Meaning, that we must allow for the person to make some decisions that may not be in their best interest. Such as smoking, or drinking alcohol (with their given medications) be out alone in the community, etc. Things you and I take for granted.
It's a funny way of putting it, but it is true - we, you and I, have the dignity of risk. We, in most ways, get to risk our "lives" or at least our "safety" everyday. There's no one here, right now, watching my every move to see if I "can" or "can't" do something that might put me at risk...
God works the same way. He give us the dignity of risk.
Or, as Boyd puts it: the risk of love.
We've heard it before "God is Love." (1 Jn 4:8,16)
He made the world from His love to share in His love.
As we all know, however, love cannot be forced...it must be freely given, and freely chosen.
This means, a person can say "no" to love.
Boyd tells us that "Up to the time ot Augustine the church understood and emphasized this point...they taught that God's mode of operation in running the world is not coersion but persuasion."
This is risky, though.
Because it allows for one to NOT CHOOSE love. Which also allows for the possibility of...evil.
We can see this in our owns lives: love is risky.
We put out hearts our there, no knowing for sure if the other person will reciprocate our love...or even treat us with love. While we don't want the other person to treat us badly, we don't want to FORCE them to love us either. We want them to have "free will" to love us.
Why?
Because then we'd would know their love wasn't genuine...we want genuine love.
Wouldn't God want the same?
If God's will is to be carried out in love, and he allows us to have free will to do so, it also means he allows us to have free will NOT to do so.
In other words, as Boyd says, "...we can refuse to carry out his command (will) if we choose."
This means, to put it bluntly, we can choose NOT TO follow God's will...
A belief quite contrary to what most of the church is teaching. I would bet that if you asked most people if they believed God's will could be thrawted by us, they would say, "no."
After all, God is all-powerful!
How could we, meere humans, keep God's will from happening? An all-powerful God wouldn't allow that to happen...would He?
Well, if God wants us to love him freely, and to love freely, he can't FORCE us to love Him or others...thus his "wants" and what we "do" may not line up. That would mean His will (want) was not being accomplished.
So does this mean he ISN'T as all-powerful as we believe?
Of course not.
What does it mean?
It means much more is going on than we realize...or perhaps, want to believe.
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