I really think that at the heart
of the historic debate between Calvinism and Arminianism is
the difference in understanding of the concept of free will. I mean, when I talk to my Arminian
friends, they hear Calvinist talking about people who aren't
really people, they're robots or they're sticks and they're
stones, they don't have a will, you know, they are just manipulated
by divine sovereignty, and therefore they wouldn't be responsible
for their sin and all the rest. And in a very real sense, Arminianism
is trying to rescue God from being an uncaring, dispassionate manipulator
that reduces human beings to robots. And I think, again, it
comes down to our understanding of free will. Now, every person
who's ever been a Calvinist that I know of in history has affirmed
without reservation that we are moral agents, we are volitional
creatures, that God has made each one of us with a mind, with
a heart, with affections, and with a will. that we have the
will, which is a faculty of choosing. And in the fall, as desperate
as the fall is, and as corrupt as we become, we don't stop willing. We sin because we want to sin. And that's why we're exposed
to the punishment of God, because we are willful in our sin, and
we are willful in our rejection of God. Now, where historic Reformed
theology comes in following after Augustine in antiquity is here. That even though the will is
free from external coercion, from being forced to do something
it doesn't want to do by outside agencies, or by somebody coming
and sticking a gun to our head. Now, what we say is that the
will, though it is free to do what it wants, is in bondage
at the same time. That the Bible tells us that
our wills, which are free to do what they want, are in chains. They are enslaved to sinful passions,
sinful desires, sinful dispositions. And until God the Holy Spirit
changes the disposition of our hearts and liberates us from
that prison of bondage to evil impulses, such as Paul speaks
of in Ephesians 2, where we by nature walk according to this
world, walk according to the prince of the power of the air,
and by nature fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We're doing that
willingly and joyfully, but we have to be redeemed from that
prison house of sinful passions, and that cannot be done by the
flesh. Only God has the power to change
my heart and to change your heart. And that's what we mean when
we say that to have a free will is to have a liberated will from
that bondage to sin. Now, I say this, you know, with
a smile on my face to my closest Arminian friends, I say, dear
brother, I honestly believe that you're operating with a view
of the human will that is not biblical. I think you're operating
with a view of the human will that in the final analysis is
humanistic or pagan. You don't mean that. But from
the day you could hear words and they could understand language
in this country, you have been bombarded from the television,
from all the media about a view of human freedom. that rejects
the idea that the human will is in bondage to sin. I've heard
the definition even from Christian preachers and teachers saying
that unless the will is indifferent, that is, has no leaning to the
left or to the right, no inclination to evil or inclination to righteousness,
unless it has no bias to either side, it's not truly free. And
then Calvinism teaches that your desires are only wicked continuously
in your fallen condition. They would say, well, then your
will isn't free. I say, well, it's free from coercion. But what it's not free
from is you. Because when I choose something,
I choose what I want. And if what I want is corrupt,
then my choice will be corrupt. That's why I have to be changed
inside of me for my will to choose the things of God. Thank you.