What about Free Will?: Reconciling Our Choices with God's Sovereignty

Wonderfully exposed topic. Highly recommended.He exposed Free Will, Compatibilism and the conflict of free agency.He explores the conflict from which none of any system can escape.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Philippians 2:12b-13Do we have free will? Is God in control of human acts? If God is sovereign, do our choices really matter?Scott Christensen's Book , What About Free Will? Reconciling Our Choices with God's Sovereignty, is a must read for anyone who's ever given thought to the topic. Christensen tackles the difficult topic of free will from a compatibilistic perspective, i.e. that God's sovereign determinative plan is compatible with human free will or free agency.What's particularly interesting about this book is that it's written by a philosophically minded pastor, not a philosopher. This may seem like a small detail, but it has many practical implications. Scott's purpose is primarily pastoral, so while he deals with top shelf theology and philosophy, he makes it accessible for the theologian and laymen alike (yeah, I know everyone's a theologian but you know what I'm saying).The Author is vigorously logical, yet winsome and even-handed with contrary views of human free will. He does a fantastic job of teaching what other perspectives believe in a way that they themselves could affirm, then he refutes those positions with logic and most importantly, with the Bible. He's even added an appendix where he concisely contrasts Libertarian (Arminian) beliefs with Compatibilist (Calvinist) beliefs right next to eachother for an easy and highly accessible juxtaposition.What sets this books apart from others like it, is that Christensen is a teacher par excellence, making use of helpful graphs throughout the book, employing a glossary at the end of each chapter, giving the reader study questions at the end of each chapter for self reflection, as well as listing resources for further study at the end of each chapter. This man has really done his homework and he demonstrates that on every page. If you have trouble with words like "hard-determinism", "synergism" and "decretive will" then this is to book for you! Scott will teach you the phrases and words you need to know to engage in the discussion of free will and he's provided a cheat sheet at the end of each chapter that you can return to at anytime for a refresher. Christensen's book stands in the tradition of Luther's The Bondage of The Will and Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of The Will, but he has the benefit of standing on the shoulders of these giants, along with hundreds of other giants, which allows him to observe the progress of biblical compatibilism as well as make some positive gains.I commend What About Free Will to anyone looking for answers on the relationship between God's will and ours, Arminian and Calvinist alike. Whether you've been studying the topic of free will for years or haven't ever given it serious thought, you need to read this book. I will be using it with the guys I disciple for years to come.This book will stretch you mentally, challenge your traditions, expose you to knew concepts, encourage you in your faith, provide you with lots of next steps and resources to check out, and most importantly, you will come away with a larger, more biblical view of the Living God of the Bible who works all things according to the counsel of His will.

I have been researching, reading, and following the Calvinist-Arminian debate for many years and this is one of the best books I have read on the subject—well researched and argued.This debate should be based firmly and solely on scripture. But what I have come to realize is that it is ultimately a philosophical debate. The reason being is that most Christians—clergy, scholars and laypeople alike—bring their presuppositions to scripture. And many christian philosophers read scripture through a lens of philosophical rationalism (even though they may be unaware of it).Often the meaning of terms like free will and determinism are just assumed but never defined and therefore much of the discussion is people talking past each other. This is why it is so important to understand the philosophical ideas so one can address the real issues clearly. Therefore the book’s glossary of the relevant terms is crucial—as is the included plethora of further study resources. All the relevant scriptural references are discussed but the book goes into depth on all the philosophical concepts that undergird the interpretive disagreements.For the non-Calvinist the real debate is between libertarian free will and hard determinism. Compatibilsm is not taken seriously. Many christian philosophers see no distinction between determinism and compatibilism. William James called compatibilism a "quagmire of evasion" and Immanuel Kant called it a "wretched subterfuge" and "word jugglery.”Even if one were to grant the incoherence of theistic compatibilism this would not by default make libertarianism coherent. LFW must be proven on its own terms—and from scripture. The key is to challenge the morality and logic of LFW, and this is what the book does best.As much as I loved this book there is one very unfortunate omission.Many of today’s thinking Arminians, and especially many of those who are teachers and philosophers, no longer hold to the Foreseen Faith view of Predestination and Election. The accepted view among non-Calvinist theologians and philosophers is Corporate Election, while concepts like “predetermined” and “foreknow” are divested of their timeless identities. “Predetermined” is explained as something akin to God’s infallible “educated guess,” while “foreknow” simply means that God is remembering or “knowing” something that happened in human history. I think Calvinist apologists need to realize that there has been development within the Arminian and non-Calvinist camps.I look froward to this author's new book on the problem of evil sometime in the future.

Not impressed. Sorry. From what I can see, the author makes the mistake of committing the modal fallacy early on with regard to God's foreknowledge. And he allows just one single footnote for the subject of Molinism - which is a strange omission for a book about free will and divine sovereignty written in 2016 when the idea has been championed by some leading Christian philosophers and entertained by many others - saying, for some reason, that he "cannot assess their arguments here".

This book is precisely what I had hoped to find when I bought it: an accessible yet reasonably complete explanation of compatibilism with a good deal of scriptural exploration. I found it very helpful and am using it to spur conversation with others on this topic.