Necessity Of Free Will:
We must never confuse the necessity or man’s free will with God’s perfect foreknowledge.
Necessity is a thing that can not be and be at the same time. Necessity includes man’s free will, God’s irresistible power, compulsive forces both physical and moral, and what it is we believe. If anyone’s actions are determined by causes beyond their control, he acts from necessity, in this they are no longer a free agent.
Also, necessity means that one fact or statement is implied in another fact or statement. Example, if we say that all the apostles were Jews, it follows necessarily that Peter was a Jew. Peter being a Jew is not a new fact, but merely a re-assertion of a portion of the same thing when expressed in a different way.
If we agree that ALL Scripture is God breathed and without error, than it would stand to reason that every individual book and every word written is without error, and God breathed.
Certain truths follow by necessary inference. There are doctrines in Scripture that are self evident truths. They are propositions whose truths are so evident that no reasoning or argument can make them any clearer; these would be considered established truths. “The whole of Scripture is greater than any of its part,” this is a self evident and an established truth.
The axiom of reasoning or argument consists of three portions, of which the first two are called the premises, and the last called the conclusion. So what is true of a whole must be true of each part, therefore a necessary truth. In affirming such a truth, we merely declare that we shall be consistent, and that when we have affirmed a proposition in company with other propositions, we are prepared to affirm it when/ if one part is taken from the others. This would be logical reasoning, and in no way can we even conceive, imagine, picture or reason that the opposite can be true.
Can the actions of an individual or group be of their own free will, yet a necessity? Seven hundred years before Christ died on the cross, Zechariah wrote in,
Zechariah 11:12, “For they weighed for my price (Christ) thirty pieces of silver.” Judas fulfilled this prophesy which was foreknown of God, it being a necessity, yet Judas did it of his own free will.
The obedience of Christ unto death was necessary; for unless he died, guilty men could, and would not be forgiven. But this could not make the act of the Jews who put him to death a necessary act, meaning a forced and constrained one. Neither did this necessity affect the actions of Jesus himself, who acted voluntarily.
Had he not, man would have no Savior, nor any means of salvation. The Jews also acted freely, this is evident from their being held liable to punishment, although unconsciously they accomplished the great designs of God. But this was no excuse for their crimes against Christ.
So we can conclude that God has perfect foresight concerning the manner in which men act; and that He, by a profound and infinite wisdom subordinated every thing without violence to the evolution and accomplishment of His own purpose.
It was ordained that Jesus Christ should be delivered up to death. But he could not have been betrayed without Judas betraying him, nor could he be crucified without a crucifier, that being the Jewish leadership, and Roman authority.
Both the Jews and Roman’s fulfilled this necessity of their own free will. Therefore If we deny the necessity of Jesus being delivered up and crucified we would have to deny the foreknowledge of God, because it had to come to pass for it was written beforehand.
Those of the Christian faith love God unchangeably, yet freely. If their love was not of their own free will, then their Joy in Christ and His word would have to be accomplished and then credited to compulsion.
God will not render any man unaccountable for their sin. Because God will do no harm to any individual, nor to their rational mind or intellect, and because of our free will to do what is either right or wrong, we shall be, and are answerable to God.
Throughout history man’s power to conceive is in many cases affected by their education and habits. That many things in scripture, such as evolution who’s opposition to God’s Creation is inconceivable in their mind, yet their education and theories will betray them for these will be found to be untrue according to Scripture.
To deny necessity is to deny the foreknowledge of God, thus removing the scepter from the hand of the Creator, and to seat upon His throne that unpredictable, undefinable self-determining power of man.
Phillip LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com