Free will

Choosing people, a bound will

Scripture treats human beings as real choosers. Moses pleaded with Israel, "choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19), and Joshua said, "choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15). God made us not as puppets but as persons who will and decide and answer for what we decide. That is the first sense of free will.

Yet Scripture also says that sin has bound the will.

Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

John 8:34

Sinners still choose as they want, but their wants are bent toward sin, so they do not of themselves want God (see total depravity). True freedom comes from the Son: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36). God does not abolish our will but renews it: "it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose" (Philippians 2:13). On Jesus' words that the Father must draw us, Chrysostom says they "do not destroy our free agency, but only show that we need Divine assistance" Chrysostom, and Augustine: "You are drawn by your will." Augustine

Four states

The church has spoken of free will on two levels: the natural freedom to choose without coercion, and the ability to will and do the spiritual good that pleases God. The Westminster Confession states the first:

God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.

Westminster Confession 9.1

Following an old distinction that goes back to Augustine, it then traces the second through four states. Adam in innocence could will and do good but could fall; fallen man has lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; the believer under grace freely wills the good, though not perfectly; and only in glory is the will made free to good alone Westminster Confession, ch. 9.

The question has been fought over again and again. In the fifth century Pelagius taught that by the nature God gave, people can keep the commandments, and Augustine answered that only grace renews the bound will (see Pelagianism). In 1524 Erasmus argued in On Free Will that a small power to respond with grace remains in us; the next year Luther replied that in the matter of salvation the will is bound by sin Luther, The Bondage of the Will.

Where the traditions differ

All these traditions confess that people are responsible and cannot turn to God without grace. They differ over how grace and the will work together. The Reformed teach that people always choose as they want, but their wanting is enslaved, so the Spirit must renew the will before anyone comes to Christ, and then comes willingly (see effectual calling). Lutherans likewise teach that the will is bound in the matter of salvation, but hold that grace can be resisted. Those who follow Arminius and Wesley teach that God gives prevenient grace to everyone, restoring the freedom to answer the gospel or refuse it Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation. This is a long-standing debate among evangelicals, and both sides read Scripture seriously.

The Catholic Church teaches that the fall weakened free will but did not extinguish it, and that the will freely assents to and cooperates with the grace that goes before it Council of Trent, Decree on Justification. Within Catholic theology, Thomists and the followers of Luis de Molina long debated how grace and freedom fit together Molina, Concordia. The Orthodox churches hold that freedom remains after the fall and that we work together with grace. How God's rule and human choice belong together is taken up under providence and predestination. See also What is true freedom? and the lesson Luther: the theology of the cross and justification.