A question familiar to many Christians is the question of how men are really saved. The debate is sometimes called the "free will vs. predestination" debate, sometimes the "Calvinist vs Arminian" debate.
The 2 positions can be roughly summarized as follows:
The free will (Arminian) position says that all men, of their own free will, make a decision to either accept or reject Jesus. Those who accept, are saved while those who reject are eternally condemned. Most who hold to this view believe that God has made some provision to save those who might never hear the Gospel preached (even if that provision isn't explicitly spelled out in scripture) so that all men end up in heaven or hell entirely as a result of their own good or bad decisions.
The predestination (sometimes called Calvinist) position is that God, by His sovereign choice alone, decided who would be a believer. While it may APPEAR that men chose to believe or not believe of their own free will, in fact, that is something of an illusion, because men are so defective in their character (dead in their sins) that they are really incapable of making a unbiased decision for God. This position holds that God sovereignly chooses who will believe, independent of any merit on the part of a man (he has no merit before God). Those God has chosen are then given a new nature. They are reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit. But each step of this process is a result of God's sovereign action alone.
The debate between these two schools of thought is an old and lively one. Covering every nuance of that debate is beyond the scope of this essay. But I will try to clarify the issues and explain why God's sovereign choice is the correct view.
The question is simple. In the final analysis somebody made the final decision. Either God chose us or we chose Him, either man is sovereign or God is. Somebody had the right and power to make the final decision.
If one considers the Biblical record, it is clear that the decisions of men are central to God's plan. Adam and Eve decided to rebel and fell from grace. Noah decided to believe God and built the Ark. Abraham decided to believe God and became the father of a great nation. Moses decided to follow God and, following God's lead, led the people of God to the promised land. The disciples decided to follow Jesus. At the end of the Bible, in the book of revelation (Rev 7), we find 144,000 who decided to serve God.
But what if these people had decided not to follow God? Suppose for example, Noah (and his family) had made a free will decision not to believe God and build the Ark? It follows that God would have had no one to save and would have been forced to destroy all mankind at the flood. In short, according to the free will position, it was Noah's sovereign choice, not God's, that mankind would have a future after the flood.
My point here is that the consequences of the free will position extend far beyond one's own personal salvation. If the free will position is right, then the entirety of God's prophetic plan is really dependent on the free will decisions of men. God doesn't really sovereignly lay out the plan of history. His plan is subordinate to the decisions of men. He has to wait and see, who, if anybody, believes and what they decide. Free will leaves open the possibility that nobody might believe in God.
Under the free will position, Noah, Abraham and Moses, (and many others) all have to make the right choices for the plan to work. If any make the wrong decisions then God has to rewrite the course of history so as not to interfere with their free will. Men become sovereign over all, leaving God the power only to judge and react to what men do.
Both positions agree that God's word is sure because God can see the end from the beginning. He knows what is going to happen. So we can rest assured that the future foretold in scripture will occur.
But the question is how things (past present, and future) got to be the way they are. Did God just look into the future and watch what men decided to do of their own free will. Or did He control what men do to insure that His long term plan works out as intended.
To believe that God is truly in control of history, one has to believe that God sovereignly made men decide as they do, at least on certain key points. Consider the days of Noah. Was God really worrying when the votes started coming in. The vote was only a few votes short of unanimous against God. Was God just lucky that Noah decided of His own free will to believe?
God doesn't roll dice with the Universe. God wasn't lucky that Noah believed. God created Noah and his family to be believers. He sovereignly chose them and really forced them to believe in Him, so that His long term plan for mankind would continue to move forward. To say otherwise is to make man sovereign (collectively) over the entire prophetic plan. It is to make God a beggar, going from man to man, saying "Please believe in me", always running the risk that nobody will.
For God to be Sovereign in any way, He has be sovereign over the decisions of men collectively, and individually. If a man can choose not to believe, then all men can choose not to believe. If all men were to choose not to believe then nobody would be saved.
If God is not sovereign in all things, including who believes and who doesn't, then He can't really be sovereign in anything concerning the future of mankind. As we shall see later, the clear testimony of scripture is that God is sovereign over everything.
Before getting to that however, it is necessary to deal with the profound change in thinking required to believe in a truly sovereign God. This is not an easy concept. There are certain inescapable conclusions of the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty. Some of them clash with our perceptions of who we are as individuals and our basic idea of fairness and justice.
The idea that God "forces" some to believe and, by extension, prohibits some (really most) from believing strikes us as fundamentally unfair. The Apostle Paul addressed this very question in a key "sovereignty" text, Romans 9, as follows, starting at verse 19.
One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:19-21 NIV)
God has a sovereign right to do with His creation as He sees fit. He could condemn all men to hell. All men deserve that fate. He can save or condemn as many as He likes. God is God.
The key problem with the Calvinist view, and the reason so many reject it, is that facts on the ground show that most men don't believe. Never, in the history of mankind, have the majority of men been believers. How do we reconcile a God who IS love, with a God, who by His sovereign choice alone, unconditionally condemns the vast majority of mankind to eternity in Hell with absolutely no hope of changing their fate?
No one should question God's right to do that. But can we really believe in a God who does do that. My position is that most who reject God's sovereignty, do so, not because of the relative strength of the Biblical case, but because they find the Calvinist view of God, to be so inconsistent with a God of love that they can't reconcile the Calvinist God with the Jesus they believe in.
Neither can I.
But the problem here is not with God's sovereignty. The problem is in failing to see that God's plan is ultimately a plan of redemption for all mankind.
Again from the Apostle Paul:
For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:32-36 NIV)
God owes us nothing. We are the creation. He is the creator, We can't earn God's mercy. It's a free gift. God has handed all men without exception over to disobedience that he might have mercy on all men without exception. (All never means minority, and only a minority of men have ever been true believers in God). All means all men without exception. Just as all men without exception have been handed over to disobedience, all men without exception will ultimately be redeemed. Either they will be saved completely from Hell or eventually redeemed out of it.
Before getting into the details of the salvation of unbelievers it is first necessary to consider the positive case for God's sovereignty. That is the subject of the next 2 sections of this report.
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