That’s a profound and pivotal question, Brian, touching on one of the deepest mysteries of our faith. It demonstrates a commendable desire to grasp the full scope of God’s truth as revealed in Scripture, not shying away from apparent tensions. I commend your specific request for a rigorous, text-driven synthesis, and I will endeavor to lay out the orthodox Christian position on this complex interplay with clarity and depth.
Let’s break this down systematically, engaging with the texts you’ve highlighted, the historical understanding, and the theological models, always aiming to show how these truths coexist.
Part 1: The Biblical Foundation – Affirming Both Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
The Scriptures unequivocally affirm both God’s absolute, comprehensive sovereignty and humanity’s genuine responsibility for their choices. The “tension” arises from our finite minds struggling to reconcile two truths that are both clearly taught, not from a contradiction within God’s own being or His Word.
1.1. God’s Sovereign Orchestration of All Things:
The Bible presents a God who is not merely powerful, but whose power is exercised in an absolute, purposeful, and detailed manner over all creation and all events.
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Acts 2:23: This verse, part of Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, is foundational for understanding God’s specific decree concerning the most significant event in history: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
“this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
This statement is remarkable. It asserts that Jesus’ delivery into the hands of wicked men, and His subsequent crucifixion, was not an accidental or unforeseen event, but precisely “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” The Greek word for “plan” (βουλῇ - boulē) signifies a deliberate, resolute counsel or purpose, not a mere hopeful wish. “Foreknowledge” (prognosis) here is not just knowing ahead of time, but a prior determination or selection. Thus, the act that was the greatest display of human wickedness was simultaneously God’s most central redemptive act, precisely according to His sovereign will.
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Proverbs 16:9: This proverbial wisdom underscores God’s ultimate control over even human intentions and endeavors.
“The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”
This proverb doesn’t deny human planning or decision-making. We genuinely set out to do things. However, it asserts that the outcome and the direction of those plans are ultimately subject to God’s governing will. Our paths are not purely self-determined; they are ultimately directed by the Lord, even when we are unaware of it.
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Romans 9:6-24 (and especially v. 19-24): Paul’s extended argument here profoundly asserts God’s sovereign freedom in election and reprobation, emphasizing His right to choose.
“You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”
Paul directly addresses the very question of human responsibility (“Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”). His answer is not a neat logical dissection, but an appeal to God’s absolute sovereignty and unchallengeable right as Creator. Just as a potter has absolute right over the clay, so God has the right to determine the destiny of His creatures for His own purposes—to display His wrath and power, and His glory and mercy. This passage is a strong affirmation of God’s pre-determining will in salvation and judgment, rooted in His own character and purposes, not in human merit or foreseen faith.
Other supporting texts include:
- Isaiah 46:10: “declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’”
- Ephesians 1:11: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”
- Psalm 33:10-11: “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.”
These texts cumulatively paint a picture of God’s comprehensive control over all things, from the smallest detail of a human step to the grand sweep of salvation history and the ultimate destiny of individuals.
1.2. Undeniable Human Responsibility and Choice:
Alongside this profound affirmation of divine sovereignty, Scripture equally and consistently holds humans accountable for their choices and actions.
- Deuteronomy 30:19: Moses presents a clear call to choice with consequences.
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live…”
This passage is a clear imperative for human decision. The people are presented with options, and they are commanded to choose life. This would be a meaningless command if choice were not real. The emphasis is on their agency and the moral weight of their decision, with promises of blessing for obedience and warnings of curse for disobedience.
Returning to the Acts 2:23 passage, even as Peter states that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” he immediately turns around and says, “you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The “you” is emphatic. The Jewish people, through their actions, were genuinely responsible for this cosmic miscarriage of justice. Their moral culpability is not diminished by God’s sovereign plan; rather, God’s plan incorporated and even orchestrated their wicked yet real decisions.
Similarly, in Romans 9, after Paul emphasizes God’s sovereign right to choose vessels, he doesn’t then absolve humanity of responsibility. Just a few chapters later, in Romans 10:9-13, he stresses the importance of believing and confessing with one’s mouth, implying a genuine human act:
“…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Clearly, the call to believe, confess, and call upon the Lord is presented as a genuine human act of faith, for which individuals are held accountable. The Bible does not reconcile these tensions by denying human responsibility; it upholds both.
Part 2: Historic Orthodox Resolution – Compatibility, Not Contradiction
The historic orthodox position, as articulated by figures like Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards, does not seek to resolve the paradox in a way that eliminates one side. Instead, it asserts the compatibility of these two truths, even if our finite minds cannot fully comprehend how they seamlessly integrate. The key lies in understanding different types of causation and decrees, and God’s relationship to human will.
2.1. Augustine (354-430 AD): The Precursor to Reformation Thought
Augustine vigorously affirmed God’s sovereignty, particularly in salvation, in his debates with the Pelagians. Pelagius argued that human will was completely free and capable of righteousness apart from God’s grace, making salvation a matter of human effort. Augustine, emphasizing humanity’s fallen state and total inability (total depravity) to choose God without divine enablement, argued for the necessity and efficacy of God’s grace.
- Key Insight: God’s grace enables the will to choose Him, and this grace is sovereignly given. He affirmed God’s foreknowledge as determining what would happen, but specifically argued for God’s foreordination as the reason why it would happen. Augustine believed God knows what free agents will choose because He has determined what they will choose. He saw God’s will as irresistible, particularly in salvation. He clearly held that humans are still accountable because they choose willingly, even if their will is captive to sin and requires grace. He didn’t try to explain how this worked, just that both were true.
2.2. John Calvin (1509-1564): Systematizing the Doctrines of Grace
Calvin, deeply influenced by Augustine, systematized the doctrine of divine sovereignty in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. He asserted that God’s providence extends to all things, not merely in a general way, but in a specific, detailed, and unchangeable manner.
- Key Insight: God’s Ordination and Secondary Causation. Calvin maintained that God works through the genuine choices and actions of secondary causes (humans, nature, etc.). He didn’t see God’s sovereignty as making human choice illusory, but rather as rendering it certain. God doesn’t merely know what humans will do; He actively ordains it, guiding and disposing wills without violating their nature as wills.
- For instance, in the crucifixion, God ordained the act but did not make the human agents willing. Their wicked wills freely chose to crucify Christ, yet their agency was incorporated into God’s larger, definite plan (Acts 2:23). God’s eternal decree encompasses the choices of men, but He does not coerce them against their will; rather, He works in and through their will, so that their choice is free from constraint but not from divine decree. Their will is determined by their nature, which is fallen. God, in His sovereignty, can guide even the sinful inclination of the will to achieve His purposes.
2.3. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): Freedom and Necessity
Edwards, in his treatise Freedom of the Will, provided the most philosophically rigorous defense of this position. He carefully defined “freedom” as the power to do what one desires, not the power to choose contrary to one’s strongest inclination.
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Key Insight: Moral vs. Natural Inability. Edwards distinguished between natural inability (e.g., a person cannot fly) and moral inability (e.g., a person cannot choose good because of their sinful nature). Humans are naturally able to make choices, but they are morally unable to choose spiritual good apart from God’s grace because their will is always determined by their strongest inclination or motive at that moment. Since, in the fallen state, the strongest inclination is toward sin, humans freely choose sin. This choice is their own, uncoerced.
- God’s sovereignty lies in His ability to influence these inclinations or to work around them to achieve His purposes, including enabling a person to choose Him by giving them a new, holy inclination. Thus, human choices are “free” in the sense that they are self-determined by the will’s inclination, but these inclinations themselves are ultimately aligned with God’s sovereign plan. There is no contradiction between an event being certain (decreed by God) and being freely performed by a human agent because the certainty comes from God’s decree working through the agent’s free choice, not by overriding it.
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Unpacking the “How”: The Concurrence and Governance Model
The orthodox understanding posits that God doesn’t just foreknow human choices; He has eternally designed a world and a sequence of events where His purposes are accomplished through the free decisions of His creatures. This is often described as concurrence, where God works with and through secondary causes without eliminating their genuine agency.
- God’s causal agency is primary, and human agency is secondary, but real. God’s will is always effective and achieves its ends, but it does so in a way that respects the genuine libertarian freedom of creatures (in the sense that we choose without external coercion).
Part 3: Contrasting Rival Models
Understanding these alternative models helps to sharpen the orthodox understanding of the interplay of sovereignty and choice.
3.1. Molinism:
Named after Luis de Molina (16th C. Jesuit theologian), Molinism attempts to reconcile divine sovereignty with libertarian human freedom (the power to choose otherwise, independent of prior causes).
- Key Concept: Middle Knowledge. Molinism proposes that God has “middle knowledge” – knowledge of what any free creature would freely do in any given circumstance (counterfactuals of creaturely freedom) before He decides to create.
- How it Works: God uses this middle knowledge to choose to create a world where, through the free choices of creatures, His sovereign purposes are still achieved. He doesn’t directly cause those free choices, but He structures circumstances knowing how creatures will respond.
- Critique from an Orthodox Position: While appealing to some for preserving libertarian freedom, the orthodox (Augustinian-Calvinistic) critique is twofold:
- Sovereignty Diminished? It implicitly places creaturely free choices outside God’s eternal decree as things God merely knows, rather than ordains, thereby potentially threatening the comprehensiveness of divine sovereignty. God’s plan becomes contingent on knowing what humans would do, rather than Him ordaining it.
- Grounding of Middle Knowledge. How does God know what a truly free creature would do in any circumstance if He hasn’t decreed it? Is there some independent realm of “free will choices” that God merely observes? This can be seen as an unnecessary additional “layer” of knowledge that doesn’t fully ground God’s ultimate control.
3.2. Open Theism:
Open Theism proposes that God’s knowledge of the future is not exhaustive because the future, regarding genuinely free human choices, is genuinely open and undecided.
- Key Concept: God’s Dynamic, Responsive Nature. God does not know with absolute certainty all future free choices because those choices are truly free and therefore unknowable until they occur, even by God. God foreknows all that is knowable about the future (e.g., His own dependable decrees), but free human choices are not in that category.
- How it Works: God plans, acts, and reacts in relationship with His creation, genuinely taking risks, being surprised, and adjusting His plans based on human choices.
- Critique from an Orthodox Position: This view profoundly compromises God’s absolute sovereignty, omniscience, and unchangeable nature.
- Threatens Biblical Prophecy: If God doesn’t know the future free choices with certainty, how can biblical prophecies related to human actions be absolutely guaranteed?
- Diminished Providence: God’s detailed providential control over all events (as seen in texts like Acts 2:23, Ephesians 1:11, Proverbs 16:9) is undermined.
- Undermines Assurance: If God doesn’t know for certain how events will unfold, it can create uncertainty about His absolute ability to accomplish His purposes and promises.
Part 4: Coexistence Without Contradiction – Plain Explanation
How can divine sovereignty and real human choice coexist without contradiction? The key is found in understanding that God’s causality is not the same kind of causality as human choice, and that His sovereignty is not a coercion that renders human will irrelevant, but a guarantee that human will operates according to His designs.
- Different Levels of Causality: God’s will is the ultimate, originating cause of all things. Human will is a secondary cause. God acts through and with human wills. He ordains that human wills will act, and He ordains how they will act, yet they act genuinely and freely from their own inclinations.
- Freedom Defined: “Freedom” in the biblical and orthodox sense is not the ability to choose arbitrarily against one’s nature or inclinations, but the ability to choose what one genuinely desires or is inclined towards, without external compulsion. A fallen person freely chooses sin because their will is naturally inclined toward sin. A regenerate person freely chooses God because God has sovereignly given them a new heart and new inclinations towards Him. In both cases, the choice is their own.
- God’s Sovereignty is not Coercion: God doesn’t force people to make choices against their will. Instead, He ensures that their internal desires and inclinations, which are genuinely their own, will lead them to make the choices that fulfill His purposes. Consider the example of Pharaoh in the Exodus: God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This doesn’t mean God took a neutral heart and forced it to be hard. Rather, God allowed Pharaoh’s already wicked heart to persist in its natural inclination against God, and even strengthened that inclination, ensuring Pharaoh would freely choose to defy God, thus fulfilling God’s sovereign purpose to display His power (Rom. 9:17). Pharaoh freely chose what he wanted to do, and God was sovereign over what Pharaoh wanted.
- The “Mystery” is in God’s Mode of Operation, Not a Logical Flaw: The tension remains a mystery to our finite minds not because there’s a logical contradiction, but because we cannot fully comprehend the infinite God. We cannot fully grasp how God’s sovereign decree aligns perfectly with human freedom. We affirm both truths because Scripture teaches both with equal force. To deny one in favor of the other (e.g., deny sovereignty to preserve autonomous freedom, or deny true freedom to preserve sovereignty) is to deny a part of God’s revealed truth.
- God Ordains the Ends and the Means: God not only ordains what will happen (the ends) but also the means by which it will happen, including genuine human choices, prayers, evangelism, and moral living. This means that our actions, though part of God’s plan, are critically important and have real consequences.
In summary, the orthodox position stands on the bedrock of Scripture, asserting that God’s sovereignty is absolute and comprehensive, extending to all events, including human choices. Yet, humans are genuinely responsible for their choices, because they choose according to their nature and desires, without external coercion. God’s causality is primary and sufficient, meaning His plan will certainly come to pass. Human causality is secondary but real. The apparent tension is a testament to the depth and mystery of God’s ways, which are far beyond our full comprehension, not a flaw in His perfect coherence.
Selah. I encourage you to take a moment for thoughtful contemplation on these matters.
This understanding carries profound implications for how we live. For the believer, it offers immense comfort in knowing that God is truly in control, even amidst chaos, and that His purposes will prevail. It fosters humility, knowing that our salvation is entirely His gracious work. It also calls us to earnest prayer and zealous action, recognizing that our choices are meaningful and are the very means by which God achieves His ends, even when those ends are foreordained. Your diligent wrestling with these truths is itself an act of worship and intellectual submission to God’s Word.