Teknohazard Blog

I was reading through Bondage of the Will at the request of a friend, when I ran across this paragraph:

In other words, if the will is only free by the grace of God, then the will is not free. Of course, this presupposes that God has not given His grace to whoever doesn’t have free will. (He also says that even a Christian doesn’t have free will– and if he admits that free will is free only when it is backed by God’s grace, then this implies that not even Christians have received grace from God.)

This assertion is contrary to scripture.

From verse 14 (“that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself [His] own special people”), it would be very difficult to prove that this particular grace isn’t the saving kind. In other words, God’s grace is available to everyone. Luther acknowledges that the freedom of the will is contingent on the grace of God, so he has actually proven Erasmus right.

“Therefore, to say, that the will is FREE, and that it has indeed power, but that it is ineffective, is what the sophists call ‘a direct contrariety.’ As if one should say, ‘Free-will’ is that which is not free.” – Wrong. Luther has failed to establish the assumption that God’s grace is not available to everyone, which is required for the wills of some people are un-free. The existence of free-will has not been dis-proven from Erasmus’ own words; therefore, everything in the book is revoked, and Erasmus’ arguments are all confirmed. There’s no point in reading a revoked book. And, so much for Luther loathing to play the part of “rhetorician.”

Seriously though folks, that’ s my excuse for not reading. My real reason is disgust. Most of his arguments consist of “Erasmus is a retard and if you listen to him, you are going to hell.” Whenever he does resort to logic in the first part of the book, it’s broken and the arguments are messy at best. He talks alot about the scripture, but he rarely quotes it, and even when he does, it’s out of context and sometimes it’s even quoted inaccurately.

For example, he tries to quote Hebrews 11:6- “But without faith [it is] impossible to please [Him], for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and [that] He is a rewarder of those who hope in Him.” Did anyone else catch the glaring error in this quotation? The verse actually says, “[that] He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” But Luther doesn’t believe that men can diligently seek God, so he simply edits out this inconvenient snippet. At least it flows well…

Here’s another quote: “when we begin to be, in the least degree, disposed to trifle, and not to hold the sacred truths in due reverence, we are soon involved in impieties, and overwhelmed with blasphemies.” Woah. I think it’s okay to dance and play cards… is that blasphemy? This is another example of how he threatens his readers. In essence, he’s saying that anyone who disagrees with him, even about the small stuff, is on s slippery slope that ends in hell. No wonder alot of folks who read this end up agreeing with what he says; they’re afraid to disagree! Don’t worry- “The curse causeless shall not come.”

So that was the bad news, my worst foot forward. Now for the parts I liked:

“Nor ought you to impute it to the Christian doctrine that the impious do evil.” Heh. Its easy to get sucked into the lie that Christians are so maligned and hated in this day and age, because of something we’re doing, saying, or believing incorrectly. Actually,

In reply to the idea that we should try to somehow make the gospel more acceptable to the enemies of Christ, he replies, There’s a War On:

I see indeed, my friend Erasmus, that you complain in many books of these tumults, and of the loss of peace and concord; and you attempt many means whereby to afford a remedy, and (as I am inclined to believe) with a good intention. But this gouty foot laughs at your doctoring hands. For here, in truth, as you say, you sail against the tide; nay, you put out fire with straw. Cease from complaining, cease from doctoring; this tumult proceeds, and is carried on, from above, and will not cease until it shall make all the adversaries of the word as the dirt of the streets.

And you know how I used to say that one of the main reasons people don’t want to become Christians is because of Christians? Well, that’s probably still true to a certain extent (except for the main part), but:

Luther puts this more eloquently than I can:

Too bad he had to follow that with: “But yet, the Gospel was not, on that account, taken away; but the impious were left, and it was preached to the pious, that they might not use their liberty to an occasion of the flesh “(Gal. v. 13.) This kind of reinforces my theory that “predistination” serves as a partial justification for what I like to call Christian Supremacy. It’s the idea that some of us are just “chosen”, and “the rest of you unfortunate losers are just going to have to go to hell.” Yuck.

Rare nuggets like the ones above make it a worthwhile read if you don’t mind wading through the sledge, and aren’t intimidated by pretentious theological jargon and empty threats.

And now for my argument in favor of free will. “The will cannot change itself, nor give itself another bent; but rather the more it is resisted, the more it is irritated to crave; as is manifest from its indignation,” says Luther. This is true. But the assertion Luther is arguing against is not the assertion that the will can change itself. He is arguing, in fact, against the assertion that I can change it. I am not my will. This is an example of the straw man fallacy. He’s trying to prove that I can’t change my will by saying that my will can’t change itself. Not very convincing.

“This would not be the case if it were free, or had a ‘Free-will.’” Now isn’t that just funny? Of course my will doesn’t have a free will- I do.

Later he says that if the unsaved “yield at all, they yield through force, or through something attended with greater advantage; they never yield willingly” (emphasis mine). So how is yielding through something attended with greater advantage, not yielding willingly? In fact, this is how God saves us. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,” and, “We love Him because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). John 3:16 tells us that God doesn’t just love the elect, He loves the World. In other words, the Lord presents us with some greater advantage, namely, the love of God, and that is, in fact, how we get saved.

But all of these arguments ignore the fact that God can be omnipotent and still allow for free choice. Just because I am the one who chooses whether or not to do a thing, that doesn’t mean that God couldn’t have either caused me to do it or stopped me from doing it… if He had wanted to. And of course He knows what I’m going to do. He knows that, sometimes, I’m going to sin. But just because He knows that, just because He allows me to do it, that doesn’t mean He causes me to do it. So everything that happens is according to God’s plan, even when that plan includes allowing something to happen instead of actively causing it. If a certain action or event doesn’t match up to His plan, He just doesn’t allow it.

Of course, God can cause people to do things sometimes, too. Like when he hardened Pharoah’s hearts, or when (I’m just guessing) Caiaphas the high priest prophesied about Jesus’ death. The idea here is that God doesn’t lose any omnipotence because He allows something to happen instead of directly causing it. Also that God is not governed by logic- He’s not a robot that has to follow His own programming. Even if “free will” did seem to challenge God’s power or knowledge, it still wouldn’t challenge it actually, because God would still be God and everything He said about Himself would still be true.

And what does all this say about free will? Nothing. I can honestly tell you that I don’t know whether He causes me to make all of the choices I make, or just allows me to make them; but I can tell you, that it seems to me like He is just allowing it most of the time. I could turn out to be dead wrong, but I don’t think it’s worth the mud Luther slings at anyone who disagrees with him. Since it’s not clearly spelled out in Scripture, I think we could spend our energy getting to know the Lord and each other, and serving and reaching out to the lost.

All that said, I’ll probably still finish the book.