North Athens Baptist Church

One of the debates that has raged in the church since its early days has been over the matter of free will.  In the 5^th century a British monk by the name of Pelagius took exception to a prayer of Augustine that said: “Grant what thou commandest, and command what thou dost desire.”  Pelagius had no quarrel with the last phrase in the prayer but the first one greatly angered him.  He deduced, correctly, that Augustine was saying that divine grace was necessary for a human being to obey God’s commands.  For Pelagius the command to obey implies the ability to obey.  He postulated that if God commands people to believe in Christ, then they have the power to believe in Christ without the assistance of grace.  Pelagius believed that man had autonomous free will and if that free will were properly exercised then man could achieve whatever was required by God in matters of morality and religion.  Augustine argued correctly that if God is sovereign then man cannot be autonomous and if man is autonomous then God cannot be sovereign.  The two are mutually exclusive ideas.  The church in several councils agreed with Augustine and Pelagius was condemned as a heretic.  At the time of the Reformation this debate raged again between Martin Luther and Erasmus and prompted Luther to write what he considered his most important work,  The Bondage of the Will.  This issue is important and continues to be debated (though many believers are unaware of the issue) because it goes to the heart of the Christian faith.  It affects ones “order of salvation” and largely determines how we do evangelism.  To answer the question posed by the title: Does Man Have Free Will? I would answer that man is free to act according to his nature.  In the next article I will write more on fallen man’s nature and more about this doctrine.