Opus 2025-209: Dark Thoughts: God Is Not a Robot

This morning. I am sitting inside instead of on the porch.  I have an electrical fire going in the fireplace, and I am waiting to see when my grandchildren wake up in the other room.  But my mind still reaches out to the Lord and He kicks me down different rabbit trails.

This morning I was reflecting on the two terms “grace” and “faith”, and how they relate to salvation.  Whenever I think about these things, one of the concepts that comes to my mind, is the concept of “free will”. Technically, it is not a biblical term, but the concept it’s all through scripture.

What got me this morning was not the applying free will to my faith, but it occurred to me that part of being created in the image of God, and believing that gives me free will, should also cause me to extend free will to God himself.  That seems silly, possibly, but think about the Calvinistic concept of grace.  Just like faith, the reformed tradition seems to lock God into a mechanical, robotic, no choice, response, or extension of the gift of grace for salvation.  They want to deny that God has any clear reasons for why He extends that grace.

I tend to think that God is not capricious and automatic.  I believe He has reasons for what He does.  When you consider the fact that in reality we are incapable of being perfect, and that we have all sinned, and that we cannot save ourselves, then, obviously God hast to do something.  It is up to God to decide when to do something and for Him to do that something.  I have no problem with that.  God is God.  He sees things that we aren’t even aware of, let alone understanding.  That does not mean that He does not consider who we are, what we are or what is in our hearts and minds.  I think it’s clear to us that He does, that’s why we have repeated statements that we will be rewarded for what we do.

It is impossible to separate totally our actions from our heart desires.  God can read our hearts.  God can see what’s in our minds and evaluate our actions in light of that.  That is His choice as God.  He can extend His grace or withhold it.

In essence, God has free will, just as He has given us that quality.  Don’t try to make Him a vending machine who responds when we push the right button or a slave master who forces us to push that button.

homo unius libri