I am a bit worried at the moment as the weather is not looking good for our parish lunch tomorrow. Normally, we set up the tables and chairs this afternoon, they are all here, but we can't set them up because it looks very much like it is about to rain. We have a Plan B, but it is very much a Plan B.
Anyway one of my favourite blogs is that of Ben Witherington's. Interestingly, in his latest post, he writes on the subject I have been posting on lately. I his post takes a very different line on predestination and free-will to my own. Read it here: Bible and Culture
Ben totally disagrees with the idea that God chooses some and not others. He accepts that the Bible teaches that as sinners we are unable to make a free choice to accept the Gospel, but argues that God's grace enables us to make a free choice, while preserving our right to right to say no and to refuse God's offer of salvation. This is a quote from Ben's post:
'Back to pre-venient grace. This theology grows out of texts such as we have mentioned and the way it envisions the salvation process is exactly as it is described in the NT. Yes indeed God’s grace, administered by the Spirit must work in a person leading them to respond to the Gospel. No responsible Wesleyan theologian would suggest that its a matter of ‘us all having free will’. No indeed. Without grace no one responds to God for we are all in the thrall of sin and darkness.'
Readers of this blog will know that I have many problems with this. On thing I keep coming back to is the fact that even on Ben's understanding, God still chooses some and not others: those to whom He extends pre-venient grace to make it possible for them to make a choice. And once you allow God the right to decide who gets to make a choice then you are vulnerable to exactly the same criticisms that you make against those of us who believe in predestination!
Meanwhile to return from the sublime heights of theology, I now need to worry about the ridiculous question of the weather!
About Me
- Ross
- I was born in Liverpool in the UK, and was ordained, in 1982, as an Anglican priest in the Chester Diocese, where I subsequently worked as a Church of England curate. I was then the Chaplain and Tutor in Religious Studies at Bedford College in the south of England for 8 years. After this, I moved to the Aberdeen Diocese in Scotland, where I was the Rector of two churches on Deeside. Since September 2000, I have been Vicar of Christ Church here in Hong Kong. I believe in trying to combine a pastoral and teaching minstry in a local church with a commitment to academic theology, particularly Biblical Studies. In my ministry, I want to address how those of us from an orthodox theological position can enage creatively and honestly with a postmodern society, which is increasingly defined by popculture.
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1 comments:
Hello Ross. Struans here again.
It's interesting, the matter of predestination and free will, as it seems to me to be one of the most fundamental questions in human existence.
Natural law, as you will I am sure know, is the idea that creatures show what is good and right for them in their behaviour and actions and in their hearts. For example, murder is always and everywhere considered an evil. It's possible to debate the hows and whys of that but the simple fact is most rational people in most places have held it to be so and try to avoid it. That is something that is naturally right for us to hold and do. You don't need a society or a state to tell you that, you know it, it's part of your nature.If there is natural law then there must be choice for if you have no freedom to choose then such a law cannot apply to you. For example, we humans don't apply such human natural laws to dogs or birds because they have their own natural laws. If you are predestined to murder someone then you have no choice and I think you could argue the law does not apply to you, effectively you would be an automaton. Clearly, this is not the case for most people so most people have moral choice.
If you have moral choice then predestination can only mean that you predestine yourself. I don't think that it is some disposition of God.
In my experience it is more useful to talk about moral choice and grace rather than predestination.
I can make my choices but I make them in the context of the grace of God. I can ignore that grace, which I often do, or I can accept it. In other words I can do things according to my will or God's will.
This is, in my experience, the only important moral choice (spiritually speaking!).
My faith is that if I do God's will, if I act under grace, then I must be making the right choices, if I don't it becomes altogether more uncertain.
I don't believe that God requires us to follow laws, natural or otherwise but rather asks us to accept grace.
To my mind, this is what Paul talks about, living under grace and not law.
These are spiritual theories and won't do to run a state or possibly even a village and so we get on to the questions of politics. Either the Christian lives apart from the state and attempts to be righteous, or you regard the above as operating on an individual basis which you must then take into the world, which influences how one acts in ones daily life, and through the compromises of the ballot box, one exercises ones ability to choose in helping to shape societies.
Of course, in Hong Kong, that ballot box only becomes available in 2017, if then. I think!
Take care.
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