How I Understand Free Will

Dictionary.com defines free will as “free and independent choice. Voluntary decision.”

So how does that mesh with a God who is in control, omniscient, and unchanging?

The best way I’ve come to understand it is that since we are created by God, and God gave us brains, then God created us to be discerning individuals. Therefore, we have been given the ability to discern; to make choices when confronted with various options.

The best example I’ve come across to explain this was provided by my husband:

“A child has the choice between apple and cherry pie. The parent knows that the child loves apple pie and will choose the apple pie. The parent does not force the child to choose the apple pie. It is freely available to the child, as is the cherry pie. The child chooses the apple pie, just as the parent knew they would."

God knows the actions and outcomes of everything and everyone. Nothing surprises Him. That doesn’t mean he is forcing our hand.

God knows our hearts at every moment and He desires us to make the choice that is best for us, and of course, He knows what that best choice is. But He also knows what we ultimately will choose.

From a Christian perspective, the word “independent” in the dictionary definition deserves a caveat: although we have fee will, we are dependent upon God in the sense that He is the one who equipped us with free will.

“for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

We cannot act “independently” of God in the sense that we cannot act independently of His enabling us to have willpower in the first place!

Just like we cannot walk, talk, eat or even be alive without God equipping us with legs, mouth, tongue, teeth and breath, we cannot will ourselves to do anything without first being gifted with the thing called a will.

However, where we walk, how we talk, what, where, when and how we eat, and the manner in which we choose to live are choices God has freely given us to will for ourselves: the free will we are now discussing. 

We use the act of the will (a noun) which He gave us to make our own choices freely; God does not choose for us how to use our will.

I realize this is a very condensed, and perhaps simplistic, summation. However, I also know that the outright rejection of God by many people stems from an inability to find simpatico between a Sovereign God and free will.

I certainly do not claim to rightly explain or fully enumerate free will (please continue to explore free will on your own and do not merely take my word for it. Again, this is where I have landed thus far in my studies of the Scriptures. Use it as a launch pad for your own inquiry).

I have come to this current understanding within the overarching exclamation of Paul who cried out:

“Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” Romans 11:33

With that, I continue now to look at how the will—the ability to will—that is given to us by God, is able to work itself out.

I believe the main way is through people coming to realizations themselves.

That’s why I believe Jesus asked so many questions.

That’s why I believe God sent Jesus down to earth as a baby.

That’s why I believe that suffering, although no one wants to go through it, can result in an ultimately stronger position, namely, freedom in Christ.

If we look in Scripture where it is noted that entire households were saved and where many who heard and accepted the message believed and were baptized, it isn’t because Jesus commanded or threatened them, or even that He debated and argued with them.

It was because He, or one of His apostles, patiently and painstakingly stayed the course in making simple statements and observations, regardless of the reactions of the crowd or individual.

He helped these statements and observations along with miracles, using them to aid people in coming to their own realization that Jesus is indeed the Christ.

That is also why I believe Jesus spoke in parables: He wanted people to think and, in a sense, work out their salvation (Philippians 2:12) by seeing and comprehending the source of salvation with their own hearts and minds, not under compulsion but willingly and of their own volition.

Those who were open (humble and contrite) to the Spirit of Christ pursued the Spirit of Christ—Christ Himself—by listening with an open (childlike) mind and then settled their minds on the absolute truth of the Man of Galilee. That He is, indeed, what He says He is: the Son of God who came to do God’s will in bringing the sheep into His sheepfold (John 6:37-40; John 10:1-18; Matthew 11:27).

It is also the reason, I conclude, that Jesus asks questions.

If any of us desires to improve our communication skills, we will find no better example of listening than Jesus, who, by asking questions of others, got His message across and impacted their lives, and thus, the world.

By asking a question, Jesus put the ball in the other person’s court.

When we are asked a question, it is now upon us to be the one making statements.

It is up to us to answer the question of how to go forward, to flesh out what has gone right or wrong in the past.

It is up to us to answer the question of how things are working—or not, for us.

It is up to us to make the determination of where we’ve been, where we are and where we hope to go.

We are finally put in a position to think through and perhaps challenge within ourselves our suppositions, biases, platitudes, ideologies, sound bites and agendas we’ve latched onto without sober consideration or logical perusal.

This is how we arrive at foundational conclusions instead of someone else’s, and the world’s, “shoulds.” 

This is how we finally address the question about the Lord God: by at long last being confronted with the Questioner who implores, but doesn’t commandeer, an answer.

This is how we determine whom or what this day we shall serve (Joshua 24:15).

Because, as folksinger Bob Dylan points out in his song Gotta Serve Somebody, if we think we are remaining independent by rejecting God, think again:

“Still, you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes

You’re gonna have to serve somebody

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

As for suffering and free will: if there is anything that really gets our attention, that brings us to the end of our self, it is suffering. Our state at the beginning of suffering and our state upon exiting it is a matter of free will.

Suffering gives us a choice: to acknowledge that we’re not in control of ourselves, others, the weather, bosses, corporations, nature, health and disease; or to continue to carry on, stubbornly convinced that if we simply try harder, then suffering, in all its manifestations, will never happen again.

Many people have found the Light of Life through suffering. In other words, they have come to the realization of the Light only through darkness.

Finally, I simply cannot reject free will in view of of Jesus’ call (not demand) to come to Him:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon You and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

And this, from Matthew 23:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling (v. 37, emphasis added).

And to seek Him:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8; also in Luke 11, with the added, “how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”)

And then, just a few verses later,

“Enter through the narrow gate...and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13a; 14b)

Why would Jesus make these requests and statements, along with other calls in Scripture, if we are already pre-programmed by God to automatically act?

And how, then, could anyone refuse Jesus, if we are pre-programmed by God to believe in Him?

It’s like this: if my spouse is pre-programmed by God to love me, no matter what I do and regardless of my personality and uniqueness, will I be content with that?

Is that love?

If every relationship on earth is based on a pre-programmed love, then love is not love but a sterile, safe, benign existence within a fake community of automatons.

God Himself doesn’t want that kind of love from us:

The most important commandment, singled out by Christ Himself in Mark 12:30, is this:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (also found in Matthew 22:37-38).

That is passionate, not automated, love!

(Just a side note here about the word “commandment.” This is commanded—not commandeered---by Christ, and is left up to us whether we follow the command or not. And yes, although Jesus requires it, again, He does not coerce. A teacher commands that we take a test and pass it in order to graduate, but we are not forced. We can choose to either not take the exam, or to not study and thus do poorly on it and as a result, not graduate. All are choices we make in the face of a command).

God would not be a just God if He gave us no choice.

Even in His loving correction, as a parent corrects their child, can be found no dictatorship, since, just as a child can continue to misbehave or run away from home, we can rebel against God's correction and run away from Him.

God does everything in His power—which includes His power to work within His created plan of free will—to draw us to Himself.

But still some do not seek, do not ask, do not knock, do not find, do not receive and do not enter.

That is the power of God: the Authority to empower His creation to choose.

copyright Barb Harwood