Part 3: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-bible-and-free-will-open-theism-and.html
In the last post of this series on theological determinism, we looked at the view of open theism (the belief that God does not have perfect foreknowledge of the future regarding human ‘free will’) and found it lacking, based on a number of prooftexts which open theists fail to recognize are employing the literary device of anthropopathism. However, there is another, more common view at odds with theological determinism: synergism, or as it is more commonly known, Arminianism. Synergism (or Arminianism) is the view that salvation is a joint action between God and humanity, and that humans must exercise their (libertarian) ‘free will’ to make a choice to be saved. In contrast, monergism (or as it is more commonly known, Calvinism) is the view that salvation is a unilateral act of God. In this post, we will see why monergism is a much more scriptural and correct view than synergism.
“I will give you a new heart”
One major synergist/Arminian talking point is the idea that God would not ‘violate’ human free will by ‘forcing’ anyone to love and follow Him. According to them, if God unilaterally acted to save any human being (as proposed by monergism), it would actually be an unloving action because He would be bypassing the ‘free will’ of those people [1]. As one major Christian website, “Got Questions,” states,
God respects what He has created to such an extent that He will not allow even His overwhelming love to violate our free will... [God] won’t force the love, because forced love is not love at all.. He won’t force salvation on the unwilling. [2]
Although this view is extremely common among Christians, it also goes entirely against what the Bible says about God’s complete sovereignty even over the human will. I discussed most of the pertinent passages in the first post of this series. Most notably, God is said to fashion “the heart” and “all the deeds” of “all the inhabitants of the earth” (Ps. 33:13-15), and He is said to have the ability to “turn [the heart of man] wherever He desires” (Prov. 21:1), as He “gives to everyone... everything” (Acts 17:25), which necessarily includes thoughts, emotions, desires, etc.
Keeping in mind that God is in absolute control of the human will at all times, it should be a simple task for Him to naturally cause someone to love and follow Him without ‘forcing’ their love, or ‘violating’ their (compatibilist) free will [3]. And indeed, according to several passages, God is quite able to cause someone to love Him without ‘forcing’ that love:
“And Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your descendants, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and all your soul, that you may live.” (Deut. 30:6)
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me... Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous spirit. (Ps. 51:10, 12)
“And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am Yahweh, and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.” (Jer. 24:7)
“And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and My judgments, and you will keep and do [them]... Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations.” (Ezek. 36:26-27, 31)
Here, we are told in no uncertain terms that God has the ability to give someone a “new heart,” to cause them to “love Yahweh [their] God with all [their] heart,” and to “walk in [His] statutes and [His] judgments.” The sequence of events here is quite clear; it is not that one makes a choice to follow God, and then He gives them a new heart, but that God gives them “a heart to know [Him]” which causes them to “return to [Him] with their whole heart.” These passages make it absolutely clear: salvation is a unilateral act of God, and can only be considered synergistic in the sense that a person must choose to come to God because He caused them to do so.
And really, who could ever doubt God’s ability to do so in the first place? In the human realm of events, we have only an imperfect knowledge of our fellow human beings, and so any attempt to cause another person to ‘love’ us will inevitably fail; they must come to that love organically, on their own. But when it comes to God, who “is greater than the heart and knows all things” (1 Jn. 3:20), would He not know the exact set of events and circumstances needed to bring one of His own creations to organically love Him? Even granting the existence of libertarian free will, God’s total knowledge of our hearts means that He has the ability to naturally bring us to love Him without ‘violating’ our free will. But a better question would be, does God do this?
Salvation: an act of (God’s) will
Most Christians (specifically synergists/Arminians) see salvation as a gift which God grants to those who first seek Him. Contrary to this view, Paul states that “there is none seeking out God” (Rom. 3:11), and David writes that
Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have become corrupt together; there is none who does good, no, not one. (Ps. 14:2-3)
In light of this, it should be clear that anyone who seeks God and does good only does so because God has granted it to them to do so. No one can do good of their own accord. John writes that “we love because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19), and Paul says that there is nothing we can give to God that He has not first given us (Acts 17:25; Rom. 11:35-36), and that spiritual things can only be discerned if given by the spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). Based on this information, it should be clear that salvation must be a unilateral act of God; otherwise, no one would ever seek God or be saved.
This idea, that salvation can only come if God first draws the sinner to Himself, was explicitly taught by Jesus during His earthly ministry. In one of His dialogues with the Jewish leaders, found in the gospel account of John, He tells them that
“No one is able to come to me, unless the Father, the [One] having sent me, may draw him.” (Jn. 6:44)
At the end of the same discourse, Jesus privately confides to His disciples,
“There are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from [the] beginning who are the [ones] not believing and who it is who will be betraying him. And he was saying, “Because of this I have said to you that no one is able to come to me, unless it may be having been given to him from the Father.” (Jn. 6:64-65)
Now, Jesus’ statement that only those drawn by the Father can come to Jesus would be a strong enough statement by itself to, at the very least, prove monergism a very real possibility. However, the fact that Jesus then cites this very statement as the reason why some of His disciples did not believe proves monergism virtually beyond a doubt. Some of His disciples did not believe simply because it had not been granted to them by the Father.
These statements of Jesus correspond well with the what we find throughout the other gospel accounts. At the beginning of his gospel account, John writes that believers are “born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God” (1:13). Jesus’ disciples did not choose Him, but He chose them (Jn. 15:16). No one can receive anything, including faith, unless it is given to them from God (Jn. 3:27). Jesus praised God for revealing the truth to “infants” while hiding it from “the wise and prudent,” stating that only those “to whom the Son determines to reveal [the Father]” may know God (Matt. 11:25-27), and later explained to His disciples that the reason they were able to understand His teachings while the crowds were not able was simply because “to you it has been given... but to them it has not been given... lest they may return and may be forgiven” (Mk. 4:10-12 cf. Matt. 13:10-11).
Although it is clear all throughout the Bible, monergism is nowhere taught more clearly than in the epistles of Paul. As he wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians,
Yet [it is] out of Him [that] you are in Christ Jesus, who has been made wisdom from God to us, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it has been written, “The [one] boasting, let him boast in [the] Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:30-31)
According to Paul, it is God who “has allotted a measure of faith to each” (Rom. 12:3). He may have mercy on whomever He wills, and He may harden whomever He wills (Rom. 9:15-18). God placed each believer in the body of Christ “according as He willed” (1 Cor. 12:18, 15:38), and so the mystery of the gospel has only been revealed “to whom God willed to make [it] known” (Col. 1:26-27). Although evangelists and ministers aid in the spread of the gospel, analogous to “planting” and “watering,” it is ultimately only God who “gives the growth” and brings people to Christ (1 Cor. 3:5-9). So then, in Paul’s eyes, salvation is an act of God’s will, not anything that the believer themself does.
The reason that God willed to bring us to salvation is solely because He predestined it to be so before the foundation of the world, “according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:4-5, 11 cf. 2 Tim. 1:9). And so, when the appointed time came, because of God’s selection (ekloge) of us, the gospel came to us “not only in word, but also in power and in holy spirit” (1 Thess. 1:4-5). God then grants us repentance to be able to know the truth (2 Tim. 2:24-25 cf. Acts 5:31; 11:18; Rom. 2:4), resulting in our salvation - not because of anything righteous that we did, but because of God’s kindness and mercy, we have been regenerated and renewed by holy spirit (Titus 3:4-7). For we are saved by grace, through a faith which is not of ourselves, but was “freely given” to us (Eph. 2:8-9, Php. 1:29). In every step of the salvation process, it is God, not the (future) believer, who is completely in control.
Furthermore, even after God graciously saves us, the good works which we do are also from Him and not out of ourselves. Paul states that “[we are] created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God predestined that we may walk in them“ (Eph. 2:10), and that “God is the One working in [us] both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Php. 2:12-13 cf. Gal. 2:20). He predestines us for glory (Rom. 9:23 cf. 8:29-30), sanctifying us and qualifying us for “the inheritance of the saints” (Col. 1:12; 2 Thess. 2:13-14). Furthermore, it is only possible for us to move on to spiritual maturity if God permits us to do so (Heb. 6:1-3). Thus, both our salvation and good works are graciously given by God, and ultimately not out of ourselves.
Paul’s entirely God-centered view of salvation is generally confirmed throughout the epistles of Peter and John. As previously noted, John makes the statement that “we love [both God and neighbor] because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19-21), showing that even our love for God - which results in salvation - also essentially amounts to a God-given gift. Both Peter and John refer to the believers that they are writing to as “elect” (eklektos), a word which literally means “chosen” (1 Pet. 1:1; 2:9; 2 Jn. 1, 13 cf. Rev. 17:14). Peter also says that all unbelievers have been appointed to that unbelief (1 Pet. 2:7-8), a statement which necessarily implies the opposite, that all believers have been appointed to that belief.
All of these passages demonstrate beyond a doubt that salvation is a unilateral act of God, and that He may cause the salvation of whomever He wills. Some are appointed to age-during life, while others are appointed to unbelief (Acts 13:48; 1 Pet. 2:7-8) [4]. But if this is true, why does there appear to be a legitimate offer to all people to repent, if He only grants repentance to a few (Acts 5:31; 11:18; Rom. 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:24-25)? And how can unbelievers truly be considered responsible for their unbelief, if that also is predetermined by God [5]?
The human vs. the divine perspective
One helpful way to think of these apparent contradictions is to view them from two different perspectives: the human (or relative) perspective and the divine (or absolute) perspective. Although from our limited, human perspective, we have the ability to choose freely, from God’s perspective, our choices were already predetermined (since He knows everything at the present time, and given determinism, this means that He can extrapolate everything at any future time). Both of these perspectives appear throughout scripture, which can sometimes cause confusion due to apparent contradiction.
For example, consider Jesus’ words from His sermon on the mount: “Seek, and you will find... for the one seeking, finds” (Matt. 7:7-8). This gives the impression that humans can seek God and thereby find Him. Yet the Psalmist, and Paul quoting him, says that there is not a single person who seeks God (Ps. 14:2-3; Rom. 3:11). Is this a contradiction? No; the Psalmist is speaking from God’s perspective, as he makes explicitly clear in v. 2, whereas Jesus is speaking from the human perspective. Although no one is able to seek God of themselves, God does draw some people to Him (Jn. 6:44), and so from the human perspective (without intimate knowledge of God’s workings) it appears that they are seeking God.
Another good example of the human perspective is Revelation 3:20, in which Jesus says, “Lo, I have stood at the door and I knock. If anyone may hear my voice and may open the door, I will come in to him, and will eat with him, and he with me.” This is commonly appealed to by Arminians (and synergists in general) to prove that humans can either accept or refuse God’s calling for them. However, this verse does not explain why someone would open the door; is it necessarily an act of ‘libertarian free will’ to do so? Not according to other passages like Mk. 4:11-12, which states that God actively keeps the truth from unbelievers “lest they may return and may be forgiven,” and 2 Tim. 2:24-25, which states that God provides repentance to certain individuals. Therefore, one only has a ‘free choice’ to open the door from the human perspective; if we pull back the curtain to look at the inner workings, it is God who brings someone to ‘open the door,’ so to speak.
Finally, let’s take a look at one last passage. In Matthew 23:37, Jesus states that Israel was unwilling to be gathered together under Him “as a hen gathers together her chicks under her wings.” Yet in Romans 11, Paul states that it was God who gave Israel “eyes to not see and ears to not hear” and hardened them. Again, this is an example of the difference between the human and divine perspective. Although from the limited, human perspective, it appeared as though Israel was resisting God’s will, if we examine what God has revealed about His providential will, we see that their rebelliousness was actually brought about by God.
A good analogy to think of God’s relationship to human beings is that of a playwright to his play [6]. For a specific example, think of Shakespeare and his play Macbeth, in which the main character Macbeth commits regicide by killing King Duncan of Scotland. From the limited perspective of the characters in the play, who was it that killed King Duncan? Of course, it was Macbeth who killed King Duncan. But if we ‘zoom out,’ so to speak, and look at the play from the perspective of the outside world, it was in fact Shakespeare who killed King Duncan. It is equally true that Macbeth and Shakespeare killed the king, depending on which perspective you look at it from. It is likewise equally true that God causes everything that happens (including salvation), as well as that humans cause certain things to occur, but in different ways and from different perspectives.
Furthermore, though it is true that Shakespeare killed King Duncan from the perspective of the outside viewer, it is not true that Shakespeare shares any of the ‘blame’ in this regicide. In contrast, Macbeth certainly is blameworthy for this evil act, despite the fact that he was ultimately ‘caused’ to do so by forces outside of his control (namely, Shakespeare’s playwriting). In the same way, God can predestine humans to commit evil acts without sharing any of the ‘blame’ in those acts, especially because He causes it to happen for a greater purpose (although we may not yet fully understand that purpose).
Part 5: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-bible-on-free-will-answering.html
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[1] It is also sometimes argued that true love requires the existence of libertarian free will. This assertion is answered in my post, “Can free will exist?”
[2] https://www.gotquestions.org/God-save-everyone.html
[3] See my post, “Can free will exist?” for the difference between libertarian and compatibilist notions of ‘free will.’
[4] Which is not to say that all mankind will not eventually be saved, for it is the salvation of all mankind which God wills (1 Tim. 2:4 cf. Eph. 1:9-11). However, He will not save the rest of the non-elect until the end of the ages (1 Cor. 15:22-28, Heb. 9:26).
[5] This question actually ties back into the solution to the problem of evil which I offered at the end of the second post in this series, “The Two Wills of God.”
[6] After all, according to Psalm 139:16, every one of our days is written in God’s ‘book’ before we are even formed. So imagining God as the author of a book, or the playwright of a play, is a very scriptural analogy.
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