The understanding I've come to is that God knowingly created man with the natural inclination to sin and desire to choose to be selfish over selfless [Genesis 8:21].
21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse [1] the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. The context of the passage is not dealing with man's free will. Noah has just finished building an altar to the Lord and offered up a sacrifice v.20. Of all the people on the planet only Noah and his family found grace in the eyes of God, Gen. 6:8, the rest perished in the flood. After the flood, Noah was being obedient to offer a sacrifice and the aroma of the sacrifice is what was pleasing to the Lord. God then states that man's heart is evil from his youth that would include Noah's heart as well. The doctrine of Total Depravity is not that all men are as evil as they can possibly be but that every aspect of them has suffered due to the fall, no one can come to the Father unless the father first draws him, John 6:44. The topic of Genesis 8 is not about mans free will or his choosing to be selfless and even if you wanted to use it in such a manner you would have a hard time demonstrating that from just that verse since it never mentions that Noah, of his own free will did these things.
From the start, God also created the framework of redemption whereby sinful man could be reconciled to God: through the blood of Christ, the perfect form or pattern of redemption [Revelation 13:8], which was first revealed through the Law.
Redemption has always been through grace and not by the law. As I mentioned earlier, Noah found favor with God (Gen 6:8), Abraham's faith was accounted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6), and Moses as well (Exo 33:12,13). God's redemption through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not a framework but rather it was a perfect work. Jesus did not make salvation possible, he made it a finished work on the cross. Jesus' salvation of the elect was accomplished on the cross and not when man of his free will chooses to be saved. Hebrews 7:25 tells us that Jesus saves to the uttermost and is even now interceding for us with the father. Not just that, it was God who chose His people before the foundation of the world, Eph 1:4 v.5 tells us that he predestined us to adoption. Man is incapable of predestining himself to salvation. Read John 6, salvation is the work of God, not of mans free will choice.
God's will exists on a sovereign level and a moral level, but not on an individual level [cf. Garry Friesen]. We can choose to make choices based on the wisdom of God's moral will, i.e. the Bible, or continue in a selfish manner without his guidance.
God's will is personal. He call us his sheep, he knows us by name, he chose us and predestined us to salvation. He works all things according tot he council of His will (Eph 1:11), surely his will is individual and personal. Of course we are free to make choices but that does not mean that we can freely choose God since we are spiritually dead and enslaved to our sin. ElShaddai, can you unpack this premise in your second sentence?
God has given us the moral wisdom to accept his unmerited gift of salvation, but we still have to choose to accept that gift. Our salvation is not secure until we confess our innate sinfulness and ask to be expiated by the blood of Christ, accepting him as Lord.
If then the final say on salvation is man's choice it follows that salvation is not based grace but rather works. It takes the completed work of Christ and makes it void and meaningless until man exercises his freewill to be the final piece of this puzzle called salvation, it is not a complete work until man acts upon it. Christ then died for no one in particular only making it salvation possible. But then is not God that called us, foreknew us, predestined us, conforms us to the image of Christ, justified us and will glorify us? Romans 8:28-30
With this acceptance in mind, we begin to be transformed so that our thoughts and actions are not guided by reaction and impulse and human pretension, however well intentioned, but by the discipline of obeying God [Romans 12:2].
Romans 12:2 is not addressed to the world in general but to the elect in Rome. Paul is speaking to the believers, telling them not to be conformed to the world but transformed by the renewing of the their mind. The non-believer is not subject to this appeal because he is dead in his sin.
Finally, the free will of a Christian is not the freedom to make any choice that we care to, but the freedom to make the only choice of forcing every thought to be a captive prisoner of Christ and subject to His sovereign will.
Once again, the validity of mans free will is assumed but never demonstrated. The natural man is at enmity with the Lord, the sinner hates God and God hates the sinner. Psalm 5:5, Romans 8:7-8
ElSheddai, thanks for commenting on my blog!
