Grace and Free Will in Three Parables

We are talking about grace—what it is and what it does. Last time we met we took a look at grace and free will in the garden of Eden. We asked: What actually is free will? Does it mean the same as consequential decision-making or are they different things? And how “free” is free will anyway, given the constraints put upon it by genetics and so-called epigenetics or environmental factors? 

Why are we so afraid of grace but cling desperately to the concept of free will? The idea that we are responsible for our behavior, our actions, and even our thoughts does not square with the idea that God extends to us his grace unmerited, undeserved, without request, and without limits. Like oxygen, grace is everywhere, unlimited and free, whether you want it or not. 

Why is it so scary then? Why do we fear grace but are instinctively drawn to free will? 

We say we are saved by grace through faith and not of ourselves, that it is a gift of God, but we really don’t believe that. We certainly don’t act like we believe it. It seems we are absolutely compelled to link our choices to our salvation. We are drawn like a moth to the flame of free will while extinguishing the oxygen of grace. It just makes sense that somehow free will is a condition for being made in the image of God, and that we bear the consequences of our decisions. 

Free will cannot be ignored. But how do we reconcile it with grace? Can grace overpower free will? Or does free will always trump it? Are grace and free will opposites? Are they complimentary? Is one stronger than the other? Which would you rather give up—grace or your free will? Grace means trusting in God. Free will means trusting in yourself. 

To seek more insight into this perplexing dilemma let us turn again to the three parables, presented one after another, about being lost: The parable of the sheep, the parable of the coin, and the parable of the prodigal son. In all three, there is something or someone who is lost, and there is great joy and celebration when they are found. The only difference in the three parables has to do with the free will complicity of the subject that is lost.

The parables are prefaced by a statement of the Pharisees:

 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near Jesus to listen to Him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to complain, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2) 

Jesus has a choice: To eat and consort with sinners, or to shun them, as the Pharisees do. Bad things happen when you make bad choices, they argue, and hanging out with bad people is a bad choice, a blueprint for evil. Make good choices, stay away from bad people, they say. Use your will to make good choices and good things will result. 

The sheep is lost perhaps by looking for water, looking for greener pastures, or perhaps trapped by some unfortunate circumstance. It knows it is lost but is powerless to get itself found. Under different circumstances, it might be able to make decisions that would relieve it of its lostness but it is trapped in the thickets of life from the choices it has made. Its only hope is grace.

The coin is lost too but it has no awareness of it. Unlike the sheep, it had no role in its being lost. It made no bad choices, no instinctive indiscretions. It is lost either by carelessness or by willfulness, but not of its own doing. Unlike the sheep, it is not a question of making wrong choices. The coin has no free will. The coin has no instinctive will, the coin has no responsibility for being lost. 

It is critical to understand that the three parables relate to three different types of sinner. At the conclusion of each parable, Jesus talks about the joy that occurs in having recovering one sinner that repents. It is critical also to see the role of free will and grace at the end of each of these stories. 

 And He said, “A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that is coming to me.’ And so he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey to a distant country, and there he squandered his estate in wild living. Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began doing without. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he longed to have his fill of the carob pods that the pigs were eating, and no one was giving him anything. But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired laborers have more than enough bread, but I am dying here from hunger! (Luke 15:11-17) 

Here we see deliberate and willful lostness. This is not like the coin, which is lost by someone else’s foolishness. This is not like the sheep, which is overcome by instinctive behavior that traps it somewhere in the lost condition. With the prodigal son, it is the premeditated, free will-generated, unmistakable leaving of his father’s house. 

There is so much to say about the story. One is that the dramatic demand for the inheritance is tantamount to the son saying to the Father, “You are dead to me. You are out of my life. I’m through with you. You owe me something and I want it now.” Consider for a moment the implications of this request. The father does not have a 401 K or a 403 B with cash or mutual funds in some kind of savings account in a bank that he could draw down and liquidate for his son. The assets of the father consist of land, buildings, flocks. The prodigal son’s portion would not fit in his pocket—you cannot put six acres of land and 40 head of cattle in your pocket and go into a foreign country. These assets needed to be liquidated, likely at deeply discounted rates because of the urgency of their liquidation so that the young man could, as the Bible says, leave for the far country not many days after making the request for early payment of his inheritance. 

This unheard of request is not only financially foolish and disadvantageous to the father, but humiliating as well. The father is dumbstruck by his son’s request to distance himself from the family, and by being publicly humiliated as he tries to quickly sell off his tangible property and flocks to give the son liquid assets. The willfulness of the son’s request is exceeded only by the shame that he brings upon himself and his father.

But—and this, of course, is the crux of the story—it turns out that leaving his father’s house with his inheritance is much more than leaving with just the money. He is leaving with the memories of his childhood, of playing with the lambs, of driving the oxen in the field, of fishing in the pond, of racing with the servants, of memories of his bed in the loft. But more important than the money and the memories: He’s leaving with something he can never lose: His father’s DNA. He is who he is and nothing can change that. He is his father’s son. He can lose the money and his memories may fade, but his DNA is permanent. 

No matter your history, no matter your willful decisions, no matter your good or bad choices, no matter how far you are away from home, you are still your father’s son. No willful decision can change that. You can willfully shun your father, you can openly humiliate your father. You can even go to the ends of the earth. But you cannot, by willful choice, change your DNA. You are never not your father’s son. 

The famine he encounters in the far country is not simply a food shortage. It is a spiritual famine as well. He left his father’s home with a part of his inheritance as the spiritual mooring that his father had given him. But over time, like his money, the spiritual assets he had accumulated also dwindled. His famine was existential in that in involved both body and soul. But in verse 17 is the turning point. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread?” He came to his senses. Other translation say: “He came to himself.” 

What does that mean? Is coming to oneself a willful act? Is it a free will decision? Or Is it an autonomic response? Is he in free will mode, or is he in instinctive survival mode? Notice the choices that he makes: Instead of turning away from his father’s house, he chooses to turn toward it. He chooses servanthood. He chooses the bare back and the bare feet of servanthood. This marks, surely, how weak and misguided is our free will. 

The son chooses servanthood but grace restores his son-ship. The son chooses a bare back but grace gives him a covering robe of righteousness. The son chooses bare feet but grace gives him sandals. Most remarkable of all, grace gives him the signet ring, a sign of authority, particularly financial authority. This dastardly, craven, pusillanimous and prodigal son who publicly humiliated his father—in essence, stole his money and wasted all of his money in riotous living—is given, of all things, the key to the safe. 

What is the role of free will in the son’s demands? What is the role of free will in the son’s return? How do these three parables of lostness help us to understand the concepts of free will and grace? Two common themes run through every one of them: That something is lost and something is found, and that when something is found, it’s party time. What is different is the complicity of each of these agents—the coin, the sheep, the son—in their lostness and in their salvation. 

What are your thoughts about free will and grace and their relationship to salvation?

Anonymous: The thing that struck me is that all of them got found. I never thought of it that way before. It tells us that at the end, everybody, according to God’s will, will be saved, no matter what. Whether a person has knowledge of his lostness or not. At the end, none of the three lost had their own way. They were all brought back somehow. So at the end, it’s all in God’s hands. We are all his sons and we will be saved no matter what. Our free choice, our free will, is not a hindrance to God, only to ourselves, and only on this earth maybe.

Bryan: We discussed Eden last time. Maybe free will or the power of choice is the ultimate outpouring of grace. Because the power of free choice or free will allows us to not choose God. So if Eden is the ultimate test kitchen and if you believe there are other created worlds that we are the example for, and that God knows the end from the beginning—he knows what will happen before it does—it makes it a little easier for me because then in Eden, even though God knew what the ultimate choices were, it shows the rest of his creation what the power of choice can do, both positive and negative. It also shows the ultimate outcome of the choices that were made in the free will that we’ve exercised. And so for me, maybe free will is the ultimate outpouring of grace.

Bruce: I heard something yesterday about free will, since it is Yom Kippur, which provokes thoughts of repentance. The concept of repentance indicates free will, that you can turn, you can change. You are not just predestined, it is not predetermined what your outcome is going to be. You can make a decision to make a difference to the outcome. 

Donald: I don’t know how far-reaching is the image or illustration we saw when we were young in Sabbath School, in regard to the end of time, when Christ returns. I think a challenge here is that the prodigal son’s father did not have a “book.” I have, fixed in my mind, an image shown to us over and over in Sabbath School of God holding a book—the story of your life, reviewing it: Yes and no, positive and negative. 

To me, that is unfortunate, because the image I have of the prodigal’s father is of open arms holding no book. Just a big hug. And so this idea of free will and forgiveness and surrender is, unfortunately, skewed by the image of God holding our book of life and reviewing it and deciding if we’re in or out. Did we do right? Did we do wrong? 

It’s a hard conversation because in this world everything is based on the belief that you get what you deserve, so you work toward making your life the way it can be. We all know that there are things that are way beyond our control, but we do need to take responsibility for our actions (whatever that means). 

Bruce: The son who ran away and came back to a father with open arms, stuck around—he didn’t go running away again to do what he had been doing in rebellion. So there was a change of attitude. In terms of the responsibility we have, God is just. We often think “That’s not fair!” But God is always just. Life is not fair but God is just. God, in a sense has to prove that he’s just, because he’s been accused of being unjust. 

So it’s very possible that that Book of Records is not so much to keep track to see whether you’re lining up or not, it’s more to show that, yes, this may have happened, this mistake might have been done by this individual, but he has asked for forgiveness and through the righteousness of Christ his record has been expunged. And so that book of record is really merely to show he is on my side and not just nitpicking (“You did this many wrongs and this many rights.” It is just to show, when God makes his final judgment, that he is just.

C-J: I think it’s about knowledge with understanding of what sin really produces. There are people who are just self-willed. I don’t know how much of it is modeling and how much of it is DNA and circumstances of birth and so on. I don’t know about all that. But I just think that in the Bible and in other holy texts, there’s an understanding that we must pause and be aware of where we are and who we are, and that, once we do that, then we are held accountable for making a choice that does not cause harm to others, or our environment. It is not an easy thing to do. It is not an easy thing to defend yourself, or to feel entitled when you understand that some people are born very comfortable and others are born in abject poverty, doomed not to survive even through childhood. I think it takes a revelation that is only spiritual, that opens our eyes to understanding and acceptance without fear of what happens when we transcend this finite reality we call life, or the shells that we are housed in. 

A week ago today, I lost my godchild. She was only 45. It was a medical mistake. She seized and died. I sat next to her and thought how resilient she had been, because of the family she was born into and the decisions. She squeezed every drop of life that she could, in that brief time. Did she always make good decisions? No. But was she consciously aware of “This will never happen to my children!”? Absolutely. She was a good role model, she worked incredibly hard, and she did the best she could with what she had in the basket that she came into life with. 

I agree with Bruce that, in the end, it is all grace. I mourn her loss. But in my kitchen, I was thinking about her crying and I felt her presence, and she was happy. In my mind, she was happy, for she walked into a reality that was pure with light and goodness and love. And she was now going to make sure on the other side that she would make a provision that she couldn’t make for her family and her children. I have to believe that. 

It’s interesting how our mind works, because I can’t cope with the loss of her. But I have to believe what I believe for myself that there is light—true light, love, grace, purity on the other side, when I leave this shell, that we are spirit beings having a human experience. And its love and grace.

Reinhard: With regard to the three parables, I think Jesus narrated them to show how God loves people who are lost and found. They are already probably in his control or under his grace as followers of God. But this loving God always embraces, always has joy, when somebody repents. 

The prodigal was lost by intention, the coin and the sheep were lost unintentionally. In our lives, every decision we make is made from free will and risks deviating from God’s will. We may think the decision is neutral and does not offend God’s law, but there are times when we don’t live the right way. As children of God, grace will cover us whenever we choose either doing good or doing evil things. When we slip, when we falter, grace will cover us.

 As long as we’re always looking for God, just like the prodigal son, when we come to our senses and realize that there is something wrong with us and  we don’t follow God’s law and repent, then grace will cover us. That’s where grace will come to play whenever we don’t do the right things. 

C-J: Pastor Giddi said in a recent class that Hindus have a problem with the concept of forgiveness because they believe in karmic law, that you are in the state you are because of your previous life and this life is the consequence. But those who embrace faiths of grace, in all their flavors, have a responsibility to be that light for those who don’t understand grace, 

It has nothing to do with my lacking. It is like a parent and a child—it is always there. There’s disappointment, there’s misunderstanding, there’s work, but the unconditional love of a parent is profound, no matter what. Even bad parents will do almost anything for their children.

Donald: Something we haven’t talked much about in this class is the metaphorical basket of marbles we are all born with. Some baskets are light and some are heavy—life isn’t fair. It seems to me that most of the time, when we go off track, it’s because of selfishness. I want, I want this, I want that, I want it my way constantly. It’s more important for me to have this than to take care of you. 

So it’s selfishness that derails us. And it’s really love, or doing unto others, that puts us back on the track. If we were ever divided, right now, as people, we are not on the same track. Is that selfishness? What’s our responsibility to each other when our baskets come with such different amounts of resources? 

Carolyn: We have left out one element which, to me, is so important: Prayer. Like Daniel, we should pray at least three times a day, if not constantly have a prayer in our heart and on our lips. To do so we have to have the Holy Spirit to help us with our free choice. 

Grace is a big umbrella and such a blessing, but we still fumble and stumble. The help of the Holy Spirit is our only chance. I am befuddled as I read through the Bible, and I’m only in Ezekiel! It is hard to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the loving Jesus of the New Testament. 

C-J: When I look at the United States, in any epoch of history, when people have been traumatized, their brains start to function differently. They interpret famine, war,  disease, and other great losses with no option for hope. Their instinct is just to survive, any way they can, to find any way to appease an unjust reality. There is no option. There’s no way that they can see grace or love, or protection. They are traumatized into becoming the lower self. They can’t seek a God that they don’t see when they look out their window. What kind of God is this? An angry God, a God who abandons us! We have prayed, we have followed all the rules, upheld all the traditions, we have done no wrong. 

I think that’s what’s happening globally, because of COVID, because of a fear of countries that were quite wealthy and privileged, struggling with feeling safe, teetering on the edge of potential war, famine, a planet out of whack. Some people say this is the end times and it’ll cause people to come to God. God gives us a lot of options in terms of the choices we make, to do no harm. But until we take responsibility, it won’t get better. 

I can’t stop what happens in government. I can vote, but I cannot stop a disease. What I can do is be accountable to my spiritual belief system and look out for those who are hurting, try to soften the blow by a kind word, picking up the discarded papers in the street, monitoring my own anger and fear. That’s the best we can do. 

In some ways, we are responsible for those who don’t know the Holy Spirit is active in their life, regardless of the book in their hand, or the blessings (or the lack of them) they’ve been given in this lifetime. But I do know that when God shows up, there is a grace, a kindness and a peace, and an outpouring of compassion for others who are hurting more than myself. I think that is stepping out in God. 

For whatever has been whispered in our ears and stirred in our heart—whether it’s missions, friendship, all of our relationships—the checkout person saying, “Thank you,” this is God’s grace, and when we hurt, I think it compels us to choose that over anger and fear. It’s hard. We’re very fortunate that we can rely on the Holy Spirit. 

Don: Do you think that the son’s coming to his senses (or, as other translations say, coming to himself) is a willful act, an instinctive act, or an act of desperation? None of the above? All of the above?

Anonymous: I think it’s the ultimate result. Because of God’s grace and love (I think they are synonymous) everybody will be coming back. We are all sinners. The love and grace of God is there for everyone. Ultimately, everyone will go back to God in repentance. Nobody can resist that much love when they are exposed to it. 

Like the lost coin, some people never experience God’s love (like the Gentiles before they heard about God, and  idol worshipers who have no idea about God). But as soon as they know (and even without their knowing) God has salvation in store for them. The lost sheep knows it is away from God but does not know how it got there or how to get back. 

God’s grace covers both the coin and sheep and brings them back. The result will be praise, thankfulness. love given back to God. In the case of the lost son, it is only his father’s grace and love that brought him back, when he remembered it in the far country,  missing it and wanting to get it back. Grace puts in us repentance, and we start walking back. So in all three cases, God’s grace will triumph.

Carolyn: As a parent, I can’t help but put myself in the father’s shoes. How he must have prayed for his son, no matter how deep his degradation! To me, this parable is about prayer—the father praying for his son, and the Holy Spirit leaning on the Son helping him to realize that he’s been in deprivation. He made the free-willed choice to turn around and go back, realizing what he has lost. I think prayer might have had a little bit to do with it.

Bruce: Obviously, the desperation the young man felt had something to do with his decision, because it made him realize he was in pretty bad shape here and there was a better place to be. He didn’t totally trust that his father would welcome him back as a son. He says, “Even if I come back and he makes me a servant, I’m still better off than here.”

There is something about God reaching out to us first that gives us a sense that we need to respond, we need to make our way towards God. Sometimes our knowledge is incomplete or distorted, yet we sense there is something good there. And when we get there, it is way better than we ever imagined. God’s grace is so far beyond. So the desperation and the realization that his father was a good man, that things were good where he used to be, came together.

Don: It sounds like a selfish motive.

Bruce: I think we get trapped into trying to weigh our own motives sometimes. We need to forget that and just say: “God is good, he has my best interest.” That is where life really is. That’s where it begins. When we see somebody in need, what is our motive for helping them? Is it because something good will happen to us? Actually, the act of helping, the act of doing, produces something in us that is spiritual. It is a blessing that God has placed within us for acting. 

Should we sit there and say, “What is my motive for doing this? Is it selfish? Is it because I’ll look better, I’ll be more popular, or get some other benefit?” No. We just do it (sometimes because we’re told to) and when we do, for whatever reason, there comes a blessing from helping somebody else, from looking and doing outside of ourselves and not weighing the motives.

David: Everything I’ve heard today has reinforced the philosophical insight I received from the last class, which I think answers one conundrum we’ve been facing today, which is: Which came first, the chicken (grace) or the egg (free will)? The answer is Zen-like: They came simultaneously. 

That answer is nicely expounded in the theory of process theology, whereby God is both a Being and a Becoming. In his Being, he can dispense grace. But in order to Become, he relies upon our exercising our free will in a way that will create goodness—create God. 

The act of the Good Samaritan helped God to Become. I do not disagree with anything said today—I’ve only heard instances or evidences of God both as a Being and as a Becoming.

Don: We’ll continue our discussion about grace and free will. There’s more there’s more to this story. We’ll return to Brian’s concept that free will is the ultimate demonstration of grace. It’s a thought that needs a little more contemplation. 

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