Free Gift
In this final section, I admit that I will be more speculative. Which is to say that I'm more confident in the previous sections. I am confident that man retains his capacity for choice even when he lacks the power to act. I am confident that feelings are a demonstration of that persevering free will. And I am confident that God has established Law as a meaningful context for free will to find expression. But I wish to tease out the implications of such claims, and, being one who struggles to beat around the bush, I intend to go straight for the hardest: who decides a man's eternal destiny? My answer will be speculative because I am a creature within the question itself. Try as I may, I cannot see through any eyes but my own. So I have tried my best to imagine the answer by extending these claims to their conclusion.
God made our universe in a word, the ultimate creating Deed. An act which issued forth countless governing Laws. The pinnacle of His creating was man, the God-image, created to represent God within this new universe. Man was placed in a garden with freedom to express his own will. But man used that freedom to make an ugly choice, and the God-image came to defy his Creator. The consequence for this cosmic treachery is described by a Law which had not yet been necessary: the Law of Sin and Death. That should have been the end of the story for man, but God soon intervened by a great Deed. He sent Jesus, the God-Man, a New Word, not merely an image but His actual Self, into the universe to bear the consequence Himself. The sacrifice of His life opened a narrow gate to a new garden, a greener pasture, a better country. And entrance costs nothing. Staggering.
This is the Gospel message taught by Christians everywhere for thousands of years. But the question I aim to address is this: who may enter through the gate? It was a mighty Deed of God which opened the gate; is another Deed required to get a man through? Or did Jesus, the New Word, establish by His death a new Law, one of Spirit and Life, a pathway by which men may indeed feel their way toward Him and find Him? My answer, which may irritate some, but will surprise no one who has been reading carefully, is: "Why not both?" Before you get too uppity, allow me to explain what I mean.
Recall the analogy from the previous sections. I described free will under God's Sovereign Deed as life within a cage. Then I described how God, by establishing Law, has opened the door to this cage and let us out into a little pasture. Well now imagine that the ugly things we got up to in this pasture—cosmic treachery and all that—have got it killed, muddy and brown, and soon we shall all die too. The Gospel message is that God entered into our muddy pasture and, by dying Himself, made a pathway to a new little door, which leads to a new green garden, one which cannot perish. And for as long as God allows, any who find that door and wish to enter may pass.
In this way God has reserved the sovereign right to oversee and regulate entrance to His garden. No one gets by without His saying so. But in Jesus, He has said so! He has chosen to establish a pathway to the gate which grants entrance to a new garden. Therefore a man's best hope for escape from the muddy pasture and entrance into the green garden is to find and follow Jesus, who is Himself both the pathway and the gate. For though the way is hard, it can be followed. And though the gate is narrow, it can be found. And those who have found it already can help most. That is my best speculation on the matter.
In developing this framework I have been quite selfish. I refuse to give up a high view of God's sovereignty, for I wish to worship only the greatest God imaginable. And how does one get above a God who controls everything? Yet I am also unwilling to give up the free will of man, for without it, what is special in a man? God may as well save the horses and lizards. So I have constructed this framework and spent some time carefully describing it with an aim to reconcile whatever evident differences appear between these two priorities. There of course remain countless questions. In particular I should like to discuss more about feelings, affections, and why it is they seem to matter so much to God. But I think this is quite enough for now. I suspect the framework is clear enough, and that if you have followed along you may be able to work through some of these questions yourself. If not, well, there is a great probability that I will return to work out some of these questions myself. And who knows, perhaps I will find that I come to a different conclusion. After all, these are Sam's Opinions.
And they are subject to change.