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Do we have a free will ravi zacharias and Frank Turek VS RC Sproul and John Piper

hello my name is Ethan Kaiser I am a scientist and an atheist and my question is since the Bible has been scientifically disproven as far as all the claims you know through evolution the theory of evolution archaeology you know Noah's Ark I'm Eve since we know this didn't happen because of our science of science nowadays um my question is how do we have according to the Bible how do we have free will if God is this a mission being that knows everything about us everything we will do and he pretty much knows our outcome before we're even created so he creates us knowing everything we'll do since we can't surprise him by our actions we are in we have no free will our choices have been predetermined and that the act of judgment is completely immoral because he knows what we're going to do nothing can surprise them that's a question thank you for the question and before you go into an auditorium if you give a sheet of paper and ask us to write 20 possible questions that will come we've never heard a new one in all of these years that go by they're pretty much the same questions it's interesting that you began by saying as an atheist all of this has been disproved and so you live with scientific materialism as your worldview I studied under John poking horn at Cambridge University you probably know the name one of the world's leading quantum physicists who came to exactly the opposite conclusion you did while being the Dean at Queens College Cambridge as a quantum physicist taking the same data you did so obviously for a man of his intellectual ability to come to a different conclusion one would either have to say he's totally stupid to come to that conclusion or else his empirical basis please don't keep shaking your head let me finish so you can come and talk afterwards so it allows to concentrate what we are saying here I want to read for you what David Berlinski says about the scientific naturalistic worldview do you know who he is one of the world's leading physicists who is an agnostic borders on atheism but took issue with Richard Dawkins 'iz book the day The God Delusion and wrote a book called The Devil's delusion here's what he said hmm has anyone ever provided proof of God in existence not even close has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe a wide is here not even close have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life not even close this is Berlinski talking our physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything as long as it is not enough not religious thought close enough as rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good what is right and what is moral not close enough has secularism and the terrible 20th century being a force for good not even close to being close is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences close enough does anything in the sciences around their philosophy justified the claim that religious belief is irrational not even in the ballpark is scientific atheism of frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt dead on now I didn't say that all right I'm not quoting myself please give me your name sir Ethan Ethan what you're wrestling with is not uncommon many people from a scientific admit realistic worldview will say what you've said and come to that conclusion the problem is what you mispositioned was your concern between determinism and free will I was your application could have gone in many different directions but you came to that one for some reason which I was unfortunate I think at Cambridge I listened to a talk at the lady Mitchell Hall in 1990 by Stephen Hawking as you know he can't speak he uses a speech synthesizer his whole talk was on determinism and freedom and you know what he concluded that the tragedy with scientific materialism if we takes it as take its assumptions is that we are not free we are totally determined that was the world's leading physicists at that time saying the very thing you're asking of the Christian faith he pinned on your backs a salivic materialists you can go right online and now and trace it Lady Mitchell Hall 1990 somewhere on March April May that time I was tenants and he said the only escape I have is since I don't know what has been determined I may as well not be the whole auditorium moaned and groaned with an escape hatch that he gave for himself after telling us that we were completely determined that's burnin skis issue that is actually even what people like Dawkins will concede or Pinker you read Steven Pinker and the others so totally determine so the question is were you free to ask this question yep so you're actually as a machine automaton asking me this question okay but you're not freed that you're not free you're not making a truth statement what I'm saying is our memories here we carefully if you're totally determined yes you're pre-wired to think the way you do nature versus nurture yes sorry nature versus nurture nature versus nurture yes regardless and nurture may provide a different environment but the nature is you're hardwired to come out to the son conclusion out of flux nothing but flux you know what you put into the computer that I'll call two mice is going to come out but you have to ask yourself are you making a truth claim if you are making a truth claim you're rising above the bondage of total subjectivity and the moment you claim a truth claim you're violating determinism and so I just leave you with that and let's let's meet afterwards hey Nathan we want to chat with you you know you're the kind of guy we come here for so afterwards ear you come here wheel chattering okay give me a shake you know I live in a condominium where there's so much of noise that sometimes goes on and I phoned the property manager and said you know when I write even the sound of anything distracts me and so she said play some music I said what yeah so so that's why I'm sorry if I checked you on the shaking of the head if I get distracted I can't stay on track you know so of my apology is on that my name is Warren hey or my question is how do you reconcile the idea of a completely sovereign god and the idea of man's responsibility and free will yeah well we're not predestined to talk about that tonight I'm sorry the way it is the way it goes all right obviously we could talk about this for centuries and and Christians have been arguing about it over for centuries but let me just give you one analogy that may help because a lot of people think if God knows everything that somehow we don't have free will right let's just say you love you love football and one day one Saturday you love college football one Saturday you are away from the TV you can't watch the games and you want to come home you record them your DVR them and you want to come home and watch those games when you get home that late that Saturday night but on the way home your friend text you the score and you go I didn't want to know the score I wanted to watch it as if it were alive but you go anyway and you elect to watch one of the games right you turn the game on you know what's gonna happen but because you know what's going to happen does that mean that the players on the field don't have free will no they're still freely doing what they're doing right in an analogous way God who's outside of time knows what we're going to do before we do it but that doesn't mean he's causing us directly to do it in a sense God causes us when he elects to create this universe he elects the outcome but he always knew you would believe freely and he always knew someone like Richard Dawkins an atheist wouldn't believe freely he doesn't cause Richard Dawkins not to believe he doesn't cause you to believe his Holy Spirit comes to you and you accept Richard Dawkins the Holy Spirit came to him and he rejected so we have free will to allow us to love and God still knows what we're gonna do but he doesn't cause us to do it because if the Scriptures are true and of course I think they are God says I want everyone to be saved well if God wants everyone to be saved and we don't have free will then why isn't everyone saved right the reason some are saved is because they don't want God so they reject him all right thanks all right by the way there's a book that my co-author wrote called chosen but free his name is Norman Geisler GE is le R if you want to go deeper you're predestined to read that book let me ask the question throw it out generally how do you all feel about the expression free will talking about me let me answer that yeah we'll let you ask you ask me how I feel about it and not what I think about it I see it matters a lot to you well it is it's an it's such an important concept because I I always say that all of us have had our minds played with by pagan ideas and we're taught from the time we're little kids that nature operates independent from the power of God and that there's an errant powers of nature like gravity and so on we also have been taught from childhood from infancy a pagan understanding of human volition and that pagan knowledge is that we have a free will that is capable of choosing whatever we want from a spirit or attitude of indifference with no prior bent inclination or disposition to the left or to the right to the good or to the bad now all reformed people say that man has a free will in the sense that we have a Faculty of choosing that remains after the fall every person out there has the ability to choose what they want in you of all made choices to be here today because that's what you wanted to do more than not wanted to do and that's what gets us into so much trouble we sin because we choose to sin all right so we know we have a Faculty of choosing and in the sense that we have wills then relational creatures then you can say we have a free will but at the same time when the Bible speaks about our will it speaks about that it doesn't like to use the term free because you have to say free for what if you want to say free from coercion yes we have a will that is free from coercion but if we if you mean free free from more bondage and slavery which is what the pagan concept is that we're free to be righteous and to do the right thing and so on oh no no no the Bible says we're dead in sin and trespasses that this that the will is enslaved to this desires are the desires of our heart our only evil continuously that was the battle between it's between Agustin and Pelagius between Luther and Erasmus between Calvin and big iasts and between Edwards you know no it's good and but we like Calvin said if you mean by free will the ability to choose the things of God unaided by regeneration then free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to us mortals is there a term you would prefer to use a human responsibility full volition what do you say instead of free will well I still say free will but I don't have to qualify you know like Agustin did and what Sinclair was getting at earlier the distinction because them said you know before the fall we had libera amor bitchery I'm a free will and we also had libertas Liberty meaning the power to do the right in the things of God after the fall we retained the libera more became the free will the Faculty of choosing what we lost was our Liberty and only the Holy Spirit can restore the Liberty that we have lost at the fall and the problem you have with semi play gene theology is has been so influenced by paganism that it wants to retain that kind of a pre-fall view of of the will or at least they recognize that there's a fall and the what fault the Wills been weakened by sin they don't really grasp the depths of that weakness you know man is sick in sin and trespasses rather than dead in sin and trespasses that's why I wrote the book willing to believe let's break your canvas the whole history of this debate over free will because for my desire is not simply to support reformed theology biblical the only but to try to get people to realize where these ideas come from they don't come from you don't see big treatises in the Bible about free will you do hear about our responsibility and all of that but you don't find a pagan notion of freedom in the scriptures [Music] Pastor John here's a big question we get frequently from listeners and it comes in various forms but essentially the question is this is there such a thing as free will let me pose the question really specifically so that it's not maybe quite that broad but I think we'll go right to the heart of the matter do we have free will in choosing Christ as our Lord and Savior and treasure I think that's what the center of the debate is about and then people can generalize beyond that about like do you have free will to eat a banana but I'm just talking about do we have free will to to choose Christ as our Savior our Lord our treasure and of course that depends on the definition of free will so let's start with one and I think this is the definition that those in the debate would agree with I know that in my debates with Greg Boyd for example he he would use this for what he's defending people having and I think people don't have in this regard so here you have a free will it's the definition you have a free will when you have ultimate self-determination with this definition you have free will in choosing Christ if the ultimate cause of the choice is your own self-determination so that's the point the point is the word ultimate there may be a lot of factors that that share in determining your choice of Christ but only one of those factors is ultimate or final free will on this definition did that you be that factor not anything else and including God God's not the final ultimate factor in the choice you are or here's another way to say it you have free will when your will is the decisive cause of your choosing Christ and the word decisive here has the same function as ultimate there may be many causes that influence your choosing Christ but for you to be free in this definition the decisive cause the one that finally decides your choice must be your will not anyone elses will including God so that's what the debate is about when you get to heaven if God asks you what's the deepest decisive reason you believed on my son what will your answer be will you say the decisive reason for my choice was your grace or will you say the decisive reason for my choice was me now be sure to notice carefully the question is not did we make a choice the question was not was our will active and necessary the question was not was our choice real the answer to all those questions is yes you made a choice your will was active and necessary your choice was real that's not the question in the debate the question is when your will chose what was decisive in bringing that willing about what was the decisive influence or the decisive cause and the Bible answers God's grace and others say your own power of self-determination so I'm arguing here now that in choosing Christ we don't have that kind of freewill that is the power of self-determination and here are three kinds of texts that I would come in for people to think about number one we are so morally corrupt we can't do good we can't believe romans 8 6 & 7 to set the mind on the flesh are the mind of the flesh is death but the mind of the Spirit is life in peace for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God it does not submit to God's law and it cannot so the mind of the flesh apart from Jesus Christ cannot submit to God we love our self exaltation and cannot submit or 1st Corinthians 2:14 the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit for they are folly to him and he's not able he's not able he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned so these text in the Bible says we cannot perceive and submit to God because we are so corrupt sit number 2 we can't choose Christ it's finally a gift of God so 2nd Timothy 2:24 the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone able to teach patiently enduring evil correcting his opponents with gentleness God may perhaps grant them repentance so repentance is required and we can't do it on our own the decisive causes God may grant repentance or Philippians 1:29 for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but suffer for his sake so believing in Christ is a gift it's granted to you because you can't produce it on your own so Paul says so then it depends not on the one who wills or the one who runs but on God who has mercy and the third text type is what is this experience like then when we choose by another's power 1st Corinthians 15:10 by the grace of God I am what I am and His grace toward me was not in vain but on the contrary I worked harder than any of them though it was not i but the grace of god that was with me so there's a picture of I do choose I do work I am laid but no it is God at work in me he's the decisive underneath cause bringing it about same thing in Philippians 2:12 work out your salvation with fear and trembling for God is the one who's in you working and in you willing so you're willing is caused by his willing and you're working is caused by his working so here's my conclusion Tony if we if we are left to our free will that is our power of ultimate self-determination we will all of us use it to reject Christ we are so spiritually dead and numb and blind and rebellious against Christ we love the darkness so much that we don't have the moral ability to see and prize and choose Christ over this world the sovereign grace of God breaks in on our lives overcomes our rebellion overcomes our blindness and our deadness and makes us able to see Christ as compelling and beautiful so that we freely choose Christ which which of course I know leaves unanswered the question of wealth and how in the world are we accountable or responsible but but on this APJ I just wanted to say no we don't have free will in choosing Christ if you define free will as ultimate self determination

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