FREE WILL

Animals operate largely according to instinct, an inherited pattern of behavior. Human beings are different. Made in the very image of God himself (Gen. 1:26-27), people possess volition, i.e., the power to make personal choices. A few modern philosophers, like Bertrand Russell, denied that man has free will. Some theologians, following Augustine, contend that man's enslavement to sin has destroyed his power to exercise free will. Accordingly, he can do nothing good, not even believe in God, until and unless he is supernaturally empowered with a measure of the Holy Spirit. But this is a false ideology. Every command issued to man presupposes his ability either to accept or reject it. Every warning in Scripture assumes that human beings have the power to change. Jesus said to certain Jews who were rejecting him, "you will not come unto me that you may have life" (Jn. 5:39; cf. Mt. 23:37). There is a vast difference between "will not" and "cannot." The canon of Scripture virtually closes with an affirmation of man's free will: "he that will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22:17).