Transcription
Free Will is the contra causal ability to refrain or not refrain from a given moral action. You're going to actually hear John Lennox here explain his perspective, and a lot of the older generation of apologists have taken that road on this particular issue. They often say, "Let's just not get into that."
John Lennox is in the same kind of camp; he doesn't come right out and say Calvinism or Arminianism. He doesn't use those terms, but his interpretations and his words very clearly align with a free will view of God's creation—an affirmation of choice in the way that we would define it. When you listen to his words, it becomes very evident that he does not hold the same views as men like John Piper, for example, who very clearly deny the concept of self-determination or the ability of Free Will as typically defined by philosophers like John Lennox.
With that in mind, keep in mind he's not going to get specific and talk about Calvinism, but he is going to very clearly defend the doctrine of Free Will as we would understand it. He's going to give some really great explanations, in my estimation, of how to deal with these tough issues from the perspective of an apologist dealing with atheists, as well as how to answer very tough philosophical questions.
Let's tune in and listen to John.
"About a God who created the atom. That's right. Who upholds the universe, who invented light, who painted every color, who invented the human mind. Why couldn't He then have made a universe that didn't get itself into such a mess? Couldn't God have made beings that didn't sin, that didn't destroy each other? My answer may shock you. Of course He could! Of course He could! We make them, you know, in laboratories. We call them robots. Of course you can make beings that are non-moral.
But now, I have a wife, and I've been married to the same woman for 44 years, which isn't bad. Now, you imagine if I had a robotic wife, a very sophisticated one with a proper screen and all the kind of sophisticated iPad technology. I go back from Rice University, and my wife comes to the door; there's this screen all glowing, and I see a word marked 'kiss kiss.' So I go, kiss, and I get a beautiful robotic kiss.
Well, why are you laughing? But you say, would that be a real kiss? Well, they're making robots that are very similar to human beings these days, but you know that it wouldn't be real because there's no choice in the matter. She's programmed to do what she does.
Now, let me explain it carefully. Of course, God could make a universe with creatures in it that cannot sin in that sense. There are loads of them: animals. When the lion eats your head off at the zoo because you put it between the bars, we don't put them in the High Court.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think C.S. Lewis has helped me a great deal here. I don't think it's the final answer, but it's a way in to see that in order to make beings that have the capacity to love, they must have the capacity to hate. If you're going to have the capacity to say yes, you must have the capacity to say no. And you say, well, why did God do that?
Why do you have children? Never forget holding my first child in my arms and realizing that I have brought this little girl into the world. She could grow up to say no to me. Why take the risk? Do you ever think about it? Why do we do it?
Ladies and gentlemen, because we realize that granted the risk, the benefits outweigh the risk. To live in a world where love is possible, we all crave for a world in which love is actualized. You hope one day, maybe you've already got there, you students at Rice, that you'll meet somebody and fall in love with them, and they'll fall in love with you. They'll value you and they'll choose you, and the value of that is inherent risk.
God took a risk to make a universe with people in it made in His image—capable of choosing, capable of saying yes to God, and equally capable of saying no. Moral beings.
One of the big questions that arises is justice. Dawkins says there is no justice, and if atheism is true, ladies and gentlemen, the vast majority of people will never get justice. If there is no life after this life, there's no life to get justice in, so they will never get justice.
Yet, our human hearts cry out for justice. They sense that we live in a moral universe; there must be something somewhere, otherwise our notion of justice is a sheer illusion, and it mocks us. What can atheism say in the context of massive injustice? Hitler murders six million Jews and then he takes a gun and blows his head off, and he's gotten away with it because he will never have to face any ultimate question of responsibility. Is that true?
I think there's something in every human being that says that cannot be true. Now, of course, a feeling in our hearts that something cannot be true doesn't mean it isn't true. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out, it would be very strange if in a world where we find ourselves with an appetite for food, there was no food; in a world where we find an appetite for sex, there was no sex; in a world where we find we have an appetite for friendship and justice and morality, there was none.
He said to be in a very strange world. Richard said to me once, "Yes, the picture I paint is bleak, but that doesn't mean it's false." I said, "Richard, it doesn't mean it's true either."
There's another question we can ask: granted that there's a risk, did God make any provision if things went wrong? I love that question. You see, even Free Will points us to Christ, the provision. This is one of the reasons that if you don't like the term traditionalism, I love the term provisionalism. You don't have to limit it to Southern Baptist traditionalists; you can call yourself a provisionist.
In other words, I believe that God provides all that is needed for every man, woman, boy, and girl for them to experience life everlasting. That God provides all that we need. I love the term provisionist.
If I could rename traditionalist to provisionist so that people couldn't come around saying, "Hey, well, this SBC was started by Calvinists," you know, and getting into all that debate—who cares? Call us provisionists! All right, I would be glad to take on that name. It's a great term to describe our view because God, in His graciousness—not because He's obligated to, but because He's a loving God and chooses to—provides the means by which everyone may be saved.
I love his explanations in there on the doctrine of Free Will, referring to C.S. Lewis and what real love and relationship look like. You ask any kid, do you want this real puppy or do you want this fake puppy that looks just like it? They look exactly alike. This one's fake; this one's not real; this one's just a stuffed animal. But it's not going to poop on your carpet; it's not going to chew up your favorite toys.
It's not going to ever do anything you don't want it to do; it'll do exactly what you want it to do. Or do you want this real puppy over here that's trying to get away? Which one do you want? Every kid's going to choose the real puppy. Why? Because it's love worth having! That's why!
That's why we believe in Free Will. That's why we believe that people can make their own determinations as to who they worship and serve. This concept and idea that God irresistibly or effectually changes you to make you want Him makes kind of this really world of automaton.
C.S. Lewis uses it as: whenever you take it to that far of a view, to understand that we are truly responsible people, don't let Calvinists redefine Free Will to mean something it does not mean. Free Will is the contra causal ability to refrain or not refrain from a given moral action. It's the ability to make a real choice.
Look up the word 'choice' in Webster's. That's Free Will—the ability to choose between available options. It's not being controlled by your greatest preset desire; that's called animal instinct. Lions have animal instinct. Animals choose according to instinct.
They have reflexive desires. They don't deliberate; they don't reason; they don't choose. We do. We have many competing desires, and we choose which of those desires we're going to act to fulfill. This concept is a circular argument that we will always choose according to our greatest preset desire.
And how do you know what your greatest preset desire is? Well, because that's the one you choose. And why did you choose it? Because it's your greatest! It's a circular argument; it's nonsensical. It means absolutely nothing to say that we choose according to our greatest preset desire because the only way you know what your greatest preset desire is, is because you chose it. You're just assuming by begging the question that it wasn't your choice to act upon that desire versus some other one you could have acted upon.
And that's what separates us from the animals. We are moral beings because we have the power of self-determination. This is a part of the Imago Dei. We were created in the image of God to be able to make real choices—to choose which of the desires that are competing within us to act upon.
And that's our responsibility. That's why we're held responsible for our choices.
I want to play one last video in closing from John Lennox, who's asked a question about apologetics and about the Free Will of man and the sovereignty of God and how to deal with that, even from the atheist who asks that question.
Tune in and listen to this.
"You touched on this a little bit this morning, but it's about God's sovereignty versus human Free Will."
"Yes, and I'm in a dialogue with an atheist, and he's a brilliant guy, he really is. I have my own ways of responding to him, but I want to know what you would say if he says that how can God be sovereign over everything if He's an all-powerful God and also not have given us a deterministic way. How does God give us free will and not be all powerful?
And also, if God knew that humanity was going to screw up, that we were going to sin, then how is it fair for God, knowing that was going to happen, to punish humanity for its sins? So again, I have responded in some ways to him, and I think it's pretty comprehensive. I just want to hear what you…"
"I think it's pretty comprehensive. How many hours have you got? Now, that is an immensely important question, and it's, in a sense, one that we'll be dealing with gradually as we go through. But I'm very glad you framed it from the perspective of atheism.
I want to say one basic thing about it first of all because I'll go more into detail, and that is this: the way you phrased it is the way it's normally phrased—how could God be sovereign over history and give you free will?
Well, when people ask me that question, I ask them, what is consciousness? And of course, they tell me they don't know. They don't even know our physicist friends what energy is; those are much simpler things than the question you have asked me. You asked a big question.
Now, the how of these deep things, there are many of them, we just cannot answer. How did God speak the universe into existence? I don't know. But that He spoke it into existence, I do believe there's evidence for it.
So I distinguish between the how and the that. And the importance of that is this: that you can see the evidence within scripture and within experience that that is the most sensible way to understand the universe.
In other words, I take scripture seriously. When scripture tells me that God rules, His kingdom was, and ever shall be, I believe that. When I hear the Son of God stand on Earth and say to Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you under my wings and you wouldn't, I believe that too—that we have a real capacity to say either yes or no to God.
How that works, I don't know.
Let me illustrate that for you because you might just find this useful. Stop me if I've said this yesterday, but I don't think I did. I did say it recently somewhere. I'm getting old; you have to forgive me.
But I was asked at a big lecture I gave to about 500 physicists, very senior physicists, in England. A man came up to me afterwards and said, you know, that was a very interesting talk in science and religion, but I perceive that you are a Christian.
I said, you're very sharp. And he said, but look, he said, you know, as a Christian you're obliged to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I said, that's right. He said, explain to me how that can be.
I said, well, very easily, but as a quid pro quo, I'll ask you a question. And so I asked him what consciousness was, and he said he didn't know. Then I asked him what energy was, and he said, well, we can measure it and use it.
I said, that wasn't my question. What is it? He said, I don't know. So I said, that's interesting. But you believe in both consciousness and energy, don't you? And you don't know what they are? Should I write you off as a physicist?
And he said, please don't. But I said you were going to write me off five minutes ago because I couldn't explain to you how Jesus could be God and man at the same time. But you observe that I believe it quite correctly.
Tell me, I said. Why do you believe in consciousness and energy? Well, that was a bit too philosophical for him, so I had to help him because I'm a kind person at heart. I said, you believe them not because you understand them fully, but because of their explanatory power.
He said, that's right. And I said, that's exactly why I believe that Jesus is both God and man—not because I understand how. If we don't understand the nature of energy, how could we possibly understand the nature of God?
But I believe it because there's evidence that it's true, just as I believe that light is both waves and particles, however difficult I find that to get together.
You can see the relevance to your question. It's one of those questions where people, because they can't integrate it intellectually, tend to push to one side or the other. It seems to me that scripture teaches both things and that these stories that we're looking at are an unpacking of how it works so that we can see how it relates to our lives."