Cute!

Ben Witherington

"Decisions on Earth Ratified in Heaven- the Opposite of Predestination"

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/

This is the title to an article posted yesterday on Ben's blog. I thought it interesting to post my comment to him, and his return comment to me and to another commenter. Let me cite the dialogue and then make a final observation for posting it here in "The Baptist Gadfly."

Hello:

I am a first timer here. James White listed your link in his blog and I wanted to visit.

I have a question.

How does your belief in free will, as defined as the "power of contrary choice" make heaven or eternal security possible?

If we can fall from grace by choice, once we get to heaven and are glorified, are our wills not fully determined, at least at that time in eternity?

In Christ,

Stephen Garrett

Hi Stephen:

In the first place you are not eternally secure, until you are securely in eternity, but once you get there, there is no change in status. When we get to the eschatological state with the resurrection body, then we are in an unfallen state, and will have no desire to do otherwise than what God wills. We will be perfectly free, but removed from any sources of temptation, either internal or external. So we will freely, without determination, choose the good.

Blessings, Ben

Hi Will:

Not exactly. In the eschatological state we will have the freedom to choose between lots of good, fun, godly, loving, joyful things to do-- none of the them pre-determined.

Ben Witherington

I think that the response to my question is typical of nearly every Arminian and advocate of creature "free will" and human self predestination or self determination.

Surely he did not answer the question! Surely he tried to say yes and no to the question! Look at it! We will be free but we won't be able to choose evil! Then, the will must be determined if it can't choose but one way!

The reply that says - "oh but we will not 'want to' sin then" does not deal with the question of "why will the desires and will of those in heaven now only desire and choose the good"? It must be because the desires and will, at least at some point (for those who believe in heaven and a perfect state, even if they are Arminian and a believer in absolute human free will), become fully determined for good and controlled by deity!

Really, Ben cannot see that he contradicts himself. He cannot see, apparently, how his definition of "freedom of will," which necessarily includes the "power of contrary choice," and thus the possibility of sin, leads him into a view that says there is no eternal security in heaven! Yet, he seems reluctant to want to believe that, wanting rather to believe that he will truly one day be fully determined to desire and do only good.

Really, the consistent Arminian, humanist and "will worshipper" (Colossians 2: 23 KJV) will never have (in his theology) a place we call "heaven" and will never be "secure."

If we are free in heaven, in the glorified state, as we are now, by humanist and Pelagian definitions, then we will never be secure! For there to be an eternal state where sin is not possible, the affections, desires, and the will of the glorified beings Must be fully determined by the presence of grace and the Spirit of God.

But, if this is so (and what is admitted by most Arminians, even half-heartedly by Ben), then what of all the boasting about the supreme value of free will, and how life would not be meaningful without it?

If we will be fully determined in glory, and to only what is good, then this destroys the notion of the "free willer" that says that a world without free will and the power of contrary choice is not a perfect world.

To the devoted "free willer," a heaven without the possibility of contrary choice is a "pipe dream"! Yet, they really hope they are wrong!