Before I post the following on my website, I would just like to pick your brains about the following exegesis in chapter 37 of the Book of Job. In it, I try to explain how God has limited human autonomy in a way that does not do violence to free will. I appreciate your consideration of the matter:
...God has put a seal on the hand of every man (Job 37:7). The Hebrew term for seal is חתם (châtham) means to lock/stop. For example, in Song 4:12 it speaks of a spring shut up, a fountain sealed (châtham)
The hand of the man connotes his power to exercise his will (Gen 9:2, Deut 20:13, John 3:35). So, the seal on every mans hand shows that God has inhibited man in some way. In modern vernacular we may say that a mans hands are tied or he cannot operate with a free hand. The man indeed has a will of his own, but he is not autonomous. Even with the weather, the man makes a decision but it is predicated upon conditions God totally controls and is sovereign over, which by extension, makes Him sovereign over the man as well. A man with his hands tied may desire to make a different decision, but due to the circumstances, finds himself unable. This is not a foreign concept to us.
To quote an unpopular source in Reformed circles: For the God of all must be held to work in all, so as to incite, protect, and strengthen, but not to take away the freedom of the will which He Himself has once given...God works all things in us and yet everything can be ascribed to free will, [and this] cannot be fully grasped by the mind and reason of man (John Cassian, Conference 13, Chapter 18).
The free will of man, but at the same time his incomplete autonomy, is very difficult to grasp. Yet, lets state what we do know. Men have free will to exercise what is within their capability, but that is it. Man can react to the weather as we may infer from the passage here in Job, but he cannot control the weather.
As it pertains to a Reformed understanding to how we are saved by Gods grace, man can react to grace and respond freely to it, but he cannot control it. The Scripture is abundantly clear that within the will of man, apart from grace, is a desire not to do good (Rom 3:10) and never to seek God (Rom 3:11).
A man can do this freely quite adeptly. This is why Christ teaches, nless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). In response Christ is asked whether man can bring about this process by his own power by climbing back into his mothers womb (John 3:4). To this Jesus gives a rather lengthy response:
nless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:5-8).
The Spirit goes where He wishes, which means it is a matter of Gods prerogative, not mans. For a natural man cannot accept things pertaining to the Spirit for nothing good dwells in the flesh (1 Cor 2:14, Rom 7:18). Without the Spirit a man cannot confess Christ is Lord (1 Cor 12:3) and cannot be born again.
A man therefore is always saved by the divine initiative of God, and by giving man the Holy Spirit to tug on his heart and by hedging Satan, God can cause a man to accept Christ according to his free will, when apart from Gods grace he would never seek God nor be righteous in faith. In this way, God is totally responsible and sovereign over the salvation of the man, having so sealed his hand, but not chopping his hand off.
This is why the Scripture says, The kings heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord, He turns it wherever He wishes (Prov 21:1). Indeed God can turn the heart of man however He wants, but He does not rip the heart of man (here meaning a mans free will) out and turn man into a robot.
To quote John Cassian again:
The Divine protection then is inseparably present with us, and so great is the kindness of the Creator towards His creatures, that His Providence not only accompanies it, but actually constantly precedes it...And when He sees in us some beginnings of a good will [that He has begun], He at once enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on towards salvation, increasing that which He Himself implanted or which He sees to have arisen from our own efforts (emphasis added, Conference 13, Chap 8).
Cassian is almost right, but he fails on a crucial point: never does salvation originate in our own efforts. Ever. This contradicts the Scripture and is not a tenable position. After all, God begins the work of salvation in us (Phil 1:6). Even after He begins, He is the cause of our acting and willing (Phil 2:13) so that by our own free will, we work out our salvation in fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). So the hand of man does not disappear, but God sets the seal. He can stop it and He can empower it to do things it was never able. God is indeed the author and perfecter of faith (Heb 12:2).
As Chrysostom observes when speaking of Phil 2:13:
Be not affrighted, you are not worsted; both the hearty desire and the accomplishment are a gift from Him: for where we have the will, thenceforward He will increase our will. For instance, I desire to do some good work: He has wrought the good work itself, and by means of it He has wrought also the will...Here he shows, and makes it a ground of confidence, that He is sure to work in us, for it is His will that we live as He desires we should, and if He desires it, He Himself both works in us to this end, and will certainly accomplish it; for it is His will that we live aright. Do you see, how he does not deprive us of free will (Homilies on Philippians, Homily 8)?
The way the process works out is synergistic, but it is solely directed by God monergistically. God changes the heart of the believer to walk according to the Spirit. Being that the heart is changed, the heart now has a new desire to will things that it would never will before. So, even when by our own free will we desire and henceforward act rightly, it is God that is responsible for the desire, God that sustains it, and God by His Spirit through us that does it, all without contradicting free will. Every good thing and perfect gift is from above (James 1:17). Every good thing, for who would deny that faith is good?
Elihu makes a superb statement, asserting that a mans hand is sealed by God so that all men may know His work (Job 37:7). God has put limits on man so that he may know the presence of God! Man cannot stop the weather, so He knows that He is less than the one who works the weather. Man cannot be righteous on his own, so he looks to the One who can make him righteous. Man cannot believe on his own, so he knows that only God can work belief in his heart.
Limitations show us our God, point us to Him, and make clear our complete and utter reliance upon Him. Indeed, the fringes of Gods way as revealed in thunder are deeper than the depths of the oceans!
out and turn man into a robot.
