In small group yesterday there was an illustration used that we should imagine someone who doesn’t believe in Jesus looking like a Prisoner of War. The point of the illustration is that we should treat non-Chrstians with respect and grace and love, not with arrogance, judgement, or hate. I agree with that wholeheartedly, but I didn’t agree with the illustration. Of course, all examples have their flaws and can only be used to the extent they are true.
My argument with this illustration is that, while non-believers may be POWs in the war over our souls, they are not shackled by the devil. He can’t keep us imprisoned, he has no power over us, he can’t even make us do anything. And God chooses not to as well. If we have been imprisoned, it has been our own doing, our own choices and actions that brought us to that point.
I HAVE to believe this most fundamental truth of the bible, the truth of free will. If God or the devil was able to (of course God IS able to, but chooses not to) make us do anything, that would violate free will. If there is no free will, we are nothing more than puppets and not really even human. Others may be able to influence us (imagine the two little cartoon characters sitting on your shoulders), but in the end it is our choice. Without free will, the rest of my faith shatters and there is nothing left.
Thus, when we sin, we should never place the blame on anyone else and especially not the devil. That is giving him way too much credit and way too much influence over us. We need to grow up and take responsibility for our actions.
Alan N It’s somewhat amusing to hear a vigorous defense of free will from a Lutheran—have you read Luther’s /The Bondage of the Will/? To be sure, he does *not* argue we deterministically controlled, puppet-like. But he’s quite clear (in contrast to Erasmus; the book is part of a long-running debate between them) that the human will is bound by its own sinful nature until set free by the sovereign grace of God. Apart from Christ, we are free within our sin—i.e., we can choose from among many different sins—but we cannot free ourselves from sin. But God be praised, for He can and does!
Rebecca Diltz Nate Moehring Hehe. Well, first of all, just because I’m Lutheran doesn’t mean I agree with everything Luther said. And we aren’t going to a Lutheran church right now anyways, so I guess we aren’t Lutheran anymore.
Anyways, what I said doesn’t conflict with what you said. I agree that once we sin, we are in bondage to it and only Christ can save us. I only said that it is our choice to sin (ie the devil didn’t make us do it). And if all Luther is saying is that we are sinful by nature (which he does state and uses to argue for infant baptism), that just means that we choose poorly naturally and very early on in our existence.
How and what are you doing these days?
Alan N I should hope you don’t believe everything Luther did (especially re: Jews), but this is a pretty significant doctrine Lutherans and Calvinists have in common and distinct from most other Protestants. Anyway, what sort of church are y’all attending now?
I’m pretty well. I’m still in B/CS—just moved into a new apartment in Bryan. (Corner of Briarcrest and Broadmoor…used to be run-down HUD housing, but new owners just did a thorough renovation.) Working in IT and making intermittent progress toward someday graduating; no classes this semester, but hopefully 9+ hours in the spring.
How ’bout y’all? How many kids have you popped out so far?
September 6, 2008 at 8:12pm · Like
Cheryl W I’m stuck on the Prisoner of War image–a POW certainly doesn’t choose to be a POW. She or he is there because someone else is forcing her or him to be there, not because she or he chose such a destiny. And if we want to expand that image as prisoner, in what ways are people imprisoned in their lives–by sin, sure, but is all of that sin of their own choosing? There are sinful systems that lock people in, and those of us who sit a safe distance away, thinking that our actions are making us righteous, are still complicit in those systems–are we truly sinless?
If Jesus came to liberate us from our sin, to those of us who understand that, can we not join in that task of liberation? God liberates to set the prisoner free–it doesn’t really matter how that prisoner got there, whether by their actions or their choices or not. The key here is the freedom.
Rebecca Diltz Nate Moehring And that is why I said I didn’t like the POW illustration.
Jason K I am pretty sure that Calvin believed in Dual predestination (that it was determined ahead of time who was in and who was out), and Luther worked out in the formula of Concord that Lutherans would believe in single predestination, i.e. once we accept, by choice, the gift of grace we are predetermined to live a sanctified life and life eternal. So I don’t agree that most protestants are in agreement on the predestination thing. It is hard even to convince a Lutheran of their predestination.
And I don’t like the POW image either. Jesus might have accepted the will of the father, but since Easter that will has never been to go and kill in God’s name…therefore Jesus would not be a POW, and further if Jesus were acted upon in his human and not risen nature and would be in the US he would have been an objector, and if in any other country would have glady picked up his cross again and showed the world for the violent and angry and ungodly place that it tries to be.
Or something like that.