What is the Root Cause of Our Free-Choice?
SUMMARY CONCLUSION: Though we
are drawn by God to persuade us, we will never know the root cause of why we
chose the cross, nor will those who refuse salvation know the reason either.
That is the nature of free-choice. I have never seen anyone ask this question
about what the root cause of our choice is, since God does not decide for us.
There is No Root Cause
to Our Choice
God
operates outside of time, for He created time. All things in nature and time
have a cause and effect, and we humans are in nature. Our choices must therefore
have an ultimate root cause, unless we have a quality given to us which is
outside of time and unexplainable when we were created by God. Since God is
all-knowing, He foreknows everything about us, including our free-choice (Rom.
8.29).
Gen.
1.26,27 says we are made in God’s image, in His likeness, which has the quality
of being outside of time as God exists outside of time. We will never cease to
exist. Even God can’t cause us to not exist now that He created us in His image.
His image cannot cease to exist. By this feature of our being, our earliest
mysterious choice like God’s does not need a reason, for the ultimate root cause
is unexplainable to the human race. We were not created to understand the
initial cause, only to know that it is a function of non-time which is the
nature of our free-will. As strange as this concept is, there is no alternative
explanation to why some choose the cross and others don’t. "And he is the
propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world" (1 John 2.2). In other words, everyone is giving the right to
receive forgiveness from God. Free-choice, made in His image, is given to all to
choose or reject God’s gift of salvation.
When you
retrace the cause for something to its origin, it gets hazier and hazier, until
you are certain you don’t know the cause. Our choices have a cause by following
God, Satan or self, but the cause of our doing so resides nowhere, that is,
outside of time, unexplainable, with that same quality of being uncreated
because God made us in His image. Though God was always existing, humans were
not. We are given a permanently existing spirit.
Is There a Root Cause to
God’s Choice?
Practice
acceptance that we will never know the root cause to our choice for or against
Christ.
God chose
to create the universe and man made in His image. Why? To walk with those who
would receive Him out of His glory to have fellowship for eternity. But why did
He all of a sudden decide to want this and do it? We don’t know the reason,
because He is outside of time. Being outside of time, there is no cause. Cause
and effect is a construct of time and not a function of non-time or
timelessness.
What then
do we do with this information? All we can do is follow God’s guidelines which
is His Word to live according to His wishes in the redemptive design, because He
gave us the same variables to operate with that He operates by, so that is no
longer I live that live but Christ in me if I receive His Son. And I have. Have
you? We shall know them by their fruit.
What Then Is The Real
Issue?
The real
issue then is do we accept that we are sovereign beings with a free-will who
make choices without a foremost ultimate cause because we are made in God’s
image, or do we live our lives as robots caused by God in which the ultimate
cause is God? If the latter is true, it doesn’t matter what we do because it was
going to be caused by God anyway. If the former is true it still matters what we
do, because we have been given the guidelines of the Word of God. But, we don’t
know the initial cause of all our choices beyond saying God made us in His
image. If you accept the robots of calvinism, you can say you believe in the
Word of God as your guideline, but it doesn’t matter if you do or not because
either way, God caused you to go a route wherever it leads for whatever reason
He has, presumably for good. But, without a conscience telling you your choices
do matter, your spirit in calvinism is dead to God. If it does matter the choice
of a sovereign being, then nothing is more important than your free-will to
chose and receive God’s good pleasure.
To be a
calvinist is ultimately to have no moral ground because it doesn’t matter what
you do. It was God’s purpose anyhow, so it is all good, even if you go to Hell.
You can say the Bible is your guideline or not. What does it matter? You are
preprogrammed either way. If you don’t love God’s Word it is because you were
made that way. If do love God’s word, you are programmed to. Does God want to
walk with robots?
The real
issue is do you accept that you were made in God’s image, remain so in you
fallen nature and have the free-choice as a sovereign being as God has without
an identifiable explanation or reason in the quality of righteousness and
holiness? If so, and you accept His Son’s death on the cross and resurrection
for salvation and eternal life, you are born-again. If not, you have never been
born-again and are without eternal life, an ability to know God and having
eternal blessings in God’s plans for you.
Where Do We Go From
Here?
If you are
saved you can grow in the Word of God. If you are not accepting of having a
free-will or free-choice for salvation by faith, you are not saved and going to
hell. And that is that. Some may question, I have added onto the Gospel for
salvation. Have I? If you are a robot are you made in God’s image? Does a robot
glorify God? If you are not saved, you read the Word of God in vain unless you
are led to salvation through the Word.
Why Doesn’t A Calvinist
Accept the True Christ?
The reason
a calvinist doesn’t accept the true Christ is because that is his free-choice.
Independently, he keeps himself separated from God. Why does he do this? There
is no reason outside of time to explain it, so the Bible merely says, he is
condemned already (John 3.18).
Can he be
saved? Yes, if he repents of calvinism and accepts that the choice is given to
him of his own free-will to receive the Lord Jesus as Savior. This constitutes
the necessary repentance particular to him to come to the cross as a helpless
sinner. You can’t come to the cross with a grand lie. To take this point to the
extreme, let’s say you claim you have repented to the cross while admitting you
still believe in the annihilation of the human race as the only solution to
humankind. That is not valid repentance, because such hostility is not
repentance. Valid repentance is relinquishing all assumptions as a humble sinner
and putting them temporarily on hold for your new life which requires evidence
and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit
is moves like the wind blows (John 3.8). Nobody knows what the first cause is
for our choice. But we do know that we are not robots of calvinism. If we were
robots of calvinism, free-will would not be real. Our free-choice effectively
has no root cause. We will never know what it is, because we will never know the
reason why God picked the moment when He did to create. It is possible that we
are not designed to be able to understand the root cause of our choice. We
follow God or self as our cause, but because we are sovereign beings made in His
image, there will never be an explanation for the root cause which gives glory
to God because some things we will never understand.
Praise the
Lord!