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What About Free Will?

Do Lutherans Believe in Free Will?

Short Answer: Luther probably put it best when he said that there are things below us and things above us. In regard to those things below us, we are able to exercise free will. But, in regard to those things above us, we are unable to freely choose.

So, for instance, when it comes to deciding what to eat for dinner or what to wear, our will is free. Those are decisions we can make. But, when it comes to believing in Christ, we are unable to choose to do so on our own. We have no free will but, rather, are slaves to sin when it comes to those matters such as salvation and obedience.

Long Answer: Our understanding of the bondage of the will is probably one of the doctrines most clearly unique to Lutheranism and has a tremendous impact on how we view salvation and evangelism.

Before we go any further, let's look at some scriptural references:

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV)

It is important to understand that Paul uses the term "spiritual" pretty much like we use the word "Christian." Especially in 1 Corinthians, a "spiritual" person is any Christian and a "natural" person means an "unbeliever."

In this verse, then Paul is saying pretty bluntly that it is impossible for an unbeliever to become a Christian through his own effort or decision since he cannot accept even the basics teachings of the faith.

This is even more clear when Paul talks about us being "slaves to sin" (Romans 6:17 and others) and being "dead in sin" (Ephesians 2:1). Paul clearly chooses such terms to describe how helplessly we are controlled by sin. Neither a slave nor a dead person is able to choose to set themselves free or be raised from the dead.

So the Bible is pretty clear, unless we are already believers, we can not choose to follow Jesus or decide to believe in Him. In other words, we simply do not have the ability, much less the free will to decide to become Christian.

To what are we slaves? The fact that we do not have free will does not mean that someone else controls our minds or makes our choices for us. We not talking about Satan nor to the world. They can not control us except by temptation, guilt and fear. Rather, we are slaves to our own sinful nature and desires.

Romans 1 gives a pretty good description of this. Without God, people become slaves of their own sinful desires. Or, to put it another way, if Christ is not the God of our life, then we are our own god and we serve that false god of the self by doing all we can to meet our own desires and wants. Without faith, our old sinful nature and its desires will always trump and overrule any attempt we could possibly make to trust in Christ.

So, in the end, we do not have free will because, without God, we become slaves to our own passions and temptations. It is this very slavery to self from which Christ frees us by giving us faith.

How, then, does Christ save us? We believe that Holy Spirit uses the means of grace, that is the Word, communion and baptism, to do what we can not do, create and strengthen faith in us. By confronting us with our sinful nature through the Law and showing us His mercy in dying on the cross, Christ frees us from the guilt of sin and creates in us the faith we could not create in ourselves. In Christ, and only in Christ, we are freed from that slavery to our old sinful nature and desires.

Why is this important? Well, it directly affects us in two ways, evangelism and how we view our relationship with God.

If we believe in free will, that people can or must make a decision or commitment in order to believe in Christ, then we will spend a great deal of time trying to change their minds about Christ, trying to convince them either through logic or emotion to make a decision for Christ. We would, in a sense, have to "sell" Christ like a salesman tries to convince a customer to buy a particular car.

If, on the other hand, we believe that faith is a gift of God, instead of trying to argue a person into faith, we will simply point to God and what He has done and let God do the convincing. Evangelism becomes "God" centered instead of self centered and we will spend more time talking about what God has done and less time trying to convince the person to believe.

It also applies to our own lives. What do you do when you are feeling weak and discouraged or sad and afraid?

If you believe your faith depends on a decision you made then you will tend to try to convince yourself of God's love and presence either through logic or emotion. You may try to feel close to God through actions you do, such as prayer or obedience. While all of those things might work for a while, we all know that they are short lived. Doubts and depression have a way of driving all reasonable arguments for faith and all emotional supports out of our minds. And no matter how we try, trying to get close to God through obedience only winds up in failure for, as sinner, we can not truly obey God. This route is dangerous because, in the end, it depends on us and what we do. And we will always fail.

But, if you believe that faith is created and strengthened by God rather than yourself, your method of making it through tough times will be radically different. You will find yourself looking away from yourself and your own failures and paying attention more to God and what He has done in His Word and what He does in His means of Grace. It may not make you feel better - but it will make you stronger. Because as we turn to His Word and means of grace for comfort, they do exactly what they were designed to do, strengthen our faith.

So, what is comes down to is this, how you belief faith begins affects how you believe faith grows and remains strong. If you believe that faith depended on you, you will tend to rely on your own actions in times when you need that faith to become strong. This just doesn't work. But, if you believe that Christ gave you faith then you will look to Him and his work when your faith needs strengthening. And this is the real answer and comfort in times of trouble.

Therefore, we joyfully believe that we do not have free will to accept Christ and, instead of floundering fruitlessly in times of discouragement, look in relief to the cross, the Word and the means of grace and hear once again what Christ has done for us.