Note, however, that if we meant by ‘the power of free-will’ the power which makes human beings fit subjects to be caught up by the Spirit and touched by God’s grace, as creatures made for eternal life or eternal death, we should have a proper definition. And I certainly acknowledge the existence of this power, this fitness, or ‘dispositional quality’ and ‘passive aptitude’ (as the Sophists call it), which, as everyone knows, is not given to plants or animals. As the proverb says, God did not make heaven for geese! Martin Luther, Bondage of the Will
Luther hits on a vital point here and that is getting at what the will is and its location among the real powers that control things. Human beings have a will which makes them subjects by which the Spirit can work on them and live in them in order that they may will to love God and be instruments of His glory. Human beings have a will that makes them subjects with obligations that have to do with eternal life and eternal death. Luther thinks of this as a ‘dispositional quality’ or ‘passive aptitude.’ These are things that animals and plants do not have. However, neither is a ‘free-will’ something that humans have that makes them like God.
Human beings are fallen into sin and as such are governed by self and pride. The original temptation given to Eve was that she would be like God. In this human beings are still given over to it and this teaching regarding the will demonstrates this as clearly as anything does. The modern idea of a ‘free-will’ would never even enter the mind of a person that had never fallen. A person that had never fallen would not want a ‘free-will’ as described by so many philosophers and theologians. That person would recognize that it is the desire to be like god and that to be free would be to be free of the power and wisdom of God’s grace and love and to be left to the power of self. This would be intolerable to the soul that loved God in truth and love. The soul that loves God does not want to be free as such but instead to be a slave of the living God and a slave to His grace and love. In that slavery is true freedom to love to the glory of God where the will that is free (so-called) is in real bondage to self and pride.
In this we have an analogy in the Scriptures with life. All are commanded to give up their lives so that they may have true life, yet if they do not they will lose their lives. In giving up and denying one form of life one finds true life, yet if one seeks what is thought of as life on this planet one loses real life. So those who desire their ‘free-will” will find that they are in real bondage, yet those who desire to be the slaves of Christ will find true freedom. The will is not and never will be free to love and live to the glory of God apart from the power of grace and love in the soul. It was never made to be free in that sense. Neither was the will made to be able to choose and control grace and love our of a libertarian freedom. The human soul was made to be at the feet of God and to be at His pleasure.
There is no libertarian freedom anywhere in all existence. God is utterly free to do all He pleases in one sense, but He is not free to be holy and then to do something that contradicts His holiness. The devil is always restrained by the hand of God and the devil cannot choose to do good and to love. Human beings are always ruled over and the slaves of either the devil or Christ. There are no other choices and there are no other powers. Human beings are born dead in sin and trespasses and so their dispositions and aptitudes are towards sin and only sin. It takes the new birth by the hand of God to be rescued from the dominion of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13). There is no freedom to do that for self. No human being is more powerful than the devil and cannot rescue self from self and the devil. Only God can do that. Yet after the human being has been rescued there is also no power to live in love and holiness but that of the grace of God. So human beings were not and never will be free. We are always ruled over by another and are always in one kingdom or another.
This teaching of Luther from the Bible should wake up those who are living as if they have free-will regardless of their theological profession. “Free-will” as commonly taught is really a form of bondage and is teaching people that they can do what they cannot do. It is as dangerous as it is popular. Human beings simply do not want to face the fact that when they live as if they have ‘free-wills’ they are actually a demonstration of the fall where humanity wanted to be as God. The devil wanted to be as God and then deceived human beings into believing that. The deception goes on.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment