Does Love Require Free Will?

Central to God’s plan and desire for people is that we learn to love. He wants us to love Him, and He wants us to love each other. That love is central to God’s plan is expressed in many ways in Scripture:

NIV Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

NIV 1 Timothy 1:5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

NIV 1 John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

The question I want to look at is whether the type of giving, sacrificial love which God wants to characterize our lives requires free will. The Bible does not address this question directly. So, first I will offer two analogies from our experience of love, and then I will offer some Biblical evidence, all of which seems to suggest that love does in fact require free will.

Two Suitors

Imagine two different young men, each of whom is attracted to a young lady. These two men employ very different strategies.

The first young man watches the girl he is interested in and learns some of her habits, including the path she often takes when walking home. One night he hides in a woody area along the path. As she walks by, he leaps out, grabs her, and drags her into the woods where he puts a knife to her throat.

The second young man also watches the girl he is interested in and learns some of her habits. He begins to try to start conversations about things she likes. He sends her flowers that are her favorite color. He then works up the courage to ask her to dinner at a restaurant that serves her favorite type of food.

Unless the young lady in question is a martial arts expert or is carrying a weapon, the first young man will almost certainly get something from her that he wants. But will he get her love? Of course, not.

The second young man is not guaranteed success. No matter how loving and attractive his advances, the girl may very well turn him down. The young man is risking his heart being hurt. But if she does accept him, he may very well win her love.

Two Grenades

Imagine two groups of soldiers standing around in a camp near the frontlines. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a hand grenade is thrown towards them.

In the first group the grenade lands right behind one of the men who is unaware of it. In a split second it explodes. The man’s body takes the brunt of the blast and he himself is killed while his friends are all spared.

In the second group the grenade lands right in the middle of the group of soldiers. One of the soldiers who sees it leaps on it. His body absorbs the blast and he is killed while all his friends are saved.

In both stories one soldier’s death saves the others. But in only one of the stories do we see clearly that the sacrifice was an act of love. Why?

One Great Example from the Bible

Does the Bible have a similar example which teaches the same lesson as the stories above? I believe it does. Consider the words of Christ,

NIV John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.

But does this sacrifice need to involve free will? In the case of Jesus, He emphasizes that His sacrifice was an act of His own free will:

John 10: 11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
. . . .
17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-- only to take it up again.
18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

So, the greatest act of love in the universe was a sacrifice for others which involved an act of free will. Does God want us to have this type of love for others? The answer is yes:

NIV Ephesians 5:1 Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children
2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Conclusions

I’m not claiming that the evidence presented above forms an airtight proof that love requires free will. And I’m not even attempting to address the various types of free will which philosophers have proposed or discuss which of those types is needed to allow true, sacrificial, Christ-like love. I’m only claiming that our own experience of love and Christ’s great example of love point in the direction that love, at least the type that God wants us to have, does in fact require free will.

If this is true, it could help explain the way the world is and why our good and loving God is temporarily allowing so much evil in the world He created. Winning true love from a multitude of people may be worth the price of being rejected by many others. What do you think?

This OP originally appeared as a post on my blog.

 

Unfortunately, this post is an example of Pelagianism in that it ignores human depravity.
Salvation is not someone saying, "I gave my heart to Jesus!" The Bible tells us that 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked' (Jeremiah 17:9), and the Lord Jesus tells us that "Out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness.......etc., etc." (Mark 7:21-23). No, no! Salvation is God saying, 'I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgements and do them' (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

Once again you are ignoring the absolute necessity of the New Birth.

 

So, do you think love requires free will?

 

Love requires non-free will in a libertarian sense of "could have done otherwise."
Jesus gave up His life because of who He is, not because of an ability to do otherwise.
We are completed in love when we love not arbitrarily, but naturally, from the core of our being. I think the following verse puts it best:

NIV 1 Timothy 1:5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Now, reaching true love is no accidental event, unlike the fluke where the grenade kills only one soldier without any action or intent from him. Nor is it against our intent, as the violent suitor above.

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it does NOT demand real and absolute gree will, as only God has that ability!

 

Yes, on the part of God, but not required for humans!

 

Love requires non-free will in a libertarian sense of "could have done otherwise."
Jesus gave up His life because of who He is, not because of an ability to do otherwise.
We are completed in love when we love not arbitrarily, but naturally, from the core of our being. I think the following verse puts it best:

NIV 1 Timothy 1:5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

Now, reaching true love is no accidental event, unlike the fluke where the grenade kills only one soldier without any action or intent from him. Nor is it against our intent, as the violent suitor above.

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Everything related to obeying God requires free will. We have the ability to choose (free will) whichever path we so desire.

 

Perhaps you might benefit greatly on reading a difinative work by Jonathan Edwards "Freedom of the Will."

It is certainly NOT an easy read, but, in my opinion, no one has done a more thorough writing in the matter exploring the topic from every conceivable angle. It is recommended to address reading it in segments or the wordiness and exactitude that Jonathan Edwards uses will quickly tire the attention to the details.

Remember this man graduate Yale University at 17, so he is not a slouch in academic ability, and the writing is not for novices who typically read at a fifth grade level.

More directly to the point of your post, perhaps you are confusing the total freedom a believer may access from both the old nature (will) and that of the new nature (will) as also being available to the unredeemed who have but that nature of that fallen and only make choices availablely accessible within the confines of that walled estate.

 

Free will does not exist.
Obeying the law of God does Rom13:8-10

 

Sir,

I agree with you 100%.

Human depravity is ignored by Pelagianism and, its cousin, Arminianism. Only God can change the heart. Only He can regenerate. Our faith can come only from Him.

The new birth, the new heart, and the new spirit are all the work of The Holy Spirit.

Certainly, the unregenerate man can never love God. He is at enmity with Him. "Willing" to love God will not do. God must change him. From eternity past, God's purpose was to love the elect, and no others.

God works in his children's hearts. They love Him because He first loved them. Our first parents, had love for each other because He implanted love into their hearts. The Fall corrupted all human love.

Like our Lord said, 'If you love me (and are truly my disciples) you will obey my commands.'

This is a call to love (as incomplete as it may be) AND a call to obey ALL of his commands:

"Teaching [the nations] to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:20).

 

Alaso would have them read the Bondage of the will by Dr Luther....

 

Did you not understand my earlier post? :Frown Let me try to be more clear. Please read the Bible texts I give.
Before we are saved our minds are at enmity (hatred, virulently opposed to God-- Romans 8:7). We freely hate God and wish He wasn't there. If we are of a religious frame of mind, as we may well be, we will create our own idea of God and worship that, but we will not accept, let alone love the true God (Luke 19:14; John 5:40).

But when we are born again by the Spirit of God, our hearts, minds and wills are changed (Romans 6:17-18), and we now freely love God and delight to obey His commands (Psalm 40:8; John 14:15) and are deeply upset when we fail to do so (Romans 7:22-25).

So no, the unregenerate heart cannot and will not love God, not because God prevents him from doing so, but because by nature men have wicked unbelieving hearts that hate God (cf. Titus 3:3-7). But in the New Birth, God does not force us to do something against our wills; He gives us a new heart and a new Spirit that freely loves God and delights to do His will. That, I think, is the gist of Jonathan Edwards' book that Agedman was recommending and which I am more than happy to endorse.

 

Is this an accurate description of what Calvinists generally believe?

 

I believe in election like my Calvinist brethren but I believe it is more like this and doesn't verse ten destroy the doctrine of Free Will?... Brother Glen:)

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

 

He's making a VERY exaggerated claim that not all of us believe; for example, as a Calvinist I believe God gives life as a gracious gift, and this is itself loving. James White says something similar, when he compares God's love for the elect to a man's love for his wife, in that it's not the same love he has for anyone else.

However, in general all Calvinists believe that God loves the elect more than He loves the non-elect, and intends for them a good He doesn't intend for all men in general.

 

Would you stumble at this thinking?

This isn't a Calvinist discussion, and as one who does agree with the doctrines of Grace, I find it problematic, too, that such teaching goes about unchallenged.

Such thinking that God only loves a select few and hates all others is neither Scriptural (in my opinion) nor consistent with the presented character of God as revealed by the Scriptures.

One can embrace the doctrines of grace and take all that
The Apostle John stated as the expression of God's love for the whole world, as well as Paul's teaching, too.

 

We believe that God has called out unto Himself a covenant people, a group of priests unto Himself... God loves those elect with His love as a Father, and only those in Christ are under that!

 

In the garden love was by free will. The fall concluded in spiritual separation from God, who IS love and who IS life and who IS light and who IS holy. Thus fallen man is without God, thus without love (enmity toward God, and loves darkness rather than light), without life (dead in tresspasses and sins), without light (in darkness) and without holiness (none good no not one). Thus fallen man is without a will free from darkness, hate, depravity (Rom. 8:7) Indeed, the fallen will does love, but it loves darkness rather than light and fallen men "will not" come to the light "because their deeds are evil." Their deeds are evil because THEY ARE EVIL.

The fallen man has no capacity to love God from the heart any more than they have capacity to obey God from the heart. The fallen will is simply the vehicle of their evil heart. It does not stand alone nor acts apart from this fallen condition.

The new birth is God creating a new heart, or a new moral inclination for righteousness and saving faith is merely the manifestation of that new moral inclination - thus the new birth is simply giving fallen man a "new want to."

 

Absolutely not. I remember Gary Smalley putting on a bunch of seminars called "Love is a decision"

What a load of baloney. I would venture to say that if you involve a decision-making process, then it's not love.

Consider 1Cor 13:
1If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Notice how most of these examples given by Paul can be relegated to a decision. I can choose to speak, someone may choose to move a mountain, someone may choose to give his possessions to the poor, someone may choose to surrender his body... all of those are actions, involving the will. And Paul makes it very clear that all of those can be done without love

But when it comes to love....

4Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul didn't say that love chooses to be patient, or that love chooses to be kind..... love IS patient, kind, etc
These are all the natural manifestations of love.

What's proposed in the OP is akin to saying "I'm going to exercise my free will and make a decision to like wearing orange t-shirts"