How Do We Use Theological Triage?

Theological Triage and It’s Roots

17 years ago, Albert Mohler wrote an article helping pastors and laymen alike in thinking about which doctrines to give more urgency to. His article was very timely considering the history of Evangelicalism up until that point. A brief survey of where Evangelicalism has come from and what it’s gone through will make this clear.

 Since the beginning of the 20th century, faithful men battled nonstop to defend the Christian faith. Everything from the classical liberalism espoused by Harry Emerson Fosdick to the inerrancy debates of the later 20th century, the fight for the soul of Christianity itself has been at stake for nearly a century. This is because these debates all concerned major tenets of the Christian faith and they notably took place between those who considered themselves Christians.

In the 21st century, however, there have been very few debates that challenge the foundations of Christian doctrine. This does not mean the debates have ceased. It simply means that we’ve all mostly agreed on those doctrines that are pillars of our faith, and this is where Mohler’s article is very timely.

Theological Triage Today

In an environment where two Christians would disagree about the truthfulness of Scripture or whether Christ rose bodily from the grave, an approach of sounding the sirens is appropriate. The Christian faith cannot stand if either Christ or His word are dead.

A new environment, however, called for different tactics. Where Evangelicals were mostly agreed upon those foundational doctrines, a less urgent approach to debates is necessary. Mohler’s article presented a way forward to continue having discussion and debates with those we truly considered brothers and sisters in the faith. For example, triage allows Calvinists and Arminians to debate one another’s differences (tier 2) while acknowledging their agreement upon justification and inerrancy (tier 1).

Theological triage was the tool given by Mohler as a way for Evangelicals to navigate discussions and debates with one another with the appropriate amount of urgency and care.

In the opening decades of the 21st century, most doctrinal disagreements have been a part of what Mohler has called 2nd order doctrines, and this is where we have lived for the last 22 years. Thankfully, we have been having discussions with those we consider to be comrades and family for a long time.

Misunderstanding Theological Triage

Something unsettling has happened over these last couple of decades however. In our time of relative peace, many have taken a look at these debates over second-order doctrines and glanced over them. It seems to have started with the belief about the roles of women in the church and the home. I have seen and heard something to the effect of: “Complementarians and egalitarians are both believers and should not fight about this issue because it is a second-tier doctrine”. 

Such debates, some might say, cause division. So, there is a call to end these debates, appealing to the place that these doctrines hold: the second tier. This has left us in an unfortunate position today because we’re losing many through the bridge of these second-tiered doctrines. First gender roles don’t matter or are non-existent. Then what about sexual orientation? Are the Scriptures really that clear about it? It’s not really a first-tier issue, is it? 

And so the dominos fall.

Theological Dualism?

I have been observing this attitude in Christian circles and it truly concerns me. I think we have forgotten what theological triage really is and what a second-order doctrine means. My fear is that some Christians today do not truly have a framework of theological triage but rather theological dualism. 

A proper theological triage is meant to look like the picture below. Here we can recognize and rank certain doctrines in order of importance and centrality to the Christian faith. The higher up a doctrine is, the more foundational and central it is to Christianity. These are things such as the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement of Christ, the hypostatic union, etc. 

A good theological triage will recognize that there are doctrines in the second tier but that does not mean they are unimportant. Unfortunately, this is what I think many Evangelicals today have done. Instead of seeing all tiers as important and having measures of greater or lesser importance, they have simply divided between the important and the non-important.

The result of this is not a true theological triage, but what I’m (uncreatively) calling theological dualism, which looks more like the diagram below than any of the ones above.

This has massive implications for how we respond to these second-tier doctrines. We will begin to treat them with indifference precisely because they are not first-tier doctrines and thus they become unimportant.

A Plea For A Proper Use of Theological Triage

To embrace a theological dualism in our approach to doctrine is devastating, especially given our cultural and theological milieu. The debates and issues-at-hand today are all located in this second tier. The issues of racism, gender roles, sexuality, and missiological methodology are a few areas that have caused nothing short of sharp disagreement in Christian circles in the opening decades of the 21st century.

The approach of some is admirable in focusing on heralding the gospel and not engaging with some of these issues. Perhaps there is some wisdom in this as well. But this approach does not work and has led to more confusion about the nature of the gospel as well as allowing these second-tier issues to snowball into first-tier issues. 

What happens when a fellow Christian is calling for fellow Christians to engage in societal change, but is given no direction about what a thoroughly Biblical vision for societal change looks like? Do they embrace a Critical Theoretical view that sees society divided into oppressors and oppressed? Do they embrace a vision of Christian Reconstructionism that seeks to apply the so-called civil laws of the Mosaic Covenant? 

What about gender and sexuality? Should Christians say it is okay to identify as gay? Or should Christians give their pronouns in settings that require it as a way to make peace? What should Christians do?

I would strongly urge my fellow brothers and sisters to embrace a true theological triage and take seriously these second-tier issues. They themselves are not the gospel, but they protect, uphold, and preserve the gospel. We can herald the gospel and call our churches to live for Christ, but let’s be clear about what that means in light of all these other calls to “faithfulness” from different sides. We don’t help anyone when we don’t give clarity where God’s word has given clarity. If not explicit, Scripture-citing clarity, then at least implicit, deductive clarity.

What Does God Know and How Does He Know It?

In this article I will discuss God’s knowledge and how it fits with human freedom. The main point of this article is to examine Molinism’s proposal of how these two fit together and demonstrate that Molinism’s answer is not sufficient to solve this problem of Divine (fore)knowledge and human freedom.

Let me introduce this post by posing a question: does God know everything?

This might be a difficult question to answer. To start, you have to think about what is meant by “God”; what kind of being He is and who He is, but, since I am a Christian writing primarily to a Christian audience, I presuppose (and not blindly) God to be who has revealed Himself to be in the Bible: a self-existent, self-conscious, personal, and absolute Being. While we could dive into the fascinating nature and being of God, for the sake of this post we won’t. We will be assuming this.

To get back to the question, anyone who has this pre-understanding of God must answer “yes”. God, by necessity of His nature, must know all things. But what is the nature of God’s knowledge? What does it mean for God “to know”. Certainly it is different from our experience and ability to know because God is different than us. To begin answering this question, it is common to divide the knowledge which God posses into two parts: necessary and free.

Necessary knowledge pertains to God’s complete knowledge of Himself and thus His power to act and create. This means that God knows everything that He can possibly do. This knowledge is not successive, like ours, bringing one piece of knowledge to the forefront of His mind while letting others pass into the background. Neither is God’s knowledge attained by discovery. He has knowledge in and of Himself. This means God has all of His knowledge consciously before Him at all times and no new knowledge is gained. Pretty incredible, right?

Free knowledge pertains to God’s knowledge of the created order based on His eternal purpose. The entirety of creation operates according to the purpose of His will (Ephesians 1:11). This is an important point we’ll come back to later.

What’s the Problem?

So, now we have an idea of how God’s knowledge works, but one problem is created if we say that God knows all things: how can God know all things while humans still act freely in the world? If God knows everything I will do, then I can’t be acting freely.

The implied proposition is this:

if God knows everything I will do, that means there is an unchangeable course to my future.

If there is an unchangeable course to my future, then in what way do I make meaningfully free decisions.

Also implied in our problem is the idea that if God knows what I will do, He must have some control over what I will do since He is God. He is the one who makes my future unchangeable.

A Possible Solution

Coming now to the main point of this article, I will introduce Molinism and its proposed solution to this problem. Molinism comes from the Spanish Catholic theologian Luis de Molina. He was a Jesuit in particular, which is important because the Jesuit branch of Catholicism was formed in response to the Reformation and was an officially sanctioned arm of the Catholic church in 1540 by Pope John Paul II.

The way in which Molinism seeks to resolve this tension is by introducing a third part to the nature of God’s knowledge that we discussed earlier: middle knowledge. Middle knowledge comes between Natural and Free knowledge. It states that God knows everything that would happen. A helpful way to understand the difference between each of these modes of knowledge comes from William Lane Craig who distinguishes them in this way:

Natural Knowledge: what could be.

Middle Knowledge: what would be.

Free Knowledge: what will be.¹

The way this resolves the tension between an all-knowing God and free human action is to say that, in God’s Middle Knowledge, He takes into account free human choices. For example, if God creates Peter in X situation, God knows Peter will make Y choice. So, God can still plan the course of history (and thus know the future) while maintaining Libertarian freedom.

The Failure of Molinism

There are two problems that we face immediately with this view: (1) if humans have genuine, Libertarian freedom, then God cannot know for certain what Peter will do in X situation. He can only know with some amount of probability. Imagine God puts Peter in X situation expecting him to make Y choice. If Peter has genuine, Libertarian freedom, then Peter could reasonably choose Z choice instead. What happens when Peter makes Z choice instead of Y choice in situation X? Does God have to course correct? How can God guarantee any outcome in ordering history in this way?

(2) God’s eternal decrees are now ordered around granting and maintaining Libertarian freedom to human beings instead of “him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). This is perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses to Arminian theology. It typically begins with some reactionary and emotionally-driven response to God’s meticulous providence. It feels wrong. Consider Tim Stratton in his meticulously written Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism:

“There is inherent in the human psyche a rebellion against any sense that individuals do not control their own destinies, that is, that all of a person’s thoughts and actions are at the mercy of and are being controlled by someone or something else. People intuitively sense that they are – and must be- free in their thinking, decisions, and at least in some of their actions. Perhaps it is this inner intuition that has moved many Christians to argue against determinism…”²

But why is this intuition to be trusted? The Bible teaches that mankind are sinful from birth and not only make sinful and wrong choices, but also have wrongly ordered desires, affections, and thinking. Perhaps this rebellion, as Stratton aptly calls it, is exactly that: a rebellion against God-given realities. Mankind in his naturally sinful state, hates the things of God (Rom. 8:7). Part of sanctification is not just learning to act rightly, but also learning to love the things that God loves and hating the things that God hates. Just because we are Christians does not mean that all our desires are right and holy.

At the end of the day, Molinism proposal does not differ that much from the traditional, Reformed proposal to this tension. God must order the world such that His purposes are accomplished. Let’s take look at the most significant event in history to see how Molinism stands up, namely Christ’s death on the cross.

If God wanted Christ to be crucified on the cross to atone for sins, God must have actualized a reality in which:

(1) Judas was born at the correct time and inclined to betray Jesus.

(2) the Sandhedrin and all Jesus’ enemies would be so disinclined to trust in Jesus that they would want Him killed.

(3) Pontius Pilate would be disinclined from freeing Jesus and inclined to let Him be crucified.

These three necessary events must have occurred for the crucifixion of Jesus. So, God actualizes a world in which all of these people are inclined to make the decisions they did in the situations they were in. How does this differ from simply saying that God ordained all these events to come to pass? It is functionally the same because the end of God’s actions is the same and even the method remains the same.

The only difference is that the Molinist adds one extra step in God’s planning by saying God wanted this to happen, considered the free choices of man, and then made it happen whereas Calvinists simply say that God wanted this to happen and made it happen.

The other difference is that God took a risk (even if it was a low risk) in making His plan according to how people would choose in Y situation.

Follow The “Ancient Path”

It is much simpler and less convoluted to say, with Scripture, that God works all things according to the counsel of His will. The traditional, Reformed perspective has much to say about how these two Biblical truths hold together (i.e., Divine (fore)knowledge and human freedom), but the fact that these two truths exist in Scripture must be maintained. God is wholly in control of the entirety of human history and the universe *AND* human beings have free will.

More can be said about how the Reformed tradition speaks to this tension, but that is not the focus of this article. One thing the Reformed tradition does do is acknowledge the proper place for mystery. Because God does not reveal everything in Scripture and because our minds are finite, there are some aspects of God and His work in this world that we will not have a full or exhaustive understanding of. There will be gaps in our knowledge and it is okay to acknowledge that and offer up those things which we do not know to God Almighty and trust His wisdom in what He has revealed to us.

All this to say, although Molinism seems like a new and interesting view, it fails to offer a Biblically and theologically robust answer to the Biblical data that reveals to us the Divine truth of God’s complete sovereignty and man’s freedom and responsibility.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

¹Quoted in Tim Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism, 214.

²Tim Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism, 6.

When People Let You Down At Work

Anyone who has worked at a job that involves interaction with people have known the disappointment that comes with it. One thing that makes work hard is the people. People are hard to work with. This includes, not just customers, but even our co-workers and employees. They are emotional, selfish, and rebellious. They can bring strife when there should be peace, they become barriers to seemingly easy tasks, and they bring complaints when they seem unwarranted or insignificant.

The hard work of work is nothing new to the created order. God has placed a curse on His creation in response to the sinful rebellion of great forefather, Adam. Read Genesis 3:17-19:

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Work is a God-given delight to His creatures. Adam and Eve were created to work the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15). On this side of the Fall, work is still a delight, but its fruit and reward comes with much pain as we see in the passage above.

One element that adds to the difficulty and burden of work is the sinfulness of man. All work necessarily includes people in it to some degree or another. When people are sinful, they do not treat fellow image-bearers as they should. An employee rebels against the leadership of his or her boss, customers are unnecessarily rude and selfish, and managers can be meticulous and demanding.

The reality is that people are going to let you down at your job. Consistently. It is one thing we can count on in a sinful, cursed world.

So, what is the solution to the difficulty of working with people? Do we admit the vanity of it all, grit our teeth, go to work, and do it with a smile?

There is some legitimacy to acknowledging the difficulty of work and especially working in a sinful world with sinful people. Solomon, the wisest man in all of history second to Jesus said in Ecclesiastes 2:22-23:

What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? ²³ For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

Even he could see the futility of working in a fallen world, but the verses that follow this, he says:

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, ²⁵ for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Solomon’s solution isn’t just a pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot-straps kind of attitude. He acknowledges the goodness of enjoying our lot in life and doing the work God has put before us. Solomon even sees that the power of enjoying work comes from the hand of God (I am indebted to Dr. Jim Hamilton for this observation).

There is, however, one problem: us. As we look around at the sin in the world and at work in other people to make work hard, we have to realize that sin is at work in us and we make work hard for other people as well.

I have noticed this in myself as a Team Leader at Chick-Fil-A. I notice my tendency to laziness and selfishness. Sometimes I do the bear minimum or cut corners when I can and this comes from a heart born in sin that makes work hard for others.

The only way that a person can truly enjoy work and bear the burden of a sinful world is to be reconciled to God in His Son, Jesus Christ. Knowing God is my Great Father, I can come to Him when work seems overwhelming and pour my heart’s sorrows before Him and cast my anxiety upon Him (1 Peter 5:6-7). I can also go to Him when I see my failure as a worker, employee, and leader. I can strive to put to death the deeds of the body that make work hard for other people and bring no glory to God.

What’s more, I can know that the state of the world is depraved and yet not be given over to despair and bitterness. This is because God has given a vision to all of His people the greater world-to-come. In one of the most beautiful passages in all of Scripture, God says in Revelation 21 about the New Heaven and New Earth:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

This is a glorious world where work will certainly happen, but in the perfection. People will gladly serve one another without grumbling. Others will receive service in perfect thankfulness and gratitude. The earth will not longer produce its fruit at the sweat of the brow with thistles and thorns.

It is with this hope that the Christian goes to work. If you’re going to work today and you are a Christian, take great hope in Christ’s redemptive work in you. He is at work in you by His Spirit to sanctify you and make you holy. That includes your work. People will still let you down, but God is always faithful and there is no shadow of turning in Him. He is a refuge that can be trusted in times of weariness and He gives the power of enjoyment of our toilsome labor this side of heaven to all those who love and trust in Him.

Here is the end of Solomon’s contemplation upon the vanities of life:

 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. ¹⁴ For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ordinary Faithfulness

To be a good Christian, you must be an influencer. The only way to know if you are effective is that people are affected, right? So, the more people that are affected, the more you are being effective.

This was the subconscious principle driving my aspirations ever since I was in high school. To be a positive influence in someone’s life is a powerfully positive feeling and it is a tangible way to know that your actions and work are meaningful. I wanted to have this feeling of usefulness, effectiveness, and fruitfulness. So, my goal was to ultimately end up on a stage or being a speaker that everyone invited to various events: graduations, chapels, churches, etc.

I’ve learned that this is a lie. What is interesting to me, however, is what my sinful self used to justify or create this driving principle in my mind and my heart.

Being an Influencer

Growing up, I found John Piper and his ministry, Desiring God, and it became such a wealth of gospel-saturated information about so many issues I was experiencing at the time. It resulted in clarity of thought and freedom from sin and deeper communion with God. I had experienced so much joy and helpfulness from Piper’s ministry and I thought to myself: “I want to be able to help people like him.”

I particularly wanted to help people in spiritual matters because these matters are what matter most to us in our lives, and it is what drives us and gets us up out of bed in the morning.

Then I found out about another resource later in college: The Gospel Coalition. This was another exciting and helpful source that benefited my life. TGC helped me think about every issue of life from politics, to cultural happenings, to difficult theological issues. Again, I found a desire to be as helpful as TGC had been to my life.

Good Intentions…But Misguided

The only way I had learned how to help people was to be an influencer, which certainly meant starting a blog and maybe a podcast down the road (that never happened thankfully). Now, this is not meant to take shots at Piper’s ministry or TGC or any other Christian ministry that is publicly oriented.

I am simply making note of the interesting phenomenon that occurred in my life: As I grew up, I found gospel preaching and teaching beneficial and I sought to do the same thing. The medium that I learned I should do that from were these public ministries that utilized the internet and social media to reach people. I thank God for these ministries and the work that they do, but, then, who’s at fault?

Ultimately, it is me. My sinfulness caused me to take what is good, something that God has certainly ordained for good purposes, and I took it as a means to be an influencer and a people-pleaser.

I do think, however, local churches bear somewhat of the blame as well. Growing up, my church did not emphasize the “non-essentials” of the faith (i.e., everything except the gospel) in order to maintain the unity of the faith. This is a typical step in evangelicalism in America today and it is an understandable one. Again, don’t get me wrong, I am so thankful for my church and that they prioritized the gospel. I am particularly thankful to God for my youth pastor who stepped into my life and helped me as a young kid to study my Bible and look to Christ.

One point of weakness, however, is that I never saw the church as God’s ordained means to reach the world. I never saw the preaching ministry of the church as the most important work of the church. I never saw the preaching of the Word as the sweetest time of the week. The church was not highly emphasized in my experience, so I never learned to love the church.

Pastors With No Home

To continue my story, I think because I never valued the church or saw anyone emphasize valuing the church, I thought gospel ministry could be anywhere, and if it was going to be anywhere why not on a stage where there’s more people?

The desire I had to help others in spiritual matters I now realize is the desire for pastoral ministry. And the desire I have to “do theology” and be a theologian is to preach God’s Word to God’s people so that they know God’s Will for their lives.

This might be a common experience for those particularly of my generation. If anyone grew up in a similar church situation, getting a wealth of gospel preaching and teaching from outside their church and experiencing a desire to do the same might be tempted in the same direction as I was: to be an influencer.

So, one interesting and perhaps unintended consequence of the vacuum of solid ecclesiology within church and the rise of gospel-centered ministries is the elevation of the public pastor or theologian. This combination lit a fire in many young people’s hearts (including mine) when they heard about how God died for the church, ordained the church to be the means to spread the gospel, the noble and hard work of pastoring. In short, hearing the gospel necessarily led to the love for the church and that awoke a desire in many to pastor, but left them with no context to be pastors.

We’re left with these two consequences of our cultural moment: temptation to be an influencer and leave the church behind.

The Two Consequences: Where Do We Go From Here?

Regarding the temptation to be an influencer, behind that temptation is a heart of pride. Even though there is a good desire to help people we know there is “a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (Rom. 7:21). Regardless of your view on Romans 7, the principle Paul explains in this verse is felt by every Christian seeking to honor God. We also know that sin is not finally done with this side of eternity.

It follows, then, that pride becomes an unwanted companion in the desire to help others and, as I look forward at the rest of my life (being only 26), I imagine it will still be with me the rest of my life, hopefully in lesser and weaker measures.

The only cure for a prideful heart is daily reflection on the humble service that God the Son took upon Himself (Mark 10:45) and the humiliation He willingly bore to serve and save the lost (Phil. 2:5-8).

Regarding the desire to be helpful in spiritual matters, let us who have this desire direct our desires and energies to our local churches. Seek to be a servant, first, and help in areas of need, not necessarily in areas of desire. I am thankful for my current church for teaching me this lesson. A pastor needs to have a servant heart. Not like I’ll-serve-you-by-preaching-and-doing-the-very-thing-I-desire-to-do servant heart, but the servant heart that will engage with people who he doesn’t naturally connect with, being willing to help with tasks that might seem below you, and serving in children’s ministry (a point about that: Jesus’ invited little children to come to Him and the disciples shooed them away, maybe our desire against serving in children’s ministry reflects the disciples’ attitudes?)

Second, go to your pastor and express your desire to spiritually nourish others. Ask him to test that call as Derek Prime and Alistair Begg say in their book On Being A Pastor. Ask him to show you what it’s like to serve as a pastor and be willing to do anything: hospital visits, going to a funeral he preaches at, anything. He is showing you the work of a pastor. If your pastor isn’t willing (which has been the case for several people I know), then continue to be faithful in that church and get wisdom from other godly Christians you know.

I understand it might be presumptuous to make this post and help in explaining how to navigate pride and calling as if I have it figured out. This isn’t meant to be a guide, simply reflections from my own experience that I hope can be helpful to others who are in a similar situation as mine.

Right now, I work part time at Chick-Fil-A and doing seminary work and I need to be focusing on being faithful with these responsibilities right before me, especially with my family. I have come to realize that the Christian life is not full of wonderful, miraculous works and powerful and meticulously theological preaching, but just ordinary faithful in every area of life.

The Atheists Inability to Understand Evil and God’s Purposes

“Suppose that, after rummaging around carefully in my fridge, I can’t find a carton of milk. Naturally enough, I infer that there isn’t one there. Or suppose that, on viewing a chess match between two novices, Kasparov says to himself, “So far as I can tell, there is no way for John to get out of check,” and then infers that there is no way. These are what we might call no-see-um inferences: we don’t see ‘um, so they ain’t there!” (Daniel Howard-Synder in “Reason for the Hope Within,” pg. 103).

This noseeum inference originated with a man named William Rowe. He has written a number of different articles regarding the problem of evil. The problem of evil is one of the jewel arguments particularly for Atheists to justify their held belief that there is no god, Christian or otherwise. Rowe appears to be no different except that his arguments are more complex and founded on philosophical musings.

He wrote an article in 1979 called, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism.” One of his arguments to think that belief in God is irrational is as stated:

1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
3. (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. (Rowe 1979, pg. 336, American Philosophical Quarterly)

There can be and has been much to say about this argument. One part I want to focus is Rowe’s support for premise (1). He states this premise as a fact: God could have prevented evil without, but He didn’t. This is a crude and modified form of what he is saying.

He supports this premise with the noseeum inference stating that:

(Proposition) No good state of affairs we know of is such that an omnipotent, omniscient being’s obtaining it would morally justify that being’s permitting evil. Therefore,

(Inference) It is likely that no good state of affairs is such that an omnipotent, omniscient being’s obtaining it would morally justify that being in permitting evil.

So, because we cannot see any reason why God would permit evil (such as rape or murder of children), we must infer that there is no good reason and therefore that God does not exist.

Many Christian philosophers have taken the route to try to discredit the noseeum principle and for good reason. Those are good and fine arguments that should be read about (you can find a detailed summary of this here: https://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/#H2), but I want to, for the sake of argument, uphold this principle and see if Rowe’s argument still holds.

Daniel Howard-Snyder brings up an excellent point in this discussion: “The crucial question, then, is this: what distinguishes the reasonable noseeum inferences from lousy ones?”

A lousy noseeum inference would be, to borrow from Howard-Snyder: I look out my window and I do not see any insects in my backyard, therefore I must infer that there are no insects in my backyard.

So this is a crucial question in deed. Howard-Snyder qualifies the noseeum principle in this way:

“A noseeum inference is reasonable on if it is reasonable to believe that we would very likely see (grasp, comprehend, understand) the item in question if it existed.”

This is a reasonable qualification and exactly the point where Rowe’s support for his first premise fails. If the noseeum principle is true, then we, as humans, are not likely to grasp, comprehend, and understand why God would allow evil. This is due to 3 particular reasons:

1.) The gap in knowledge between God and humans.

Compare the knowledge gap between a parent and their 2 year old child. The 2 year old child cannot comprehend why the parent would send them to bed when they are having fun playing with their toys. So, the 2 year old assumes the parent is evil.

If such reasoning happens between two human beings, imagine the incomparable and infinite epistemic gap between God and humans (see Stephen Wykstra’s response to Howe in the link above)

2.) The noetic effect of sin.

With the introduction of sin comes the misuse of our reasoning and cognitive faculties. This is not to say that the faculties themselves are corrupt, but our use of them. Think of how our reasoning works perfectly fine, but we sometimes reason based on fallacies and ignorance.

For example, I know that every time I have the flu, I have a fever. So, the next time I have a fever I might conclude I have the flu. This wouldn’t be good reasoning though because a fever isn’t the exclusive symptom of the flu. Though this example doesn’t represent how most people think, it is an example of how we may misuse our reason due to the noetic effects of sin.

3.) We are enslaved to sin.

Within the Christian worldview, Christians believe that human beings are enslaved to sin apart from God’s regenerating work by the Spirit in their heart (Rom. 6:20) and are hostile to God and His purposes (Rom. 8:7). So, on top of the previous two reason, Atheists have a sinful nature working in them that wants to deny God even at the level of His existence and they continue to repress their knowledge of Him because of their continued practice of unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18-19).

 

Because of these 3 reason (gap in knowledge, noetic effects, and enslavement to sin) we (or rather the Atheist) are not likely to comprehend, grasp, or understand the reason why God would permit evil in the world.

Therefore, Rowe’s noseeum inference actually works against him and supports the Christian understanding of reality: that Atheists are unable to grasp God’s purposes in this life because they are not equipped by the regenerative and sanctifying works of the Holy Spirit.

If you are an Atheist and do want to comprehend, understand, and, more importantly, have life everlasting that is filled with pleasures, joy, and delight. You only need to turn (repent) from sin to God and ask that He would forgive you and that Christ would intercede on your behalf.

If you do so, God would be happy and willing to do so for you. This is the loving God that He has revealed Himself to be.

Your Starting Point Determines Your Ending Point

Have you ever been down-stream tubing before? It’s surprisingly fun activity given how boring it is if you describe it. You start at the top of a river, get in a big tube that you sit in, and float down a river for up to a whole day (depending on where you go). You start at the top and end at the bottom. It’s a pretty simple concept to grasp. Simple as it is, it is crucial in our thinking and reasoning.

This is particularly true when it comes to thinking about differing faiths or worldviews. To give an example, I have been told that modern science debunks Noah’s flood story. That it’s mathematically impossibly for rain to cover the whole earth in “x” period of time. Other such examples are presented to demonstrate the irrationality of the Christian faith.

The issue with such “evidences”* is that they presuppose an entire belief system that has already ruled out the possibility of something like the flood story happening. The starting point (the impossibility of the supernatural) determines the end point (the impossibility of the flood story). It is concluded from this that Christianity is an irrational system of beliefs.

This conclusion, however, is invalid. Christianity was never evaluated by its truth claims. The only thing that was concluded was that Christian beliefs cannot fit in a world where naturalism is correct. This is true, but we have not yet determined what kind of universe we live in: a naturalistic one or a Christian one.

Here is a more practical outworking of this concept:

Christians believe human beings are created in the image of God. In the Christian system, human beings have intrinsic value simply for being a human being. Because of this, every human being should not be murdered by abortion.**

Atheistic Naturalism believes there is no God and thus no uniqueness to creation. In their words, we are all merely stardust. To them, this is a beautiful thing, but it does not give any intrinsic value to human beings. We are as valuable as a dirty sock on the ground. Though this is not how they may act or think, this is the conclusion from their beliefs. The starting point determines the ending point. So, abortion is really a non-issue since murder can be arbitrarily affirmed or denied in any convenient situation.

The significance of this is that we must think carefully about our positions and values because they come from more foundational beliefs. On top of this, when we argue or discuss with others who come from differing belief systems, it is important to go deeper to the more foundational issues that are controlling whatever topic is at hand.

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*The notion of evidence itself is also connected to this “starting point” concept. Our view of epistemology (the study of knowledge, e.g., empiricism vs. revelational epistemology) will determine what is suitable for evidence.

**Yes, even though “personhood” is debated within the womb, there is no doubt that the organism growing and developing in the womb is a biological human. We cannot divide “human being” and “person”. Have you ever met a human being who is also not a person? (I give credit to Dr. Ken Magnuson for this argument). As well, if that human being were allowed to fully developed, he or she would grow to have all the capacities of any adult. Thus, these two points (the indivisibility of personhood and being a human being and the continuity of humanity) prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the organism is a human person and has every right to life and extermination of that life, under any name, is murder.

How is Truthfulness Loving?

Many months ago, when I began my first semester of seminary at Southern, I was ecstatic to dig deeper into God’s Word and to gain even greater clarity in my thinking. At the same time, I felt the burden of responsibility on my shoulders as a husband and as a father. Though my wife and I already had jobs, our bank account was pretty thin and there was still the issue of finding a babysitter (that we could afford) while we work and I go to school.

Despite my excitement to begin such a blessed journey, my first day was filled with sadness, doubt, and despair. I had woken up to an alert that our account was overdrawn. The terrible feeling I had in my stomach and in my chest made me want to stay at home, but we had driven across the country for me to go to this particular school. So, I went.

The whole day, however, I felt so entirely guilty and my soul racked with sorrow. “What did I get my family into?” was the thought that rang through my head the whole day. We left good, stable jobs and a loving, healthy, and wonderful church for the sole purpose that I could attend this seminary. I had felt like I dragged my lovely wife and sweet daughter through the mud just so I could get what I wanted.

I called my wife and told her about our situation. Her immediate words to me were those reminding me of God’s faithfulness to us in the past. Her words were like a cool breeze to ease the distress of my aching heart. It gave me enough sanity to remember that we were both still employed. I had to ascribe our employment to God’s good providence. After our call, I was reminded of Jesus’ word in Matthew 6 imploring His disciples to not worry and burden themselves about the felt needs of this life. Rather, His call to His disciples was to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”

Though my wife’s reminders were a cool breeze, this word, the very words from God, were a healing balm and a joyful reminder. I was both ashamed and full of hope; ashamed that I had so easily forgotten God’s faithfulness to me time and time again, but full of hope because it was a reminder that I can trust the Lord to be faithful.

Here we are today and we have (for the most part) all these things added to us continuing to humbly submit and obey the Lord in all that He presents unto us.

So, how does all this relate to the title of this post? Well, to get to the point, I was filled with despair and sorrow because I was blind to the truth. Telling the truth is loving because it helps people see the world the way it actually is. Instead of people being ensnared by false perceptions of the world, the truth sheds light on the world like it does for a sailor at sea.

This is exactly the case for those who do not know Christ and rely upon Him for their salvation. They have a false perception of the world that everything is fine and okay, but, in reality, God is coming back. This is great news for Christians, but terrifying for non-Christians! The Lord will return to judge and to finally enact His justice upon those who have rebelled against Him.

Perhaps, though, they have some sense and see that everything is not fine and they feel it. Deeply. Each day is a drowning in misery and they exert all their strength just to make it through the day. Maybe each day for them is a fight to see what the point is in going on. These people are being enslaved to the false perceptions of the world when they have hope freely offered to them in the gospel.

Either way – blissfully unaware or despairingly aware – these people need the truth. How often I shy away from the truth for all kinds of various reasons. I withhold from them that very truth that brought joy and hope and peace into my very soul.

God’s Word is to be known. The very fact that we acknowledge the Bible as God’s special revelation demonstrates that this word was meant to be revealed! So, my brothers and sisters, do not leave our fellow man to wallow in the darkness. Be willing to be ridiculed and mocked in your proclamation of truth all for the sake of loving them and hoping the veil of darkness will be lifted and, “God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[a] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 6:6).

Here is a fitting hymn to end with as well:

“Soldiers of Christ, in truth arrayed,

A world in ruins needs your aid:

A world by sin destroyed and dead;

A world for which the Savior bled.”

How Do You Grasp the Meaning of a Passage?

I bid gracious greetings to whomever is reading! It is humorous to me (and fitting) that my first post here is before the semester began, and now my second post is after the semester has ended. I have learned much between these two posts.

One thing I have learned over the course of the semester is Hebrew. It was an exciting season to be introduced into the language and begin reading the Scriptures in one of their original languages and actually comprehending the meaning. Since, I have been on break, I decided to read through a “Hebrew Grammar” book that I got with my copy of Accordance. After reading ~70 pages, I discovered that this was a 700 page reference grammar book, so I discontinued.

As well, I’ve been introducing myself to Greek before I begin Elementary Greek next semester so I won’t be drowning between Hebrew Syntax and Greek.

Anyway, these have provoked my thinking more and more about how I read the Bible. I could explain the sources of my knowledge, but I will forgo that for the sake of the reader and get right to what I think will be more interesting.

It has occurred to me that many things effect the meaning and understanding of any passage or verse in the Bible (or anything we read, really). In particular, I have noticed five:

1.) Morpheme: I am unsure if this is the correct terminology, but I will use it for now. A “morpheme” is the smallest level of meaning in words. They are things like -ed or -ing. The -ed ending immediately communicates to us that the verb is past tense. Just two letters and we already know something about whatever is being communicated.

2.) Words: This is pretty clear, but here are some examples of how they effect meaning. The Greek word kaphale means “head”. It is used in Ephesians 5:23 when it says, “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body and is Himself its savior.”

The meaning of this word has been challenged because it has been used to describe the head of river. So, the meaning of this word in Ephesians 5, they argue if I am remembering correctly, is that the husband (or man, because the Greek word aner can be translated either man or husband) is the source of the wife (the same is the case with the Greek word for woman as it is for man, i.e., woman or wife) instead of the husband being the authority of the wife. So, of course, man is the source of woman thinking back to Genesis 2.

I could be wrong about their argument, but this is still an example of how words affect meaning.

3.) Syntax: Once again, I am unsure about my usage of this term or understanding. Syntax is the relationship between words. A good example is the much-debated phrase pisteos Iesou Christou, which, as it is debated, can be translated as “faith in Jesus Christ” or “the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”. Either meaning communicates something drastically different, hence the division between the NPP (New Perspective on Paul) and traditional Protestant understanding.

The example here is how exactly is the word “faith” relating to “Jesus Christ”. Is Jesus Christ the object of our faith, or is Jesus Christ the subject of faith/faithfulness?

So, again, is an example of another level of meaning from syntax.

4.) Context: The next level could be sentence and the paragraph, but, I think, the next significant level of meaning (both of which the sentence and paragraph are) is the context. Context determines a lot: meanings of words, how I should take these words (an encouragement, admonition, etc.).

An example of how context determines meaning of words is the Hebrew word for “small/least” (qaton). This word can is often coupled with the word for “great” (gadul) and when used together in a particular context can mean “age”. For example, in Genesis 29:16: “Laban had two daughters: the least (youngest; qaton) Rachel, and the greater (older; gadul) Leah.”

5.) Theological Structure: This is the highest level of affecting meaning. A theological structure is like a overarching understanding of something. Perhaps a good example is covenant theology. Covenant theology thinks of the Bible being laid in a “Covenant of Works” (before the fall) and a “Covenant of Grace” (after the fall).

At the least, these two phrases communicate how God relates to mankind both before the fall and after. How this affects meaning and understanding of passages is in relation to the baptism debate. A covenant theologian has no problem understanding that children are in the New Covenant and applying the sign of the covenant (baptism) to the children because there is much (quantitatively) that has changed between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

In the Old Covenant, all Israelites were in the Old Covenant the moment they were born and, to demonstrate this, they were circumcised at 8 days old. So, it is the same in the new, but instead of circumcision being the sign, it is now baptism.

Therefore, when coming to understanding a passage like Acts 2:39a “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off…”, the meaning of this passage is affected in one way by their theological structure.

So, when considering the meaning of a passage, I think these are all things to take into consideration. Some of these don’t require as much work as others. For example, Acts 16:1: “Paul came also to Derbe and Lystra. There was a disciple there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.”

In this passage, morphemes, words, and syntax, affect the meaning, but it is pretty obvious what the words mean and how they relate. You don’t even need much context to understand the meaning of this, but it gives the passage more depth if you know who Paul is and who Timothy later is to Paul (1 Timothy 1:1: “to Timothy, my true child in the faith…”). Theological Structure certainly affects the meaning of this passage whether you regard this as the word of God, or merely a meaningless tale told by some Greeks long ago.

So, I am excited to explore this more and come to a much deeper and firmer grasp of God’s Word and I hope this helps others in their reading of God’s Word.

How Are We Responsible?

 

Personally, I am not bothered by God’s meticulous involvement in our lives even to the extent in which Jeremiah 1 seems to suggest (see pt. 1). This is due mostly to reading the Old Testament over and over again. The mindset of the people of the Old Testament seemed to have no problem ascribing all of earth’s happenings to God. So I suppose I’ve adopted this mindset as well.

What I do run into a problem with is the question of responsibility, which will come up later on.

I am inclined to think, however, (and this might be where my thinking needs critique or correction) that every decision – moral or not – is determined or influenced in some regard.

I use this example a lot, but if I go to an ice cream shop, I am free to choose any flavor of ice cream I want. I will never, though, choose strawberry ice cream. I think it is abhorrent and unsatisfying. Could I choose it? Sure, but my will is being influence (maybe even determined?) to choose what is in accord with what I desire.

So it is with any decision. Even those decisions that seem to go against our desire. For example, I don’t want to go to work in the morning because I’m tired. I’d rather lie in bed, but I know I must go. Even in this situation, though, my desire for a paycheck to buy food, have a home, and provide for my family is greater than my desire to be in bed.

This is true in regards to moral decisions as well since Scripture seems to suggest that sin has pervasive effects on every faculty that we possess (reason, will, desire, etc.). In addition to pervasive depravity (a term used in Hoekema’s book to discuss how sin has affected humans), humans have spiritual inability.¹ This is shown in Romans 8:7-8.

Here’s the how the problems deepens: if humans’ decisions are always influenced by something, especially in regards to the deadening effects of sin to please God, how can they be held responsible for their sinful decisions?

The problem focuses around the question: “what does it mean to be responsible?”

Naturally, we think of responsibility in terms of freedom of choice; could such a person choose otherwise? If the answer is yes, then that person is responsible. If the answer is no, we typically don’t hold the person responsible.

This can be seen in America’s judicial system that disavows someone of responsibility if they plea insanity. If the person is found to be clinical insane, then they are not held totally responsible for the crime since something affected their decision to choose otherwise.

Here a couple ways I’ve thought through how one might be responsible even though sin causes pervasive depravity and causes us to be spiritually incapable:

Here is an analogy, it doesn’t perfect relate or align to our example, but it might provide a helpful insight. Some scientific research suggests that some people are genetically disposed to alcoholism. I have been told that I have such a genetic disposition and that it runs in my family. If I were to become an alcoholic and destroy my life, I am doubtful that anyone would relieve me of responsibility for such destruction.

I might receive more sympathy and a relaxed judgment, but, though I disposed towards alcoholism, I still can decide to not be an alcoholic when drinking alcohol. This analogy leans on the idea that responsibility to tied to genuine choice and shows that disposition doesn’t acquit of consequences.

But, if we are committed to the Biblical view of humanity and sin (that we are spiritual incapable of honoring God because of sin), then we aren’t simply able to choose either obedience to God or obedience to sin with a disposition to sin, we are enslaved to sin.

I remember hearing John Piper answer the question of responsibility and he included an interesting caveat to being responsible: he said that it is not simply that people are being forced against their will to do what is sinful, rather they love sin and do what is sinful willingly.²

Thinking about responsibility in this way seems to be the way that Paul thinks of responsibility in Romans. Paul, it seems, is not concerned with the ability to choose otherwise, but rather that the unrighteous desire something else other than God (I think of Romans 1 in particular).

So, responsibility may not necessarily be linked to the ability to genuinely choose and, if a choice is made, to have the ability to choose otherwise, but rather having the desire to do so.

This is where I am at currently in my thoughts and it is satisfactory for me. Although, the purpose of this blog is to share my thoughts and be critiqued and corrected, so I am interested to hear any other thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

¹Hoekema, Anthony A., Created in God’s Image (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), 133-167.

²This is where some might object and say something to the effect of, “people don’t desire what is evil. Look at the world. People want to do good.” This certainly appears to be true, but we must remember two things: (1) our experience in reality must be filtered through what God says in His word about reality for sometimes our explanation of our experience might be valid, but not sound. So, it may appear people want to do good, but Scripture says that men love darkness and hide from the light (John 3:19-20). (2) I do think people desire goodness sometimes. We must, however, remember the pervasive depravity of sin, in particular the noetic effects of sin (simply meaning sin affects our reasoning). This means that we might desire good, yes, but our ability to discern what is good has been tarnished by sin. God says this through the prophet Isaiah about Israel in Isaiah 5:20.

Are We Free?

*Edit: As I continued to write, I realized I had molded two topics into one. This was originally titled “Freedom pt. 1”, but I have realized that “part 1” really is a discussion of the question: “In what sense are we free?” whereas “part 2” is a discussion of “how are we held responsible?” So, they are appropriately named.

The topic of divine sovereignty and human free will is one that has gotten much attention from many brilliant thinkers. There are many different nuances and facets of this topic that can be discussed, so, in this post, I will simply cover the question: “In what sense are we free?”

Currently, I am reading through some books for Systematic Theology II to get ahead. Both books touch on the topic of free will and God’s sovereignty. The two books that have sparked these thoughts are John Frame’s Systematic Theology and a book called Created in God’s Image by Anthony Hoekema. As well, my thoughts have also been stoked by FreeThinking Ministries whose Executive Director, Tim Stratton, is a Molinist and writes about free will, determinism, and apologetics.

I could simply dive into Frame’s thoughts about God’s providence, but I will synthesize the reading up to that point in his book to help me remember his reading better (since this blog is dedicated as a sort of digital journal to track my thoughts through seminary as well as detail life in general for friends) as well as help the reader understand a bit more. This portion is indented and italicized if you wish to simply skip this part and read on to the tension.

First off in Frame’s Doctrine of God, Frame says that Scripture communicates who God is to us in three ways:

1.) It narrates His acts in history

2.) It describes who God is directly

3.) It ‘portrays’ God’s inner, trinitarian life

In the first of this list (what Frame calls the ‘Situational Perspective” that Scripture gives us of God), God’s narrated acts in history can be broken down further into three different acts:

1.) Miracles, providence, creation (Situational perspective)

2.) God’s eternal decrees (Normative Perspective)

3.) Redemption (Existential Perspective)

So, in short, one way in which Scripture reveals and teaches us about God is by telling and recounting how God has acted in history. My tension lies in Frame’s discussion of God’s providence, to which I now go on to discuss.

Frame desires to be wholly biblical in his writing and so presents a myriad of data that shows God’s meticulous sovereignty and providence. Certainly Christians around the world would affirm God’s sovereignty (His rulership) over all creation, but the Bible also seems to speak to God’s providence (His intimate involvement) as well.

Frame draws out an interesting observation from Scripture: it never speaks of the world operating because of the laws of nature and physics in place, but rather because of God’s intimate and meticulous involvement. Frame points to Psalm 65:9-11, which details God providing the earth with rain and growth. He references other Scriptures as well that speak of God’s active and meticulous involvement in the sustainment of the earth (to show a few: Job 38-40, Ps. 104:10-30; 107:23-32, Jer. 5:22; 10:13; Jonah 4:6-7). He also notes the seemingly random parts of life are directed by God by quoting Proverbs 16:33.

He goes on to name more examples, one most striking to me is God’s appointment of Jeremiah as a prophet in Jeremiah:

 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

What is striking about this is that if God appointed Jeremiah a prophet before he was born, then God, as Frame points out, “must have arranged for one particular sperm to reach one particular egg to produce of each Jeremiah’s ancestors back to Adam, and then Jeremiah himself.”¹ That’s a pretty meticulous involvement! There are a lot of minute details involved in bringing persons together to reproduce a particular person.

So, this is the first end of the rope of tension.

God’s involvement, both global and meticulous, seem evident from Scripture, but what about human’s free will? There at least appears to be free will, but if God is intimately involved in His creation, in what sense are we free?

Some would argue, such as those at FreeThinking Ministries, that we are free in a Libertarian sense. What is meant by Libertarian free will at FreeThinking Ministries is “Simply put, libertarian freedom is at least the ability to genuinely choose between options in accord with one’s nature.”²

This answer also seems to suggest that Libertarian free includes saying that humans could have chosen otherwise.

In Hoekema’s book he says that, essential to thinking through the image of God in man, creaturehood and personhood must be remembered.

Creaturehood describe humans as creatures created by God and thus totally dependent on Him not only simply as the progenitor, but also as sustainer (Hebrews 1:3). Personhood, however, maintains that human beings are person who are have volitional abilities and can be held responsible

So the classic question is posed: “How can this be? How can God be meticulously involved, yet human beings have volitional capabilities?”

The Molinist answer is quite ingenious, I think, but I think it is more difficult to get there Biblically. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide a source because this knowledge came by way of conversation and I cannot find that conversation, so I apologize if I mischaracterize anyone at FreeThinking ministries or Tim Stratton himself.

As I recall, God’s sovereignty and foreordination of all things comes by way of knowing all possible realities and actualizing this one where Hitler freely chose to commit genocide, Jeremiah would be born, and I would be freely typing this article. There is a distinction they make between active actualization and passive actualization. God did not actively actualize Judas’ betrayal, but passive actualized it by setting up the circumstances for such an event to occur.

Frame seems to have an ambiguously similar explanation. In responding to the problem of evil, Frame appeals to God’s transcendence in His control of the world. He analogizes God’s transcendence in terms of  the relationship between the author and character of a story.

He borrows from Wayne Grudem’s imaging if people accused Shakespeare for Macbeth’s murder of Duncan. He goes on to comment that:

“But as I analyze the language that we typically use in such contexts, it seems clear to me that we would not normally say that Shakespeare killed Duncan…But we would certainly consider it very unjust if Shakespeare were tried and put to death for killing Duncan. And no one suggests that there is a problem in reconciling Shakespeare’s benevolence  with his omnipotence over the world of the drama.”³

In both resolutions, there is a suggestion of different levels of causality. This is sufficient for me in understanding the tension between God’s meticulous sovereignty and human free will. I do not seek to understand totally because some things are not explained to us (Deuteronomy 29:29).

¹Systematic Theology by John Frame pg. 153 (I’m not sure how formal these footnotes have to be…I will probably make them formal to become more accustomed to the style used at SBTS).

²http://freethinkingministries.com/what-is-libertarian-free-will/

³Frame, John. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company), 298-299.