WCF 9: Of Free Will

 By William Boekestein - Posted at Place for Truth:

It’s a common objection to the doctrine of particular redeeming grace: What about free will? With a free will can’t we desire God, and decide to follow him on our own initiative? But that argument begs the question; what needs to be proven is merely assumed. We need to know what Scripture teaches about the human will.

Our will is what we desire or determine to do, our inclinations. If in some way our wills are impaired—or as Luther put it, if our wills are in bondage—we are dependent on God “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Following Saint Augustine we can speak of human nature in its four-fold state. Nuancing humanity’s condition as created, fallen, redeemed, and glorified will help us more accurately understand free will and its implications.

Man’s Will in a State of Innocence (9.1–2)

God created our wills upright and free (Eccl. 7:29). Before sin entered the world the human will was neither “forced, nor … determined to do good or evil.” And this is always true—the freedom to will is fundamental to humanity. But our ability to express that freedom can change. Free will means that no outside force wills for us. We always have the freedom to want what we want even if we lack the freedom to do what we want.

As Augustine put it, in the state of innocence man was both truly able to sin and able not to sin. God genuinely warned our first parents not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). And they could have obeyed. They could have chosen life. But because they were free people God didn’t force them to serve him. Nor did he force them to sin.

The assertion that humans have a free will today is true to a point. The first sin was a free choice. So is every subsequent sin. But after the first sin the human will—through our own choice—has become inclined to sin. Our wills are still free in the sense that no one is pulling the strings of our desires. Even when circumstances affect our choices, our wills—our authentic wants—are still our own. But no longer are we who will in the state of innocence. Our state of being has changed. So we now freely will differently.

Continue here.