The explanation usually goes like this:
“You cannot force someone to love you. That’s how God is, He doesn’t force anyone to love him. Because that wouldn’t be true love. Forcing would be God entering your brain and rewiring it so that you think and act in a certain way. God never does that.”
If this is true, which of the following is true once Jesus returns and Christians are in their glorified bodies?
A) In order for true love to exist, the potential for them to freely sin and fall out of communion with God must remain.
B) God removes the option to sin by giving them glorified minds and His Spirit — essentially forcing them to worship Him by rewiring them to think and act a certain way.
My point is that many Christians are very comfortable with the idea of not having free will — just not right now.
March 30, 2009 at 7:35 am
1. On option “A”, potential isn’t enough… there has to be motivation. For example, I have the freedom to eat horse manure, but I can pretty much guarantee you I won’t. Sin has to have appeal to be a viable option.
2. By using the term “rewired,” option “B” implies that people were “wired” in the first place.
I think that goes to a more fundamental point: before our existence is even on the table, the one responsible for our existence is going to take away some freedoms and guarantee others. So I suppose that pushes the whole idea of “what do you mean by ‘freedom’” back a level.
How do you define “freedom” or “free will” for the purpose of this question?
March 30, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I include appeal and motivation within the idea of potential.
The point is that God will change our desires and environment to where it will be impossible to sin — using the same language of common irresistible grace arguments that assume it would be against God’s nature or impossible because of “true love”.
March 31, 2009 at 7:30 am
I don’t think their objection is so much that God changes people, but that he changes people who do not want to be changed.
April 2, 2009 at 7:44 am
So you have to give God permission to give you the blue pill?
Yeah … neither here nor there in actually getting to any conclusions or making a solid point. Thanks for walking down this tangent with me.