Are you truly free?

Are you truly free? Free to do evil or free to be good and do good. How is a person free to be a truly be a good person?

Determinism and fatalism have become very common in today’s culture, often in many disguised forms. Some say that your upbringing by your parents and your social conditions determine entirely who you will be. Some counsellors counsel others to be victims of their circumstances and their feelings. Therefore, choices are pre-determined.

In criminology today, this is an important factor. Circumstances do have a factor, but are they an absolutely determining factor? Do we not have free choice? Also, in criminology and our justice system, some people, these criminologists have determined, are not responsible for their actions because they have lost the ability to determine what is right and wrong. However, many choices led this person to this position. However, their choices of good or evil lead to a certain slavery or freedom, either to good or evil. Are people responsible for their choices that lead to a certain kind of bondage to evil? Are people free or are they pre-determined?

Certainly, mental health factors also contribute to the person's challenges, but using these issues as an excuse doesn’t help but hurt people. Yes, they may need medical assistance and treatment as well as acceptance from our culture to aid to healing. All of us become who we are by a stack of the right moral and spiritual choices. On the flip side, a bunch of evil choices leads to the removal of freedom.

Also, because of the emptiness mankind has without God, he tries to smooth the inner sorrow and emptiness with all kinds of distractions and addictions. We are free to do this, but it doesn’t satisfy; instead, it enslaves and, more often than not, increases the sense of emptiness and sorrow. . Even good things when distorted can become addictions or idols, like family, friends, money, safety and significance. (Luke 9:24; Matthew 10: 1 Timothy 6:10)

As Bernard of Clairvaux said in his book, On Grace and Free Choice, “In my opinion, therefore, free choices takes its name from the freedom alone by which the will is free to either judge itself good if it is consented to good, or bad, if to evil only by willing, in fact, can it feel itself to consent to either.” Man, if he is free, is responsible for his consent, whether to good or to evil.

Fear can also enslave us. Anxiety has become paramount in our culture today. There is good fear and bad fear, and it takes discernment and wisdom to know the difference. The Bible says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

Some Theological systems are very deterministic. This does injustice to God and man. If people are saved by necessity and others are condemned to a pre-determined hell, then there is no free will and there is a great injustice. Again, as Bernard states, “Take away free choice and there is nothing to be saved. Take away grace and there is no means of saving. Without the two combined, this work cannot be done: the one as operative principle, the other as object toward which, or in which, it is accomplished. God is the author of salvation, the free willing faculty merely capable of receiving it. None but God can give it, nothing but free choice receive it. What, therefore, is given by God alone and to free choice alone, can no more happen without he receipent’s consent than without the bestower’s grace. Consequently, free choice is said to cooperate with operating grace in its act of consent, or, in other words, in it process of being saved. For, to consent is to be saved.” We are either cooperating or consenting with good and God or with evil and the devil.

Are you truly free or are you run by your distorted passions and desires. The passions and desires are set free as they are healed by the hand of God and rightly ordered in his kingdom. (Galatians 5:24) Many people are also not free because they are influenced too greatly by the culture, the opinions, and the pressures of the crowd. When we are truly free, we experience peace and joy even in the midst of the storms. Again as Bernard said, “In the measure, therefore, that grace’s kingdom is extended, sin’s power is weakened.” In the Bible 1 Corinthians 13 describes the will renewed to the good to God, others and self.

We can will, especially as a non-Christian, to do good but not have the power to do it, from a right heart. However, selfish motives can give great strength to the will. The Apostle Paul, speaking as a religious man not yet converted, says, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:14-20; see Douglas Moo’s Commentary on Romans). God gives power or in other words, grace to do good. However, even Christians can choose at times to walk in the flesh instead of the Spirit. (see Romans 8) Love is the greatest motivator of all.

Jesus came to atone for our sin or pay the penalty for it on a cross and he also won the victory over sin, misery, and the devil. How much of that is realized in our life depends on consenting to him in salvation and consenting to be in progressive union with him. We are truly free when we place our confidence, trust, and love in God and also trust His Providence and Sovereignty.

“Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:38). Faith is based on knowledge, and knowledge is based on fact. This kind of knowledge and experience sets us free.

Are you truly free or an actor in a great play set up by two different directors, which may often be yourself and the devil? We are truly free when the image of God is restored in mankind. Who are you? Are you the distorted self or the renewed self? Which one is truly free?