I remembered reading this chapter in college and it wrecked me because I had such a hard time grasping his points on free will, determinism, fairness, and foreknowledge. I was already a stupid ignorant college kid and throwing these philosophical thoughts at me didn't help. Haha. Reformed faith was very new to me so I struggled a lot to understand what it meant to be saved by grace instead of works.
I thought Horton did a good job though in explaining about free will. Now it all depends on how one defines free will though. If we're talking about ability to make a choice then yah~ I guess we do have free will in the sense that we can pick our favorite color (blue), ice cream flavor (chocolate of course), etc. However, Horton also argues that is it truly considered a free will if we are always constrained by preferences determined by your personality/character? In other words, who you are as a person will always guide your preference. And as a result, you will always act upon what you prefer. So if we define free will as an unrestricted ability to choose without any constraint or influence, then there's no such thing as free will. As previous chapter covered, if we are born in sin, then our preference will always be restricted with sinful desires and actions with inability to seek God willingly. Reason why election by God is amazing since it's His "decision for us that we would never have made for him" outside of our restricted will.
Determinism is like saying that God "provided salvation for everybody and then stepped back to let the chips fall" in a way. Pretty fatalistic while making God look like he has no full control of his sovereignty. In other words, whatever will be, will be. This dismisses God's character of love, mercy, and kindess, creating His image as a less compassionate and intentional God. "Election assures us that God not only has been loving from all eternity but also has loved us in his Son from all eternity." In other words, forever, forever.
Fairness was another topic I struggled with because how can a loving God send people to hell? I mean why didn't he just save everyone? Just doesn't seem FAIR. However, I was challenged to define what fairness looked like according to the Scripture. If no one is righteous, not even one, and the wages of sin is death, isn't it fair that ALL deserve hell? Just like a gang of murderers all being sent to jail, isn't that justified and fair? Then I had to ask myself, if I deserve hell b/c of my sins, then why am I being justified? That's when the grace of God steps in so that I may be fairly judged while Christ's sacrifice of taking my punishment unfairly is demonstrated. Greatest substitution ever.
Foreknowledge is another tough one to swallow. Like didn't God know what was going to happen all along? To summarize this point simply, "it is not what he foreknew, but whom he foreknew." This one statement cleared a lot for me knowing that he knew me personally and intimately (so shamefully) but yet, his love for me was always greater to call me his forever child regardless of what I would or wouldn't do to seek his salvation.
I remembered reading this chapter in college and it wrecked me because I had such a hard time grasping his points on free will, determinism, fairness, and foreknowledge. I was already a stupid ignorant college kid and throwing these philosophical thoughts at me didn't help. Haha. Reformed faith was very new to me so I struggled a lot to understand what it meant to be saved by grace instead of works.
I thought Horton did a good job though in explaining about free will. Now it all depends on how one defines free will though. If we're talking about ability to make a choice then yah~ I guess we do have free will in the sense that we can pick our favorite color (blue), ice cream flavor (chocolate of course), etc. However, Horton also argues that is it truly considered a free will if we are always constrained by preferences determined by your personality/character? In other words, who you are as a person will always guide your preference. And as a result, you will always act upon what you prefer. So if we define free will as an unrestricted ability to choose without any constraint or influence, then there's no such thing as free will. As previous chapter covered, if we are born in sin, then our preference will always be restricted with sinful desires and actions with inability to seek God willingly. Reason why election by God is amazing since it's His "decision for us that we would never have made for him" outside of our restricted will.
Determinism is like saying that God "provided salvation for everybody and then stepped back to let the chips fall" in a way. Pretty fatalistic while making God look like he has no full control of his sovereignty. In other words, whatever will be, will be. This dismisses God's character of love, mercy, and kindess, creating His image as a less compassionate and intentional God. "Election assures us that God not only has been loving from all eternity but also has loved us in his Son from all eternity." In other words, forever, forever.
Fairness was another topic I struggled with because how can a loving God send people to hell? I mean why didn't he just save everyone? Just doesn't seem FAIR. However, I was challenged to define what fairness looked like according to the Scripture. If no one is righteous, not even one, and the wages of sin is death, isn't it fair that ALL deserve hell? Just like a gang of murderers all being sent to jail, isn't that justified and fair? Then I had to ask myself, if I deserve hell b/c of my sins, then why am I being justified? That's when the grace of God steps in so that I may be fairly judged while Christ's sacrifice of taking my punishment unfairly is demonstrated. Greatest substitution ever.
Foreknowledge is another tough one to swallow. Like didn't God know what was going to happen all along? To summarize this point simply, "it is not what he foreknew, but whom he foreknew." This one statement cleared a lot for me knowing that he knew me personally and intimately (so shamefully) but yet, his love for me was always greater to call me his forever child regardless of what I would or wouldn't do to seek his salvation.