Does Free Will Exist? - Interview with John Piper

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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It will take some time before Dr. Piper really discusses his Calvinism, but he will use the word just two times without really explaining it. 

He represents this as a debate between this doctrinal perspective and Arminianism, as if everyone falls into these two doctrinal camps.

He uses a definition of free will which suits his rhetorical purpose, which is to affirm his doctrine and dismiss detractors.

Our view is, man's "Total Depravity," that is, the total inability to participate in any way in his salvation, ended once the savior had come. It seems this moment in time created a new situation:

Is. 60:1-3 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

So the condition of an unsaved man is not total darkness. Every man now has light, which is the ability to see God's holiness and respond to Him when He comes bringing conviction. That revelation does not guarantee salvation, it only presents itself. 

This is important: The response of the sinful, dead man is to make a decision is not based on intellectual process of the will, or due to the possession of a power to change anything, but rather due to revelation. Therefore, this is not a work, but simply a response to a spiritual stimulus.

Lastly, Dr. Piper barely quotes the Bible. We must consider this Bad Bible Teaching.

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Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast on this Monday. Today in our Bible reading, we read Jeremiah 23–25 together. It included a beautiful new-covenant text that one listener wants you to explain more. The listener is Matthew. He wrote, “Pastor John, hello to you. I find myself often in debates with friends and family over Calvinism and Arminianism. They’re all Arminian. I try to represent the other side with clarity and charity.

“One of the arguments that I come back to repeatedly is about free will and what I see in Jeremiah 24:7: ‘I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.’ What I see in this text is that, of course, we all have free will, the ability for our hearts to do and believe what we most desire. (This peculiar definition will be very useful to Dr. Piper. We would not define free will this way. Our definition of free will is the ability to choose without coercion.)

So, what we need are new desires that want the right things. God must act to give us new desires or we are hopeless. (This is simply an innocuous way to insert Calvinism, specifically, Irresistible Grace and Total Depravity.)

This is sovereign grace in the miracle of regeneration. (Again Dr. Piper dances a slow dance. What he's saying here is that God must regenerate a person in order for them to have the ability to believe and thus be saved. This means a person is born again before they believe, a very odd and unbiblical idea:

2Co. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

We can plainly see that being "in Christ" [i.e., saved] indicates one is a new creation. Calvinists have it backwards.

We also shall notice the beginning of a piling up of words and phrases that are complicating and obfuscating, for example, "sovereign grace," a phrase he will use six times without explanation.)

How much of your discussions over free will centers on this fact, that we all have free will, and we all need a new heart, a new will?” ("Heart" and "will" are not synonymous.)

First, let me commend Matthew for defining what he means by free will. That’s really unusual. I appreciate it very much, because in most discussions people use the phrase as though it were clear, when in fact most people have very different views of what free will means. He has defined it, so I can answer his question with more precision.(In other words, he likes the definition because it suits what he wants to say.)

Defining ‘Free Will’

He says that free will is “the ability for our hearts to do and believe what we most desire.” That’s a pretty shrewd and careful definition. (He really likes this definition.)

Freedom of the will, he says, is the freedom “to do and believe what we most desire.” (He really, REALLY likes this definition.)

And I think that if we are going to affirm the existence of free will among fallen people like us, that’s the definition we need to use, (He really, really, REALLY likes this definition.)

because it answers the question of how people can be free whom the Bible says are dead in trespasses (Ephesians 2:5), slaves of sin (Romans 6:20), under the dominion of sin (Romans 3:9), blind to spiritual reality (2 Corinthians 4:4), hardened against God (Ephesians 4:18), and unable to submit to God (Romans 8:7). (He really, really, really, REALLY likes this definition. But the definition only serves as a tool to bolster Dr. Piper's Calvinism.)

So, given Matthew’s definition of freedom, such dead, enslaved, dominated, blind, hard, impotent people have freedom of the will, because it means that they are free to do and believe what they most desire — namely, sin. That’s what they’re free to do. (I.e., Total Depravity. That's the reason for this definition of free will. Thus under this version of free will people are unable to choose anything but evil. Their Total Depravity prevents them from responding to the Gospel message.)

And I would agree that if we’re going to maintain that the will is free, that is the definition we should use. (He really, really, REALLY likes this definition.)

So, to speak of free will then is to speak of a will that is free to do and believe what it most desires — but is not free to desire God above all else. (He really, really, REALLY likes this definition.)

What Arminians Want

What I have found, therefore, is that most people who reject Calvinistic (Dr. Piper's first actual mention of Calvin.)

or Reformed understandings of human depravity and sovereign grace — which is required to bring a dead, hard, blind person to saving faith — is that this definition of free will is not acceptable to them. (He really, really, REALLY likes this definition.) 

It’s not acceptable because it still leaves a person unable to provide the decisive thing that leads to conversion — namely, the strongest desire to trust Christ. It leaves a person in the bondage of their strongest desires, which are against God. (Here have it, finally stated plainly. Because of Total Depravity, a lost person is completely unable to choose Jesus. It requires God's action to make a person spiritually alive first before salvation is possible. 

So this of course means if Dr. Piper is correct, a person does NOT have free will if certain choices are not available to him.)

Saying that a person is free to do what he most desires, but he’s not free to create desires for God, does not give the Arminian what he wants. (What is an Arminian? Are there people out there who specifically say, "I'm an Arminian?" Are there really only two doctrinal camps regarding free will?)

And what’s that? A fair definition of what the Arminian requires is free will defined as the power of decisive self-determination. (Another definition using more tortured language. We googled the phrase and it seems it is used only by Dr. Piper. Thus it is nothing more than a Straw Man.)

In other words, what the Arminian requires is that, at the precise point of conversion, where saving faith comes into being, it is man and not God that at that point provides the decisive and effective influence. (No, this is not the view in opposition to Calvinism. Perhaps this is how Arminians view salvation, be we don't even know that for sure. We are pretty certain, however, that Dr. Piper's characterization would lean toward being pejorative toward Arminians. This technique would make it easier to make alternatives to Calvinism seem ridiculous.)

That’s what the Arminian must have to make his views work. Whatever influences God may give prior to that point — call them “prevenient grace,” which is what the Arminian wants to call all the illuminating, freeing grace of God — the Arminian insists that the final, decisive creation of the strongest effective desire for Christ (??? What does this mean?)

must be self-determined, human-determined, not God-determined. (Again, this is more likely Dr. Piper's Straw Man characterization of Arminians. Thus by clever use of language the discussion gets narrowed down to favor his Calvinist perspective.)

So, Matthew asks me, “How much of your discussions over free will centers on the fact that we all have free will, and we all need a new heart and a new will?” My answer now is that I don’t usually start with Matthew’s definition of free will. (Sigh. After hundreds of words extolling the virtues of this definition of free will, Dr. Piper suddenly dethrones it.)

It may be helpful in some discussions to define free will that way, but I find that it is most illuminating, most convicting, most clarifying to start with the definition of free will that Arminians really do need in order for their views to make sense — namely, the definition that free will is the power of decisive self-determination (or I sometimes use the phrase “ultimate self-determination”). (Dr. Piper repeats his Straw Man. 

Remember our definition of free will, the ability to choose without coercion?)

With this definition, then, it appears that Arminians believe in such free will and Calvinists do not believe in such free will. I certainly do not believe there is such a thing as human free will defined as decisive self-determination. (Using this very specific definition of free will, Dr. Piper will now dismantle his Straw Man.)

Bound to Sovereign Grace

At this point in my conversations, what proves to be most clarifying is two things.

First is the abundance of biblical texts that describe the bondage of the will and the necessity of sovereign grace to bring a person out of spiritual deadness into life and faith. For example, in Ephesians 2:5–6, (Let's actually quote it: 

Ep. 2:4-6 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus...

Now let's see what Dr. Piper has to say about it.)

Paul does not say that when we were spiritually dead God gave us a kind of halfway regeneration where we now, in that new halfway state of life, (Who believes this? Is this what Arminians believe?)

provide ourselves the decisive, self-determining act of faith — the act of producing the strongest desire for Jesus that pushes us over the line to believe. (This is an obtuse characterization, largely invented by Dr. Piper himself.)

What Paul says is that while we were dead, God not only made us alive but also raised us up with Christ and seated “us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” In other words, God’s action is decisive — all the way from death through spiritual resurrection to our firm, saved position in the presence of God in Christ. (Every non-Calvinist would probably agree with this assessment.)

There are many texts that teach the same thing concerning sovereign grace. (Will he ever tell us what this phrase means?)

That’s the first thing.

The other thing that I find clarifying and helpful in conversations with folks is to point out that free will, understood as the power of ultimate or decisive self-determination, (Sigh...)

is not taught anywhere in the Bible. (He appeals to the Bible, but does not quote it.)

Not a single verse, not a single text teaches that there is such a thing as the power of ultimate human self-determination. (A definition not likely believed by anyone.)

So, where does that idea come from that we must have ultimate self-determination? (Well, it comes from Dr. Piper's own mouth. He invented the phrase, applied it to his doctrinal opponents, and then summarily dismissed it as unbiblical.)

It comes from a philosophical presupposition that people bring to the Bible. The philosophical presupposition is that if we don’t have ultimate self-determination, we cannot be held accountable for our own beliefs and actions before God. Well, the Bible simply does not affirm that presupposition. 

The Bible teaches that God has ways we do not understand and that he knows how to govern all things, including the human will, in such a way that we are truly responsible, truly accountable — and he, at the same time, is truly sovereign. (The Bible teaches these things? Perhaps it does, but would it trouble Dr. Piper to tell us where in the Bible we would find them?)

And oh, we should be thankful for this sovereign grace, because without it, we would be utterly hopeless in the bondage of our spiritually dead hearts. (When will he tell us what "it" is?)

So, if you find yourself — and I’m speaking to those of you who are listening right now — if you find yourself unable to love God, unable to trust Christ, don’t despair. Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). Resolve to seek him, come to him. Look to his suffering for the worst of sinners, and ask God for the grace to see and savor Christ. (Why would he say this to his listeners if he truly believed what he just explained? According to him it is God and God alone that makes it possible for someone to be saved. So how can people "resolve to seek him" when they don't have the capability to do so? After all, they are "free to do and believe what they most desire — namely, sin."

This is one of many reasons why we find Calvinism unpalatable.)