Think Wink.

I took the title of this post from the movie The Ghost and the Darkness, the movie starring Val Kilmore and Michael Douglas about the true story in Africa and the man-eating Tsavo lions that wreaked havoc upon a rail line being built through Tsavo. I remember the line from one of the final scenes where Val is firing his rifle in anticipation of one final conflict with the two lions. As he fires his rifle into the air repeatedly his African friend asks him what is he doing. To which Val replies, “I’m sorting it out!”

I really enjoyed that movie but I’m not sure if the movie has anything to do with what I’m going to think out loud upon, namely the issue of Free Will. Over at Theology for the Masses, Honzo wrote the following post entitled I just don’t get Calvinists. There he wrestles with the compatablist view of free will that Calvinism holds to. This that I’m writing post is not meant to be some deep theological answer or philosophical response to his post. Rather I’m just thinking out loud.

As I ponder the issue of Free Will my mind returns to my encounters with Mormons. I’ll explain why. When dealing with Mormons, it is important to show that the god of Mormonism and Joseph Smith is not the God of Israel who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. The best place to do that is Isaiah 44-66. In this section of the Bible, Yahweh himself compares and contrasts himself vividly with other “gods” that Israel and Judah are worshiping. “This is what the true God does. This is what I do and this is what the idols you worship do. Who is the true God?” Yahweh states. Thus a common theme in this passage is Isaiah 44:6-7,

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen.

Yahweh challenges the people to bring before him a god that can compare to him. And the people are remarkably silent. This challenge continues in Isaiah 46. In Isaiah 46:1-2 Yahweh declares that Bel and Nebo are unable to save the people for they too are bowing down and entering into captivity. In Isaiah 46:3-4 Yahweh declares that he can save. He is the one who carries his people and delivers them. After comparing himself to idols and the gods they represent and sets himself apart because only he purposes and then accomplishes that purpose (Isaiah 46:5-11), it is upon this comparison that Yahweh sets forth that he is the one who saves Israel, not the gods of gold. Yahweh says, “I will put my salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory” (Isaiah 46:13 ESV).

But it is that middle part that catches my attention in this discussion. Isaiah 46:5-11 reads,

To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? 6Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! 7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it,
they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble. 8 “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

In this passage God compares himself to gods made of gold. These cannot be his equal for when the people who worship them cry to them salvation does not come. But Yahweh commands the people to remember something, the things of old. There is no God like him because he declares “the end from the beginning, from ancient times things not yet done.” He declares, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” He concludes this passage with, “I have spoken and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” What sets him apart from gods made of gold and silver by a goldsmith is that he is the God that when he says something happens, it happens. He cannot be thwarted. When he calls, the call is answered.He decreed it and we get to see it come to fruition. That’s what makes him the one true God. It is what it means to be “I am he” or Yahweh. His sheer divine sovereignty and omnipotent power to accomplish his sovereign will. And it is rooted in this firm foundation that Israel is to stand firm (Isaiah 46:8) and know that they will be saved and delivered (Isaiah 46:12-13).

The message in Isaiah 40-66 when God does this comparison is to show that it is futile to look to the Babylonian, Canaanite, Egyptian, Assyrian, Syro-Phoenician gods (and all of the other surrounding pagan gods) for deliverance. The judgment will come because God has decreed it. The salvation will come because God decreed it.

It is in this context that I come to the question of Free Will. The Libertarian view of free will has problems with this passage. For libertarianism to work, the sovereignty and omnipotence described by Isaiah can’t work. If libertarianism can be summed up as the ability to choose and to choose otherwise. Yet there will be a point in which God decrees something and we cannot choose otherwise because God cannot be thwarted. His purposes will be accomplished. Remember 46:10-11, “saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” When God calls his man, that man obeys the call. I just do not see how a libertarian can uphold the view of God’s sovereignty and omnipotence that Isaiah has and sees and yet maintain the level of freedom they purport in libertarian free will.

Some have tried, and I know I used to be one of them, to get around this notion of divine sovereignty by assuming a foreknowledge view of God (a type of molinism). By that they argue that God foresees all possible choices a moral being will make and plans accordingly. This does fit in some ways the text of Isaiah 46. But this does not hold up to the view of libertarian free will that I have always encountered. In this foreknowledge view, the moral agent is still bound by what God has foreseen. The agent is still incapable to choose otherwise because there is no option that is “otherwise.” I have not heard a response to this and maybe this will stimulate conversation and point me to a response.

Yet as I ponder the compatablist view of free will–which can be summed up as you always choose what you want or desire most–I can see why Honzo doesn’t get it. First of all, the compatiblist (at least the Calvinist) operates within a deterministic framework. Honzo does not. Second, though he was corrected by a former Calvinist and now knows, he did not understand the differences that exist with in compatiblism. He had no clue as the difference between hard determinism and soft determinism (the latter being what Calvinists hold to). When I first came to the Free Will debate and a baby Calvinist–who needed to be put in a cage as I was more excited about TULIPs than sharing the gospel with people–I didn’t understand the whole debate. I just knew (and know) that the understanding of free will that I had before was wrong. But I had no clue as to how to define what I believe about the human will and its free in relationship to divine freedom and will.

To some degree I still don’t fully grasp the issues. I’m not a philosopher and I openly admit that. I’m an expositor and an exegete. I look at the Biblical texts and see what they say. A philosophy no doubt develops as I dig further and further into the Scriptures but I probably couldn’t articulate a comprehensive and comprehendable view of the free will position I hold. I know it is called Compatibilism and I know that it boils down to what I said about it earlier. Or another way to put it that I like very much is “Man (generic sense, not gender specific) is free; God is free. When man’s freedom and God’s freedom conflict, God wins” (me paraphrasing R C Sproul summarizing Jonathan Edwards’ work The Freedom of the Will; I believe that statement comes from Sproul’s Chosen by God but I’m not sure).

I see the text of Isaiah 46, cited above, and I just cannot adopt the libertarian view of free will. I just can’t. The text simply does not allow me to do so. I am rather drawn to some other view of the will that allows God to be sovereign over me and my choices and yet still gives me choice. I’m left with either some foreknowledge view of God or Calvinism and its compatiblism. I know that there are philosophical issues that go along with this. But to me, that is secondary. The primary issue for me is what does the text of Scripture say. The answer is simple, God is sovereign and omnipotent in such a way that what ever he purposes and declares, it happens, including my choices. The difference between the foreknowledge and the Calvinist views is another post another time.

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Ezra’s Infinitives