Back in March and April the soteriology diablog was hot and heavy, but eventually died down. (I continue to post links to any further responses the participants have.)
Recently, at the invite of a commenter on this blog, I registered over at Grace Centered Message Forums (a largely churches of Christ venue). As a result of participation in one message thread I am still involved in, I decided to actually make the case for human free will/free choice/freedom to choose. Note that the case is made from a Christian standpoint and not from a strictly a-religious philosophical one. My arguments would be much different for that sort of audience.
If you're interested in the discussion, begin here. But if you just want to read my initial posts sans responses, click on the "continue reading" link below.
First Post:
I've been critical of the responses from a few members on this board that deny humans have any free will (or freedom to choose) when it comes to cooperation with the grace of God prior to regeneration. I've decided that it's probably time for me to put up or shut up: I should advance my own arguments for free will/free choice. I can hardly do so in a single post, so what I will attempt to do is give the broad outline of the argument(s), and allow any ensuing discussion/criticism to bring out more specific details. (I should note, by the way, that I am building here on the extensive conversation that went on in March and April via my own blog; links to which discussion can be found here.) But that will have to wait for my next post, since I need to articulate some basic “ground rules” orienting the discussion.
First of all, before we can begin, we must realize that what we say about human nature is bound up with our understanding of Christ, since he was fully God and fully human. Thus, if we go wrong on our understanding of human nature, we will go wrong on our understanding of Christ's Person. Furthermore, our understanding of the Person of Christ is bound up with our understanding of the Holy Trinity. If we get wrong our understanding of Christ's Person, we will go wrong on our understanding of the Godhead, since Christ is fully God and fully human. That is to say, the essential connections between what we say of humanity, Christ and the Trinity are critical to a proper articulation of free will (or freedom to choose). This must be our common starting point. If we don't agree on this, no conversation can continue.
In light of this, we can start our discussion either with human nature, or with the nature of the Holy Trinity, or with the Person of Christ. But our conversation will always be guided by the touchstone of the Holy Trinity who is the source and cause of all existence.
Secondly, though what we say cannot contradict Scripture, our discussion will necessarily go beyond an exegesis of Scripture. This is so because not all exegesis of Scripture is correct, and all exegesis of Scripture necessarily entails presuppositions (philosophical and theological) that precede our engagement with Scripture (for example: that humans can even understand Scripture). Thus, all our arguments will not only have to be consonant with the whole of Scripture, but they will also have to conform to logical norms including truth and falsity and validity. (Some conclusions of arguments can be true, even if the argument itself is invalid, of course, but this does not negate the necessity for rational explication of an argument.) This is not to say that human reason trumps Scripture, I hasten to say. Rather it is to affirm that our God is the God who created reason and he is a God who does not contradict himself. Thus, if an argument fails logical validity, the failures of the argument must be examined. God is beyond reason, but God is not against it.
Finally, not every single point of an argument can be (nor need be) tied directly to a Scriptural referent. For example, I am going to assume that nearly everyone on this board believes in the dogma of the Holy Trinity (i. e., that God is both one God and three Persons). However, no single referent or body of referents from Scripture unambiguously proclaim this dogma. Rather, we must approach these verses with certain presuppositions (God is one, Scripture is entirely consistent and does not contradict itself, etc.) and using our presuppositions argue for the doctrine of the Trinity. That argument is, of course, fully consistent with the explicit testimony of Scripture and does not contradict any Scripture in any way. But my point is that we do not have any clear and unambiguous texts which describe God as one God who is three Persons. This is important because many of the arguments that are made for and against human free will/freedom to choose do this very thing: they use Scriptural referents to argue for their position, but those referents to not explicitly or unambiguously state what it is the person is arguing. They may support it (which is what the argument is about), but they may not explicitly state it. Thus it is illegitimate for any partner in this discussion to attempt to “trump” his opponent with “Book, chapter and verse me on that, bucko!” Either the argument is consonant with Scripture or it is not. Failure to provide a single Scriptural referent or body of referents that explicitly or unambiguously state the person's point is not necessarily a failure to substantiate that point. (It might be, but not necessarily.)
I see that already my basic ground rules have made this post quite long. So I'll end it here and engage in any dialogue that comes up, before I go on to post the outline of my argument for free will.
Second Post:
Despite my previous intent to begin my argument for free will/freedom to choose with this post, upon further reflection I decided it was fundamental to the di