By John Owen
(Modern English)
Our next task is to examine the great idol itself—free will. Its supporters speak of it as though it descended from heaven, like the famous image of Diana at Ephesus, possessing divine powers from above.
Yet when we compare what free will originally was with what its advocates have now made it, we may say of it what a painter once said of a picture that had been altered according to everyone's wishes: "The people made this." It is a creation of human imagination.
Some have thought that Origen first introduced this idea into the church. Yet among those who sincerely exalted the grace of God, it found little acceptance. Free will was viewed much like the broken idol Dagon lying before the ark of God—helpless and powerless. Without divine grace it could neither know nor do what is good. It was regarded as little more than a useless piece of wood.
The church fathers debated what place should be given to it. Some granted it a little more honor than it deserved, but most still considered it weak and dependent. Eventually a determined champion arose on its behalf: Pelagius. Like a wandering knight, he challenged the entire church, traveling far and wide to defend his idol.
Though he encountered many opponents—and especially one great adversary, Augustine of Hippo, who repeatedly defeated him in defense of divine grace—yet Pelagius succeeded in planting the seeds of his doctrine in many hearts. Church councils condemned him, and most Christians sided with Augustine, but the influence of Pelagian ideas was never completely removed.
After Pelagius and his followers passed from the scene, certain corrupt schoolmen took pity on this abandoned idol. They built it a magnificent temple and adorned it with doctrines of natural ability, human merit, independent power, and many other attractive decorations.
Then came the Reformation. That great enemy of superstition and idolatry swept away many false structures. By the light of Scripture, our forefathers demolished this temple of free will and buried the idol beneath its ruins. It seemed as though it would never trouble the church again.
But in recent times, some restless minds, dissatisfied with the pure teaching of Scripture and always searching for novelties, dug through old heaps of discarded errors and rediscovered this idol. Delighted with their find, they cried out, "We have found it!" and quickly erected a new shrine. Ever since, they have continued praising and honoring the work of their own hands.
To preserve their idol from destruction, they joined it to another invention: contingency, a goddess of their own making. Together these two have produced countless strange doctrines. After more than twelve hundred years of conflict with God's providence and grace, free will now boasts as though it has won a complete victory.
Yet whatever success it has gained comes not from any true strength of its own, but from the diligence of its supporters and, sadly, from the neglect of its opponents. There is no more substance in it now than when the ancient church rejected it long ago.
Anyone who can make his way through the maze of distinctions and subtle arguments surrounding this doctrine will discover that, after passing through many impressive-looking structures, he has been brought at last to the image of an ugly ape.
We do not deny free will altogether, as though it were a mere fiction and did not exist.
We simply reject free will as the Pelagians and Arminians define it.
We are not interested in fighting over words. We gladly grant that human beings possess as much freedom as any created nature is capable of having. We affirm that people make choices voluntarily. They are not forced from outside, nor do they act by natural necessity. They deliberate, choose, and pursue what appears good to them.
If someone wishes to call this power "free will," we have no objection—provided it is not made supreme, independent, and unlimited.
Likewise, in spiritual matters we do not deny that the will remains a true faculty of choice. However, we insist that sinners are not truly free until Christ makes them free. There is little value in boasting of freedom where one lacks the ability to do what is truly good.
Grace does not destroy freedom. Rather, it establishes and perfects it. As Augustine said, "Man does not attain grace by liberty, but liberty by grace."
Our discussion concerns human will not as it existed before the Fall, but as it exists now, corrupted by sin. Even in its original state, the will was never as powerful as the Arminians claim it is today.
We shall therefore consider:
What natural power they attribute to free will.
What ability they claim it possesses to prepare itself for grace.
How they believe it cooperates with grace in conversion.
Arminius defined freedom of the will this way:
Even when everything necessary for a choice is present, the will still remains indifferent and can either choose or refuse.
The Remonstrants taught similarly:
After all conditions necessary for action are met, the will can either will or not will.
According to this doctrine, the human will possesses such complete independence that God's providence, decree, and purpose cannot determine its choices.
Consider conversion.
Arminius says that every unregenerate person has power:
to resist the Holy Spirit,
to reject offered grace,
to despise God's counsel,
to refuse the gospel,
and to refuse opening the heart when Christ knocks.
What a mighty idol this must be! Neither the Holy Spirit, nor God's grace, nor the gospel, nor Christ's own appeal can overcome it.
According to Corvinus:
Even after God has used every means of grace possible in conversion, conversion still remains in our own power, so that we may either be converted or refuse conversion.
In other words, after God has done all He can do, the final decision rests entirely with man.
The Remonstrants further teach that every obedient person always retains the power to disobey, and every believer always retains the power not to believe. Consequently, the reason one person obeys while another does not lies ultimately within the person himself.
All the praise for faith and obedience therefore belongs not to God but to human free will.
Arminius even argued that every person naturally possesses the power to believe and obtain salvation if he chooses.
This, Owen argues, confuses nature and grace just as Pelagius did.
The Arminian doctrine grants free will:
independence from God's providence,
independence from God's grace,
self-sufficiency in action,
and complete indifference between good and evil.
According to this system, good actions do not ultimately depend on God as actions, nor on grace as good actions. They arise from a self-determining principle within man.
Owen rejects this for two reasons:
Since they are creatures, they cannot act independently of God's sustaining providence.
Since they are corrupted by sin, they cannot perform spiritual good apart from God's grace.
To grant absolute self-sufficiency would be to make human beings gods.
To grant fallen humanity equal power for good and evil would be to deny the Fall itself.
Owen gladly affirms genuine human freedom.
People act voluntarily. They choose according to their desires and judgments. No external force compels them.
Yet this freedom always exists under God's sovereign providence.
The Arminian notion of complete independence is impossible. It imagines a will existing apart from God's decree and government—a purely hypothetical freedom that has never existed and never can exist.
As long as God exists, human wills remain subject to Him.
Therefore Owen prefers the ancient definition of Prosper:
Free will is a spontaneous desire for what appears good.
It acts freely, yet always under God's providential rule.
Anything completely independent in its operation would have to be purely self-existent.
But only God is self-existent.
Every created will depends upon God for its activity.
Therefore no created will can possess absolute independence.
God uses human choices to accomplish His purposes.
Scripture repeatedly shows God directing human decisions while leaving them voluntary.
If human wills were absolutely independent, God could not ensure the fulfillment of His purposes whenever those purposes involved human choices.
This would greatly limit His dominion over the world.
Every act of willing is a real event.
If God did not sustain and move creatures in their actions, the will itself would become the ultimate source of its own existence and activity.
That would make man the first cause rather than God.
The Arminians claim that fallen man possesses essentially the same ability Adam had before the Fall.
They say he can:
believe or refuse belief,
obey or disobey,
repent or refuse repentance,
be converted or remain unconverted.
Scripture, however, describes fallen humanity very differently.
It speaks of people as:
slaves of sin,
dead in trespasses,
under sin's dominion,
free from righteousness,
unable to attain true liberty apart from Christ.
The biblical picture is not of a powerful spiritual faculty waiting to choose rightly, but of a fallen nature deeply corrupted by sin.
The understanding is darkened.
The eyes are blind to spiritual truth.
The ears refuse God's voice.
The hands are stained with sin.
The feet run toward destruction rather than peace.
Such descriptions hardly support confidence in the natural powers of fallen humanity.
Faith, repentance, and true obedience are supernatural works.
They do not arise from flesh and blood.
A natural faculty cannot produce a supernatural effect.
Just as doves do not give birth to eagles, fallen human nature cannot produce saving faith by its own power.
A supernatural act requires a supernatural cause.
Therefore grace must elevate and transform the will before it can produce genuine spiritual obedience.
Faith is the clearest example.
The Arminians teach that every person naturally possesses the power to believe.
Owen rejects this as Pelagianism.
The Church of England itself teaches that a person cannot prepare himself for faith by his own natural strength. God's grace must first work in him.
More importantly, Scripture declares that faith is God's gift.
Believing is God's work.
Knowledge of the kingdom is given by God.
Coming to Christ is possible only when the Father draws a person.
Paul even compares the power producing faith to the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead.
If such divine power is required, then faith cannot be a merely natural act of free will.
Owen's central argument is simple:
Human beings possess real freedom of choice, but they do not possess absolute independence from God.
Because we are creatures, all our actions depend on God's providence.
Because we are sinners, all spiritual good depends on God's grace.
The Arminian doctrine of free will, Owen argues, elevates human ability beyond its proper limits, attributing to fallen man powers that belong only to God and thereby diminishing the necessity and glory of divine grace.