God as Sweetness

I'm re-reading Augustine's Confessions. Having just finished Book 9, I again was exposed to one of my favorite parts. Augustine has struggled with the sweetness of sin, and his inability to turn to God. Now, after recounting his conversion, Augustine looks back and begins to ask these questions to God:

But where was my free will during all those years and from what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single moment, whereby I gave my neck to Your “easy yoke” and my shoulders to Your “light burden,” O Christ Jesus, “my Strength and my Redeemer”? How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetness of trifles! And it was now a joy to put away what I formerly feared to lose. For You cast them away from me, O true and highest Sweetness. You did cast them away, and in their place You entered in Yourself--sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to them that are exalted in their own eyes. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust. And I prattled like a child to You, O Lord my God--my light, my riches, and my salvation.

Augustine and Pelagius Pt. 1: Free Will and the Early Church

When explaining the Christian beliefs, eventually you will come across a wide spread belief in American culture of a benevolent passive God. If you explain that God is good and offers life in His Son, a response will come back that if God is good he will save everyone and wouldn’t be so “not nice” as to send anyone to hell. For a good example of how an informed Christian should respond, see Tim Keller’s talk at Berkley. However, I am not addressing that problem here.

But just like our need to have an answer to the modern objection of passive benevolence, so the early church had to respond to the Greco-Roman culture of their time when presented with the gospel. The early church, in proclaiming the gospel, encountered resistance to the idea that people are responsible before God for their actions. In pagan and Stoic philosophy, the idea (and eventually god) “Fortuna” ruled the universe. To the typical Greco-Roman, everything is fated. To say our sinfulness can be counted against us is to not realize that Fate had made them do bad things, thus they are not responsible.

This philosophy is called Fatalism. True Fatalism destroys human responsibility for sin. Fatalists do not look to a Savior, as they are not responsible for their sin, and thus are in no need of action on their part to find a solution. What will be will be so why worry about it?

This background is essential in understanding the writings of the early church. Much of the New Testament literature argues for Christianity in the background of a Judaic understanding of God and the world. After the New Testament, the early church literature can be seen as a development of what Paul started in Acts 17 in dialoging with the Athenians. One must enter the thought world of an alien culture in order to help them understand another culture. Thus Paul uses the language of Athenian religion and literary culture to communicate ideas to them.

If one reads the early church, one inevitably comes across the phrase “free will.” Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria all talk about it. Many times Reformed Christians can see such references as a misunderstanding of human nature, just as Arminians can see these references as supporting their Enlightenment ideas of a libertarian free will (as Norm Geisler does in just listing the references as if they are definitive because they use the buzz words “free will")

Paying attention to the context, however, we see that the sense and concept they argue for, we too must acknowledge. Clement says the will is “self-determined” but also “nothing happens apart from the will of God” and thus God “permits evil.” Irenaeus wrote that “there is no coercion with God.” Archellaus wrote “To sin is ours, and that we sin not is God’s gift.” All these statements we must acknowledge as true. That we sin is our responsibility. We cannot appeal to fate or providence as an excuse, for we “are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20).

These truths lead to other inevitable questions: Then, are we responsible for our good too? Is salvation our choice? Isn’t true freedom the ability to choose neutrally between good and evil?

These questions were answered differently by two of the church’s rising stars: Pelagius and Augustine. [Part 2, forthcoming]

I believe in Free Will

"There is always within us a free will - but it is not always good; for it is either free from righteousness when it serves sin, - and then it is evil, - or else it is free from sin when it serves righteousness, and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good; and by it, it comes to pass that a man is of good will."

-St. Augustine On Grace and Free Will.

Forgiven and Damned?

"Heaven is full of forgiven people. Hell is full of forgiven people. Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust. Ours or God's." -Rob Bell

Now, all traditions confess the strange and wonderful reality of Common Grace, as Matthew puts it, that God "makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."

Yet, statements such as "hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for" is what we are left with if we do not confess some limiting of the atonement. To say that God has forgiven people that then end up in hell, and the deciding factor on our fate and distinctiveness is us ignores Paul's harsh rebuke: "For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? " (1 Cor 4:7)

I know many will not agree with the controversial 5th point of Calvinism (Limited Atonement) but we must say that the love of Christ for the Church is different than His love for the world. His love for His Church redeems the Church. When we read in Scripture: "Husbands, love your wives," we know that love because it was modeled in Christ's for the Church as the verse finishes up "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." My wife would not be happy if I told her the love I have for her is just like my love for everyone else. Christianity does not say this. It says "we have been purchased at a price" and "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). If we are forgiven, it means we are the Church and Christ loves His Church with an active love that forgives her and cleanses her. Christ does not love her from afar and let her be damned. That is not the love of a husband for his bride. What makes the Church differ from the world is Christ, and his love and forgiveness that he obtained for the Church with Himself. He did not give Himself and His forgiveness to the world, He gave Himself for His Church. All who Christ purchased in His death are His forever, His effectual forgiving love is particular to His Church, and He loves her with a greater love than what we are proclaiming with a gospel of the glory of man's decision.

You might be a Calvinist if..

Just for fun, I've collected some lines similar to the "You might be a Redneck if" but about: "You might be a Calvinist if":

...you changed your testimony from "I have decided to follow Jesus" to "I never wanted to follow Jesus until"

...in the grocery store, you nonchalantly refer to "Lucky Charms" as "providential trinkets."

... You celebrate Reformation Day instead of Halloween.

...you can quote the Westminster Shorter or the Heidelberg at will (and know what each of those are).

...Your teacher tells you that the early reformers were the "biggest close-minded bigots in the history of religion," and you must stifle the urge to yell, "Yeah, those guys were awesome!"

...Your church would never dare take a "free will" offering

...you find yourself peppering everyday conversation with extensive references to church history only to be greeted with quizzical looks from your friends and crickets chirping in the background..

... in eleventh grade, when you read The Scarlet Letter, everyone thought you were crazy for defending the Puritans in the story

... your favorite flower is the TULIP

...you have ever answered the question "How are you doing today" with "better than I deserve."

...You don't like to be asked "When did you choose to start walking with the Lord?" but rather be asked "When did God drag from the clutches of death?"

...you get and laugh at the comic cover at the bottom...

...You can sing "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus", but only with major qualifications, so that it's more like "I have decided to follow Jesus (because the Spirit has changed and shaped my will so that I actually want to do so/because God has ordained that I do so)", and that just makes it awkward to the point that it's not worth singing.

And for my Presbyterian friends: You might be a Presbyterian if:

...Church Growth Strategy is Infant Baptism...

".. you hear more than 3 verses read in service during Lord's Day worship

... If a song repeats the same line more than 2 or 3 times you begin to tune out.

...You believe buying books should be the third sacrament.

...When anyone makes a suggestion, your first impulse is to form a committee

...You refer to the Episcopal "Church of the Incarnation" as "Church of the Incantation"

...you have ever had a fight over whether your Baptist friend can claim to be "Reformed"

...Instead of "foolish Pollock" jokes, you tell the same jokes about Methodists.

... your "elders" are like 35 ...

... you're sick of explaining "No, we're not THOSE Presbyterians,"...

...you feel awkward in ecumenical settings when people raise their hands during the singing

...when people ask you who writes the best worship music, you are more likely to reply with the names of Watts, Newton or Cowper than Redman, Tomlin or Stewart

God's Sovereign choice: Hymn for the week

"You did not choose me, but I chose you." -John 15:16.

"We love because He first loved us." -1 John 4:19

I'm a Calvinist, but no one is born that way. It is amazing how at one time the doctrines of grace can produce such anger and then, your heart is warmed to the truth that you did nothing to deserve or merit God's favor. Soli Deo Gloria. If the hymn angers you, most of it is merely Scripture put to rhyme. This blatantly Calvinist hymn was written by Josiah Conder, a Reformed Congregationalist.

My Lord, I did not choose You,
For that could never be;
My heart would still refuse You,
Had You not chosen me.

You took the sin that stained me,
You cleansed me, made me new;
Of old You have ordained me,
That I should live in You.

Unless Your grace had called me
And taught my op’ning mind,
The world would have enthralled me,
To heav’nly glories blind.

My heart knows none above You;
For Your rich grace I thirst;
I know that if I love You,
You must have loved me first.

(sheet music here)

(put to modern music by this guy)

Jonathan Edwards quote of the day.

"True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will" -Jonathan Edwards

Expanding my thoughts

In the beginning of Book 9 Where Augustine says "But where through so many years was my freedom of will?" I think he basically says conversion is being given a new will, a truly freed will. I think his bit of rhetoric in asking the question is to say "I had no free will, but received a freed will." But Augustine, I believe would shy away from saying it was "compulsed," he often says compulsion is negative, but maybe would say he is drawn: pulled, not pushed.

Piper has a quote from one of Augustine's letters where Augustine states: "Who has it in his power to have such a motive present to his mind that his will shall be influenced to believe?...If those things delight us which serve our advancement towards God, that is due not to our own whim or industry or meritorious works, but to the inspiration of God and to the grace which he bestows." So I guess then Augustine is very Edwardsian or more properly, Jonathan Edwards is very Augustinian. A will is free to pursue that which it delights most in, but not to chose what it delights most in.

So Where does Augustine fall?

[Read my posts on Augustine on Free Choice and Grace first]

Question: Can freedom resist Grace?
Augustine writes on pg 13 - "Deliver also those who do not as yet pray, that they may call upon you and you may set them free." is this Compulsion? Effectual calling? Then on pg 141 - "I had no answer to make to you when you said to me 'arise, you who are asleep, rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light." Was this delayed and resisted grace? Must we cooperate with grace?

Q: What is the Relationship of Grace and Free Choice?
138 - AUGUSTINE QUOTES LUKE 15:32 "who was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found."

I see the idea of freedom of choice introduced as a solution to the problem of evil. Grace is used in relation to Providence and Salvation. Thus there are two possible solutions to the relation of freedom of choice and grace:

1. Submission of will to Grace. Uncompulsed surrender
Grace may not necessarily move a "free will," but we are still chosen and pursued even if we do not surrender to the Pursuer. Grace may be emphasised as power here, as an outlet to plug our faculty of the will into, leaving the driving and directing of the will to us to follow or not follow God with that power. We are the riders on the back of Grace, able to direct its power. Grace fills the fuel tank of our engine of the will.

2. The parable of the Lost Sheep. Compulsed surrender.
We are sheep that wander off by our own free choice. We may rightly say it was our own free choice to wander, to sin, but our freedom to sin does not mean we have the freedom to find our way back. We have lost ourselves. But it takes someone else to "find" us. The coin was found by the widow, not by itself. The sheep is found by the shepard, it does not "find" itself. We are brought back by the Grace of the Shepard. The Shepard does not come nearer to the sheep who come nearest to Him, they are too stupid to know how. Found Sheep are found by the power and willing of the Shepard, not the sheep.

Augustine's Answer (?):
Pelagius described us as riders on the back of a horse of grace, an Uncompulsed surrender and submission to God's will. Augustine called this heresy and [I think rightly] deduced that this reduced Christianity to a morality religion. I think Augustine would shy away from saying election is "compulsed" but it certainly is orcestrated through Providence, Power, Revelation, and Faculty as to make the role of "free choice" seem more like bondage to ignorance than the true Liberty of a Christian Augustine finds with the gift of a "new will." But then again, I could be wrong.

Things in Augustine Attributable to Grace:

[Read my Augustine on Free Choice post first]

1. The Creation of the Faculty of the Will
pg 131 - "[with your grace]...so that he who sees should 'not boast as if he had not received' both what he sees and also the power to see. 'For what has he which he has not received."

2. Energy of the Faculty of the Will [Grace as Power]
pg 32 - "No one who considers his frailty would dare to attribute to his own strength his chastity and innocence, so that he has less cause to love you."
pg 69 - "I wanted to stand still and hear you and rejoice with joy at the voice of the bridegroom. But that was beyond my powers."
pg 71 - "But when our support rests on our own strength, it is infirmity."
pg 138 - "Those who receive it obtain from you 'power to become your sons.' [John 1:9,12]"
pg 147 - "But I could have willed this and then not done it if my limbs had not possessed the power to obey. So I did many actions in which the will to act was not equalled by the power."

3. Object of the Faculty of the Will [Revelation]
pg 131, again - "[with your grace]...so that he who sees should 'not boast as if he had not received' both what he sees and also the power to see. 'For what has he which he has not received."
pg 74 - "By the proud you are not found, not even if their curiosity and skill number the stars and the sand, measure the constellations, and trace the paths of the stars"

4. Providence - Events in natural world leading to knowledge of Revelation
pg 74, again - "By the proud you are not found, not even if their curiosity and skill number the stars and the sand, measure the constellations, and trace the paths of the stars"
pg 72 - "But you melt that when you wish, either in mercy or in punishment."

5. Perserverence of the Will
pg 18 - "Deliver me from all temptation to the end."
pg 83 - "For your mercy is for ever."
pg 110 - AUGUSTINE QUOTES ISAIAH 46:4 - "Run, I will carry you, and I will see you through to the end, and there I will carry you."

Augustine's use of the concepts of "Liberty" or "Freedom"

Okay, I went super dork and just outlined everything. I've actually been trying to answer these questions in my mind for a year so here are my catagories I see in Augustine:

1. Liberty to sin, Freedom of directing the Will - Free Choice

pg 16 -[God does not cause sinners to sin]- "but of sinners only the orderer."
pg 28 - "Lord, and by the law written in the hearts of men which not even iniquity itself destroys."
pg 38 -"The liberty I loved was merely that of a runaway."
pg 68 - "'why then does God err?' I used to argue that your unchangable substance is forced into mistakes rather than confess that my mutable nature deviated by its own choice and that error is its punishment."
pg 113 - "I directed my mind to understand what I was being told, namely that the free choice of the will is the reason why we do wrong and suffer just judgement."
pg 114 - "people suppose that evil is something that you suffer rather than an act by humanity."
pg 138 - "Human beings obtain normal pleasures of human life not as they come on us unexpectedly and against our will, but after discomforts which are planned and accepted by deliberate choice." [Our discomfort is chosen]

2. Liberty from sin
pg 13 - "Deliver also those who do not as yet pray, that they may call upon you and you may set them free"
pg 107 - "Like a man whose wound has been hit, I pushed aside the words of good advice like the hand loosing the bond."
pg 120 - "[I am] inferior to you, and you are my true joy if I submit to you."
pg 140 - [New will, old will free?] "The new will, which was beginning to be within me a will to serve you freely and to enjoy you..."