I want to come down on the side of freedom. I have experienced choices, and remember making the wrong ones. Maybe I was inclined to choose wrongly, because I am human. But what about the right choice I made in the same situation at a different time? You could, as some have, assert that the decision was actually God's each time, and I was just sort of there. But then, what is life? If even my most basic experience of myself is invalid? Romans 3 says that all have sinned, but that is only a part of the story. Second Chronicles 7:14 says to "humble" myself and "turn from [my] wicked ways." God will forgive me when I, already "called by [His] name," repent. Just as I can sin, I can accept God's invitiation of forgiveness. This not only makes sense of my guilt, but of my healing.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Ethics, asserts that Christ stands at the center of reality, and thus at the center of ethics. Good, he asserts, is found only in God. We do not, by our own choice, acheive something for ourselves, we do not become good or worthy by our choices. Instead, we recognize God, and the goodness that is found in Him, the goodness that He is. This supremely embodied in Christ, and in him it is revealed as a goodness that is for humanity. In this goodness, found in God, lies salvation. And, to us, it is a humbling and seeking, as 2 Chronicles asserts, but it is not a striving for our own goodness, but instead it is forfeiting our reality to God, recognizing all things to be grounded in their Creator, ourselves included.
