Lately, I’ve been a bit active on Roger Olson’s site and a chap named William Birch. Both are Arminian in their theology. I posed a question to William Birch.
If a man is saved for being wise and another man is damned for being foolish then how is it men won’t be arrogant before one another. They express that Calvinists are prone to arrogance since they believe God chose them. But aren’t libertarians the same?
Give me your thoughts.
Aug
I always thought that the Arminian paradigm placed too much responsibility–and credit–for salvation on the sinner. We’re saved if we choose to have faith enough to “unwrap the gift of Christ.” I think I would find it challenging to remain humble while holding such a belief. But I’m not sure I understand the position well.
The Calvinist should be humble because he knows he was chosen without regard to any merit of his own, and can take no credit at all for his faith. Interestingly, many Calvinists seem to be characterized by an inordinate amount of pride.
I think an Arminian could have the attitude that “everything I have has been given to me–so there is no place for boasting.” (1 Cor 4) But then he’s going to end up with the problem that God didn’t give to others whatever was necessary for them to choose salvation.
The pastors at my church try to be true to scripture by maintaining that scripture teaches a paradox. Thus they teach that God is sovereign in salvation–saving His “elect”, chosen from the foundation of the world, and at the same time, salvation is dependent on man’s choice. Thus they can teach that we bear the consequences of our choice, and we must be humble because God chose us. They call it a mystery that’s beyond our ability to understand, and indeed, trying to think about it almost makes me dizzy! 
As universalists I think we can be true to God’s sovereignty in election and man’s responsible choice without resorting to incomprehensible constructions …and since I’ve begun to wander away from the topic I’ll quit now. 
Sonia
Sonia,
recently I’ve been pondering if the following is true.
God is not to blame when a person is damned (the person chose freely to reject God’s offer of salvation).
God receives all the glory when a person is saved.
How can they both be true.
Talbott uses this logic in 5 views on election against the Calvinist and I’m now wondering if it’s also effective on libertarians.
Auggy
PS I’ll write Talbott on this one.
It appears to me that many Calvinists (including those who taught me at Fuller) seem to agree with Arminians that God is the explanation for our salvation when we believe, but we are the blameworthy explanation when we don’t. The exception is a minority of Calvinists who are unabashed about affirming that God is the absolute cause of everything: the author of evil, unbelief, and damnation as much as salvation. They alone (except perhaps for universalists) are at least coherent, though morally most problematical.
Hi Auggy,
I couldn’t begin to count how many times I’ve heard people say that, or something similar. I don’t know what Talbott says about it, can I find it online somewhere?
It doesn’t make sense to me, but when things don’t make sense the standard procedure is to slap the “MYSTERY” label on it and call it “okay”. But I don’t think it’s okay to maintain logical impossibilities and say “we just can’t understand”–the fact that we’ve created the impossibility through our reasoning merely demonstrates that we’ve made a mistake in our thinking. Surely there are many things that are currently beyond our understanding, but I don’t think it’s because they are logically impossible.
I’ve seen that too.
Sonia
I have to laugh about this or I’ll cry because it’s too true. And it’s not just a mystery, it’s a logical impossibility - how God gets the credit when we believe and it’s our fault when we don’t. I get dizzy too! As long as I’ve known Gene he’s been trying to wrap his head around the Calv./Arminian debate. I’m surprised more people aren’t perplexed with it. I guess calling it a mystery is helpful for some. Finally, with UR he, I think, and I feel like there is some resolution, that God chooses us - all of us - but we play a factor in how things go. Of course, I still wonder why it is that some come to Him first and are spared additional wrath, but it sure helps to know that God is faithful to all. It’s humbling that the reason we’ll be standing with Him is his faithfulness to us and all God’s efforts to get us there, regardless of when it happens, sooner or later. I can leave that to mystery so long as God isn’t sovereignly leaving anyone out of a really great plan that could, but won’t, save them.
I once was trying to explain how our will and God’s sovereignty might work together to a friend. (Our former youth pastor’s daughter) I was so excited about how it made so much sense and wrote about our experience with the so called “mystery” that always was so perplexing. The topic had come up naturally and I thought it a good place to explain our view. I must have scared her because she never wrote me back, not one word! That, or maybe I was just too convincing? 
I went back and found my email to my friend. I’m pretty sure she didn’t respond because it’s very wordy and probably confused her. This was the email:
Jenn, I know it is within your Christian upbringing to endorse Libertarian free will. It was mine too. I remember when I visited with you in Chic-Fil-A and we met a gal that was a Calvinist and you were explaining how your mother n law detests that and is avid about giving a defense for free will. I, too, detest Calvinism.
My mother is always telling me about how we need to make wise choices and no doubt she is right. It always goes better for us when we do.
I’ve always, though, been disturbed with believing that it is up to us to get it right, that our fate is in our hands, being that we are sinful people, blind, and irrational. Who will save us from our delusion that life is great without God? How is it that I can come to God,but others never will?
I don’t know if you will remember this, but Gene, at Family (our church gathering), would always raise questions about how free will passages and more deterministic, Calvinist, passages work together. It was always nagging him how they might both be true, that it was our choice and yet we were clay in the potter’s hands.
We came across a Christian author by the name of Thomas Talbott. He explains a view that I think makes so much sense of the bible.
He explains that while we make choices. They are not “free” in the libertarian sense. How could they be? We are blind, enslaved to sin, irrational, ignorant of God. We are not all built with the same knowledge, experiences, etc. and are in need of God to work with us in our blind choices, many times through consequences, so that we are able to choose Him. He so eloquently explains that any choice to reject God is irrational as it is not in our best interest. It is only once we’ve chosen God that we are truly free. The only really freeing decision, based in truth, is to love God. He is the truth that sets us free.
I’d say it like this…If we think we can make “free” choices, apart from God’s intervention, that it is not his leading that led us to be able to choose then have we not taken the credit for ourselves and opposed the very grace that is what reached us in the first place?
And if it is God’s intervention that eventually reaches us, why not the rest? Is he not also faithful to reach them? It was at this point in my spiritual journey that I did look at Calvinism and contemplated that perhaps God had elected only certain people to love in a saving way. I came to reject such a notion, as it did not seem to embrace a God that died for the whole world.
Then I asked is there something better about my heart that I can respond to God’s call? But isn’t it the hardest heart, the worst of sinners, that God can soften? Jesus, after all, came for the sick - the ones that are blinded by sin. Isn’t it the message of the bible that God, through his grace, seeks us out until we are found?
It seems to me it is just as Talbott says. Though we make decisions, they are not “free” in the libertarian sense that we see clearly and are able to make the best choice, apart from God’s intervention. It’s God’s grace that brings us to the point that we are able to choose Him so that no one can boast. And he is faithful to us all, come hell or highwater.
The cross so powerfully demonstrates the depth of love and forgiveness that God already had toward us. We can trust that God seeks our welfare no matter the consequence that is necessary to turn us. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
Thought I’d share a little of my history on this since the subject came up. Sorry I shared so much. I’m always so wordy. I have found this insight about how our will and God’s will works together to be very helpful in how I look at others.
Sincerely, Amy
I probably should have stopped while I was ahead.
So far William has stated that since Paul says “no man can boast before God” then even if one man is wiser than the other he cannot boast.
I’m reading Paul as addressing salvation by works of the law. I’m not convinced he’s referring to intellect or wisdom.
So I’m holding that if a man is wiser than another (which that wiseom is soucred in himself - since God won’t coerce people into choosing him) then he will be vulnerable to pride - for he himself made a better choice.
Jason Pratt, help me with this would you!!! LOL!
Aug
Hi Auggy,
I’d probably answer with this from 1 Cor 1:
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
Paul seems to me to be saying that we’re not saved because we’re wiser than others, actually we’re more likely to be the opposite–but we’re in Christ by God’s doing.
Sonia
SLJ so predictable.
Amy threw that one at me already LOL!
Excellent verse and I agree with Amy and you. I’m trying to get him express why it is he would disagree with such a notion that the wisdom is a gift from God; Jesus is a gift from God; salvation is a gift from God - EVERYTHING we have is a gift from God - even the air we breath.
Aug
She beat me to it! 
For his doctrine to work, I guess he has to claim that everyone has equal opportunity. Is that what he does? If anyone has a God-given advantage, you end up with unfairness or Calvinism. But Paul says in Romans, “What advantage has the Jew?” and goes on to list the great advantages that they were given, so scripture seems to support that some have more advantage than others. There’s other passages too that point the same way: the parable of the talents is one that comes to mind.
Sonia
Hi all,
I’m a full-blown synergist. I think God’s purposes for us require our free (in the libertarian sense) participation. I believe this synergy is a necessary means to the sort of created beauty and interpersonal existence for which God creates us. I have to confess that I’ve never seen any force in the argument which concludes that if any necessary causes of our fulfillment in Christ lie within our power to determine (in the libertarian sense), we therefore have grounds for boasting and pride. It seems to me that life is full of instances of outcomes synergistically fulfilled for which talk of boasting on our part is simply out of place.
On a synergistic view, we have a necessary (and libertarian) but not sufficient part to play in experiencing God. This may be a false view, but I don’t see how one demonstrates that it’s false by suggesting that if we have any necessary but insufficient role to play in becoming what God intends we have ground for boasting. It just doesn’t follow that if my free acceptance of a gift is accompanied by the acknowledgment of my indebtedness to another for the gracious offer of a gift I admit I don’t in fact deserve that I have grounds for boasting. On the contrary, the reception which appropriates the gift is precisely the acknowledgment that the gift is undeserved. That is, to ‘accept’, in the sense synergists understand it, is in fact to abandon all boasting in the face of the clear graciousness of the offer and its origin in God. So though one’s actual experience of the gift requires an act of free embrace on our part, this embrace is defined by the acknowledgment of God as the source and ground of one’s being, including the capacity to self-dispose in libertarian fashion.
Tom
Hi Tom,
I too see problems without some synergism, and that, by definition, you see our insufficient but necessary part is to acknowledge that the part which is sheer gift is undeserved. Still, if that acknowledgement is simply in our province, and is the only distinction between those who acknowledge this, and the unsaved, wouldn’t a solid rationale remain for concluding that my early salvation is due to a superior move on my part? Can insisting that we “abandon boasting” remove the grounds that would make it logical? The distinction between who does and who doesn’t now enjoy salvation would be 100% determined by oneself. Isn’t that the logic by which all boasting is traditionally justified? For nothing anyone brags about is possible if we hadn’t also graciously received things that we had nothing to do with.
Analogies are subject to critique! But suppose a parent offered two children a full scholarship, but insisted, "You mustn’t brag if you take it, because of the “clear graciousness of this offer.” If one son tossed the offer aside, and the other grabbed it, wouldn’t the second think he had reason to feel superior. The reason he is a graduate, and his brother is not, lies totally within the part that was his.
TGB as always, it’s great to talk to you.
Thank you for giving me a different perspective. I too believe free will is a necessary agent of life but I’m not sure it is vital in the role of love. If I understand LFW’s thesis it’s primary function is to evoke life with relationship. Usually the consensus is if we dont’ have a choice then we’re all robots. I’m unconvinced by this conclusion. Nature is far more complicated and yet so parallel to machines - A.I. the motion picture being a great example of this point.
I can’t say I fully understand synergism all that well. And I’m not sure Monergism is the only alternative. There might be quite a few hybrids and variations in between and so I am fully aware that I don’t know much of this topic at all.
However, I’m wondering if pride in our nature is accessed through our ideas, which obviously includes theology.
I posted to William, that Jesus himself gives a great example of two men going up to the temple to pray and the Pharisee prays “‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’” but something went wrong with this Pharisee in his understanding of God.
I often have defended the Sanhedrin in Sunday school because I have doubt that their mind set was vastly different than our own. That is, did a Jew think he was earning his way to heaven? His reason would be no different than our own. “The reason I obey the commandments is because I believe in God’s word and his commitment/covenant to Israel”. Thus, via obedience to his commands (as he understood them - don’t eat certain foods or mix certain types of fabrics) he showed God that he believed.
But there’s a problem - something fueled them to believe that they were beloved while others weren’t.
LFW as I understand it leaves a gap for such a place (as I see it). If one man is wiser than another what is to keep him from thinking himself better than the next? For certainly the Pharisee did not think his good works were fueled from foolishness. He thought himself wise since he in his own choice made the righteous decisions. And his works were his confirmation that he was in right with God. In other words the two are linked.
I def. lean in the reformed way that God having mercy on us is a beginning to our change of heart and of mind, which births the right choices at all. The reason the reformed argue that LFW leads to a form of arrogance is simply because it’s generated by the person. Is this illogical?
But it’s not the works that they boast about- scripture tells them they can’t do that BEFORE GOD.
If the wise choice is generated within the man apart from God then I don’t think it’s a non-seq. to say he has nothing to boast about before other men. Logically why would he not? The only reason I find where there is no room for boasting before other men is if he sees God as being the author of his faith, wisdom and knowledge. For then he has NOTHING to boast about.
And why is it being smarter has nothing to do with salvation? If a man builds his house upon a rock is he smarter than the man who builds his house upon the sand?
If one man knows he’s smarter then the other then would he think of himself higher if he in fact believe God would not make him smarter since that would destroy LFW?
Gene
Hi Gene! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
My feeling is that whatever LFW is vital to, our becoming loving persons is central and most important. To my mind this just is what we mean by “life with relationship.” Living in relationship—genuine relationship as they’re intended to be—is the life of love.
I totally appreciate how central our intuitions are at this point, and how different those intuitions can be. If being determined in your entirety doesn’t leave you feeling like a robot, I wouldn’t try to convince you otherwise. I’ve found that one either sees these elements in the conversation intuitively or one doesn’t, however salient other arguments might be.
Gene: LFW as I understand it leaves a gap for such a place (as I see it). If one man is wiser than another what is to keep him from thinking himself better than the next?
Tom: I should think an accurate understanding of one’s worth and value before God (which has nothing to do with how smart one is) and of God as the source and ground of one’s very existence would be enough to safeguard both Calvinists and Arminians from arrogance and boasting. I just don’t find anything persuasive about the argument that if choose libertarianly to give myself to God at his invitation that this freedom is grounds for boasting.
Gene: The reason the reformed argue that LFW leads to a form of arrogance is simply because it’s generated by the person. Is this illogical?
Tom: Our wills (if free in the libertarian sense) are exercised by the person, but the freedom in question isn’t generated by us. The capacity is God’s own gift to us as well. This is what I was getting at by suggesting that no one who was truly repentant and grateful in embracing God’s gracious gift could exercise it as God intended without recognizing the very existence of such freedom as a gift as well—indeed, all is gift, including the power to self-determine. Properly viewed, there’s no ‘gap’ left for boasting before God. To freely choose as God intends is to abandon ‘self’ as grounds for boasting.
Tom: It just doesn’t follow that if my free acceptance of a gift is accompanied by the acknowledgment of my indebtedness to another for the gracious offer of a gift I admit I don’t in fact deserve that I have grounds for boasting.
Gene: But it’s not the works that they boast about- scripture tells them they can’t do that BEFORE GOD. If the wise choice is generated within the man apart from God then I don’t think it’s a non-seq. to say he has nothing to boast about before other men. Logically why would he not?
Tom: Well, he wouldn’t boast because (a) libertarian choice isn’t generated “apart from God” (at least on my view, which I find increasingly confirmed in Eastern Christianity). God sustains creatures in the exercise of their God-given capacities even when we exercise them contrary to God’s will. That’s the covenant God makes with himself and creation in endowing creatures with libertarian freedom (on the assumption that we’re so free). So LFW isn’t ontological independence from God. Nothing can be THAT free from or “apart from” God.
He also wouldn’t boast because (b) he knows the freedom to self-determine is as much a grace-gift as anything else in creation. To perceive this, I’m increasingly convinced by the East, and to act upon it is to abandon ‘self’ as deserving of praise. If to boast (regarding our salvation) is to perceive one’s self as deserving of praise (with regard to salvation), then to properly relate the ‘self’ to God is to see one’s very existence and capacities (including one’s freedom) as grounded in the sheer grace of God’s will. This extends even to the proper exercise of our freedom, which to a self so related is just how one thanks and worships God.
Of course, I grant that IF one misperceives the self’s proper relation to God as source and ground of being, and IF one misperceives one’s free choice to trust God for salvation as an instance of ontological ‘independence’ from God (as opposed to being the truest recognition of one’s DEPENDENCE upon God as it in fact is), THEN one could falsely construe one’s choices as grounds for boasting. But this can’t be evidence against our possessing such freedom per se.
Gotta run!
Tom
TJB, Yes, of course God must be the Source of LFW (freedom, existence, etc). But without repeating, I’m not seeing how it follows that some human choices wouldn’t be superior to others, and thus a logical reason to feel superior. Why would ontological independence be essential to maintain that perception?
This seems like the same type of reasnoning (in reverse) that determinsts use to say reprobates are culpable for their sinful choice to reject God because it’s what they most wanted to do.
The direction seems simply reversed.
I agree with Bob that it seems obvious that God is the source of LFW as God is the source of all things and since NOTHING could exist outside of his creating the universe, and all things in it, then he actually seems to have his authorship in sin since his sov. includes his indirect fingerprint. In other words, if God’s sov is overarching thus that his allowing LFW thus grants him the glory for the right choice, then his sov. which is overarching must also grant him the blame for the sin in the world.
If his over-arching sov. is excluded for the reason sin exists, then it must also exclude why some people make righteouss choices.
I should not be expected to accept one end of the spectrum but abandon the other.
Similarly determinsts often argue that God gets all the glory when an elect person is saved, but the man is to blame when he is condemned. - How can one end be true but not the other.
Aug
Also TGB, I keep stating - BUT NOT BEFORE GOD.
It’s like Libertarians keep switching the issue. I’m saying what is to keep one person from boasting over another man? Libertarians respond “but they can’t boast before God” -
I"m not talking about boasting before God.
I’m talking about men boasting before other men - that is, they believe they’re better then the next.
AND NOT JUST THAT BUT…
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW 2011 TO YOU TOO TGB!!!
Aug
Please, call me Tom!
Aug: I’m not seeing how it follows that some human choices wouldn’t be superior to others, and thus a logical reason to feel superior.
Tom: Clearly some choices are superior to other choices. Does this mean those who make proper choices are justified in feeling they’re superior persons to those who make improper choices if they also believe they’re libertarianly free? I don’t think so. One feels superior or inferior to another because of the values and perspectives within which one compares one’s self to another, and there are values and perspectives consistent with libertarianism which make it impossible for a libertarian to feel superior to others.
What I’m suggesting is that where one’s worldview includes rightly relating the self (and all selves to which I relate) to God where all selves are equally unconditionally loved and valued by God, it’s entirely consistent to say that though ‘choices’ vary in value (i.e., some are superior to others) ‘choosers’ do not. And this is true simply because our choices do not determine our value. It doesn’t follow that if my ‘choice’ is superior to your ‘choice’ that I have reason to conclude that “I” am superior to “you.” I may misconstrue choice as grounds for feeling superior, but only by forgetting that what’s ultimately true from God’s point of view IS true at every other point of view. My value rests in God’s infinite and unconditional love. Anyone who is mindful of that cannot also view their own proper choices are grounds for feeling superior to others who don’t choose properly.
Aug: I agree with Bob that it seems obvious that God is the source of LFW as God is the source of all things and since NOTHING could exist outside of his creating the universe, and all things in it, then he actually seems to have his authorship in sin since his sov. includes his indirect fingerprint.
Tom: Evil wouldn’t be here apart from God’s choice to create, so there’s a sense in which indeterminists can agree that God is responsible for sin and evil. But this is comparable to the sense in which I take responsibility for the mistakes of my own kids—who wouldn’t be sinning had I not chosen to have them. I don’t think anybody would have a problem saying God is responsible in this ultimate sense for all that exists and occurs. But there’s a distinction between this sort of ‘authorship’ or ‘responsibility’ and the sort of responsibility that attaches to my kids’ choices which does not accrue to me personally.
Aug: In other words, if God’s sov is overarching thus that his allowing LFW thus grants him the glory for the right choice, then his sov. which is overarching must also grant him the blame for the sin in the world…I should not be expected to accept one end of the spectrum but abandon the other.
Tom: If we are libertarianly free, then (I would argue) God’s sovereignty isn’t overarching IF ‘overarching’ means everything occurs as it does according to a blueprint that God wrote up and by which he either determines or permits evils for specific ends, such that every evil is the necessary (albeit unpleasant) means to some corresponding good. If we’re libertarianly free, it’s because God has given us genuine ‘say-so’ in how things turn out. But this means that God may not always get what God wants.
Aug: Also TGB, I keep stating - BUT NOT BEFORE GOD. It’s like Libertarians keep switching the issue. I’m saying what is to keep one person from boasting over another man? Libertarians respond "but they can’t boast before God.” I’m not talking about boasting before God. I’m talking about men boasting before other men - that is, they believe they’re better then the next.
Tom: Forgive me for being unclear. I hope my first two paragraphs in this post clear this up. We boast because we have a perspective on the world that leads us to believe we’re superior to other persons in ways we’re not. What Calvinists and non-determinists seem to disagree over at this point is WHY we’re not in fact superior to others and hence why we have no grounds for boasting over others. I hear you saying, “The only way we can view ourselves as not superior to others is if we believe God determines everything about us. If our choices are determined to be what they are by a divine choice then God (and not us) explains the difference between our choices and hence no one who chooses rightly should boast over anyone else because his choosing rightly is in truth God’s choice for him.”
I’m suggesting that LFW can exist without problems alongside a perspective on the world that makes it impossible for us to believe we’re superior to others. It all depends on living mindful of the truth about our groundedness in God and the unconditional nature of divine love that defines our true value and worth. Nobody who was conscious of the fact that their truest worth and value are derived from God’s love for them (as opposed to the free choices they make) and who also believed God equally loved all persons, could then misconstrue their own choices to be grounds for feeling superior to those who made poor choices. If one believes her choices don’t determine her value, she can’t also believe her choices make her superior to others—though her choices may in fact be superior to other choices. To choose to obey God is superior to choosing to disobey God. But the personal worth and value of those who obey and those who disobey is ultimately equal since God loves both infinitely and unconditionally. I wouldn’t be a universalist if I believed otherwise.
Tom
Hi Bob,
I totally missed your post! My bad. Hope you and your fam enjoyed a blessed Christmas.
Thanks for the reply. It’s an honor. Hope I can clarify myself.
Bob: I too see problems without some synergism, and that, by definition, you see our insufficient but necessary part is to acknowledge that the part which is sheer gift is undeserved. Still, if that acknowledgement is simply in our province, and is the only distinction between those who acknowledge this, and the unsaved, wouldn’t a solid rationale remain for concluding that my early salvation is due to a superior move on my part?
Tom: In my view, your salvation IS “due” to your making the right responses to God. What else does synergy mean, right? But our salvation isn’t ONLY due to this. It’s also due to God’s initiative and sustaining grace, etc., which situate our part within the larger picture. Put in perspective, I don’t see how what is strictly speaking “due” to us can justify arrogance or boasting on our part.
Bob: Can insisting that we “abandon boasting” remove the grounds that would make it logical?
Tom: I’m suggesting rather that actually abandoning boasting leaves one no grounds for boasting and that actually abandoning boasting constitutes a condition under which one receives the gift of God’s life. They entail each other—abandoning self reliance and receiving Christ’s life. So knowing that I ‘freely’ receive can’t become a ground for boasting IF I also know that what I receive is underserved and my significance and value aren’t determined by my choices anyhow. If the nature of the gift is kept in mind and the ‘self’ rightly related to it, what room is there to misconstrue the freedom by which we receive as grounds for boasting?
Bob: Analogies are subject to critique! But suppose a parent offered two children a full scholarship, but insisted, "You mustn’t brag if you take it, because of the “clear graciousness of this offer.” If one son tossed the offer aside, and the other grabbed it, wouldn’t the second think he had reason to feel superior?
Tom: Not if the second son kept things in perspective. If he contemplates, “We were both offered the same scholarship, which means Dad loves us both equally to begin with, and neither of us deserves the offer in the first place,” I don’t see what ground is left for the second son to get his arrogance off the ground.
Bob: The reason he is a graduate, and his brother is not, lies totally within the part that was his.
Tom: In terms of just explaining the difference between the two sons, this may be. But I should never construe my worth or value based on the thin slice of the picture that separates me from someone else who had exactly the same opportunity but who chose differently. In other words, any pretence for pride on the part of the second son would be dispelled were the son to keep the whole truth in mind. But your “total” in “lies totally within the part that was his” which describes the difference between the two can only become a basis for boasting if it’s made an all inclusive total that explains everything about the second son’s choice. But to relate ourselves to our choices this way is in fact to misrelate to the truth about those choices, for the larger truth/explanation about the second son’s choice (i.e., what explains why he’s educated at all and not JUST why he’s educated and his brother isn’t) is that he is no more deserving of the offer and opportunity than his brother and that the fact that you offered the gift to both sons reveals that you value and love both equally. Therein lies their worth and value to you.
Again, the point is that for Christian believers our worth and value aren’t derived from our choices per se. One might say that the two sons have grounds to conclude only that they are of equal value since their father made them the same offer. Likewise, we can only boast of freely receiving Christ if we misconstrue a PART of what explains our being in Christ for the WHOLE of what explains why we’re in Christ.
This is important because to ‘boast’ is just to ‘declare one’s value and worth’ as one perceives it (inaccurately obviously). To boast is to advertise and celebrate the basis for one’s significance in the world. And to be justified, such claims ought to take in all the facts that explain one’s being and not just a portion of one’s being. If what accounts for the difference between why I’m in Christ and someone else is all I’m considering and grounding my value upon, then I’m going to ‘boast’ (i.e., lay claim to a certain worth and significance in the world) that my worth and value are superior to another. But why should a libertarian (or any of us) be obliged to confine his self-perception and self-worth to so narrow a consideration of the facts that explain his being?
Tom