God's Will & Our Free Choices
- James Collazo
- Jul 2, 2022
- 12 min read
Updated: Sep 22
Introduction
The mystery of God's will and our free choices challenges every generation. Many believers identify as "Calvinists" or "Arminians," following the teaching of John Calvin (1509–1564) or Jacob Arminius (1560–1609), yet this struggle predates these men by centuries. Greek philosophers—Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC)—probed the nature of fate and moral responsibility, seeking answers that only God fully knows. Every religion and philosophy confronts the question of human freedom, and even secular thinkers like Sam Harris (b. 1967) wrestle with it in his book Free Will (Simon & Schuster, 2012), although he denies God's existence. The question remains: how can humans act freely while God reigns supremely? This tension burns at the heart of faith, calling disciples to marvel, obey, and trust the Lord who orders all things.
Before we wrestle with whether Scripture emphasizes God's freedom or human choice, we must first define key concepts. Divine foreknowledge refers to how God sees all things—past, present, and future—with perfect clarity. Predestination means that God, in the counsel of eternity, has chosen those he will save. The apostle Paul declares, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters" (Rom. 8:29). We must distinguish this from determinism, which denies human agency entirely. The doctrine of predestination does not nullify human choice; God calls and shapes his people while leaving them free to act. Human choices matter, yet they unfold within the unstoppable sweep of God's sovereign, redemptive will.
Christian thought recognizes three main perspectives on free will: compatibilism, determinism, and libertarianism. Compatibilism teaches that human choices are genuinely free while remaining fully "compatible" with God's sovereign will. This view represents the genuinely scriptural understanding of free will, the position Arminius defended when he wrote:
Predestination, therefore, as it regards the thing itself, is the decree of the good pleasure of God in Christ, by which he resolved within himself from all eternity, to justify, adopt, and endow with everlasting life, to the praise of his own glorious grace, believers on whom he had decreed to bestow faith (Arminius, p. 8).
Later Arminian theologians adopted a libertarian view of free will, teaching that humans can choose freely between at least two options while bearing full moral responsibility, without God being the cause of their decisions. Contemporary Arminians assert that God extends prevenient grace to initiate a relationship, enabling people to respond freely. This grace does not coerce or determine; it invites, and a person may accept or reject it. By contrast, Calvinists claim that God determines exactly whom he saves and directs the course of history, leaving humans little real choice. Calvinists hold that God causes both salvation and condemnation, a position known as double predestination. Calvin himself wrote:
We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel once and for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment (Calvin, p. 613).
This article examines both Arminian and Calvinist views and presents a middle ground through Molinism, which proclaims that God calls free individuals with prevenient grace and orchestrates circumstances so they may choose salvation with full responsibility. It upholds libertarian free will while asserting God's absolute sovereignty, demonstrating that human freedom and divine power coexist in God's unstoppable plan of redemption.
Omniscience vs. Free Will
The word "omniscience" describes God's perfect knowledge of all things, encompassing the past, present, and future, and aligns with the concept of foreknowledge. Determinists claim that God acts proactively to save people from sin and its consequences, while libertarians (not the political philosophy) portray God as reactive to human choices. Beyond Calvin and Arminius, theologians employ the terms "monergism" and "synergism," derived from the Greek words monos (G3441, "one"), sun (G4862, "with"), and ergon (G2041, "work"). Monergists teach that God alone accomplishes salvation, while synergists assert that humans cooperate with God in the work of salvation. Scripture never uses monergeō, and there is no evidence to suggest that it existed in ancient Greek—Strong's Concordance lists no entry for it. By contrast, Scripture does use sunergeō (G4903), most clearly in Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good—with those who have been called according to his purpose." Although theological terms need not derive directly from biblical Greek to be valid (e.g., "Trinity"), Paul's words remind us to consider carefully how God works with humans in the context of salvation.
Not so fast! This debate goes far beyond vocabulary. Synergists often emphasize human free response but downplay Scriptures that showcase God's sovereignty and his control over the course of human history. They rightly highlight verses such as Romans 10:9: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved," which call for a free-will response. Monergists, on the other hand, point to passages like Romans 9:20: "But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" This verse undergirds the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace. God's message to Ananias after Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus also illustrates monergism: "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel" (Acts 9:15). For Calvinists in the English-speaking world, the mnemonic TULIP captures the five essential points of monergism:
Total depravity
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints
Yet this interpretation remains relatively modern and debatable, even when applied to the Canons of Dort (1618–1619), and it departs further from the nuance of the New Testament letters. To summarize the Calvinist points: 1) Humans cannot seek God on their own because their nature is thoroughly depraved, 2) God elects specific individuals to save, limiting Jesus' atonement to them rather than the entire world, 3) the chosen sinner cannot resist God's grace, compelled by love and a desperate need to repent, and 4) the Holy Spirit regenerates the elect to preserve their faith until death.
In contrast, Arminians remember their core beliefs with the mnemonic FACTS:
Freed by grace to believe
Atonement for all
Conditional election
Total depravity
Security in Christ
To summarize the Arminian points: 1) God calls everyone to repentance and offers prevenient grace to steer people away from sin; 2) Jesus atoned for the sins of all humanity, not only a select few; 3) election depends on whether an individual perseveres in faith in Christ; 4) human depravity remains total—people remain lost and enslaved to sin until God calls them to salvation; and 5) all believers remain secure in Christ as long as they continue in faith. People can turn away from Jesus, but no outside force can snatch a faithful disciple from his hand (Heb 10:26–27; cf. John 10:28–30).
Omniscience & Free Will
Late in the sixteenth century, Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina (1535–1600) crafted a brilliant solution to the tension between God's omniscience and human free will. In the often-overlooked theology of Molinism, God possesses both foreknowledge and middle knowledge. Modern defenders include the American philosophers William Lane Craig (b. 1949) and Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932). Scripture does not employ the phrase "middle knowledge," so the concept relies more on philosophical concepts than explicit biblical terminology. Yet reason and Scripture defend it, as in John 18:36 ("Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place'"), where God's sovereign plan works through human choices. Middle knowledge encompasses God's will and every possible outcome, even scenarios in which creation or the fall never occurred. Molinism resembles the "best of all possible worlds" view advanced by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), illustrating how God's foreknowledge works in conjunction with human freedom without compromising it.
Simply put, the world we now inhabit reflects the "best possible" design, because humans can freely choose to worship God or rebel against him. A world governed by determinism, where people obeyed God like unthinking machines, would fall short of the best, for authentic relationships necessitate freedom. God could have restricted human freedom to eliminate evil, but then choice—and the capacity for genuine love, faith, and obedience—would vanish. The question remains: what value does choice hold if it does not exist?
So, what does the Molinist teach about salvation? Like monergists, Molinists affirm that God reigns fully sovereign and directs the flow of history. Yet Molinism modifies synergism: humans freely work together with God. How does this work? God exercises his middle knowledge to coordinate events in our lives, knowing exactly how we would respond to each circumstance. He allows us to repent and serve him because he already knows our choices. In our minds, we act freely, weighing the options God lays before us. He sets the parameters for each possibility, guiding without coercion. From a scientific standpoint, this mirrors how humans make decisions: we predict the future based on past experiences, adjusting as new information becomes available. God, through his infinite wisdom and middle knowledge, perceives all past, present, and future realities, and he uses this understanding to foreknow, elect, and guide us toward salvation.
American theologian and journalist Timothy George (b. 1950) formulated the mnemonic ROSES to summarize the Molinist view of salvation. This framework highlights how God's sovereignty and human freedom operate together in the drama of redemption:
Radical depravity
Overcoming grace
Sovereign election
Eternal life
Singular redemption
Humans are not totally depraved; even after the fall, we retain something of God's image (1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9; cf. Gen. 1:26–28). We are not as evil as we could be. Instead, we confuse good with evil and vice versa, making our depravity radical rather than total (Isa. 5:20; 2 Tim. 3:5). Jewish tradition likewise distinguishes between our inclination toward good (Hebrew: yetzer ha-tov; H2895, H3336) and our inclination toward evil (Hebrew: yetzer ha-ra; H7451). Were our depravity truly total, society itself would collapse into anarchy.
God overcomes our rebellion with persistent, overwhelming grace. He elects according to his sovereign will, yet in keeping with the synergist perspective, he desires the salvation of all. Humans may exhaust every opportunity and still freely reject him (Heb. 9:27–28; Rev. 6:14–16). In his sovereignty, God chooses us—not the other way around—and preserves our new life in Jesus through steadfast faith, grounded in what he already foreknows. Molinists affirm that Jesus redeemed all humanity sufficiently, yet redemption operates efficiently only for those who freely follow God's plan. God presents two ultimate options—heaven or hell—so human choice never operates in isolation. Grace or judgment frames every decision, guiding our freedom without overriding it.
Messianic Jewish View of God's Will
One of the primary goals of First Century Christian Faith is to explore New Testament biblical theology rather than rehash the categories of systematic theology. In other words, we seek answers rooted in Scripture itself, not culture or speculation. To grasp first-century faith, we must also understand the Didachē and Messianic Judaism. Because God chose the Jews as his inheritance, they emphasized doctrines like election and sovereignty. Paul reminds Gentile believers that they are "branches" grafted into Israel's tree, a living symbol of election (Rom. 11). Likewise, Jesus declares, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you" (John 15:16).
The Didachē, a first-century liturgical document for Jewish Christians lving in Syria, outlines the "two ways, one of life and one of death" (ch. 1, Richardson, p. 171), echoing God's command to the Israelites to "choose life" before entering the Promised Land (Deut. 28). Yet even this divine counsel allows for human choice: the Israelites could freely follow God's path or abandon it to their detriment. God ordains his plan and sets the path, but we retain the freedom to reject it. American theologian Asher Intrater (b. 1952), a Messianic Jew living in Israel, articulates this truth through his mnemonic TF3:
Total sovereignty
Faithfulness to the forefathers
Firstborn nation of Israel
First-century apostolic church
The difference between the Gentile mnemonics TULIP, FACTS, and ROSES and the Messianic TF3 lies in emphasis: TF3 prioritizes relationship over abstract concept. Simply put, Jews describe God's will through lived experience, whereas Gentiles often speculate. God reigns sovereign because only he possesses unlimited freedom to choose. He may limit this freedom through covenants and the incarnation of Jesus, but even these acts flow from his perfect liberty. God is the potter, and we are clay in his strong hands (Isa. 29:16, 45:9, 64:8; Jer. 18:6, 11; Lam 4:2; Sir. 33:13 CEB; Rom. 9:21).
He elected the Jewish people as his chosen nation, through whom he would draw all others into worship of the one true God (Rom. 9:14–23). We share in this inheritance through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the forefathers of Israel (e.g., Luke 20:37). Those who acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah become citizens of commonwealth Israel—the firstborn nation of the world, because God first made a covenant with them (Exod. 4:22). Any government or authority seeking to do God's will must consult with the Jewish people (cf. Zech. 8:23). The first-century church emerged from this Jewish movement, carrying Israel's national election to the ends of the earth.
Conclusion
The debate between monergism and synergism reveals just how deeply Christians have wrestled with the complex interplay between God's sovereignty and human freedom. Scripture, however, keeps both truths in dynamic tension. God reigns as the sovereign author of salvation, yet he calls us to respond in absolute faith and obedience. The early church, Messianic Judaism, and later theologians all sought to capture this tension, whether through TULIP, FACTS, ROSES, or TF3. But in the end, the gospel is not about clever mnemonics—it is about Christ, who chose us before we chose him, and who invites us into a covenant relationship with the living God. His will is absolute, his wisdom beyond ours, and our calling is clear: trust, obey, and bear fruit that will last.
Prayer
Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of heaven and earth! Your Son, Jesus, defeats darkness and lifts the fallen. You know every path we could take and rule with perfect wisdom, yet you let us choose. Free those trapped in sin, guide our hearts to follow you, and bring us together as one under his eternal reign. We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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