There are two wills in the universe: the creatures’ and the Creator’s. The Creator’s trumps the creatures’. God’s will is FREE, the creatures’ is not.
It is odd that Christianity often speaks of the so-called free will of man, while the Scriptures, however, speak constantly of the will of God, a God Who,
Works all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11).
You and I are not the masters of our own fate. We are not the lords of our own lives. We are the creatures, not the Creator. We are like a leaf in a stream, unaware of the current beneath, or its destination.
I was raised in the “free will” doctrine and taught it myself diligently for many years as a pastor. We all do have a will: the “problem” is that it isn’t free.
“Free will” is simply a myth.
We did not choose our race, our nationality, our sex, our eye or hair color, our birth date, or even who our parents were. No “free will” there at all, and that is just for “starters.”
“Free-will” is “influenced” by our culture, our society, our peers, our sex, our upbringing, our parents, by our spouses, etc. “Free will” is simply an illusion. Everything about us is a composite of influences around us, in circumstances over which we have no control or choice whatsoever. We did not even choose to be here.
The phrase “Free moral agency” is not a scriptural one, any more than the “immortal soul” is scriptural. Free moral agency is simply a theological expression,
man manufactured for his own convenience, and it may be that it does not express the truth. Let us by all means fit our theology to the Bible, and not try, as many do, to conform the Bible to our theology.
Now, then, to the question. Is man a free moral agent? I answer most emphatically, no. Is he a machine then? Again I say no. What, then, is the truth? An agent is an actor, one who is able to act; a free agent is one who can act as he pleases without any restraint; a free moral agent is one who is free to act as he pleases on all moral questions, i.e., all questions involving the qualities of right and wrong…
