On Free Will and Predestination: Part 4, Salvation and the Drama of Life

The final point I made in my chapel talk with the students was to note that predestination wasn't just Christological, it was also soteriological.

Again, these students were wrestling with predestination because of an encounter with a crude vision of Calvinism, concluding that they had no free will due to their lives being "predestined" by God. They were in the grip of what might be called a metaphysical determinism, akin to the materialistic determinism we see in scientism. The question is simple: Do I have any choice at all, about anything, if God has predestined my every decision?

As I described in the last post, it's critical to understand that Christ is the Predestined One, not us. Our job is simply to be found in Christ. And if we are found in Christ we have access to the soteriological gifts that come through Christ. Focusing on these gifts is what I mean by predestination being soteriological. Consider, for a final time, the passage from Ephesians 1. This time I'll underline the soteriological gifts that are predestined to come through Christ:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

What is being predestined here are gifts, not choices. In Christ we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We become God's adopted children who are sealed with the Holy Spirit. We are redeemed and forgiven. These are the gifts that have been predestined for those found in Christ. As I pointed out in the last post, predestination isn't about God micromanaging our lives. Predestination concerns gifts made available in Christ. 

Which brings us back to free will and how we must consent to being found in Christ. As Augustine said, God will not save us without our consent. While we did not agree to our first birth, we must agree to our second. And upon that consent we receive the gifts predestined to those who are found in Christ.

Further, this consent doesn't evacuate life of drama. The choices we make in Christ have real existential weight. Perhaps the best articulation of this comes from 1 Corinthians 3, a passage I've reflected on before in this space:

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Here is both security and real drama. Those who are in Christ, the Predestined One, stand on a firm foundation. Soteriological security. Eschatological assurance. But the choices we make have real effects and real consequences. As Paul warns, take care how you build! Why take care? Because the quality of your choices will be tested. For those who make poor choices, they will suffer loss. For those who make good choices, they will receive a reward. This is the drama of the Christian life, a contingency of loss and reward based upon our choices that being found "in Christ" does not eradicate or absolve. Do the choices I make with my life matter? Yes! Which is why Paul exhorts us: "Take care how you build."

Not that we build alone. Again, even the poor builders are standing on the foundation of Christ. And all those found in Christ are filled with the Holy Spirit. Our will partners with God and is empowered by God. The tradition calls this view synergism, our will working dynamically and cooperatively, via our consenting "yes," with God's will. To go back to the first post, synergism keeps both consent and capacity in view. We must consent to being saved, but we cannot save ourselves. This partnership is beautifully captured by Philippians 2:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, 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.

This dance between our free "yes" to God and the empowerment God graces us is the drama and adventure of the Christian life.