Freedom, Predestination, and Mystery

In a conversation that's been played out countless times over the centuries, my friends and I (some Calvinist and some libertarian freedom advocates) discussed predestination and the nature of freedom today. In discussing this, the question was raised: Is it possible that we could be both chosen and free?

In the Scriptural narrative, we read indications that both are true. We know that God specifically chose Abraham and the Jews to be His particular means to redeeming fallen humanity. But we also see the Jews time and time again rejecting God. Thus, God impassionately calling for His people to return to Him, and Jesus lamenting "How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" (Matt. 23:37). If the Calvinist-brand predestination is really true, how can his chosen people willingly reject him? By the same token, how can Pelagianism be true when we clearly see that it is God who intiated his covenant relationship with Abraham and Israel, not vice versa.

Another reason to suspect the Calvinistic predestination theology is simply because of what human reason tells us. We all know that we have choices. We've all felt the real, live option of choosing between two different roads, with the real possibility of choosing one and not choosing another. You really could have decided to attend Wheaton rather than The King's College, and you reallly could have decided to pursue Sally instead of Jane. Everyday experience confirms the intuition that we really do have choice.

So then, reason, experience, and special revelation all agree that choice is real. But special revelation--notice, not reason and experience--tell us that those who've committed themselves to God are chosen. (Would we really have predestination theology if it weren't for God's dealings with Israel, as reveal in Scripture, and Paul's systematic theology in Romans?) We know a great deal about choice--we sense the weight of choices and our responsibility every day (thus untold stress for uncertainty about which decision to make, countless compliments for "choosing the right thing," and stern rebuke for bad choices). Philosophy and every day experience alone allow us to understand greatly the nature of freedom. Through the tools of human reason, we're able to greatly understand it. Most people (other than philosophers) know that freedom isn't much of a mystery.

But we know much less about how it is that God can choose. We're only told a bit about in Scripture. We're not God, so we can't even imagine how he goes about choosing, much less why he chooses. But we do know that he chooses. For this, we only have a very limited understanding. We're only scratching the surface. Indeed, predestination is a mystery.

Thus, the tension between freedom and being chosen. I submit that we have to hold both in tension, having confidence that eternity will reveal that it really is not a contradiction. Perhaps then God shall allow us to plumb beyond the current limits of human reason and see the "depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!" (Rom. 11:33).

Hold on, though. If this were true, then why should we trust logic? After all, if seemingly contradictory things might actually be contradictory, how can we trust logic?

First, it's important to emphasize the everlasting truth of logic. If "a" really can be "non-a" someday, I think we find ourselves in a highly tenuous position. I think one can hold the tension and still insist--indeed must insist--that "a" can never, never, never be "non-a." God created logic as He created gravity. They are laws that are flow from God's orderly nature. Insisting on the tension is not an abandonment of logic, only a recognition that we have a limited understanding--although trustworthy in its limitedness--to a much fuller truth about predestination, and that the fuller truth will abide by the fundamental rules of logic. Thus, the tension is held in confident expectation of a future resolution.

Second, it's important to note that we've had to concede mystery about God's ways, not human ways. The fact that we have choice isn't a mystery (at least I contend that, thanks to common sense, it doesn't have to be); that we're chosen by God is a mystery. However, if one allows that God really is God, then doesn't he have to necessarily concede that he can't possibly know everything about how God chooses to work? One has to think of himself as an ant attempting to relate to a human. How would you respond to an ant that asked you "Why you didn't take the tree out to the trash?" It's an absurd question--and that's precisely the point. An ant's questions will necessarily be "anty." And why shouldn't they be? He's an ant! He can't think humanly. God thundered at Job precisely because Job is not God.

Now, the analogy is quite flawed, because humans, by the grace of God, can in fact know some things about God's ways. But they're by special revelation, and thus by His very special grace that He condescends to us humans. So it's important to note in what areas we're conceding mystery in. And, I think, more often that not we find that we concede mystery specifically about God's methods.

"Okay, even if it isn't contradictory," one might say "the fact that we can't fully understand the mystery how we could be both chosen and free means that just wasted our time and energy arguing about these things--because we can't understand it! God's ways are higher than our ways, and our duty is not try and figure God out, but to obey Him."

More on this last question in the next post.