Intro
I was in men's group the other day, and one of the things that came up almost inevitably is a debate between God's sovereignty and predestination, and then an idea of free will. I have been a part of these conversations for years - I've been in hundreds of them certainly, and they all go in a very similar direction. Almost irrespective of the theological prowess or training of the group of people I'm in the unspoken goal always is the same... to find a hard and fast line between the 2 things or to find some comfortable verbiage for the tension
My Anecdotal Experience With Other Believers
People with no real theological background have very simple ideas and understandings of free will and God's sovereignty. They typically equate God's sovereignty with "He willed everything to be, and so you don't actually have any real choices." Then they think that because God has ultimate sovereignty, but they have free will, they can somehow contradict God's will, but then they don't understand that that is a violation of the doctrine of God's sovereignty. So those conversations are typically hard to sit through, and my historical thought on that, ever since I believe I've come to a pretty mature position on the matter, has been that in the Hebrew mind, these things aren't at odds, and we create the division with our Western ideals on what it means to make choices, and what it means to be free.
Freedom
As a quick parenthetical remark on that - freedom is not doing whatever you want. True freedom is living in accordance with your creation, bound by the things that create order, because it is within those boundaries that you were designed to live - and thus the life you live within the boundaries is the best the life could be... Freedom isn't the ultimate goal, it's a byproduct of living in accordance with our design. When you break those boundaries though - then life is scary, and you are not free but rather a slave to the environment you made for yourself - an environment not designed for you because you designed it for yourself, it isn't what the Maker made for you
Freedom - Child's Play
An easy example is kids on a playground. If you give a bunch of little kids a playground with nice high fences, and you tell them to do whatever they want in the playground, they'll have a great time. But if you take all the fences away from that playground, maybe even move it out further away from the school, kids tend to feel a lot less safe. Because now, not only can they just wander as far away from it as they please, perhaps by accident, but dangers can now enter their playground... The fences gave them the freedom to enjoy the life appropriate for them.
Back To the Debate
Returning to the sovereignty and free will discussion... With no academic, theological, or honestly even critical thinking applied, we have this very silly juxtaposition of sovereignty - as if it means you can't make choices - and free will as if God's sovereignty could be usurped by us. However, in groups where we have more theological training present, we really just have the same (directionally speaking - the same) conversation, with a larger vocabulary. Now we have words like "agency", and "scope of choice", things that kind of seek to explain away the tension by introducing new dimension or element of abstraction to the argument.
At the end of the day, we're now just cutting the cake into smaller pieces. We're just filling in some of the gaps that we can see. There's still nuance. There's still the Western influence of needing to label everything. There's still, in my opinion, the ancient truth that in the Hebrew mind, Yahweh's sovereignty and the human's choice to live their life are not at odds with each other.
A New Perspective
But here's a thought I started to formulate just recently...
a recent thought
Even for a PhD in theological studies or in theology or an expert in church history or church fathers or whatever - for somebody today to think that we can define these terms in a totally correct and understandable way is another manifestation of the PEAK ARROGANCE of the West (Blog on Western v Eastern medicine in the works)
I don't mean to claim here that I have the right understanding of sovereignty and free will. But Paul has some choice words for believers who love quarreling and debates, and he calls them spiritual children who aren't ready for real food.
2 Timothy 2:23-24
23 But reject foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they breed quarrels. 24 The Lord's slave must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient,
1 Corinthians 3
1For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ.a 2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, 3because you are still worldly. For since there is envya and strifea b among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? 4For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,”a
It's you
I've often heard the Corinthian church used as an example of a bad place to be - and no doubt it was. But modern American Christianity may be much closer to Corinth than Thessolinca as far as maturity and Christ-like living goes.
He says things like "I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it" I used to think that the "real food" was these theological debates, that you learn more about the Bible, you learn more about humanity, and then you can have these more in-depth conversations. But I think the real wisdom is easly seen with a metaphor
Who's the child here?
I have two daughters in different developmental stages, and so we have 3 characters... There's my young daughter, my older daughter, and me. Right away, I think we often talk about knowing God in this kind of a term where, you know, I'm his child and I have children. So there's a parent-child relationship. And then in the God-human relationship, I understand my position better now as a parent of real children, of humans, which helps me understand my position as a child of God.
I don't think we take that very seriously.
I think use this more as comforting language rather than a humbling truth - I'm a child of God But really, I think the TLDR is that even the most highly trained theological individual - that person is not a grown-up in the eyes of God. He or she is still a child, and our understanding is still limited to what a child can understand.
Let's continue with the metaphor...
You could ask either one of my daughters if they know me, and of course they would both say yes, and they know me to different degrees. Perhaps because the older one knows more about me - does that mean that she knows me better than the younger? I think it would be silly to say yes. Both of my kids know me to the fullest capacity that they can know me. So what about love? Do they both love me? And do I love them? Of course. And do I show my love to both of them in the same ways? Of course not. Not only are they unique, but they're at different stages in life...
For example - I don't exercise the same amount of discipline towards my youngest because she's not ready for it - it's not reasonable to expect the same things of her as our older daughter. Speaking of her - she absolutely is ready for some more discipline and for some higher expectations, and so I will train her up in the ways that she is mature enough to understand. Now, does that mean I love my younger daughter less, or does it mean I love my older daughter more? No. It means I'm loving them in a way that is appropriate for where they are at developmentally, for their better good. So that they grow up to be ordered, to be competent, to be self-controlled, and to not grow up to be wild adults with no regard for boundaries and rules.
So to be specific about the metaphor and the example I just laid out: I don't want my children to ever hurt or suffer, but I also know that suffering is required for learning and for them to grow to be mature individuals. I know how to control some of the inevitable suffering a child must endure, especially if it's in the form of discipline, for my children so they are safe, protected, loved, but also corrected and molded into competent human beings.
The Kicker
Now would it be appropriate for my older daughter (who understands that suffering is required for learning) would it be appropriate for her to look at my younger daughter and tell her, "dad wants you to suffer"? That's tough, isn't it... Because she's not really lying, but more importantly she's also not telling anything close to the whole truth and she is also not talking to somebody who is capable of understanding the nuances of that truth.
In the eyes of God, I'm still a five-year-old.
And for me as a five-year-old boy in the eyes of the Lord, to try and explain things that I think I understand or that I understand to the best capability that a five-year-old can - If I go try to teach a three-year-old things about God in ways that they can't understand, I am not loving that other person and I'm not even loving God very well. I'm just stuck in my own arrogance of understanding, thinking that I now get it because I've come to my own realization.
I recognize there's a little irony now in writing this post because I'm saying I think I kind of understand that I don't/can't understand the sovereignty and free will relationship. I wouldn't say I can explain that away, but I think I understand who I am better in the eyes of the Lord and what I could reasonably expect to understand from an academic standpoint.
So What?
The lesson for me, and for my community of faith - is to calm down about the debates.... They're fun over a drink and cigars, but when boots are on the ground we need to remember that the Bible has information that we need to know, it doesn't have all the information that we want to know - and the American Church must drop its arrogant need to explain away every mystery and instead hold fast to the God of those mysteries.