God Reforms Hearts Quotes

“Martin Luther wrote in Bondage of the Will, the work he considered the most important of all his theological writings, “this false idea of ‘free will’ is a real threat to salvation, and a delusion fraught with the most perilous dangers.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“Puritan, John Owen, viewed libertarian free will as a most nefarious, sacrilegious attempt [of humans] to free themselves of the supreme dominion of [God’s] all-ruling providence; not to live and move in him, but to have an absolute independent power in all their actions.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“Church history has had its share of detractors who view libertarian free will as hazardous to the Christian faith. In 1757, the philosopher, theologian, and pastor, Jonathan Edwards, wrote in a letter: I think the notion of liberty, consisting in a contingent self determination of the will, as necessary to morality of men’s dispositions and actions almost inconceivably pernicious.… Notions of this kind are one of the main hindrances of the success of the preaching of the Word, and other means of grace in the conversion of sinners.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“The claim that love requires libertarian freedom has become a guiding axiom within open theism, process theology, Molinism, and many other contemporary theological paradigms.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“For a better approach to the Relational Free Will Defense, it is helpful to clarify its logical flow: RFD1: For any agent, A, to express authentic love for some other agent, B, it must be possible for A to refrain from loving B through an exercise of libertarian power. RFD2: God does not desire a relationally void world but a world in which agents can express authentic love for Himself and for each other. RFD3: Therefore, God created agents with libertarian power, making it possible for them to love both Himself and each other or to refrain from doing so. RFD4: Agents use their libertarian power to refrain from loving God and each other, thereby rendering themselves solely to blame for the actualization of moral evil.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“In the words of Simone Weil, If God did not grant us the ability to sin and cause affliction to him and to one another, we would not have the kind of free and autonomous existence necessary to enter into a relation of love with God and with one another.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“CLAIM 3—The Relational Dimension: Libertarian free will, although it opens the door of possibility to moral evil, is a necessary condition for the existence and expression of true love.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“In the words of C. S. Lewis, “free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“Libertarian free will, although it may be abused to actualize moral evil, is essential to the humanness of humanity, namely, our capacity for moral goodness.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“Libertarian free will allows blame to affix on those creatures who make evil actual, without ascending the ladder of causation up to the Creator, who merely makes evil possible.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“The work of atheologians, J. L. Mackie and Anthony Flew, in the 1950s generated much of the current upsurge of libertarian free will as a solution to the abstract problems of evil.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“Indeed, there is a deep resemblance between the notion of free will espoused by ancient Greek philosophers and the libertarian free will forwarded in today’s theological circles.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“When faced with doing some action, A—reading the next sentence—or not-A—refraining from reading on—you have the power to do either. Though you have apparently chosen A (for which I am grateful), you could have chosen not-A. Who or what determined your choice? Neither forces outside you (e.g., physical laws, other people, God) nor forces inside you (e.g., reasons, desires, character) are determinative. You, the choosing agent, and you alone determine which way to go (and if to go at all). It is the exercise of this self-moving, two-way power that makes good choices rewardable and bad choices punishable.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“According to Gordon Clark, From pagan antiquity, through the middle ages, on down into modern times, free will has doubtless been the most popular solution offered to the problem of evil.”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“These problems revolve around a Being perceived “in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12), a Mind whose judgments are “unsearchable” (Rom 11:33), and whose “foolishness … is wiser than men” (1 Cor 1:25).”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“For the head, how do we understand God’s supreme goodness and power in the many faces of evil? For the heart, how do we foster relational trust in God’s supreme goodness and power in the many faces of evil?”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“Evidencing the magnitude of the problem of evil is Barry Whitney’s published bibliography entitled Theodicy, which cites over 4,200 philosophical and theological works on the topic in the three-decade span between 1960 and 1990.3”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil

“A survey conducted by the Barna Research Group revealed that the number one question posed about God by a cross section of American adults is, “Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?”
― Thaddeus Williams, God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil