On free will and the sovereignty of God
"The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." Chesterton
There is a sign outside of Heaven which reads, “Whosoever will may come,” and once you enter in, you see the sign that says, “Chosen before the foundation of the world.” So understandably for some, free-will and the sovereignty of God are mutually exclusive.
If you were to ask the average person on the street what they understand by free-will, a great deal of them would probably tell you that it is the freedom to do whatever they want. But this is a ridiculous definition. It was Chesterton who said, “The freedom of your fist stops where my nose begins.” Freedom is relational. We do not exist in a vacuum, where our actions impact no one and we obey no rules. You and I cannot have a fair basketball game if I am “free” to shift the basket every time you attempt to score. The rules of the game are to relate us to one another so that we can truly play.
The fact that freedom is relational is absolutely crucial to our understanding of this problem. Human beings consist of intellect, emotion and will. These are not stand alone qualities and they all relate to something: What will I do with my intellect, if there is nothing to think about? What will I do with my emotion if there is nothing to feel? What will I choose with my will if there is nothing to do? Freedom therefore relates to will.
It is not possible to neatly compartmentalize God’s sovereignty and man’s free-will. Think about what Ravi Zacharias [www.rzim.org] had to say on this topic: “Light, for example, is viewed from some vantage points as particles. From other vantage points it is viewed as waves. Scientists are aware that light could not be both particles and waves, so they have coined a term for it, a kind of a construct, and they call it a “photon.” All they have done is create a word and a category that accommodates both perspectives which are real. I think you should view the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man as a kind of a precious stone with two facets to it. When it catches the light from one direction, you see one color; when it catches the light from the other direction you see the other color. Our propensity in the Western world to put God into a box and to systematize everything sometimes violates a fundamental precept in philosophy. It is not possible for a finite person to infinitely understand the infinite. If a finite person can fully understand the infinite, the very category of infinity is destroyed. So my proposal to you is to see both of these perspectives and hold them in balance.”
So, Christ stands at the door of our hearts and knocks; but there is only one handle to this door and it is on the inside of our hearts. Let us therefore open our hearts to Christ – this very day, this very hour.
