How Do You
Reconcile Divine Sovereignty With Human Free Will?
By
This is a topic that has invoked much discussion throughout church history, and I do not pretend to have advanced an exhaustive explanation concerning these matters. Therefore, I highly encourage the reader to further explore this topic by examining the resources I list at the end of the article in the end notes.
The Sovereignty of God Briefly Stated
A.W. Pink,
in his book The Sovereignty of God, describes the sovereignty of
God as the,
“…Supremacy of
God, the kingship of God, the godhood of God…it is to declare that He is Most
High, doing according to His will in the army of Heaven, and among the
inhabitants of the earth…”1
In
the book of Daniel, we find King Nebuchadnezzar proclaiming,
“For His dominion
is an everlasting dominion, And His kingdom is from generation to generation.
All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to
His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one
can restrain His hand Or say to Him, "What have You done?" (Dan
4:34-35)
The prophet Isaiah states,
“For the LORD of
hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, And who
will turn it back?" (Isaiah 14:27).
These two verses state in no uncertain terms that it is God, not man, who is sovereign over and in all things and is directing all things according to His own purposes (the Bible is filled with many more verses that teach the same thing). What God has purposed will surely come about. Why will God's purposes most certainly come about? Because, as the Westminster Confession, Chapter 3, Section 1 states, "God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass." (Psalm 33:11; Eph 1:11; Heb 6:17). Or, in simple terms, because God is God, and we are not.
The fact that God has purposes that will surely come about calls our attention to the eternal nature of God, and His omniscience. God, before the creation of anything, purposed to create all things for His glory, and God, Isaiah again tells us, declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). How does God know the end from the beginning? Does He know what will happen in the future merely because He can see the future and knows what will happen? No. God's infallible foreknowledge is not something in which God is a passive bystander. In other words, God already knows what will happen because He has determined and decreed what will happen (Acts 4:28). As Biblical prophecy demonstrates, God is guiding history along a foreordained path according to His own purposes and for His own glory. The Westminster Confession again is helpful, as it states with regard to God's Providence in Chapter 5, Section 1:
"God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, (Neh. 9:6; Heb. 1:3) direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, (Dan. 4:34-35; Psa. 135:6; Acts 17:25-28; Job 34:1-41:34) from the greatest even to the least, (Matt. 6:26-32; 10:29-31) by his most wise and holy providence, (Prov. 15:3; I Chr. 16:9; Psa. 104:24; 145;17) according to his infallible foreknowledge, (Acts 15:18; Isa. 42:9; Ezek. 11:5) and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, (Eph. 1:11; Psa. 33:10-11) to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. (Isa. 63:14; Eph. 3:10; Rom. 917; Gen. 45:7; Psa. 145:7).
This is what makes God, God.
Free Will Briefly Stated
Free will is a topic filled with
confusion. The Reformer John Calvin
noted:
“If you mean by a
free will a faculty of choosing by which you have the power within yourself to
choose what you desire, then we all have free will. If you mean by free will the
ability for fallen human beings to incline themselves and exercise that will to
choose the things of God without the prior monergistic work of regeneration
then…free will is far too grandiose a term to apply to a human
being.” (http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html)
Calvin again states:
“If any one, then,
chooses to make use of this term without attaching any bad meaning to it, he
shall not be troubled by me on that account; but as it cannot be retained
without very great danger, I think the abolition of it would be of great
advantage to the Church. I am unwilling to use it myself; and others if they
will take my advice, will do well to abstain from it.”2
I agree with Calvin. Normally, I would take his advice and not even use the term “free will” for the reasons he cited. However, for the purposes of this brief examination, I will make use of it only to call attention to the true meaning of “free will.” In essence, I believe that the will is that faculty in man that, under the direct and determining influence of the nature and motives of the heart, makes choices.3 In Matthew 15:18-19 Jesus says:
“…those things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart… for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”
Proverbs 4:23 tells us to:
“…keep [our] heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”
By “free” it is not meant that
the will is autonomous, i.e., that the will acts without anything influencing
it. If such were the case, the
ability to make a choice would be impossible.
Drs. John Gerstner and R.C. Sproul note, “If there is no inclination,
how can the choice be made.”4
The will is not an independent and
sovereign force that can, of its own, move in the direction of good or evil--it
is a subservient faculty (for lack of a better word), tied to and bound by the
nature of the individual. We choose precisely what we want to choose according
to our nature and desires. To quote
Calvin again,
“In this way,
then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good
and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. This is
perfectly true: but why should so small a matter have been dignified with so
proud a title? An admirable freedom! that man is not forced to be the servant of
sin, while he is, however, "ethelodoulos", (a voluntary slave;) his
will being bound by the fetters of sin. I abominate mere verbal disputes, by
which the Church is harassed to no purpose; but I think we ought religiously to
eschew terms which imply some absurdity, especially in subjects where error is
of pernicious consequence. How few are there who, when they hear free will
attributed to man, do not immediately imagine that he is the master of his mind
and will in such a sense, that he can of himself incline himself either to good
or evil? It may be said that such dangers are removed by carefully expounding
the meaning to the people. But such is the proneness of the human mind to go
astray, that it will more quickly draw error from one little word, than truth
from a lengthened discourse. Of this, the very term in question furnishes too
strong a proof. For the explanation given by ancient Christian writers having
been lost sight of, almost all who have come after them, by attending only to
the etymology of the term, have been led to indulge a fatal confidence.”5
The Reconciliation Between Sovereignty and Free Will
Briefly Stated
The fact that God is sovereign and knows the end from the beginning
because He has decreed all things does not contradict the notion of “free
will” that I believe the Bible teaches, but instead ensures both our ability
to make such choices, and the reality and certainty of our choices, as the
Scripture declares, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts
17:28)
God accomplishes His determined purposes through the free choices of humans (Acts 2:23), He exercises His sovereignty over and in those choices (Prov 19:21), and He directs men where He wills (Prov 16:9). Just because God is sovereign over and in the choices of men, and has even told us what will certainly occur in the future, doesn’t mean that those choices are not free, i.e., that the person himself did not make the choice according to his nature and desires.
For example, Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him three times.
Peter swore he would not. Was
Peter exercising his “free will” when he denied Christ, something that Jesus
said would surely come to pass? Yes,
because Peter did precisely what he wanted to do according to his
strongest desire at the moment.
I remember when my family and I
visited Venice, Italy. Walking in
Venice is like walking in a maze; it is difficult to get a sense of where you
are and where you are headed. When
my family and I had to walk back to the train station to catch our train, we
weren’t sure which direction to go. Our
strongest desire was to get back to the train station.
Every so often there would be a sign pointing us to where we desired to
go. We had a choice to make, and
our strongest desire at the time determined what we would choose to do; in this
case, it was to follow any sign that might get us to the train station.
My point is this:
God has designed the maze, and He has decreed and foreordained everything,
to include our choices, that will take place within the maze.
Not only does God know how to get us to unfailingly turn in whichever direction in
the maze that He wants us to turn in accordance with His foreordained plans and
purposes, He actually has determined what choices we will make.
Please note, however, that the choice we make is always in accordance with our
strongest desire at the moment. In other words, we always get precisely
what we want. To ensure we obey the command to come to Christ, God first gives us a new
heart and puts a new spirit within us to cause us to walk in His
statutes (Ezek 36:26-27). We are
willing in the day of His power (Psalm 110:3), and He works in us
both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). If it is a sinful choice
(such as denying Christ three times), He can use Satan to tempt that person
(i.e., make a direct appeal to the sinners desires).
The direct and immediate cause of my temptation is Satan, who appeals to
my sinful desires, and God has ordained all of that to take place to fulfill His
sovereign plan. God is not the
author of the temptation, Satan is. God is not the author of the sin, the
individual is.
The absolute sovereignty of God and human “free will,” understood Biblically then, are perfectly compatible.
End Notes
1. A.W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 10th Printing, 1993)., p. 19
2.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter 2,
Section 8 (drawn from this link http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/).
3. The definition I have presented is more or less the same as that found in the writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, and A.W. Pink. They all basically say the same thing. With that stated, it should be noted that this definition finds it support first and foremost from the Bible. I refer the reader to each of the following works in order of historical chronology:
a. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will. http://www.geocities.com/truelutheran/luther_bow.html
b. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. 2 vols. Ed by John T. McNeill. Trans. and indexed by Ford Lewis Battles. The Library of Christian Classics, Vols 20-21. (Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press 1960, Trans. from the 1559 text and collated with earlier versions)., pp. 255-340
Jonathan Edwards, On Freedom of the Will. http://www.mbrem.com/calvinism/on_freedom_of_the_will/will.htm
c. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (USA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2d Printing, 2001). Vol II, Chapter IX, pp. 278-309
d. A.W. Pink, The
Sovereignty of God (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Book House, 10th Printing,
1993)., pp. 127-142.
4. Drs. John
Gerstner and R.C. Sproul, Silencing the Devil Study Guide (Orlando FL:
Ligonier Ministries Curriculum Series, 1993)., pp. 42, 44.
In this study guide the statement is made,
“[Jonathan Edwards] reasoned that when humans makes choices, they evaluate their options and weigh them against their desires, and so make that choice they most desire…if we choose without any inclination, we choose for no reason. This makes our choices not free but random. All decisions must be made on some basis. If there s no inclination, how can the choice be made? The choice cannot be made…one option will always have more appeal than the other. Thus we can conclude that a rational donkey placed between two absolutely equally desirable bales of hay will die of starvation, unable to decide whether to turn to his left or his right.”
If I may add to what is stated
here, the question isn’t whether or not man is capable of making choices.
Everyone agrees that he is. The
question is why do we make the choices we make.
We do not make choices “ex nihilo” (out of nothing), for that would
be to posit an effect without a cause. Our
choice is the effect, and the cause of that effect is our nature. We could say that the human will is really at the very bottom
of the process of choosing. First,
there is our nature (which in unregenerate humanity is corrupted). Then, from
out of our nature flow our desires (the only kind of desires that can come forth
from a corrupted nature are corrupted desires).
Then, we make our choice according to what we most desire at the moment.
The only kind of choice that can come from corrupted desires is a
corrupted choice. Jesus put it this way,
“A good tree bears good fruit…nor
can a bad tree bear good fruit…either make the tree good and its fruit
good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its
fruit. Brood of vipers! How can
you, being evil, speak good things? For
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt 7:17-18;12:33-34).”
5.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter 3,
Section 7 (drawn from this link http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/).
One more key quote from John Calvin on free will:
“Let it stand, therefore, as an indubitable truth, which no engines can shake, that the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that he cannot conceive, desire, or design any thing but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure, and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter 5, Section 19 (drawn from this link http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/).
Quotes from others (these are all drawn from http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/freewill.html):
"If any man doth ascribe of salvation, even the very least, to
the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace, and he hath not learnt Jesus
Christ aright." - Martin
Luther
“I do not come into
this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to
Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of
some of them and say, "You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for
myself." My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the
freedom of the will.” - C.H Spurgeon
"To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have
power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none
effect." - John Owen
Other References for further study:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/sproul1.html
http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/freewill_chantry.html
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/freewill.html