Board index ‹ Free Will

[All True]

If God is active and working in people's lives, how does this square with everyone have a free will? In other words, if God causes someone to give you a raise—or He causes someone to make a large donation to your church, where is that donor's or your boss's free will?

[jimwalton]

God's activity in our lives doesn't bowl over the decisions we've made. For instance, he doesn't cause someone to give you a raise (at least not that I know of. Hm. I never got one.). God can prompt, however, just like I can say to you, "Hey, let's go to the movies tonight."

"Well, I dunno."
"Oh, come on, it will be fun."
"I'm sort-a busy."
"We'll go see the new Blair Witch movie."
"Oh, OK."

God can prompt your boss to give you a raise, or nudge someone to make a large donation, but he hasn't interfered with their ability to make their own decision, just like in the movie situation.

Suppose you want to go to the grocery store, and I offer you a ride. I am active in your life, but I haven't interfered with your free will. So if I pray, "God, I need more patience with people. Please help me with that." Now God can be active in working in my life that way because I have asked him to. It doesn't interfere with my free will. I used my will to request his work.

[All True]

Okay, let's consider your theory. If God nudges or somehow plants the idea of him/her giving you a raise and they decide against it, this reduces God to not much more then a wisp of a thought. Again, not very powerful... in fact, very weak. But if God steps in and creates (or drives) a situation where your boss gives you a raise, your boss's free will has been usurped. Is there another possibility I'm leaving out?

[jimwalton]

What you're missing is that God deals with us on the basis of a love relationship, and love doesn't twist arms to get one's own way. Love doesn't steamroll over other people and their thoughts and feelings. God is powerful, all right, but not in crushing people under foot. His power shows itself in carrying through his plan of salvation, in conquering the (what was thought to be invincible) power of death, and in putting his enemies under his feet. With his love, however, he hints and woos and nudges and suggests. He is active in people's lives with his love; He is active in his plan of salvation with power.

[All True]

I'm looking for sense or clarity regarding the claims of Christianity. If a claim exists that runs counter to other claims, I'm interested in how this squares. In my opinion, your explanation places you in a sport that diminishes God to little more then a mild, warm breeze. Yet the Bible depicts Him as a ruler that should never be reduced. In the Bible, God does all of the things that you just said that He doesn't do.

[jimwalton]

There are some parts of God that just are, and other parts that just are, but they can be used on withheld. For instance, God is always eternal, and yet he can function within a time continuum. Timeless, yet not restricted from time. God is always holy, no matter what. That is not able to be mitigated in any way, shape or form. God is always present, but his presence can vary, and be more or less intense, more or less focused, or more or less obvious. When God's presence came to dwell in the Temple, we'd have to ask, "Hey, wait. God's omnipresent. Wasn't he already in the Temple?" Yeah, but his presence must have manifested itself in a different way.

So, what about his love? He is always love, and that doesn't change. And yet the Bible says he is a judge. "Hey, wait, that isn't very loving." But wait again. If love is real, it disciplines. If love is real, it's not so squishy that anybody can do anything they want. That's not love. So it gets pretty difficult to define love. Sometimes, as we all know, love has to be pretty tough, and sometimes love has to do some very difficult, even negative things.

What about power? God is always powerful, but he doesn't always use it in the same way. Sometimes he withholds his power (like when he didn't save Israel from being conquered after their centuries of sin, despite his many warnings), sometimes he just uses part of it (like then Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Not every dead person came back, just Laz.), and sometimes it's a blow out conquering blatant obvious power. He gets to choose what best fits the situation.

So back to your scenario. (1) People have free will, given to them by God, and if God interferes with that, He was, in a sense, violated that person's sovereignty. So God won't do that. That's not love, and it's not a justifiable use of his power. (2) But God is at work, and is responsive to both prayer and to people's actions in the world. So sometimes when people who have invited God into their lives ask God to do something, he can use his outright power to accomplish it. He has a contract, so to speak. But other times, he has to be more subtle so as not to trash all over people's sovereign space and their own free will. It's God responding to his own character and his own boundaries, acting out of both love and sovereignty in a balance that changes with each situation according to the elements at work in that situation.

> Yet the Bible depicts Him as a ruler that should never be reduced

It depends what you mean by this. We should never reduce the person of God, but he doesn't always use his power to the fullest, and the use of his power is not the wisest course of action in many situations. Because he doesn't blast his way through every situation doesn't mean he's been reduced.

> In the Bible, God does all of the things that you just said that He doesn't do.

You'll have to give me a specific example here. I'm not sure to what you are referring.

[All True]

Genocide, slavery, oppressing women, innocents killed by his orders, condoning rape, plagues, the flood, hell, dividing people by race etc.

[jimwalton]

Whoa, whoa. Where did all THIS come from? We were talking about God's work in people's lives and their free will, and now we get the Atheist Internet laundry list of huge conversations?

We were talking about how God doesn't always display the full reach of his power as he is dealing with people in love, but what does that have anything to do with genocide, slavery, misogyny, etc. etc. Wow, we've just switch sports, stadiums, and planets. I can't begin to deal with all of these within the word limit, but I'll comment briefly (and quite inadequately) on each.

Genocide: A total misunderstanding by modern culture. There was never any genocide, nor command to genocide. it was all ancient Near Eastern warfare rhetoric. There is far more to the picture than meets the eye. But this is a post all by itself.

Slavery: Another misunderstanding by modern culture. The Israelites owned other people's labor (like our era's employers), but never owned other people.

Oppressing Women: Another misunderstanding by modern culture. The Bible sees the oppression of women as a tragic result of sin, not a design by God. God designed equality. "Patriarchalism" was a cultural reality but not a biblical standard.

Innocents killed by his orders: The real question is, depending on the situation, is were they really innocents?

Condoning rape: Absolutely not. A terrible distortion and misconstrual of the Bible. There is nothing even close to this.

Plagues: All of the Egyptian plagues were actions against the Egyptian deities and how the lies of their false religion were destroying the people.

The flood: I'm convinced it wasn't global, but hugely regional.

Hell: This is a long conversation, but I have good reason to believe that hell is not fire, and we have reason to understand that it is not eternal for every person. It is an expression of fair judgment for those who rebel against God. But obviously this conversation deserves far more attention than I can give it here.

Dividing people by race: Never happened. Don't know what you're talking about here. No one knows (not scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, or theologians) the origin of the various races in humanity. The races are so many and so blended and so varied, I really don't know what you're talking about here, so can't comment much until I hear more.

If you want to take these one at a time, we can, but that's a long laundry list, and it would be a lot of back and forth between us. I'm game if you are.