When we contemplate whether God created man with free will or whether He predestined all people according to His will, do we discover flawed theology? Or are we only scratching the surface of the Almighty’s complexity and the realization that our Creator is fully capable of reconciling even the most extreme dichotomies.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts than your thoughts.'” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
All things about God are perfectly balanced, from the precision and fine tuning evident in the cosmos, to His perfect redemption plan for humanity, right down to every little detail in the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Predestination
The apostles were confident in the predestination of those who believe and the following New Testament verses substantiate this perspective:
Romans 8:29: “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.”
1 Peter 1:1-2: “To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.”
1 Peter 1:20: “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”
Ephesians 1:4-6: “For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves.”
Acts 2:23: “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”
Throughout the Old Testament, God spoke through His prophets and disclosed His plans in advance (Amos 3:7). Regarding the Messiah, there are over 350 prophesies given that were all fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. Fulfilled prophecy confirms God’s foreknowledge of world events and even the existence of the nation of Israel today is evidence of this fact.
Does this mean that humans do not have the freedom to choose to believe? Are people simply pawns or robots that are pre-programmed to accept or reject Jesus according to God’s whimsical idiosyncrasies?
God is sovereign and certainly possesses the right to do as He pleases. Paul states in Romans 9:15, “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'”
However, God is just. And as a perfect and just King, He never coerces us to obey Him or love Him. Indeed, a forced love is not sincere and true love. There would be no logic in saving people into eternal life in heaven with God if they didn’t really want to be there in the first place.
Freedom of Choice
We were created with the freedom of choice and the poor decision of Adam and Eve precipitated the need for salvation right from the beginning. The Bible documents many choices made by people and the resulting impact they had upon history.
In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, the nation of Israel is given insight into the outcome of following God’s decrees. In verse 19, God declares, ‘This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live”.
Joshua 24 records the the twelve tribes of Israel being petitioned by Joshua to be faithful to God, forsaking all others. Verse 15 records the proclamation, “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Jesus also offered the freedom of choice to those who heard Him speak. “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25).
And in Revelation 3:20 Jesus proclaims, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.” Additionally, the apostle Paul illustrates our freedom of choice in Galatians 5:16, where he advises, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
The unique ability that God alone can both possess the foreknowledge required to predestine believers, while providing freedom of choice in any given situation demonstrates His sovereignty and perfection. This concept is analyzed in the theological perspective known as Molinism (named after the 16th century Jesuit, Luis de Molina).
Ultimately, God’s omniscience includes His sovereignty to to decree and the wisdom that what has been ordained will come to pass, as well as alternative outcomes had people’s choices resulted in different pathways and results.
Just as grace is freely given to those who believe in Jesus Christ, Christians must freely choose to believe while being predestined to make that choice. From a human perspective these two notions seem contradictory in nature. Yet just as God’s omnipresence demonstrates His ability to simultaneously be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, His omniscience and omnipotence provide Him the unique ability to predetermine our destiny without contravening our freedom of will.
The tension between free will and predestination can be reconciled by acknowledging that they are two sides of the same coin. Both perspectives are biblical and God’s sovereignty facilitates Him to fulfill His purpose through people in such a way that never violates human will. His ways are indeed higher than our ways.
William R Nesbitt
Hi Clinton. I am brand-new to this site. I came to the same conclusion that C.S. Lewis did, that God wrote all of human history as a story in which He is also a character in the book (Jesus) and people have complete free will. When God “hardens” Pharaoh but has others yielding to His will, it says more about who that person has become by the choices they have made, creating a personality that will “soften” or “harden” in His presence (just like wax and clay respond differently to the heat of the sun.) God is alive both inside and outside of the story of history (“My thoughts are not your thought, neither are your ways my ways…” Is. 55:8, “A day to the Lord is as a thousand years…” 2 Pet. 3:8). All human history is like a book in His hand. We experience time as pages turned in God’s book, always forward and progressive. He is not bound to the time that the characters experience in the book. Linear, progressive time may only be experienced by humans. This is part of “the Curse” of Gen. 3. With it we experience entropy, decay, and the end of our lives rushing toward us (death). Those who have near-death experiences (NDEs) and those who experience “out-of-body experiences” with ketamine and other psychedelics, (where consciousness is disarticulated from the physical body) time as we know it vanishes. Many tens of thousands of NDE cases throughout history and in all cultures reliably confirm this shared experience. So, Both absolute free will and absolute predestination are both true, but only in different time environments. Eternity is not the infinite passage of time, it is the absence of the passage of time. I think this makes much more sense. There is much more to this theory such as the way time slows with increased speed and gravity (large planets, black holes, etc.) but that’s for another time. Blessings. Bill