Does God Have Free Will?

Here’s the theological thinking I’m doing this Monday morning…

Free will is a pretty important theological concept but almost any time I hear it discussed it is in terms of human free will.  Human free will is an especially important concept to questions of responsibility (If humans don’t have free will can they really be held responsible for their sin?)

and meaningfulness.  Those questions of meaningfulness run along these lines:

• If God created us to have to love him would that actually be love in any meaningful sense?
• Is obedience to God still meaningful without the option to disobey?
• If we had no choice in the living of a holy life in what ways would it still be meaningful?

I have heard these discussions about human free will many times but the only time I ever remember hearing God’s free will mentioned it by implication in the context of human free will being part of what it means to be created in the image of God. 

The other theological ideas I hear that have implications for God’s free will could easily be seen as arguments against it although I don’t think they are usually meant that way.  Statements like:

• It is impossible for God to lie.
• God cannot do anything that is inconsistent with His character.
• God will (the implication being must) always be faithful to His word.

These are all meant to be seen as wonderful and beautiful truths but lets apply the same logic to them that we do to human free will.  If God does not have the option to be unfaithful to us then is his faithfulness really meaningful?  If God’s only option is to be holy (as He is specifically described in scripture not just “other”) then is it meaningful that He is. 

And if there are things God can’t do then doesn't he cease to be God because this means some outside power is acting on Him.  After all - a God who “can’t” isn’t really God is He?  

Of course the answer to this is to say that those limitations of “can’t do” and “must be” flow from God’s own nature and therefore are not from an outside source and no threat to his Omnipotence but I’m not so sure of that.  

I have a ton of limitations.  Almost all of them flow from the essential nature of who I am as opposed to being imposed on me  by some outside power but that does not mean they are not limitations.  I can’t do whatever I want, I can only pick between options.  For example my free will does not allow be to fly but it does allow me to go for a walk.  But of course there is vast gulf between Omnipotence (I have the power to do absolutely whatever I want) and free will (I have the moral freedom to choose between the options available to me).

So I think that in order for God to be truly omnipotent He must have free will and in light of his omnipotence you could say that he has the only, truly, supremely free will.  This is what we see so beautifully active in the creation account.  God simply wills the world into existence.  

When we have the overactive view of God’s self-limitation that I think is super common in many christian circles it leads us to an impersonalized view of God.  God becomes a force or a set of conditions.  He becomes an equation, a machine.  

When we short sell God’s free will his love for us becomes like gravity. Yes He loves us and yes that is real and it has an effect on us but it ceases to be meaningful, it ceases to be special, it ceases to be beautiful. Gravity holds every one of us to this planet but none of us feel special because of it.  We do not wonder at the mystery of why gravity should choose to keep us from being flung out into space. We simply take it as a given and move on.

When we short sell God’s free will His holiness becomes like wetness to water.  We like water and water is wet, in fact we like water precisely because it is wet, but none of us feel inspired to become more damp because of our love for water.  None of us come to hate our rigid form and wish to be transformed into a more liquid state.  And none of us are ever truly amazed at the wetness of water.  Water is wet.  That’s just what it is.

When we short sell God’s free will his faithfulness becomes like a sunrise.  It is wonderful and beautiful but it is completely impersonal.  The sunrise does not come earlier simply because you can no longer handle the darkness.  The sun rise does not rise for you and it does not send it warmth for you it simply rises when it rises because rising is what it does.  We often speak poetically of the rising of the sun as faithful but if we are to be honest it’s really just predictable.  

What if God really and truly has free will.  What if tomorrow God could choose to stop forgiving you?  What if tomorrow God could simply cease to honour His word?  What if tomorrow God could cease to be loving and merciful and kind and just and instead be hateful and destructive and unjust and cruel?  What if we truly believed that the only thing between Him being the beautiful God we see revealed in Christ and the horrific God of our worst nightmares is His current, active, free will choice?  What if God is good first and foremost because he chooses to be?

What impact would it have on us if we saw God as truly, actively, and currently having and exercising free will? Some thoughts…

1. We would experience the fear of God.
2. We would be compelled to trust God as a person instead of predicting God as a force.
3. Our trust in God would become a more daily, conscious, and specific reality.
4. We would be moved to deeper and deeper levels of gratitude for who He has chosen to be to us and how He has chosen to act toward us.
5. We would see His character as astounding beauty not just abstract fact.
6. Our worship would simultaneously become both more intimate and more reverent.
7. We would be deeply amazed at His faithfulness to His people in general and to us specifically.
8. We would be more drawn to know and experience Him than to understand and explain Him.
9. It would change the way we think about forgiveness and repentance and break us of our reliance on cheap grace.
10. We would begin to see Holiness not as an abstract and involuntary attribute of God and therefore unattainable for us but as a issue of choice and voluntary character which God, is able to make reality in us so long as we align our free will with His.

What’s wrong with my thinking here?  What would you change?  What would you add?  I think there is something to this but it is still Monday morning…

12 Reasons Your Pastor Might Be Tired, Stressed, Frustrated, or Confused.

Dear Pastor,

1. Constantly do things that bring in new young people and make sure no older folks ever leave and don't be too focused on peoples ages.
2. Get the church on a better financial footing, raise budgets, don't talk about money, never ask people to give.
3. Have a laser focus on reaching the lost and discipling believers and developing future leaders and managing current volunteers and serving the poor and overseas missions and be sure to have time for everyone.
4. Lead us, challenge us, get us going, make it clear, bring a new day, move us forward, don't change anything, don't tell us what to do.
5. Make sure your preaching is deep and clear and evangelistic and challenging and comfortable and accessible, and insightful, tell it like it is, never offend.
6. Be a driven leader and a gentle shepherd and brilliant scholar and humble servant and make sure you are always consistent.
7. Don't make people too busy, make sure we get "outside the 4 walls",  offer programs for every possible group and need, preferably led by you.
8. Spend time in "the secret place", minister out of the overflow, be a man of prayer, make sure you are heavily relational, spend all your time with people.
9. Be bold, be courageous, be creative, go against the grain, stand up for what you believe, don't be a people pleaser, push, be diplomatic, be gentile, keep everyone happy, never come across as  pushy.
10. Be prepared, be strategic, have a plan, be flexible, be open, just follow the Spirit.
11. Make sure you take your day off, take your vacation, practice sabbath, be an engaged husband, be an available dad, work hard, set the pace, work harder, make the sacrifice, see it as more than a job, earn your paycheque, strike a good work/life balance, you are required to set an example in all of these non-work areas.
12. Buy buildings, oversee facilities, plan strategically, increase income, administer budgets, manage employees, acquire insurance, direct communications, purchase supplies, beg for raises, submit all receipts, don't treat it like a business.

            With deep love and respect so listen up and get in line,

Almost Everyone Most of the Time

Defining Reality

I grew up listening to leadership guru John Maxwell.  By the time I had finished high school I would estimate that I had listened to well over 100 hours of his leadership teaching - it's a long story, maybe I'll post about it sometime.  One of John's foundational ideas is that "it is the leaders job to define reality."

I think that's pretty spot on. (I'm sure John will be relived to hear that.)  Most leaders get so focused on creating the new reality that they fail to define the current one.  It's an important step and one that, if I'm being honest, I would rather skip.  Here's why:

It's subjective: There is no chapter and verse in scripture that will perfectly define your church's current reality for you.  There can be some empirical data - baptisms, attendance, and people serving are three of my favourites. But how to interpret why those numbers are why they are where they are and how that all fits together is an art not a science.

And yet you need clarity - definition - in order to make a plan to move forward.  That means you are going to have to convince people that your subjective view is accurate and their subjective view is less accurate. That's gonna feel like arrogance. (If it actually is arrogance for you then knock it off!) But what it really is is confidence.  If you aren't sure they certainly never will be.  So your task is to try to fully convince people of a clearly defined but ultimately subjective point of view.  That would be hard enough on its own, but it's even harder because they already have a point of view.

It's confrontational:  The reason you need to define reality is because reality is not immediately obvious to everyone, or more accurately, what you are putting forth as the actual reality is not immediately obvious to them.  However, that doesn't mean they don't have a perception of reality it just means it's different from yours.  They have a firmly held view of how things are and why and they have likely been living out of it for sometime.  You are going to try and mess with that. That's where the confrontation arises.

If you are going to help them see what you see you have to dismantle the blocks of data that formed their picture of the current reality, chuck the blocks that were faulty, add the blocks that were missing, and reassemble them into the more accurate picture. You can do it as gently as possible but at the end of the day it is a confrontation between your perception and theirs, and it all has to happen before you can really get started.

It's remedial:  Leaders want to go to new places together with their teams but defining reality for people is mostly just helping them to understand where they already are.  Leaders want to get the right people on the bus and get then get the right people in the right seats on the bus.  Defining reality feels more like you are giving a tour of a bus station.  It feels remedial.

But every bus trip starts with a moment when all the people who are in one location realize we can't stay here and we have to get to there. Creating that moment of realization of where we are and why we can't stay - that's defining reality.  It's a thing you do before you start but you have to do it if you ever hope to get anywhere.

So yeah - defining reality is hard and subjective and remedial and like it or not (for me it's mostly not) if you are the leader it's your job.

-What else have you found makes it hard?
-What approaches have you found helpful in defining reality?
-And for the bonus who are the two leadership gurus (other than Maxwell) I directly referenced in this post?

Connecting With Your Hearers

I've had the chance to preach to a lot of different groups from all sorts of backgrounds, ages, and places.  Next to having the anointing of the Holy Spirit the most important thing you can do to be effective in preaching is to find a way to connect with your hearers.  Here are a few of the things I've learned about how do do that.

Use humour

People love to laugh and they tend to bond with people they laugh with. Laughter releases chemicals in the brain that make people feel drawn to you and comfortable with you (or something sciency like that).  Humour doesn't need to be spontaneous to be effective.  It can be a well rehearsed story or a great quote.  And when all else fails throw yourself under the bus - make fun of yourself. Almost everyone appreciates and enjoys self-deprecating humour.  Plus it shows humility and vulnerability.  Speaking of which...

Be vulnerable

People being open to each other is a reciprocal process  If you will go first by telling people your stories and struggles and questions they will open up, listen to you, and feel connected to you.  Being vulnerable makes people feel that they know you personally and it's not a trick - you just told them the kind of stuff normal people would only tell a friend (normal people don’t connect - don't be normal.)  It takes courage to be truly vulnerable on stage and about 10% of people will like you less because of what you reveal but the other 90% will believe you more and be way more interested in what you have to say.

Tell their stories

Discover the story of the people you are talking too.  Their collective story - when did the church start, what are the highlights of their denominational history, what are the key movements that influenced them, what are their inside jokes, who are their heroes - and then use those stories to illustrate and give credibility to what you are saying.  And as much as possible learn their individual stories - what are their backgrounds, struggles, weaknesses, strengths, values, and shaping experiences? Talk about how the Jesus story intersects with their story.  If you are their pastor this should be relatively easy (if it isn't you are a crappy pastor) but if you are a guest speaker it will take some specific advance effort. If you want to preach to people instead of at people you have to talk with people.

In short - if you can tell the worst part of your story and deepest part of theirs and laugh while you are doing it people will want to hear what you have to say.  Then tell them about Jesus.  That's the whole point anyway.

What People Want When They Say They Want Change

Most of the people I meet want change. They want it bad. They want to see change in their personal life, their family, their church, and their community.

So if people want change why are they so resistant to it?

The problem is that they only want the second half of change. They want the benefit, the better outcome, the improved results. What they often don't want is to change what they are doing to get those results.

Simply put - when people say they want change they mean they want a noticeably improved outcome towards their pre-existing goals with no discernible change in the process used to get there.

When ascertaining if people are truly ready for change don't just ask if they want better results. Ask them what those better results are and how much they are willing to change the process to bring about those outcomes. Here are some questions you can ask to help get to the bottom of the issue: 

• Do you/we want more of what we are already experiencing or something altogether different?

• Is our motivation to change based on making the current reality sustainable or on significantly altering our reality?

• If one year from now you could be regularly experiencing the desired outcomes but your life/organization would be virtually unrecognizable from what it is now would you still want to make those changes change?