Monday, May 4, 2009

Human Responsibility and Freedom

In his chapter on human responsibility and freedom in The Doctrine of God, Frame discusses a few reasons why biblical writers do not struggle with the linkage between God's sovereignty and our responsibility:

  1. Our responsibility is based on the fact that God is the source of all value and the evaluator of everything. God sets the standard and we must live up to it and be evaluated in light of it; what we do matters.
  2. God's promises of success motivate believers to act in accordance with those promises. We have the joy of being God's instruments and of reaping the rewards.
  3. When we are most aware of God's control we understand the necessity to live responsibly before him. We dare not refuse the commands of the great king.
  4. The standard of God's glory gives us a universal standard that must be our goal and our responsibility in everything we do.
  5. Our significance is found only in God and therefore we should not have difficulty with being under his control and authority.

I'll finish with a quote about point #5 above:

"Scripture is therefore not nearly as concerned as we are to promote our self-esteem. We would like to believe that the meaning and significance of our lives depend on what we do for ourselves, without any outside influences or constraints. In Scripture, however, the goal of human life is to glorify God. Our dignity is not to be found in what we do, but in what God has done for us and in us. Our meaning and significance are to be found in the fact that God has created us in his image and redeemed us by the blood of his Son. The biblical writers, therefore, are not horrified, as modern writers tend to be, by the thought that we may be under the control of another. If the other is God, and he has made us for his glory, then we could not possibly ask for a more meaningful existence." (125)

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