The Adjustment Bureau

Many people view God’s will as a thing that must be enforced. This God is like the knob-twiddler we spoke of in the posting, Mission: Impossible. He is always adjusting something to get things back on track, a kind of an hyperbolic will in a Euclidean universe – everything diverges and must be constantly re-parallelized.

Perhaps some of the problem, among English speakers, is found in predestine and predestination. To predestine is thought of as creating a destiny, but predestination, perhaps because destination is found in the word, is not thought of as the doctrine of that which is predestined, but rather an enforced completion. Predestination is regarded as being assured of reaching a particular destination, not, as is more accurate, of being offered a specific destiny.

However, it isn’t much fun to pick on predestinators. They tend to be pretty laissez-faire about the whole thing, perhaps because they feel there’s not much their involvement is going to change anyway. So, like Ms. Palin, let’s set our sights on the free willers.

The commonly held doctrine of Adam and original sin has inevitably led to the belief in an individual free will. It is necessary for you to choose, out of your own self, to serve or not serve God. We can define free will as:

A will that is not bound to any outside directive.

But scripturally, we read:

No man comes unless the Father draws him.

The bible says that people cannot call if they have not believed, and they cannot believe if they have not heard, and they cannot hear without a preacher. So let me ask this question. If you are called to preach, and you do not go, will the people who would have been saved through your preaching now go to hell? Interestingly, whether you answer yes or no, you will find that both contradict the idea of a free will.

Subsequently, free will has been watered down to mean the ability to choose; however, this also presents a problem. Given the former scripture, everyone must then be predestined to hear. Subsequently, free will becomes merely a rider clause in the predestination contract.

If you chart the course of multiple free wills, you will find that they are billiard balls, and the eventual collision will cause redirection, refuting either definition.

You can do an end run around all of these arguments, but I present one stumper. A person’s will is perhaps the most powerful of all their characteristics. Your will is what shapes your life, what molds your existence. We are told that we are made free in Christ. But a free will doctrine tells us that our will, that most powerful of all our characteristics, is free outside of Christ. How can this be possible?

Let me present you with a different doctrine. Your will is bound, enslaved, for there is only one free will:

It was of God’s free will that we were given birth as his children.

That one free will assures they will be no contradictions of that will. When you become a child of God, you then share in that free will. And, if and as you exercise that will, you learn to share in the power to predestine.

So, were you predestined to view this blog entry, or did you make a free will choice to link here?