In the Protestant tradition, a defense for the freedom of the will has historically fallen to the Arminians. As a matter of fact, Arminian Baptists in the United States were given the derogatory name free willers by their Calvinist brethren—the name stuck and became the official, and personally owned, name of the Free Will Baptists.[1] Let me be clear: I am proud of my Free Will Baptist heritage, and I proudly own the label today. Nevertheless, if I could travel back in time to the late 1700s, I would insist that the Calvinists call us freed willers instead of free willers. The distinction, as we shall see, is an important one.
When one hears the term free will, they often define it, rightly or wrongly, as the capacity to make a decision that is free from any outside influences.[2] However, this definition is completely foreign to the Arminian theological tradition, which has always understood, in the words of F. Leroy Forlines, that “freedom of will is a freedom within a framework of possibilities.”[3] This is philosophically true of human beings before and after the Garden-rebellion.
In Genesis 1, we read that “God created man in His own image” (Genesis 1:27), and while there has not always been agreement on what it means to be made in the image of God, Forlines makes a strong case that “the basic thrust of the idea of being created in the image of God is that man is a personal being . . . one who thinks, feels, and acts.”[4] As God is a willing being, so He has made those in His image to be willing beings. If man were not a willing being, argues Robert E. Picirilli, “man would not be truly personal.”[5] Yet humans have never been free to will whatever they please without limitation. For instance, humans have never been free at any point to fly by flapping their arms—though they remain free to try. At any rate, “The freedom of human beings [has always been] in the framework of possibilities provided by human nature.”[6] Of course, no one really doubts that flying is outside the realm of human nature. The question is about human nature in relationship to seeking God before and after the Fall.
“Before Adam and Eve sinned,” writes Forlines, “it was in the framework of possibilities within which they operated to remain in the practice of complete righteousness, or to commit sin.”[7] They had the free will to choose between good and evil, between obeying and disobeying God. When Adam and Eve sinned, however, the framework of possibilities for human willing shrank. As Forlines puts it, “After they sinned, it no longer remained within the framework of possibilities for them to practice uninterrupted righteousness.”[8] That is, to borrow from Augustine, before the Fall Adam and Eve were posse pecarre (able to sin) and posse non peccare (able not to sin); after the Fall they were non posse non pecarre (not able not to sin).[9] All humans now find themselves in the same predicament—not able not to sin.
While humans now exist with greater limits on their freedom, sin has not destroyed their personal constitution that they possess by virtue of being created in the image of God. As Picirilli expresses it, “depravity does not take away man’s endowment. Depraved man is still personal, and this endowment is part of personality.”[10] That is, depraved people are still personal beings and thus endowed with the ability to choose between two or more options—they are willing beings. The problem is that, this side of Eden, human free will is in bondage to sin; it is bound to sin. Left to himself, natural man will always choose sin, and he will never choose God.
Calvinists may be surprised to hear an Arminian speak this way, but we find these exact sentiments in the following words of James Arminius himself: “In this [fallen] state, the Free Will of man towards the True Good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and (attenuatum) weakened; but it is also (captivated) imprisoned, destroyed, and lost.”[11] The English General Baptists (forebears to the American Free Will Baptists) similarly confessed that fallen humans have “all disposition unto evil, and no disposition or will unto any good.”[12] In other words, Reformed Arminians agree with Calvinists on the total depravity of man. We agree on the total inability of man to come to God in faith by way of the natural will.
Arminians and Calvinists part ways, however, upon a consideration of the way that God works to bring those with sin-bound wills to saving faith in Jesus Christ. The Calvinist believes that God gives special grace to His elect, those for whom Christ died. This special grace is irresistible and ensures a response of faith in Christ. In other words, God irresistibly makes the unwilling willing in classical Calvinist soteriology.
Arminians, however, believe that God’s grace is able to expand the limits of human freedom and place them in a situation where they might exercise saving faith or not. Forlines expresses the Arminian understanding adroitly:
It does not belong within the framework of possibilities of the unsaved person for him to be able to respond to Jesus Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works as the Word is preached. The human heart can resist this work of the Holy Spirit, but where the Holy Spirit is allowed to work He enlightens the mind concerning sin, Jesus Christ, and salvation. He produces conviction in the heart. The preparation of the mind and the heart by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit creates a framework of possibilities in which a person can respond in faith to Jesus Christ. The response is not guaranteed, but it is made possible.[13]
While the Calvinist believes that irresistible grace ensures a response of faith, Arminians believe that God’s grace enables a response of faith without rendering it necessary.
What is key to observe here is that Arminians do not believe human beings are able to make a free will choice for God by nature. The natural will of man is unable to choose God; it is in bondage to sin and the devil. Yet, as the General Baptist Orthodox Creed of 1679 puts it, God “taketh away the enmity out of his [man’s] Will, and by his special Grace, freeth him from his natural Bondage under Sin, enabling him to will freely and sincerely, that which is spiritually good.”[14] In other words, God works graciously to liberate the human will so that humans may truly choose to respond to him in faith or not.
One might say, then, that the term Free Will Baptist is sometimes subject to misunderstanding. We do not believe in the unqualified and unconditional free will of natural men this side of the Fall. Perhaps a more appropriate designation would be Freed Will Baptist because we believe that God’s gracious action is necessary to expand the limits of a person’s freedom, thereby enabling him or her to repent of his sins and savingly believe in Jesus Christ. This “power to believe” is called by the Treatise “the gift of God”; for humans, if left to themselves, would never believe in Christ.[15]
[1]William F. Davidson, The Free Will Baptists in America (Nashville: Randall House, 1984), 179.
[2]F. Leroy Forlines, Classical Arminianism: A Theology of Salvation (Nashville: Randall House, 2011), 51; cf. Robert E. Picirilli, Grace, Faith, Free Will: Contrasting Views of Salvation; Calvinism and Arminianism (Nashville: Randall House, 2002), 41.
[3]Forlines, Classical Arminianism, 51.
[4]Forlines, Classical Arminianism, 5.
[5]Picirilli, Grace, Faith, Free Will, 41.
[6]Forlines, Classical Arminianism, 21.
[7]Forlines, Classical Arminianism, 21.
[8]Forlines, Classical Arminianism, 21.
[9]Thomas Boston popularized Augustine’s ideas on the states of human nature in The Fourfold State. For a brief introduction to this topic, see Stephen Nichols “Boston’s Fourfold State,” Ligonier, February 24, 2016, accessed 20 February, 2024. https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/5-minutes-in-church-history-with-stephen-nichols/bostons-fourfold-state.
[10]Picirilli, Grace, Faith, Free Will, 42.
[11]James Arminius, The Works of James Arminius, trans. James and William Nicholes (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1986), 2.192.
[12]“A Declaration of Faith of English People Remaining at Amsterdam in Holland,” Reformed Reader, accessed 20 February 2024. https://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/helwysconfession.htm. This is article number four. The 1679 Orthodox Creed affirms in even stronger language that “he [Man] falling from his state of Innocency [sic], wholly lost all ability, or liberty of Will, to any Spiritual Good, for his eternal Salvation, his Will being now in bondage under Sin and Satan; and therefore not able of his own strength to Convert himself, nor prepare himself thereunto” (An Orthodox Creed: Or, A Protestant Confession of Faith, transcribed by Madison Grace [Fort Worth: Center for Theological Research, 2006], 23). This is article XX. The modern-day Treatise says that “In consequence of the first transgression, the state under which the posterity of Adam come into the world is so different from that of Adam that they have not that righteousness and purity which Adam had before the fall; they are not willing to obey God, but are inclined to evil. Hence, none, by virtue of any natural goodness and mere work of their own, can become the children of God” (A Treatise of the Faith and Practices of the National Association of Free Will Baptists [Nashville: NAFWB Executive Office, 2023], 6). This is chapter four, section three.
[13]F. Leroy Forlines, The Quest for Truth: Theology for Postmodern Times (Nashville: Randall House, 2011), 257.
[14]Orthodox Creed, 23. This is article XX.
[15]Treatise, 6. This is chapter four, section three.
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