Mere Arminianism – Part Four (Consulting the Old Testament)

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This continuing series is a look at C.S. Lewis’s views on Predestination and Free Will…

Consulting the Old Testament

A discussion of any Christian theology necessarily requires consultation with an authoritative text: the Bible. Throughout the biblical narrative, there are numerous examples of God sovereignly electing individuals for his purposes. An early example, found in Genesis 6, is that of God showing grace to Noah. God’s choice to spare Noah and his family from his righteous judgment was not the result of any first action on Noah’s part. God did not save Noah because he was a righteous man who kept God’s commands. While the text records “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God”[1], it does so only after first declaring that God had given grace to Noah.[2]

Joseph and his Coat Several other examples are prevalent throughout the Hebrew Bible – from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, to Joseph. Having been sold into slavery by his older brothers, Joseph was truly on the receiving end of wickedness. The brothers’ actions were freely performed on their part – no one caused them to behave in an evil manner. And yet in Genesis 50, the reader learns that all of this had been God’s plan all along. Speaking to his brothers who had previously betrayed him, Joseph remarks, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.”[3] The text does not claim that God knew in advance what the brothers would do and then successfully found a way to “make it work out” for him in the end. No – the brothers had an evil intent in what they did, but their evil actions were a part of God’s sovereign decree in redemptive history.

There is also much contained in the Bible dealing with the natural state of human beings and their relationship to a Holy God. Again, looking at Genesis, it is clear that human beings are neither morally good nor morally neutral. In the early chapters of Genesis, the reader learns of the purpose or motivation of every thought a human being has is, in God’s sight, “only evil continually.”[4] Additionally, the person’s heart has evil intentions from the time they are a young child.[5] The Psalms themselves echo man’s lack of inherent goodness, in a passage quoted by Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”[6] Far from being free, the unregenerate sinner is actually enslaved to sin,[7] utterly unable to do anything that is pleasing to God.[8]

[1] Genesis 6:9b

[2] Genesis 6:8 : “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”

[3] Genesis 50:20

[4] Genesis 6:5

[5] Genesis 8:21

[6] Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Romans 3:10-12

[7] John 8:34

[8] Romans 8:8

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