Predestination and Free Will
Predestination and Free Will. It’s the biggest Christian debate out there, and it’s not even close. Believers have debated this issue for centuries, and yet the end of the debate appears nowhere in sight. Christians have been asking, “how can we reconcile predestination with human free will?” Well good news. I plan to end the debate with this post (cue the drum roll). While I am persuaded my view is the correct one, I’m not so naive as to think everyone will agree with me.
But before we can answer the question of whether these two concepts are reconcilable, we need to first define our terms.
DEFINITION OF PREDESTINATION
We can define predestination simply by breaking the word up into its prefix (pre-) and its root word (destination). We’ve all taken a trip with a destination in mind. Perhaps you recently booked a flight, and while booking that flight, you decided on a destination. The destination, of course, is where you will end up.
The prefix “pre” means prior to or beforehand. So 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
Historically, Christians have landed in one of two camps here. The first camp, Libertarian freedom, as it’s often called, 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, 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 one. My reasons are twofold. First, the Libertarian view seems to bifurcate character from conduct. That is, it focuses so much on the actual choice, that it ignores the underlying motivations for that choice. The Freedom of Inclination view rightly connects the two, and understands that character transformation is the key to behavior modification. This seems to be Jesus’ emphasis in the New Testament.
In fact, Jesus says 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.
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 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. 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 this text, 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% 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 EFFECTUAL CALL
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 one turn to Jesus? This turn is made possible by God’s effectual call. Listen carefully to 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.
This is a classic Libertarian text because it speaks of God’s foreknowledge. Yet I don’t believe it means what they think it means. The Libertarian argues 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.
I believe my interpretation makes the most logical sense. For how could God choose someone that he didn’t know? Isn’t knowledge of a person a basic prerequisite for choosing them? 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.
Therefore, this text simply argues that God not only knew individuals, but loved them before the foundation of the world, and therefore he predestined them for salvation.
But it’s the next word in the chain of the events that I want to draw our attention to. 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 this call necessarily results in that person’s justification. So what is this call?
It can only be one of two things. It’s either an external call, which is the preaching of the Gospel, but this call wouldn’t fit into the chain. Because we know that the Gospel falls on deaf ears sometimes. Yet, Paul says everyone who is called is justified (by faith).
Since it can’t be the external call, Paul must be referring to an inward call. This is what we mean when we say the effectual call. It’s when the Holy Spirit comes and takes root in someone’s heart. It’s when he comes into a dead person’s heart and makes him alive in Christ. This call is a spiritual resurrection. It’s what the Bible sometimes refers to as regeneration or the act of being born again. This work of the Spirit makes Jesus irresistible to that person.
This call makes much more sense in the chain. Therefore, we must say that every single person God predestined for salvation receives this effectual call from the Holy Spirit which prompts that person to put their faith in Jesus for their salvation.
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 that 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
Space permits me from looking at Romans 9:10-21 — perhaps the most discussed passage on this crucial issue. If you have never read that text, or it’s been a while since you have, I’d encourage you to go read it carefully.
As we think about predestination and free will, I believe we can reconcile the two if we hold to specific 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 all humanity choosing freely to reject God and doing what they most want to do in their sin. God, however, shows grace towards some by choosing them for salvation and sending 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 God.
While not removing mystery completely, I believe we can reconcile predestination and free will when we think about them this way.
