How Do We Reconcile Predestination with Free Will?

Are we predestined for eternal life or death before we are born, or are we free to make the choice ourselves? Believers have debated this issue for a long time. And truth be told, faithful Christians disagree! That said, I’d like to offer my two cents on the matter. But before I do, allow me to define a couple key terms.

DEFINITION OF PREDESTINATION

We can define predestination simply by breaking the word up into its prefix (pre-) and its root word (destination). The word “destination” simply refers to where one will end up, while the prefix “pre-” means prior to or beforehand. Therefore, when you combine the prefix with the root word, you get a word meaning “where one will end up decided ahead of time.” That’s essentially what predestination means.

And predestination language is all over the Bible. So much so, that all Christians have to grapple with it. Here’s one specific text:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace. — Ephesians 1:3-6

No one disputes that the Bible teaches predestination. The dispute is over the nature of predestination which we’ll get to in a minute.

DEFINITIONS OF FREE WILL

How, then, should we define free will? Historically, Christians have landed in one of two camps here. The first camp, known as Libertarian freedom, proposes that we are free in making a choice, if and only if in making that choice, we could have chosen otherwise. That is to say, we are free in choosing A, if in the moment of choice, we were free to choose not A.

According to Libertarian freedom, in the very moment of choice, we can choose to obey God or disobey God. If we don’t have this power of contrary choice, we cannot be rightly held accountable for our actions.

The second camp, known as Freedom of Inclination, proposes that people are free if and only if, in the moment of choice, we choose what we most want to choose. That is to say, we are free in choosing A, if in the moment of choice, we most wanted to choose A.

The Freedom of Inclination — sometimes referred to as Freedom of Desire — emphasizes the root cause behind every choice and states that humans perform choices out of the desires of their hearts.

WHICH IS IT?

While arguments can be made for either view, I’m persuaded that the Freedom of Inclination is the correct view. My reasons are twofold. First, the Libertarian view seems to bifurcate one’s inward desires from their actual choices. The Freedom of Inclination view, however, rightly connects the two. That is, one makes a choice based on their heart’s desires.

Consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:17-18: “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” Based on Jesus’ words, peoples’ choices (their fruit) are predicated by the type of tree they are (their heart). In other words, peoples’ fruit depends on their inner desires.

Not only does Jesus seem to make a positive case for Freedom of Inclination, he also contradicts the Libertarian view that states we are only free if we have the ability to do otherwise. When Jesus says that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, it doesn’t sound like that tree can do otherwise. Rather, it sounds like that person can only produce bad fruit. And it’s my contention that he only produces bad fruit because that’s what he most wants to do.

Or consider Romans 8:7-8: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” You see, free will isn’t about the ability to do otherwise. For according to Romans 8:7-8, fallen humans don’t possess that ability.

The second reason I hold to Freedom of Inclination is that the Bible indicates that we are morally bankrupt and incapable of inclining ourselves toward God. While the Libertarian affirms the total depravity of humans, they also propose that God gives enough grace (called prevenient grace) to all people to overcome their falleness to make it possible for them to make a free will choice to turn to him. In other words, even if God does most of the work, the human still has to make the final decision to turn to Christ.

I’d argue that humans are unable to make this turn apart from supernatural intervention. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-4:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient… But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved.

The Libertarian gives the image of someone drowning out at sea. They’re bobbing up and down, trying to grasp for air, and they’re about to go under before someone tosses them a life raft. All they need to do is grab on to it to be saved. In other words, they need to make the free will choice if they want it or not.

Yet, when you look at Ephesians 2:1-4, the image one gets is of someone who has already sunk to the bottom of the ocean and has died. Someone went down to the ocean floor, brought them out of the water, and breathed life into them.

Paul says that prior to conversion, we’re all DEAD spiritually. And what can dead people do? Nothing. A spiritually dead person cannot resurrect himself, or even aid in the process a little bit. He must depend 100 percent on an outside party to give him life. And this is precisely what Paul says happened to Christians. Those who were dead, God made them alive.

THE GOLDEN CHAIN

So if people are as bad off as I say they are, and they are unable in their fallen condition to incline themselves toward God, how does anyone turn to Jesus? It’s through the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. Consider the “Golden Chain” in Romans 8:29-30:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son… And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Now the Libertarian argues from the word “foreknew” that God predestines people based on the free will choices he sees people making in the future. But that’s more than what the text says here. It simply says, those God foreknew. Not, those God foreknew “would respond positively to the Gospel.”

Foreknowledge in this case simply means that God “knew” his chosen people ahead of time. And that knowledge comes logically prior to God’s choice to predestine them for salvation. More than that, when the Bible speaks of “knowing,” it often refers to an intimate knowledge. For example, when the Bible says that Adam “knew” Eve, it’s speaking about more than Adam knowing a few facts about Eve. It means they had intimate relations.

This text, then, argues that God not only knew individuals, he loved them in an intimate way before the foundation of the world. And after setting his affections on them, he predestined them for salvation.

EFFECTUAL CALLING

The key word in the chain for this debate, however, is the word call. Paul says those God predestined, he also called. And those he called, he also justified. That is to say, everyone who was predestined receives this call, and everyone who is called is also justified. You see, the links in the chain are all connected. What, then, is this call?

It can only mean one of two things. It’s either an external call or an inward call. The external call refers to the preaching of the gospel. But remember, every person who is called is also justified according to the chain. But since we know that many people have rejected this outward call and are not justified by faith, the calling must be referring to something different.

Paul, then, must be referring to an inward call. This is what Reformed folks mean when they refer to the effectual call. It’s when the Holy Spirit comes into a dead person’s heart and makes him alive in Christ (Eph. 2:5). This call is a spiritual resurrection. It’s what the Bible sometimes refers to as regeneration or the act of being born again (John 3:3; Titus 3:5). This work of the Spirit makes Jesus irresistible to that person. That is to say, the Spirit makes the person want to follow Jesus for the first time.

This is similar to what Jesus says in John 6:37. He states, “all those the Father gives to me will come to me. And whoever come to me I will never drive away.” In other words, all whom God has predestined will irresistibly come to Jesus in faith. In their sins, they never wanted Jesus. But now that the Spirit has come to dwell in them, they suddenly want Jesus and freely choose him.

RECONCILING THE PREDESTINATION AND FREE WILL

As we’ve gone through Romans 9 in church the last few weeks and wrestled over predestination and free will, I believe we can reconcile the two if we hold to the right definitions. If we define predestination as God’s sovereign choice — not based on anything he sees in humans (Rom. 9:11-12), and free will as people choosing what they most want to choose, then no contradictions exist.

You see, all human beings in their fallen state freely do what they want to do. But those in the flesh don’t want to choose God. They only want to live for their own kingdoms and desires.

God, however, chooses some for salvation, in accordance with his pleasure and will (Eph. 1:5). And for those whom God chooses, he sends his Spirit to regenerate them and transform their hearts so that they truly want to turn to him.

So the picture we have is of the entire fallen race choosing freely to reject God and doing what they most want to do in their sin. God, however, shows grace towards some and sends his Spirit into their hearts to make them want to turn to him. In the end, all people freely choose what they want to choose. They either choose to keep sinning in the flesh, or because of the Spirit’s effectual call, they choose Christ.

While not removing mystery completely, I believe we can reconcile predestination and free will when we define the terms properly.