On Free Agency And Sin

[R. S. Martin]

At first I was posting it in Theological Issues but it is turning into more of a rant so I'll post it here instead.

 

I did not grow up with this teaching but I'm trying to understand it. Charles Hodge says in 1870:

 

There are three truths of which every man is convinced from the very constitution of his nature. (1.) That he is a free agent. (2.) That none but free agents can be accountable for their character or conduct. (3.) That he does not possess ability to change his moral state by an act of the will. Now, if in order to express the fact of his inability, we say, that he is not a free agent, we contradict his consciousness; or, if he believe what we say, we destroy his sense of responsibility. Or it we tell him that because he is a free agent, he has power to change his heart at will, we again bring ourselves into conflict with his convictions. He knows he is a free agent, and yet he knows that he has not the power to make himself holy. Free agency is the power to decide according to our character; ability is the power to change our character by a volition.

 

FROM: P. 293, emphasis added.

 

I just don't get how anyone can say we are free if we don't get to decide whether or not we will act in a certain way. He seems to be saying that I don't get to decide how I will act. If I decide to be good, I don't get to be good.

 

I think the only reason I don't get to be good is because somebody is a self-assigned judge and judges that whatever I do is not good enough. That judge does not use an objective standard; that judge has determined ahead of time that no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do--it will get a failing grade. That way, they can convince me that I am a sinner in need of a saviour.

 

Well Sir Hodge (he was not knighted; I'm being sarcastic), it didn't work that way. Neither you nor any of your followers managed to pin down exactly WHAT I did wrong; you and your followers talk about sin as though it were an objective measurable thing that Jesus could pay for with his blood. This means my sin must be nameable. You never named it. I didn't commit a sin. I am a free agent alright. I am free to choose not to commit sin. And I chose not to commit sin.

 

You keep telling me that I know by my very constitution that I am sinful. Somehow, either I don't have a constitution or my constitution doesn't tell me what you think it should be telling me.