The somewhat longish gap in time since my last post was not intentional. In fact, I've had a draft just sitting in Blogger for nearly two weeks now. After writing it, however, I decided not to post it immediately. Something didn't seem quite right. Since then it has seemed to me more and more uncharitable. Besides, it was on the free-will controversy which can't really be treated in 3 or 4 hundred words! Interestingly enough though, Calvinism has come up a lot during the time I've been considering what to do with what I wrote. Anyway, what first got me going was reading (as the title of this post suggests)
Mere Christianity. It shouldn't do any harm to quote the passage that was meant to be at the heart of the post that was meant to be in place of this one that was meant to be posted days ago, in which I meant to rebut the Calvinist argument against freewill, but, alas, it was not meant to be. I hope you have the means to see what I mean.
I leave you with C.S.Lewis on freewill:
Free will is what has made evil possible... though it makes evil possible it is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight... And for that they must be free (48).
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. HarperSanFrancisco, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001
1 comment:
I agree that free will is integral to love and that the human race began in possession of it. And we are still free to do what we will. The problem is that with the Fall our will was twisted from loving God to fearing and hating him. As Paul puts it, "the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7-8).
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