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So you think free will isn’t in the Bible?
Then think again! If God has given man no free will, yet tells man to choose between Him and other gods, or between good and evil blessing and cursing, then God, being righteous, will not break even one of His own divine laws. That is, He will not offer man a choice when there is no choice there in the first place. If He did, then He would be telling less than the whole truth, and that would be tantamount to declaring God to be a liar. So even just one single clear example of God giving man a choice between Him and other gods, or between doing good (obeying God) or doing evil (disobeying God) is sufficient to demonstrate that man has a free will to choose such. Even to acknowledge that a verse can suggest free will means that free will cannot be denied. In order to demonstrate that free will does not exist requires that there be not even a suggestion that free will exists.
Joshua told the people of Israel to choose between God or the gods they previously served in Egypt. Joshua 24:14-16 – 14 Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. 15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. 16 And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods;
Some might say that just because Joshua was offering them a choice does not mean that God was also offering the same choice. However, to deny this as an example of God giving man free will to choose, one would have to deny that Joshua was speaking on behalf of God, and that Joshua was either lying or was incompetent to advise such. Both of these suggestions are seen to be ridiculous when we read God’s charge to Joshua when he took up leadership of Israel.
Joshua 1:5-6 – 5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, [so] I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.
This one example alone proves that man has free will to choose between God and false gods. But there’s another clear example, where Moses tells Israel to choose to obey God; if they do good and obey God, then He will bless them; if they do evil and disobey God, then He will curse them. They are told to choose life! Such a choice can only mean that they could also choose death, for choice always means at least two options! (The dictionary defines “choice” as an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.)
Deuteronomy 30:19 – I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, [that] I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
In order for calvinists to “prove” that God has not given man free will to choose between Him and other gods, or to choose between obeying or disobeying Him, they must prove beyond all doubt that the two examples given above cannot in any way support the free will of man to choose to serve God. Of course, God must intervene in a man’s life before he may see the choices available. This intervention is through the gospel which, when preached faithfully, gives light to a man so that he can see the choices open to him: choose salvation and life, or reject salvation and life. The free will of man never negates the necessity for God to intervene with the gospel before man is able to choose. But God’s intervention through the gospel also never negates man’s responsibility to respond to that gospel.
There are occasions when God limits man’s free will; this cannot be used to “prove” that free will doesn’t exist. For example, when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, He was merely putting limits on Pharaoh’s free will. Until God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, Pharaoh had used his free will to consistently oppose Moses (and therefore to oppose God). Then came the point in time when God decided that if Pharaoh was so set upon opposing Him, then Pharaoh’s free will to change his mind about letting God’s people go would be removed. Pharaoh had wanted to keep the Hebrews so much that he was continually overriding God’s desire that the Hebrews should be set free.
Note how Paul described it in Romans 9:18 when talking about Pharaoh – Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will [have mercy], and whom he will he hardeneth. That word “hardeneth” is translated from the Greek word skleruno which means to make hard; harden; metaphorically: to render obstinate, stubborn; to be hardened; to become obstinate or stubborn. Today we use the word “sclerosis” (derived from skleruno) as a medical term to describe the hardening of a part of the body that had up until then been flexible; for example, arterial sclerosis = the hardening of the arteries, making them more rigid, set in place, effectively their options to move have been reduced or removed.
What this means is that up until that point of being hardened, Pharaoh had free will to either obey God or to oppose God. After that point, Pharaoh no longer had free will to choose on this matter of letting the Hebrews go. Note carefully that there is also no indication at all that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart applied to anything else other than the matter of letting God’s people go. Pharaoh’s free will was limited by God such that Pharaoh had set his course, and God simply forced Pharaoh to continue on his chosen course toward destruction.
A verse or passage doesn’t have to actually say that God gives man a choice, yet still teach clearly the free will of man. For example, note the two verses John 6:44 and John 12:32. Note the use of the same word “draw” in each verse.
John 6:44 – No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 12:32 – And I (Jesus), if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all [men] unto me.
Calvinists love John 6:44 for, they say, it proves that only those who are drawn by God may come to Jesus. They claim that this is true because there is no free will to choose, so all who are drawn by the Father must come. This, they say, therefore “proves” that those who didn’t come were not drawn by the Father. However, John 6:44 can only be used to demonstrate this if you firstly assume that free will to choose doesn’t exist. However, if free will to choose does exist, then their arguments are false, because they are based on the false premise that free will does not exist.
The meaning of this verse is dependent upon whether or not free will to choose exists! If free-will cannot be proven nonsense, then John 6:44 can simply mean that many are called but few are chosen according to Matthew 22:14!
And further to this, in John 12:32 Jesus says that He will draw all to Himself on the cross. Note that “draw” in this verse is the same as “draw” in John 6:44. Now, unless you can prove that “all” only means those who believe, then Jesus must be drawing all mankind, and thus the Father in John 6:44 also draws all mankind. So, if not all come, then some of mankind must be resisting due to their free-will to choose. If “all” means “all” mankind, then the combination of John 12:32 and John 6:44 can only mean that some are resisting the drawing of the Father through their own free-will.
The calvinists are in a bind here, for according to their teaching, man has no free will to choose. And, if all are drawn, then all must come! They have become universalists; that is, all mankind will be saved! But, they think, “all” cannot be permitted to mean “all”. If “all” can be reinterpreted as “all those who believe”, then the day is saved, or so they think. But, John 12:32 does not allow such an interpretation. Nevertheless, the only way out of their dilemma is to teach that “all” cannot mean “all” under any circumstance, so every time the Bible teaches “all”, it must be changed to “only those who believe”. Therefore, “the whole world” in 1 John 2:2 becomes “the whole world of those who believe” and “the world” in John 3:16 becomes “the world of those who believe”.
But, “all” in 1 Timothy 2:4 is a hard one to get around.
1 Timothy 2:4 – Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
But, not really a problem at all, says calvinist Matt Slick on 26/03/1992.
The question, then, is if God predestines only some to salvation, why are there verses that say God wants all to be saved?
The answer is simple: The “all” are the Christians.
(https://www.calvinistcorner.com/all-men-saved.htm)
Great thinking? Logical reasoning? No, more like a slick effort to “sell” us a bad product by trying to make it seem like the best option on the market! Slick, yes! Sola Scriptura? No!
MacArthur also has a problem with Hebrews 2:9, where it says clearly that Jesus tasted death for everyone. Because MacArthur cannot bear the truth to be known, he has to write in his study Bible words such as the following: “to all who believe, that is.” For the calvinist, not one passage in the Bible teaches that “all” means “all the world” when it comes to salvation.
It is interesting that Calvin did teach (surprisingly) that Jesus gave His life a ransom for the whole human race.
Matthew 20:28 – Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Calvin’s Commentary on Matthew 20:28 – The word many (pollon) is not put definitely for a fixed number, but for a large number; for he contrasts himself with all others. And in this sense it is used in Romans 5:15, where Paul does not speak of any part of men, but embraces the whole human race.
Calvin taught that Jesus shed His blood for the whole human race.
Matthew 26:28 – For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Calvin’s Commentary on Matthew 26:28 – Which is shed for many. By the word many he means not a part of the world only, but the whole human race [“Non partem mundi tantum designat, sed totum humanum genus.” (“not a part of the world only, but the whole human race”)]
Yet the calvinists still obstinately try to say that because God limits free will in some passages, then there can be no such thing as free will at all. However, the only way a calvinist may prove that man does not have free will to determine his obedience to God is to demonstrate that no example of such may be found in the Bible. Even then, it may not be sufficient, for what they really need is a statement that God will under no circumstances at all give man free will to decide to serve Him or not. No calvinist anywhere has even tried to demonstrate such; they know that it is a pointless exercise for them! The Bible does demonstrate the free will of man to choose to serve or reject God, and this effectively reduces all calvinist heresies to a useless expenditure of hot air as they try to prove the unproveable. Hot air alone will never prove anything other than who can shout the loudest perhaps. Sola Scriptura – the Bible alone – is what demonstrates the truth!
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This post is written in response to a recently-received email from a calvinist who will remain nameless other than he is a calvinist.
Calvinists do tend to come up with some ridiculous statements when trying to defend the indefensible. I so often wonder just why they are prepared to demonstrate themselves to be fools when trying to defend their non-Biblical doctrines from the Bible. But, they are determined to be seen as Christians, and, not only mere Christians, but the better, more on-the-ball Christians who serve a more sovereign God who shows more grace to fewer people. (Were you expecting another “more” there? Sorry, that’s one thing the calvinist God will not ever do: his grace will only be shown to a very small minority of people. The calvinist God just doesn’t care enough about most of the people he allegedly created; as far as he is concerned, they can all go to hell! Literally!)
God having the final say proves man has no free will?
But, don’t just take my word for it. Observe what the calvinists demonstrate themselves to be! Here’s a comment recently received in an email from this calvinist: I can see that we also agree that even though a man calls out to God for salvation it is God who has the final say, which tells me that mans free will is non existent. Now, what sort of logic is that? How does having the final say (or the last word on a matter) prove that it is the only say? If I have the final say on a matter of disagreement between myself and another person, it is foolishness to suppose that the other person therefore had no free will to oppose me!
In fact, God desires that all should be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4) and that if anyone calls upon the name of the Lord, he will be saved (Romans 10:13). God offers the gift of salvation to all mankind and sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). God asks man to respond to this offer of salvation, promising to save to the uttermost all who come to Him (Hebrews 7:25). When man responds, he is trusting in God’s promise to save him to the uttermost, and then God, being faithful to His promises, has the final say by accepting that person into His family as a child of God.
God’s final response is the culmination of a series of actions, but calvinism would have me believe that because His response is the final one, therefore it is the only one? Even the word “final” is defined as “coming at the end of a series”, so the final say would have to be that which comes at the end of a series of “sayings”. But, this is the logic of calvinism: that defines its logic as that which agrees with its doctrines; anything that doesn’t agree with its doctrines is therefore illogical.
Using logic to read the Bible leads to error?
But, says the calvinist, for me to use logic to determine truth is unacceptable. Clearly I am not to be permitted to use logic unless it is calvinist logic.
Let’s take another example from this calvinist email to further demonstrate this calvinist avoidance of logic: Now you refer to Rom 3:10-18 as man simply being unwilling to seek after God and this is a great example of you adding your logic to the express teaching of this verse. It matters not; even if man was willing (which he is not) he does not seek for God, can Paul be more specific about this verse, no he cannot. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS; NO ONE SEEKS FOR GOD, irregardless of mans ability to seek or not. If we were to add implications to scripture as you just did and not read it as literally as possible then its open slather for all to put their own two bobs worth in and how are we to ever come to the truth of God’s word. There are rules to follow and we must follow them. (sic)
So what is it that I said that was so logical yet so wrong? I had written: You quote Romans 3:10-18, yet not one bit of it can deny that it is merely the total unwillingness of man to seek after God; it can never be read as man not being able to seek after God. It says there is none that seeketh after God and yet where does it say that none are able to seek? Otherwise you cannot use this to prove man’s total inability to seek after God, just his total unwillingness to seek (which remains a matter of free-will!).
I simply pointed out that “not seeking after God” could not be re-written as “cannot find God”. “seeketh” or its negative “seeketh not” are acts of the will. When you look for (seek) something, you also have the option of deciding to not look for something. Unless qualified otherwise, “seeketh not” can never be re-defined as “can not”! Now that would indeed be illogical!
In similar fashion, I have been told by the same person: John 3: 3. (man must be born again first before he can repent and believe.) In this super clear verse our Lord and saviour himself tells Nicodemus that he cannot even see the kingdom of God unless he is born again first, surely that puts to rest that regeneration must take place first and foremost.
What the verse does say that Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. But calvinists then redefine “see” to mean “believe in” or “have faith in”, and suddenly the verse says what they want it to say. And this person has then stated that a man must be born again before he can repent and believe, based on this bit of verbal gymnastics.
Note the following from another calvinist teaching on John 3:3:
Further, Christ places regeneration by the Spirit as a requirement before one can “see,” i.e., believe or have faith in the Kingdom of God. He states quite emphatically that a sinner who is born of the flesh cannot believe the good news of the Kingdom until he is born by the Spirit. Thus according to the teaching of Christ, we believe because we are “born again.” We are not “born again” because we believe!
(P 8, Studies in the Atonement, Robert A. Morey)
However, proper Bible study must rely upon careful analysis of the context of the information, the meanings of the words in the Greek or Hebrew, the consistency of the derived meaning across the whole of the Bible, and particularly not reading into any verse information that is just not there in the first place. This may be termed a method of logical analysis. I highly recommend such a method to calvinists in order that they might seek the truth and see the error of their ways (or doctrines!).
When God uses foreknowledge, it isn’t really foreknowledge?
So, let’s look further at this email. It says: You have misinterpreted 1 Pet 1:2a the word foreknowledge (foreknown) does not refer to awareness of what is going to happen (for God never learned anything, he already knows all things) but it clearly means a predetermined relationship in the knowledge of the Lord.
Did he actually say that foreknowledge does not refer to awareness of what is going to happen? Does he realise that Luke, as a doctor, used a lot of medical terminology in his 2 books (Luke and Acts)? Foreknowledge is just one of those many medical terms. Foreknowledge is the Greek word prognosis which was first used as a medical term by Hippocrates as early as 400 BC.
“Prognosis (Greek πρόγνωσις “fore-knowing, foreseeing”) is a medical term for predicting the likely outcome of one’s current standing. (Wikipedia)
One of the earliest written works of medicine is the Book of Prognostics of Hippocrates, written around 400 BC. This work opens with the following statement: “It appears to me a most excellent thing for the physician to cultivate Prognosis; for by foreseeing and foretelling, in the presence of the sick, the present, the past, and the future, and explaining the omissions which patients have been guilty of, he will be the more readily believed to be acquainted with the circumstances of the sick; so that men will have confidence to intrust themselves to such a physician.”
For 19th century physicians, particularly those following the French school of medicine, the main aim of medicine was not to cure disease, but rather to give a medical diagnosis and achieve a satisfying prognosis of the patient’s chances. Only several decades later did the focus of efforts in Western medicine shift to curing disease. (Wikipedia)
Also note To trace the course of a disease through its various stages, and to be able to see what is portended by symptoms in different diseases and at different stages of those diseases, was an art upon which Hippocrates laid great stress. He called it πρόγνωσις (that is, “prognosis”), and it included at least half of the physician’s work.
(Hippocrates Collected Works I By Hippocrates Edited by: W. H. S. Jones (trans.) Cambridge Harvard University Press 1868)
And the calvinist thinks that foreknowledge does not refer to awareness of what is going to happen? If a doctor gives you a prognosis of what your future might be like if you should continue as you are, then is that not based upon an awareness of what is going to happen according to his expert understanding? And if Luke were a doctor, then he, too, would have been very much aware of the full meaning of such a word when he penned Acts 2:23 – Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
And it would be difficult to understand why Paul, who travelled so much with Luke, would not also have known the proper meaning of the noun form of prognosis (proginosko) when he penned For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29).
And Peter, who had more contact with Paul and Luke than any other of the 12 disciples, wrote Elect according to the foreknowledge (prognosis) of God the Father (1 Peter 1:2).
So you will find it difficult indeed to prove that foreknowledge does not refer to awareness of what is going to happen, when the most logical and accurate translation of this medical term is, in actual fact, an awareness of what is going to happen. Of course, calvinists are forced to prove foreknowledge to be something else, because if foreknowledge is simply God’s perfect knowledge of the future, then all the other calvinist beliefs are shot down in flames!
And the calvinist writer of this email says: Now if you can find me one verse where it can be emphatically proven that God predestined his chosen elect because He first saw that we will choose him first, I will surrender in defeat. Sir, you are a liar, for I have given you 1 Peter 1:2a and you have refused to see the proper understanding of the verse. You are so obsessed with your belief that God unconditionally chose an elect group from the beginning of the world, that they (and only they) would go to heaven, and that no man may have the free will to decide one way or the other for himself. You say that such foreknowledge cannot explain the predestination of God. You said: If you study the true meaning of predestination you will realize that by looking into the future first before predestinating anyone does not give true meaning to the word predestined so your understanding of 1 Pet 1:2a is flawed.
But how can that be so? If God should use His foreknowledge (His perfect knowledge of the future) to determine who to write in the Lamb’s book of life, written before the foundation of the world, then do you tell me He is not allowed to do that? And having chosen His elect according to His foreknowledge, can God also then predestinate those people to be saved for all eternity according to His promises to save to the uttermost? After all, if God has a list of His elect from the foundation of the world, then He will do with that list of elect what He promises to do, regardless of whether the election is unconditional or conditional upon foreknowledge. How does being conditional upon the foreknowledge of God change one iota of what God says He will do with and for those elect of His?
Whether the election is conditional or not cannot change what God does with His elect group. Calvinists say the election is unconditional; the Bible reveals that it is conditional upon God’s foreknowledge. But regardless of how the election has been determined, God will use that list to determine the salvation of everyone on it. The true meaning of predestination is that anyone on that list will be saved to the uttermost according to God’s promises. It’s actually the list of the elect that saves everyone on it, not whether the list is unconditional or not! This waffling on about my understanding of 1 Peter 1:2a being flawed because of predestination must also condemn the calvinist election as well, for predestination is according to that list, not how it was obtained. So, we’ll let the Bible have the final say on this: Elect according to the foreknowledge (prognosis – which does indeed refer to an awareness of what is going to happen) of God the Father (1 Peter 1:2).
So how are the calvinists going to try and win this debate? They continually avoid facing the issues I raise by trying to dismiss good argument with unacceptable excuses. Here’s their chance to demonstrate that they can actually read the Bible alone for its truth. Thy word is truth – John 17:17.
If you want to read further, please try these links.
List of all my posts on this site.
If you wish to read other documents on the heresies of calvinism, please use this link.
Please feel free to comment Comments and contact page
Comments and replies are recorded on the Comments page.