What Do You Mean By "Free Will"?

C. Michael Patton with a great post dealing with the issue of "free will". I remember arguing with a buddy in college about God's sovereignty in salvation and coming back at him with, "Well, you know, we all have free will." At the time I didn't know that "free will" as I understood it at the time doesn't really square that well with the Bible. Patton fleshes this out for us in his article. He writes:

There are many words and concepts in theology that suffer from misunderstanding, mis-characterization, and misinformation. “Predestination,” “Calvinism,” “Total Depravity,” “Inerrancy,” and “Complementarianism”, just to name a few that I personally have to deal with. Proponents are more often than not on the defensive, having to explain again and again why it is they don’t mean what people think they mean.

The concept of “free will” suffers no less with regard to this misunderstanding. Does a person have free will? Well, what do you mean by “free will”? This must always be asked.

Do you mean:

1. That a person is not forced from the outside to make a choice?
2. That a person is responsible for his or her choices?
3. That a person is the active agent in a choice made?
4. That a person is free to do whatever they desire?
5. That a person has the ability to choose contrary to their nature (who they are)?

Calvinists, such as myself, do believe in free will and we don’t believe in free will. It just depends on what you mean.

Be sure to read the whole thing.