Sunday: Free Will, Free Choice
Some Christians believe that God has chosen, even before a person was born, whether or not that person will be saved. That is, those who in the end are lost eternally are lost because God, in His wisdom (this theology claims) made that choice for this person to be lost. Which means, then, that regardless of their choices, that person will be condemned.
Image © Kevin Carden Goodsalt.com
Fortunately, as Seventh-day Adventists, we don’t ascribe to that theology. Instead, we believe that God has chosen for all of us to be saved, and that even before the world began, we were chosen in Him to have eternal life.
Read Ephesians 1:1-4; Titus 1:1-2; and 2 Timothy 1:8-9. What do these verses tell us about being chosen by God and when we were chosen?
However good this news, some people will still be lost (Matt. 25:41). And that’s because, though God has chosen us all, He has given humans a most sacred gift, and that is free will, free choice.
What does Matthew 22:35-37 teach about free will?
The Lord does not force us to love Him. Love, in order to be love, has to be freely given. In many ways, one could argue that the Bible is the story of God reaching out to lost human beings and seeking, without coercion, to win their hearts to Himself. This reality can best be seen in the life and ministry of Jesus, and how people—using their free will—reacted to Him. Some were drawn to Him; others wanted Him dead.
Yes, God has chosen us for salvation, but, in the end, we have to make the choice to accept that salvation. There is no question that of all the choices we have to make, the choice to serve the Lord is, by far, the most consequential for us and for those who are impacted (such as our immediate family) by our life and the choices that we make in it.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has developed considerably in the years since I studied it as an undergraduate computer science student in the early 1990s. I am not about to give you a course in AI, but there are a couple of key ideas to take into consideration. An AI system learns from the environment it works in. For example, a voice recognition system improves its understanding as it listens to your voice and is corrected when it makes mistakes. Secondly, it can modify the human written programming code so that it does it job better. Computer scientists can set the parameters of the learning process so that the AI system does not get out of control. Already we are seeing a lot of debate about the issue of how those parameters are set. It is quite possible to imagine a scenario where an AI system goes beyond those parameters either deliberately or intentionally and end up with an uncontrollable AI system. In a sense, we reaching the situation where we are in a position to play "god" to AI systems. Would we give an AI system the power of free choice? That is the moral issue that computer scientists have to face. And in our situation, it is complicated by the problem that the good guys are not the only ones who are aware of the problem. (we better leave our discussion of AI morality before it gets really interesting {wry grin})
When we discuss God's act of creating us, we often bring up the issue of free choice. We believe that God has given us free choice. God created us as intelligent beings capable of making our own decisions. It is my contention that God could not have created us any other way because it would lead to a logical contradiction.
Can God build a rock so large that he cannot lift it? Whichever way you answer that question limits the omnipotence of God because the question leads to a logical contradiction. Likewise, God cannot create intelligent beings who love him, without giving them free choice to make that decision. That comes with the consequence that we can choose not to love him. The only option God had was to not create intelligent beings.
The big issue in all of this is the Satanic lie that free choice is a bad thing. The really big sin of the Dragon, Babylon, the Papacy, Apostate Protestantism, the Beast, and all the other evil powers is to take away free choice by legislation, persecution, coercion and social pressure. God does not work that way, and that is the fundamental message of the Gospel.
As seems to be consistently the case, I find myself in wholehearted agreement with Adventist doctrine on the matter of free will as well. However, I do sometimes find some difficulty in accepting the somewhat extreme terms in which it is sometimes presented.
Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen."
To me, this suggests that the truth about free will and the sovereignty of God is a bit more nuanced than suggested by this lesson's writer. It might even include some elements that are beyond our human comprehension. There might even be an element of truth in the Calvinist view, though not in the caricature of it that we are seeing here.
The bottom line is that its our choice that determines whether we are chosen
Or could it be we are all chosen! (by God). Now the question is who have you and I chosen?
I concur...2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
During the course of my short life (I'm in my "bonus" years!) language has changed.. How does the original text read "Many are called, but few are chosen."? Could it be that it reads "Many are called, but few have chosen"? Bible scholars ... What does the original text read?
Our choices of rejecting God reduce His choice to a call. Through our decisions we foil His move. Thus He cannot call us 'the chosen' because we rejected Him. This is probably a way of accepting our negative response. Accepting His call is a way of permitting Him to choose us. In otherwords His choice can only be a choice when it is accepted. This is what I think is meant by the verse you quoted.
Free will and free choice is more powerful than God because God allows us to reject him.
He doesn't coerce or force but accepts our choice.
It pains our God when He sees the choices we make in our lives i.e the choices we make that can impede the spread of the gospel,family relationships and the failure to realise how soon the coming of the Lord is.God's judgement is based on our choices,we choose to do His will we live,we choose againts HIS will we die.what makes me happy is that, His is always ready to help us thruogh the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Is the author confused? It might be understandable since he made the confusing statement before “reading” the references given after the statement.
“...we believe that God has chosen for all of us to be saved, and that even before the world began, we were chosen in Him to have eternal life.”
He objects to some being chosen to be saved before birth but condones all being chosen in Christ, before the world began, to have eternal life. Is it simply because he thinks he has a better *chance* with “all” rather than “some”? Salvation is not about chance. God died in His Son for His Own. Their salvation is as certain and sure as the resurrection of Christ. Not good grounds for a doctrine. Salvation is not about chance. God died in His Son for His Own. Their salvation is as certain and sure as the resurrection of Christ. It is impossible for the “elect/chosen” to be every human of/in this world (2 Tim 2:19; Matt 24:22,24,31...).
Nowhere does Scripture teach that God chooses or has chosen beings for destruction or hell. Through the gospel, His Word, God calls His people to their inheritance (Acts 2:39; Isa 55:11; Matt 20:15). There is no call or gospel from God to destruction. We have placed ourselves in opposition to God under condemnation, aligned with Satan.
Kenny, the lesson author clearly enunciates the Seventh-day Adventist understanding that, although God has chosen all to be saved, this salvation is effective only for those who accept Christ as Saviour, because God has given us free will. He does not force His will upon anyone.
I'm a bit confused about your position. What is your belief?
It would help if you would state your position clearly, rather than providing a string of texts that we might understand differently. (You are welcome to provide your supporting texts after your clear position statement.)
I had an argument with God once that went something like this: I was disturbed at God's judgment of me who didn't choose to be born or for that matter born into sin. My life at conception, due to the sin fallen nature, was purposed in a way that went against God. It was frustrating to find my sinful nature so consistently overpowering of my best intentions. It seemed so unjust for God to judge us who had no choice in our being here.
Well, God in His gentle and patient way, in my mental conversation with Him shared this. While God affirms that I didn't chose to be born, there was something else done that wasn't my choice, either. God chose to send Jesus to die for an entire race of fallen, sin prone human beings. The cross is the pivot upon which we find two choices that were not ours at an intersection. Now it is left to me, given to me as a gift, to choose which condition I wanted. To remain in my lost original, or to accept God's choice of giving me new life in Christ.
It settled my misguided notions about God's fairness (unfairness) once and for all.
The young, as well as those of more advanced age, are accountable to God for their time, their influence, and their opportunities. They have their faith in their own hands. They may rise to any height of moral excellence, or they may sink to the lowest level of depravity. There is no election but one’s own by which any may perish. Every person is a free moral agent, deciding his own future by his daily life. What course, then, is it wisest for us, as rational beings, to pursue? Shall we live as becometh candidates for eternity, or shall we fail to fulfill the great end of our creation?.....We are free to obey or to disregard the will of God; free to pray or to live without prayer. As God compels no man to be righteous, so none are compelled to be impenitent and vicious. Human passions may be strong and wayward, but help has been laid upon One who is mighty. While that help will not be forced upon any who despise the gift, it is freely, gladly given to all who seek it in sincerity.... The Christian must be watchful against sins of the flesh, watchful against sins of the mind. Says the apostle, “Gird up the loins of your mind. The thoughts and feelings must be restrained with a firm hand, lest they need us into sin....Every individual has a soul to save or to lose. It has a case pending at the bar of God. Each must meet the great judge face to face. How important, then, that everyman contemplate often this solemn scene when the judgment shall sit and the books be opened. (Review and Herald January 19, 1886.) (Sabbath School Lesson Comments by Ellen White-Family Seasons, Chapter 2, Sunday) How can anyone doubt with all the Scriptures backing up that God gives us free will to chose either Him or to believe Satan’s lies?
Interesting word God chose to use - “chosen” no pun intended. I do not believe the word chosen equates to auto eternal life. Think of it as God writing a will with you as his chosen heir, and it was authenticated by Christ’s death on the cross, but on the day the will is read we purposely decide not to show up and never realize what we missed. It’s called free choice we’re invited or chosen to attend the dinner, but we don’t have to attend or eat.
I much appreciate the comments here. They are quite thought-provoking. In response to Maureen Moroff, fortunately it doesn't take a Greek scholar to go back and see how the text reads, with the help of an interlinear translation and a lexicon. In both Matthew 20:16 and Matthew 22:14, it reads:
"Many are called, but few chosen."
By any grammatical construction, the absence of the verb in the second clause implies a repetition of the verb from the first clause. So it's "are." Anyway, this saying must be fit into the larger context of Scripture, which clearly teaches that it is God who chooses (or elects), although we are admonished to "make our calling and election sure." We know that, but for God's initiative in reaching out to the lost, none of us would ever have even had the slightest interest in holiness or salvation from sin. We'd never have so much as truly known that we were helplessly and hopelessly sinful, but for the plan of redemption.
It is true that our salvation depends on our free choice of how to respond to the initiative of God's grace -- to gratefully accept, or to stubbornly refuse His love. Notwithstanding this, I see Scripture portraying a God who is so wise, so powerful, and so all-knowing, that the end result of everything will be found to have played out according to His ultimate plan -- even though His heart's desire and every effort is that everyone should be saved! In short, God is beyond our comprehension.
Does God know the end from the beginning? Yes, this is a Bible axiom. Does he know who of us will be saved before He even forms us in the womb? Obviously, yes. Did God know, before the foundation of the world, who would live on earth, and who of us would choose not to resist His efforts to save us?
I believe this is the key to Ephesians 1:4. Romans 8:29 says "whom He foreknew." These are the "we" who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Yes, the bottom line is that our choices determine our destiny, and that those who are destroyed will have destroyed themselves. However, the Bible, in my view, portrays a God whom we should do well not to take for granted, nor try to outwit.
"the bottom line is that our choices determine our destiny, and that those who are destroyed will have destroyed themselves. However, the Bible, in my view, portrays a God whom we should do well not to take for granted, nor try to outwit."
Well said, and I think it is the point of the parable, it is also the point of the narrow door parables. It is always God's terms, not ours, that assures our salvation. Trifling with it is to our destruction. God is not mocked. What we sow is what we reap. If we sow stubbornness to the calls of grace in our lives, we will reap a hard heart unfit for the kingdom. None will lackadaisically saunter into eternal life.
I like to keep things simple. God chose all of us the day He created us and gave us a life to live. The choice then on how to live is up to us; live for ourselves like Satan and end up with him or living for serving others as God's design/government is planned to operate. His saving Grace takes care of the rest.