Compatibilism

FoxTrot is a syndicated comic strip by Bill Amend. The strip revolves around the Fox family, but Jason, the youngest, gets most of the attention. He's a smart kid and a smart alec. In one strip back in 2006, Jason was going to play football with his friend, Marcus. "Go deep!" he tells him. Marcus responds with "How can free will coexist with divine preordination?" Jason thinks, then says, "Too deep."

It really is a problem. The Bible is not unclear; God has predestined stuff. We may debate about how much, but you cannot eliminate predestination at all and remain true to the text. And while "free will" is not mentioned in the Bible, it is certainly inferred. If nothing else, the fact that humans are held accountable for their choices suggests some measure of free will. So what's a biblically-minded Christian to do? You can't discard the explicit for the inferred, but you also can't eliminate human accountability by eliminating free will. Perhaps you go with Jason's answer: "Too deep."

Before you blow off the exercise, you should realize that this isn't "Arminians versus Calvinists". Growing voices in the world of the skeptics -- the New Atheists and modern neurologists and the like -- are suggesting that free will is a myth. They, of course, are happy to reject predestination, but they're also thinking that your quaint belief that you actually get to make choices is nothing but a trick of the mind. In reality, your biology is forcing the choices. And -- POOF! -- we're no longer responsible for our choices. So it's not a small problem at all, nor is it limited to Christians.

So here's the trick. Is it possible to allow both Divine Predestination and human free will? Is it possible for predestination to be compatible with free will? I think it's time to learn a new word: "Compatibilism". Determinism (aka fatalism) says that everything is predetermined and you get no choice. We're not willing to go with that one since we've affirmed free will, at least to some degree. Incompatibilism says that for the will to be free there can be no determination at all. We can't go with that one since the Bible is sure that predestination is a fact. Compatibilism says that both Predestination and free will exist.

Without offering a clear explanation of the mechanism, let's go to Scripture. Both Acts 2:23 and Acts 4:27-28 tell us an interesting fact. The Crucifixion of Christ was an event that occurred according to the predetermined plan of God. Predestination in this case is indisputable. However, does the fact that the events were predetermined require that Pilate and the Pharisees and Herod all acted without the freedom to choose? The accounts in the Gospels give no indication of forced choices. There is no hint of "well, they didn't really want to, but something just made them" in there. The historical accounts all portray the actions of the involved participants as their own free choice. No coercion required. Yet the Bible is clear that it was God's predetermined plan. That would be compatibilism. The participants chose freely, but their choices were perfectly in line with God's plans. They could have chosen not to participate -- God didn't force them -- but they didn't choose not to participate. In Luke 22:22 it says Jesus says that the plan was being carried out as it was determined, "but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!" That is, Judas Iscariot chose freely to carry out the betrayal of Christ, but it was part of God's original plan that he do it and, as such, he was culpable for his choice to do it. Mark 14:21 adds, "It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." That's culpability.

Perhaps the coexistence of both Predestination and Free Will is a tough subject. Some would like to solve that problem by eliminating one or the other. The Bible won't allow it. It seems as if the only possible choice would be to redirect our thinking on the concept. I'm of the opinion that we place too much value on "free will", requiring some sort of Ultimate Free Will without any sort of influence or predetermination. Now, you're certainly free to continue thinking of it that way, but that makes it your problem when you try to maintain both God's predestination of all that occurs and Human Free Will without God's predestination of all that occurs. I may not be able to fully describe the mechanism of how it works, but I am forced to submit to the biblical record that says that it does.