As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“My purpose here is to ask the kind of question that people in the pews are asking…. Does the fact that God is in control strip away responsibility for our choices?….do we see each and every event in life as part of God’s foreordained plan?” - Church Leaders
There has been no shortage of debate amongst Christians about the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Because of our finite perspective —and our insistence on having a theology that logically makes sense to us—we are tempted to downplay, diminish, or even outright reject one of these truths in favor of the other.
“Simply put, compulsion/determinism means our choices are controlled by external forces. Reformed teaching says our choices are indeed determined in that they have a cause, but Calvin maintained that the cause is the inclination of our will.” - C.Post
“Chesterton’s asylum example also applies to a recent article published at Phys.org about a scientist who has written a book to convince everyone that humans don’t have free will.” - Breakpoint
“Most Calvinists live daily as Arminians do—freely making choices for which they take personal responsibility. Most Arminians pray like Calvinists—believing a sovereign God can and does change people’s hearts, swaying their wills.” - Randy Alcorn
Determinism says “everything is fully caused and explained by the past and laws of nature, meaning human actions result entirely from the external factors…. Is our world truly deterministic? And if so, would this imply we lack free will?” - LA Times
“In his book God Reforms Hearts: Rethinking Free Will and the Problem of Evil, [Thaddeus Williams] reexamines the place that libertarian free will has taken in Christian responses to the problem of evil, and more particularly whether authentic human love requires libertarian free will.” - TGC
“Most simply defined, it is the belief that determinism and free will are compatible. That is, it is possible to believe in both without contradiction.” - Roger Olson
“By God’s grace, my prayer is that my current attempt at taking on the topic of free will is characterized by far more humility than it has been in the past. Similarly, my objective with this article isn’t to win a debate nor to provide anyone with talking points to help them win debates.
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