Ability and Desire: An Article Review

In my last post, I discussed an article from the (now) penultimate issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS) on biblical literacy of Victorian Britain and present-day America. A few short pages later, I discovered another stellar article that deserves comment, one that deals with the oh-so-contentious area of human free will.

The article, entitled “Ability and Desire: Reframing Debates Surrounding Freedom and Responsibility” and authored by Scott C. Warren, provided me with a valuable tool to use in my own theological journey. For quite some time now, I have been wrestling with the Calvinist/Arminian debate. To put it simply, I can see both sides of the argument. God is sovereign, and no one comes to Him except those that are drawn by Him (Calvinism). At the same time, sinners are held morally responsible for rejecting God, which implies that they had the freedom to choose this route (Arminianism). (I don't buy the hyper-Calvinist idea of double predestination, and I don't think John Calvin would, either.) But how do these two truths intersect? How does one marry the ideas of divine sovereignty and human free will in a logical, non-contradictory way? While I don't expect to resolve this tension completely in my lifetime, Mr. Warren provided me with an answer to a piece of the puzzle.

What the author did was to look at the word "freedom." What does freedom really mean? To answer that question, he draws a diagram. The outer perimeter of the diagram is a box labeled "all conceivable actions." That is, the box represents anything you might think that a person could do in any situation. Inside of the box is a circle representing those things which are actually actionable--that is, what a person has the ability to do in a certain situation. A second circle inside the box represents those things that a person desires to do--what he or she would like to do in a given situation. Finally, the two circles form a simple Vinn diagram, and the overlapping segment is where free actions reside. To make a long explanation simple, Warren defines freedom as "the ability to do what you desire to do." Freedom is thus comprised of ability and desire.

This turns out to be an extremely important distinction that throughout history and the present has been overlooked. But it helps to explain the biblical data very well. Take, for example, Hebrews 6:18, which states that "it is impossible for God to lie." Really? Something is impossible for an omnipotent being? Couldn't God tell a lie if he wanted to? And that is precisely Warren's point: God would not want to lie. An omnipotent deity may very well have the ability to lie, but a good God would not have the desire to lie. To lie would fall so far outside of God's desires that it may be referred to as impossible. In the same way, Jesus, who was fully man, was really tempted to sin and therefore had that ability, but being fully divine, did not have the desire to sin. Therefore, we can agree with Millard Erickson's words, "[Christ] could have sinned, but it is certain that he would not" (italics original).

This idea also works with human freedom. The author argues that humans in their natural state have the ability to repent of their sins and turn to God, but they do not possess the desire to do so. They are free to choose to follow or reject God, but they freely choose to reject him 100% of the time. Warren aptly sums it up when he writes, "The essential problem is not that sinners cannot do what they must, but that they will not do what they can."*

How, then does one change her inmost desire? How does a sinner change his propensity to sin? He doesn't--God alone can do this. Thus in Warren's ordo salutis, regeneration precedes acceptance of salvation. In other words, men and women freely act on their natural desire to reject God until God changes their desires, at which time they act freely to accept His rule. The author contends, and I agree, that without regeneration, a person cannot desire to repent. Thus even though she has the ability to repent, she would never act on it. Thus the certainty of sin and the justice of God's judgment of sinners are harmonized.

There are many more nuances to ponder and resolve (at least in my own mind) in the Calvinism/Arminian debate, enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future. But thanks to a scholarly article in an obscure (for some) academic journal, I have received a nugget of wisdom that puts one more question to rest.

*In other words, if sinners were judged because they did not repent--and this because they could not repent--God would be unjust. But if sinners could reorient their own hearts toward God in their own strength--that is, if they themselves could obtain the desire to repent--there would be no need for grace.