Response 1: Who are you to say that it’s unfair for God to blame people? (Rom. 9:20a)

Response 2: The potter (God) is free to mold the clay (us) however he wants (Rom. 9:20b–23)

In What Sense Do We Have a Free Will?

1. A foundational truth: God the creator is distinct from his creation

2. A terrible analogy: a girl and her doll

3. A useful analogy: a novelist and the characters in his story

4. Defining key terms: incompatibilism versus compatibilism 

• Will is the ability to choose. My will enables me to either sit or stand, speak or be silent.

• A constraining cause forces a person to act against his will. I occasionally act as a constraining cause when my son is having a tantrum: I pick him up against his will and carry him away to discipline him. 

• A nonconstraining cause does not force a person to act against his will → but it is sufficient to cause an action.

Here is a negative example: I would like to deadlift five hundred pounds, but I can’t because I’m not strong enough. My physical weakness is a nonconstraining cause. It causes me to deadlift less than five hundred pounds. If I have the desire to do something but lack the ability to do it, then that lack of ability is a (restraining) nonconstraining cause.

Here is a positive example: While I am in the zone writing my sermon I suddenly smell bacon sizzling in the kitchen. The smell does not force me to eat bacon against my will → but it is sufficient to cause me to want to eat bacon.