Human Ability & Responsibility (2)

Review

What can people do?

We can bear a shadow of the image of God. It has been marred by sin, but remains a dim resemblance.

We can make decisions.

We sin.

What must people do?

Have communion with God.

Have the favor of God.

Repent & Believe.

The problem

Man is unable to do what he must do. There is a disconnect between what man is able to do and what he must do. All people, therefore, face a crisis because despite his inability to do what he must do, God holds man accountable for falling short. Man’s inability to do what he must do exists because of his sin, and God’s just response to sin is His judgement.

The question

Scripture makes clear that God call all men to repent (Acts 17:30), but why would He issue this demand and hold all men accountable to this demand if people are unable to fulfill it?

Attempts at Answering the Question

Libertarianism (Arminian)

God created people with a free will.

Deut. 30:15-19.

Deuteronomy 30:15–19 (ESV)

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live…

While God can influence our choices, He does not (cannot) determine them without violating our free will. People can resist God, but God does not coerce people to do anything.

If our choices are the result of God’s causal determination, our free will would be hindered.

People’s desires and motives can influence choices but do not determine them. One can always act against desire.

Choices are contingent. No alternative is more compelling than another. Thus, alternative choices can be made regardless of prior influences.

Human responsibility (accountability) can only exist if people have the ability to act contrarily in any given situation. In other words, people are responsible only if they are allowed to act equally with alternative choices.

Coercion nullifies human responsibility.

If God determines all choices, He is ultimately responsible for evil.

God’s grace provides unbelievers the freedom to make moral and spiritual choices that are not necessarily constrained by their sin nature.

God provides all people His prevenient (antecedent or preceding) grace so that all people can choose (believe) Christ for salvation. The grace that God provides for salvation however, can be resisted.

If God’s grace were irresistible, then any choice exercised to trust Christ for salvation would not be free.

For God to be fair, He must make His saving grace to all people so they have the opportunity to exercise their free will to receive His grace or not.

Compatibilism (Calvinism)

On the one hand, “God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in such a way that human responsibility is curtailed, minimized, or mitigated.” On the other hand, “Human beings are morally responsible creatures—they significantly choose, rebel, obey, believe, defy, make decisions, and so forth, and they are rightly held accountable for such actions; but this characteristic never functions so as to make God absolutely contingent [i.e., dependent on something outside himself] - D.A. Carson

People possess the ability to make choices voluntarily. People are always inclined to to make particular choices.

God as well as a person’s nature and most compelling desires determine people’s choices.

God uses secondary means such as human nature, desires and even coercive influences to bring about His determined choices.

The fact that God determines human choice is not coercive because He never coerces anyone to act against what the human will desires.

Only when one is freed from coercive influences are his choices truly free or voluntary. Coercive influences prevents choosing what one most wants to otherwise choose.

Desires and motives are the immediate cause of the choices that people make. Choices are consistent with desires and motives. The choice made is always what is most compelling.

Choices are limited by prior causal influences, i.e. the fall or regeneration. If one wants to choose differently than he does, he can, if a different set of causal influences precedes the choice.

In addition to the fact that God is the Creator of and the Sovereign over the universe, human responsibility for choices is dependent on the fact that choices are always consistent with desire.

Compatibilism in the Bible

Acts 2:23.

Acts 2:23 ESV

this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

The cross was God’s plan of redemption.

The death of Jesus is rightly considered a murder.

John 1:12-13

John 1:12–13 ESV

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The responsibility people have to receive Jesus, to believe in His name, is clear and to all who receive and believe God grants them the right to become His children. People are responsible.

But the very next verse that all those who receive and believe and become children of God are to be understood as people who are saved apart from their own merit, their own efforts and their own wills.

Covenant

The Bible describes God’s relationship with His people in covenant language. The theme of covenant is throughout the Bible.

When it comes to our salvation, the New Covenant helps understand the disconnect between what we can do and what we must do.

Ezek 11:19-20.

Ezekiel 11:19–20 ESV

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

a fundamental change was necessary for people to have a right relationship with God.

God brought about or accomplished this change.

Jer. 31:31-34.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ESV

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

God made it clear that He would establish a new covenant with His people

The people’s disobedience in the Old Covenant did not deter God from making the New Covenant.

God puts His law in the hearts of His people and as a result

Relationship (God will be their God and they will be His people)

Reconciliation

Heb. 8:6-13.

Hebrews 8:6–13 ESV

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Throughout the book of Hebrews, we find an emphasis on that which is new and better. Christ is better (superior) than Moses, than Aaron… a better priest who inaugurated a better covenant…

What Heb. 7:12 makes clear is that when there is a change in the priesthood, there is a change in the law as well. A better hope was introduced with Jesus and the New Covenant.

We have a better covenant based on better promises and a better mediator.

Remember the book of Hebrews was written to Jews who converted to Christianity and were facing intense persecution. They were being tempted to revery back to the Old Covenant ways. The author makes clear that this would be futile because God did not intend the Old Covenant to be permanent. It was always to be temporary. The New Covenant was always the plan.

And in order to defend this, he quotes Jer. 31:31-34.

And what God’s plan has been and is now is that through the redemptive work of Christ, sinful people who have no ability to secure their peace with God, who are rebellious, transgressors and never meet the standard of God’s holiness have hope, not in themselves, but in the One who secured and mediates the New Covenant.

Conclusion

The fact that man needs God’s intervention to do what God commands is difficult to fully comprehend. As is often said, there is a degree of mystery to this that we must accept.

The mystery exists, in part because of what is clear:

People are totally depraved. Understanding this about people is what helps us with the tension between God demanding something that is impossible apart from His aid.

People are responsible (able to respond)

People reject God

People are culpable

God intervened by providing a Savior who secured a way to have peace with God.

People are responsible to and held responsible to believe in Christ for their salvation.

God enables His people to repent, believe and be saved.

His people - that’s article 11 - Election.