Free will – a spectrum of views

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What different accounts has the Christian tradition given of the human ability to love, please and serve God?

(a) I am able to choose what is right without anyone’s help (Pelagianism)

‘My effort, from beginning to end.’

A simple moralism, pre-dating Pelagius, is in works such as the Shepherd of Hermas:

‘Believe in [God], therefore, and fear him, and fearing him, be self-controlled. Keep these things, and you will cast off all evil from yourself and will put on every virtue of righteousness and will live to God, if you keep this commandment’ (Cited by Peterson)

This view has come to be associated with the name of the British monk Pelagius, who died in 419. …

Christians are not fatalists

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D.A. Carson writes:

‘The central line of Christian tradition neither sacrifices the utter sovereignty of God nor reduces the responsibility of his image-bearers. In the realm of philosophical theology, this position is sometimes called compatibilism. It simply means that God’s unconditioned sovereignty and the responsibility of human beings are mutually compatible. It does not claim to show you how they are compatible. It claims only that we can get far enough in the evidence and the arguments to show how they are not necessarily incompatible, and that it is therefore entirely reasonable to think they are compatible if there is good evidence for them.

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Is freedom of choice a delusion?

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In The Christian View of Man, J. Gresham Machen deals with one of the objections often made against the reformed doctrine of divine sovereignty.  The objection comes in two forms.  In the first, Machen anticipates one of the tenets of Open Theism.  In the second, he discussion the objected is it is often conceptualised by Arminians.

Machen writes:

Is not man’s freedom of choice a delusion if all is fixed in God’s eternal plan?

There are those who have been impressed by this objection and have actually regarded the personal choices of persons, especially man, as lying outside the range of the things fixed in God’s eternal purpose.

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Simeon and Wesley

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Charles Simeon recalls a conversation with John Wesley:

Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers.  But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions.  Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?…

John Wesley: ‘A hair’s breadth from Calvinism’?

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Q: I’ve read that John Wesley said that he was a “hair’s breadth” from Calvinism. What did Wesley mean by, and what was the context of, that statement?

A: The phrase, “a hair’s breadth,” was a common 18th century English idiom that is scattered throughout the writings of John Wesley. While this particular idiom was used in different circumstances, the specific context in question does contain a few dominant threads that make clear what Wesley meant when he declared that he came within a “‘hair’s breadth’ of Calvinism.”…

Heb 6:9-12 – Keep on keeping on – sermon notes

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[A short talk, delivered at a mid-week prayer meeting.]

Hebrews 6:9-12

In her first Christmas broadcast as Queen in 1952, Her Majesty asked people to pray for her: ‘Pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve him and you all the days of my life.’

The heartfelt desire of the writer to the Hebrews is that his readers may faithfully serve God and one another all the days of their lives.…

Jn 6:38-40 – “I have come…not to do my own will”

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6:38 I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. 6:39 Now this is the will of the one who sent me—that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me, but raise them all up at the last day. 6:40 For this is the will of my Father—for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”…

The law of the Lord in the Psalms

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A.T. Pierson notes that three psalms – Psa 1, Psa 19 and Psa 119 – pay special tribute to the law of the Lord.

The second and third pick up the subject where the previous left it, and no two cover the same ground.

Psa 1 depicts the blessedness of him whose delight is found in meditating upon Holy Scripture.  Here, the lover and doer of God’s word and the hater and scorner are contrasted in character, conduct and destiny.…

On Spiritual Gifts

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Comparison and analysis Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 reveals that:

  1. No one has all gifts; therefore, there is no room for pride or boasting.
  2. No one is without some gift; therefore, no room for idleness or despair.
  3. Gifts differ; therefore no room for envy, jealousy or interference.
  4. God himself distributes; therefore, no room for complaint or discontent.
  5. All gifts are needful; therefore no room for neglect or indifference.
  6. All gifts derive power from the Giver; therefore, no room for weakness and inefficiency.
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Eternal submission in John’s Gospel

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The Fourth Gospel clearly teaches that the Son is one with the Father in essence, and yet subject to him.

As Christopher Cowan explains, this subjection is seen in a number of ways.

1. The Son is ‘sent’ by the Father

‘The Father’s purpose in sending the Son is that the world might be saved through him (John 3:17), and Jesus repeatedly describes God as “the Father who sent me” or “him who sent me” (e.g.

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