Came across this at Rose’s Reasonings via the Contemporary Calvinist. I thought it also pertained to Hank’s recent question about God.

Rose’s Reasonings :: Another Quote

“…free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”

–The Case for Christianity, C. S. Lewis

I never even considered that people might not have a free will until I came across Calvinism, quite some time after my conversion. For me – I see free will and choice as the whole reason that the LORD did not create man confirmed in holiness, or without the choice to disobey. I had always read of the Garden of Eden and the one tree that the first couple must not eat of … and thought that God must want them to have something that they can do to show that they trust and love Him. It made evil possible, but IF they had obeyed, it also provided the opportunity for love, goodness, trust and joy …. a two-way relationship.

Read through the 51 comments for good discussion.

I have a clarifying question to our many Calvinist authors and readers. In your (the Calvinistic) system of thought, Adam and Eve had free moral will until the fall, then they (and the rest of mankind) somehow became so morally corrupt that they (Adam, Eve, and the rest of humanity) is completely unable to want to choose God. Is that the case? I think I have seen Puritan Bob and Brad both say something to that effect. If it is, then I think part of Rose’s quote contains a bit of a false dilemma.

However, even if that is the case, the (real) two-way relationship and free-will within that relationship still seems necessary in understanding what God has revealed to us.