Free will is a concept that sounds a lot simpler than it is. More often than not, free will is confused with free choice. That is, an assumption that freedom means the ability to make a choice between two possibilities. This is how freedom is often characterized in the modern world. You are free if you can choose between having eggs for breakfast or cereal. You are free if you can choose between being a doctor or a lawyer or a politician or a teacher.
It doesn’t take long to realize how impoverished a view of freedom this is. For the most part, as long as you are rich, you fulfill the requirements of free choice. If I am wealthy enough to choose between options, I am free, If my options are limited, I am not free. Some see the government at fault for limiting options. Some see every individual as completely culpable for anything that happens to them. Therefore, if someone doesn’t have a lot of options in life, that is their fault. They should just be better at life.
This is not the freedom revealed to us in Scripture and given to us by grace through Jesus Christ. Free will is about the direction of our lives, it is about our desires. What do you desire out of life? Are you trapped by selfish desires? This is what Paul calls the slavery to sin and death and, in Romans 3, he points to Psalm 36 where the Psalmist writes that no one is righteous, no not one. No one who understands. No one looks for God. They have all turned away.
This does not mean that everyone only does bad things apart from God’s grace. Many people happen to do good, but what is revealed through Jesus is that apart from grace, as Article VIII states, “we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.”
We have no power in ourselves to do good. When others do good it is God working in them without their knowledge, but the issue of desire is still present. Free will is the freedom to see God and follow God, the freedom to not be a slave to selfish desires. As Paul says in Romans 8:5-8,
People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn’t submit to God’s Law, because it can’t. People who are self-centered aren’t able to please God.
And then in verses 26-28
In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans. The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because he pleads for the saints, consistent with God’s will. We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
The Spirit of God comes to help us in our weakness so that no matter what circumstance or state we find ourselves, we can follow God’s will. We should still strive for justice and the alleviation of suffering, but freedom in Christ is not about reaching a certain income threshold so that you can choose between going to Whole Foods or HEB, it is the freedom to love fully that can only come through grace. In looking at Jesus Christ, we see the ultimate expression of free will and the possibility for all of us through grace.
Article VIII — Of Free Will
The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.