WEBVTT 00:00:19.469 --> 00:00:22.070 Christians everywhere say, God is sovereign. 00:00:22.469 --> 00:00:27.089 God is free. God is love. But those words only 00:00:27.089 --> 00:00:29.210 hold their meaning if we're careful about one 00:00:29.210 --> 00:00:33.490 deeper word, necessary. When something happens 00:00:33.490 --> 00:00:36.990 necessarily, it means it could not have been 00:00:36.990 --> 00:00:40.789 otherwise. It's not unlikely. It's not difficult. 00:00:41.229 --> 00:00:45.229 It's not improbable. It's impossible to be different. 00:00:46.630 --> 00:00:50.770 Two plus two equals four. necessarily. Drop a 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:54.289 stone, it falls necessarily. There's no real 00:00:54.289 --> 00:00:57.289 fork in reality. Now here's the question that 00:00:57.289 --> 00:01:00.549 governs everything. Is God's willing like that? 00:01:01.270 --> 00:01:05.969 Imagine two kings. King A. Everything in his 00:01:05.969 --> 00:01:11.150 kingdom unfolds inevitably from who he is. He's 00:01:11.150 --> 00:01:15.489 not forced. No one compels him. But if you understood 00:01:15.489 --> 00:01:18.489 his nature perfectly, You could predict every 00:01:18.489 --> 00:01:21.989 decree forever. Nothing could have been otherwise. 00:01:22.310 --> 00:01:26.969 He is sovereign. But nothing is genuinely open. 00:01:28.129 --> 00:01:32.489 Now, imagine King B. He is just as powerful, 00:01:32.709 --> 00:01:36.290 just as wise, just as sovereign. But when he 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:38.689 surveys his kingdom, he sees many possible futures. 00:01:39.290 --> 00:01:41.909 He could build by the sea. He could build by 00:01:41.909 --> 00:01:44.670 the mountains. Each possibility reflects his 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:48.799 wisdom. None are inferior. None are forced. He 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:52.620 chooses one. Not because he must, but because 00:01:52.620 --> 00:01:56.540 he wills it. Both kings are sovereign, but only 00:01:56.540 --> 00:02:01.599 one has real alternative possibilities. That's 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:04.420 the difference between inevitability and freedom. 00:02:05.439 --> 00:02:08.379 In much of Western theology, sovereignty is protected 00:02:08.379 --> 00:02:12.099 so strongly that nothing can happen outside God's 00:02:12.099 --> 00:02:15.659 decree. Every salvation, every one of your sins. 00:02:16.270 --> 00:02:20.009 every event. Now ask, could anything have happened 00:02:20.009 --> 00:02:25.770 differently? If the answer is no, not because 00:02:25.770 --> 00:02:29.129 God chose this among alternatives, but because 00:02:29.129 --> 00:02:33.469 he could not have done otherwise, then reality 00:02:33.469 --> 00:02:36.889 is inevitable. It's not coerced, but unavoidable. 00:02:37.569 --> 00:02:42.050 And here's the irony. In order to defend God's 00:02:42.050 --> 00:02:44.719 sovereignty, we end up defying sovereignty in 00:02:44.719 --> 00:02:48.699 such a way that God himself does not have libertarian 00:02:48.699 --> 00:02:53.300 freedom. He is free, yes, but only in the sense 00:02:53.300 --> 00:02:56.699 that he acts from himself, not in the sense that 00:02:56.699 --> 00:02:59.520 he could have done otherwise. Sovereignty becomes 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:02.759 inevitability. Now bring this into election. 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:06.379 Both Catholic and Reformed traditions affirm 00:03:06.379 --> 00:03:10.699 God shows mercy to the elect. He passes over or 00:03:11.229 --> 00:03:15.889 ordains the reprobate. So he chooses the elect 00:03:15.889 --> 00:03:20.449 and shows them his mercy, or he sort of ignores 00:03:20.449 --> 00:03:26.669 those on the path to destruction or ordains their 00:03:26.669 --> 00:03:31.430 destruction. There's a distinction, but if it 00:03:31.430 --> 00:03:35.330 was necessary that these are saved and those 00:03:35.330 --> 00:03:38.430 are damned, not because God freely chose among 00:03:38.430 --> 00:03:40.930 real alternatives, but because he could not have 00:03:40.930 --> 00:03:44.830 done otherwise, then what is mercy? If he could 00:03:44.830 --> 00:03:47.150 not have saved the reprobate, what are we calling 00:03:47.150 --> 00:03:50.550 grace? If he could not have refrained from saving 00:03:50.550 --> 00:03:54.349 the elect, what are we calling love? The distinction 00:03:54.349 --> 00:03:58.270 remains, but the openness disappears. And love 00:03:58.270 --> 00:04:01.169 without openness begins to feel like structure. 00:04:02.169 --> 00:04:05.069 Not chosen, but inevitable. You might think, 00:04:05.189 --> 00:04:08.550 well, that's Aquinas. That's metaphysics. But 00:04:08.550 --> 00:04:11.259 here's the deeper point. Tying this back to original 00:04:11.259 --> 00:04:14.699 sin, you can arrive at the same place starting 00:04:14.699 --> 00:04:17.899 with nothing but a strong doctrine of original 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:21.180 sin. Let's start fresh. There's no Aristotle 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:26.040 yet, no pure act, no metaphysical system. Just 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:29.620 this claim. If these terms are unfamiliar to 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:32.500 you, stick with me for just a second. After the 00:04:32.500 --> 00:04:35.759 fall, human nature is corrupted. Humans cannot 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:39.629 see God. They cannot desire him rightly. and 00:04:39.629 --> 00:04:41.990 now they act according to their fallen nature. 00:04:42.629 --> 00:04:45.870 If fallen humans always act according to their 00:04:45.870 --> 00:04:49.149 sinful nature, and they cannot do otherwise without 00:04:49.149 --> 00:04:52.769 grace, then freedom must mean acting according 00:04:52.769 --> 00:04:55.769 to your nature. Let me repeat that. If fallen 00:04:55.769 --> 00:04:57.970 humans always act according to their sinful nature, 00:04:58.129 --> 00:05:01.750 and they cannot do otherwise without God intervening, 00:05:01.790 --> 00:05:05.930 taking the initiative, coming first, causal dependence 00:05:05.930 --> 00:05:10.750 on God's initiative. then freedom must mean acting 00:05:10.750 --> 00:05:15.170 according to your nature, not having the ability 00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:18.209 to do otherwise. So already, libertarian freedom 00:05:18.209 --> 00:05:21.689 has been removed at the human level. Freedom 00:05:21.689 --> 00:05:24.810 becomes voluntary action flowing from internal 00:05:24.810 --> 00:05:29.110 desire. Okay, freedom becomes voluntary action 00:05:29.110 --> 00:05:34.529 flowing from internal desire. That's what compatibilism 00:05:34.529 --> 00:05:39.240 is. And we haven't touched metaphysics. We've 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:43.360 just defined sin and the will. So if humans cannot 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.199 choose God, then salvation must be entirely God's 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:48.980 work. God changes the heart. God gives new desires. 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:53.420 God determines who receives grace. Now ask, could 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:56.279 God have chosen differently? If God saves some 00:05:56.279 --> 00:05:59.399 and not others, is that a free selection among 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:04.300 real alternatives? Or is it part of an eternal 00:06:04.300 --> 00:06:07.009 decree that could not have been otherwise? If 00:06:07.009 --> 00:06:10.970 God's saving will cannot fail and nothing happens 00:06:10.970 --> 00:06:14.350 outside his decree, then the fall itself must 00:06:14.350 --> 00:06:17.709 have been within that decree. Because otherwise 00:06:17.709 --> 00:06:20.170 something occurred outside his control. So now 00:06:20.170 --> 00:06:24.470 the fall is within divine providence. Redemption 00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:27.689 is within divine providence. Every detail is 00:06:27.689 --> 00:06:31.790 within divine providence. Remember how freedom 00:06:31.790 --> 00:06:34.490 was redefined at the human level? Freedom equals 00:06:34.939 --> 00:06:38.759 acting according to one's nature. Now apply that 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:42.399 to God. God always acts according to his nature. 00:06:42.540 --> 00:06:47.019 His nature is necessary. Therefore, his actions 00:06:47.019 --> 00:06:50.339 cannot be otherwise. And without ever starting 00:06:50.339 --> 00:06:52.439 with Aristotle, you have arrived at the same 00:06:52.439 --> 00:06:55.980 place. Compatibilism all the way up. Different 00:06:55.980 --> 00:06:59.180 road, same destination. Sometimes my Orthodox 00:06:59.180 --> 00:07:02.759 friends will emphasize that maybe bigger than 00:07:02.759 --> 00:07:07.079 original sin. in terms of why people don't grasp 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:12.319 orthodoxy as easily, as quickly, is a denial 00:07:12.319 --> 00:07:14.420 of the essence energies distinction, which I 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:16.860 talked about in a previous episode. And I've 00:07:16.860 --> 00:07:19.100 been trying to make the case that if you never 00:07:19.100 --> 00:07:22.939 started with Aristotle's metaphysics, you would 00:07:22.939 --> 00:07:26.540 still get there if you had original sin as your 00:07:26.540 --> 00:07:29.399 starting point. To me, it doesn't really matter 00:07:29.399 --> 00:07:32.160 how you get there. What you're going to end up 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:35.259 with is a God that does not look free, or he's 00:07:35.259 --> 00:07:38.480 only free in this narrowly defined sense that 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:42.620 he must act according to his essence, which doesn't 00:07:42.620 --> 00:07:45.420 deliberate, doesn't make choices, doesn't pick 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:50.019 A versus B, has no external influences. This 00:07:50.019 --> 00:07:53.300 is how God becomes defined in Western theology 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:55.939 and into the Reformed tradition. And once you 00:07:55.939 --> 00:07:58.920 get to evangelicals, you really don't know, probably 00:07:58.920 --> 00:08:02.759 less likely to go. full reformed or towards Catholic 00:08:02.759 --> 00:08:05.639 theology. But these are the deductions that come 00:08:05.639 --> 00:08:08.540 about when you start with a certain starting 00:08:08.540 --> 00:08:10.899 presupposition, whether it's original sin or 00:08:10.899 --> 00:08:13.259 whether you deny the essence energies distinction. 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:17.639 That God's will is truly distinct from his essence. 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:21.120 Doesn't mean they're disconnected or unrelated. 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:24.300 We don't even try to explain it fully. It just 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:26.759 means they can't be identical or God wouldn't 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:29.160 have freedom anymore. Or he'd only have freedom. 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:33.419 in this narrow sense, where he acts according 00:08:33.419 --> 00:08:35.519 to desire, but he really can't choose between 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.539 one thing and another thing. So whether you start 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:43.299 with metaphysics first, God is pure act, or anthropology 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:47.240 first, humans act according to nature, if you 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:50.720 reason consistently, you converge. You end with 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.440 no real alternative possibilities, divine willing 00:08:54.440 --> 00:08:58.000 that cannot be otherwise, election that is structurally 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:02.120 fixed. Freedom redefined as non -coercion. That's 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:05.399 the system. If all of this is necessary, not 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:08.620 chosen among real alternatives, but structurally 00:09:08.620 --> 00:09:11.360 unavoidable, then what do we mean when we say 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:16.919 God freely created? God freely loves. If it was 00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:19.940 impossible for him to do otherwise, then love 00:09:19.940 --> 00:09:23.899 becomes inevitable. And inevitability is not 00:09:23.899 --> 00:09:27.080 the same thing as freedom. I remember a girl 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:30.289 across the street. that our kids would play with 00:09:30.289 --> 00:09:33.509 when they were younger. She hit her teenage years. 00:09:33.710 --> 00:09:35.970 One of the kids came home and says, so -and -so 00:09:35.970 --> 00:09:41.070 is an atheist now. She's in our driveway and 00:09:41.070 --> 00:09:45.149 I'm cleaning the garage. And I said, oh, I heard 00:09:45.149 --> 00:09:48.789 you became an atheist. And she nodded. I could 00:09:48.789 --> 00:09:51.190 tell she was awkward. I shouldn't have said this. 00:09:52.529 --> 00:09:56.049 Sometime when your mom is telling you goodnight 00:09:56.049 --> 00:09:59.610 and she says, I love you. Tell her, you don't 00:09:59.610 --> 00:10:03.250 love me, mom. You're just programmed to care 00:10:03.250 --> 00:10:05.590 about my survival. I shouldn't have said that 00:10:05.590 --> 00:10:08.610 to her. I admit that. Draw the parallel. I said 00:10:08.610 --> 00:10:11.750 that thinking, look, if you just acted according 00:10:11.750 --> 00:10:14.629 to nature, the way that evolution, atheistic 00:10:14.629 --> 00:10:17.950 evolution describes it, love isn't real. Now, 00:10:17.970 --> 00:10:21.750 if you do the same thing with God, it's not our 00:10:21.750 --> 00:10:24.230 definition of love anymore. It's something we 00:10:24.230 --> 00:10:27.470 don't understand. If I don't choose to love you, 00:10:27.799 --> 00:10:31.519 then I don't really love you. I'm not saying 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:37.059 at all that other Christian traditions deny God's 00:10:37.059 --> 00:10:40.139 personal love. I know that that's not true. They 00:10:40.139 --> 00:10:43.340 don't deny it. They affirm it and they reciprocate 00:10:43.340 --> 00:10:46.279 it. I'm saying when you start with these ideas, 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:49.759 this is where they go. And you have to ignore 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:53.100 them down the road just to function because you 00:10:53.100 --> 00:10:55.820 can't relate to a being where their definition 00:10:55.820 --> 00:10:59.539 of freedom and our definition of freedom have 00:10:59.539 --> 00:11:03.639 zero analogy. At the bottom of reality, does 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:07.080 everything reduce to necessity? Or does explanation 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:11.139 finally end in God freely willed it? Sometimes 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:15.379 you'll hear people say that out of the overflow 00:11:15.379 --> 00:11:19.620 of love within the Trinity, that that necessarily 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:25.820 resulted in creation. The creation of our world 00:11:25.820 --> 00:11:29.639 and of us came about sort of inevitably as the 00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:33.899 overflow of love. Love's creativity. That's nice 00:11:33.899 --> 00:11:38.159 poetically. Creation really didn't have to be. 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:42.200 At the bottom of reality, does everything reduce 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:47.299 to necessity? Or does explanation finally end 00:11:47.299 --> 00:11:53.740 in God freely willed it? If it reduces to necessity, 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:57.000 then sovereignty is inevitability. Think about 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.759 that. Sovereignty is not freedom, the way that 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:03.980 we think of freedom. It's inevitability. If it 00:12:03.980 --> 00:12:07.039 ends in personal willing, then freedom is fundamental. 00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:10.500 And that is not a small difference. That determines 00:12:10.500 --> 00:12:13.919 whether ultimate reality is a machine or a mind, 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:18.500 a structure or a sovereign person. And everything 00:12:18.500 --> 00:12:20.799 else follows from how you answer that. I want 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:23.460 to point out one more thing. Where do you start? 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:27.320 Where do you start? If you're an average person, 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:31.200 where do you start knowing God? I mean, usually 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:33.580 it's something like the Bible, the Bible taught, 00:12:33.799 --> 00:12:36.820 the Bible preached. What I'm saying is you start 00:12:36.820 --> 00:12:40.240 with a person. When God reveals himself through 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:45.600 scripture to us, it's personal. If you have encounter 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:49.039 with Christ, if you're struck by his love, it's 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:54.440 personal. We relate to a personal God. We believe 00:12:54.440 --> 00:13:00.039 in the God who says, I am who I am, who's there 00:13:00.039 --> 00:13:04.120 walking in the garden. In the icon of the creation 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:08.559 of man, Christ is there with Adam. It's a person. 00:13:09.340 --> 00:13:13.039 When we start thinking about theology, we start 00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:16.480 with the person. Then we look at what the person 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:20.480 does. should be fairly intuitive. This is what 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:23.779 we do with people in general. We meet a person, 00:13:23.899 --> 00:13:27.399 we look at their life, look at what they do, 00:13:27.539 --> 00:13:31.840 their output, and then we can try to peer into 00:13:31.840 --> 00:13:35.759 the depths of who they are. But we realize that's 00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:40.379 really impossible. Now, say you reverse that 00:13:40.379 --> 00:13:45.480 order. Say instead of, people do do this and 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:49.009 they're very foolish for it, but Say instead 00:13:49.009 --> 00:13:53.389 of meeting someone, you start with who you think 00:13:53.389 --> 00:13:56.370 they are. Before you've seen their activity, 00:13:56.570 --> 00:13:59.610 before they've revealed themselves to you personally, 00:13:59.649 --> 00:14:04.269 you start with who they must be. And then you 00:14:04.269 --> 00:14:07.669 move to what is your activity, and then you move 00:14:07.669 --> 00:14:12.929 to who are you to the person. You've done things 00:14:12.929 --> 00:14:17.149 backwards, right? That shouldn't be controversial. 00:14:17.799 --> 00:14:20.600 Unless you think people are determined. In the 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:24.480 order that we do theology in the Eastern churches, 00:14:24.700 --> 00:14:26.960 and I really hope this resonates with a lot of 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:30.740 evangelicals, you start with who is revealed. 00:14:31.539 --> 00:14:37.059 Who, not what, not the how. You start with who, 00:14:37.139 --> 00:14:40.919 with I am, with you are the Christ, the son of 00:14:40.919 --> 00:14:43.620 the living God. You start there. Then you move 00:14:43.620 --> 00:14:46.879 to what have you been up to? What can I observe? 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:51.120 that lets me know more about who you are. And 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:53.879 then you try to look inside, but you realize 00:14:53.879 --> 00:14:57.519 these things are too wonderful for me. If I try 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:02.139 to do the opposite, I've really altered how I 00:15:02.139 --> 00:15:06.519 normally know things, right? I normally know 00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:11.340 empirically through revelation, observation, 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:18.190 and then depth of thought. I don't typically 00:15:18.190 --> 00:15:22.509 come up with a metaphysical idea, then looking 00:15:22.509 --> 00:15:26.210 at activity, then when I get the person, who 00:15:26.210 --> 00:15:30.490 have I found? I've already assumed all these 00:15:30.490 --> 00:15:33.470 things about you before I ever got to know you. 00:15:34.309 --> 00:15:37.610 I believe rationally, if you start with original 00:15:37.610 --> 00:15:42.970 sin and guilt, you will end up with similar metaphysics 00:15:42.970 --> 00:15:50.559 as Aristotle. defined abstract deity that must 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:53.919 do these things. It must be this way. And then 00:15:53.919 --> 00:15:57.259 you've got layers and layers and layers of definitions 00:15:57.259 --> 00:16:02.919 on God that are often strained in terms of derivation 00:16:02.919 --> 00:16:05.559 from scripture. But the bigger point is this. 00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:08.879 One of the things that Eastern Orthodoxy solved 00:16:08.879 --> 00:16:12.659 for me, I'm not saying there's no tension, no 00:16:12.659 --> 00:16:17.240 mystery, the free will debate. hung heavy over 00:16:17.240 --> 00:16:20.720 a lot of my life, and it still hangs heavy over 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:24.899 the Christian church. People who affirm freedom 00:16:24.899 --> 00:16:28.460 often think that once you're regenerated, once 00:16:28.460 --> 00:16:30.399 you're saved, once you've had a decisive moment 00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:33.600 with Christ, that you pretty much lose the freedom 00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:37.700 to leave Christ in any meaningful sense, any 00:16:37.700 --> 00:16:40.700 sense where this leaves you vulnerable and in 00:16:40.700 --> 00:16:45.389 danger after you've been saved. God must be free 00:16:45.389 --> 00:16:49.309 if we're going to be free. If we're going to 00:16:49.309 --> 00:16:51.970 have free will, God must have free will. If we 00:16:51.970 --> 00:16:57.070 say that we act according to our desires, but 00:16:57.070 --> 00:17:01.250 all our desires are fallen, we have genuine freedom 00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:03.710 in this way of thinking. We have real freedom 00:17:03.710 --> 00:17:07.329 to do nothing but evil. That's why total depravity 00:17:07.329 --> 00:17:11.470 usually gets called total inability. You're totally 00:17:11.470 --> 00:17:15.230 unable to move towards God. These are the doctrines 00:17:15.230 --> 00:17:19.710 that later generations debated and negotiated 00:17:19.710 --> 00:17:23.589 with and modified to avoid the implications that 00:17:23.589 --> 00:17:25.769 either God created evil or that we have no responsibility 00:17:25.769 --> 00:17:29.329 or that why do evangelism if God has ordained 00:17:29.329 --> 00:17:31.309 everything? It started with these notions of 00:17:31.309 --> 00:17:34.289 freedom with us, and then we often read those 00:17:34.289 --> 00:17:37.470 onto God. Or we do the opposite. We come up with 00:17:37.470 --> 00:17:39.349 an idea of God's freedom, and then we read them 00:17:39.349 --> 00:17:41.650 onto us. It's really hard not to do these things. 00:17:42.059 --> 00:17:46.079 I know that libertarian freedom for God, that 00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:49.359 his freedom, I don't understand it. I don't. 00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:53.859 I'm never going to. But I instinctively can't 00:17:53.859 --> 00:17:57.960 think of freedom as being real if God must do 00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:05.960 things that his nature determines. It looks like 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:09.420 pantheism to me. And I'm not the only one. And 00:18:09.420 --> 00:18:12.079 if you don't know, pantheism is... thoroughly 00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:14.339 deterministic. It's all fate.