The Confusion of Choice

Choice leads to slavery, not freedom. At least, it most certainly can, and our ability to choose, or the necessity of choice, may mean that we are to be pitied more than it means we are free. Ever wanted to smack the dude in line in front of you at Subway because he is taking forever to decided between flat-bread, Italian Bread, Honey Oat, Parmesan/Oregano, Sourdough, or go with the wrap? Have pity, he is enslaved to choice. He cannot figure out which choice is best, and so he stammers and holds up the line.

Those who love to trumpet "free will" love to revel in the fact that we can choose. Pelagius, that ancient heretic, said that man was able to choose between good and evil by his own will. Man could choose good or man could choose evil, and if you take away that choice, you take away freedom. Man becomes a robot if he isn't free to choose. Our choices determine who we are, after all.

What if I told you that the opposite were true? What if I said that the dilemma of choice could be the best indication that we are a broken, pitiful people? What if I told you that the problem of choice demonstrates, better than any philosophy I know, that man is a finite, confused being?

Augustine is Pelagius' better. He triumphed over Pelagius by Scripture and by reason, but not in the way that many today would think. Augustine saw what Pelagius couldn't, that is, choice is not the ultimate qualifier of whether or not the will is free. Indeed, choice indicates that something is wrong with the will. Freedom of the will must excel simple choice, freedom is greater than the ability to choose. Choice indicates a shattered mind, not a whole one.

Man, when faced with a "moral dilemma", must make a choice. Augustine taught that, if we were perfect and unfallen, then there would be no "choice" to make. If it is 32 degrees outside, and I say that you may go outside with a coat or a t-shirt, a wise man takes a coat. It isn't a choice, it is obvious. If I tell you that for lunch, you may have rat poison or you may have a T-bone steak, you would certainly choose the latter over the former. Freedom, then, lies not in the power of choice, but in clarity of thought. The fact that we are traumatized by moral choices means that we do not see clearly, we cannot tell what the ultimate good is, so we stammer and stumble.

I think of this when someone says that we are "free" to choose or reject God's Son, Jesus, then they insist that it is this very choice that makes them free. This is like saying freedom consists in the liberty of shooting one's brains out with a shotgun or not. Man doesn't reject God and the gospel because man is free and is mighty to choose, man rejects God and the gospel because he is a suicidal maniac who cannot tell right from wrong. Man doesn't need to be free to choose, man needs to be freed from the shackles of madness that make evil choices appealing in the first place.

Freedom does not lie in the ability to choose. Freedom comes when choice is married with proper affections for that which is good. If God would only fix our wicked hearts, choice would vanish and we would be free to act unfettered. Why? Because anything other than holiness would simply be unthinkable, or if you must, a non-choice.

Oh God, rid me of my choices by shackling me to the good and true. Free me from inaction by showing me the path most pleasing to you. Unite my divided soul by the beauty of your truth. Let anything other than what glorifies you be a non-choice in my sight so that Christ may receive the most glory. Amen.

Theology Devoid of Love

A sort of squabble has erupted in the comment section over at Justin Taylor's Between Two Worlds over snobbish, prideful Calvinists foisting their theology onto others. That was not the intent of the article, but that is the brawl that has taken place none-the-less.

For full disclosure as a Calvinistic guy, I want to heartily agree with some of the commentors and affirm that Calvinists are indeed a prideful, snobby, and sometimes elitist brood. I also want to heartily affirm that this is true of everyone, regardless of your understanding of the atonement and regeneration, which is precisely why we are in need of the grace of Jesus Christ in the first place. So I confess my guilt and humbly beseech my dissenting brethren to search their hearts as well.

So why is it that folks can be so vindictive, divisive, and hateful over theology? Undoubtedly, all would agree that there are errors that are deal-breakers such as disagreements over, The Triune Nature of God, the full deity of Jesus Christ, the true of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, the need for Christ's atonement, the veracity of Scripture, and etc. When I say "deal-breaker", I mean that if you mess up one of these you have strayed into heresy so deep that your soul is in peril.

The truth is that Arminian and Calvinistic theology both fall neatly between the orthodox ditches, and while the disagreements are real, there is ample room for charity. Indeed, both sides should hold the other in high regard, and I pray that the Lord God make it so. So why is there such division?

For one, I think the problem is that too many Christians have nothing to lose. Who is causing the trouble? Many would say that it is the Young, Restless, and Reformed. So let's analyze who these folks are. They are probably youngish, well-read folks who have waded in to the deep end of theology but are still in the baby pool concerning love. The reason, perhaps, is that while they are to be commended for taking the doctrines of Christianity seriously, they probably have little deep regard for brothers and sisters as they are. In other words, they have fallen so deeply in love with their understanding of the 'ideal' church that they are unable to function in the church as she is.

Here's my meaning. Let's say you have a single, romantically minded young man who desperately wants a wife and he really wants to be a good husband. So, he reads up on it in the Bible and he comes across the magnificent Ephesians 5:22 that teaches wives to submit to their husbands. So on every date the young man goes on, he queries his potential mate and evalutes her potential as a wife by asking, "Are you going to submit to me in all things as you would to the Lord Jesus? If you don't, I can tell you that this isn't going anywhere." What do you suppose is his likelihood of finding a wife?

The guy is right about a wife's call to submit to her husband, but his ignorance concerning the rest of the beauty of marriage makes him an idiot. Plus, he's really got no emotional attachment to the deal, he generally runs all prospects off on the first date. The only reason he invites them to dinner is because they looked attractive until they were put off by his Biblical mindset, so he thinks. Indeed, he probably gets a bit of a matyr complex and bemoans the condition of a world filled with women unwilling to submit to men as to the Lord.

Let's say, by the grace of God, this guy actually does get married. Let's pretend also that, shockingly, he actually turns out to be a tender and caring husband. Over the course of time, he feels that the Lord God is calling him to pack up and take a job in California, far from family and home, and well, his wife is not too keen. Do you suppose that he should take out Ephesians 5:22 and pound her over the head with it until she throws up her hands in surrender and moves to California? Theologically, he's got it in the bag, right? Ideally, she trusts in the Lord and moves to California. Realistically, it may take time for God to overcome doubt and refine the heart to love His call and Word.

That's my rough analogy for why Calvinists and others act so idiotically over their theology. They have nothing to lose because they are just flirting around with the church and the people in it, and if it does not immediately conform to their ideal, they puff out the chest and go someplace else. Isn't it true that it is possible to "understand all mysteries and all knowledge" and still be nothing? (1 Cor. 13:2).

As a special point to the most zealous of the divisive theologs, I have to wonder if where you are now theologically is where you began? Did you get here without struggle and honest questions? And what truth do you have now that God did not grant you to have? Do you think that you figured things out because you are smarter and wiser and less sinful than other men and women? If you are truly enlightened, then you owe it to both the wise and the unwise to be patient, gentle, forebearing, long-suffering, and kind. If not, we poor rubes may never see the glory of God as clearly as you see it, and that would be a lousy stewardship of the gift that God has given you, wouldn't it?