As many of you know, we are currently in the process of adoption. You can visit Laura’s blog to keep updated on the process. This morning I saw that Russell Moore posted a new video on his blog. He writes;
“We encourage you to watch this video, produced by our friends at Together for Adoption. Dr. Moore will be speaking at the Together for Adoption conference in October. Registration for the conference is now open.”
Human freedom, or “free will” is a subject that we need to discuss with clarity and precision. In these discussions it is important to determine the nature and extent of human freedom. When most people talk about “free will” they have in mind the idea of uninfluenced, absolutely unaffected choices. No one has this type of freedom, no one.
For an absurd example, if I decided I wanted to fly, I could not. Flying is not part of my essential nature. A moral example, God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). God is always perfectly true and cannot be less than God, and therefore cannot lie.
The idea of “absolute freedom” is a myth and absolutely impossible.
“Free Will”- Philosophical and Theological Considerations
Philosophically speaking, if humans had the absolute power to the contrary, we could thwart the plans of God, and we cannot (Job 42:2). Therefore, we need to be precise when we talk about human “freedom.”
“Free will” is a philosophical term (not a biblical term), and affirming the idea of absolute “free will” in humanity is very difficult to defend. The term “free will” is often unnecessarily confusing and requires too many qualifications. Human freedom, in the absolute sense, must entail that human choices are entirely free from divine constraint or influence. This is problematic on many levels.
We are free, in a certain sense, but not absolutely. Any notion of freedom that we adopt must include the idea that our decisions are based on underlying reasons, and I think most of us would affirm that they are.
We are, as Wayne Grudem states, free to “make willing choices, choices that have real effects.” But this should not be confused with absolute freedom. As Christians we affirm that God ordains all things- everything. See Isaiah 46, “I will accomplish all my purpose.”
John Frame provides some good discussion boundaries in his article “Determinism, Chance, and Freedom.”
Basic human intuition reveals that we choose among various alternatives, but it never reveals to us that any of our choices are absolutely uncaused. In fact, Scripture contradicts this notion of “absolute freedom”, by ascribing divine backing to human decisions (Exod. 34:24, Is. 44:28, Dan. 1:9, John 19:24, Acts 13:48, 16:14), even when humans make sinful choices, God is not surprised (Gen. 45:5-8, Ps. 105:24, Luke 22:22, Acts 2:23-24, 3:18, 4:27-28, Rom. 9:17). But, this does not eliminate human responsibility.
Also, Scripture also contradicts “absolute freedom” by teaching that human decisions come from ones inner desires (Luke 6:45), and by teaching that the human heart is not free from God’s influence (Ps. 33:15, Prov. 21:1).
Finally, In Scripture, the basis of human responsibility is not absolute freedom, but God’s sovereign right to evaluate the conduct of his creatures (Rom. 9:19-21), and the knowledge (Luke 12:47-48, Rom. 1:18-32) and resources (Matt. 25:14-29) God has given to each person shows that in Scripture there is an important relation between responsibility and ability, but the abilities in view here do not include the absolute ability to choose opposite courses of action.
I agree with Martin Luther here; “I wish the word “free will” had never been invented. It is not in the Scriptures, and it were better to call it “self-will” [In my opinion, human volition, or human responsibility, anything other than free will].
“Freedom”- Towards Clarity
I think Don Carson makes some important points to affirm when talking about human freedom.
First, “human freedom cannot involve absolute power to the contrary; that is, it cannot include such liberal power that God himself becomes contingent.” To affirm absolute freedom one must also agree that God is always reacting to the actions of humans in order to fulfill his purposes. Even more so, it means that God cannot know in advance what free choices human beings would make. This is heretical.
Secondly, human freedom must be discussed in relation to the fall of mankind. Our wills are not truly free because they are enslaved by sin (John 8:34). Therefore, true freedom is only found in perfect obedience to God. Perfect obedience is not possible by sinful humanity, yet was accomplished by Christ. This is why we believe true freedom is found in Christ, and in Christ alone. Anthony Hoekema put it like this;
“Man’s true freedom, which he lost in the Fall, is restored in the process of redemption. [I take this to mean that total freedom, to be obedient to God, will ultimately be restored in the resurrection body] When the Holy Spirit regenerates a person, renews the image of God in him or her, and begins in him or her the work of sanctification, that person is enabled to turn to God in repentance and faith, and to do what is truly pleasing in God’s sight…Redemption therefore means deliverance from the bondage of the will; the regenerated person is no longer a slave to sin.”
For more, here is an excellent post on “Free Will” by John Piper.
Here are a few good resources on engaging the “new atheist” movement that I have bookmarked over the last year or so;
1. Tim Keller– “New Atheists: How should Christians Respond” (Video)
2. John Piper– “Making Room for Atheism” (Article), and sermon clip “Atheist Worldview” (the whole sermon is titled “In Him was Life”)
3. Albert Mohler– Lectures on New Atheism (Video)
Lecture 1: The New Atheism and the Endgame of Secularism
Lecture 2: The New Atheism and the Assault on Theism
Lecture 3: The New Atheism and the Defense of Theism
Lecture 4: The New Atheism and the Future of Christianity
These lectures were later published as a book titled, “Atheism Remix.”
4. Gary Habermas- The Plight of the New Atheism: A Critique (Journal Article)
5. William Lane Craig- God is Not Dead Yet (Magazine Article)
Speak the truth in love…
I am currently finishing a book called “Jesus, Made in America.” In this book Stephen J. Nichols traces Jesus in American culture. He shows how Jesus has been shaped by our cultural sensibilities throughout American history. It is a fascinating read.
I am not going to regurgitate the book for you, but I do want to expound on one key point. Nichols points out that the evangelical church champions personal pietism. What is pietism?
Simply put, this strand of pietism places all emphasis on personal experience, champions devotion, focuses on practice- and often times ignores doctrine.
When doctrine is ignored pietism is extremely dangerous. Actually, in my opinion pietism by itself- is anti-gospel.
Nichols writes;
“Pietism leads us to say that imitating Christ is far better than having a right set of beliefs about who Christ is. Pietism leads to viewing Christ primarily from the lens of personal experience rather than the lenses of Gospel pericopies or of theological formulations.”
This is almost humorous. I don’t know how someone can even imitate Christ unless they have a right set of beliefs of who He actually is? Plus, the main aim of the Christian life is not to imitate Christ, but to trust in Christ. My fear is that too many Christians trust in themselves, and even attempt to justify themselves by their “imitation of Christ.”
The gospel is at stake.
The sad thing is that many contemporary Evangelical Christians lean more on their devotion to Christ, rather than Christ Himself. Catch the subtle nuance here- it’s huge.
Leaning on your “devotion to Christ” tells you that your Christian identity and self-worth are based on how hard you work, or how moral you are. This is not the Gospel. This is when personal pietism becomes a deadly idol.
Here is a good post to help you think through this issue in your own life. “The Gospel vs. Religion”– (via Nathan Finn)
Laura and I have decided to begin the adoption process- hoping to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. If you would like, you can follow our journey here. We are very excited!
I truly believe that God has worked in our hearts and lives, individually and together, in showing us the joy and priority of adoption.
For me, the journey began in college. I will never forget when I visited an orphanage in Guatemala City, Guatemala almost 6 years ago. In this specific orphanage there were hundreds of children who had been abandoned by their parents for various reasons.
At one point during the day we were taken into a room lined with cribs, a small room where the workers attempted to care for 20-30 infants. This was a powerful moment that has been seared into my mind. I will never forget it.
I walked through the room with tears streaming down my face- wondering “who will care for these children?” “Who will hold them and let them know that they are loved?” “Who will nurture these children as they grow older?” I can see, and feel it, like it was yesterday. What I did not understand at the time was how God would use this moment later.
Looking back at that experience as a college student in the Guatemalan orphanage, I remembered that I was not only weeping over the abandoned children, but over the fact that there was very little I could do.
The words of Jesus are so powerful here- I wish I could have whispered them to each one of those precious children;
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:18)
The raw emotion that adoption stirs in my heart has only grown as I have studied the theology of adoption. Adoption one of the metaphors Paul uses in the New Testament to express the multifaceted grace of God shown to us in salvation. (See here)
The very word translated adoption in your New Testament is a compound of two words, “son” and “placing.” Adoption in the New Testament is a term that denotes the legal act of transfer into a new family- “the placing of a son.”
With this transfer come all of the attending privileges and responsibilities of being part of the family. Adoption is a powerful image because the adoptee is taken out of his previous state and placed in a new relationship…thus, the adoptee starts a new life as part of his new family. The new family embraces their adopted son or daughter as their own. (Great resource here)
For the Christian- images of salvation should be so blatant and obvious here because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Christians are adopted into the family of God- it is through, and only through Jesus Christ. There is no ‘natural tie’ between sinners and a Holy God. Our spiritual adoption is a decision of God. God adopts us, orphans, out of His free love. We are given the rights of sons and daughters- as heirs!
For me, this truth has illuminated the biblical mandate and given me a solid foundation to accompany the emotion I felt six years ago in the Guatemalan orphanage.
I am in total agreement with Russell Moore when he writes;
“The Gospel of Jesus Christ means our families and churches ought to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans…as we become more attuned to the gospel, we’ll have more of a burden for orphans.” (Adopted for Life, 18)
Pray for us as we begin our adoption journey. Ultimately, pray that we trust in Christ- because he is the one who blazed this trail.
People are constantly stressing over “God’s will for their lives.” I hear it all the time. It’s the false idea that “we need some clear miraculous sign before we make any decision.” I read a great book last night that deals with this faulty mindset…
The book is Kevin DeYoung’s – “Just Do Something.” I love the subtitle, which is “How to make a decision without dreams, visions, fleeces, impressions, open doors, random Bible verses, casting lots, liver shivers, writing in the sky, etc.”
I also love the purpose of the book. He writes, “I’d like us to consider that maybe we have difficulty discovering God’s wonderful plans for our lives because, it truth be told, He doesn’t really intend to tell us what it is. And maybe we’re wrong to expect Him to.”
DeYoung is simply attacking this idea that “God’s will” is some mystical majestic purpose that God has for you, and if you don’t find it your life will be a failure. While must of us don’t use these exact words- we prove his point in our lives. The point is simple, “stop thinking about God’s will like a corn maze, a tightrope, or a bulls-eye.”
He writes, “God is not a magic 8-ball that we shake up and peer into whenever we have a decision to make. He is a good God who gives us brains, shows us the way of obedience, and invites us to take risks for Him. We know God has a plan for our lives…The problem is we think He’s going to tell us the wonderful plan before it unfolds.”
This book is written clearly with biblical grounding, sharp analysis, and wit. Without revealing the whole of the book I will simply say that DeYoung effectively shows us that God’s will is simple- that we would be sanctified. More than that, when it comes to hard decisions we should use biblically informed, spirit filled wisdom rather than waiting for “a sign.”
Too many people worry so much about finding God’s perfect will for their lives that they end up in a frustrated state of paralyzed indecision. But DeYoung provides a good biblical grid to rethink what we actually mean when we talk about God’s will.
I highly recommend this book. – “JUST DO SOMETHING.”
Also- See this post.
Also- See this lesson written by Derek Radney.
A curmudgeon is a “crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man.” In my opinion this is a funny word to use in reference to critically thinking about worship music in the church today. Funny because,
1. That’s the way we view most complaints against the particulars of church life in the first place- as coming from the church curmudgeon.
2. What makes this title even funnier, in my opinion, is that Dr. Nelson knows that he will be charged as a curmudgeon for being honest. So, I guess I get the irony here…
Either way, I think these are good thoughts on trajectory of most worship music used in American churches today.
David P. Nelson is senior vice president for academic administration and dean of the faculty at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he teaches courses in systematic theology and worship. Dr. Nelson has contributed to a book on this topic titled Authentic Worship, his chapter is on “the use of music in worship.” I am not sure how many more entries he will post?
A Curmudgeon Weighs in On Evangelical Worship
A Curmudgeon Weighs in On Evangelical Worship, Part 2
A Curmudgeon Weighs in on Evangelical Worship, Part 3
The Return of the Curmudgeon: Disney-World Worship (Part 2): Musical Disproportionality
The other night I was reading David Wells’ plenary address to the 2007 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The address was titled “Christian Discipleship in a Postmodern World.”
Part of Wells argument pointed out that we live in a culture obsessed with ‘display’ where we can “create our own lifestyle and image.” He showed examples from our culture of our obsession with “projecting our own individuality and style” and how it dominates our way of thinking.
The point, we are captivated with ourselves. So much so that ‘we’ have become the center of our own reality, and we insist on asserting our own autonomy.
Some of you are thinking…”thank you captain obvious.” (I admit, this post is a little ironic considering that I am writing on “my blog”)
Here is where all this social analysis becomes important. Our faith is not formed in a vacuum. Many people in our culture think that the chief end of Christianity is to “make us feel better, help us make better choices, and resolve troubles.” For many Americans the gospel of Jesus Christ is about ‘themselves.’
And this becomes the message that many preachers ‘sell’ their people every week. It’s what many of the books on the shelves at the Christian book store push. It’s why we offer so many classes at our churches that have very little to do with developing true gospel maturity- seriously, think about it.
We need to realize that the point of the Gospel is not to make us “feel good” about ourselves- in and of ourselves we have no reason to feel good about who we are. The point is that we all are radically depraved sinners and Christ is our only hope! The point of the Gospel is for us to joy in who Jesus Christ is, and what He alone can offer us!
The purpose of the Gospel is not the “help us make better choices”– but to show us that we cannot be saved by our own moral goodness (making all the ‘right choices’). The goal of the church is not to develop self willed morality in our people, but a gospel centered heart that understands and exposes sinful nature- and turns to Christ as our only hope! This kind of heart results in obedient lives.
The Gospel does not simply “resolve our troubles” but shows us that we have so many troubles that we need to be saved, we must trust in something else other than ourselves, namely Jesus Christ.
But, here is where Wells nails it-
In a culture obsessed with display, where I can project any image of “myself” I desire, or ‘be who I want you to think I am’, it becomes very easy to ignore who we really are. Or, to put it another way, it becomes very easy to project to our Christian friends ‘that which we are not.’
This is where thinking deeply about God’s word comes into play.
The Word of God is what “summons us to come outside of ourselves to know the God who transcends all cultures and times.” It is by this Word- that God “intrudes upon us, and invades our private space.”
Wells’ makes the argument that “we are captivated with ourselves” even stronger by pointing out that “it is entirely possible to affirm the inspiration of Scripture and yet miss its whole point…Scripture is not a manual for success, nor yet a textbook for therapeutic help, but the Word of God.”
This means that we- as Christians- need to be honest about who we are in and of ourselves, who God is, and who we are in Christ.
God and only God can break this captivity to ourselves and to our own autonomous subjectivity. What I fear is that the gospel message (for many people) promotes nothing more than “Christianized Therapeutic Deism” rather than a God exalting- humble realization of our own sin and a deep confidence in Jesus Christ.
May God’s Spirit do a deep work in the American church.
Other than the fact that parables were “the established teaching method” of his day, Jesus used parables for other reasons. Jesus was dealing with concrete realities, not abstract ideas, and illustrated these realities in ways that were easy for the people to grasp.
Concerning his audience, there was one basic difference between the Greek listener and the Jew, the Greek could argue for arguments sake all day, while the Jew was interested in reaching conclusions, and even more, these conclusions had to be taught in such a way that they led to action.
The question in the listeners mind was, ‘what must I do?’ Yet this method extends beyond a particular race, in a particular time and place. All of us tend to think in pictures on some level or another (most people have difficulty grasping abstract ideas). Jesus gave us these cameo-like pictures in the form of parable to make these ideas comprehensible. A parable has been defined as ‘an earthly story with a heavenly meaning’. Jesus used earthly things to lead men’s minds to heavenly things.
Barclay again, ‘Jesus parables were designed to make one stabbing truth flash out at a man the moment he heard it’. These metaphor’s and simile’s are often drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness and strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.
Thoughts on interpreting the Parables First, to understand any parable properly we must have some sense of knowledge on the circumstances in which it was spoken. For the most part we have sufficient knowledge of the background; the parable must always be interpreted in light of its background. But, in balance, we must not let our assumptions on this background reconstruction dominate our interpretation unless the background is specifically in the text.
Second, the parable was spoken by Jesus to illustrate one aspect of truth, and to stress that one message (aspect of truth) which the need of the moment required. It would be quite impossible to find the whole of the Christian faith embodied in any one parable, yet with all the parables together, we can gain unmatched insight into the mind of the master teacher.
James Montgomery Boice once wrote, “this is what the parables do, perhaps more than any comparable portion of scripture. Other sections of the Bible give us a grand theology. Some move us to a grateful response to God. But the parables break through mere words and make us ask whether there has indeed been any real difference in our lives.”
Today Justin Taylor wrote about a book titled The Love of Wisdom: A Christian Introduction to Philosophy, by Steve Cowan and James Spiegel. He added a link to a journal article written by Spiegel titled “”Aesthetics and Worship.” This article is well worth the read.
The relationship between aesthetics and theology is something that I love to think about. Collide magazine recently published an article I wrote on the subject titled “Theosthetics: Thoughts at the Intersection of Aesthetics and Worship.” This article is my first attempt and developing my thoughts on the subject.
The subject of aesthetics is something we, as Christians, need to give much thought. We are pretty good at articulating our theology in relation to truth and goodness, but what about beauty?
I agree with Spiegel’s conclusion;
“The Christian church, once the leader of the arts, is now scarcely taken seriously in artistic communities. Worse yet, the formal worship of Christians is compromised by mediocrity in this area. Our problem, however, is not for lack of inspiration, as the scriptures are brimming with aesthetic instructions, from the Genesis creation account to the hymns of Revelation, not to mention the nature of the Biblical writings themselves. We must recapture a truly Christian vision for the arts, and strive mightily to be aesthetically virtuous. The duties of the church pertain not only to goodness but to beauty as well.”
I am glad that Justin Taylor pointed this out. If anyone else has found a good resource on the relationship between theology and aesthetics please let me know!
Matt Capps 