FREE MORAL AGENCY

I.  God created man as a free moral agent.

            A.  This denies Calvinism’s principles of Irresistible Grace and Unconditional Election

            B.  This denies Total Depravity

II.  When man fell, he lost his free moral agency = he became a servant of the devil

            A.  The devil and his demons are more powerful than man

            B.  As a child of the devil, man is incapable of doing good – Total Depravity of man

            C.  Unsaved man is identified with the devil and is under the Law

III.  When man is saved, God conjoins him with God’s own Spirit; thereby, creating in him a new nature and then reinstates his free moral agency

            A.  The devil no longer has control, but man has the choice who to serve

            B.  Man is now identified with the Spirit of God and is freed from the Law

IV.  As a regenerated man that is free from the Law, our moral decisions and actions are now similar to God’s.

            A.  Is God under the law?  Must He obey the law?

            B.  If God is not under the law, then what prevents Him from licentiousness?

            C.  God chooses good over evil because that is His nature and His desire – what He is.

D.  In like manner, a regenerated man will choose good over evil, because his new nature desires to do good and detests evil.  He has become good by free moral choice – what God originally wanted from man.

V.  Within the domain of theology there are two main areas of Christian teaching, namely dogmatics and ethics (or doctrine and morals).

A.  Dogmatics or doctrine have to do with the Christian life as regarded from the standpoint of dependence on God

B.  Ethics or morals are more from the standpoint of human freedom.

C.  Dogmatics deals with faith in relation to God, and as the receptive organ of Divine grace;

D.  Ethics considers it rather in its relation to man as a human activity, and as the organ of conduct