Greg Koukl (STR) on Election and God's Choice Pt. 2

All right, back at you here, Greg Vogel on Stand to Reason. Just reflecting a few moments ago, 33 years, actually 34th year at broadcasting. All right, let's go to, maybe I'll remember if there's anything else.

The Difference Between God’s Moral Will and Sovereign Will

Let's go to Oregon, and Nathan, welcome to the show,. Nathan, glad you called.

Hey, Greg, thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

What's up?

So, this is in response to last week's talk. I just listened to it today, actually. It was on predestination and all that. And I was thinking, you mentioned, it was over the verses, the Romans, and I think you brought up, it was the verse in Timothy, but just kind of comparing the two, the difference between God wanting everyone to be saved and God predestining some people to be saved, right?

Yeah, I was, by comparing the passages, I was answering one particular concern that could God will something in two different ways, or how could God want everybody to be saved, but then predestine for salvation, elect for salvation, if you will, only a smaller number, not everyone.

And the way to avoid the apparent contradiction is to see that he could want things in one way that's different from another way of wanting it, for the sake of discussion, I call it his moral desires, that he wants people to do, but it's the people's responsibility to do that, or his sovereign desires or sovereign will, and that's something that he wants that he is going to ensure.

And if you keep those in their two separate categories, and by the way, there's no way to understand the notion of God's will in the New Testament without having two categories, or you can't avoid a contradiction, because there's a sense of God's will that cannot be defeated, and there's a sense of God's will that can be defeated.

So there are clearly two different categories. But what that does is amend or at least remove the obstacle of the apparent contradiction. That doesn't affirm the doctrine, it is just meant to show that this concern is not a concern that creates a problem for the doctrine of election or predestination regarding salvation.

Yeah, so that's the long way of saying, yes, you're right, but I just wanted to bring everybody up to speed and clarify what I meant specifically.

Got it, yeah. Oh, thank you for that, that was good. So my question comes in, is why would God predestine anyone to be saved at all? Thinking about the whole concept of free will, a lot of people would say, well, God doesn't determine whether or not we're saved, or sin, or whatever, because he lets us choose our own paths, but then the verse seems to indicate that he does choose some people.

So what's the benefit in choosing some people?

Human Freedom After the Fall

Well, yeah, I like the way you put it here for yourself. I mean, sometimes what people will do will say, well, God gave us free will, and they might add, well, God will never violate your free will, and I'm not even sure where they get that from Scripture, that God would never violate your freedom, okay, as if freedom is somehow sacrosanct, okay, that God won't do anything with you that you don't agree to let him do or something.

That's just not a biblical doctrine. But it does raise the question, if there is a sense in which God in a determinative way rescues some people, then how do we make sense out of free will? I mean, that's a question.

And also, why would he do that with some and not with all? And so, I mean, part of it has to do with understanding what freedom means. And there are different ways to understand the notion of freedom, but clearly freedom doesn't mean no restraints, no restrictions.

Not when we talk about free will, because we always are able to exercise our ability to decide for ourselves within certain limits, okay? So, I mean, to use a goofy example, I can walk, but I can't fly, you know, because my nature isn't the nature of a flying thing, and I don't have wings.

But I can bipedal, so I can walk. So our choices are free. That is, we have options that we can choose within restraints that are relevant to our natures, okay? And when it comes to fallen human beings, the fall itself, though we have an ability to make choices such that we could choose A or not choose A and choose B, we have the ability, the power to do otherwise, if you will.

We have genuine freedom in that regard. There are restraints on that in certain areas, okay? And so, since the fall, it has been impossible, for example, for people not to sin. Before the fall, it's possible to sin or possible not to sin.

Adam and Eve were innocent, and they had, in a certain sense, the freedom to do either. Now, after the fall, we have lots of freedom, but one of those freedoms we don't have is the freedom not to sin, because everybody is a sinner by nature.

And so sin is going to eventually be something we do, even though we have choices that we can make. So we're not automatons, but something about a circumstance has changed that has really affected our ability to make choices.

Does that make sense so far?

I think so, yeah.

Okay, before we go further, because this is important, what part maybe doesn't make sense, and maybe I can clarify? Or maybe you're just saying, I understand, but I don't necessarily agree.

I think I'm kind of getting it, but I might need to hear where you're going with it to sort of understand the point.

Okay, because the fall creates restraints on freedom. And one obvious one, and it's not theologically controversial, is that prior to the fall, sinlessness was possible as a matter of choice. After the fall, sinlessness was not possible after a choice.

So I'm just making the case that in a very important way, the fall has affected what we are capable of choosing. And this is not controversial. Okay, now the question is, what other things does the fall affect in the area of choice?

Okay, and my own view, and it's part of the backdrop to the passage that we talked about yesterday, is that we are not on our own, given the fall, capable of choosing God for his own sake. Choosing him to believe in him, to trust in him, to do what he wants us to do.

Either obey all the time, or turn to him for salvation. And the reason is, is because our hearts are set against him. Our wills, to use one characterization of it, and I think I got this from Turreton, or no, I got this from Hodge, ancient theologian, but did great work in this area.

Our wills are, in virtue of the fall, are now inclined against God. So even though we have lots of choices that we are capable of making that are our own and are free, we could have done otherwise, when it comes to God, those choices are always going to be influenced by the fall, and apart from God's intervention, we are going to choose against him.

Because our will is inclined against him. And this is why we are all children of wrath, by nature, Ephesians chapter 2. And Paul talks about Romans 3, you know, there's none who does good, not even one.

He's got all these grotesque characterizations of fallen man, and he's taken it from the Old Testament. So the Old Testament doctrine here of human anthropology is the same as Paul's New Testament doctrine.

We're in trouble, okay? Now, there are different ways to solve this problem, but I'll just give you, I mean, Armenians have offered some alternative ways of understanding this, but I'm just giving you my characterization that I think is most consistent with the Romans passage that we talked about last week, which uses the word predestination.

We have been predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, but the predestination to become conformed to the image of his son depends on some other things happening. That's the end, not the beginning.

He says these who he predestined to that end, he called, and those he called, he justified, and those he justified, he also glorified. And of course, the glorification is that end that he had in mind, to be like Jesus.

So these are all packaged together. So that's necessary for God to act in that way, because human beings now, since the fall, will exercise the freedom they have to continue to rebel against God and to run from him.

Left on their own, they would never come to God. That is the impact of the fall, okay? And so that's why God has to act, because if he didn't act, no one would be saved. There would be no one in heaven, and there would be no bride for Christ.

But God purposes to have a bride for Christ of a certain sort, holy and blameless like Christ himself, white and purified by the word. And so God guarantees a bride for Christ by electing those he would save, and in the act of election, in the work of that, he changes our wills and inclines our will back to us, so that we then choose him in virtue of a vivified will.

In other words, a regenerated will, if you will. Maybe that's not the best word to use, because that has other theological ramifications, but somehow God is—he's inclining the will toward—so we end up believing in Christ, not because we're forced to, we will to.

But it's a will that is a result of the work of God in our lives. And had not God done that, there would be no bride for Christ.

Election as Necessary and Sufficient for Salvation

So basically, the point you're getting at is that it's not just beneficial, but it's more so necessary to have selected at least some people to be inclined or— I don't know what the right word is here, but like, to be willing to accept God for the purpose of reaching out to others.

Some are, I don't want to say forced, like it's a predestination.

Yes, that's right.

God selects you, but it is forced, you would say.

No, it's not forced. It's not forced. Just like you, are you married?

No.

Oh, okay. Well, I can use that illustration. So married—bachelors who are, you know, in the Western tradition at least, when they're getting married, they're not forced to love their wives. They do love their wives, which is why they want to marry them.

Right.

But there was no choice to do that. They weren't exercising their will to love them. They were exercising their will to act on the love and desire they had to get married and seal that by walking down the aisle.

And so we wouldn't say—there's no force anywhere in that. But it's sometimes characterized that way, and I think it's a mischaracterization, because what God does is He draws us into Him. And there's a couple things I'm working with here, and one of them is the passage in Romans 8 that seems so straightforward in light of the nature of predestination regarding salvation.

And I'm always qualifying this because believing in predestination for salvation in the sense that Paul means it does not mean that we are robots, that we've been changed into machines. All it means is that God acts in such a way as to guarantee a certain end regarding us.

That end is to make us like Christ, and there's a process that He also warrants that's described here in Romans 8—I just read it—that ends up at this destination that is previously determined. That's why it's a predestination, and the destination is that we're glorified and we are like Christ.

But God is the one who secures that. The means He does that is mysterious, but it's not forcing anybody to do anything. It is changing them so they want to do what they choose to do. And I am, to some degree, when I'm reflecting on how this happens, I'm speculating a little bit based on other things that are said.

But what I know pretty confidently is what happens, what God does, because there it is right there in Romans 8. And this is a comment that I made last week, I want to reinforce it here. You always have to start with the Scripture, not with the question.

You have to start with what it seems like a reasonable thing to conclude that the Scripture teaches, and then ask, how do we answer the question in light of that teaching? And that's what I've tried to do here in our little chat together.

What you can't do—I think this is upside down—is the tail wagging the dog. We say, well, that's what it looks like, but I have this question that I'm not satisfied with your answer, so therefore I'm not going to believe what the text says.

I'm going to believe something else. I say, well, we've got to solve our problems in light of what it seems like the text actually means. Now, I've got lots of—almost all my philosopher friends are Arminian.

And almost all my apologist friends are Arminian, okay? So I'm a lone duck in this pond kind of thing. But nevertheless, I think that this way of characterizing it is the soundest biblical way. And when I talk with them, what I always get is all these other questions, and the questions that, if they're not satisfied, they follow the question rather than following the text.

Well, what about this? What about that? What about the other thing? That's why you have to start with the text first. Now, it's fair to ask, if you've got a question that you can't answer, maybe I'm misunderstanding the text, but that drives you back to the text.

And I don't know how I can misunderstand the text. It seems so clear. And so what I'm trying to do is characterize or give an explanation of how election works that isn't forcing people, but that also maintains some latitude for freedom.

There's lots of freedom. But allows God to get what God says he wants to get, a bride for his Christ, and secure that, which he says he's done. And, I mean, it all falls together for me really nicely.

And this idea of inclining the will makes sense to me. That's a characterization that Hodge uses. Maybe others do as well. And it certainly seems consistent with a lot of other things that Scripture says about this whole process.

So it doesn't obviate freedom. You've got freedom. But it's not, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not like, it's not an autonomous freedom. It isn't a freedom like no restrictions, no restraints, no influences.

It's all utterly and purely just you. No, there's always going to be influences on the choices that we make, the reasons that we, the things that, not just the reasons, but the things that drive our decisions.

And so I think the freedom of the will is a bit of a complicated concept. And I think a lot of people haven't thought very much about it. But I'm just trying to explain as best I can the way I think it works that makes sense of our own acts of freedom.

It makes sense of good theology that the fall certainly, clearly has influenced our, the range of freedoms we have. And trying to make sense of what strikes me is the very straightforward teaching of Scripture, particularly here in this example in Romans 8.

So I don't know, does that resonate with you at all?

I think so, yeah.

Probably simply.

Basically, there's not really a good way to characterize how God moves in terms of predestination. But it's essentially that he does, he makes himself known in our hearts and minds in such a way that would lead us to him.

Without that movement, we would never come to him. Is that correct?

Well, it's more than that. So it's correct as far as you put it. But the movement that God does not only is a necessary piece, it is a sufficient piece. So here's the way I've characterized it sometimes before, that God, think of a continuum, okay?

And you've got fallenness and you've got salvation. Fallenness is on the left and salvation on the right, okay? And we are in a fallen state, okay? And we're stuck there because of the nature of the fall, all right?

And so even our will is tainted. Martin Luther talked a lot about this. And so God has to do something. And we pretty much all agree that God's got to act, okay, to do something. On an Arminian view, God draws everybody halfway.

Halfway being to the point where the effects of the fall are not determinative of your decision about God. In other words, He draws us enough so we have what some would say is a genuine freedom of the will.

We can choose on our own or we can reject on our own. It takes us all that way. And then we decide whether or not we're going to go. So in that way of looking at it, it is the human decision that is the final determinative.

It is necessary that God work to bring us halfway. But that's necessary for our salvation, but it's not sufficient for our salvation. The thing that needs to be added is our libertarian free choice to believe in Christ.

That's one view. You with me so far?

Yeah.

Okay, so on that view, God brings everybody halfway. On the Reformed view, God brings some people all the way. He brings some people all the way. It's necessary for Him to bring them, but it's also sufficient for their salvation.

He doesn't bring everybody halfway. Lots of people He just leaves. Romans 1 says He just gives them over. He lets them go their own way. Romans 8, following the flesh, the life of the flesh, as opposed to the trajectory of the Spirit. Just lets them go.

Now, there may be revelation for them, but He doesn't do anything to bring them halfway. If He's going to act to bring them, He's going to bring them all the way in. That's the notion of election and predestination to become conformed to the image of His Son.

Of course, in order to become conformed to the image of His Son of a certainty, they got to get saved first. That's why salvation is part of that package that leads to glorification.

Romans 8.

That would be the distinction that I'd make there. That God's action for everybody, believes, is necessary. But the Reformed view, the one that I've been describing here, holds that it's also sufficient.

God doesn't bring everybody halfway. He brings some people all the way. And that's called election and predestination with regards to salvation.

Closing the Call and Final Sign-Off

Thank you very much.

You're welcome, and guess what? One second, and the show is over. So it was perfect timing.

Sorry to take up all the time for everyone else.

I wasn't thinking helpful. Thank you so much for the call, Nathan.

Absolutely, yeah.

All the best to you, brother.

Bye-bye now.

Likewise.

That was a good call. Perfectly timed. It took me 33 years to learn to do that. All right, friends. Greg Cokle here for Santa Reason. You go out and give them heaven.

Bye-bye now.