Shall the clay say to the potter… (pt. 5)

Epilogue

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? - Rom. 9:19-21

When I set out to write this series of articles, my intent was to look at human will and to what extent it is actually “free.” The standard against which this would be assessed was the following from part 1:

Free will, as most posit, is the ability of man to make choices separate from, and unaffected or unimpaired by, outside influence, and the ability to take action based on those choices.

Some may have after the first four parts (mistakenly) gotten the idea that I believe we have no free will at all. That is not the conclusion to which these pieces should lead. The point is that, while in some ways our will is free, it is still limited. Whether being physically restricted by the likes of gravity or, perhaps, jail, or restrained by other forces within or without oneself, we cannot always take action based solely upon our will.

While considering gravity a limiting influence upon free will may seem silly, assessing the degree to which character, who we are within, is not. People often ruminate about a criminal that, “what he did was completely out of character for him. It just wasn’t in his nature to commit such a horrific act” (whatever that act may have been). The fact is, everything we do is in our nature. We cannot fight it. This is why the unsaved cannot be easily swayed from sin. As Jesus said, the one who sins is a slave to sin (Jn. 8:34). A slave’s will is not free. Telling a sinner to not sin is like telling a blind man to watch where he is going; it is just not possible.

Likewise, God is greater than all, and as Paul intimates correctly in his detractor’s questions, no one can resist His will. If God wills something, it will be done without fail. Thus, if God chose for Joseph’s brothers to sell Joseph into slavery, it could not be avoided. If God willed that Pharaoh should be Pharaoh so that He could use Pharaoh to show His grace and glory to the Hebrews who were captive and abused in Egypt, then Pharaoh could not resist. If God wanted Jonah to go preach repentance to the city of Ninevah, Jonah could try to fight it, but eventually, God’s will would supersede Jonah’s.

Yes, we make day to day decisions upon which God doesn’t necessarily impose Himself or His will, and these do exhibit that we have a degree of free will. I only sought to impress upon you, my readers, that the freedom of that will is limited both by your nature and by God’s will. He created you for a purpose, and your will shall be conformed to that purpose for which He created you, whatever that purpose may be.

---

If you have not read the series but would like to, please begin with part 1 here: