Latest / Reformed Thinking / On Free-Will, the Nature and Power thereof | John Owen

Transcript

On Free-Will, the Nature and Power thereof | John Owen · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to Reform Thinking. I'm so glad you could join us
0:02
for this deep dive. Yeah, thanks for having me.
0:04
It is really good to be here today.
0:06
We have a pretty massive task ahead of us today.
0:10
We are cracking open a book that is physically heavy,
0:14
intellectually dense, and written in a style of English
0:17
that usually requires A decoder ring.
0:19
Oh. Absolutely, it is not light
0:21
reading. No, not at all.
0:23
We are looking at the Puritan writer John Owen, specifically
0:26
his work A display of Arminianism.
0:29
And not just any part. We are focusing on Chapter 12
0:31
today. Right.
0:32
And just to set the stage for everyone listening, this isn't a
0:34
light diversional. This is a this is a Warhammer of
0:37
a book. Owen published this in 1642.
0:40
The English Civil War was kicking off, the church was
0:42
fracturing, and theology wasn't just some academic hobby.
0:46
It was life and death. It really was, and the topic we
0:49
are tackling is one that still gets people incredibly heated
0:53
today. We are talking about free will.
0:55
But before we get the angry emails, and I know we will, we
0:58
need to be very clear about where where we are standing.
1:00
Both of us are approaching this from a reformed perspective.
1:04
We adhere to the Westminster Confession just like Owen did.
1:07
Spot on. So if you are looking for a
1:10
neutral let's hear both sides and hug it out kind of
1:12
discussion, this might not be it.
1:14
Yeah, we are here to understand why Owen, who is arguably one of
1:17
the greatest minds in Puritan history, felt that the Armenian
1:21
view of free will was not just a mistake but a full blown
1:24
disaster for the church. And he starts this chapter with
1:27
a metaphor that honestly it shocked me the 1st time I read
1:30
it. Same here.
1:31
Usually when people disagree about free will they use words
1:34
like error or misunderstanding. Owen doesn't do that at all.
1:38
He walks right up to the concept of free will and slaps a massive
1:41
label on it. He calls it an idol.
1:43
He does, and he isn't being poetic or dramatic just for
1:47
effect, he's being hyper precise.
1:50
He opens the chapter by comparing the Armenian view of
1:53
free will to the Ephesian image of Diana.
1:55
OK, let's pause right there. Acts 19.
1:58
The riot in Ephesus. You have this massive famous
2:02
temple to Diana, or Artemis if you prefer the Greek name and
2:06
local legend. The thing that gave this
2:08
specific idol its massive authority over the people was
2:12
the claim that the image literally fell down from heaven.
2:16
Right, it was Diapedes falling from Zeus.
2:18
That's the one. So the claim was that it wasn't
2:21
made by human hands. It was a direct divine gift.
2:24
And Owen says the Armenians do the exact same thing with their
2:27
version of free will. They do.
2:29
They treat this specific capacity, this supposed ability
2:32
to choose God or reject him completely independently, as if
2:37
it were a sacred heavenly endowment.
2:38
They act as if it fell straight from the stars and is the most
2:41
precious, untouched thing a human being possesses.
2:44
But Owen is like that kid in the crowd who prints out the emperor
2:47
has no clothes. He looks at this heavenly free
2:49
will and says, no, it didn't fall from Jupiter, it came from
2:51
your own head. Yeah, he quotes an ancient Roman
2:53
painter in the text to make the point.
2:55
The quote is the people made this.
2:57
It is a man made deity. It is a total fabrication of the
3:01
human mind, designed specifically to flatter human
3:03
pride. He gets even rougher with the
3:05
imagery. Right after that, he moves from
3:08
Diana to Dagon, and this is a deep cut from First Samuel that
3:11
I absolutely love. Well, the stump of Dagon.
3:14
It is such a vivid picture. Set that scene for us, just to
3:16
refresh our memories. Sure.
3:17
So the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant, which
3:20
represents the very presence of God.
3:22
They drag it into the temple of their fish God Dagon as a war
3:25
trophy. They put the ark right next to
3:28
the statue of Dagon, and they go to bed feeling totally
3:31
victorious. And the next morning?
3:33
The next morning, Dagon is face down on the floor before the
3:36
Ark. So embarrassing for a deity.
3:38
Very so the priest prop him back up.
3:42
He figured maybe it was the wind, right?
3:44
They go to bed again The next morning.
3:46
Not only is Dagon falling over, but his head and his hands are
3:50
cut off on the threshold. He is nothing but a stump, a
3:53
useless log. And Owen uses this to describe
3:56
what happened to the concept of free will.
3:58
Yes, he. Argues that the early church and
4:01
the Reformation had already done this when the true gospel, the
4:04
ark of God, entered the room. This idol of human autonomy fell
4:08
flat on its face. It was broken.
4:11
It was exposed as a fig tree log, as he calls it, A useless
4:15
dead piece of wood. So the mission for this deep
4:18
dive is to figure out why he is so aggressive.
4:21
Why does he think the act of choosing is idolatry?
4:24
Well, to be fair to Owen, he doesn't think choosing itself is
4:27
idolatry. We will definitely get to that
4:29
distinction. He thinks autonomy is idolatry.
4:32
And over the next hour or so, we are going to trace the genealogy
4:35
of this idol. We're going to look at the
4:36
philosophy that props it up, and we're going to do a biological
4:40
autopsy of the center to see if this autonomous free will
4:43
actually exist anywhere in Scripture.
4:46
Let's start with the genealogy, because if Owen says this didn't
4:49
come from the Bible and it didn't fall from heaven, where
4:51
did it come from? Who started this whole thing?
4:53
Owen traces it back to the early centuries of the church.
4:57
He points the finger first at origin.
4:59
Origin is a really complicated figure, obviously brilliant, but
5:02
definitely off the rails on quite a few things.
5:06
Very off the rails. Owen calls in the setter 4th of
5:09
New Demons. Ouch.
5:11
That is not a compliment. No, He suggests that Origin was
5:15
one of the first theologians to heavily blend Pagan philosophy
5:18
with Christianity, introducing this philosophical idea that the
5:22
human will is the sovereign captain of the soul.
5:25
But in the early days, this idea didn't really stick.
5:28
The early Christians were martyrs.
5:30
They knew they needed grace just to survive the lions in the
5:33
arena. So for a while this idol sat in
5:35
the corner like that stump of Diagon.
5:37
But then comes the knight, The Knight Errant.
5:39
Palladius. I really love how Owen describes
5:41
him. He paints him as this wandering
5:43
armored warrior. Yeah.
5:44
Pelagius was a British monk, and Owen describes him traveling
5:48
from the West to the east like a knight going on a crusade.
5:51
But his crusade was to champion this specific idol of free will.
5:55
He was the stout champion. He went toe to toe with the
5:57
Church fathers. Arguing that Adamson didn't ruin
6:00
us internally, it just set a really bad example for us to
6:03
follow. So he taught that we are born
6:05
totally neutral. That is his argument, he said.
6:07
We have the horsepower in our own natural wills to keep God's
6:12
law perfectly if we just try hard enough and mimic Christ
6:16
instead of mimicking Adam. He sounds a lot like a modern
6:19
self help guru, like you have the strength within you to
6:22
conquer your destiny. That is spot on what he was.
6:25
He was an ancient motivational speaker, but he ran into a
6:28
massive brick wall. Gagastine.
6:30
The Bishop of Hippo, Owen describes Augustine as the
6:33
adversary who foiled Pelagius. And this wasn't just some polite
6:37
academic disagreement over tea. This was a cage mash for the
6:41
very soul of the Christian Church.
6:43
Augustine looked at Pelagius and basically said if you are right
6:46
then Christ died for absolutely. Nothing, because if I can save
6:49
myself by flexing my own will, I don't need a savior on a cross.
6:52
Precisely. And the Church universally
6:54
agreed with Agustin on this. Councils were held, decrees were
6:57
signed. Pelagianism was officially
6:59
branded a heresy. They took the idol, smashed it
7:02
and then threw it out into the street.
7:03
So in a normal story, the movie should end right there.
7:06
The good guys won, the idol is dust, but this is like a horror
7:09
franchise. The monster never actually stays
7:11
dead. No, it never does.
7:13
Owen says that centuries later, the corrupter schoolman, the
7:17
medieval scholastics, felt sorry for the smashed idol.
7:21
Why would they feel sorry for a heresy?
7:23
Owen attributes it to mere charity and self love.
7:27
They looked at this broken idea of human potential and they just
7:31
missed it. They missed the dignity it gave
7:34
them as humans, so they decided to build a temple for it.
7:37
But they couldn't just bring back raw, unedited pelagianism,
7:41
right? That was already banned by the
7:43
councils. Right.
7:44
They were too smart for that, so they dressed it up in new
7:46
clothes. They created a theological
7:48
hybrid. They said, OK, we absolutely
7:50
need God's grace, but we also need human merit to cooperate
7:52
with it. They adorned the Temple with
7:55
what Owen calls natural lights and merits.
7:58
This basically became the medieval Roman Catholic system
8:01
that Martin Luther and John Calvin reacted against so
8:04
strongly. It was a temple where God did
8:06
some of the heavy lifting, but man's free will had to do the
8:09
rest to make it actually work. Yes, And then comes the
8:12
Reformation. Which Owen calls the fatal time
8:14
for idolatry. That is such a metal phrase.
8:17
It really is. Owen connects the theology of
8:19
the reformers to the physical destruction of the monasteries
8:22
going on at the time in England under Henry the Eighth and
8:26
Edward the 6th. They were literally pulling down
8:28
the stone Abbey's and smashing shrines.
8:32
Owen says that at the exact same time the reformers were pulling
8:35
down this theological temple, they were smashing the whole
8:38
idea of human merit. They were declaring sola gratia
8:41
grace alone. So the temple is rubble again,
8:45
the idol is buried again. But then Owen describes a group
8:48
of men who pop up later. He calls them curious wits.
8:52
The Armenians. And he insults them so
8:54
creatively he says they had weak stomachs.
8:56
Meaning they physically, physically couldn't handle the
8:58
strong medicine of the gospel, the sincere milk of the Word,
9:02
the clear teaching of God's absolute sovereignty was just
9:05
too bitter for them. He made them nauseous to think
9:08
that God was in total control and they were not calling the
9:10
shots. So what did they do to fix their
9:13
nausea? They went digging, Owen says.
9:15
They went raking all dunghills for novelty.
9:17
Wait. Visualize that for a second.
9:18
They are literally digging through the trash heap of church
9:21
history. The theological dump.
9:23
They are digging through the debris of the old Pelagian
9:26
heresy, the stuff that Agustin and the early councils had
9:29
already thrown out as garbage, and they find it.
9:32
They find the old broken idol of autonomous free will buried in
9:37
the filth. And they celebrate this
9:38
discovery. Oh, they act like they
9:39
discovered a brand new continent.
9:42
Owen compares them to a mathematician finding a new
9:44
proportion or a new theorem. They shout, we have found it, we
9:47
have found it. But Owen is standing there
9:50
shaking his head, essentially saying you didn't find anything
9:53
new. You just dug up an ancient lie
9:56
and polished the dirt off it. But here's the catch.
9:58
They couldn't just present the idol naked to a post reformation
10:02
world. They needed to protect it from
10:03
the reformed theologians. If they just said hey we are
10:06
Palladians now, they would get kicked out of the church
10:09
instantly. So they had to invent a
10:11
philosophical shield to guard the idol, Owen says.
10:14
They matched the idol to a new goddess.
10:17
The goddess of contingency. This sounds like a character
10:20
from a bad fantasy novel. The Goddess of Contingency.
10:23
What on earth does he mean by that?
10:25
This is a really crucial point. To understand this, we have to
10:27
talk about how God views the future.
10:30
If God knows the future with absolute certainty, if he knows
10:34
definitively what will happen tomorrow, then the future is
10:37
fixed. Right, right.
10:39
If God knows I'm going to eat a bagel tomorrow morning, I can't
10:42
surprise him and eat a doughnut instead.
10:44
Precisely. But if the future is fixed by
10:47
God's decree or foreknowledge, then your will isn't free in the
10:50
sense that you could genuinely do otherwise.
10:53
You are destined to eat the bagel.
10:55
The Armenians hated that idea with a passion.
10:58
They wanted the human will to be truly, absolutely independent of
11:01
any decree. So they introduced contingency
11:03
into the mix. Contingency essentially means
11:06
uncertainty or possibility. It means things might happen or
11:09
they might not happen. The Armenians argue that the
11:12
future acts of men are contingent.
11:14
They are not determined by God. They are completely open.
11:17
So God is looking at the future, and it's a bit fuzzy to him.
11:20
In a way, yes. Or at least God's decree doesn't
11:24
lock it in God. It's a universe where the final
11:26
outcome of human choices is a giant maybe.
11:29
That's the goddess, the goddess of maybe.
11:31
And Owen absolutely hates this, he says.
11:34
They lead you through these stately frontispieces, these
11:38
fancy, impressive philosophical arguments about justice and
11:41
fairness. But when you finally get to the
11:43
center of their temple to see what they're worshipping, you
11:45
find the image of an ugly ape. An ape.
11:49
He means it's a mockery of reality.
11:51
He's saying you promised us a dignified, noble human freedom,
11:56
but what you actually gave us is a chaotic, unpredictable
12:00
universe where even God himself doesn't know for sure what's
12:03
going to happen next. You swap the solid sovereignty
12:06
of God for the random chaos of an ape.
12:09
OK, so that is the history side of things.
12:11
It is a recycled heresy protected by a goddess of
12:14
uncertainty, right? But we really need to define our
12:17
terms here because I can hear someone listening right now
12:19
screaming at their phone saying, are you telling me I'm a robot?
12:21
Are you saying I didn't actually choose to listen to this deep
12:24
dive? And Owen would look right at
12:25
them and say, yeah, you're not a robot.
12:27
Thank goodness for that. Owen is very careful here.
12:31
He is a brilliant thinker. He grants that humans have a
12:34
will. He isn't stupid.
12:36
He knows we make daily choices. He explicitly grants that we
12:39
have freedom from outward Co action.
12:41
Co action that means external force, right?
12:44
If I grab your hand and physically force you to punch
12:47
someone in the face, you didn't do that.
12:50
I did. Your will was completely
12:52
violated by an outside force, Owen says.
12:55
God doesn't do that to us. He doesn't treat us like
12:57
mechanical puppets on strings. He also grants freedom from
13:01
inward natural necessity. Which is what distinguishes us
13:03
from the animal Kingdom or inanimate objects.
13:06
A fire burns because it must burn by its nature.
13:09
It doesn't sit there and think about it.
13:10
A dog eats the food in front of it because it has a biological
13:13
instinct driving it. But humans have what Owen calls
13:16
an elective faculty. We deliberate.
13:19
We weigh our options. We choose what seems good to us
13:22
in the moment. Owen calls this spontaneous
13:24
appetite. So we do what we want to do.
13:26
Always. You always choose what you want
13:28
most in that specific fraction of a second.
13:30
So what is the actual problem then?
13:32
If we always choose what we want, aren't we free?
13:34
The problem isn't the act of choosing itself, the problem is
13:38
the wanting what determines what you want in the 1st place.
13:42
And this is where we hit the exact definition that Owen wants
13:45
to destroy. The Armenian definition of free
13:48
will relies on a very specific technical word, indifference.
13:53
Indifference in modern English. That sounds like I just don't
13:56
care about something. Yeah, but in 17th century
13:58
philosophy it meant something completely different.
14:01
It meant equilibrium, perfect undisturbed balance.
14:05
Break that down. For us, Owen quotes the formal
14:07
Armenian definition so we can attack it fairly.
14:09
The definition is all things required to enable it to will.
14:13
Anything being accomplished. It still remains indifferent to
14:16
will or not. That is quite a mouthful.
14:18
Let's slice that up. All things required being
14:20
accomplished. That includes God's grace.
14:23
Yes, imagine the scenario they are painting.
14:26
God has done absolutely everything on his end.
14:28
He sent Jesus to die on the cross.
14:30
He sent the Holy Spirit to convict the conscience.
14:33
He said the preacher to speak the words.
14:34
He removed every single external barrier.
14:37
He put the check in the mail, so to speak.
14:39
OK. God has done 99.9% of the work.
14:43
According to the Armenian system, after God has done all
14:46
of that, the human will is standing at a fork in the road,
14:50
and the will is indifferent. It is a scale in perfect,
14:53
absolute balance. It has the complete, independent
14:57
capacity to go left toward salvation or right toward
15:01
damnation, and nothing, not even the grace of God, can tip that
15:05
scale. So the final gram of weight that
15:07
tips the scale must come entirely from me.
15:10
Exclusively from you. If God tipped it for you, you
15:14
wouldn't be free. According to their definition.
15:16
You have to be the ultimate tiebreaker in the universe.
15:18
This is what creates the concept of the power of resistance,
15:21
isn't it? Yes.
15:22
The Armenians claim that unregenerate men, men who the
15:25
Bible says are dead in sin, have the internal capacity to look
15:28
the Holy Spirit right in the face and say no.
15:31
They argue that a person can resist the Holy Spirit, reject,
15:34
offered grace, and completely refused to open the heart.
15:37
Owen gets incredibly sarcastic here in the text he writes.
15:40
Will be into us then if when God calls us our free will be not in
15:43
good temper. It is a terrifying thought when
15:45
you really process it, isn't it? It means God is sitting up in
15:48
heaven, ringing his hands, just hoping.
15:50
You have to be in a good mood today.
15:53
It implies that the Almighty God is completely helpless to save
15:56
His own children unless they graciously sign a permission
15:59
slip for Him. It challenges the Lord to do his
16:02
absolute utmost. It essentially says, God, fire
16:06
your best shot, use all your infinite wisdom, use all your
16:10
strength. But at the end of the day, I am
16:12
the captain now. And that right there is why it
16:15
is an idol. It claims a prerogative that
16:18
belongs exclusively to God, the sovereign right to determine the
16:21
final outcome of reality. Now Owen doesn't just mark this
16:24
idea, he systematically dismantles it and this is the
16:27
part of the chapter where he puts on his philosopher hat.
16:29
He gives 3 logical arguments that are honestly a bit mind
16:33
bending if you aren't used to reading scholastic theology.
16:36
These are his three logical arguments against the concept of
16:38
indifference. And I warn you, they are deep,
16:42
but if you get them, they change how you see everything.
16:45
Let's walk through them argument #1 the will would be a pure act,
16:48
OK? Pure act act as purists in the
16:51
Latin. This is a classic Orthodox
16:54
definition of God himself. What does that actually mean in
16:57
plain English? Think of the difference between
16:59
a battery and a toy car. A toy car moves because the
17:02
battery sends energy to it. The toy has the potential to
17:05
move, but it absolutely needs energy from an outside source.
17:09
Right, it can't drive itself. But the battery, it holds the
17:12
energy within itself. Now scale that concept up to the
17:15
entire universe. Everything that moves or changes
17:18
moves because something else moved at first.
17:20
I push the coffee cup. The cup moves, but eventually if
17:22
you trace all those movements back, you have to get to a
17:25
primary source of motion that doesn't need to be pushed by
17:27
anything else. The unmoved mover.
17:29
God. Spot on.
17:31
God is pure act. He is pure energy, pure uncaused
17:34
being. He doesn't derive his action or
17:37
his choices from anyone or anything else.
17:40
OK, follow the logic. God is the battery of the
17:42
universe. Now look at the Armenian
17:44
definition of free will again. They claim that the human will
17:47
can start a motion, an act of spiritual choice, absolutely on
17:51
its own, without God moving it. Without God powering it, they
17:55
say, it can go from a state of resting to choosing purely by
17:58
its own internal strength. So it doesn't need the battery.
18:01
Right. If the human will can start an
18:03
action completely independently of God, then the human will is a
18:07
pure act. It is claiming to have the exact
18:09
same nature as the Creator. That is man, that is heavy.
18:13
So every time someone says I made this choice completely on
18:17
my own without God's influence, philosophically speaking, they
18:21
are claiming to be a little God. They are claiming to be the
18:24
fountain of their own being, Owen says.
18:26
This is a metaphysical impossibility.
18:28
We are created beings. We have liberty by
18:30
participation. We only move because he first
18:33
moves in US. To claim otherwise is to claim
18:36
literal divinity for yourself. Argument #2.
18:40
This one is a lot more practical grasp.
18:42
It is about control over history.
18:45
If the human will is truly indifferent, if it can truly go
18:48
either way at any moment, regardless of what God wants,
18:52
then God cannot determine any event that involves a human
18:55
choice. And since human history is
18:57
basically nothing but human choices.
19:00
Think about the crucifixion for a second.
19:02
Acts chapter 4 explicitly says that Herod and Pontius Pilate
19:06
did whatever God's hand and God's plan predestined to take
19:09
place. But if Pilate had this Armenian
19:13
independent free will. Then Pilate could have woken up
19:15
that morning and said, you know what, I like this Jesus guy.
19:18
He seems peaceful. I'm letting him go and executing
19:20
Barabbas instead. And if he does that, the cross
19:23
doesn't happen. No atonement, no salvation for
19:25
anyone or. Think about biblical prophecy.
19:27
God says through Isaiah Cyrus will rebuild Jerusalem, but if
19:30
King Cyrus has this autonomous, indifferent free will, he could
19:34
wake up years later and say Nah, I think I'll invade India
19:37
instead of dealing with the Jews.
19:39
So God would essentially be a liar.
19:41
Or just a really good guesser whose guesses sometimes fail.
19:45
Owen says. If you grant this kind of
19:47
absolute freedom to humans, you completely exclude God's rule
19:51
over the world. He becomes a mere spectator.
19:53
He might be a very smart spectator who can calculate the
19:56
odds better than anyone, but he isn't the king on the throne.
20:01
He can't ensure any specific outcome in history.
20:03
That sounds suspiciously like modern open theism.
20:06
It leads directly to it. If man is free in this absolute
20:09
sense, God is not sovereign, period.
20:12
Let's move to argument #3 this is probably the weirdest one,
20:15
but maybe the most striking once it clicks creation X nihilo.
20:19
Creating out of nothing. We usually only think of that
20:22
doctrine when we talk about God making stars and planets in
20:25
Genesis. Owen asks a really probing
20:27
question here. What is a choice?
20:29
What is a thought? Is it nothing?
20:31
No, obviously not. It's something it has real
20:34
consequences in the world. It is a positive entity.
20:36
It is a real existing thing in the universe.
20:39
Now the logical question is where did that new thing come
20:41
from? Well, if I thought it, I guess
20:43
it came from me. But where did the capacity to
20:45
originate it come from? If you say it came 100% from me
20:50
and God had absolutely nothing to do with causing it, then you
20:53
have just created a brand new thing in the universe completely
20:56
out of nothing. But I became the creator.
20:58
You became the first cause of a reality.
21:00
Owen argues that if the human will produces a real entity
21:04
without God moving it, then the will is a first and supreme
21:07
'cause you are doing in your own mind what God did in Genesis 1
21:11
when he said let there be light. And Owen says that is an ability
21:15
that belongs only to the Creator.
21:16
Right. We can only create by
21:18
rearranging what God already gives us.
21:20
We can build a chair out of wood, but we can't generate
21:22
reality ex nihilo. So this indifferent free will
21:26
fails on every level because it makes man a God as a pure act.
21:29
It destroys God's throne regarding Providence, and it
21:32
attributes divine creation capabilities to a mere creature.
21:35
That is a brutal philosophical tear down.
21:38
It leaves nothing standing. But Owen isn't just a
21:40
philosopher, he is fundamentally a Bible guy.
21:42
And I think he knows that his readers might be glazing over
21:45
slightly with all this talk of pure act and 1st causes, so he
21:48
shifts gears entirely. He does.
21:50
He moves from the high towers of metaphysics straight into the
21:53
hospital ward. He starts talking about the
21:55
anatomy of the Sinner. He asks a very simple, grounded
21:58
question. Does the Bible ever describe the
22:01
human will as indifferent? Does it ever look like a scale
22:04
in perfect equilibrium? And he just starts listing
22:07
verses boom boom boom. Bondage, Hebrews, chapter 2,
22:11
verse 15. Dead and sins.
22:14
Ephesians chapter 2, verse one. Let's just stop there for a
22:16
second. Think about a physical corpse.
22:19
Is a corpse indifferent about whether to get up and go for a
22:22
walk? No, it's totally incapable of
22:24
making that choice. It has no equilibrium.
22:26
It is fully 100% committed to staying dead.
22:29
It cannot change its own state. Servants of Finn, Romans,
22:32
chapter 6. Slaves.
22:34
A slave obviously has a human will.
22:36
He chooses to obey his master's commands daily.
22:40
But is he free to just pack up and leave the plantation?
22:42
No, he is bound. His will operates entirely
22:45
within the confines of his slavery.
22:47
And then Owen does this thing with Psalm 115 that is just,
22:50
it's pure literary genius. Psalm 115 is the passage where
22:55
the psalmist is mocking the Pagan idols of the surrounding
22:57
nations. They have mouths, but they speak
22:59
not eyes, have they? But they see not.
23:02
Usually we apply that text directly to wooden statues, but
23:05
Owen turns the camera around and points it at the center.
23:08
He says this free will you worship so much.
23:11
It is an idol, and just like the idols of the Pagan nations, it
23:15
is completely broken and useless.
23:17
Let's walk through the specific body parts he lists, because
23:20
this gets really visceral. Let's start with the mouth.
23:21
The idol has a mouth, but speaks not.
23:24
Owen looks at the unregenerate sinner's mouth.
23:26
Can it speak the true praise of God?
23:28
No, Romans 3 says. It is full of cursing and
23:31
bitterness. It can speak lies, It can speak
23:34
great swelling words as Jude 16 says, but it cannot naturally
23:37
speak the spiritual truth of God.
23:39
It is spiritually mute eyes they have, but see not.
23:43
Owen points directly to 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14.
23:46
This is a massive key verse in this debate.
23:49
The natural man receive is not the things of the Spirit of God,
23:52
for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.
23:56
Emphasize that phrase. Neither can he.
23:58
That is a statement of ability, or rather inability.
24:01
Right. It's not just that he won't look
24:02
at the truth, it's that he cannot see it.
24:05
He is totally blind to spiritual reality, Owen says.
24:09
There is No Fear of God before their eyes, so this autonomous
24:12
free will is just stumbling around in pitch black darkness.
24:16
How can a blind will possibly make a balanced, informed
24:19
decision about the light? The ears.
24:20
This is honestly my favorite image in the whole book.
24:23
The deaf adder. Psalm 58 like the deaf adder
24:26
that stoppeth her ear, which will not harken to the voice of
24:29
charmers. There is an ancient myth about
24:31
this snake, right? Yes, the ancient legend was that
24:34
the adder, to avoid being hypnotized or charmed by the
24:37
musician's flute, would press 1 ear firmly into the dust of the
24:40
ground and literally jam the tip of its own tail into its other
24:44
ear. That is some serious dedication
24:45
to ignoring someone. It is active, aggressive
24:48
hostility, Owen says. The Sinner isn't just deaf like
24:52
a passive stone. He is deaf like the adder.
24:55
He actively blocks out the call of God.
24:58
You can preach the most beautiful, compelling gospel
25:00
message. You can charm wisely, as the
25:02
verse says, but the ear is intentionally stopped up.
25:05
A nose. A bit weird to think about, but
25:07
highly biblical. He says to this free will, the
25:10
gospel is a saver of death unto death.
25:13
It doesn't smell the sweet aroma of Christ's sacrifice.
25:16
It smells the foul stench of a tomb.
25:18
It is naturally repulsed by the truth.
25:21
And finally, the feet. Swift to shed blood.
25:24
Or he uses the Old Testament example of Mephibosheth.
25:27
The grandson of King Saul. Right Mephibosheth was dropped
25:29
by his nurse when he was fleeing at five years old, and he became
25:32
permanently lame in both feet. Owen uses this as a brilliant
25:36
picture of the fall of man. When Adam fell in the garden, he
25:39
dropped all of us. Our will is crippled.
25:42
We can't walk the path of righteousness.
25:44
We can't even stand up on our own 2 feet spiritually.
25:46
So putting all of this anatomy together, you have a figure that
25:50
is blind, mute, deaf, actively clugging its own ears, smelling
25:55
death everywhere, and dragging broken legs through blood.
25:59
And the Armenian theologian looks at that absolute disaster
26:02
of a human being and says, Yep, that guy has the innate capacity
26:06
to choose God. He is perfectly balanced in his
26:09
decision making. He just needs a little
26:11
encouragement. It's incredibly absurd when you
26:13
put it that way. That is exactly Owen's point.
26:15
The old man is not a deity to be trusted with eternal decisions.
26:20
It is a ruined casualty to be pitied.
26:22
To say that this broken thing has the capacity to determine
26:25
its own salvation is like saying a corpse in a morgue has a
26:29
capacity to perform open heart surgery on itself.
26:32
This brings us to the final bunker of the debate, because
26:34
the Armenian will inevitably retreat at this point.
26:36
They will say, OK, OK, maybe I can't keep the whole law
26:39
perfectly, maybe I can't run a spiritual marathon.
26:41
But surely, surely I can just accept a free gift.
26:43
Faith is just reaching out an empty hand.
26:45
It's a tiny, small thing. Can't the natural will do that?
26:48
This is the specific case of faith segment of his argument,
26:52
and it is where the battle is definitively won or lost.
26:56
Owen makes a really sharp distinction here between natural
26:59
acts and supernatural acts. This is key to understanding
27:03
Reformed theology. Owen fully admits we have
27:06
strength for civil or moral actions.
27:09
You can choose to pay your taxes on time.
27:11
You can choose to be kind to your neighbor and mow their
27:13
lawn. You can choose to read a
27:15
theology book. Those are natural human actions
27:18
operating within a natural sphere.
27:20
So I do have free will to pick what color socks I wear there in
27:23
the morning. Yes, absolutely.
27:24
That is completely within your natural sphere.
27:26
But faith, true repentance, actually seeing the glory of
27:30
Christ is beautiful. Those are spiritual,
27:32
supernatural actions. And the guiding principle here
27:35
is. Nothing has an activity in
27:37
causing above its own sphere. Give me an analogy to help that
27:40
make. Sense.
27:40
Think about a rock. A rock exists in the mineral
27:43
sphere. It can exist.
27:44
It can be heavy, it can fall down a hill.
27:46
But can a rock choose to bloom like a Tulip?
27:49
No, that belongs to the vegetable sphere, right?
27:52
Can a Tulip choose to write a Shakespearean's on it?
27:55
No, that belongs to the rational human sphere.
27:59
And can a natural man, someone living entirely in the sphere of
28:04
the flesh, produce a fruit that fundamentally belongs to the
28:07
sphere of the Holy Spirit? No, it's a complete category
28:10
error. Precisely.
28:11
You cannot give what you do not fundamentally possess.
28:15
If you don't have spiritual life infusing you, you cannot produce
28:18
the spiritual act of faith. It is metaphysically impossible.
28:21
So where does faith actually come from?
28:23
If I can't manufacture internally and I absolutely need
28:26
it to be saved, where do I get it?
28:28
It has to be a gift from outside of you.
28:29
Owen brings the receipts here from scripture.
28:31
He just stacks up the verses relentlessly.
28:34
John, chapter one, verse 13. Born not of blood, nor the will
28:38
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
28:41
Notice the explicit direct denial there, nor of the will of
28:44
man. It really couldn't be any
28:46
clearer. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8.
28:49
For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of
28:52
yourselves. It is the gift of God.
28:55
The faith itself is the gift. Philippians chapter one verse
28:58
29. This is one that always stops me
29:00
right in my tracks. For unto you is given in the
29:02
behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to
29:05
suffer for his sake. Believing is something given to
29:08
you, just like suffering is something you appointed and
29:11
given to you. But the Armenian, specifically a
29:13
guy named Episcopius, fought this biblical concept tooth and
29:16
nail. Yeah, Episcopius was the primary
29:19
leader of the Remonstrance, the Armenian party, at the time.
29:22
He had to fight this because if faith is a gift imparted by God,
29:26
his entire theological system crumbles into dust.
29:29
So he outright denied that any internal action of the Holy
29:32
Spirit is necessary to make a man able to believe.
29:35
What did he claim instead? He claimed the capacity is
29:38
already there, dormant in human nature.
29:41
He said the word is preached externally and the man has the
29:44
inherent strength in himself to either accept it or reject it
29:47
without any internal supernatural change wrought by
29:50
God. He called it a moral persuasion.
29:53
Like me trying to talk you into buying a used car.
29:56
I present all the logical arguments, but you have the
29:58
final say to sign the paperwork. And Owen calls this gross
30:01
Pelagianism. Because it is, it completely
30:04
denies the necessity of the Holy Spirit doing a regenerating work
30:08
inside the human heart. And Owen crushes this idea with
30:13
one final devastating biblical analogy, the resurrection.
30:18
Back to Ephesians chapter 1. Paul prays that the church would
30:21
know the exceeding greatness of his might to us were who
30:24
believe, and Paul wants to give us a measuring stick for that
30:27
divine might. He asks, essentially, how much
30:31
divine strength did it take to make you a believer?
30:34
Did it take a gentle nudge? A quiet whisper in the ear.
30:38
Paul says it is according to the working of his mighty strength,
30:40
which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.
30:43
That is just staggering to think about.
30:45
Really think about it. The Armenian essentially says
30:47
God offer salvation and I just accept it.
30:49
It sounds so simple and casual, like taking a flyer from a guy
30:52
on the street corner. But Owen says no.
30:55
For you to genuinely believe, for you to reach out and take
30:57
that flyer, God had to exert the exact same magnitude of force
31:01
that He used to blast Jesus Christ out of a stone tomb.
31:03
It wasn't a gentle nudge at all. It wasn't a polite waiting for
31:07
your RSVP. He was a violent miracle of
31:09
resurrection. He had to take a dead rotting
31:12
spirit, a spiritual corpse, and blast it with divine life.
31:15
A dead man doesn't accept an offer.
31:17
A dead man needs a brand new heart just to hear the offer.
31:20
Precisely, And that is why the Armenian view is so incredibly
31:23
dangerous in Owen's eyes. Takes a massive miracle of God,
31:27
the literal resurrection of a human soul, and reduces it to a
31:30
mundane human decision. It robs God of the glory of His
31:35
greatest, most costly work. So we have covered a massive
31:38
amount of ground today. We have seen the genealogy of
31:41
the idol dug up from the theological dunghills.
31:43
We have seen the Armenian definition, indifference and
31:46
absolute independence. We've seen the philosophical
31:49
impossibility of it, the pure act and the chaotic goddess of
31:51
contingency. We've seen the anatomical ruin
31:54
of the center, the blind eyes, the deaf ears, the lame feet.
31:57
And we have seen that faith itself must be a resurrection
32:00
miracle, not a human choice. It really is a comprehensive
32:03
demolition job by Owen. He has utterly smashed the idol.
32:07
That Dagon of free will is lying on the threshold of the temple
32:11
without hands or a head. But I want to land the plane
32:13
today with the question that always comes up in these
32:14
discussions. So what?
32:16
Right. Why does this actually matter
32:18
for the person sitting in the Pew?
32:19
Is this just mental gymnastics for theology nerds?
32:23
It matters because the debate is, in the end, entirely about
32:27
glory. Who gets the credit for your
32:29
salvation? Exactly.
32:30
I mean spot on. If the idol stands, if your
32:32
autonomous free will is the final deciding factor.
32:35
Then I get to share the glory. God did his part.
32:38
He built the bridge over the chasm, but I was the one smart
32:41
enough to cross it. I provided the finally men that
32:43
made it work. But if Owen is right, if the
32:45
apostle Paul is right, then you are a recipient of a miracle you
32:49
didn't ask for, didn't want, and couldn't possibly produce on
32:53
your own. And that means God gets 100% of
32:57
the glory, not 99% all of it. It is the stark difference
33:01
between saying I chose God and God chose me it.
33:04
Restores the massive weight of gratitude when you realize you
33:08
were that blind, deaf, lame figure in Psalm 115 and yet
33:12
today you see and hear and walk. You know for a fact it wasn't
33:17
because you were smarter than your unbelieving neighbor.
33:19
It wasn't because you were more spiritually sensitive.
33:21
It was solely because God had sovereign mercy on you.
33:25
I want to leave our listeners with a thought that Owen Hinsat
33:28
something to really chew on as you go about your week.
33:30
It's a bit provocative. Go for it, lay it on them.
33:33
If you hold to the Armenian view that your independent will is
33:36
the final deciding factor, ask yourself this simple question.
33:41
Why are you saved and your neighbor isn't?
33:43
That is the ultimate test of the system.
33:45
Maybe you both heard the exact same sermon from the same
33:48
pastor. You both have the same IQ.
33:50
You both grew up in the same kind of household.
33:52
If God gave you both the exact same amount of grace, and He
33:55
left the final decision entirely up to you, then fundamentally
33:59
you made yourself to differ. You obeyed when you could have
34:02
resisted. Your neighbor resisted.
34:04
So at the end of the day, you are saved because of something
34:07
inherent in you. You are, when you really boil it
34:10
down, your own savior. That is a terrifying thought to
34:14
bring before a holy God. It turns heaven into a place
34:17
where we can quietly boast. Like, thank you Jesus for the
34:21
offer, but it's a really good thing.
34:23
I was wise enough to take it with that, other guy didn't.
34:25
But here's the comfort, and I think this is where Owen really
34:28
wants to lead us as believers. The true comfort is found in our
34:32
prayer life. How so?
34:34
Unpack that for us. How do you actually pray when
34:36
you pray for a lost loved one? Maybe a child who has wandered
34:40
away from the faith, or a spouse who is totally cold to the
34:43
things of God. How do you approach God about
34:46
them? Do you say, Lord, please present
34:48
the gospel information clearly to them?
34:49
But please, whatever you do, respect their free will and
34:52
don't interfere with their autonomous choice, No?
34:55
Absolutely nobody prays like that.
34:56
We pray, Lord, break their heart of stone.
34:58
Lord, open their blind eyes. Lord, drag them to yourself.
35:00
Do whatever it takes to save them.
35:02
We constantly ask God to violate their so-called indifference.
35:06
We beg God to conquer their stubborn will.
35:08
We all pray like Calvinists. Even if we preach like our
35:11
minions on Sunday morning. And I think Owen would say it is
35:15
past time our theology actually matched our prayers.
35:18
It is time to smash the idol of autonomy and joyfully admit that
35:22
God, and God alone, is the sole author and finisher of our
35:25
faith. Amen to that.
35:27
We pray to a God who is actually the reigning King, not a God who
35:31
is held hostage by the whims of men.
35:33
That is a really solid place to land today.
35:35
Thank you for taking the time to walk through this heavy text
35:38
with us. It was a privilege.
35:40
I loved every minute of it. And thank you for joining us on
35:42
this deep dive into reformed thinking.
35:45
Go find a copy of the book if you can.
35:47
It's hard work to read, but the payoff is massive.
35:51
See you next time.