God saves sinners! (part 7)

The bondage of the will is not determinism

An objection to the doctrine of the bondage of the will stems from a misunderstanding of the terminology. Specifically, some might think that to make the claim that our wills are in bondage, and can only be inclined toward God by an act of supernatural grace, is to imply that we are mere automatons without any power to choose at all. But clearly, we’re able to make choices and then act according to them, right?

Free will and free agency

This objection fails to make the crucial distinction between free will, on the one hand, and free agency on the other. It is important to be clear that no one is saying that the fall has taken away our ability to make choices. That would be absurd since we obviously make them constantly—whom to marry, where to work, whether to have our eggs scrambled or over easy—obviously these sorts of choices are all well within our capacity. This ability to make choices in accordance with our desires is what we are calling free agency. Even after the fall, we are still free agents.

On the other hand, what Augustinians argue (the Reformed follow Augustine in this) is that the fall has taken away our freedom—in that it has taken away our desire and inclination—to choose what pleases God. It is this liberty to love and obey God that we are referring to as free will. Post-fall, we have retained our free agency, but we have lost our free will.

Free choices, motives, and self-determination

But if we have power to choose, how is it that we have no power to choose what pleases God? Is this a contradiction? In answering this question, it is first necessary to reflect on the nature of choice itself. Why do we choose certain things and not others? Do we really exercise perfect freedom when we choose? Or are our free choices determined by something else? This may seem paradoxical, but the fact of the matter is that our wills are not “neutral.” Our choices don’t come out of nowhere. Rather, when we choose, we do so on the basis of our motives and preferences. Our wills are guided and directed from within by factors that are not of our choosing.

An illustration may help. Suppose that someone places before you two plates. One of them contains your favorite food (let’s say prime rib). The other contains your least favorite (say fried okra). Now suppose you’re asked to choose between the two. Which plate do you choose? I guarantee, all other things being equal (e.g., no one is holding a gun to your head and threatening to pull the trigger if you eat the steak, and no one is offering you a free trip to Tahiti if you force down the okra), you will choose the prime rib every single time.

Are you able to choose the okra? Yes. Are you able to prefer the okra? No way! Try as you might, you cannot will your preferences to change. Your free choices are free, but they are at the same time (and without contradiction) the consequences of your preferences—preferences that you did not choose.

It is also important to notice that sometimes we find that we have preferences or motives that conflict with each other. For example, suppose someone is holding a gun to your head and threatening to shoot if you don't choose the okra. In this scenario, you would (I hope) choose to endure the okra and forego the steak because the strength of your motive to enjoy your favorite meal would pale by comparison with your powerful motivation to preserve your life!

In situations in which we have conflicting motives (most situations?), our free choices (yes, even with a gun to our head, we are still choosing freely since hypothetically we could choose the suicidal option if we wanted to) are determined by our strongest motive. As Jonathan Edwards concisely put it in his great treatise, The Freedom of the Will (which is perhaps the all-time classic work on this subject), "It is that motive, which, as it stands in view of the mind, is the strongest, that determines the will" (The Freedom of the Will 1.2). Our wills are determined by our motives.

However, as R.C. Sproul points out, this is not tantamount to determinism, because determinism says that our choices are compelled from outside of us. (Sproul’s helpful discussion in his book Chosen by God is derived from Edwards’ work.) Rather, it “is what we call self-determination, which is the essence of freedom” (Chosen by God, p. 54). Our free choices are self-determined on the basis of our motives and preferences, and this power of self-determination is the very essence of freedom.

Free agency and the bondage of the will

These same principles apply as we consider the question of how much freedom we have by nature to love and obey God. He created us in Adam with the desire to freely choose the things that please Him—that is to say, with pure motives and holy affections. In Adam’s fall we forfeited our inherent righteousness, and along with it our heart-inclination to please God. Sadly, our desires and affections are now self-centered and focused on the creature rather than the Creator. The ancient indictment is ever apropos: "[T]he LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5; cf. Genesis 8:21). And it is this pervasive depravity of our hearts that determines the direction our free choices will take.

To be sure, we are still free agents because we retain the power and freedom to choose according to our desires. But our wills are in bondage in the sense that they are compelled to follow wherever our evil inclinations and motives lead. And try as we might, we have no power in and of ourselves to change our evil inclinations—any more than a leopard has power to change his spots. We are not compelled against our will. The bondage is from within, not from without.

Perhaps where the rubber meets the road with the greatest urgency concerning this issue of the bondage of the will is with respect to the question as to whether or not a sinner, apart from a work of divine grace, is able to trust in Christ for his salvation. Does a sinner have the power and freedom to respond to the call of the gospel?

R.C. Sproul responds to this query decisively in the negative, summing up the matter definitively on behalf of the Reformed tradition:

In order to choose Christ, the sinner must first have a desire to choose Christ. Either he has that desire already within him or he must receive that desire from God. Edwards and all who embrace the Reformed view of predestination agree that if God does not plant that desire in the human heart nobody, left to themselves, will ever freely choose Christ. They will always and everywhere reject the gospel precisely because they do not desire the gospel. They will always and everywhere reject Christ precisely because they do not desire Christ. They will freely reject Christ in the sense that they will act according to their desires (Chosen by God, pp. 61-62).

To sum up, the doctrine of the bondage of the will does not mean that we have lost the ability to make choices, nor does it mean that our choices are determined by forces outside of us. Rather, it means that we have lost the desire and motivation—and hence the ability—to incline our wills toward the things of God, even to the extent of lacking the power to repent and believe the gospel. When it comes to heavenly things, we are like bad trees that can do no other than bear bad fruit.

Now that we have dealt with a couple of common misconceptions (in this post and the last one), I’ll attempt in the next post to focus more specifically on what is entailed in the doctrine of total depravity.

(To be continued …)

God saves sinners! (part 6)

In this post and the next I want to try to help clear up confusion and address a couple of misconceptions concerning the doctrine of total depravity. (I thought I could do it all in one post, but alas, it will take two ...) Some may not realize that total depravity does not imply utter depravity. I'll try to deal with that misconception here. Others may think that the bondage of the will implies that we’re automatons. I'll attempt to deal with that next.

Total depravity is not utter depravity

First, the terminology of “total depravity” may conjure up images of a wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth, serial rapist (or something like that). But clearly we’re not that far gone, right? So one objection flows from the obvious fact that we are clearly not utterly depraved—at least most of us aren’t.

So the first thing to be clear about is that total depravity does not imply that we are as depraved as we can possibly be. On the contrary, the bible teaches that God preserves the human race by common grace (i.e., His grace toward all creatures, as distinguished from His special grace to the elect alone), such that fallen man is capable of “civil righteousness,” and of engaging in fruitful cultural endeavors such as agriculture, industry, and the arts. I’ll try to unpack this a little.

Common grace and the interim world order

When Adam and Eve defied God’s law (Genesis 3), He could have justly inflicted the covenant curse of eternal death immediately. Instead, He established a new covenant—one that operates according to a radically different dynamic, that of grace instead of works. According to this covenant, elect sinners would be delivered from God's wrath and ushered into eschatological glory solely on the grounds of the vicarious covenant-keeping of the woman’s Seed. Though Adam could no longer fulfill the “culture mandate” of world dominion, one day the second Adam would.

Therefore, in order to enact His redemptive plan, it was necessary that God preserve His creation—to see to it that the human race would be propagated and life sustained. He established the city of man as an interim world order, the arena in which He would enact the drama of redemption. Though His wrath would be displayed in one terrible act of (temporal) judgment, the Great Flood (which mightily prefigured the eschatological wrath to come), the covenant of preservation (see Genesis 9:8-17; Matthew 5:43-45) ensured that the cycle of seasons and days and years, rain and sunshine, harvests, and all other blessings of common grace, would continue uninterrupted until the end of the present world order.

Common culture and the city of man

Thus, in keeping with God’s redemptive purposes, the state was established to administer civil justice. Likewise, all the accoutrements of culture—arts and agriculture, science and industry—were granted as gifts of common grace for the purpose of preserving and sustaining human life and society until the eschaton. Though man had been exiled from the Garden and had forfeited his royal-priestly task, he was not left altogether without a vocation.

It is important to recognize that this common grace order was and is just that—common—to both believers and unbelievers, the godly and the ungodly alike, with all humanity living, working, and cooperating together in the divinely legitimated project of building the city of man. Interestingly (and perhaps contrary to the expectations of today’s “culture warriors”?), it was not necessarily the covenant people who had the most important role to play in the development of culture and civilization. (See for example Genesis 4:19-22.)

To be sure, there was from the beginning a radical distinction between the covenant people and the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. The former possess dual citizenship, are sojourners on a pilgrimage to heaven, living by faith, and calling on the name of the Lord. The latter trust in their own strength and cunning alone, striving to pile up earthly treasure without regard for the coming judgment. Crucial as this distinction is however, it is no hindrance to their cooperation together in the common project of building civilization.

Earthly things and heavenly things

So fallen humanity is not utterly depraved. If we were, civilization would be utterly impossible. No, total depravity does not imply that fallen man cannot think, invent, produce, create, and (for the most part) abide by the laws of the civil realm. What it does mean is that every constituent part of man—his body and soul, mind, heart, and will—has become incapacitated for communion with, and obedience to, His Creator.

It is necessary then to make the distinction between man's capacity for earthly pursuits and his capacity for heavenly pursuits. In the words of John Calvin:

It may therefore be proper, in order to make it more manifest how far our ability extends in regard to these two classes of objects [i.e., earthly and heavenly], to draw a distinction between them. The distinction is, that we have one kind of intelligence of earthly things, and another of heavenly things. By earthly things, I mean those which relate not to God and his kingdom, to true righteousness and future blessedness, but have some connection with the present life, and are in a manner confined within its boundaries. By heavenly things, I mean the pure knowledge of God, the method of true righteousness, and the mysteries of the heavenly kingdom (Institutes 2.2.13).

Though God has preserved man such that he is suited for earthly pursuits (the sphere of creation), he is totally incapacitated for heavenly pursuits (the sphere of redemption and the new creation) apart from a work of God's special grace.

The Canons of Dordt sums up the matter nicely as follows, speaking first of our lack of ability with respect to heavenly pursuits:

Therefore, all people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil, dead in their sins, and slaves to sin; without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit they are neither willing nor able to return to God, to reform their distorted nature, or even to dispose themselves to such reform (CD 3/4.3).

Next, the Canons concedes our ability with respect to earthly pursuits, but carefully explains how little our capabilities in the sphere of creation help us in matters pertaining to salvation and the things of heaven:

There is, to be sure, a certain light of nature remaining in man after the fall, by virtue of which he retains some notions about God, natural things, and the difference between what is moral and immoral, and demonstrates a certain eagerness for virtue and for good outward behavior. But this light of nature is far from enabling man to come to a saving knowledge of God and conversion to him—so far, in fact, that man does not use it rightly even in matters of nature and society. Instead, in various ways he completely distorts this light, whatever its precise character, and suppresses it in unrighteousness. In doing so he renders himself without excuse before God (CD 3/4.4).

(To be continued ...)