On freedom and divine sovereignty (summary)

Free will and determinism have exercised me since my teen years, and I’ve thought of myself as a compatibilist since college. I have found no reason to change my mind. Since my conversion in 2020, questions about freedom and divine sovereignty have weighed on my mind, and Calvinists—crusaders for God’s sovereignty that they are—have sternly insisted that I join their side. Well, I do think God is sovereign, and I am inclined to compatibilism. So, I do have much in common with my Calvinistic friends. My version of compatibilism takes free will much more seriously, however, meaning that I take something closer to a Thomistic position.

Recently, I had conversations on free will and divine sovereignty with my Bible study group, people on X, and ChatGPT. They challenged me to consider Augustine, Calvin, Edwards, and, more recently, Piper, as well as Craig’s molinism. I have also spent time with videos by Leighton Flowers (and, yes, I know about the debates between Flowers and James White). I’m sorry to have to be difficult, but I don’t align with any of these distinguished thinkers. The following, then, is a very quick, wide-ranging, and incomplete summary of my view at present.

The central question is how to reconcile divine sovereignty with robust human moral responsibility. Most traditional theological systems, when pressed, collapse into one of two extremes, and stating them represents a sort of dilemma. On one option, God is sovereign over all, which means he determines everything, and that includes human sin; this means God orchestrates an evil world that is not really independent of him, courting the heresies of Gnosticism and Panentheism. On the other option, God carves out room for free human choices, which are independent, causeless facts; but this makes human beings into ex nihilo creators of their own choices, a position incompatible with human experience and science. Both positions are untenable. The view defended here avoids both extremes, going between the horns of the dilemma. It affirms that all things are sustained by God’s providence, including the causal systems in which humans operate, but denies that God specifically determines every human choice.

I. The nature of free will

Human beings are organisms with needs, impulses, and capacities. Over time, we develop habits and principles that guide our decisions. These habits are formed through precept, discipline, experience, reflection, repetition, and moral struggle. Now, when we reach a certain age—call it the age of majority—we inherit the structure of character and moral inclination we have, by then, come to possess. We inherit what we are, so to speak. But what we are—the structure of the human character—is not immutable. We remain capable of reflection and reformation; we may also be imbued with the grace of the Holy Spirit, for which we are not responsible, but for which we must be grateful. More about the latter in a bit.

Now, what makes this a compatibilist position is that this means that human action is embedded in a causal nexus, the framework of nature. Free choices do not emerge ex nihilo. They all have causes. They are—or could be, if we took the time—the result of deliberation informed by values, principles, desires, and perceptions. Yet such embeddedness does not destroy freedom; it is the very substance of it. This compatibilist concept of freedom does the work we require of it. Moral responsibility attaches to us precisely because the action flows from within a structure we rightly identify with ourselves. We are and own our habits, principles, etc.; there is nothing more constitutive of the core of who we are than our character. We take responsibility for our actions because those actions flow from that character.

Let me explain why the will is properly called ‘free’, on this account. Freedom, in the sense relevant to moral evaluation, consists in the unimpaired ability to deliberate and act according to one’s character. When we ask what makes the will free, we should expect an explanation of what the will is free of. It is not free of causation but free of coercion or impairment. When a person acts under duress, or in a state of hallucination, moral analysis and the law says the person is not free. Why not? Because freedom requires ordinary, adult, unimpaired, rational self-governance. But in the usual case, when we act, we may normally deliberate, and our action flows from our values, etc.; thus, we are free, even if our values have causes (as of course they do). Again, at the age of majority, we become owners of our values. The will is not uncaused, but it is our own, and we, as conscious, rational agents, can go to work on it: we are able to change its direction.

Now, some readers will be familiar with a well-known philosophical argument that divine foreknowledge and human freedom are incompatible.1 It goes roughly like this:

(1) God knows before I act what I will do.
(2) If so, then I cannot do otherwise.
(3) If I cannot do otherwise, then I am not free.
(4) Therefore, if God has perfect foreknowledge of what I will do, then I am not free.

But this argument equivocates on what “could have done otherwise” means. If we mean the ordinary sense—the one used in courtrooms and in daily life—then the argument’s step (2) is plainly false: of course I can do otherwise, even if God knows what I will in fact choose. What difference should that make? After all, I am not coerced, impaired, or constrained. But if the phrase means something like metaphysical indeterminacy—that I must be capable of choosing otherwise even with the same exact causes, character, and motives—then it is (3) that fails. For there is no reason to think freedom requires this: see the discussion above. Indeed, freedom, on that notion, would render all responsibility unintelligible. Freedom is not metaphysical indeterminacy or randomness; it is rational self-direction. It is precisely because we are formed, habitual, moral creatures that we are accountable.

Even the Bible can support this notion of freedom, by the way. In what sense do Jesus and Paul mean that we are—indeed, our will is—free, after we are converted? We are “free from sin” (Rom 6:18), a great constraint. We stumble about in darkness, again the dark confusion of sin, but “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). The Jews could not bear to see the uncovered face of Moses, who “put a vail over his face”, for its shining features reminded them of the law and of the recent punishment of the sin of their idolatry. But now we may contemplate the Lord—God with us himself—because we know that in him, we are free from sin. He has revealed himself in us and remade our hearts, removing the chains of our many sins: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3:7-18, esp. v17). Jesus and Paul wrote of true freedom, and this concerns the remaking of our character, not some metaphysical indeterminacy.

By now, you might be able to see why I say that libertarian (or indeterminist) definitions of free will fail on both philosophical and biblical grounds. Indeterminism is simply the view that not all events are determined by causal antecedents; and, in particular, free human actions lack causal antecedents. Now, volitional libertarianism posits that free choices must be uncaused, but this makes moral responsibility unintelligible. Why think that lack of a cause should explain why we are responsible? If a choice is a causeless event, how could it reflect anything about the self? And if an action does not reflect the self, how could the person be morally responsible for it? It is true that the action has no cause prior to ourselves; but if it has no cause, as indeterminism says, then we are not its cause.

Moreover, an indeterminist account of free will cannot account for the ordinary distinctions we make between free and unfree action. Impairment and compulsion are problematic for the human will, not because they add causes, but because they interfere with rational self-direction. A person impaired by compulsion, delusion, or hallucination is less responsible for that reason, and this is reflected in how such persons are treated in courts. And does the age of majority cause children to be able to undertake causeless actions? Or do they become free because their capacity for reason is sufficiently mature that we credit them with the ability to direct and take responsibility for themselves?

II. Divine sovereignty 

God is sovereign over all things, but this sovereignty does not require that he determines every detail. Rather, he upholds the existence and operation of all natural systems, including the human organism. Living organisms are, in a weak but meaningful sense, autonomous: their actions are directed to their own self-preservation, guided toward homeostasis by function, internal structure, and responsiveness to their environment. This natural autonomy forms the foundation of higher-order freedom. Human freedom emerges as a further development of this principle: we deliberate, reflect, and reshape the patterns by which we live. Against this biological and philosophical background, we may understand God’s decretive will2 as the ongoing act of sustaining the cosmos and its order—including this framework of organismic self-direction. As the author of Hebrews says, Christ is “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). This is not the deliberate weighing or selection of each human act, and certainly not sinful acts; that really would make us puppets on strings, and then our sin really would be God’s sin.

In special cases—notably, regeneration—God moves the will. This is no mere detail; through this we are saved and will ultimately be perfected by him. For this, we are not responsible, nor can we deserve it. As the psalmist prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10), and as Ezekiel prophesies, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26), God acts upon the heart itself. But this is not coercion; we reflect on what is occurring within us, and we accede to it. It becomes part of us, and we take responsibility for our “clean heart.” It becomes part of what we are. God saves us; he does not save himself. It is our heart that changes, not God’s; but it is his originating work. This preserves both divine initiative and human agency; here, I am aware that I am following Aquinas.

Where I part company with my Calvinist friends is my absolute insistence that God does not will sin, nor does he ever cause it. He does permit it; why he permits it is the problem of evil, which is a problem outside the scope of this essay. (I have nearly 100 pages about it in my book in progress.) God sustains a world in which sinful agents are permitted to act, but he does not make them sin. The choices that arise from disordered desire and corrupted will are real choices. We make those choices and God may justly punish us for them, if we are not forgiven.3

Yet I can concede, as Calvinists (and other theological determinists) want me to, that God is shown in Scripture to act upon the human will, and this is an essential part of the story of redemption. Yes. Indeed, he foreknows and providentially orders history to a good end, and that includes my salvation. But the evil within it is not his doing; rather, he uses it. A good biblical example is found in Joseph’s words to his brothers: “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20). This is used as a proof text by Calvinists, but they do not do it justice. God did not put the evil into their hearts, nor cause their jealousy or betrayal. What he did was give Joseph dreams, and imbue him with favor and wisdom that would ultimately lead to his rise. God could foresee that the brothers’ envy would lead them to send Joseph into Egypt, and that there, through hardship, Joseph would be shaped into the man needed to save many. God nudges—through dreams, gifts, providential arrangement of circumstances—but he rarely overrides. He makes use of the full texture of human and moral agency, without compromising it. The sin remains the brothers’ sin, and yet the story, in the end, is God’s.

Again, to say otherwise—to claim, with theological determinists, that God decrees every sin—is to make him morally responsible for evil. Calvinists seek ways to avoid this horrific conclusion, and I don’t have time to consider them all. One common thread is to appeal to the distinction between God’s decretive and preceptive wills. But this cannot solve this problem if God’s decretive will is said to causally determine our sin: if we are machines over which God exerts fine-grained control, he is directing us to sin. The way I draw the distinction, however, permits a more robust human will. God’s “decreeing” of all events (his decretive will) is better understood as God’s sustaining governance. He is the one who continues natural laws in their necessary operation; thus, he knows all that must happen; but that does not mean he deliberated about each item in the causal chain and moved it in that direction. So, he is not to blame for disasters such as our sin. That is how I propose to avoid the problem on which theological determinism is impaled.

III. Conclusion: how this view differs from others

Calvinism affirms God’s absolute sovereignty, but does so by sacrificing human agency in favor of divine causality. The result is a theology in which God ordains sin and then punishes us for it. This is not just morally problematic; it risks turning God into a metaphysical monolith, collapsing all causality into divine action and thereby drifting into panentheism. In a very real way, the universe becomes an extension of God. Everything that happens is merely an expression of his will—including our actions, even our very sins. This also leads some toward Gnosticism: they conclude that the God of the Bible is an evil ruler of a fallen world, whom we must rise above by means of pure spirit. Calvinism isn’t committed to this, of course, but it is concerning that, historically, divine determinism has pushed some in this direction.

Libertarian approaches, including classical Arminianism and Leighton Flowers’ provisionism, affirm moral responsibility but does so by affirming libertarian free will (i.e., indeterminism). This, as I explained, denies causal explanation of human choices and thus undermines both metaphysical coherence and moral intelligibility. In addition, it makes divine sovereignty dependent on a vast set of ungrounded creaturely decisions—tiny causal universes created by each causally independent will.

Molinism tries to preserve both sovereignty and libertarian freedom by positing “middle knowledge”: God knows what any creature would freely choose in any circumstance and arranges the world to achieve the best of all possible worlds. This finesses a metaphysical problem but is left with both the problem of libertarian free will explained above.

The view defended here steers between a classic theological dilemma: either theistic determinism, with its God who is responsible for my sin, and libertarianism, which makes nonsense of human responsibility. God governs the whole; we govern ourselves within it, subject to his providence and judgment. The hard and frequently sad human condition is that we are responsible for what we do, because what we do flows from what we are; what we are is profoundly disordered; still, what we are, once we reach maturity, is a matter of our own choice. From this self-inflicted hell, God provides the only means of rescue. We depend utterly on the clean heart he creates within us, by which we receive the grace of forgiveness.

I leave you with one final argument. In formulating doctrine, the safest way forward is to find all the relevant texts on a question of doctrine and then follow analogia fidei—let doctrine flow out of the most elegant way to make all the texts consistent. Or, as we say in philosophy of science, you are making a “model” of the text, one that “does justice” to “all the data.” When we approach the biblical text armed with this inductive hermeneutic, we discover two puzzlingly different tendencies. On the one hand, we observe the lives of sinners like Jacob, David, and Solomon, shaped by a rich psychology; we find many injunctions to fidelity, together with very real internal struggles to maintain that fidelity. On the other hand, we see intergenerational, inherited sin, but also a God who makes use of it to his own higher ends, and who mercifully (and supernaturally) intercedes by regenerating our very hearts.

In short, we see a robust notion of freedom and responsibility, yes, but also an insistence that our choices are, ultimately, deeply conditioned by wills outside of our own. A truly biblical view of freedom and providence requires a view that fully does justice to both.

Footnotes

  1. This is explained in, e.g., William L. Rowe’s text, Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Wadsworth, 2001), ch. 11.[]
  2. The term used by Calvinist theologians. Basically, it means that God brings things about without regard to his judgment as to their justice. He decrees that sin will occur, though he abhors it. This is distinguished from his preceptive will, or what he would have us do if we were obedient to him (closely aligned with his law). It is also distinguished from his permissive will, or what he permits to take place. This is the broadest category, because not everything that he permits actually comes to pass.[]
  3. Some will cite Romans 9 as a proof-text for unconditional election and inherited guilt. But Paul’s concern in that chapter is not abstract metaphysics; he is addressing Jewish anxiety over Gentile inclusion and the apparent failure of God’s promises to Israel. Paul is defending God’s freedom to redefine the boundaries of covenant membership as God sees fit, not asserting that he directs all our choices.[]

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Please do dive in (politely). I want your reactions!

20 responses to “On freedom and divine sovereignty (summary)”

  1. David

    Hello,

    I don’t really understand how your idea differs from classical philosophical compatibilism. To my knowledge, compatibilists have always incorporated the idea of ​​deliberation and rational process in determining human choices; thus, the fact that these determined choices change the character of the person in the process of determining the next choice.

    Similarly, I don’t really see how the “divine permission” of evil that you mention fundamentally differs from the concept of divine permission in traditional Calvinism. If you assert that human choices are determined by antecedent causes, and that the first cause in this chain comes from God’s creative act, it follows that God is the cause (indirect, or remote, as the Reformed say) of evil. Certainly, unlike good, he is not the direct cause, but he remains the remote cause, and in both cases, man is just as strongly determined.

    Finally, to my knowledge, only Edwards (and those who follow him) have taken the path of criticizing the concept of libertarianism that you mention. Most Reformed believers have not wanted to take this path, because, consistently, it implies postulating that God himself has no PAP, thus restricting the notion of contingency that can be applied to creation and divine actions in general (logically leading to a form of necessitarianism).

    As a non-Calvinist, I am inclined to acknowledge that libertarian free will is a mystery, but I would say that the mystery is better found here than where determinism places it.

    I look forward to reading your feedback.

    Fraternally.

  2. AJ

    I just listened to the interview with Allie Stuckey. Does anyone know where is the Bible study he is referring to at the very end? I can’t find anything on Telegram.

    1. Sorry, but I had to make it private. It’s gotten too large!

  3. Stephen

    I just wanted to chip in with a bit. There’s another option to achieve your stated goals (reconcile free will and Gods sovereignty), which is to not reconcile it at all.

    In summary, the Eastern Orthodox Church simply leaves it as mystery how both are true.

    See patristic data compiled here: https://orthodoxbridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Mako-Nagasawa-free-will-in-patristics.pdf

    While it is a response to calvinism which you do not hold, I think it is still relevant and applicable here.

    God bless! Christ is risen!

  4. Harry Lewis

    J. I. Paxker wrote a book titled “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.”In it, he called the issues of sovereignty and free will an antinomy. They are two truths, but the human mind cannot grasp them both at the same time. We always find ourselves emphasizing one or the other.

  5. Thanks for engaging with this question. To engage with your objections to “volitional libertarianism”, you say this “makes moral responsibility unintelligible” and ask “If a choice is a causeless event, how could it reflect anything about the self?” I’m not persuaded by these arguments, and I’ll explain why.

    Firstly, I think it’s important to distinguish between being absolutely uncaused choices (which I don’t think we have as creatures) and having partially uncaused choices, where within limits of the prior causes internal and external to ourselves, we have a limited but real range of options to us. There are some things that will be so outside our constitution and character that we are not in effect free to choose them, even though there is no external constraint. But I believe that frequently there is more than one possibility open to us as agents, which prior causes may incline us towards one or another, but do not absolutely determine.

    The way that a free choice of this sort reflects the self is that it reflects the self’s *becoming*. Each time we choose, we are changing the part of ourselves that chooses, so that similar choices become easier for us in future – we are always moving either towards virtue or vice.

    I think this fits well with both our subjective experience of having a degree of choice, though not an unlimited or unconditioned one, and is consistent with moral responsibility. I’ll be interested to know where you might think this falls down!

    For my own brand of compatibilism, I like to call myself a freewill Calvinist! I affirm indeterminate free-will (or agent causation) on the creaturely side within the creative nexus, while also believing that God freely wills our freewill choices on his side as Creator, with the two in concord. Divine determinism comes from *outside* the system of creation, rather than being embedded in it; the kind of determining that God makes as Creator is non-rivalrous with our freedom as creatures. By distant but helpful analogy, you can compare it to the freedom of characters within a story being established by the freedom of the Author as the creator of the story.

    I’m not at all a philosopher or theologian, but I’ve read Calvin and Aquinas and some of the secondary literature like Richard Mueller, who shows the diversity of the Reformed Orthodox thinking on freewill and divine sovereignty, and I believe this synthesis chimes well with the classical theological tradition and is a respectable minority report within historic Calvinism.

    Calvin actually affirmed in his Institutes that human freedom “from necessity… so inheres in man’s nature that it cannot be taken away”, while denying we are free from sin and misery, or free to contribute anything to our salvation.

    I’ve written a more detailed sketch of my position on my Substack as an engaged layman here: https://www.biggerinside.co.uk/p/freewill-and-determinism-in-gods

  6. Emanuel

    I just read your first few paragraphs and for lack of better words, I don’t just see how you differ from the Provisionalist perspective in that regard. Welcome onboard brother.

    1. I’m not a provisionalist because I don’t affirm libertarian free will. I think our choices have causes.

      1. Emanuel

        I do agree that our choices are influenced by the preceding causes, but I also contend that, even while choices might be influenced by vices, character, habits, or past experiences, there must be this act of absolute conviction by the Holy Spirit-that is, the offering of a genuine opportunity to respond to the Gospel on account of this libertarian free will. The response itself is a free choice and not part of God’s determination. This I believe is truly accepting of God’s sovereignty while genuinely holding human beings responsible for their response to God’s call without falling into compatibilism-produced causally by God. What theologians like Ronnie W. Rogers call Extensivism.

      2. Deemah

        > I think our choices have causes.

        Our choices are rooted in our nature. Likewise, God’s choices (His will) are rooted in His nature. “Causes” is a little vulgar way of talking about it, because it creates the human version of the Euthyphro dilemma. We act according to our nature.
        > “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and *you want to carry out your father’s desires*.” John 8:43-44 NIV
        > “For I have come down from heaven not to do *my will* but to do the will of him who sent me.” John 6:38 NIV
        > ” For it is God who is producing in you *both the desire and the ability* to do what pleases him” Philippians 2:13 ISV

        1. Deemah

          Another relevant saying here is that bees and flies have quite different memories. One thinks that life is full of nectar and flowers. The other – that it’s mostly trash and poop.

          Attention is conditioned by values – we notice (attend to) things we already like. So when “temptation” comes by, our reaction is largely determined by our nature (habituated perception and values). The sinner sees it as an opportunity, the born again (now possessing two opposing natures) experiences the struggle (ref Paul’s lament in Romans 7 and “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.” ‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬)

          Of course, our world is already quite “salted” by the gospel, so our secular morals carry the imprint of God’s perspective on sin (and we should not discard moral intuitions granted to every human), but these intuitions are largely fiat without God and get swept away by the tides of peer pressure and groupthink which we call “popular culture”.

          Here I disagree with radical Calvinists that human will is corrupted absolutely, otherwise crying out to God would be impossible. CS Lewis makes the case for unfulfilled desire, which many find unsatisfactory, but I think it’s the echo of our pre-fall nature (yearning for “something lost”).

          Perhaps, when we turn to Christ, we all do it for the “wrong” reason – not because we are attracted to Him (e.g., the prodigal son returns for food, not reconciliation). But God’s grace often uses imperfect motives to draw us, then transform them later. When God births us again, He gives us the Holy Spirit which manifests Himself through unmistakable desire for God and fulfilling of His will (His desires, aims, purposes).

          “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
          ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭NIV‬‬

          “He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
          ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭1‬:‭21‬-‭22‬ ‭NIV‬‬

        2. Emanuel

          Two Kinds of Free Will

          Both Calvinism and free-will theism affirm free will and yet define it completely differently.

          Calvinist free will is called compatibilism, and it means that you are free so long as you are doing what you want. As long as you are acting on your strongest inclination, you are free, regardless of whether or not you could do otherwise. Hence in Calvinism, God can unilaterally determine your inclinations so that you must do what he ordains for you to do, and yet you still “freely” do it. So if God determines that you will want to “reject Jesus, you are still freely rejecting him—even though God determined it and you could not have done otherwise—because you were doing what you wanted. This is how Calvinists typically explain the fall: God foreordained Adam and Eve’s sin, but they still sinned freely because they were doing what they wanted.

          Confused? If so you’re in good company because confusion is what happens when you use a term so counter-intuitively.

          Free-will theism’s understanding of free will is called libertarian freedom and it means the power of contrary choice. You are free if you have the ability to choose between two or more things. This doesn’t mean your freedom is absolute, for our choices are always far more conditioned than we could ever imagine. But it does mean that in order for us to have genuine free will, we must be able to act on various inclinations and not just our strongest.

          Mexico or Sweden

          And while compatibilism (Calvinist “free will”) is troublesome for a number of reasons already mentioned (the existence of sin, evil, and hell), it must also be admitted that the greatest mystery of free-will theism is the mystery of libertarian free will. Indeed many philosophers find the very idea of libertarian free will incoherent.

          Consider this: you want to go on vacation and have narrowed your choices down to Mexico and Sweden, and after much deliberation you decide on Mexico. Now according to libertarian free will, the exact same set of circumstances and deliberations (same desires, same inclinations, same beliefs, etc.) that led you to choose Mexico could have also led you to choose Sweden. This seems rather odd. If nothing were changed, where would this decision to choose Sweden come from? Did it bubble up magically from thin air? Did it materialize in your pre-frontal cortex? How can you make any sort of sense of this “free” impulse?

          This accusation is fair enough, but any thoughtful Christian will realize that if God’s creation of the world was an act of grace, then God must have had the ability not to create the world. And “an freedom, then even though we cannot fully (or remotely) explain it, the fact that God has it means it is not an incoherent or absurd idea.”

          Excerpt From
          Young, Restless, No Longer Reformed: Black Holes, Love, and a Journey in and Out of Calvinism
          Austin Fischer

  7. Deemah

    I think it’s hard to generalize all libertarians as being nihilistic about the influences on free will. I think if you press the theist defenders of libertarian free will they will have to admit the causal structure behind it at least insofar as they have to make sense “slave to sin”, “slave of Jesus Christ” imagery of Paul. I think something like Molinism is still necessary to make sense of Gods perfect knowledge (of human wicked heart, “He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.”
    ‭‭John‬ ‭2‬:‭25‬ ‭NIV)‬‬

    Now with regards to values and moral responsibility, I wonder if you could have a look at

    Sophie Archer (2022) Salience and what matters. In Archer 2022 Salience https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351202114-7/salience-matters-sophie-archer

    Sophie is, from what I can tell, a secular philosopher and she makes a remarkable (for a non-theist) observation that what we notice is related to what matters to us (frame is related to values). She then talks about moral responsibility for noticing or failing to notice something, which is related to moral responsibility in general. Very highly recommended paper. Let me know if you need a copy.

    Otherwise I fully agree and support your position. Calvinism is a mockery of God and we bear our part of responsibility for crying out to God in order for Him to respond and complete the metanoia (change of values) in our otherwise wicked mind/heart.

    1. What did you think of my essay? I mean, you can’t really agree with it if you disagree with my attack on libertarian free will. You say I’m wrong to “generalize all libertarians as being nihilistic about the influences on free will” but we may generalize all we like insofar as the nature of the position is indeterministic.

      1. Deemah

        I appreciate your essay and would like to take the discussion further by exploring how character is formed and the role values play in that process. I’m skeptical of your claim that defenders of free will require choices to be entirely free from any influence. Scripture contains many passages that describe people, from a young age, as being subject to sinful inclinations. For example, Proverbs 22:15 (NIV) says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.” Yet God still holds people accountable, as seen in Matthew 6:21 (NIV): “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The implication is that our treasure, what we value most, is ours. We are therefore responsible for what we value and for directing our hearts (our desires) accordingly. This aligns with the Christian response to the Euthyphro dilemma, in which God chooses what is good not arbitrarily, but because it is consistent with His nature. Likewise, we are free to choose according to our desires—our nature. The problem is that, due to our corrupted nature, our hearts are inclined toward desiring what is evil.

        1. Deemah

          I encourage you to begin reading Scripture with a particular focus on passages that explore desires—or values—and how they shape human nature. Consider Paul’s confession in Romans 7:15–25 (NIV):

          > “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out… Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me… What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

          This passage captures the conflict between competing desires within the human heart- a fractured self that both delights in God’s law and yet remains enslaved to sin. It demonstrates that human nature is not simply about what we do, but about what we *want* to do – and how those wants are disordered by sin. Yet even amid this turmoil, there emerges a persistent desire for the good, which Paul identifies with his true self: the “I” renewed in Christ.

          Philosopher Sophie Archer insightfully observes that our interests – what we attend to and care about – are cultivated through a series of small, routine decisions. Over time, these decisions shape our character and recalibrate our attention. This gradual transformation is echoed in Romans 12:9 (NIV), where Paul exhorts: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”

          Ultimately, I am convinced that the resilient desire for God, this new orientation toward the Good, is the gracious gift of God – a divine rebirth of the heart that frees us to be able to genuinely love what is good and hate what is evil. It is not just a change of behavior, but a transformation of our deepest loves.

        2. You make a variety of interesting and valid points about psychology and Scripture, but I’m not quite sure what they have to do with my essay: I can’t quite tell what position you take on the question at issue or whether you are agreeing or disagreeing with things I said. The remarks regarding psychology are fully and comfortably accommodated only by my sort of view, as opposed to standard determinism (of the Calvinist sort) or libertarianism (of the Arminian sort). Did you mean to disagree or perhaps to offer these reflections in support?

        3. Deemah

          My intention was to say “yes, and”. I also think that if you adopt the language of desires, values, etc you will find that more people on both sides of the debate agree with you.

          There’s no gap between philosophy and philosophy. This all just reason and the revelation given to us in the Word of God

  8. Chris Dixon

    Thanks Larry for diving into this important topic. Is this tension between divine will and human free will simply an invitiation to discover more of God’s nature and character?

    God’s Nature:
    Since God is outside of time, He sees all of history happening at once (e.g. Isaiah 46:10), in real-time. Since He sees, He isn’t surprised by our failures and human limitations, but instead, makes allowance for them. (Chuck Missler’s series “Learn the Bible in 24 Hours” is a good resource, available on YouTube.)

    God’s Character:
    God describes himself as good, always good, totally good, and only good. Since He always makes the first move to restore relationship, it’s clear from Hebrews that all sin has been forgiven at Calvary, but it’s up to us to accept this gift.

    Our Responsibility:
    The clearer our understanding, the greater our responsibility, and greater is the consequence for disobedience. This is why I agree with your analysis of children’s free will – not that they can’t choose, but that they don’t understand the consequences of their choices. Perhaps this is why God chooses to appear ambiguous at times, giving flawed humans grace to make mistakes and learn from them.

    Our Choice:
    The entire Old Testament is a summary of man’s inability to use his free will wisely, or save himself. Yet God didn’t reject us, but made a divine way to restore us. This leaves us with only one choice, and that is to continue repeating our past, or accept the new start offered by becoming Jesus’ disciple.
    The cost of being Jesus’ disciple compared with eternity is like purchasing the winning lottery ticket for only one dollar.

  9. I enjoyed your blog and agree with the position you have reached, having been a Christian since my conversion in mid teens. There is much pressure sometimes in Christian circles – as in humanity generally – to maintain a ‘party’ or ‘tribal’ position. It is a real gift sometimes to think ‘outside the box’.

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