This is a compilation of quotations and excerpts pertaining to the doctrine of election from the most solid sources. Keep in mind that we’re justified by faith only (Eph 2:8-9; Rom 3:28), not by our understanding of predestination and election.

16 For many are called, but few are chosen.” — Jesus in Matthew 22:14 (cf. Acts 13:48,2:23; Mt 22:14; Eph 1:4,11; Jn 15:16,18-19; Jn 6:44,65; Ro 8:29-30; 9:11-16; 1Pe 1:2; 2 Pe 1:10; Re 13:8,17:8; Lk 24:45+1Cor 2:14; Jn 17:9, and Ro 10:9+1Cor 12:3+Lk 6:46)

  • ⭐ Views held or considering
  • 🟦 Acceptable / Noteworthy Stances
  • 🟩 Scientist Theologians
  • 🟥 Unacceptable Stances

Contents

  1. Unconditional Single Election (Foreordination)
  2. Conditional Election (Foreknowledge)
  3. Corporate Election
  4. Double Unconditional Predestination
  5. Universal Election in Christ
  6. Dictionaries & Lexicons On Proginṓskō

1. Unconditional Single Election

1.1 Moderately Reformed

II. Historical Interpretations of Election.

E. Unconditional Single Election (Moderately Reformed)

Some claim that the doctrine of sovereign election to life was an Augustinian invention. Most pre-Augustinian Fathers failed to articulate a clear-cut doctrine of election for at least two reasons. (1) Many early Christian authorities reacted against rigorous Stoic and Gnostic fatalism and determinism by stressing human freedom and responsibility. From Justin Martyr (d. 165) onwards many early church authorities stated that election is conditioned on foreseen free human responses to the Gospel. Salvation, according to these Fathers, was a synergistic cooperation between the sinner and God’s Spirit. Thus Brunner astutely observed:

In a world . . . dominated by the idea of Fate, it was far more important to stress the freedom and responsibility of man than the fact that he is determined. This concern led the Early Church Fathers to the other extreme of Free Will, which they developed in connexion with the Stoic idea of autexousion as the presupposition of moral responsibility.64

In addition, (2) many early Fathers succumbed to the prevailing spirit of Hellenistic naturalism. As Thomas F. Torrance noted, “The converts of the first few generations had great difficulty in apprehending the distinctive aspects of the gospel, as for example, the doctrine of grace. It was so astonishingly new to the natural man.”65 Torrance’s studies identified “the urge toward self-justification in the second century fathers.”66 Under the influence of Greek humanism, many early Christian writers judged that God gives saving grace to those who worthily strive after righteousness. These insights help us to understand why prior to Augustine the doctrines of sovereign grace and election were muted.

Nevertheless, belief in human depravity and greater commitment to the divine initiative in salvation gradually developed in the Christian community. Tertullian (d. 220) noted that, contrary to those born in a pagan home, “the children of believers were in some sense destined for holiness and salvation.”67 Athanasius (d. 373) on occasion spoke the language of unconditional divine election. Commenting on Eph 1:3-5 and 2 Tim 1:8­ 10, he observed that whereas the Fall was “foreseen” the salvation of some people was predestined or “prepared beforehand.”68 In the same vein Ambrose (d. 397), whose preaching greatly influenced Augustine, wrote as follows: “God calls those whom he deigns to call; he makes him pious whom he wills to make pious, for if he had willed he could have changed the impious into pious.”69

Augustine’s (d. 430) early position on election, set forth in his exposition of Romans, was synergistic: God predestined those he foreknew would exercise faith in Christ. Yet wrestling with Scripture in the course of refuting the Pelagian heresy, Augustine changed his view and described the synergism he formerly held as the “pest of the Pelagian error.” According to Brunner, “Augustine was the only great teacher of the Early Church who gave reliable Biblical teaching on the subject of Sin and Grace.”70 The bishop insisted that although the unregenerate possess considerable psychological freedom, they lack the moral freedom (i.e., the power) to do the good. In particular, sinners cannot take the first step toward God unless enabled by God’s Spirit. Wrote the bishop, “The human will does not attain grace through freedom, but rather freedom through grace.”71 In other words, the divine commands will be fulfilled only as God himself gives the ability to perform them. Thus his prayer to God was, “Give what you command, and command what you will.”72

Augustine believed that by virtue of original sin all persons justly deserve judgment. But if God through unmerited mercy should choose to save some sinners and not others, none could charge him with acting unrighteously. Thus the bishop understood the Bible to teach that according to his good pleasure and apart from any human merit God in eternity past sovereignly chose out of the “mass of perdition” a certain number of sinners to be saved. “Grace came into the world that those who were predestined before the world may be chosen out of the world.”73 On this showing God gives to some more than they deserve, but no one gets less than they deserve. Why God chose to bless some sinners and willed to leave others in their sins has not been revealed. Yet God’s elective purpose richly displays his mercy and justice. So the bishop reasoned,

a merciful God delivers so many to the praise of the glory of his grace from deserved perdition. If He should deliver no one therefrom, he would not be unrighteous. Let him who is delivered love His grace. Let him who is not delivered acknowledge his due. In remitting a debt, goodness is perceived; in requiting it, justice. Unrighteousness is never found with God.74

Augustine believed that predestination is sometimes signified under the name of foreknowledge. “The ordering of his future works in His foreknowledge, which cannot be deceived and changed, is absolute, and is nothing but predestination.”75 Depraved sinners’ inability morally and spiritually rules out the equation of divine foreknowledge with mere prescience. “Had God chosen us on the ground that he foreknew that we should be good, then would he also have foreknown that we would not be the first to make choice of him.”76 Moreover, if God chose sinners because he foresaw that they would respond to Christ (a form of human merit), grace would cease to be grace. Such persons would have ground for boasting. “For it is not by grace if merit preceded: but it is of grace; and therefore that grace did not find, but effected the merit.”77 Finally, the bishop held that God did not foreordain persons to damnation in the same effectual way he foreordained to life. Rather, reprobation represents God’s determination that the finally impenitent will suffer the just consequences of their sins. Whereas election to life is unconditional, reprobation to perdition is conditioned on human disobedience. Thus Augustine understood predestination in an infralapsarian sense.

Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) revived Augustine’s doctrines of sin, grace, and predestination. Considering predestination an aspect of divine providence, Thomas noted that God achieves some of his purposes by direct “operation” and others by “precept,” “prohibition,” and “permission.”78 He judged that God positively decreed the salvation of some persons, whereas he permissively decreed the perdition of others. Thomas wrote, “Some men are directed by divine working to their ultimate end as aided by grace, while others who are deprived of the same help of grace fall short of their ultimate end, and since all things that are done by God are foreseen and ordered from eternity by his wisdom . . . the aforementioned differentiation of men must be ordered by God from eternity.”79 Thomas rejected the view of certain Fathers and medieval authorities that foreknowledge of human merit or virtue is the cause of predestination to life. “The reason for the predestination of some . . . must be sought in the goodness of God” and not on “the use of grace foreknown by God.”80 Thomas likewise insisted that predestination does not destroy free will, human effort, or prayer, for God has chosen to accomplish his purposes by these secondary causes. “The salvation of a person is predestined by God in such a way, that whatever helps that person towards salvation falls under the order of predestination; whether it be one’s own prayers . . . or other good works, and suchlike, without which one would not attain to salvation.”81 As noted, reprobation is God’s permissive decision to allow sinners to persist in sin and to be punished for it. Thomas plainly wrote, “as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory, so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.”82

The Belgic Confession (1561) of the Reformed churches in the low countries, states that God is “merciful and just: merciful, since he delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom he in his eternal and unchangeable counsel of mere goodness has elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without any respect to their works; just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves” (art. XVI). Similar is the French Confession of Faith (1559): “From this corruption and general condemnation in which all men are plunged God, according to his eternal and immutable council, calleth those whom he hath chosen by his goodness and mercy alone in our Lord Jesus Christ, without consideration of their works, to display in them the riches of his mercy; leaving the rest in this same corruption and condemnation to show in them his justice” (art. XII).

The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1571) likewise opposed the conditional view of election. “Predestination to Life is the eternal purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent benefit of God, be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season” (art. XVII). This article adds, “the godly consideration of predestination and our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons.”

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) presents the mature Reformed view on election. “Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace” (ch. 3.5).

John Gill (d. 1771), an English Baptist, believed that many Scriptures (e.g., Eph 1:4; 2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 1:9) plainly teach God’s unconditional election to salvation. “This eternal election of particular persons to salvation is absolute, unconditional, and irrespective of faith, holiness, good works, and perseverance as the moving causes or conditions of it; all which are the fruits and effects of electing grace, but not causes or conditions of it; since these are said to be chosen, not because they were holy, but that they should be so.”83 Gill held that sovereign election is the first link in the golden chain of salvation; forgiveness of sins, redemption, justification, and perseverance all proceed therefrom as fruit from a tree. Gill defined reprobation as God (1) passing by some sinners, thus leaving them in their sins, and (2) inflicting on them just punishment for their sins.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (d. 1892), the Baptist pastor of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, explained the doctrine as follows. (1) Election derives from God’s sovereign purpose. Salvation eventuates not because humans will it in time, but because God willed it eternally. “The whole scheme of salvation, from the first to the last, hinges and turns on the absolute will of God.”84 (2) Election is entirely of grace. Guilty sinners deserve only wrath and punishment. But from eternity past God loved the elect in consequence of his own gracious purpose, not because of any foreseen merit in them. “It is quite certain that any virtue which there may be in any man is the result of God’s grace. Now if it be the result of grace it cannot be the cause of grace.”85 And (3), election is personal, not corporate. If it be unjust of God to elect a person to life, it would be far more unjust of him to elect a nation, for the latter represents an aggregate of individuals. “God chose that Jew, and that Jew, and that Jew. . . . Scripture continually speaks of God’s people one by one and speaks of them as having been the special objects of election.”86

The Baptist theologian A.H. Strong (d. 1921) held that by virtue of universal depravity God must initiate the process of salvation. The fountainhead of God’s initiative is sovereign election, defined as “that eternal act of God, by which in his sovereign pleasure, and on account of no foreseen merit in them, he chooses certain out of the number of sinful men to be the recipients of the special grace of his Spirit, and so to be made voluntary partakers of Christ’s salvation.”87 The divine election is not based on any activity of sinners, including faith, since depravity ensures that without special grace the unregenerate would bring forth no Godward move­ment. Moreover, God’s foreknowledge connotes not merely to “know in advance,” but more actively to “regard with favor” or “make an object of care.” In key biblical texts the words “know” and “foreknow” possess the same meaning. Strong’s measured conclusion is that “in spite of difficulties we must accept the doctrine of election.”88

This position of a single, unconditional election to life is well supported not only by historical considerations but also by the biblical data, as will be explained in the section that follows.

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, II. Historical Interpretations of Election. pp. 113-118.

1.1.1.1 Dr. J.I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford)

  1. ELECTION

GOD CHOOSES HIS OWN

For [God] says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. Romans 9:15–16

The verb elect means ‘select, or choose out’. The biblical doctrine of election is that before creation God selected out of the human race, foreseen as fallen, those whom he would redeem, bring to faith, justify, and glorify in and through Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:28–39; Eph. 1:3–14; 2 Thess. 2:13–14; 2 Tim. 1:9–10). This divine choice is an expression of free and sovereign grace, for it is unconstrained and unconditional, not merited by anything in those who are its subjects. God owes sinners no mercy of any kind, only condemnation; so it is a wonder, and matter for endless praise, that he should choose to save any of us; and doubly so when his choice involved the giving of his own Son to suffer as sin-bearer for the elect (Rom. 8:32).

The doctrine of election, like every truth about God, involves mystery and sometimes stirs controversy. But in Scripture it is a pastoral doctrine, brought in to help Christians see how great is the grace that saves them, and to move them to humility, confidence, joy, praise, faithfulness, and holiness in response. It is the family secret of the children of God. We do not know who else he has chosen among those who do not yet believe, nor why it was his good pleasure to choose us in particular. What we do know is, first, that had we not been chosen for life we would not be believers now (for only the elect are brought to faith), and, second, that as elect believers we may rely on God to finish in us the good work that he started (1 Cor. 1:8–9; Phil. 1:6; 1 Thess. 5:23–24; 2 Tim. 1:12; 4:18). Knowledge of one’s election thus brings comfort and joy.

Peter tells us we should be ‘eager to make [our] calling and election sure’ (2 Pet. 1:10) – that is, certain to us. Election is known by its fruits. Paul knew the election of the Thessalonians from their faith, hope, and love, the inward and outward transformation of their lives that the gospel had brought about (1 Thess. 1:3–6). The more that the qualities to which Peter has been exhorting his readers appear in our lives (goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love: 2 Pet. 1:5– 7), the surer of our own election we are entitled to be.

The elect are, from one standpoint, the Father’s gift to the Son (John 6:39; 10:29; 17:2, 24). Jesus testifies that he came into this world specifically to save them (John 6:37–40; 10:14–16, 26–29; 15:16; 17:6–26; Eph. 5:25–27), and any account of his mission must emphasize this.

Reprobation is the name given to God’s eternal decision regarding those sinners whom he has not chosen for life. His decision is in essence a decision not to change them, as the elect are destined to be changed, but to leave them to sin as in their hearts they already want to do, and finally to judge them as they deserve for what they have done. When in particular instances God gives them over to their sins (i.e. removes restraints on their doing the disobedient things they desire), this is itself the beginning of judgment. It is called ‘hardening’ (Rom. 9:18; 11:25; cf. Ps. 81:12; Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), and it inevitably leads to greater guilt.

Reprobation is a biblical reality (Rom. 9:14–24; 1 Pet. 2:8), but not one that bears directly on Christian behaviour. The reprobates are faceless so far as Christians are concerned, and it is not for us to try to identify them. Rather, we should live in light of the certainty that anyone may be saved if he or she will but repent and put faith in Christ.

We should view all persons that we meet as possibly being numbered among the elect.

— Dr. J. I. Packer (PhD, University of Oxford), Concise Theology. 55. Election. On faith, on repentance.

1.1.1.2 Dr. Wayne Grudem (PhD, University of Cambridge)

We may define election as follows: Election is an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure.

— Dr. Wayne Grudem (Ph.D., University of Cambridge; D.D., Westminster), Systematic Theology, Chapter 32: Election and Reprobation.

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A. Does the New Testament Teach Predestination?

Several passages in the New Testament seem to affirm quite clearly that God ordained beforehand those who would be saved. For example, when Paul and Barnabas began to preach to the Gentiles in Antioch in Pisidia, Luke writes, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of God; and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). It is significant that Luke mentions the fact of election almost in passing. It is as if this were the normal occurrence when the gospel was preached. How many believed? “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”

In Romans 8:28 – 30, we read:

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. 3

In the following chapter, when talking about God’s chosing Jacob and not Esau, Paul says it was not because of anything that Jacob or Esau had done, but simply in order that God’s purpose of election might continue.

Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, she was told, “The elder will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Rom. 9:11 – 13)

Regarding the fact that some of the people of Israel were saved, but others were not, Paul says: “Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7). Here again Paul indicates two distinct groups within the people of Israel. Those who were “the elect” obtained the salvation that they sought, while those who were not the elect simply “were hardened.”

Paul talks explicitly about God’s choice of believers before the foundation of the world in the beginning of Ephesians.

“He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.” (Eph. 1:4 – 6)

Here Paul is writing to believers and he specifically says that God “chose us” in Christ, referring to believers generally. In a similar way, several verses later he says, “We who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:12).

He writes to the Thessalonians, “For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you; for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:4 – 5).

Paul says that the fact that the Thessalonians believed the gospel when he preached it (“for our gospel came to you . . . in power . . . and with full conviction”) is the reason he knows that God chose them. As soon as they came to faith Paul concluded that long ago God had chosen them, and therefore they had believed when he preached. He later writes to the same church, “We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13).

Although the next text does not specifically mention the election of human beings, it is interesting at this point also to notice what Paul says about angels. When he gives a solemn command to Timothy, he writes, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without favor” (1 Tim. 5:21). Paul is aware that there are good angels witnessing his command and witnessing Timothy’s response to it, and he is so sure that it is God’s act of election that has affected every one of those good angels that he can call them “elect angels.”

When Paul talks about the reason why God saved us and called us to himself, he explicitly denies that it was because of our works, but points rather to God’s own purpose and his unmerited grace in eternity past. He says God is the one “who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago” (2 Tim. 1:9).

When Peter writes an epistle to hundreds of Christians in many churches in Asia Minor, he writes, “To God’s elect . . . scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1 NIV). He later calls them “a chosen race” (1 Peter 2:9).

In John’s vision in Revelation, those who do not give in to persecution and begin to worship the beast are persons whose names have been written in the book of life before the foundation of the world: “And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain” (Rev. 13:7 – 8)4 In a similar way, we read of the beast from the bottomless pit in Revelation 17: “The dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will marvel to behold the beast, because it was and is not and is to come” (Rev. 17:8).

— Dr. Wayne Grudem (Ph.D., University of Cambridge; D.D., Westminster), Systematic Theology, Chapter 32: Election and Reprobation.

1.1.2.1 Dr. Bruce Demarest (PhD, University of Manchester)

III. The Exposition Of The Doctrine of Election.

D. Personal Election in the NT: A Major Theme

Can we find in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles evidence of personal, unconditional election? In the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt 20:1-16), the Lord taught that God is not obliged to deal with everyone in the same way. To those who objected that they worked all day but received the same wage as those who worked but one hour, Jesus inferred that none get less than they deserve (justice), but some get more than they deserve (grace). It is not unjust of God to give some more than their due. Elsewhere Jesus taught that of old God favored certain persons with his grace while passing by others. Thus there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s day, but the prophet was sent to minister only to the widow of Zarephath (Luke 4:25-26; cf. 1 Kgs 17:8-24). In addition, there were many lepers in Israel at that time, but only one was healed of the disease, namely, Naaman the Syrian (Luke 4:27; cf. 2 Kgs 5:1-14).

Furthermore, Jesus acknowledged the Father’s sovereign right to reveal or conceal the significance of the Son’s words and works as he pleases. The Lord prayed in Matt 11:25-26, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure (eudokia).” Eudokia, explaining God’s concealing and revealing activity, connotes the good pleasure of God’s sovereign will. “Eudokia expresses independent volition, sovereign choice, but always with an implication of benevolence.”103 Jesus confirmed this by adding, “No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses [present subjunctive of boulomai, to “will”] to reveal him” (Matt 11:27). Thus God sovereignly chose to extend his enlightening and saving influence to some persons, while withholding it from others (cf. Matt 13:11). Although Matt 11:28-30 likely was spoken at another time in Jesus’ ministry, a universal invitation to receive Jesus (v. 28) is not inconsistent with God’s purpose to reveal himself to some. This is so because (1) Christ’s provision on the cross was universal (see chap. 4). And (2) all who respond positively to the invitation will be saved (John 11:26; Acts 10:43; Rom 10:11, 13); but tragically for themselves, depraved sinners are unresponsive to spiritual impulses—hence the need for a supernatural initiative (see chap. 5).

The adjective eklektos occurs twenty-two times in the NT, seventeen times (as a plural) in the sense of “chosen” or “elect” saints. Those envisaged are individuals within the remnant of Israel (Matt 24:22, 24, 31; Mark 13:20, 22, 27; Luke 18:7) and citizens of the church (Rom 8:33; Col 3:12; 2 Tim 2:10; Tit 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1). The elect are viewed not as an empty class, for in the preceding verses the elect cry out to God, obey Christ, are faithful to him, and reflect the fruits of the Spirit—all of which are activities of individuals, who also may be considered as a group or a class.

Although John affirmed God’s love for the entire world, the Fourth Gospel, more emphatically than the Synoptics, emphasizes God’s sovereign choice of certain persons to be saved. This is clear in John 5:21, where Jesus said to the Jews, “just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” Likewise in John 13:18 Jesus said to his disciples, “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen.” The Lord chose the Twelve as a group for ministry, but prior to that he chose each one, save Judas, for salvation.104

Speaking figuratively, Jesus in John 10 identified himself as the shepherd and his elect people as the “sheep.”105 John drew several important conclusions concerning the relation between the shepherd and the sheep, as follows: (1) The sheep are those people whom the Father specifically has given to the Son (v. 29). The fact that God has gifted certain persons to the Son is reiterated in John 17:2, 6, 9, 24 and 18:9, the frequency of mention suggesting that this was an important concept to John. Jesus taught more specifically in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me” (i.e., will believe and be saved). Concerning the sheep, the Father “chose them out of the world for the possession and the service of the Son.”106 See also John 15:19, where Christ chose (eklegomai) the disciples out of the world both for salvation and service, a fact taught in similar language in John 17:6, 14, 16. The verb eklegomai (to “choose,” “select”) is used eight times of Jesus choosing disciples and seven times of God’s choice of people for eternal life (Mark 13:20; Acts 17:13; 1 Cor 1:27 [two times], 28; Eph 1:4; Jas 2:5). Carson rightly concludes that “They are Christ’s obedient sheep in his salvific purpose before they are his sheep in obedient practice.”107 (2) The shepherd died to achieve the salvation of the sheep (vv. 11, 15). Moreover, Jesus reveals himself redemptively to those the Father gave him out of the world (John 17:6, 8), and for these he intercedes in heaven. (3) The shepherd “knows” his sheep and “calls” them by name (vv. 3, 14, 27). Just as the oriental shepherd called his sheep by name, so Jesus the good Shepherd “knows” his sheep personally with a knowledge that is saving.

(4) The sheep know the voice of the shepherd and follow him (vv. 4, 27). Jesus said of those not his sheep, “you do not believe because you are not my sheep” (v. 26). We might have expected Jesus to say, “You are not my sheep because you do not believe,” but he said precisely the opposite. A sinner, then, does not become a “sheep” by believing in Jesus; rather, he or she believes in Jesus because antecedently appointed by God as one of the “sheep.” (5) Jesus’ saying—“I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also” (v. 16)—refers to specific Gentiles who de jure belonged to Christ by divine election even though de facto they had not yet come to faith. In the Johannine texts cited, the “sheep” are not an empty class, for they are said to “hear,” “know,” “believe,” “trust,” “follow,” and “love” the Shepherd—all of which are individual actions before being considered as actions of a group or a class.

The theme of election is not absent from the record of the explosive growth of the church in Acts. At Pisidian Antioch Paul acknowledged God’s corporate election of national Israel for spiritual and temporal blessings (Acts 13:17). Yet at the conclusion of Paul’s and Barnabas’ ministry in that city, Luke stated that “all who were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). The key word is the perfect passive participle of tassō, to “order,” “appoint,” or “ordain.” This verb occurs eight times in the NT, but only here in the sense of appointment to eternal life. F.F. Bruce suggested that the verb might be translated “enrolled” or “inscribed” in the Lamb’s book of life (cf. Luke 10:20; Phil 4:3; Rev 13:8; 17:8).108 Luke’s words clearly indicate that God’s sovereign action, be it ordaining or enrolling (or both), occurred prior to the person’s believing. The Gentile hearers believed because appointed to life; they were not appointed because they believed. All of this speaks the language of God’s sovereign election of certain persons for salvation.109

During his second missionary journey, Paul had a vision in which God encouraged him to continue preaching in Corinth notwithstanding the severe opposition he would face. Paul must persevere in sharing the Gospel, God said, “because I have many people (laos) in this city” (Acts 18:10). The heavenly message confirmed that God had chosen many persons in Corinth to be his own, and Paul’s preaching was the divinely ordained means to bring these elect to salvation. Paul’s later letters indicate that many in Corinth did come to faith and organize as Christian communities. Leon Morris comments concerning the “people” in Corinth: “They had not yet done anything about being saved; many of them had not even heard the gospel. But they were God’s. Clearly it is he who would bring them to salvation in due course.”110

In Rom 8:28-30 Paul delineated the full circle of salvation, which clinched his argument concerning Christians’ hope of heavenly glory (vv. 18-27).

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

We observe, first, that the foundation of the Christian’s calling to salvation is God’s prothesis, meaning “purpose,” “resolve,” or “decision” (Rom 9:11; Eph 1:11; 3:11; 2 Tim 1:9). The believer’s hope of future glory is grounded not in his own will but in the sovereign, pre-temporal purpose of God.

The first of the aorist verbs in the passage is the word proginōskō, to “foreknow,” “choose beforehand.”111 With humans as subject the word means to “know beforehand” (Acts 26:5; 2 Pet 3:17). With God as subject the verb could mean either prescience or foreloving/foreordaining (Rom 8:29; 11:2; 1 Pet 1:20). The foundational verbs yāda‘ and ginōskō often mean to “perceive,” “understand,” and “know.” But they also mean “to set regard upon, to know with particular interest, delight, affection, and action. (Cf. Gen 18:19; Exod 2:25; Ps 1:6; 144:3; Jer 1:5; Amos 3:2; Hos 13:5; Matt 7:23; 1 Cor 8:3; Gal 4:9; 2 Tim 2:19; 1 John 3:1).”112 The verb ginōskō thus can convey God’s intimate acquaintance with his people, specifically the fact that they are “foreloved” or “chosen.” This latter sense is evident in the following Pauline sayings: “the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Cor 8:3); “but now that you know God—or rather are known by God” (Gal 4:9); and “the Lord knows those that are his” (2 Tim 2:19).

The verb proginōskō in Rom 8:29 and 11:2 contextually could be taken in either of the two senses, i.e., prescience or foreordination. But given the strongly relational Hebrew background to the word, the unambiguous sense of proginōskō in 1 Pet 1:20 (see below) and prognōsis in Acts 2:23 and 1 Pet 1:2 (see below), and the whole tenor of Paul’s theology, the probable meaning of proginōskō with God as subject is to “know intimately” or “forelove.”113 F.F. Bruce concurs with this judgment. Concerning Rom 8:29, he wrote, “the words ‘whom he did foreknow’ have the connotation of electing grace which is frequently implied by the verb ‘to know’ in the Old Testament. When God takes knowledge of his people in this special way, he sets his choice upon them.”114 To the preceding considerations we add that the biblical language of foreknowledge is always used of saints, never of the unsaved. Moreover, what God “foreknows” is the saints themselves, not any decision or action of theirs. Thus divine election is according to foreknowledge (foreloving), not simply according to foresight (prescience).

Paul continues in the Romans text: “For those God foreknew he also predestined [proōrisen] to be conformed to the likeness of his Son . . .” (v. 29). The verb proōrizō, to “decide beforehand,” or “predestine,” occurs six times in the NT in the sense of God’s predetermined plan of salvation, Christ’s sufferings, or gracious election to life (Rom 8:29-30; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 1:5, 11). Those on whom God in eternity past set his affection, he sovereignly chose for life.

Return for a moment to the larger picture of the golden chain of salvation presented in Rom 8:29-30. The verbs “foreknew,” “predestined,” “called,” “justified,” and “glorified” are in the aorist tense, which denotes God’s prior determination marking these future events with certainty. Moreover the verbs grammatically are in exact sequence; thus if the election and the calling were exclusively corporate, so also would be the justification and the glorification. But God does not justify an empty class; he justifies individuals within the class who are moved to saving faith in Christ. Similarly, it is individuals who possess the Spirit (v. 23), who “groan inwardly” awaiting the day of glorification (v. 23), who exercise “hope” (v. 24), and who display patience (v. 25). Clearly these are spiritual experiences of individual Christians who, when considered aggregately, constitute the class of believers. Thus the focus of the circle of salvation is both corporate and individual.115

Romans 9–11 is an important text for understanding God’s saving purpose for Jews and Gentiles. Paul first recalled Israel’s glorious spiritual heritage: “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises” (Rom 9:4; cf. v. 5). Given these lofty privileges, why are so few Jews saved? Has God’s purpose for his people failed? To these questions Paul responded with a firm no! The fact is, he continued, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children” (vv. 6-7). The existence of a believing remnant—a circle of elect ones—within ethnic Israel attests that God’s purpose has not been frustrated, that his promise has not failed.

Paul further indicated God chose Isaac over Ishmael (vv. 7-9) and Jacob over Esau (vv. 10-13) before they were born or had done good or evil “in order that God’s purpose [prothesis] in election [eklogē, “picking out,” “election,” “selection”] might stand” (v. 11). To support this argument. Paul quoted from Mal 1:2-3, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” Cranfield concludes that “loved” and “hated” here denote election and rejection respectively. 116 Paul’s emphasis clearly is upon God’s sovereign purpose, not man’s response. God’s election of Isaac and Jacob is individual unto salvation and not merely corporate (Israel and Edom) in respect of earthly privileges, since in vv. 9-13 each of the children—their birth and their deeds—is in the foreground.117 Moreover, in v. 24 Paul stated that God chose and called not only individuals from among the Jews (such as Isaac and Jacob) but also individuals from among the Gentiles. A further factor is the flow of Paul’s argument. He sought to show that in spite of the unbelief of ethnic Israel God’s saving purpose has not failed, as confirmed by the election of a believing remnant exemplified by Isaac and Jacob. To say that God’s purpose for Israel remains valid, notwithstanding the unbelief of ethnic Israel in general, because God chose the line of Isaac and Jacob for temporal blessings is merely to restate the historical problem and to solve nothing.118

To this affirmation of God’s sovereign election of a remnant within ethnic Israel, Paul’s critics levied two objections. First, God would be unjust in his dealings (vv. 14-18). This objection would be of little force if the issue at hand were merely the choice of ethnic Israel for earthly privileges. But note that Paul’s response to the objection was an emphatic, “Not at all!” (v. 14). Although finite beings do not comprehend God’s elective purpose, God reserves the right to exercise mercy upon whom he chooses. So the apostle appealed to Yahweh’s words to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (v. 15; cf. v. 18).119 God is not unjust to give a person more than he deserves while permitting the unsaved to continue in their chosen path of sin, any more than it is not unjust of an earthly governor to pardon one criminal and not another. Concerning the divine election of a remnant Paul wrote, “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (v. 16). The decisive factor concerning who will be saved is God’s sovereign will, not human volition.

The second objection levied was that if God is sovereign in election and hardening, no one could be judged blameworthy (vv. 19-24). Paul responded sternly to the arrogant objector: “who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” (v. 20). Appealing to the OT imagery of the potter and the clay (Jer 18:2-6), Paul argued that as the potter has the right to mold the clay as he wills, so God has the sovereign right to bestow more grace on one of his creatures than on another (v. 21). Paul’s reference to “the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory” (v. 23) clearly depicts his sovereign, pre-temporal election of some for heavenly destiny.120 Pinnock has argued in the light of the potter and the clay analogy that God “has a great deal for which to answer.”121 The crucial issue is, Must the all-perfect God answer to finite and feeble-minded humans, or must we mortals bow before and answer to a sovereign, just, and allwise God?

In the second section of our extended text, Rom 9:30–10:21, Paul argued that the fact of sovereign election, as expounded from the OT, does not eliminate the individual’s responsibility for making the right choice. Quoting from Joel 2:32, Paul wrote, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (10:13). Personal response to the Gospel message is necessary if one would be saved. Paul continued that the Gospel has been published widely and to Jews first. “But not all the Israelites accepted the good news” (v. 16). Why not? Because they sought righteousness by law-keeping rather than by faith in the crucified and risen Messiah. The Lord holds unbelieving Israel morally responsible for their unbelief.

The third section, Rom 11:1-29, explains God’s purpose for the future of Israel and the Gentiles. Paul again refuted the notion that God has rejected Israel: “God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew” (v. 2a). The objects of God’s foreknowledge are the Jewish people, often disobedient and faithless and without praiseworthy responses on their part. Rom 11:2 thus better fits the conclusion reached above—i.e., that God’s foreknowing is equivalent to his foreloving or foreordaining. The NT frequently cites the very close relationship that exists between God’s loving and his choosing (Eph 1:4; Col 3:12; 1 Thess 1:4; 2 Thess 2:13). That God has not forsaken his people is evidenced by the fact that “at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace” (v. 5). The existence of an elect remnant within the chosen nation is the outcome of God’s sovereign and gracious purpose. God formed the remnant by a personal election within the corporate election to yield a spiritual seed within the institutional people. We underscore the conclusion of Jewett: “Israel was elect in a double sense: in an outward and temporal sense, the nation, as a nation, was elect; in an inward, personal, and eternal sense, a faithful remnant was elected.”122 To illustrate this choice of an elect remnant, Paul pointed to himself (v. 1b) and to 7,000 faithful souls in Elijah’s day who would not bow before Baal (vv. 2b-4). The nation as a whole failed to obtain spiritual blessing (v. 7), “but the elect (eklogē) did [obtain it],” not by works but by grace (v. 6). We defer discussion of the salvation of many Gentiles and eventually “all Israel” (v. 26) to the volumes in this series on the church and eschatology.

The apostle, however, concluded his treatment of God’s sovereign elective purpose for Jews and Gentiles with a hymn of praise (vv. 33-36). God’s gracious choice of certain Jews and Gentiles to be saved lends itself more to doxology than to precise rational analysis. The salvation of the remnant is the result of the “wisdom,” “knowledge,” “judgments,” and “mind” of the Lord.123 God’s sovereign purpose of mercy and grace to sinners is so grand and exalted that the only fitting response on the part of feeble humans is humble praise and adoration. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever!” (v. 36).

In Gal 1:15-16 Paul wrote that “God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles. . . .” Paul made it abundantly clear that prior to his conversion he hated the church and did his utmost to destroy it (Gal 1:13, 23; cf. Acts 9:1-2, 13-14; 22:4-5; 26:10; 1 Tim 1:13). Yet he also affirmed that God in grace took the saving initiative in his rebellious life. Thus the Father was pleased to separate him from birth—the word aphorisas (“separated”) being related to proōrisas (“predestinate”)—and to reveal his Son to him (cf. 2 Cor 4:6). Only then did the Lord commission Paul for Gospel ministry. The apostle thus attested God’s act of separation in eternity past for salvation and in time for service. As he testified in Gal 2:20, God’s saving action toward him was profoundly personal. Thus Paul saw himself (1) personally loved by Christ (“who loved me”), (2) personally justified (“I live by faith in the Son of God”), (3) personally regenerated (“Christ lives in me”), and (4) personally united with the Savior (“crucified with Christ”). Four times in this one verse Paul used the first-person pronoun (egō, emou, me, emoi). Jewett’s comment again proves instructive: “The individual quality in God’s electing love is reflected in the use of the singular personal pronoun in Scripture. . . . To be elect is to be aware that God has fixed his love on me, called me by name, given me a new name (Rev 2:17), and inscribed my name in the Book.”124 God had a plan for Saul/Paul and worked efficiently to bring him to faith in Christ. The same could not be said for God’s relation to Judas, Pilate, or Herod.

A comprehensive Pauline text dealing with election is Eph 1:3-14, which we analyze as follows. (1) The source of election: “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (v. 3). Election is a monogeristic operation of God, not a synergism (cf. 2 Tim 1:9). (2) The fact of election: “we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (v. 11; cf. vv. 4-5, 9). Paul’s election words in the preceding verses are heaped one upon the another, powerful and descriptive of what God himself accomplishes: eklegō, to “choose out,” “select;”125 kleroō, to “choose,” “destine”; proorizō, to “foreordain,” “predestine”; protithēmi, to “purpose,” “intend”; prothesis, “plan,” “purpose,” “resolve;”126 boulē, “an intention” or “deliberation” (with emphasis on the deliberative aspect of the decision;127 thelēma, “will” or “intention”—i.e., “God’s eternal and providential saving will,”128 with emphasis on the volitional aspect or the will in exercise; and eudokia, “good pleasure,” “act of the will”—a choice grounded in God’s sovereign purpose.129

(3) The time of election: from eternity past, i.e., “before the creation of the world” (v. 4; cf. 2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 1:9). Salvation is the unfolding of God’s eternal purpose. “The Scriptures say that God chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world, not that he saw us from before the foundation of the world as choosing Christ.”130 (4) the objects of election: “we” (v. 7) or “us” (vv. 3-6, 8-9). Paul envisaged the elect both in their corporate standing as the church and in their individuality. The latter is clear in Rom 16:13, where Paul wrote, “Greet Rufus, chosen (ton eklekton) in the Lord,” and in 1 Pet 1:1, discussed below. The people of God are viewed both in their unity and in their diversity (Rom 12:4-5; 1 Cor 10:17; 12:12, 20; Eph 4:25; 5:30; Col 3:15). Berkouwer made this important observation: “We are repeatedly struck by the lack of tension between the election of the individual and the election of the church…. The life of the individual does not dissolve into the community”131 (emphasis added). Every social unit must be defined in terms of the individuals that comprise it. The NT designates Christians as “believers,” “saints,” and “elect.” No one doubts that it is the individual that believes and is sanctified. So ultimately it is the individual who is loved and chosen by God. Luther captured this individual dimension of salvation, often obscured by corporate advocates, when he wrote, “You must do your own believing, as you must do your own dying.”132

(5) The sphere of election: “in Christ” (vv. 3-7, 9, 11; 3:11; 2 Tim 1:9). Arminians interpret “in Christ” as elect according to our quality as believers. Predestination “in Christ,” however, affirms God’s purpose to effect salvation through the person and work of Jesus Christ (vv. 5, 7; cf. Rom 6:23b; 2 Tim 1:9b). “Christ is the medium for the imparting of grace.”133 The phrase “in Christ” positively excludes a works-effected salvation. (6) The motive of election: God’s freely conceived and unconditional love. So Paul wrote, “in love he predestined us” (vv. 4-5). (7) The impartiality of election: “in accordance with his pleasure and will” (v. 5; cf. Rom 2:11; 11:34). God’s choice was not motivated by the faintest hint of favoritism. Finally, (8) the goal of election: that believers might “be holy and blameless in his sight” (v. 4), and that they might live “to the praise of his glorious grace” (v. 6). The outcome, not the condition, of election is righteousness of life.

To encourage Thessalonian Christians who were severely persecuted, Paul wrote that the God who had chosen them for salvation from eternity past and called them to Christ would sustain them in their present trials (2 Thess 2:13-14). Sorely tempted to renounce Christ, the believers would have found little consolation in the reminder that it was they who had chosen God. Rather, the supreme encouragement in a situation where their human resources were failing was that God had chosen them for an enduring salvation. So the apostle wrote, “we . . . thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose [eilato] you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” The middle voice of a verb denotes the subject acting with respect to itself. Here the aorist middle indicative of haireomai (to “choose,” “prefer,” “decide”) “emphasizes . . . the relation of the person chosen to the special purpose of him who chooses. The ‘chosen’ are regarded . . . as they stand to the counsel of God.”134 See also 1 Thess 1:4­-5, where the saints’ response to the Gospel was evidence of their prior election. Election in eternity past was actualized in time by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and the Thessalonians’ belief in the Gospel as preached by Paul. 2 Thess 2:13 (NRSV) indicates that God actively chose them specifically “for salvation” (eis sōtērian). Paul also stated this truism in 1 Thess 5:9 when he wrote, “God. . . [appointed] us . . . to receive salvation” (eis peripoiēsin sōtērias).135 To the Christian’s experiential question, Why am I a Christian?, the biblically faithful answer must be, Because God chose me.

James also stated that the initiative in salvation lies wholly with the sovereign God: “He chose [boulētheis] us to give us birth through the word of truth” (Jas 1:18). Jude 1 affirmed the same in its description of Christians as people “called,” “loved,” and “kept” by God. Observe that it is fundamentally the individual (and by extension the class) who is “loved” and “kept” by God; so also it is the individual who is “called” by God. Peter viewed the body of Christ as the new people of God (1 Pet 2:9-10); yet within this new entity he saw the election of individuals to salvation. So Peter wrote his first letter to “God’s elect [eklektois], strangers in the world, scattered” throughout much of Asia Minor (1 Pet 1:1). Since individuals, not a class, scatter or are dispersed, Peter had in mind an aggregate of individuals, not an empty class. The elect ones “have been chosen according to [kata] the foreknowledge [prognōsin] of God the Father, through (en) the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for [eis] obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood” (v. 2). Several comments on this verse are in order. (1) The preposition kata indicates the basis of divine election—namely, the divine foreknowledge. In context, prognōsis denotes the divine foreloving or foreordaining, or as Selwyn stated, God’s “knowing or taking note of those whom He will choose.”136 That God’s foreknowledge of Christians likely indicates more than prescience is confirmed by Peter’s statement that Christ “was chosen (perfect passive participle of proginōskō) before the creation of the world” (1 Pet 1:20; “He was destined,” RSV, NRSV; cf. Acts 2:23). 1 Pet 1:2 says nothing about Christians being chosen on the basis of foreseen faith. (2) The preposition en signifies the means by which eternal election was effected in time—i.e., by operation of the Spirit. And (3) the preposition eis denotes the goal or outcome of election—i.e., obedience to Christ and the application of his atoning benefits. Peter did not state that those who obey Christ are elect, but that the elect proceed to obey Christ. See also Jas 2:5.

In 2 Pet 1:10 the disciple wrote to the dispersed believers, “Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election [eklogē] sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall.” Truly it is not the undifferentiated group that falls or fails to persevere, but individuals who are here considered aggregately. Moreover, the brothers confirm their calling and election by cultivating the qualities listed in vv. 5-7, namely, “faith,” “goodness,” “knowledge,” “self-control,” “perseverance,” “godliness,” “brotherly kindness,” and “love.” These too are activities of individuals, not of an empty group or class. Therefore if we talk of the election of a class, it must be as the sum of elect individuals.

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, III. The Exposition Of The Doctrine of Election. pp. 124-135.

1.1.2.2 Dr. Michael F. Bird (PhD, University of Queensland)

I submit that divine foreknowledge is determined by predestination rather than vice versa. God foreknows those who will be saved because he has predestined them to salvation — Michael F. Bird (Ph.D., University of Queensland), Evangelical Theology. 2nd ed. pp. 568-9.

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Scripture contains ample reference to God’s determining things ahead oftime. According to the psalmist, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Ps 139:16). Similarly in Isaiah we find, “Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified cities into piles of stone” (Isa 37:26). In Peter’s speech in Acts, he says that Herod, Pontius Pilate, and the Jerusalemites conspired againstJesus, and they “did what your [God’s] power and will had decided beforehand should happen” (Acts 4:28, italics). In Paul’s speech in the Areopagus, he tells his audience that God has “appointed” the times and places of the peoples and nations (Acts 17:26). It seems that God knows the future only because he has preordained it. — Michael F. Bird (Ph.D., University of Queensland), Evangelical Theology. 2nd ed. p. 566.

1.1.3 Moderately Reformed Compatibilism

Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible and can coexist in a philosophical sense simultaneously. In a theological context, God’s sovereignty and human responsibility would be mutually compatible. In other words, God is absolutely sovereign and humans have libertarian free will. This group of theologians are compatibilists that hold moderately reformed views in the sense that they do not view election as being based on human free will or foreknowledge of forseen faith, but they still acknowledge that human free will exists.

Prredestination, Election, & Determinism

The terms used in the debate do no possess the same meaning from author to author, and so preliminary definitions are in order. ‘Predestination’ in this book refers to the fore-ordination of events by God. ‘Election’ refers to soteriological predestination, with the added caveat that no judgement as to the nature of the salvation is presupposed by the terms themselves. Because predestination, by this definition, has God as the one who predestines, it is to be distinguished from ‘determinism’, which supposes that all is in principal completely predictable according to the universal laws of nature, but which does not trace such fixedness to God. — Dr. D.A. Carson (PhD, University of Cambridge), Divine Sovereignty & Human Responsibility. p. 3.

Human Responsibility, Free Will, Freedom

‘Responsibility’ here means a personal relationship of obligation and accountability toward (usually) God. That the relationship is personal and accountable presupposes some measure of real freedom; but possible approches to ‘free will’ are best considered inductively. ‘Freedom’ and ‘free will’ may therefore be excluded from initial definitions. — Dr. D.A. Carson (PhD, University of Cambridge), Divine Sovereignty & Human Responsibility. p. 3.

1.2.1.1 Dr. Hugh Ross (PhD, Astrophysicist at University of Toronto)

Question of the Week: Of the main sotierology models within evangelicalism to which do you adhere: Calvinism, Arminianism, or Traditionalism?

My Answer: These three models are each broad in their doctrinal beliefs. However, all Calvinists believe in the supremacy of God’s will over human will and that God has predetermined everything that will happen in the future. In particular, Calvinists believe that every human God chooses to receive salvation indeed will receive salvation and that only humans that God has called to be saved will be saved. All Arminianists believe that all humans possess free will and that the free will of humans is the deciding factor on who will be saved. In particular, only humans who choose to be saved will be saved. Traditionalists tire of the acrimony and debate that has existed between Calvinists and Arminianists. They call for unity through a focus on the doctrines that both Calvinists and Arminianists uphold. Both Calvinists and Arminianists counter that what divides them are critically important doctrines for the Christian faith.

I wrote an entire book addressing the posed question: Beyond the Cosmos, now in its third edition. Anyone can get a free chapter at reasons.org/ross. In that book I explain why each of Calvinism, Arminianism, and Traditionalism are inadequate by themselves to address all that the Bible teaches on sotierology and our relationship with Christ. I point out, for example, that the Bible teaches that both divine predetermination and human free will simultaneously operate. I explain why there is no possible resolution of this paradox within the spacetime dimensions of the universe. However, the Bible teaches and the spacetime theorems prove that God created the cosmic spacetime dimensions and in no way is limited by them. I show three different ways how the paradox of divine predetermination and human free will can be resolved in the extra- and trans-dimensional context of God. I also show how several other biblical paradoxes can be resolved from God’s extra-/trans-dimensional perspective.

— Dr. Hugh Ross (Ph.D., Astrophysicist at the University of Toronto)

1.2.1.2 Dr. D.A. Carson (PhD, University of Cambridge)

I frankly doubt that finite human beings can cut the Gordian knot; at least, this finite human being cannot. The sovereignty–responsibility tension is not a problem to be solved; rather, it is a framework to be explored. — Dr. D.A. Carson (PhD, University of Cambridge), Divine Sovereignty & Human Responsibility. p. 2.

MEN AS RESPONSIBLE

1. Men face a plethora of exhortations and commands The point is so obvious that it scarcely requires making. From the first prohibition in Eden (Gen. 2.16f.), through commands to individuals like Noah and Abraham-whether commands to build an ark or to walk blamelessly (Gen. 6.13ff.; 17.1-6) to the prescriptions laid on the covenant people, human responsibility is presupposed. Such prescriptions include the details of tabernacle construction and acceptable cultic worship, as well as the broad ‘moral’ commandments, specific civil legislation, and sweeping commands to be holy. The requirements of God touch all of life, not merely worship abstracted from life, with the result that his people are to be different from the surrounding nations. (Cf. Exod. 20.3ff.; Lev. 11.44f.; 20.7f.; 22.31-3; Deut. 10.12f.; 12.29-31; 14.1f.; Isa. 56.1; Jonah 1.2; Mic. 6.8; Mal. 3.10; Ps. 119.1-3; etc.) In addition, men are exhorted to seek the Lord: this theme is particularly reiterated by the prophets (e.g. Isa. 55.6f.; Amos 5.6-9; Zeph. 2.3). The Tabernacle itself was established as a place where men might seek Yahweh (Exod. 33.7). Deuteronomy encourages the people to believe that after they have rebelled and God has turned away from them, they will find him again when they seek for him (Deut. 4.26-32; 30.1-3). God has only good purposes for those who seek him (Ezra 8.22f.). Asa is bluntly told, “The LORD is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you’ (2 Chr. 15.2). The Psalms frequently spell out the same message (e.g. 105.4; 145.18).

2. Men are said to obey, believe, choose God may choose Abraham and promise him great blessing; but it is Abraham who believes the promise (Gen. 15.4-6) and obeys God’s voice (Gen. 22.16-18). In Exodus the Israelites agree to be obedient (Exod. 19.8; 24.3-7). Frequently they do ‘just as God commanded’ (e.g. Exod. 16.34; 38-40; Num. 8.20; 9.8, 23; 31.31); indeed, even with a willing heart (Exod. 35.5, 21). The Israelites are told to choose Yahweh (Deut. 30.15-19; Josh. 24.14-25; 1 Kgs. 18.22), and indeed do so (Josh. 24:22); and when instead they serve the gods of pagan neighbours, it is because they have chosen them (Judg. 10.14). They make solemn vows (e.g. Num. 21.2; Judg. 11.30f.). Two ways are set before the people (cf. Lev. 26.1-45; Deut. 28; 30.15-20; Ps. 1), and the way that brings blessing turns on human repentance and obedience. Similarly in human relation- ships, there is a certain freedom of choice (e.g. Num. 36.6). All such categories presuppose human responsibility.

3. Men sin and rebel From the first disobedience onward, the pages of the Old Testament are blotched with every conceivable form of trans- gression. The imagination of men turns constantly toward evil; and this description (Gen. 6.5) could rightly be applied to more than antediluvian people. The resources of language are exhausted as the loathsomeness of particularly vile men or periods is ruthlessly exposed (e.g. Gen. 18.20f; Exod. 32.7-14; Num. 16.3-35; Judg. 19f.; Deut. 1.26ff.; 9.22-4; 2 Kgs. 17.34-41; Isa. 1.2ff.; 30.9ff.; Jer. 2.13ff.; 5.3; 6.16f.; 42.10ff.; Ezek. 8; 22; Hos. 2.7; 4.2, 7, 13). The people ‘corrupt themselves’ (Exod. 32.7), or do what is right in their own eyes (Judg. 17.6; 21.25). Such language is incongruous if men are not rightly held accountable for what they are and do.

4. Men’s sins are judged by God Men are not held to be responsible in some merely abstract fashion; they are responsible to someone. God is the judge of all the earth, of all nations; men are ultimately answerable to him. Drumming through the Old Testament is the motif of judg. ment. Yahweh reacts against sin with terrible punishments. Even those parts of the Old Testament which wrestle with the fact that God’s judgments are not always immediate and temporal do not diminish this theme, but prepare the way for a heavier accent on the certainty of eschatological judgment. (Cf. Gen. 6-8; 18.25; Exod. 23.7; 32.7-12, 26-35; Lev. 10.1ff.; Num. 11.1ff.; 16.3-35; Deut. 32.19-22; Josh. 7; Judg. 2.11ff.; 3.5ff.; 4.1ff.; 1 Sam. 25.38f.; 2 Sam. 21.1; 2 Kgs. 17.18ff.; 22.15ff.; 23.26ff.; Isa. 14.26f.; 66.4; Jer. 7.13f.; Ezek. 5.8ff.; 25-28; Nahum 3.1ff.; Hag. 1.9-11; Zech. 7.12-14; Ps. 75.6f.; 82.8; 96.10; Eccles. 11.9; 12.14.) Human accountability is all the more deeply stressed when the writers insist God is longsuffering and slow to anger (Exod. 34.6; Num. 14.18; Joel 2.13; Jonah 4.2; Ps. 86.15; 103.8; Neh. 9.17). In short: divine judgment presupposes human responsibility.

5. Men are tested by God The testing of men is often couched in the anthropomorphic language by which Yahweh declares he wishes to know what is in men’s hearts (e.g. Gen. 22.12; Exod. 16.4; Deut. 13.1-4; Judg. 2.20-3.4; 2 Chr. 32.31); but this is not invariably so (e.g. Ps. 11.5; 105.19). From the examples cited in these references it is clear that God’s tests can be directed either toward individuals or toward his entire people. Such tests entail no guaranteed result: Abraham passes his test, Hezekiah does not. Some tests spring out of God’s judicial discipline of sin previously com- mitted by the people (e.g. Judg. 2.20-3.4). In any case the testing inevitably concerns the obedience and faithfulness of those tested, and presupposes their accountability for such virtues.

6. Men receive divine rewards This point overlaps the last two. Judgment, after all, may be viewed as negative reward; and the tests of the Old Testament entail positive reward for those who pass them. These positive rewards now concern us. The blessing of Abraham is related to his obedience (Gen. 22.18). The midwives of the captive Israelites are blessed because they feared God (Exod. 1.20f.). The The people are assured that if they will obey they will see Yahweh’s glory (Lev. 9.6); if they keep the law they will live (18.3-6). Caleb receives special treatment because he follows Yahweh fully (Num. 11.32; Josh. 14.9, 14). God will thrust out the rest of the Canaanites, but the people must be obedient (Josh. 23.4-9). If the people will return to Yahweh, acknow- ledging their sin, he will bless them (Jer. 3.12-22; 7.3-7, 23-28). God will stuff the storehouses of the people if they will be faithful in the matter of tithes and offerings (Mal. 3.10f.). Much of the prophetic preaching looks forward to great blessing, contingent upon the obedience of the people (e.g. Isa. 58.10-14; Jer. 7.23; Zech. 6.15). Such promises appear utterly ridiculous if human responsibility is not presupposed.

7. Human responsibility may arise out of God’s initiative Whatever the implications of election in the Old Testament (infra), it is clear that although election brought high privilege to Israel, it also laid heavy responsibility on her, and was charged with constraint, which she could only disclaim to her hurt. Here is responsibility arising out of Yahweh’s choice. The prophets especially make it clear that the privilege of election by Yahweh brings with it extensive demands on his people. Judge of all the nations Yahweh may be; but Amos insists that Yahweh’s ‘knowing’ of Israel in particular is in fact the basis of special and imminent judgment (Amos 3.2). The responsibility which Israel faces stems not so much from God’s naked choice of the nation, as from that allegiance to him which is entailed by election. Once the law is given, allegiance to Yahweh and obedience to the law can scarcely be distinguished. Hence, responsibility to obey all that Yahweh has commanded is based on, and arises out of, the election of Israel. (Cf. Exod. 19.4-6; Deut. 4.5-8; 6.6ff.; 10.15ff.; 11.7-9; Hos. 13.4; Mic. 3.2.)

The Wisdom literature never descends to the level of secular common sense, partly because the demands of Yahweh lie inextricably interwoven with others in which no explicit reference to Yahweh is made, but even more because, in the latter cases, it is presupposed that the fear of Yahweh is fundamental to wisdom (cf. Prov. 9.10; 16.7-12)-this Yahweh who, it is understood from Deuteronomy on, always commands what is for the good of his people (Deut. 6.24).2 Privilege stemming from divine grace enhances responsibility, and never reduces it.

8. The prayers of men are not mere show-pieces That God has spoken propositionally was a fundamental conviction of the Old Testament writers. But the intercourse between God and man involved man speaking to God as well Man’s voice in addressing God is never the pre-programmed recording of the robot; it is the adoration of worship, the cry of desperation, the relief of gratitude, the petition of the needy. The personal, accountable character of man is nowhere more clearly seen than in his prayers of intercession and petition.

Some such prayers are well-planned, even if intense (e.g. 1 Kgs. 8.46ff.; 2 Chr. 7.12-22). Others are the cries of desperation (e.g. Exod. 32.7-13, 31f.; Josh. 10.11-14). Some are answered positively (e.g. Gen. 25.21; Judg. 6.36-40; 1 Kgs. 3.6-9; 2 Kgs. 20.1-6; Isa. 38); and others are categorically turned down (e.g. Jer. 14.11; 15.1f.; 1 Sam. 15.35-16.1). Some prayers magnify the wretchedness of sin (e.g. Exod. 32; Deut. 9.25ff.), others the greatness of Yahweh and his love for Israel (e.g. Josh. 10.12-14). In any case, the idea that men may prevail in prayer with God again presupposes human responsibility, and a significant measure of human freedom; for such language depicts the interplay of personalities, not the determinism of machines.

9. God utters pleas for repentance The pre-exilic prophets unite in presenting Yahweh as the one who finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked, who pleads with men to return to him and avoid the otherwise inevitable and horrible consequences of their own rebellion. When he does afflict his people, it is unwillingly. (Cf. Isa. 30.18; 65.2; Lam. 3.31-6; Ezek. 18.30-32; 33.11; Hos. 11.7ff.) Even when all due allowance is made for anthro- pomorphisms, the necessary conclusion is that men are viewed as responsible creatures whose rebellion Yahweh is enduring with merciful if painful forbearance, and punishing with reluctant wrath.

10. Concluding remarks Qoheleth reminds us that God made men upright, but they have sought out many ‘devices’ (Eccl. 7.29). God is customarily in some way removed from man when he sins. This pattern of preserving a distance between God and sin comes to the fore in God’s rejection of sinners, a rejection which, far from asserting God’s contingency, underlines rather the certainty of his holy judgment (especially when divine omniscience is in view: e.g. Isa. 29.15f.; Jer. 16.17f.) or the real guilt of the transgressor (e.g. 1 Sam. 15.23b). When instead God is implicated as the cause (in some sense) of a particular sin, there are invariably other factors involved, notably a display of his judicial hardening or of his sovereign hand behind a major event of salvation history.

It is instructive to observe how the various motifs discussed above function in the Old Testament writings. Injunctions to choose Yahweh, and the tests which God administers to men and nations, are not given to evoke metaphysical definitions concerning the nature and limitations of human freedom, but to command committed assent and obedience. When a right choice is made (e.g. Josh. 24.22), it tends to become an incentive for continued faithfulness and the fresh abandonment of encroaching idolatry. Similarly the positive rewards which follow faith and obedience (e.g. Gen. 22.18; Exod. 1.20f.; Num. 11.32; Josh. 23.4-9) become motivation for increased and continuing obedience, not grounds for boasting once they have been attained. At most, conduct pleasing to God may function in some petitions as the ground for vindication and divine approval (as in some psalms-e.g. 34, 69, 79, 109, 137; cf. also Neh. 5.19; 13.14, 22, 31), but even in these cases there is no self-confident boasting. When contingency language is used of God, it does not function as a basis on which conclusions may be drawn concerning his ontological limitations: for example, statements about his longsuffering function to underscore the enormity of sin (Num. 14.18), as a foil for human littleness (Jer. 15.15; Ps. 86.15), and as an attribute to be praised (Exod. 34.6). Similarly, God’s pleas for men to repent heighten human wickedness and justify divine wrath (e.g. Jer. 3.22; Ezek. 18.30f.; 33.11; Hos. 14.1), and may even be taken as a measure of his love and hence the evidence that he will act unilaterally on behalf of his people (e.g. Isa. 30.18f.; Hos. 11.7-9).

— Dr. D.A. Carson (PhD, University of Cambridge), Divine Sovereignty & Human Responsibility, Chapter Three, MEN AS RESPONSIBLE. pp. 18-23.

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GOD AS SOVEREIGN

If the Old Testament writers everywhere presuppose human responsibility, they not only presuppose divine sovereignty but insistently underscore it, even when the devastations of observable phenomena appear to fly in the face of such belief.

1. God the Creator, Possessor, and Ruler of all Not only did God make everything (Gen. 1f.; Isa. 42.5; Ps. 102.25; Neh. 9.6; etc.), he made it all good (Gen. 1.31). When Israel sang Yahweh’s praise, the remembrance of the fact that he was Maker of heaven and earth afforded great comfort to the people (Ps. 121.2; 124.8). It is not surprising therefore to learn that God is the possessor of heaven and earth (Gen. 14.19,22 (NASB); Ps. 89.11; 1 10 Chr. 29.11f.), or to hear Yahweh insist that all is his (Exod. 19.5; Deut. 10.14; Job 41.3). Hand in hand with such a conception goes the omnipotence of Yahweh. If Yahweh made the heaven and earth, he is the ‘God of all flesh’, and nothing is too hard for him (Jer. 32.17,27; Job 42.2). Since all things are his, no one can give him anything (Job 41.11). All history and nature are at his disposal.

It follows that, if God is sovereign over all the earth, he reigns over all nations (Ps. 47.8f.; 60.6-8; 83.17f.; etc.). This is reasonable enough: all nations belong to him (Ps. 82.8). Indeed, it is when Israel’s fortunes plummet to the darkest depths that her prophets most clearly see Yahweh’s sovereignty over all foreign powers, and take comfort in this truth. The substance of Dan. 2, 4,7f., 10, 11f. is that the Most High rules the kingdom of men (4.25.). To Yahweh, the nations are a mere drop in the bucket, the fine dust of the balance, less than nothing (Isa. 40.15ff.). The pre-exilic prophets in particular teach that Yahweh ‘raises or calls up on the stage of history foreign peoples, Assyrians, Egyptians, Syrians, Philistines, to use them as His instruments… (and) that the foreign peoples, who menaced Israel, were raised up by Yahweh to carry out His plans for the elect people. (Cf. Isa. 7.18; 9.10f.; 10.5f., 26; Jer. 2.6f.; 27.4-8; 31.32; Hos. 2.17; 11.1; 13.4; Amos 2.9f.; 3.1; 9.7; Mic. 6.3ff.; etc.) Examples might easily be multiplied. Yahweh appoints Jehu and Hazael to their tasks; raises Rezin and Pekah against Israel; calls up the king of Assyria; sends the Medes against Babylon, and the Philistines and the Arabians against Judah (1 Kings 19.15-17; 2 Kings 15.37 and Isa. 9.10f.; Isa. 7.17ff. and 10.5; 13.17-19; 2 Chr. 21.16f.). Nor are these foreign powers used only for destruction: Cyrus and the Persians are raised up to restore Israel to the land of her fathers (Isa. 45.1ff.; Ezra 1.1).

Yahweh can well judge all men and nations (Ps. 67.5), for not only is he all-powerful, he is all-knowing. His omniscience is not infrequently associated with the certainty and exhaustive nature of his impending judgment (e.g. Isa. 29.15f.; Jer. 16.16-18; Ezek. 11.2,5; Ps. 139.1ff.; Prov. 5.21; 24.2). When Yahweh has decreed judgment on all nations, who can turn back his hand (Isa. 14.26f.)?

There is no god like the God of Israel (Deut. 32.36-43; 33.26f.; Isa. 40.10ff.). Yahweh has prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all (Ps. 103.19). All life is dependent on him; should he take away their breath, they would perish (Ps. 104.27-30). The idols of men are impotent; but the God of Israel, whose abode is in the heavens, does whatever he pleases in every sphere of the created universe (Ps. 115.3; 135.5f.). It is not surprising to learn therefore that all of a man’s days are ordained by God (Ps. 139.16; Prov. 20.24). Certainly no wisdom or counsel can frustrate him (Prov. 21.30). Yahweh is absolutely sovereign (Isa. 43.13; 44.24-7; Eccles. 3.14; 7.13f.; Dan. 2.19-22; 4.31f., 34). Wind, calamity, prosperity-all are under his control (e.g. Exod. 15.10; Isa. 54.16; Jer. 47.7; Amos 3.5f; Lam. 3.37-9). It is rare to hear that ‘it rains’ (Amos 4.7 is close): men prefer to say that God sends rain (Ps. 65.10; Job 36.27; 38.26). Job enlarges upon God’s detailed control of men and nature (Job 14.5; 28.24-7 38.8-11,33; cf. Isa. 40.12,26; Jer. 5.22; 31.35f.; Jonah 1.17; 4.6ff.; Ps. 104.9f.; 148.3ff.; Prov. 8.27). ‘Israel, too, knows of conception and birth, of streams that go to the sea, and of the cycle of nature. But this knowledge does not stifle her “Thou, Lord”. In her knowledge, she still looks to the living God, the Unchangeable.’5 Chance is excluded; and if here and there we read of something that might be considered a chance event, it is not really thought of apart from God’s direction (1 Sam. 6.9; 20.26; 1 Kgs. 22.34; Ruth 2.3; 2 Chr. 18.33). Hence the lot is used to discover Yahweh’s will, ‘and is didactically recognised as under His control’ (Prov. 16.33; cf. Josh. 7.16; 14.2; 18.6; 1 Sam. 10.19-21; Jonah 1.7).6

With such sweeping sovereignty at his disposal, Yahweh’s predictions concerning what will take place in the future, and his control over that future, cannot always be decisively distinguished (cf. Gen. 15.13-16; 25.22f.; 41.16, 25, 32; Josh. 6.26 and 1 Kgs. 16.34; Isa. 46.8-10; 48.5f.). What he decrees must come to pass.

The ways in which the divine activity are presented are very diverse, and cannot be set under a single common denominator. Yahweh may break into history dramatically and send ten plagues (Exod. 5ff), flash fire from heaven (1 Kgs. 18.38). or force Sennacherib and his hordes into premature retreat (Isa. 37); but ‘it is striking to observe how often the purpose of God is reached without radical intervention.” He uses Saul and his army to fulfil his vow against the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15.2-6); or, more subtly, he so rules in the conflict between the Shechemites and Abimelech, without their knowledge, that both parties are destroyed. This is Yahweh’s fitting retribution for the sin of Abimelech towards his brothers and for the shameful assistance of the Shechemites.

The rule of Yahweh over history entails a teleological perspective, for such an almighty and all-knowing Person cannot be supposed to govern unconsciously or capriciously. Lindblom lays heavy stress on this point in his discussion of the pre-exilic prophets:

What distinguishes the prophetic view of history from that of other oriental peoples is not the thought that Yahweh works in historical events, but rather that the prophets regarded the history of Israel as a coherent history directed by moral principles and in accordance with a fixed plan. At the beginning of the history stood the fact of election… The events which followed were the consequences of this histori- cal fact; and the final goal of this historical sequence was the full realisation of the idea of election. Other ancient peoples had nothing corresponding to this view of history.

As Proverbs puts it, ‘The LORD has made everything for its (or his) purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble (Prov. 16.4). Whether yom ra’ah (day of trouble’ or ‘day of evil’) refers to what the wicked suffer as retribution, or to the evil they perform (cf. Isa. 54.16), the ‘general meaning is that there are ultimately no loose ends in God’s world.’ ‘He determined for which purpose everything that exists was made. There is nothing aimless in the world….10

It is difficult to conceive how Yahweh could thus control even the details of history unless he controls the minds and emotions of men. And in fact, the Old Testament writers do not hesitate to describe events in precisely those terms. Yahweh controls whole peoples by sending terror among them (e.g. Gen. 35.5; Exod. 23.27; Deut. 2.25; 1 Sam. 11.6f.). Alternatively, he gives his people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians (Exod. 12.36; cf. Dan. 1.9). Again, he destroys an invading army by setting the soldiers’ weapons against each other (Judg. 7.22). If a few men attach themselves to Saul, it is because God has touched their hearts (1 Sam. 10.26). Human thoughts and decisions are often attributed directly to God’s determining (e.g. 2 Sam. 24.1; Isa. 19.13f.; 37.7; Prov. 21.1; Ezra 1.1; 7.6, 27f.; Neh. 2.11f.). In other words, we may consider:

2. God as the ultimate personal cause The people of the Old Testament constantly discern the hand of God behind the merely phenomenological perception of events. ‘The Bible does not exercise itself to deny chains of causation, but equally it is not accustomed to clog up its reasoning by giving them undue prominence. It leaps back directly to the divine Agent from whom come all things and by whose will they happen.’ Human procreation, for instance, is the Lord’s doing (e.g. Gen. 4.1, 25; 1.8.13f.; 25.21; 30.1f.; Deut. 10.22; Ruth 4.13). When Joseph’s brothers are stunned by the discovery of the returned money in their sacks, they understand this to be God’s doing (Gen. 42.28). It was Yahweh who took off the wheels of the Egyptian chariots (Exod. 14.25); and to him is attributed the ultimate cause of Shimei’s curse (2 Sam. 16.10f.) and Naomi’s sorrow (Ruth 1.20). Even the book of Esther, for all its failure to mention God explicitly, is of the same stamp. Whatever other purposes were in the writer’s mind (such as the presentation of the historical background to the institution of a feast not prescribed in Torah), ‘the literary skill of the author leaves the reader in little doubt that he is observing the operation of divine providence as the narrative proceeds, and that the indestructible nature of the Covenant People will ultimately be made evident’. 12

It is difficult to find an adequate word or phrase to express this ‘ultimacy’ in God. The crucial point is that his activity is so sovereign and detailed that nothing can take place in the world of men without at least his permission; and conversely, if he sets himself against some course, then that course cannot develop. Unless Yahweh builds the house and keeps the city, the house will not be built and the watchmen may just as well go to sleep (Ps. 127.1). If Yahweh fights with them, whole armies need not fear (Deut. 3.22); but if Yahweh refuses to go with them they lose (Josh. 7.11f.).

A great deal of biblical phraseology presupposes this ultimacy in Yahweh. Yahweh insists, ‘I gave you a land on which you had not laboured’ (Josh. 24.13); and to David, he you says, ‘I took you from the pasture that you should be over my people’ (2 Sam. 7.8). When wars cease, it is Yahweh who has given his people rest (2 Sam. 7.1; cf. Ps. 147.12ff.); and if Ezra and his party arrive in Jerusalem with speed and safety, it is because the good hand of Yahweh is upon them (Ezra 7.9; cf. Neh. 2.8; Ps. 121.2). Yahweh gives the power to get wealth (Deut. 8.18); indeed, the varieties of agricultural possibilities and the farmer’s knowledge of them are alike from him (Isa. 28.23ff.). Especially in judgment is the ultimacy of Yahweh made plain (Isa. 10.21-3; Jer. 16.16; 20.5; 21.3-7; Ezek. 7.9; 11.7ff.; Mic. 2.3; Nahum 2.13; Zeph. 1.2ff.; etc.). But the ultimacy of Yahweh is nowhere more clearly seen than in the nature psalms (19, 33, 89, 104, 148). In one sense, therefore, miracles do not attest divine intervention into the sphere of normally-operating laws. A miracle means only that God at a given moment wills something to occur in a manner differing from that by which he normally wills it to occur. Old Testament believers do not so much see miracles in terms of ‘breakthrough’ as in terms of a new and surprising mode of divine activity (e.g. Exod. 34.10; Num. 16.30; Isa. 48.6ff.).

So thorough is the ascription of reality to God, that Moses in Deuteronomy 29.4 does not hesitate to describe Israel’s slowness in terms of what Yahweh has not given them. The writer does not mean to suggest that Yahweh’s gifts are niggardly, much less to ascribe sin to him; yet the Old Testament writers do not shy away from making Yahweh himself in some mysterious way (the mysteriousness of which safeguards him from being himself charged with evil) the ‘ultimate’ cause of many evils.

Examples are so numerous that only a few instances may be cited. Micaiah’s description of the heavenly courts and the selection of a lying spirit whose success is guaranteed (1 Kgs. 22.19-22; 2 Chr. 18.18-22), the inciting of David to evil purpose (2 Sam. 24.1), the selling of Joseph into slavery (Gen. 50.20), the sending forth of evil spirits to their appointed tasks (e.g. Judg. 9.23ff.; 1 Sam. 16.14; 18.10), the prologue of Job, not to mention the specific remarks of the prophets (e.g. Does evil (rā’āh) befall a city, unless the LORD has done it?” Amos 3.6; cf. Isa. 14.24-7; 45.7), all clamour for attention. Although most of these cases are related to the judgment of God (cf. also Jer. 6.21; Ezek. 3.20), this cannot be said of the Joseph narrative. There are in any case too many instances in which it is inadequate to think of divine sovereignty as an admirable capacity for snatching an eleventh hour victory out of the jaws of defeat. ‘A necessary thought is not only that God redeems a situation but that the situation is itself precipitated by his d(etermination). Not only the remedy, but the situation to be remedied, is run back to the d. of his will. ‘13 This sort of world-view, where it occurs, does not suggest henotheism, but a very pure and consistent form of monotheism.

At the same time, of course, God is also said to control the minds of his people for good. Sometimes he is petitioned to do so. Such expressions are particularly common in the prophets who look forward to the new covenant (cf. Jer. 31.31-4; 32.40; Ezek. 11.19f.; 36.22ff.; Zeph. 3.9-13; etc.), but are certainly not restricted to such a framework (e.g. 1 Chr. 29.17-19).

Mention of the new covenant invites comment on Old Testament eschatology. We have already noted that history is often seen teleologically in the Old Testament. Inherent in this perspective, both among pre- and post-exilic prophets, is an expectation of Yahweh’s intervention in so climactic a fashion that a new order will be introduced (e.g. Jer. 31; Hos. 2; and more difficult passages like Isa. 2; 7.19ff.; 11). This hope does not mean that God is not acting redemptively in the present, but that the greatest display of his redemptive activity (including judgment) must await the future. Beyond this point, the relationship between the exercise of divine sovereignty now and then is not probed, and the silence of the Old Testament on these points gives rise to considerable speculation later, as we shall see.

Yahweh is holy, sovereign, full of special regard for his elect, and personally ruling in the affairs of men. This view of God makes the perplexity of his people understandable when, from the human perspective, it appears that Yahweh has dealt harshly (Ruth 1.20f.), unfairly (Job 3ff.), or without due consideration of the wickedness of other men (Habbakuk; Ps. 73). It prompts a cry like that in Isaiah 63.17: ‘O LORD, why dost thou make us err from thy ways, and harden our heart, so that we fear thee not? Return for the sake of thy servants, for the tribes of thy heritage. (Cf. also Isa. 64.76.).

3. God and election Some attention must be devoted to the peculiar manifestation of divine providence witnessed in election. The Old Testament Israelite faith was established on the belief that Israel was Yahweh’s chosen people, based on two complementary acts: the choosing of Abraham (Gen. 12.1ff.; 17.1ff.; 18.17-19), and the exodus together with the gift of the promised land as their national home (Exod. 3.6-10; Deut. 6.21-3; Ezek. 20.5; Ps. 105; cf. Isa. 43.1).14 As Yahweh chose the people, he likewise chose the land as a place of special concern to him (Deut. 11.12), his own land (Lev. 25.23); and in particular he chose Mt. Zion, Jerusalem, as his peculiar dwelling-place (Zech. 2.11f.; 3.2; Ps. 78.68ff.).

Though Abraham is chosen, not all of his offspring enjoy the same privilege: Isaac is chosen, not Ishmael (Gen. 17.18-21); and Jacob is preferred, before his birth, to Esau (Gen. 25.23; 28.14; Mal. 1.2; Isa. 41.8ff.; Ps. 135.3f.). Even within Israel, it is God who chooses the outstanding leaders: e.g. Moses (Exod. 3; Num. 16.5, 7, 28); Aaron as priest (Num. 16.40; 17.18ff.); the Levites (Deut. 18.5; 2 Chr. 21.11ff.); the skilled workers Bezalel and Oholiab (Exod. 31.2, 6; 35.31-4); Joshua (Num. 27.16-21); the men who are to apportion the land (Num. 34.16ff.); David (1 Sam. 13.13f.; 2 Sam. 6.21; Ps. 78.68, 70; 89.19f.; 25; 1 Chr. 28.4-10); the prophets-e.g. Jeremiah, ‘known’s by God before conception (Jer. 1.5).

The election of Israel means not only that Israel must be different, peculiarly holy, reserved for Yahweh, as compared with all other peoples (Exod. 11.7; 19.4-6; Lev. 20.23-6; Deut. 10.14f.; 14.2; Isa. 43.21; Ps. 33.12; 135.4; etc.), but more: Yahweh uses other nations to bring about his good purposes for Israel, sets their boundaries by the number of his own people, sacrificing other men for her, and punishing them the more severely because their cruelty has been directed toward her (e.g. Deut. 32.8f.; Isa. 43.4; Jer. 51.5-10; Zech. 1.14-17). Even when Yahweh takes his servant Cyrus by the hand (as opposed to whistling him up, as he did with the Assyrians, Isa. 5.26), his purposes in so doing centre on his people Israel (Isa. 45.1-5).

There is thus a centrality about Israel that is in one sense exclusivistic. This is relieved by a universalistic note (e.g. Isa. 19.23; 66.23; Ps. 86.9; 96.10), directly related to election itself: all the nations will be blessed because of God’s choice of Abraham.16 ‘The election of Abraham was meant as a particularistic means towards a universalistic end. 17

The election of Israel does not lapse with the apostasy of the nation, nor with the resulting exile, for the concept of the ‘remnant’ people of God is clearly well-established. Especially noteworthy are the passages in which the concept is a fixed theological term in prophetic eschatology (e.g. Mic. 4.7 uses erit (‘remnant’) absolutely; cf. 2.12; 5.7; Isa. 8.16-18).

It is incorrect to deduce from the covenant-breaking of the people, that election itself is contingent upon the people. Since Mendenhall wrote his crucial transitional essys on the subject of covenant, some twenty years ago, most Old Testament scholars have understood that the covenant at Sinai, patterned after contemporary suzerainty treaties, pictures Yahweh imposing this covenant upon his willing but responsible vassals. 18 Breach of covenant, envisaged as possible on the side of the vassal only, necessarily brings down the wrath of the sovereign. Similarly the prophets insist that election and covenant do not necessarily entail protection; rather, where there is rebellion, they necessarily entail punishment. Because this covenant was established with Yahweh’s elected people, election and covenant overlap: but they are not to be strictly identified, either in nature or extent, for the remnant is seen as the real continuance of Israel (Isa. 41.8ff.; 43.4ff.; Jer. 51.5; etc.), that which constitutes the genuine elect of God (Isa. 65.8-10; Amos 9.8-15). The ‘elect’ (the returning remnant) thus become a smaller group than all of the ‘covenant people’ taken together; and it is only the former who enjoy the new covenant (Jer. 31.33; 32.37-40; 50.5; cf. Isa. 55.3). Only this smaller group of faithful, righteous people are the elected ones (Isa. 1.21-6; 4.20; 10.20ff.) 19

This remnant group is grounded not in its own piety but in God’s action. It is Yahweh who forges a new covenant; and it is also he who will give to the heirs of that covenant a heart to fear him (Jer. 32.40). He it is who will give men fleshy hearts, pour our his Spirit, gathering his own to himself (Jer. 31.31-4; Ezek. 11.16-21; 36.22-32; etc.). He may sift Israel and remove the sinners of his people; but he will restore the remnant (Amos 9.8-15). The constant emphasis is on what Yahweh will do. The restoration is nothing less than God-given life to dead bones (Ezek. 37). The covenant is indeed broken; but Yahweh is acting not so much for the sake either of the people or the remnant, as for the sake of his own name: it is because he does not change that the sons of Jacob are not consumed (Mal. 3.6; cf. Ezek. 20.9f., 14; 36.22-32). This suggests that God’s elective purposes are sure because divine.

There is thus a shift in the significance of election, an individualising which only in its summation answers to the fulfilment of God’s promises for Israel. ‘The elective principle, abolished as to nationality, continues in force as to individuals. 20

Thus, the tension found, for example, in the pre-exilic prophets, between Yahweh’s love and Yahweh’s wrath for his people, finds its genesis in the matrix of concepts surrounding election and covenant.21 The reader never fails to perceive that Israel alone was responsible for her apostasy and unfaithful- ness; but never does he receive the impression that God is frustrated and his purposes thwarted, even when God manifests his wrath and pleads for repentance. Two distinctions have thus been introduced: between the present and the future people of God (the motif of covenantal renewal), and between the false and the true people of God (the motif of the remnant). Yet despite these distinctions, God’s elective purposes are preserved intact. Indeed, one might almost conclude that God’s elective purposes contribute not a little to the formulation of these distinctions.

When Old Testament writers trace out any particular reason for the divine election, they ultimately wind up retreating to the free, unconditioned, matchless love of God. W. Eichrodt rightly remarks, concerning election in the Old Testament: ‘For there can be no escaping the fact that in the Old Testament divine love is absolutely free and unconditioned in its choices; it is directed to one man out of thousands and lays hold on him with jealous exclusiveness despite all his deficiencies. 22 Abraham is the archetypal example. So strong is the election motif that when Abraham sins against Abimelech, it is nevertheless Abimelech who must ask for prayer from the chosen Abraham (Gen. 20). Deuteronomy lays special emphasis on the fact that Yahweh did not choose Israel as a people because she was intrinsically superior to other peoples (Deut. 7.6-11), nor because she was righteous (Deut. 9.4-6), but rather in defiance of her rebellion, and out of nothing other than his own free, sovereign, electing love (Deut. 4.32-40; 7.6-11; 10.14f.; 23.5; cf. Ezek. 16.6).23 Precisely the same phenomenon is evident when we consider the remnant. The remnant has its origin ‘not in the quality of those saved, but in the saving action of God’ (Gen. 7.23b; 45.7; 1 Kgs. 19.18; Amos 5.15).24 This is most clearly seen in passages in which there is reference to the sins of the remnant (cf. Isa. 4.4; Jer. 50.20; Ezek. 9.8; 11.13; Mic. 7.18; Zeph. 3.12f.; Zech. 13.8f). The remnant escapes judgment only through God’s grace.

The inverse side of election is reprobation. In the Old Testament this commonly takes the form of some sort of hardening. 25 The best known case is that of Pharaoh. Eight times God is said to harden Pharaoh’s heart (Exod. 7.3; 9.12; 10.1f.; 10.20; 10.27; 11.9f.; 14.14f., 17) but we also read that his heart was hardened (Exod. 7.13f.; 8.15), and that he hardened his own heart (Exod. 8.32; 9.34). It is, of course, arbitrary to interpret the former in terms of the latter (or vice versa), especially because some of the texts inject a teleological element into the divine hardening: Yahweh hardens Pharaoh in order to destroy him, while displaying his own might (Exod. 7.3; 10.1f.; 14.14f., 17).

But Pharaoh is certainly not the only instance. Yahweh not infrequently hardens the hearts of men in order to set them up for destruction (e.g. Deut. 2.30f.; 1 Sam. 2.24f.; Ezek. 38.10,16f., 21; Hos. 5.6; 2 Chr. 25.20). Indeed, Yahweh gives the command to make the hearts of the people insensitive, their ears dull and their eyes dim (Isa. 6.9f.). But the Old Testament writers in such cases seem to presuppose that this is nothing other than due judgment; while elsewhere self-hardening is pictured as reprehensible action for which the person is morally accountable (Zech. 7.11; Prov. 28.14). Impersonal determinism might well harden arbitrarily; but behind the hardening of the Old Testament is the God who cries, ‘Harden not your hearts Ps. 95.8).

The significance of election is sometimes obscured by false deductions drawn from the fact that God has servants outside the covenant people (e.g. Cyrus, Ezra 1.1; Isa. 44.24-8; Nebuchadnezzar, Jer. 25.7-9, 13f.; 27.4-8; Nebuchadnezzar and his army paid pai by being given Egypt, Ezek. 29.19-20; etc.). Rowley calls this phenomenon ‘election without covenant.26 But the phrase is improper, not only because, as we have seen, such outside servants function solely for the development of the divine purposes for the Israelites, but also because the vocabulary of election is invariably reserved for the covenant people and for ‘covenant functionaries drawn from Israel’s own ranks. 27 What is highlighted by the existence of such non- Israelite servants is the extent of divine sovereignty. It is a particularisation of passages which affirm Yahweh’s sovereignty over the nations.

4. God unacknowledged One of the most peculiar features connected with divine sovereignty in the Old Testament is the manner in which individuals and peoples are brought by Yahweh to perform some deed, and then held accountable for failing to acknowledge God’s hand in that deed. The message to Pharaoh is that, because Yahweh made him great but Pharaoh thought he had done it himself, Yahweh will bring him low (Ezek. 31.7-10; cf. Ezek. 29). Nebuchadnezzar learned that the failure to acknow- ledge the sovereignty of God, and the correlative pride, are punishable offences before Yahweh (Dan. 4), while Belshazzar was destroyed for failing to learn the same lesson (Dan. 5.21-3). If Yahweh is sovereign, human self-sufficiency fails to acknow- ledge God as it ought. Therefore men must learn that Yahweh lives only with the contrite in heart (Isa. 66.1f.).

The reprehensibility of ‘God unacknowledged’ is thrown into relief when the praises the ‘ultimacy’ of of Israel are remembered. Nowhere is God’s action (in election as in other things) more consistently displayed than in acknowledge Yahweh’s ultimacy to fail to praise is not real Israel’s praises. To fail to independence from divine dominion, but overt rebellion, a misguided declaration of self-dependence, for which men are responsible. Thus the absoluteness of divine sovereignty and the reality of human responsibility meet in the human obligation to acknowledge divine sovereignty with grateful humility.

5. Concluding remarks The idea that God really is the sovereign disposer of all is consistently woven into the fabric of the Old Testament, even if there is relatively infrequent explicit reflection on the sovereignty-responsibility tension. Taken as a whole, the all-embracing activity of the sovereign God in the Old Testament must be distinguished from deism, which cuts the world off from him; from cosmic dualism, which divides the control of the world between God and other(s); from determinism, which posits such a direct and rigid control, or such an impersonal one, that human responsibility is destroyed; from indeterminism and chance, which deny either the existence or the rationality of a sovereign God; and from pantheism, which virtually identifies God with the world.28

Yet the sovereignty of God in the Old Testament is not permitted to devour human responsibility. Some limitations, or at least qualifications, are imposed by alternative descriptions of God within the same literature. Perhaps the most telling of these are the passages which speak of God ‘repenting’. Of the many, perhaps Genesis 6.6; 1 Samuel 15.10, 35 (but see 15.29!); Amos 7.3,6 stand out. It has been shown that such language, applied so regularly to Deity, stands without close parallel in the literature of the ancient near east.29 How much of this is anthropomorphic language is difficult to decide (and will be discussed in Part Four). What is clear is that, just as the Old Testament writers can speak of the God of love and the God of wrath, so they can speak of the God of sovereign purpose and power, and the God of ‘repenting’. Perhaps, then, in the Amos passages referred to (Amos 7.3, 6), we are not to think of the prayers of Amos as if they coerced God into changing his mind. Rather, as J. A. Motyer puts it:

The wrath of God is perpetual: the automatic reaction of a holy nature faced with rebellion and unholiness. But equally eternal is His determination to take, save and keep a people for Himself… It is because we cannot unify these two revealed strands of the divine nature that the Lord graciously accommodates the truth to our powers of expression and speaks of Himself as ‘repenting’. 30

In any case, whether this sort of attempt at synthesis is acceptable or not, it is important to remember that there is to the God of the Old Testame his than mere sovereignty however grand the contemplation of his sovereignty may be.

Moreover, when the Old Testament writers say that God does something, they do not necessarily mean that the human beings involved are merely acted upon like lifeless tools. God gives children; but couples copulate. Yahweh clears the land of the Canaanites (Deut. 7.22-4), but the people must fight. The problems of ‘secondary causality’ formulations are still to be probed; but it is essential to recognise that, however successful such formulations may be, real responsibility is ascribed to Old Testament man for what he is and does. This fact must compel interpreters to grapple with the relationship between God and man in other than rigid machine-like categories.

Although it is true that one can find examples of Yahweh behind just about every kind of action, important distinctions must be observed. God does not stand behind evil action in precisely the same way that he stands behind good action. The Old Testament writers understand God to be holy, just, righteous, good, longsuffering (Gen. 18.25; Lev. 11.44; Isa. 6.3; 61.8; Zeph. 3.5; Ps. 5.4; 11.5; 145.17; Job 34.10-15; etc.). Everything God made was ‘very good’ (Gen. 1.31). A certain distance is preserved between God and his people when they sin. Atoning sacrifice is required; and he may so far disassociate himself from them as to refuse to call them his people (e.g. Exod. 32.7-14). Frequently the divine ultimacy in some human sin is seen to be part of divine retribution, or at least a necessary step toward it (e.g. Jer. 52.3). It can also form part of a long-term divine plan connected with salvation history- whether punishing the Philistines (Judg. 14.40) or selecting a site for the Temple (2 Sam. 24.1ff.). But at other times the Old Testament writers are careful to distinguish between what God does and what men do (e.g. Ezek. 11.16,21; Ps. 78; Eccles. 7.29). P. Volz, Das Dämonische in Jahwe, fails to come to grips with such considerations when he likens Yahweh’s action to the malicious hatred and envy which mar not a few ancient near eastern deities. There is always, in the Old Testament, an implicit or explicit recognition of God’s higher justice (e.g Jer. 12.1). In short, although we may lack the categories needed for full exposition of the problem, nevertheless we must insist that divine ultimacy stands behind good and evil asymmetrically.

The theme of God’s sovereignty is put to various uses in the Old Testament; i.e. it functions in various ways. These provide further qualifications for the manner in which the theme should be handled by theologians. For example, election is not only to privilege, but to the observance of far-reaching ethical and covenantal obligations (Exod. 11.7; 19.4-6; Lev. 20.23-6; Deut. 10.14f., 26-40; 14.2; Ps. 33.12; 105 culminating in 105.43; etc.), the ignoring of which entails strict judgment (Lev. 26.13ff.; Deut. 28.15ff.; Amos 3.2) not preferential treatment (Jer. 5.12; Mic. 3.11f.). In other words, election functions as motivation for keeping God’s covenant and law (Deut. 14.1f.; Ezek. 20.5-7; cf. Lev. 18.2-5). Especially do the pre-exilic prophets use the election traditions to remind Israelites of the grace in which they stand and of the heinous- ness of disloyalty. Furthermore, because of election, not only can history be interpreted around the centrality of God’s purposes for his people, but the leaders of the people can successfully intercede for them by referring to the immutability of Yahweh’s elective decisions and the disparagement which would befall his Name should he rescind those purposes. Thus, even after sin and retribution, there can be a pulsating hope among the people, a hope engendered by a particular use of the election traditions (e.g. Isa. 41.8-14; 44.1f.; Hag. 2.23; Ps. 106.4f.).

More broadly, divine sovereignty is never used as a peg either for pride or for resignation, but as a call to humility, obedience, patience and trust (2 Sam. 7.8ff.; Isa. 66.1f.; Hag. 1.14; Ps. 37; Prov. 16.4; cf. Job 38ff.; etc.). 32 This is seen even in that most predestinarian of models, the potter and the clay. Isaiah 45.9 uses the model to castigate the rebellion of the clay, the people. Jeremiah 18.2ff. uses it, not to reduce the people to puppet status, but to drive home the principle that Yahweh is free to take whatever sovereign steps he chooses to ensure that the pot turns out all right in the end: the lesson to be learned is the urgency of immediate repentance, before Yahweh’s drastic measures get under way. Even in Isaiah 64.8 the model is really used as no more than a plea for mercy from Yahweh on the ground of human inability apart from God’s sovereign power (cf. Jer. 10.23). Many passages which deal with Yahweh’s greatness or goodness or transcendence are quite openly desig ned to instil awe, reverence, and submission (Exod. 33.18-20; Deut. 10.10-22; Ps. 8.3f.; 62; 105; etc.). Indeed, the greatness and power of God function as sufficient motive for seeking him (Amos 5.6-9), or for repentance and fear before him (Joel 2.11-14; Amos 4.9-12; Eccles. 3.14). And divine omnis- cience, far from being used in protracted discussions about the natures of time, eternity, foreknowledge, and decree, commonly functions as the guarantor of the certainty and justice of God’s impending judgment (e.g. Isa. 29.15f.; Jer. 16.16-18; Ezek. 11.2,5; Ps. 139.1ff.; Prov. 5.21; 24.2; 2 Chr. 16.9).

That brings up the final point which emerges from this survey of the Old Testament approaches to the sovereignty- responsibility tension. The Old Testament writers are not interested in struggling with this tension as a metaphysical problem. 33 In so far as they do wrestle with it (as in Job, Ecclesiastes, Habakkuk, and many shorter passages), their interest is focused on a practical area, viz. how to reconcile God’s goodness and power and elective purposes with the vicissitudes they actually experience. Their concern, in short, is the practical side of the problem of theodicy. And the ultimate answers they are granted assure them that God is greater than their questions.

— Dr. D.A. Carson (PhD, University of Cambridge), Divine Sovereignty & Human Responsibility, Chapter Three, GOD AS SOVEREIGN. pp. 24-38.

1.2.1.3 Dr. Walter Martin (PhD, University of California Coast)

Dr. Walter Martin is pro-single predestination, anti-double predestination, anti-arminianism, and anti-wesleyan foreknowledge. He seems to hold identical beliefs to Ron Rhodes, who is a moderate 4-point Calvinist (Amyraldian) and compatibilist who believes in the absolute sovereignty of God, as well as a limited version of libertarian free will. Ron Rhodes also quotes Martin in some of his articles. I would conclude that Dr. Walter Martin is a reformed leaning compatibilist.

@44:37 … our reformed faith. — Dr. Walter Martin (PhD, University of California Coast)

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@2:37 … you didn’t get there because you chose the goodness of God rather than the corruption of your sin, you didn’t get there because God jiggles your Willer and all of a sudden you decided that it was better to be saved than lost, you didn’t walk into the hand of God by your own volition you are drawn there by the power of Jesus Christ in John chapter 6 he said you have not chosen me I have chosen you he tells us specifically that we are here for the purpose of bringing forth fruit we are his children and we have been selected by him by Christ before time began … now you have here the announcement of the absolute sovereignty of God there is no possibility of mistaking it God before time began predestined … — Dr. Walter Martin (PhD, University of California Coast)

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@7:06 … Calvin was wrong when he said God predestined them to hell and James Arminius was wrong when he said you will your way to heaven, you don’t some people say that if God had foreknowledge he looked down the corridors of the century and he saw who was going to believe and the ones that were going to believe he predestined and chose and they smiled benignly and tell you they have solved the problem of predestination no they haven’t they’ve only complicated the problem of predestination… — Dr. Walter Martin (PhD, University of California Coast)

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@20:25 … head of Christ and that no flesh should be able to glory in its own sight but whoever makes an appearance before the throne of the Lord his glory will be in the lord of hosts now some may say that’s the sovereignty of God hallelujah but what about my free will, well it’s not as free as you think it is, you are free to make choices but you are not free to enforce all of them … there is freedom but it’s quite limited. In lots of respects, you have not chosen me I’ve chosen you means that God had the last word …— Dr. Walter Martin (PhD, University of California Coast)

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“I am a charismatic Baptist—just like Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Knox—all the reformers. I believe the gifts of the Spirit are here until Jesus Christ returns. I am a true Charismatic. I am not a Pentecostal Charismatic. I have never spoken in tongues but I am willing to receive from the Holy Spirit any gift He wants to give me, and anybody that is not, is an extremely foolish Christian.” — Dr. Walter Martin (PhD, University of California Coast)

1.2.1.4 Dr. Ron Rhodes (Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary)

My position is known in theological circles as “4-point Calvinism. … As a 4-point Calvinist, I hold to all the above [TULIP] except limited atonement [‘L’]. — Dr. Ron Rhodes (Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary), The Extent of the Atonement.

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@1:58 … salvation because I believe that the doctrine of election is absolutely true while at the same time it’s true that human beings have a free will this is an idea known as compatibilism in theological circles … — Dr. Ron Rhodes (Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary)

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@2:58 … Arminians will come in and say that God’s predetermination or election is based on his foreknowledge in other words God looks down through the corridors of time and decides who’s going to respond positively to the gospel and then he will elect those individuals to salvation the problem with that view is that the Bible doesn’t indicate that God just knows things in advance but he actually determines things in advance he determines what will happen … — Dr. Ron Rhodes (Th.D., Dallas Theological Seminary)

1.2.1.5 Dr. Norman Geisler (PhD, Philosophy at University of Loyola; MA, Theology at Wheaton)

Sovereignty and free will. Is it one or the other, or is it both one and the other? The Bible says both. In the first chapter we saw that God is sovereign over all things, including human events and free choices. Nothing catches God by surprise, and nothing is outside His control (see chapter 1). On the other hand, in this chapter we have seen that human beings, even in their fallen state, have the God-given power of free choice. — Chosen but free.

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Moderate Calvinists like myself are willing to affirm that God can be as persuasive as He desires to be, short of coercion. In theological terms, this means God can use irresistible grace on the willing. — Chosen but free.

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Unconditional election is also held by moderate Calvinists. It is unconditional from the standpoint of the Giver, even though there is one condition for the receiver—faith. — Chosen but free.

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Moderate Calvinists, such as I am, differ with Arminians on many points. One crucial point has to do with whether or not “once saved, always saved” is accurate. That is, whether or not it is possible to lose one’s salvation. It is my conviction that the Bible favors the Calvinist’s position of eternal security—that a truly saved person can never lose his/her salvation. — Chosen but free.

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In spite of the fact that The Potter’s Freedom (hereafter PF) is a sharp critique of my moderate Calvinism, strangely enough, I found myself agreeing with much of what it says.

All in all, The Potter’s Freedom is a good critique. But unfortunately, it is not a critique of my view. It often misunderstands, misrepresents, and mischaracterizes the moderate Calvinistic presentation of Chosen But Free. PF is permeated with logical fallacies and reveals an inadequate comprehension of the unjustified theological and philosophical underpinnings of extreme Calvinism. By distorting the obvious, caricaturizing the opposing, and sidestepping the dif icult, PF futilely attempts to make the implausible sound plausible and the unbiblical seem biblical.

— Chosen but free.

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1 John 3:9 John affirmed that “no one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.” This confirms moderate Calvinism’s view of eternal security for two reasons. First, anyone truly born of God cannot persist in evil. If someone does, then he is not born of God. That is, a Christian’s perseverance in avoiding continual, habitual sin is a proof of his salvation — Dr. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology Vol. 3 Sin & Salvation. Ch. 11.

2. Conditional Election

2.1 Classical Arminians

II. Historical Interpretations of Election.

A. Conditional Election (Classical Arminians)

Many early church Fathers, concerned to avoid pagan fatalism and Gnostic determinism, stressed the freedom of the human will and its ability to repent and exercise faith. A number of pre-Augustinian authorities thus viewed salvation synergistically, the human will freely cooperating with the Spirit to the attainment of salvation. Origen (d. 254) held that the predestination language of the Bible encouraged pagan fatalism. Thus he based election on divine foreknowledge of free, human actions. He wrote:

Foreknowledge precedes foreordination. . . . God observed beforehand the sequence of future events, and noticed the inclination of some men towards piety which followed on this inclination; and he foreknew them, knowing the present and foreknowing the future. . . . If anyone in reply asks whether it is possible for the events which God foreknew not to happen, we shall answer, Yes, and there is no necessity determining this happening or not happening.3 Commenting on 2 Tim 2:20-21, Origen denied that before time God made persons into vessels of honor or dishonor. Rather, “he makes those into vessels of honor who purge themselves and those into vessels of dishonor who allow themselves to remain unpurged.”4 Origen held that in the end all persons will, in fact, choose God and so be saved.

John Chrysostom of Antioch (d. 407) likewise emphasized the human initiative in salvation. “The Lord has made our nature free to choose. Nor does he impose necessity on us, but furnishes suitable remedies and allows everything to hinge on the sick man’s own judgment.” God elects persons on the basis of his foreknowledge of their personal worthiness. Chrysostom continued, “In order that not everything may depend on divine help, we must at the same time bring something ourselves.”5 Calvin judged that many pre-Augustinian fathers resisted the doctrine of sovereign election (1) so as to accommodate their views to influential worldly philosophers, and (2) to avoid the Christians’ constant tendency to slothfulness.6 Fourth-century Semi-Pelagians in Southern France—notably John

Cassian (d. 435), Vincent of Lérins (d. 434), Hilary of Arles (d. 449), and Faustus of Riez (d. 490)—believed that the weakened (but not lifeless) human will initiates the first movement to God. At that point divine grace assists the prior human response. The Semi-Pelagians rejected unconditional predestination, holding that it would contradict human freedom and responsibility and that it would render preaching and pastoral care unnecessary. Ultimately they regarded unconditional predestination as a fatalistic doctrine. The Semi-Pelagians explained the doctrine conditionally as the divine foreknowledge of human faith and works. Cassian, who had a high estimate of unregenerate human nature, rejected unconditional personal election. “How can we imagine without grievous blasphemy that He does not generally will all men, but only some, instead of all to be saved?”7 Hilary of Arles disputed Augustine’s doctrines of grace and election. He judged that God foreknew or predestined those who would believe, and to these God arranged for the Gospel to be preached. The Synod of Orange condemned the Semi-Pelagians, also known as Semi-Augustinians, in 529.

Traditional Roman Catholicism claims that although the gift of superadded righteousness was lost at the Fall, sinners retain the capacity for willing and doing the good. In the state of nature sinners long for the reception of grace (desiderium naturale) and possess the capacity for receiving grace (potentia obedientais). God responds to the human aspiration for him at baptism by bestowing sanctifying grace, which remits original sin and unites the soul to Christ. God then provides additional grace through the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist and the teachings of the church. As individuals cooperate with these means of grace, they are enabled to perform meritorious works (rosary prayers, fasting, giving, etc.) that effect moral improvement. In this way humans contribute to their salvation. Catholicism thus is Semi-Pelagian in its belief that “man really cooperates in his personal salvation from sin.”8

Catholics generally believe that God predestines to heaven all who die in a state of grace and consigns to hell all who die in a state of sin. In the process of salvation the ‘elect’ are able to fall from grace, and the ‘nonelect’ have the power to rise to salvation on their death beds. Predestination in the Roman system thus signifies God’s prevision of a person’s free choices and meritorious works. “Heaven is not given to the elect by a purely arbitrary act of God’s will, but it is also the reward of the personal merits of the justified.”9 Mainstream Catholicism rejects the Augustinian doctrine of sovereign election as inconsistent with divine love and Christ’s death for the entire world.

The so-called ‘Arminians’ begin with the philosophical premise that in regard to human destiny God’s sovereign choice would be incompatible with human freedom. Christ died for all, and God wills that all people be saved (1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pet 3:9). Moreover, personal obligation is limited to one’s ability to perform. Since the command to trust Christ is universal, Arminians claim that all persons have the capacity to respond to the Gospel. The tradition claims that God restores to sinners universally the ability to believe through the operation of prevenient grace that mitigates inherited depravity. Arminians define election as God’s general purpose to save those he foresaw would respond to prevenient grace, repent, and believe. They speak of God electing the class of people who exhibit a certain kind of character. “The basis for this divine choice is in the moral character which they have been enabled, through God’s transforming grace, to embody and experience.”10 Salvation, then, is synergistic; both divine grace and the human will are causes of salvation. According to one authority: “There is a cooperation, or synergism, between divine grace and the human will. The Spirit of God does not work irresistibly, but through the concurrence of the free will of individuals.”11

James Arminius (d. 1609) was a Leiden scholar who disputed the Calvinist views on predestination, limited Atonement, and the bondage of the sinner’s will. In formulating his views Arminius reacted particularly against the high Calvinism (double predestination) of Beza and Gomarus, which he judged to be unjust and unworthy of God. How could God be fair, he reasoned, if he condemns persons who have no opportunity to alter their situation because not sovereignly elected? Moreover, Arminius alleged that the Calvinist denial of free will dehumanizes persons. On the contrary, pre-Christians retain free will, defined as the power of contrary choice spiritually. Even more soberly the Arminians judged that the doctrine of double predestination would make God the author of sin.

According to Arminius, God established four principal decrees concerning salvation. The first focuses on the election of Jesus Christ. God unconditionally appointed Jesus Christ to be the Savior of humankind. What is unconditionally predestined is Christ or the way of salvation. The second focuses on the election of the people of God. God further decreed unconditionally that the class of people who adhere to this way of salvation will be saved. “He decreed to receive into favor those who repent and believe, and, in Christ . . . to effect the salvation of such penitents and believers as persevere to the end.”12 The third relates to the provision of prevenient grace. God supplies all persons with “exciting” grace, which mitigates the effects of original sin and enables sinners to respond to the Gospel call. God confers on all people grace sufficient for salvation; it is up to the individual to believe or not believe, to be saved or not be saved. The fourth decree concerns the election of individuals on the basis of foreknowledge. God elects to life those he foresees will believe and persevere, and he punishes those who refuse to do so. “This decree has its formulation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preventing grace, believe, and through his subsequent grace would persevere.”13 In other words, God chose those he foresaw would choose him. Hence the determining factor as to whether an individual will be saved or not is his or her own free decision.

Article I of The Five Articles of the Remonstrants (1610) affirms predestination based on divine foreknowledge of human faith and perseverance. The Remonstrants were forty-two followers of James Arminius who presented their anti-Calvinist articles to the governing body of the Netherlands at the Hague in 1610. The Synod of Dort (1618-19) judged the Five Articles contrary to Scripture and declared the Five Points of Calvinism the official position of the churches. Many Remonstrant pastors were dismissed from their pulpits and were not welcomed back to the Netherlands. Article I reads as follows:

That God, by an eternal, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ his Son, before the foundation of the world, hath determined, out of the fallen, sinful race of men, to save in Christ . . . those who, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, shall believe on this his Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith . . . even to the end; and on the other hand, to leave the incorrigible and unbelieving in sin and under wrath, and to condemn them as alienated from Christ.

John Wesley (d. 1791), the founder of Methodism, was influenced by the theology of the Eastern Fathers and by contemporary Anglicanism that had drifted from a Reformed to an Arminian stance. Moreover, the leader of the Oxford “holy club” stated, “I reject the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination. . . . I would sooner be a Turk, a Deist, yea an atheist, than I could believe this.”14 Wesley strongly opposed Reformed views on predestination in The Arminian Magazine (1778-91) and elsewhere, for several reasons. (1) He judged that unconditional election to life necessarily implied unconditional reprobation to death—which doctrine would make God the author of sin. “Election cannot stand without reprobation. Whom God passes by, those he reprobates. It is one and the same thing.”15 (2) Sovereign election renders preaching vain, for the elect then would be saved with or without preaching, and the non-elect to whom the Gospel is preached could not possibly be saved. (3) The Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election undermines biblical holiness, in that it removes the primary motivation to virtuous living, namely, the promise of rewards and the threat of punishment. “The doctrine [of election] . . . has a tendency to destroy holiness; for it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after it . . . the hope of future reward and punishment, the hope of heaven and the fear of hell.”16 (4) The doctrine allegedly destroys Christians’ zeal for good works, if it be that human destinies have been settled from eternity past. And (5) unconditional election makes Christ a hypocrite for pretending love for, and inviting repentance from, persons allegedly reprobated by God.

Positively, Wesley insisted that Christ died for all and his grace is available to all. Viewed as a seamless garment, divine grace universally restrains evil, removes the guilt and penalty of original sin, convicts of sin and judgment, provides the first wish to please God, and imparts power to repent and believe. Thus, “preventing grace” heals the damaging effects of Adamic sin universally. To those who respond to prevenient grace and choose Christ, God grants justifying grace followed by sanctifying grace. Wesley saw two elections in Scripture: (1) an unconditional election of individuals to service and nations to privileges, and (2) a conditional election of persons to eternal destiny. Concerning the latter, God in eternity past elected those persons he foresaw would believe and persevere in holy living. Wesley thus understood election in the weaker sense of God’s ratification of foreseen human choices. He wrote:

I believe election commonly means one of these two things: First, a divine appointment of some particular men to do some particular work in the world. And this election I believe to be not only personal, but absolute and unconditional. Thus Cyrus was elected. . . . I believe election means . . . a divine appointment of some men to eternal happiness. But I believe this election to be conditional, as well as the reprobation opposite thereto.17

Wesley’s view of salvation as a series of moments in which God offers people resistible grace more closely resembles the classical Roman Catholic rather than the Reformation view.

Charles G. Finney (d. 1875), the Congregationalist pastor and evangelist, held that God’s government of the world divides people into two classes: the salvable and the unsalvable. The salvable are those whom God knows are capable of bringing forth saving faith. Finney defined election as the divine foresight of personal salvability. The ground of God’s election is the presence of something in sinners that makes it possible and wise for God to save them. Finney believed that the elect were chosen to eternal life on the condition that God foresaw that in the perfect exercise of their freedom they could be persuaded to repent and embrace the Gospel. “Upon some God foresaw that he could wisely bestow a sufficient measure of gracious influence to secure their voluntary yielding, and upon others he could not bestow enough in fact to secure this result. . . . In all this there was nothing arbitrary or unjust. He does for all that he wisely can.”18

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, II. Historical Interpretations of Election. pp. 99-104.

2.1.1 Dr. John C. Polkinghorne (Prof., Mathematical Physics at Cambridge; Ph.D., Quantum Field Theory at Cambridge; Ph.D., Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics from Trinity College)

Since Polkinghorne attended the Church of England, which is Anglican, and was also an Anglican priest, I’m going to conclude that he’s Classical Arminian. Polkinghorne was Lennox’s science teacher.

Dreadful as the resulting sufferings are, their immediate source is clear. They result from the exercise of human will. Men and women are directly responsible for them. That responsibility may be diffused, for we are all subject to the pressures of society and of our upbringings, but it is primarily located in humanity. The classic answer to the allowed existence of moral evil is the free-will defense— the claim that it is better for God to have created a world of freely choosing beings, with the possibility of their voluntary response to him and to each other, as well as the possibility of sinful selfishness, than to have created a world of blindly obedient automata. — Science and providence. p. 76.

–

We now understand that even at those macroscopic levels where classical physics gives an adequate account, there is an openness to the future which relaxes the unrelenting grip of mechanical determinism. The universe may not look like an organism, but it looks even less like a machine — Science and providence. p. 37.

–

Inability to predict might be due either to ignorance of hidden causal detail of a conventional kind, or it might be the sign of a true openness to the operation of new forms of causal principle. It is a matter for metaphysical decision which of these alternatives is to be chosen, a point made clearly enough by the existence of both an indeterministic interpretation (Niels Bohr) and a deterministic interpretation (David Bohm) of quantum theory, each having the same empirical adequacy in relation to experimental results, so that physics by itself cannot settle the issue between them. — Science and providence. p. xi.

–

I think, from an undue bewitchment by the Newtonian equations from which chaos theory originally sprang. Of course, as they stand, these equations are deterministic in their character, but we know that they are only approximations to reality, since Newtonian thinking is not adequate at the scale of atomic phenomena. Dismissive talk of ‘deterministic chaos’ is, therefore, a highly challengeable metaphysical decision, rather than an established conclusion of physics. It might be thought that understanding could be advanced by a fusion of quantum theory and chaos theory, since the behavior of chaotic systems soon comes ostensibly to depend upon fine detail at a level of accuracy that is rendered inaccessible by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. — Science and providence. p. xii.

–

Time does not elapse; the world line is not traversed. It is simply there. Spacetime diagrams are great chunks of frozen history. Not only can God take an atemporal view of such a universe; it is really the only right perspective from which to consider it. Just before his death Einstein wrote the astonishing words: “For us convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, though a persistent one.”

Such talk is only possible in a totally deterministic universe, where Laplace’s calculator can retrodict the past and predict the future from the dynamic circumstances of the present, so that effectively the distinction between past, present and future is abolished. There is simply a given spacetime pattern. That world is a world of being, but it is not a world of becoming. Nothing essentially new can ever happen within it. That world is certainly not the world of human experience, where the past is closed and the future is open. Nor is it the world described by modern science.

…

In his attitude, Einstein was the last of the great ancients rather than the first of the great moderns. It is notorious that he rejected the radical indeterminism of probabilistic quantum theory. He could not stomach a God who played dice.

…

Thus quantum theory does not encourage the view that the flux of time is an illusion. Successive acts of measurement bring about genuinely new states of the system.

— Dr. John C. Polkinghorne (Prof., Mathematical Physics at Cambridge; Ph.D., Quantum Field Theory at Cambridge; Ph.D., Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics from Trinity College), Science and providence. pp. 89-90.

2.1.2 Thomas C. Oden (PhD, University of Yale)

Under construction

2.1.2 Molinism “Middle Knowledge”

2.2.1 Dr. William Lane Craig (University of Birmingham)

William Lane Craig had a very nice debate with Ben Shapiro and came out on top fairly easily. He’s also one of the main influences on Jordan Peterson’s partial conversion to Christianity.

There’s nothing wrong with mystery per se (the correct physical interpretation of quantum mechanics is a mystery!); the problem is that some Reformed theologians, like my two collaborators in the four-views book, try to resolve the mystery by holding to universal, divine, causal determinism and a compatibilist view of human freedom. According to this view, the way in which God sovereignly controls everything that happens is by causing it to happen, and freedom is re-interpreted to be consistent with being causally determined by factors outside oneself.

It is this view, which affirms universal determinism and compatibilism, that runs into the problems you mention. Making God the author of evil is just one of the problems this neo-Reformed view faces. At least five come immediately to mind:

Molinism vs Calvinism – Five difficulties with the Reformed view

1. Universal, divine, causal determinism cannot offer a coherent interpretation of Scripture. The classical Reformed divines recognized this. They acknowledge that the reconciliation of Scriptural texts affirming human freedom and contingency with Scriptural texts affirming divine sovereignty is inscrutable. D. A. Carson identifies nine streams of texts affirming human freedom: (1) People face a multitude of divine exhortations and commands, (2) people are said to obey, believe, and choose God, (3) people sin and rebel against God, (4) people’s sins are judged by God, (5) people are tested by God, (6) people receive divine rewards, (7) the elect are responsible to respond to God’s initiative, (8) prayers are not mere showpieces scripted by God, and (9) God literally pleads with sinners to repent and be saved (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension, pp. 18-22). These passages rule out a deterministic understanding of divine providence, which would preclude human freedom. Determinists reconcile universal, divine, causal determinism with human freedom by re-interpreting freedom in compatibilist terms. Compatibilism entails determinism, so there’s no mystery here. The problem is that adopting compatibilism achieves reconciliation only at the expense of denying what various Scriptural texts seem clearly to affirm: genuine indeterminacy and contingency.

2. Universal causal determinism cannot be rationally affirmed. There is a sort of dizzying, self-defeating character to determinism. For if one comes to believe that determinism is true, one has to believe that the reason he has come to believe it is simply that he was determined to do so. One has not in fact been able to weigh the arguments pro and con and freely make up one’s mind on that basis. The difference between the person who weighs the arguments for determinism and rejects them and the person who weighs them and accepts them is wholly that one was determined by causal factors outside himself to believe and the other not to believe. When you come to realize that your decision to believe in determinism was itself determined and that even your present realization of that fact right now is likewise determined, a sort of vertigo sets in, for everything that you think, even this very thought itself, is outside your control. Determinism could be true; but it is very hard to see how it could ever be rationally affirmed, since its affirmation undermines the rationality of its affirmation.

Point 3: seems to be a critique on Hyper-Calvinism (supralapsarianism) double-predestination. Orthodox or Scholastic Calvinism (infralapsarianism) does not teach double-predestination. Moderate Calvinism (sublapsarianism) does not either. This would be a strawman if used on scholastic or moderate calvinism.

3. Universal, divine, determinism makes God the author of sin and precludes human responsibility. In contrast to the Molinist view, on the deterministic view even the movement of the human will is caused by God. God moves people to choose evil, and they cannot do otherwise. God determines their choices and makes them do wrong. If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but becomes evil Himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been removed. For our choices are not really up to us: God causes us to make them. We cannot be responsible for our actions, for nothing we think or do is up to us.

4. Universal, divine, determinism nullifies human agency. Since our choices are not up to us but are caused by God, human beings cannot be said to be real agents. They are mere instruments by means of which God acts to produce some effect, much like a man using a stick to move a stone. Of course, secondary causes retain all their properties and powers as intermediate causes, as the Reformed divines remind us, just as a stick retains its properties and powers which make it suitable for the purposes of the one who uses it. Reformed thinkers need not be occasionalists like Nicholas Malebranche, who held that God is the only cause there is. But these intermediate causes are not agents themselves but mere instrumental causes, for they have no power to initiate action. Hence, it’s dubious that on divine determinism there really is more than one agent in the world, namely, God. This conclusion not only flies in the face of our knowledge of ourselves as agents but makes it inexplicable why God then treats us as agents, holding us responsible for what He caused us and used us to do.

5. Universal, divine determinism makes reality into a farce. On the deterministic view, the whole world becomes a vain and empty spectacle. There are no free agents in rebellion against God, whom God seeks to win through His love, and no one who freely responds to that love and freely gives his love and praise to God in return. The whole spectacle is a charade whose only real actor is God Himself. Far from glorifying God, the deterministic view, I’m convinced, denigrates God for engaging in a such a farcical charade. It is deeply insulting to God to think that He would create beings which are in every respect causally determined by Him and then treat them as though they were free agents, punishing them for the wrong actions He made them do or loving them as though they were freely responding agents. God would be like a child who sets up his toy soldiers and moves them about his play world, pretending that they are real persons whose every motion is not in fact of his own doing and pretending that they merit praise or blame. I’m certain that Reformed determinists, in contrast to classical Reformed divines, will bristle at such a comparison. But why it’s inapt for the doctrine of universal, divine, causal determinism is a mystery to me.

— Molinism vs Calvinism

2.2.2 Dr. Alvin Plantinga (University of Yale)

Under construction

2.3 Reformed Arminianism

2.3.1 Dr. Stephen M. Ashby (PhD, Bowling Green State)

Under construction

2.4 Moderate or Reformed Arminianism w/ Eternal Security

The only difference between moderately arminian compatibilists and the moderately reformed compatibilists, is that this group bases election on foreknowledge of forseen faith. The other group does not.

2.4.1 Chuck Smith

We believe that God chose the believer before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4-6), and based on His foreknowledge, has predestined the believer to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29-30). We believe that God offers salvation to all who will call on His name. Romans 10:13 says, “ For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” We also believe that God calls to Himself those who will believe in His Son, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9). However, the Bible also teaches that an invitation (or call) is given to all, but only a few accept it. We see this balance throughout scripture. Revelation 22:17 states, “… And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” 1 Peter 1:2 tells us we are, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. …” Matthew 22:14 says, “For many are called, but few are chosen (elected).” God clearly does choose, but man must also accept God’s invitation to salvation.

— Chuck Smith, “Calvinism, Arminianism, & The Word of God, A Calvary Chapel Perspective.” Election. p. 10.

2.4.2 Chuck Missler

Election and predestination are Biblical doctrines. God knows everything and therefore He cannot be surprised by anything. He is beyond the constraints of mass, acceleration and gravity, therefore He is outside time. He knows, and has known from “eternity past,” who will exercise their free will to accept Him and who will reject Him. The former are “the elect” and the latter are the “non-elect.” Everyone who is not saved will have only himself to blame: God will not send anyone to hell, but many people will choose to go there by exercising their free will to reject Christ.

— Chuck Missler, Koinonia House.

2.5 Systemless / Moderate Arminianism

They are different from Classical Arminians, often times, by only one point. They often describe themselves as systemless.

2.5.1 Dr. John C. Lennox (PhD, University of Cambridge; DPhil, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; DSc, Cardiff University)

Commenting on John 6:44 (No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day), Carson writes:

Yet despite the strong predestinarian strain, it must be insisted with no less vigour that John emphasizes the responsibility of people to come to Jesus, and can excoriate them for refusing to do so (e.g. 5:40).78

Carson’s view is that “John is quite happy with the position that modern philosophy calls ‘compatibilism’ ”.79

If what Carson means is that that John believes in both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, and that both must be held equally firmly, however paradoxical the resulting tension may appear to us, then that would be fine. However, the term “compatibilism”, as we mentioned earlier, is normally used by philosophers who hold that human freedom and responsibility is compatible with determinism – a very different matter; unless, of course, one interprets sovereignty as determinism.80

Of course, what is meant by “each side in the discussion”, or which version of which side is compatible with the other, is another matter! A further illustration of holding the views in tension is given by the seventeenth-century Westminster Confession of Faith (Section 3):

God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

The second clause raises immediate questions as to what is really meant by the first. However, this statement has the considerable merit of clearly acknowledging that Scripture teaches both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, in which case all interpretations that press one side to the exclusion of the other must be incorrect, for the simple reason that Scripture itself does not allow one side to override the other …

— Dr. John C. Lennox (PhD, University of Cambridge; DPhil, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; DSc, Cardiff University), Determined to Believe? pp. 101-102.

Lennox & Heiser agree that foreknowledge is not always causative, or as heiser puts it “foreknowledge, does not necessitate predestination.”

23 this man, who was handed over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you executed by nailing him to a cross at the hands of Gentiles. — Acts 2:23 NET

Is God’s foreknowledge causative – i.e. does the fact that God knows that something will happen cause it to happen, and therefore relieve any participant from responsibility? Surely the answer is: not necessarily; if for no other reason than the fact that the Bible itself does not regard God’s foreknowledge or predestination as diminishing human responsibility.

The very first quote under “foreknowledge” (which is the same as the second quote under “predestination”) says that Christ’s crucifixion was both foreknown and predestined, but that the men involved in it were wicked and therefore morally responsible. One could add to this that the death of Christ was actually predicted in Scripture centuries before it happened. However, Scripture itself tells us that this fact does not diminish the culpability of those involved in crucifying the Lord.

… Of course on the human level foreknowledge – knowing something in advance – is not necessarily causative. …

— Dr. John C. Lennox (PhD, University of Cambridge; DPhil, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; DSc, Cardiff University), Determined to Believe?. p. 109.

2.5.2 Dr. Michael S. Heiser (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Heiser has said multiple times that we don’t need systems, just like Lennox, but Heiser’s distinctives include having the free will to renounce your faith and forfeit salvation, just like the Classical Arminians. He does state in his book, The Unseen Realm (p. 17), “If your background, like mine, is in the evangelical, noncharismatic branch of protestantism …” His website may reveal more nuances. He’s similar to Lennox in his conclusions, that “foreknowledge, does not necessitate predestination.”

@0:48 … the fact that God knows possibilities, and all possibilities don’t happen. tells you that God’s foreknowledge of those possibilities did not result in the predestination of all those possibilities. foreknowledge and predestination are not inextricably linked, foreknowledge does not necessitate predestination. God knowing all things real and possible actually undermines that idea. — Dr. Michael S. Heiser (PhD, University of Wisconsin)

3. Corporate Election

3.1 Contemporary Arminians

II. Historical Interpretations of Election.

B. Corporate Election (Contemporary Arminians)

This view represents a refinement of the traditional Arminian view of conditional election. Denying the radical depravity of sinners and the unconditional election of individuals to be saved, this school affirms that God wills to save all people and that Christ died for all. Evangelical interpreters view election passively as God’s purpose to save the class of people who trust Christ. In other words, election is a statement about the divine plan of salvation; it concerns God’s appointment of the believing community to everlasting glory. Accordingly, the dynamic whereby sinners come to Christ lies not with the sovereign God but with the unregenerate themselves.

Alan Richardson, former theologian at Nottingham and dean of York Cathedral, averred that election is corporate, realized, and to service not to salvation. (1) Election is corporate. “The categories of predestination, foreknowledge, and so on, are valid . . . for the behavior of groups, but do not apply to this or that individual.”19 In the OT election dealt with God’s choice, not of individuals, but of the nation Israel (Deut 7:6-8; Ps 135:4) and of his Anointed to be the instruments of his purposes. This OT perspective carries over to the NT. Thus in Rom 8:28-30 that which God “foreknew” and “predestined” is the church corporately. According to Richardson:

If we read this passage as if it related to atomic individuals, we shall create difficulties which are wholly of our imagining; we will then have to ask why it was that God picked out some individuals, and not others, and ‘predestined’ them to salvation since the foundation of the world. Paul, of course, does not think of the Church as made up of a collection of individuals, but as a body: it is the body which is foreknown, foreordained, called, justified and is to be glorified.20

Likewise Romans 9–11 does not concern individuals but nations or representative rulers such as Pharaoh. Richardson argues that Christ is the Elect One and those who are in the Son are the eklektoi. “If Christians are ‘the elect,’ it is because they are ‘in Christ,’ because they are baptized into the person of him who alone may with complete propriety be called the Elect of God.”21

(2) Election is realized. Romans 9–11, moreover, says nothing about salvation or damnation in the world-to-come, but about God’s purposes in history. “Election may be defined as the action of God’s grace in history” (emphasis added).22 That is, the election of Israel, the Messiah, and the church has respect to a present, earthly mission among the nations (Isa 45:4-6; Mark 10:45). And (3) election is exclusively to service. God’s euloge has nothing to do with personal destiny in the age to come but everything to do with service for God in the world. “Election refers to God’s purpose in this world. It is true that the elected ones, if they do not fall away, will be saved in the world to come, but that is not the primary meaning of election. In the NT, as in the OT, election is a matter of service, not of privilege.”23

Richardson irresponsibly dissolves individual personhood and decisions into the corporate unit. Thus in arguing for infant baptism, Richardson avers that the faith of the family representative avails for the entire household. “The NT principle of representative faith is established. There is no place for our modern individualism in biblical thinking . . . the faith of one is available for those who are unable as yet to express their own faith.”24

In their book God’s Strategy in Human History,25 the laymen Forster and Marston propose a passive corporate election. The authors argue that Scripture does not teach sovereign election to salvation; people’s eternal destiny depends on their own moral responses to the universal offer of the Gospel. Jesus Christ is the chosen One, and Christians are said to be elect because through faith they are in Christ.26 By the free responses of repentance and faith, people become part of Christ’s body, the church, and thus are described as chosen. Forster and Marston write:

The prime point is that the election of the church is a corporate rather than an individual thing. It is not that individuals are in the church because they are elect, it is rather that they are elect because they are in the church, which is the body of the elect One. . . . A Christian is not chosen to become part of Christ’s body, but in becoming part of that body [by free will, exercising faith] he partakes of Christ’s election.27

In other words, election or predestination points to the future and describes the heavenly heritage of the people of God (Rom 8:28-30). “Predestination does not concern who should be converted; it concerns our future destiny. It is not that we are predestined to be Christians, it is rather that as Christians we receive a glorious destiny.”28 The sum of the matter is that God did not choose any individual to be saved; rather, corporately he has chosen in Christ the church to be heirs of heavenly glory.

William Klein, in The New Chosen People, avers that the Reformed doctrine whereby God from eternity chose some individuals to be saved and passed by others is “to most of us, a cause of bewilderment or frustration…. Such a claim . . . seems so arrogant, so exclusive.”29 God does not select some sinners to be saved; he wills to save all who believe (Matt 18:14; 1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pet 3:9). Election in Scripture, he insists, has three meanings. (1) The most common use is God’s corporate choice of a people, Israel and the church, for spiritual privileges. Under the old economy God chose national Israel to be his people (Deut 7:6; 14:2); so under the new economy he chooses the people who believe in Christ (the church) to be his elect. (2) There is God’s choice of individuals for service, viz., prophets, priests, kings, the seventy, and Christ’s apostles. Where election focuses on individuals it is always to a task or ministry. And (3) election concerns God’s unique choice of Jesus to perform his redemptive function.

Election to salvation, the immediate matter of concern, is a corporate reality; God has chosen to save the body of believers (the people of God) who have come to faith. The plural language of election (Rom 8:29-30; Eph 1:4-5; 2 Thess 2:13; etc.) more adequately refers to the group as a whole rather than to individuals. So the OT speaks of the chosen corporately as a “flock,” a “house,” and a “people,” and the NT a “body,” a “bride,” and a “temple.” Writes Klein, “God has chosen the church as a body rather than the specific individuals who populate that body.”30 Since Jesus Christ is God’s Elect One (1 Pet 1:20; 2:4, 6), and those who exercise saving faith are in Christ, Klein concludes that the latter group constitutes God’s chosen or “elect” people. His assumption is that since Jesus and the apostles authentically proclaimed the Gospel universally, all persons are capable of repentance and faith. In particular, the opening of Lydia’s heart that enabled her to respond to the Gospel (Acts 16:14), was not caused by a special, effectual working of the Holy Spirit.31 Klein claims that this view of election is congruent with the biblical concept of corpo­rate solidarity, whereby God regards Israel and the church not as so many individuals but as a corporate reality.

Klein further argues that foreknowledge in the NT is not a synonym for predetermination, even as the OT language “to know” (Jer 1:5; Amos 3:2) and “to love” (Jer 31:3; Mal 1:2)—referred to individuals—do not mean “to choose” savingly. The divine (fore)knowledge is not selective or elective. In sum, Klein defines election as God’s determination of the benefits that accrue to the people that believe—i.e., adoption into the family of God, conformity to Christ’s image, and future glory. “Paul’s concern in predestination is not how people become Christians nor who become Christians, but to describe what God has foreordained on behalf of those are (or will be) Christians.”32

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, II. Historical Interpretations of Election. pp. 104-107.

4. Double Unconditional Predestination

4.1 High Calvinists (Hyper)

II. Historical Interpretations of Election.

C. Double Unconditional Predestination (High Calvinists)

Some medieval theologians, Reformers, and high Calvinists concluded from the logic of divine sovereignty that God in eternity past chose certain persons to be elected to life and others to be damned to death. They judged the decree of reprobation to be the logical correlate of the decree of election. God’s ordination of the two ends was entirely independent of foreseen human merit or demerit. Concerning reprobation, the thesis of permission was dismissed as undermining certainty of occurrence and thus the divine sovereignty and rule.

Gottschalk of Orbais (d. 869), the Franciscan follower of Augustine, was the first significant proponent of double predestination. Firmly opposed to Semi-Pelagianism, Gottschalk became entangled in the logic of election and reprobation. Proceeding from divine sovereignty, he argued that if God elected some to life, he necessarily must have reprobated the others to death, lest their destiny remain uncertain. His bottom line was, “There is a twofold predestination, of the elect to blessedness, and of the reprobate to death.”33 Gottschalk was condemned by the Council of Quiercy (853) for making God the author of sin. His works were burned, and he was imprisoned in a monastery where maltreatment led to his death.

Ulrich Zwingli (d. 1531), the leader of the Reformation in Germanspeaking Switzerland, anticipated features of Calvin’s thought. Zwingli believed that the sovereign God is the cause of every occurrence, predestination being a synonym for providence. “All things are so done and disposed by the providence of God that nothing takes place without his will or command.”34 Election or predestination is God’s free decision and is not based on foresight of any human work or merit. “Predestination is the free disposition of God with regard to us, and is without any respect to good or evil deeds.”35 Accordingly, the exercise of faith follows election. Zwingli regarded election and reprobation as two aspects of the sovereign will. Since God before time unconditionally elected many to life, he also fashioned many souls (Cain, Esau, Judas, Simon Magus, etc.) for reprobation to eternal death. Wrote Zwingli, “The bliss of everlasting life and the pain of everlasting death are altogether matters of free election or rejection by the divine will.”36

Martin Luther (d. 1546) initially held to the conditional view of election advanced by the Schoolmen, but his study of the Bible and Augustine led him to affirm unconditional election. Against Christian humanists such as Erasmus, Luther insisted that because the sinner’s will is in bondage to corruption, it consistently resists the truth of the Gospel. Thus a person can be saved only through God’s will and working. “God has taken salvation out of my will and has put it into His own and has promised to save me, not by my own work or effort but by His grace and mercy.”37

Luther steadfastly affirmed that God’s omnipotence is the cause of all occurrences. God’s hidden will, into which humans dare not pry, includes his unconditional predestination of some to be saved and his reprobation of the rest to be damned. “God rejected a number of men and elected and predestined others to everlasting life, such is the truth.”38 On one hand, God elected certain ones to be saved not on the basis of foreseen works or merits but according to his own good pleasure. On the other hand, “the will of the divine majesty purposely abandons and reprobates some to perish.”39 This decree of reprobation is seen in God’s hatred of Esau (Rom 9:13), his hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (Rom 9:17-18), and his energizing Judas’ treachery. To say that the preceding occurred merely by divine permission, in Luther’s words, is “double talk.”40 That God hardens the will of the reprobate while not sinning himself is a mystery embedded in his hidden will.

John Calvin (d. 1564) discussed predestination in his Institutes of the Christian Religion neither under the divine decrees nor under providence but in the context of salvation and the Christian life. Stressing the absolute sovereignty of God, Calvin attributed every occurrence to God’s efficient will; he judged the thesis of permission a subterfuge that diminishes the glory of God. Hence Calvin viewed election and reprobation as parallel decrees within the single will of God. “We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death ”41

Concerning the decree of election, Calvin first spoke of a general, covenantal election of ethnic Israel, which choice could be revoked by national disobedience. More fundamentally, God eternally chose particular individuals, both among Israel (the “remnant”) and the Gentiles, for an irrevocable spiritual heritage in Christ. “The general election of the nation Israel does not prevent God from choosing in his most secret counsel those whom he pleases.”42 Calvin noted the following characteristics of election to life in Christ. (1) Election is according to God’s sovereign will and good pleasure. It involves God’s unconditional choice of a man or woman, not the latter’s choice of God. (2) Election is founded on freely given mercy; God is under no obligation to save a single rebellious sinner. (3) Election is not based on foreseen faith or holiness. Although God knows all things in advance, biblical foreknowledge signifies the divine determination to save specific persons. “The foreknowledge of God . . . is not a bare prescience . . . but the adoption by which he had always distinguished his children from the reprobate.”43 (4) Election is absolutely certain as to its outcome. Since the omnipotent God infallibly accomplishes his purposes, all the elect will be saved. For Calvin election to life is a doctrine for the comfort of Christians.

Calvin went beyond Augustine to assert that God unconditionally destined the majority of humanity to everlasting destruction. “Many . . . accept election in such terms as to deny that anyone is condemned. But they do this very ignorantly and childishly since election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation.”44 Reprobation means that God purposefully devoted to destruction whomsoever he pleased. “Since the disposition of all things is in God’s hand, since the decision of salvation or of death rests in his power, he so ordains by his plan or will that among men some are born destined for certain death from the womb, who glorify his name by their own destruction.”45 God’s reprobation of the non-elect occurred “for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.”46 Calvin cited as leading examples of reprobation God’s rejection of Esau while yet in his mother’s womb and his hardening of the heart of Pharaoh. God implements his decree by withholding from the reprobate his saving word or by depriving them of the capacity to understand it. Calvin denied that his doctrine of reprobation is fatalistic, for it derives not from the inner necessity of things (as in Stoicism) but from God’s universal rule. Likewise it is not unjust, for the reason that God’s will is the final standard of justice. The fact that God foreordains sin and then punishes sinners for their actions is a mystery to finite minds, hence Calvin’s reluctance to preach the doctrine. The truths of God’s sovereign disposition of all persons and human responsibility must be maintained, because the Bible teaches both.

Theodore Beza (d. 1605), Calvin’s successor at the Geneva Academy, is commonly viewed as the “father of hyper-Calvinism.” Beza went beyond Calvin by expounding predestination under the doctrine of God and creation. Beza viewed God’s just and secret purpose as the efficient cause of all occurrences. “Everything happens in the manner in which God ordained it from eternity. He disposed the intermediate causes in such a powerful and effective fashion that they were necessarily brought to the appointed end to which He ordained them.”47 Beza argued that God created some persons for life and others for damnation. Thus predestination “is God’s eternal and unchangeable ordinance, which came before all the causes of salvation and damnation, and by which God has determined to glorify himself—in some men by saving them through his simple grace in Christ and in other men by damning them through his rightful justice in Adam and in themselves.”48 Beza added that “The doctrine of foreseen faith and foreseen works is contrary to the doctrine that preaches and teaches the Word of God.”49 Beza asserted that the reprobate are condemned for their own sin and lack of faith. He so argued by distinguishing between God’s decree of election and reprobation and the execution of that decree. Although God willed salvation and damnation, his decree was executed by the secondary means of faith and unbelief. By so reasoning, Beza sought to uphold human responsibility and to excuse God as the author of sin. Ultimately Beza referred the preceding antimonies to the mystery of the divine will.

John Bunyan (d. 1688), the English Baptist preacher and writer, is most famous for his allegories Grace Abounding (1666) and The Pilgrim’s Progress (1682). According to Bunyan, the whole of salvation rests on the foundation of God’s sovereign election. Wrote he, “This act of God in electing is a choosing or fore-appointing of some infallibly unto eternal life.”50 Election according to God’s good pleasure is (1) eternal, having been executed before the foundation of the world, (2) unconditional, being totally independent of foreseen faith or good works, and (3) effectual, in that no impediment can hinder the realization of God’s purposes. Finally, (4) election is “in Christ,” since the Savior is the one in whom the elect were always considered and without whom there is neither election, grace, nor salvation.

In a lengthy section entitled “Reprobation Asserted: or the Doctrine of Eternal Election and Reprobation Promiscuously Handled,” Bunyan stated that the decree of reprobation is the logical correlate of election: “if not elect, what then but reprobate?”51 The decree of reprobation was executed not on the basis of foreseen responses of sinners, but solely on the basis of God’s pre-mundane purpose. Arising out of God’s sovereignty, reprobation excludes creatures from the sphere of divine election and publicly displays his power and wrath. Bunyan supported his doctrine of reprobation by appeal to Paul’s accounts of Jacob and Esau (Rom 9:10­ 13), the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (vv. 17-18), and the parable of the potter and the clay (vv. 19-22). “This decree [of reprobation] is made sure by the number, measure, and bounds of election; for election and reprobation do enclose all reasonable creatures . . . election, those that are set apart for glory; and reprobation, those left out of this choice.”52 Bunyan further distinguished between the decisions of reprobation and foreordination. The latter, arising out of God’s justice, binds the reprobate over to everlasting punishment. “Sovereignty is according to the will of God, but justice according to the sin of man.”53

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, II. Historical Interpretations of Election. pp. 107-111.

4.1.1 Demarest Against Double-Predestination

III. The Exposition Of The Doctrine of Election.

E. Is Predestination Double?

Some allege that the approximately ten references to God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (Exod 4:21; 7:3; 9:12; et al.) support the thesis of unconditional reprobation to damnation. But prior to mentioning the divine hardening, Scripture indicates that Pharaoh freely opposed God’s purposes (Exod 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34, 35; et al.; cf. 13:15; 1 Sam 6:6). The Bible does not explain the nature of the hardening, but it appears that God’s role was that of confirming Pharaoh’s decisions rather than predetermining them. The most coherent explanation of the hardening is that by withdrawing his sustaining Spirit and by giving Pharaoh up to his own impulses, God permitted the Egyptian leader to actualize his hostile designs (cf. Rom 1:24, 26, 28). The hardening thus represents God’s punishment of Pharaoh for rejecting God’s good purposes.

A similar situation occurred in the case of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who refused to permit Israel to pass through his territory. Yet the Hebrews so attributed ultimate causality to God that Moses could say, “God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate” (Deut 2:30; cf. Num 21:23), even though God’s involvement was limited to permission of the incident.137 The language of rejection, common in the Psalms and indicated by the verbs zānaḥ (Ps 43:2; 44:9, 23; 60:1; etc.) and mā’as (Ps 53:5; 78:59, 67; 89:38), refers to a temporal forfeiture of privileges as a result of deliberate covenant-breaking. God’s work among the Egyptians— “whose hearts he turned to hate [śānē’] his people” (Ps 105:25)—should be understood in the sense of his hardening of Pharaoh’s heart (for human self-hardening, see Ps 95:8 and Prov 28:14). Scripture stops short of ascribing sin to God’s efficient will, as indicated by repeated warnings of judgments against evil practices (Ps 81:13-15; Ecc 11:9).

Some interpreters find support for the doctrine of reprobation in certain crucial sayings of Jesus. Jesus’ parable of the sheep and goats (Matt 25:31-46) differentiates between the sheep on the right hand (“blessed” by the Father) and the goats on the left (“cursed” [katēramenoi] by him). Jesus stated that the righteous inherit the kingdom prepared specifically for them (v. 34), whereas the accursed depart into the place of torment prepared, not for them, but for Satan and his angels (v. 41). As Brunner has noted, “The distinctive element in the biblical statement is not the ‘congruity’ but the ‘incongruity’ of the ‘right hand and the left hand.’”138 The saved are those whom God has chosen for eternal blessing; the lost are those whom God has chosen to “leave” (aphiēmi, Luke 17:34-35) in their self-willed state of sinful rebellion.

Paul’s reference to God’s hardening the human heart in Rom 9:18— “God . . . hardens whom he wants to harden”—signifies not reprobation but God’s ratification of the sinner’s determination to steel himself or herself against the divine will of pleasure. With Shedd we can say that God hardens the hearts of the unsaved in two ways: (1) by permitting persons to exercise their sinful wills, and (2) by withdrawing his grace so that their sinful lusts go unchecked.139 Paul’s statement that God “raised up” (exēgeira) Pharaoh—the Hebrew of Exod 9:16 suggests that God merely sustained Pharaoh in life (see the NRSV)—communicates God’s use of hardhearted Pharaoh in the outworking of his saving plan. The Lord was not, however, the blameworthy cause of Pharaoh’s actions. God does not efficiently impel sinful rebellion, but he does give sinners sufficient rope to hang themselves. According to Sproul, “It is not that God puts his hand on them to create fresh evil in their hearts; he merely removes his holy hand of restraint from them and lets them do their own will.”140

The analogy of the potter and the clay (Rom 9:20-21), whereby the craftsman fashions out of the same lump “some pottery for noble purposes (eis timēn) and some for common use (eis atimian)” registers the point made earlier, that God purposefully sanctifies some people and leaves others in their sins. Cranfield helpfully comments, “It should be noted that eis atimian implies menial use, not reprobation or destruction. The potter does not make ordinary, everyday pots in order to destroy them.”141 Neither do vv. 22-23 support an unconditional predestination to destruction. They state that the saved were “prepared [proētoimasen] in advance for glory,” whereas the lost are “prepared [katērtismena] for destruction.” The fact that Paul here did not use the verb prokatartizō (cf. 2 Cor 9:5) suggests that it is not God who reprobated in eternity; rather, sinners prepare themselves for destruction by their own refusal to repent. The emphasis in these verses is not upon God’s pre-mundane reprobation, but upon the temporal postponement of his wrath against unbelievers who are ripe for destruction. In sum, “there appears here no support for any dogma of predestination to damnation, while the parallel foreordination to glory is stated with no uncertainty.”142 The big idea of the potter and the clay analogy is God’s absolute right to deal with his creatures as he sovereignly wills. Other texts adduced by some in support of reprobation, such as 1 Cor 9:27, Gal 4:30, 2 Tim 2:20, 3:8, likewise fall short of actually teaching what Calvin called the “horrible decree.”

Israel’s hardening (Rom 11:7, 25) and the Jews’ subsequent spiritual insensitivity (Rom 11:8, 10) should be understood in the sense of Rom 9:18. With pleasure God willed the salvation of “a remnant” within the family of Abraham (Rom 11:5); but with displeasure he permitted the majority of Israelites to reject his offer of grace (v. 12). Thus we concur with Brunner who stated that “there is no doctrine of a double decree in the New Testament, and still less in the Old.”143

First Pet 2:8 affirms the divinely appointed ruin of those who persistently reject the Gospel. The antecedent of the clause—“which is also what they were destined for” (etethēsan)—is not the verb “they disobey” (so Calvin, Beza), but “they stumble.”144 Hebrews’ mention of Israel’s hardness of heart in Egypt focuses on the individual as the cause of the hardening (Heb 3:8, 13, 15; 4:7). It may be that the aorist passive subjunctive, sklērunthē (“that none of you may be hardened,” Heb 3:13) is properly “understood as a passive of permission; i.e., ‘allow or permit one’s self to be hardened.’”145 Similarly, Esau was rejected by God only after he had rejected divine grace freely offered (Heb 12:17). The teaching of Scripture as a whole is that continued resistance to God’s grace produces a fixed habit of opposition to God that is not easily broken.

In sum, the biblical evidence leads us to uphold ‘an election within an election,’ namely (1) the corporate election of the people of God for earthly privileges and eternal destiny, as well as (2) an election of individuals to the personal enjoyment of these blessings. Scripture leads us to posit first the election of the group (Israel and the church) and then the personal election of those individuals who comprise the true, spiritual people of God.

The Roman and Arminian views posit sinful men and women as the ultimate determiners of their own salvation, whereas Augustinians and Reformed identify God as the ultimate and efficient cause of eternal blessedness. According to the former traditions, the distinction between the saved and the unsaved is grounded in the choice of the creature; according to the latter, the distinction is grounded in the good pleasure and will of God, however unclear the rationale thereof may be to us mortals. The weight of biblical and historical evidence rests in favor of a single unconditional election to life. This position holds that out of the mass of fallen and responsible humanity—for reasons known to himself—God in grace chose some to be saved and to permit the others to persist in their sin. Against the symmetrical view of Romanists and Arminians (double foreknowledge) and Hyper-Calvinists and Barthians (double predestination), the biblical evidence leads us to posit an asymmetrical view of soteriological purpose—namely, unconditional election to life and conditional election to damnation. When we speak about damnation, we mean that God predestines persons not to sin and disobedience but to the condemnation that issues from sin.

Concerning this doctrine of election to life, we concur with the carefully measured conclusion of Jewett, who wrote: “In my judgment, this Augustinian approach reflects a much more impressive biblical and exegetical effort than does the Pelagian and Arminian view.”146 We do not wish to blow the importance of this debated doctrine of predestination out of proportion. But neither do we neglect what is undoubtedly a significant biblical theme. The following section will discuss the practical relevance of the doctrine of election for the life of Christian believers.

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, III. The Exposition Of The Doctrine of Election. pp. 135-138.

4.1.2 Lennox Against Double-Predestination

… In light of this, the use of this text to promote “double predestination” seems completely wrong — Dr. John C. Lennox (PhD, University of Cambridge; DPhil, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; DSc, Cardiff University), Determined to Believe? p. 246.

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There are some who take these texts to mean that in eternity God mysteriously or even arbitrarily chose who was to be a vessel of wrath and who was to be a vessel of mercy; and that choice permanently and unconditionally fixes their destinies. There is a fundamental flaw in this reasoning, even apart from the fact that it makes no moral sense. The flaw is to assume that, if someone is a vessel of wrath, they can never become a vessel of mercy. But that is false, as Jeremiah’s use of the potter analogy indicates. Paul was a vessel of wrath who became a vessel of mercy. Also, in Ephesians, Paul describes the believers as having once been children of wrath, but because they had repented and trusted Christ as Saviour and Lord they had become vessels of mercy (see Ephesians 2:3–4). — Dr. John C. Lennox (PhD, University of Cambridge; DPhil, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; DSc, Cardiff University), Determined to Believe?. p. 272.

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All of this invalidates the L of TULIP – “limited atonement” – the view that Christ did not actually die for all but only for the “elect”. In fact, not only Luther but many of the other reformers, including Calvin, did not subscribe to limited atonement… this view of the atonement was not even introduced until the second or third generation of Reformers… — Dr. John C. Lennox (PhD, University of Cambridge; DPhil, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; DSc, Cardiff University), Determined to Believe? p. 179.

4.1.3 Sproul Against Double-Predestination

The dreadful error of hyper-Calvinism is that it involves God in coercing sin. This does radical violence to the integrity of God’s character. — Dr. R. C. Sproul (Ph.D., Whitefield), “Chosen by God,” Ch. 7. Sproul was a devout 5-point Scholastic Calvinist

Scholastic Calvinism (Infra.) Hyper-Calvinism (Supra.)
Positive-negative Positive-positive
Asymmetrical view Symmetrical view
Unequal ultimacy Equal ultimacy
God passes over the reprobate God works unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate.

4.1.4 Piper Against Double-Predestination

… there is such a thing as hyper-Calvinism which is not historic Calvinism it’s always been a tiny group who have twisted the bible by their unbiblical logic. Dr. John Piper (D.Theol., Munich), a devout 5-point Scholastic Calvinist

4.1.5 Spurgeon Against Double-Predestination

I cannot image a more ready instrument in the hands of Satan for the ruin of souls than a minister who tells sinners it is not their duty to repent of their sins [and] who has the arrogance to call himself a gospel minister, while he teaches that God hates some men infinitely and unchangeably for no reason whatever but simply because he chooses to do so. O my brethren! may the Lord save you from the charmer, and keep you ever deaf to the voice of error. — In Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism, 155–56.

4.1.6 Ron Rhodes Against Double-Predestination

4.1.7 Dr. William Lane Craig Against Double-Predestination

3. Universal, divine, determinism makes God the author of sin and precludes human responsibility. In contrast to the Molinist view, on the deterministic view even the movement of the human will is caused by God. God moves people to choose evil, and they cannot do otherwise. God determines their choices and makes them do wrong. If it is evil to make another person do wrong, then on this view God is not only the cause of sin and evil, but becomes evil Himself, which is absurd. By the same token, all human responsibility for sin has been removed. For our choices are not really up to us: God causes us to make them. We cannot be responsible for our actions, for nothing we think or do is up to us.

— Molinism vs Calvinism

5. Universal Election in Christ

5.1 Barthians

II. Historical Interpretations of Election.

D. Universal Election in Christ (Barthians)

From his belief that sin has destroyed the imago, Karl Barth (d. 1968) asserted that sinners are powerless to facilitate their own salvation. Through grace alone God makes people what they cannot become by their own decisions and actions. Consistent with his rigorous Christocentrism, Barth viewed Jesus Christ and his electing activity as the grace of God. For Barth election constitutes the heart of the Gospel. His reasons for rejecting the Augustinian and Calvinist view of election in favor of a novel scheme of double predestination are as follows. (1) The Calvinist view postulates a hidden, antecedent will of God independent of Jesus Christ, who is the beginning and the sum of God’s saving purposes. (2) It regards election as a static, fixed decision (“decretum absolutum”) rather than a dynamic history between God and persons. And (3) it suggests that God is for some persons and against others, whereas the Gospel is Good News for all.

Barth developed his mature view of election in Church Dogmatics, volume II, part 2 under three headings. The first heading he entitled, “The Election of Jesus Christ.” The cornerstone of his doctrine is that Jesus Christ “is both the electing God and elected man in One.”54 As the eternally electing God, Christ is the divine freedom in action. The Son of God, in other words, is the subject who elects others. “Before him and without him and beside him God does not, then, elect or will anything.”55 But Jesus Christ also is the eternally elected man. As the Son of Man (with a pre-existent humanity?) he is the object of God’s election. Negatively, this means that Christ was elected to rejection. On the cross God said, “No” to himself as Christ bore the sentence of man’s rejection. The elected man, therefore, is also the rejected or reprobated man. Positively, Christ as elected man means that God has chosen humankind for fellowship with himself. At Calvary God said, “Yes” to his Son and to humanity in him. “His election carries in it and with it the election of the rest.”56 Barth thus asserted that “Predestination is the non-rejection of man. It is so because it is the rejection of the Son of God.”57

The second heading of Barth’s development is “The Election of the Community.” From his exegesis of Romans 9–11, Barth concluded that the people of God exist in the twofold form of Israel and the church. On one hand, Christ is the crucified Messiah of Israel, which signifies the judgment he has taken upon himself. On the other hand, Christ is the risen Lord of the church, which denotes the new man accepted and received by God. The believing community witnesses to the divine election of the race and the impossibility of resisting grace, and so summons the world to faith in Christ. The church boldly testifies to the reality “that this choice of the godless man is void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected, but elected by God in Jesus Christ.”58

Barth’s third heading is “The Election of the Individual.” Individual election takes place in Jesus Christ and with the community (the latter taking priority over the individual). Barth reiterated that the individual, as part of the human family, is already elected in Jesus Christ, the elected man who bore his rejection. Thus each person is eternally loved and objectively justified and sanctified in God’s Son. Even if an individual does not personally receive the Gospel, his or her unbelief is overcome by Christ’s election. So Barth stated, “This choice of the godless man is void; he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected, but elected by God in Jesus Christ.”59 The chief difference between explicit believers and unbelievers is that the latter do not yet know they are elected. Thus Barth often addressed general audiences as “dear brothers and sisters.” Although Barth provided a theoretical basis for universal salvation, he held that to conclude every person will be saved would limit God’s freedom. But since universal salvation is an affirmation of faith and hope, Barth confidently trusted that all are saved.60 In the end, divine grace triumphs over every form of sinful opposition.

Wolfhart Pannenberg (b. 1928) rejects the classical formulation of an individualistic election from eternity. Rather he proposes “a concretely historical concept of election”61 that affirms that through the medium of his­tory God fulfills his purpose to bring humanity to eternal communion with himself. God has been accomplishing this salvific purpose for the race through the election and history of Israel and the Christian church. Not the sole purveyor of truth, the church functions as a sign and symbol of the destiny of humankind in the future kingdom of God. Writes Pannenberg, “The community of the church symbolizes the eschatological Kingdom of a new mankind in communion with God.”62 Consisting of people from all nations, the church witnesses to the fact that God willed through Christ’s cross the reconciliation of the race. “The liberation from the power of sin and death to the enjoyment of freedom in communion with God is not meant for the Christians as the happy few. It is meant for the whole world.”63 Pannenberg believes that God’s loving purpose could be none other than the salvation of the world, given men and women’s creation as image-bearers and their investiture with eternal value and dignity.

— Dr. Bruce Demarest (Ph.D., University of Manchester), The Cross and Salvation, Chapter Three, The Doctrine of Election, II. Historical Interpretations of Election. pp. 111-113.

6. Dictionaries & Lexicons On Proginṓskō

6.1 Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich (BDAG)

Foreknowledge

6.2 TDNT “Kittel”

proginṓskō, prógnōsis. The verb means “to know in advance,” and in the NT it refers to God‘s foreknowledge as election of his people (Rom. 8:29; 11:2) or of Christ (1 Pet. 1:20), or to the advance knowledge that believers have by prophecy (2 Pet. 3:17). Another possible meaning is “to know before the time of speaking,” as in Acts 26:5. The noun is used by the LXX in Jdt. 9:6 for God‘s predeterminative foreknowledge and in Jdt. 11:19 for prophetic foreknowledge; Justin uses it similarly in Dialogue with Trypho 92.5; 39.2. — TDNT “Kittel”

6.3 Concise, Danker

προγινώσϰω [πρό, γινώσϰω]—1. ‘know before about a matter of moment’—a. through personal familiarity, be previously acquainted with Ac 26:5.—b. through previous receipt of information, already know about 2 Pt 3:17.—2. ‘have in mind as part of a long-standing plan’, have plans for, know before, a deeply embedded Hebraic perception 1 Pt 1:20; in Ro 8:29; 11:2, Isaiah 46:8–13 is the matrix for Paul’s use of π. expressing selection of God’s people with purposeful intent for them that awaits certain fulfillment. — Concise

6.4 MOUNCE’S Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words

FOREKNOW FOREKNOWLEDGE

New Testament

Verb: προγινώσκω (proginōskō) GK 4589 (S 4267), 5x. proginosko means “to foreknow.”

Noun: πρόγνωσις (prognōsis) GK 4590 (S 4268), 2x. prognosis means “foreknowledge.” Two occurrences of the verb proginosko refer to human knowledge, namely, that someone “has known” some person or some Christian teaching “for a long time” (Acts 26:5;2 Pet. 3:17). The other three uses of the verb and the two uses of the noun refer to divine foreknowledge. Peter in his Pentecost message indicates that Jesus was delivered over to his enemies “by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts2:23).In fact, Jesus was divinely “chosen” to this task “before” the creation of the world (l Pet. 1:20). Peter also states that believers “have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God” (l Pet. l:2). Paul emphasizes the same message, .that “those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son’? (Rom. 8:29; cf. also l1:2). We serve a God who knows all things and acts in accordance with his will.*

— MOUNCE’S Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words

6.5 NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible

8:29 foreknew. Perhaps “knew ahead of time” (see Acts 26:5; 2 Pet 3:17, where the same Greek word is used): God “foreknew” who would believe in him and so predestined them. But “know” probably has the biblical sense of “enter into relationship with” (see Gen 18:19; Jer 1:5; Amos 3:2, where the same Hebrew word is translated “chosen,” “knew,” and “chosen,” respectively): God chose to initiate a relationship with people “before the creation of the world” (Eph 1:4; cf. Rom 11:2; Acts 2:23; 1 Pet 1:2, 20) and on that basis “predestined” them. — NIV, Biblical Theology Study Bible

6.6 ESV Study Bible

… Foreknew reaches back to the OT, where the word “know” emphasizes God’s special choice of, or covenantal affection for, his people (e.g., Gen. 18:19; Jer. 1:5; Amos 3:2). See Rom. 11:2, where “foreknew” functions as the contrast to “rejected,” showing that it emphasizes God’s choosing his people (see also 1 Pet. 1:2, 20). God also predestined (i.e., predetermined) that those whom he chose beforehand would become like Christ. — ESV Study Bible

6.7 NKJV Thomas Nelson Study Bible, Second Edition, Full-Color Edition

8:29 God foreknew, which means simply “to know beforehand.” This has been interpreted by some as God’s free and merciful choice of certain people who would receive His gift of salvation. Those who hold this view contend that His knowledge of future events and people did not determine His choice (see 1 Pet. 1:2). Instead He chose those who would be saved out of His own free will. Others believe that in His wisdom, God knew beforehand those who would respond to Him in faith. According to both views, only God saves; people never earn salvation through any work.

predestined

(Gk. proorizō) (8:29, 30; Acts 4:28; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:5, 11) Strong’s #4309

To predestine means “to mark out beforehand,” “to establish one’s boundary, or one’s limits, beforehand.” Our English word horizon is a derivative of this Greek word. The Christian’s ultimate destiny or horizon has been fixed by God from all eternity: to be made like His Son. Note how the words predestined, called, justified, and especially glorified in Rom. 8:29, 30 are in the past tense. That is because God, from His eternal perspective, sees this process as having been completed already. From God’s perspective, we have been glorified already because He sees us righteous because of the work of Jesus on the Cross. But still, in the march of time, we must undergo the process of being conformed to the image of God’s Son.

— NKJV Thomas Nelson Study Bible, Second Edition, Full-Color Edition

6.8 New Oxford Annotated (NOAB)

29: Foreknew . . . predestined, see Eph 1.4. Though from a human perspective God’s intention that humans be conformed to the image of God’s Son can be conceived as being prior in time, Paul affirms that there was never a moment when this was not God’s will. Firstborn, see v. 16–17; see also Col 1.15. 30: Glorified, is in the past tense, like “called” and “justified”; unlike v. 17, Paul sees temporality both from the human and divine perspective: though from our perspective being glorified is future, from God’s perspective it has already occurred since it is God’s will; see also v. 29n. — New Oxford Annotated (NOAB)

6.9 The Jewish Annotated New Testament (TJANT)

29: Cf. 1QS 3.15–16; 11.10–11,17–20; 1QH 1.7–8; CD 2.8. Foreknew, a characterization of God’s sovereignty over the future, and not on the existence of free choice among human beings; see 9.10–13n. Within a large family, lit., among many brothers (and sisters) (see translators’ note f). Jesus Christ is the firstborn of those who are raised from the dead (for non-Pauline expression of this idea, see Col 1.15,18). — The Jewish Annotated New Testament (TJANT)