Today's soundtrack is Sun Ra: Sound Sun Pleasure!!, the most traditional-sounding music of his that I've heard yet. I love it.
This morning, I'm reading the fourth chapter of Dr. James White's The Potter's Freedom, "The Will of Man."
Dr. White opens the chapter with a quote from Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free, which asserts that man's faith precedes regeneration, thus stating that salvation is synergistic - that "'it must be received to be effective'" (p. 91). This position, says White, is exactly what the Reformers rejected. Though Geisler tries to position himself as a kind of nouveau-moderate-Calvinist, his rejection of God's total control over salvation - monergism - separates him from reformed theology - and even from "biblical teaching regarding God, man and grace" (p. 91). Geisler goes so far as to say that "'it is God's ultimate and sovereign will that we have free will to resist His will that all be saved'" (p. 92). The idea of synergism is one promoted by Arminians and the Roman Catholic Church; it is absolutely not a Reformed perspective.
So what is the basis of Geisler's tendency to value man's free will over God's will? The answer, sadly, is philosophical rather than biblical. Rather than relying on Scripture to craft his arguments, he says that man must be free or else God is to blame for man's sin. He does not address Paul's writings addressing this exact thing. He does not interact with the myriad of Reformed writings that came before him. He simply makes philosophical arguments and says that those are good enough to debunk any arguments of God's sovereignty in man's salvation. Isn't it interesting that Geisler believes God's will that all men be saved is trumped by God's apparent desire that man have the ability to reject God's will! Geisler says that even man's "enslavement to sin is a result of free choice" (p. 96). So he believes man can choose to be enslaved, and he can choose to do good or evil at will. But if he can choose to do good, is he really enslaved to sin? And if all men are basically good, why would they choose to be enslaved to sin in the first place? Man's inability to choose good things on his own is one of the principal ideas of Reformed theology. Rejection of man's spiritual death in sin is a rejection not only of Reformed theology, but of Biblical teachings.
Another excellent point that Dr. White raises is this: Geisler claims that God overriding man's free will by calling him to salvation is dehumanizing to man. But is God's mercy and love in saving man from a life enslaved to sin dehumanizing him or giving him life? The Reformed believe the latter. And here's where things get really sticky for Geisler: he says that though God chooses to keep man human by giving him free will to decide whether to claim his salvation, once he chooses to be saved, he cannot choose to leave the faith. Doesn't that mean that God's will overrides man's will? Isn't that inconsistent with Geisler's earlier argument?
In Romans 8:7b-8, Paul writes that "the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, ⁸ and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (NASB). So we see that the man in sin cannot come to God, nor can he do anything that might please God. "Choosing salvation" would be something good that would please God, but man cannot do it if he is in sin. Checkmate, Norm. Right here, all of Geisler's arguments about man's free will despite his chosen state of being enslaved in sin are shut down, because they directly contradict the Bible, which has the final word.