraints on our choices. I guess we can choose to disobey them, but often at great consequence to us. Informal controls on our choices are cultural values and norms. Things that are important to and expected by society, family, and institutions that influence us, often in significant ways. On a personal level there are tendencies to behave in predetermined ways. All people are influenced by what others think about them, some more than others. Introverts will choose to hang back in social settings and not choose to engage others unless or until they are approached. In this way they are constrained by their personality. Thus, while we feel we can decide to do whatever we wish, our choices are obviously constrained by factors both outside and inside of ourselves, challenging the notion our "chooser is free".

Then there is sense-making about "will" from the Kingdom mind, what does God say about this? Scripture never directly refers to our "free will", but uses two different words or notions of God's will. One denotes God's desire for our choices, His commands to trust Jesus for our lives and to love each other. This "will" is open to our choices and we comply because we believe this is true and His best for us and is revealed to us, primarily is His word, the Bible. The second word for God's will denotes His sovereignty, the idea that His wishes will be carried out because no one can keep it from happening. This falls more into His mystery and is generally not known by or revealed to us. This is the opposite of Fox News. "He decides, we report!"

Therefore, not only is our chooser constrained by many forces on a human level (even carnal minds can acknowledge this), but for Kingdom people we fully accept and trust that "it is God that is working in us to will and to do for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2: 13). While challenging that our will is "free" generally offends the carnal mind, it is Good News to those who live in the domain of righteousness (Romans 6), who are free from the power of the carnal mind (sin), but slaves to things of God (the Gospel of Grace).  "AMEN" goes here.

I was riding along one day listening to a friend of mine share how his journey of faith has resulted in a growing freedom that God is accomplishing His purposes and really don't need us. He wants us to participate, and it is to our advantage to do so, but He is sovereign. When he continued to explain how freeing it is to understand we are not interfering with God by our mistakes and lack of competencies to get results, it dawned on me that this freedom makes "free will" fairly unattractive and something I would not want even if it were true I had it.

For instance, if having my way is not what creates the joy in my life, but actually aligning myself within God's will does, why would i want to have the final say? This is what Jesus meant by "blessed are the meek." The Greek word used for "meek" was the word used to refer to a domesticated animal that was completely trained and under the control of the pet's master. Jesus is saying 'O the joy of having every thought and emotion under the control of the master."

So even after a rational debate on why our will is not really free, the bottom line is that wanting "free will" is self defeating, not self exalting!!

Now that is an angle on "free will" that is worth pondering  .... it was for me anyway :-)