The Human Will in Regeneration

[fralo4truth]

We all know that the human will is not the cause of regeneration. That's clear.

But I would like to get your thoughts on what actually happens to the will in regeneration. Is the will simply enabled in regeneration and given a disposition inclined towards holiness? Or, does the will exhibit motion in what we would call passive obedience as in looking to Christ (Is. 45:22) or in obeying the truth (1 Peter 1:22; Rom. 6:17)?

To me, the question depends on how one defines regeneration. If it is defined as being inclusive of initial conversion, then I definitely see motion on the part of the will. If it is defined, as some theologians have done, as being that initial work upon our spirit which logically preceeds conversion, then I can see here that our wills are only enabled toward good.

Thank you for your thoughts.

 

[NB3K]

Here is my

Before we were regenerated, we were enslaved to Satan and he sat in the governing seat of our will. When God brought us to life, he kicked Satan off of the saddle of our will and He himself now commands us to do and to work for His good pleasure.

A passage of Augustine quoted by Calvin:

Augustine (in Psalm 31 and 33) compares the human will to 266a horse preparing to start, and God and the devil to riders. "If God mounts, he, like a temperate and skilful rider, guides it calmly, urges it when too slow, reins it in when too fast, curbs its forwardness and over-action, checks its bad temper, and keeps it on the proper course; but if the devil has seized the saddle, like an ignorant and rash rider, he hurries it over broken ground, drives it into ditches, dashes it over precipices, spurs it into obstinacy or fury."

Calvin, John (2008-04-03). Institutes of the Christian Religion (Kindle Locations 5562-5567). Signalman Publishing. Kindle Edition.



I hope this helps.

 

[Poimen]

Canons of Dordrecht: The Third and Fourth Main Points of Doctrine

Article 11: The Holy Spirit's Work in Conversion
Moreover, when God carries out this good pleasure in his chosen ones, or works true conversion in them, he not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly, and enlightens their minds powerfully by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, but, by the effective operation of the same regenerating Spirit, he also penetrates into the inmost being of man, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised. He infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant; he activates and strengthens the will so that, like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds.

Article 12: Regeneration a Supernatural Work
And this is the regeneration, the new creation, the raising from the dead, and the making alive so clearly proclaimed in the Scriptures, which God works in us without our help. But this certainly does not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working that, after God has done his work, it remains in man's power whether or not to be reborn or converted. Rather, it is an entirely supernatural work, one that is at the same time most powerful and most pleasing, a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work, which is not lesser than or inferior in power to that of creation or of raising the dead, as Scripture (inspired by the author of this work) teaches. As a result, all those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively reborn and do actually believe. And then the will, now renewed, is not only activated and motivated by God but in being activated by God is also itself active. For this reason, man himself, by that grace which he has received, is also rightly said to believe and to repent.

 

[MW]

Thomas Boston's Fourfold State speaks of three effects of regenerating grace on the will.

"(1.) The will is cured of its utter inability to will what is good."

"(2.) There is wrought in the will a fixed aversion to evil. In regeneration, a man gets a new spirit put within him, Ezek. 36:26; and that spirit striveth against the flesh, Gal. 5:17."

"(3.) The will is endowed with an inclination, bent, and propensity to good."

The last point is explained as follows:

In its depraved state, it lay quite another way, being prone and bent to evil only: but now, by the operation of the omnipotent, all-conquering arm, it is drawn from evil to good, and gets another turn. As the former was natural, so this is natural too, in regard to the new nature given in regeneration, which has its holy strivings, as well as the corrupt nature has its sinful lustings, Gal. 5:17. The will, as renewed, points towards God and godliness. When God made man, his will, in respect of its intention, was directed towards God, as his chief end; in respect of its choice, it pointed towards that which God willed. When man unmade himself, his will was framed to the very reverse hereof: he made himself his chief end, and his own will his law. But when man is new made, in regeneration, grace rectifies this disorder in some measure, though not perfectly, because we are but renewed in part, while in this world. It brings back the sinner out of himself, to God, as his chief end, Ps. 73:25, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee." Phil. 1:21, "For me to live is Christ." It makes him to deny himself, and whatever way he turns, to point habitually towards God, who is the centre of the gracious soul, its home, its "dwelling place in all generations," Ps. 90:1.

By regenerating grace, the will is brought into a conformity to the will of God. It is conformed to his preceptive will, being endowed with holy inclinations, agreeable to every one of his commands. The whole law is impressed on the gracious soul: every part of it is written on the renewed heart. Although remaining corruption makes such blots in the writing, that oft-times the man himself cannot read it, yet he that wrote it can read it at all times; it is never quite blotted out, nor can be. What he has written, he has written; and it shall stand: "For this is the covenant – I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts," Heb. 8:10. It is a covenant of salt, a perpetual covenant. It is also conformed to his providential will; so that the man would no more be master of his own process, nor carve out his lot for himself. He learns to say, from his heart, "The will of the Lord be done." "He shall choose our inheritance for us," Ps. 47:4. Thus the will is disposed to fall in with those things which, in its depraved state, it could never be reconciled to.