Chris Reeves preaches for the Warfield Blvd. church of Christ in Clarksville, TN. The church website is http://www.wbcoc.org/. His Bible study website is http://thegoodteacher.com. He can be reached at chrisreevesmail@gmail.com.

DOCTRINE

God is sovereign and knows all things in the future including the free will choices of man, but God’s complete sovereignty and absolute foreknowledge do not determine or cause the choices of man.

God is sovereign and in control of all His creation. God can “know all” (Ps. 50:11; 1 John 3:20), “do all” (Job 42:2; Isa. 46:10), and be “over all” things in His creation (Ps. 47:2; Eph. 4:6). Man has a free will, and can freely “choose” life or death (Deut. 30:19), “choose” God or idols (Josh. 24:15), “choose” right or wrong (Job 34:4), and “choose” good or evil (Isa. 7:15). God’s sovereignty and man’s free will are two truths the Bible teaches and two truths that we believe.

These two Bible truths are not contradictory or in opposition to each other, but the question that has occupied man for centuries concerns the compatibility of God’s sovereignty with man’s free will. If God is sovereign and in control of all things, how can man have free will? Does God also control man’s free will actions? If God controls man’s free will, is our will truly “free,” or only apparently so? But, if we have a free will, is that will outside of God’s control? Is there at least one thing—man’s free will—that is beyond God’s sovereign control? If so, then how can God be truly sovereign? This article will briefly explore how brethren have dealt with these questions in the recent past and also how evangelicals have addressed these questions.

Sovereignty and Free Will Among Brethren

How God’s sovereignty and our free will work together has not been an issue typically debated among brethren. Brethren, for the most part, have approached this issue from a non-Calvinistic point of view. Brethren, as a whole, have not attributed to God’s sovereignty the determinism of Calvin’s predestination and foreknowledge. They do not believe that God’s sovereignty (His providence, predestination, and foreknowledge) overrules man’s free will and determines (causes) all of his actions. They reject the Reformed theology that teaches that God’s sovereignty predestines some individuals to be saved and predestines others to be lost.

The debate among brethren, on occasion, has come in the area of God’s foreknowledge. Some brethren have differed with each other concerning how much of the future God knows and how this foreknowledge relates to man’s free will. One such debate among brethren, of which I am aware, involving God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will was printed in the Gospel Anchor magazine in 1989.¹ Brothers Ken Green and Allan Turner met in written debate over this issue. Brother Green affirmed the following: “The omniscience of God, particularly His foreknowledge, does not include the contingent free will choices of human beings.” Brother Turner, writing in the negative, denied this proposition. Brother Green argued the following:

My contention is that, where there is absolute foreknowledge of future choices and actions, those who perform said choices and actions are not truly free. But the Scriptures teach that human beings are free agents, fully capable of making moral choices. Therefore, there can be no absolute foreknowledge of the contingent free will choices of human beings.²

Brother Green then set forth three cases of what he believed to be examples of God not foreknowing the free will choices of human beings: (1) Abraham’s choice to slay his son (Gen. 22:12); (2) Nineveh’s choice to repent (Jonah 3); and, (3) Hezekiah’s choice to pray (Isa. 38:1-5).³ Brother Turner followed in the negative, citing such passages as Acts 2:23 (the Jews crucifying Jesus) and John 6:70-71 (Judas betraying Jesus) to show that God indeed knows in advance the free will actions of individuals without causing those actions. Brother Turner wrote:

These passages teach what I have agreed to defend on the subject of God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will; namely, the contingent free will choices of men are known by God before they occur, and this in no way impinges on their true freedom.⁴

Brother Turner finished his first negative by addressing the three cases raised by brother Green. Brother Turner pointed out that sometimes our eternal God speaks accommodatively about knowing something in the present when speaking to finite man in the present time and place. In my judgment, the presentation of Bible truth was found to be with brother Turner’s position. His position attributed complete, absolute foreknowledge (omniscience) to God and true free will to man.⁵

Sovereignty and Free Will Among Evangelicals

Among evangelicals, the question of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will is more broad and diverse. Evangelicals, many of whom are Calvinists to some degree, wrestle with this question while also trying to defend the basic tenants of Calvinism. In 1986, Inter-Varsity Press published Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom.⁶ This publication featured four scholars with views representative of the evangelical community at the time. John Feinberg defended the view that “God ordains all things.” This is the classic Reformed view of Augustine-Calvin that says God’s sovereignty both controls and causes (predetermines, preordains) all things that come to pass, including the actions of man.⁷ Norman Geisler defended the view that “God knows all things.” This is the view, if I understand it correctly, that best represents biblical truth as a whole. This view says that God’s sovereignty is all-knowing and God also allows man to have his free will. God simply knows what man will do, but not because he predestines them to do it.⁸ Bruce Reichenback defended the view that “God limits His power.” This view says that God willingly limited His sovereignty to allow a part of His creation (man) to make free will choices that are not predetermined. Clark Pinnock defended the view that “God limits His knowledge.” This view says that God’s sovereignty is “open” and dynamic and His creation possesses relative autonomy over which God does not have complete control. God does not know the future free will choices of man; rather, He knows man’s future choices only as a “possibility” or a “maybe.”⁹

When the topic of sovereignty and free will was revisited by Inter-Varsity Press in 2001, the same basic views were presented and defended with one exception. The view defended earlier by Bruce Reichenback (see above) was replaced by that of William Lane Craig. Craig defended the “middle-knowledge view” (or Molinist view) which says that God’s sovereignty not only allows Him to know the future, but it also allows Him to know all other possible worlds that might have been. God knows what will come to pass and He also knows what could have come to pass if He had created other possible worlds. God chose to create the world that He did (with human free will) because of what He saw among all the possibilities.¹⁰

Conclusion, Choices, and Consequences

I close by reiterating two great Bible truths: God is sovereign, and man has free will. God has supreme power and control over all His creation, and He has supreme ability to accomplish what He wills to do. God’s sovereignty allows Him to know the future (Isa. 41:22-23; 46:9-10; 48:5), including the free will choices of man (Gen. 40:9-23; Matt. 26:2, 21, 23, 25, 31, 34). God is sovereign because He created all things (Ps. 24:1-2) and because He rules over all the kingdoms of men (Dan. 4:17). He has demonstrated His sovereignty in many ways, like selecting Israel, redeeming mankind through the cross, and planning a coming judgment day. Let us praise our sovereign God (Rev. 4:11)! It brings us comfort to know that God is sovereign in our chaotic world today.¹¹

Man has free will. (Parents, remember this when you are trying to raise your children the right way, and you find that one of them goes astray later in life.)¹² Mankind and also the angelic host (2 Pet. 2:4) were created with free will to freely glorify God (Isa. 43:7; Rev. 4:11; 5:13) and freely love God (Matt. 22:37).¹³

God makes the rules, sets the requirements (conditions), and determines the consequences of man’s life. When you make your choice, God is in control of what the choices are. He states in His word what constitutes right (good) and wrong (evil) even before you choose. When you make your choice of good or evil, God is in control of the consequences for each choice made. He states in His word what results from choosing good (righteousness) and from choosing evil (sin), even before you choose. When you make your choice of good or evil, God is in control of the outcome even before you choose. He will send all those who choose good to heaven and all those who choose evil to hell.

What choices will you make today? Be careful what you choose, because God is in control. He will not cause your choices, but he will hold you accountable for the choices you make.

Endnotes

¹ This written debate ran from November 1989 to February 1990. An online copy can be found at the following link: http://westsidechurchofchristphoenix.com/ForeknowledgeofGod. Similar discussions can be found among our institutional brethren. See Dub McClish’s lecture, “The Foreknowledge of God,” God the Father. Bobby Liddell, Editor. Pulaski, TN: Sain Publications, 2003.

² Gospel Anchor, November 1989, page 10.

³ T.W. Brents took the same position. He believed that God chose not to know the future free will choices of human beings. See T.W. Brents. The Gospel Plan of Salvation. Reprinted by Guardian of Truth Foundation, 1987, page 77.

⁴ Gospel Anchor, November 1989, page 11.

⁵ Brother Turner’s well-reasoned material on this subject can be found in his good books, The Christians & Idolatry (Allanita Press, 2006), The Christian & Calvinism (Allanita Press, 2007), and also on his website at www.allanturner.com/Special.html.

⁶ David Basinger and Randall Basinger, Editors. Predestination & Free Will. IVP Academic, 1986.

⁷ Some former Calvinists are now abandoning the determinist position. See Jeremy A. Evan’s chapter “Reflections on Determinism and Human Freedom,” in Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism. David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke, Editors. B&H Academic, 2010.

⁸ Dave Hunt writes about the compatibility of God’s complete sovereignty/foreknowledge and man’s free will. See the two chapters, “Sovereignty and Free Will” and “Foreknowledge and Free Will,” in What Love Is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God. The Berean Call, 2006.

⁹ This view, also called “Open Theism,” continues to be very popular today through the writings of Pinnock and other evangelical scholars. For a thorough critique of this viewpoint by several well-known evangelical scholars, see John Piper, Justin Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Helseth. Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity. Crossway Books, 2003. Scholars associated with the “Stone-Campbell Movement” are generally unsympathetic toward Open Theism. See Ronald Highfield, “Does the World Limit God? Assessing the Case for Open Theism,” Stone-Campbell Journal 5 (Spring 2002): 69-92; Robert C. Kurka, “God, Open Theism and the Stone-Campbell Movement,” Stone-Campbell Journal 6 (Spring 2003): 27-52; and Ross Moret, “Beyond Sola Scriptura: Placing Open Theism Within American Cultural Trends,” Stone-Campbell Journal 10 (Fall 2007): 213-229. In contrast to these men, Duane Warden of Harding University is sympathetic to Open Theism. See Duane Warden, “Openness of God,” Restoration Quarterly. 46.2 (2004): 65-78.

¹⁰ James K Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, Editors. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views. IVP Academic, 2001. Similar views can be found in Stanely N. Gundry and Dennis W. Jowers, Editors. Four Views on Divine Providence. Zondervan, 2011.

¹¹ See Mike Willis, “The Sovereignty of God,” Truth Magazine, 25:2 (Jan. 8, 1981), pages 19-21.

¹² See Frank Jamerson, “Children Have Free Will,” Truth Magazine, 33:12 (June 15, 1989), pages 388-389.

¹³ See Tom M. Roberts, “Free Will,” Truth Magazine, 31:17 (Sept. 3, 1987), pages 525-527.