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This presentation is the first part in a series that examines how God's sovereignty can be reconciled with human free will. It looks at the history of the debate and the main areas of discussion.
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Sovereignty
Free Will &
Salvation
Is everyone going to be saved?
The History of Unitarian Universalism
In the sixteenth century, Laelius Socinus and his nephew Faustus revived the fourth
century heresy of Arianism and taught that the Trinity was a false doctrine and that Christ was not God. In that sense, they were “Unitarian” in their teaching.
But they went further and said that some of God‟s attributes were optional and not
necessary. They claimed that God‟s justice is optional, but is mercy is
mandatory. Therefore, if justice is optional and mercy mandatory, then according to Socinianism, all people will be saved by
God. In this respect, they were “universalists”.
www.confidentchristians.org
Answer: No, there will be few saved, many lost
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is
small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. ” (Matthew 7:13–14)
“Many will say to Me on that day, „Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many
miracles?‟ “And then I will declare to them, „I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.‟ ” (Matthew 7:22–23)
www.confidentchristians.org
Answer: No, there will be few saved, many lost
“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which
were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were
judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone‟s
name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. ” (Revelation 20:11–15)
Who decided that the plan of salvation included the fact that few would be saved
and many lost?
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Answer: God Decided the plan
“For indeed, the Son of Man is going as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom He is
betrayed!” ” (Luke 22:22)
“this Man [Jesus], delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you
nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. ” (Acts 2:23)
“But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. ” (Acts 3:18)
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You
anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do
whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. ” (Acts 4:27–28)
Who ultimately determines who is going to be saved?
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Is it Ultimately God or Us?
“But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has
chosen you from the beginning for salvation
through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. ”
(2 Thessalonians 2:13)
“They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you
and your household.” ” (Acts 16:31)
If it‟s God, then He determined who He would save.
If it‟s us, then God determined that it would be us, using our free will choice.
Either way, God is in sovereign control over our salvation.www.confidentchristians.org
Let‟s look at a brief history of the sovereignty, free will, and salvation
debate.www.confidentchristians.org
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“Grant what thou commandest, and
command what thou dost desire.” - Augustine
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Pelagius vs. Augustine
Pelagius (c.354-after 418) was a British monk who emerged as a spiritual leader of both clergy and laity in Rome around A.D.
380. He bristled greatly at Augustine‟s statement and
took issue with his views on the inherited sinfulness of man from
Adam and the moral inability that Augustine believed
Scripture taught.
www.confidentchristians.org
Pelagius vs. Augustine
Pelagius‟ teachings can be summarized in three basic positions:
1. There is no connection between Adam‟s sin and the state all people are born into. People are born innocent without sin
2. People have the free will to choose good or evil
3. There is a grace of God active in the world, but it is only an „illuminating grace‟ that influences people, but it can be resisted
www.confidentchristians.org
Pelagius vs. Augustine
Augustine opposed Pelagius and argued that Scripture clearly teaches
every human is born in sin and their conscience is marred so that they, by nature rebel against God. In short,
Augustine‟s position was that people do not save themselves, because they
cannot, nor are they saved against their will, because they will not. God needs to
make their will compliant: “Neither the grace of God alone, nor he alone, but
the grace of God with him…”
At the council of Carthage in A.D. 412, Augustine won and had Pelagius‟
views officially condemned.
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Thomas Aquinas Follows Augustine
Thomas Aquinas followed Augustine where the free will of
humanity is concerned and stated that all people are absolute debtors to God and cannot merit salvation
on their own or by their choice.
“It is impossible that any creature should cause grace.”
“Hence, however much a man prepares himself, he does not
necessarily receive grace from God.”
On All Saints Day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg Germany in hopes of stirring an
academic discussion with church leaders. Most historians will say that the core issue was Luther‟s position of salvation by faith alone. But also at
issue was something more.
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SoliSolus
SolaSolaSola
To the Glory of God Alone
Christ Alone
Scripture Alone
Faith Alone
Grace Alone
The Five „Solas‟ of the
Reformation
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"It is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that storm center
of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin
Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express
and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by
free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christs' sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the
death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith."
-Michael HaykinProfessor of Church History
www.confidentchristians.org
Martin Luther called his book “The Bondage of
the Will” his most important work. In it he
argues that humanity is in bondage to sin, freely
choosing to sin by their own will, yet still a slave to sin and unable to choose
God on their own.
Martin Luther on Free Will
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“I praise and command you highly for this also, that unlike all the rest
you alone have attacked the real issue, the
essence of the matter in dispute.”
Martin Luther to ErasmusResponse to Diatribe of the
Freedom of the Will
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“Free will without God‟s grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner
and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself
to good.”- Martin Luther
Martin Luther on Free Will
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Like Luther, the Genevan Reformer embraced the notion of original sin in humanity and the inability of a sinful person
to freely choose God.
“When the will is enchanted as the slave of sin, it cannot make a movement towards goodness,
far less steadily pursue it.”
John Calvin on Free Will
www.confidentchristians.org
Calvin (with Luther) affirmed humanity does have free will in that people can and do act voluntarily,
without compulsion. Men and women make choices every day that are
carried through freely via their will. But concerning the things of God,
Calvin says humanity is “blinder than moles.”
How they can a person freely choose God according to Calvin?
John Calvin on Free Will
www.confidentchristians.org
“God, therefore, begins the good work in us by exciting in our hearts a desire, a
love, and a study of righteousness, or (to speak more correctly) by turning, training, and guiding our hearts unto
righteousness. . . . I say the will is abolished, but not in so far as it is [a]
will, for in conversion everything essential to our original nature remains”
I also say, that it is created anew, not because the will then begins to exist, but because it is turned from evil to
good.”- John Calvin
John Calvin on Free Will
www.confidentchristians.org
“Historically, it is a simple matter of fact that Martin Luther and
John Calvin . . . and all the leading Protestant theologians
of the first epoch of the Reformation, stood on precisely the same ground here. On other points they had their differences; but in asserting the helplessness
of man and the sovereignty of God in grace, the were entirely
at one." - J. I. Packer
At the Council of Trent (1545-1563) , the Catholic Church met to consider the Reformation, with the
goal being to defend their beliefs and distance themselves from the
reformers.
The Council affirmed the doctrine of original Adamic sin; humanity is born into the world separated from
God. Thus, infants born need cleansing from Adam‟s sin and so need to be baptized to wash away
Adam‟s disobedience.
The Catholic Church Responds
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Baptism, said the Council, removes the guilt of Adam from every child and
leaves them in a state of innocence with a free will that may or may not choose to
sin. The position is clear: “If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is
remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away . . . Let
him be anathema.”
In essence, they are returned to a state enunciated by Pelagius.
The Catholic Church Responds
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The Catholic Church & Molinism
To counter the intellectual and Biblical arguments of the reformers regarding
God‟s sovereignty and humanity‟s free will, the Catholic Church responded
with the Jesuit Luis de Molina.
According to Molina, God has three kinds of knowledge:
1. Natural – Knowledge of everything that could be
2. Free - Knowledge of everything that will be
3. Middle - Knowledge of everything that would be
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The Catholic Church & Molinism
It is Middle Knowledge – scientiamedia – that distinguishes Molinism. This concept says God does not know future free acts of individuals
like He does other things; He knows them contingently. He has intuited what each, according to their innate
liberty, would do if placed in a certain situation. God, in essence, waits to
see what a free creature does before He selects those who will be saved.
But since God is eternal, the sequence is only logical and not
chronological.
Jacob Arminius (1560-1609), one of the reformers, moved away from
Calvin‟s and Luther‟s teachings where sovereignty and free will are concerned. Arminius said the relationship between
God and humanity is one of cooperative assistance. The Holy
Spirit is not overcoming a hostile will to make it compliant so much as it is
assisting and increasing a person‟s natural faculties to respond to God.
The Holy Spirit only succeeds so far as a person concurs. People can
prevent the grace of God by resisting it.
The Rise of Arminius
www.confidentchristians.org
The Synod of Dort was held in 1618-1619 to debate the teachings of Arminius and the reformers. There were key issues
at the center of the debate:
• A person‟s ability to choose God• God‟s election based on foreknowledge
or His divine choice• Whether Christ died for all• Whether a person can resist grace• If a person could lose their salvation
The end result was that Arminianism was rejected and reformed teachings was
upheld.
Arminianism vs. Reformed Teachings
www.confidentchristians.org
T – Total Depravity
U – Unconditional Election
L – Limited Atonement
I – Irresistible Grace
P – Perseverance of the Saints
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Pelagianism Arminianism(Semi-Pelagianism)
Calvinism(Reformed Theology)
State at birth Innocent Totally depraved(conscience corrupted)
Totally depraved(conscience effaced)
Ability Can obey God Cooperate with God Cannot cooperate with God
Guilt None Potential Judicial/actual
“In Adam” Not at all Potentially Legally/naturally
Inherited from Adam
Bad example Propensity to sin;necessity to die
Necessity to sin; necessity to die
What is imputed One‟s own sin One‟s own sin One‟s own sin and Adam‟s sin
Spiritual image of God
Retained Effaced Effaced
Effect of grace None Sufficient for all Efficient on those God chooses
Overview of the Positions on Sin/Free Will
www.confidentchristians.org
John Wesley – a Calvin/Arminian Mix
John Wesley (1703-1791) adopted a position that was a middle ground between Reformed and Arminian
teaching. He affirmed humanity was totally depraved and could not
cooperate with God. However, he said that because of Christ‟s work on the
cross, God‟s grace comes upon all people – a grace termed preventing or „prevenient‟ grace – and that people at
that point are capable of freely cooperating with God where their
salvation is concerned.
“Without it (prevenient grace), the Calvinist logic is irrefutable.”
– Robert E. Chiles
Calvinism Arminianism Wesleyanism
Total Depravity Unable to respond to God without grace
Able to respond to God with help from God
Unable to respond to God without Prevenient grace
UnconditionalElection
Elected to Salvation by God alone
God‟s call goes out to all; humanityfreely believes and is saved
God‟s call goes out to all and must be freely accepted by a person via a restored will
LimitedAtonement
Christ died only for the Elect
Christ died for everyone
Christ died for everyone
IrresistibleGrace
God‟s call effectual; it cannot fail; a person will freely come to God when called
Can resist God‟s call
Can resist God‟s call
Perseverance of the Saints
Cannot lose salvation
Can lose salvation Can lose salvation
Positions on Sovereignty and Free Will
www.confidentchristians.org
Open Theism – A Heresy to Avoid
Open Theism is a theological position dealing with human free will and God‟s sovereignty. It is the teaching that God has granted to humanity free will and that in order for the free will to
be truly free, the future free will choices of individuals cannot be known ahead of time by God. In Open Theism, the future is either knowable or not knowable. Some open theists say God knows the future, but voluntarily limits His knowledge of free will choices so that
they can remain truly free. Other open theists maintain that the future, being non existent, is not knowable, even by God. Gregory Boyd, an advocate of Open Theism says, "Much of
it [the future], open theists will concede, is settled ahead of time, either by God's predestining will or by existing earthly causes, but it is not exhaustively settled ahead of time.
To whatever degree the future is yet open to be decided by free agents, it is unsettled."
Concluding Thoughts and Questions…
It‟s not fair…!
Sovereignty is just fatalism…!
Why evangelize…?
Does God choose some people for hell…?
Am I truly free…?
Can I lose my salvation…?
Can God fail…?
Sovereignty
Free Will &
Salvation