|
FREE OR NOT We are born into this world as
slaves to our sinful natures [Romans 7:5].
The Bible describes this condition as being as objects of wrath [Ephesians
2:3-9]. The new birth [John 3:6]
changes this condition in many ways.
The indwelling of God’s Spirit and the gift of reconciliation are the
initial changes innate in this new creation born according to God’s grace [2
Corinthians At any given time in the life of
the believer, there is a persistent tension between the mind inherited from
the old nature and The Spirit’s controlling and guiding the development of the
new nature. This tension represents a
time of transition between the thinking that is consistent with the old
nature and the new thoughts produced by God’s Spirit. There are two attitudes simultaneously
existing in the same person during this transitional period. It could be said that we are slaves to our
old ways and, at the same time, becoming free from the slavery of that old influence
of the sinful nature. We could also
say that we are being controlled by the power of The Spirit and becoming a
slave to His direction and being freed from the chains of our old life. Therefore, we are becoming free indeed and
we are becoming slaves to God’s will and purpose. Two
Domains
The Scriptures gives us
many examples of various contrasts existing in this life, believers and
unbelievers, good and evil, life and death, light and darkness, and freedom
and slavery. We need contrasts in
order to compare and learn. We are
being trained in making such comparisons.
We learn in the acknowledgement of these contrasts. There are two contrasts in this world;
however, we can see only one; that is the temporal, which we see all around
us, and the other is the invisible spiritual domain. The temporal we assume as real, but it is
made up of invisible parts. The
spiritual is unseen, but made up of the reality of God’s truth. The
Temporal Domain
Thinkers and philosophers
throughout history have tried to explain the curiosities found in this
temporal world. The one constant in all
of their efforts is disagreement. We
have today libraries full of historical treatises on various approaches to
the age-old questions, mysteries, and assumptions. Some of these theories have gained popular
support from time to time. Other
theories fall into disrepute, but there has been always a consistent thread
that relates to a single concept. This
is the belief that we humans all have an inherent goodness in need of
exploration. This concept maintains that humans,
thereby, are self-deterministic and have an inherent power to formulate
personal and individual destiny. This
concept is muted and cleverly hidden in many presentations, but a cursory
examination reveals that the high-sounding terms promoting this old
assumption are just another way for humans to claim they are gods. In a world where humans play the role of gods, all truth becomes
subjective. We are born and we do learn
to adapt, and this adaptation creates the ability to apply the lessons
learned to problems in everyday life. The
ability to adapt is not necessary relative to any form of truth. Subjective truth is modified in life our
experiences, which forms much of our knowledge base. This knowledge changes with time and with
new experiences and constitutes a poor foundation for important
decisions. This cupreous knowledge
base does promote reliable prospects for an enduring freedom of any
kind. Many try to augment the lack of
reliable historical knowledge and the nonexistent future knowledge, needed in
good decisions, with the assumed power of the human will. It is maintained in this shaky logic and
fictions assumptions that the process of deciding and promoting growth is a
freedom in the “will” and a birthright.
However, it is agreed this process encumbers the individual with responsibilities. Since every decision brings responsibility,
the individual must be held to be accountable for the consequences resulting
from these decisions. This system of
individual responsibility derived from free will is anything but free. People, therefore, are the tacit architects
of their respective destinies. Since
the future is unknown, the responsibility for every decision becomes an
awesome burden. There are interactions of multiple
decisions, in a given population, that affect other people, thereby a single
decision may cause one individual to be responsible for the changes, even
lives, of other individuals. The
ramifications of these pretensions have sparked heated debate among advocates
for free will and those who try to modify actions into categories of causal
and non-causal actions. The subject
logically and quickly spins out of control.
Eventually the logical argument supporting free will centers on the
premise that there is no satisfactory alternative to this position. Since it is obvious that everyone can make
“decisions,” it is therefore obvious everyone is responsible for those
decisions. The term self-determinism
is often applied to this theory. Invariable in any discussion
regarding Christian doctrine sooner or later there is a disagreement
concerning the commonly accepted belief or theory regarding “free will.” Implicit in the belief in God’s absolute
authority is that He has absolute power, which is evidenced by the
awesomeness of His creation [Romans We try to make God into our
image. We often hear how God wants
this or that, but if God is omnipotent then His can never want because He has
exactly what He has planned. We try to
think of God looking into the future, but if He is omniscient then He already
knows the future in every detail as if the future
was His present tense, or in another word omnipresent. Much is made about God battling evil, but
it is made clear to us through the Scriptures that there is no force,
temporal or supernatural power, gives Him any cause to pause [Colossians
1:13] because He has all things under His control [Rom. 8:37-39]. The elevation of the supernatural being,
like the one nicknamed Satan, to a position of power is an example of the
inconstancies in popular beliefs when compared with the Scriptures. Such a modification of the truth indicates
a lack of appreciation of God’s power and a lack of awareness of the Scripture’s
description of the limitless bounders of this power [Rom. Our Choices Everyone likes to think that his or her decisions are “free”
from coercion or intimidation. We like
to think we are making well throughout, unbiased, and objective choices. We rarely stop and analyze our decisions in
terms of the information or the methodology that produces our choices. We assume we are free to make our decisions
based upon good judgment and well-founded principles. We rarely admit that we decide just because
we wanted to; we just decided because we felt like it was the right thing to
do. Actually, decision-making is
complex procedure that occurs most of the time outside of our conscience
awareness. Most of our choices are
dependent upon at least three critical environmental factors: our authoritative
power, our knowledge, and our opportunity.
None of these are inherent or free in any
sense of the term. Freedom and Slavery
This life can be characterized as incorporating dual
natures. We are born with a nature
that is a slave to its selfish desires.
When we are “born again” then we are given a nature that grows into an
indescribable freedom from the inherent nature, from the need to exploit, and
from all fear. As the new nature grows
and becomes more alive the old nature dies and fades into memories of the
past. The new nature becomes a slave
to God’s will and the will of the old nature becomes inert as a dead body. The new nature is a combination of true
freedom and a healthy slavery. The new
nature expresses a freedom and independence from the chains of this world and
a growing dependence upon God’s Will, a completely controlled condition. These conditions, freedom and slavery, are
developed simultaneously. We are
created with slave natures and are change by God’s mercy into having freedom
indeed [John |