Third Way Thursday: The Wind’s Will

"A boy’s will is the winds will" is a line from Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, and its really the way I approach the hole Calvinism vs.
Free Will dilemma.  As I told friend and loyal webmaster Josh Benner, I
think some days I am more Calvinist and some days more Arminian.  It
really depends on the wind.

I think this is a good, third way of looking at things.  It takes
McKnight’s proto-third way metaphor of the golf bag and allows us to
play with both the predestination and free will clubs.  It depends on
the mood, the discussion, the way one is speaking.  These doctrines are
cultural ways we philosophize to each other and they have their proper
contexts.  I seriously doubt any Calvinist believes anyone is a robot,
yet that is what happens when words are forced into wet cement.  They
idea sticks and then we can’t use it anymore.

The same goes for free will.  It’s hard to think of God as being
without power over us at all.  It would turn into some kind of deism,
with God winding the clock and letting us blow this place up with a
sigh and a shrug.  God has to be in control (though we may fight about
how much control).

My friend Miguel once described it like this: the dilemma of will is
like a door that says on the front "choose."  When you walk through the
door it says, "you were always chosen."  There is a tension between
choosing and "it is written," and that tension is a good one.  We
should keep it.