We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Six Theses of the Warfare Worldview

The trinitarian warfare worldview seeks to reconcile our experience of radical evil with the conviction that reality is created and sustained by an all-loving, all-powerful God. Six principles form the foundation for this view. These principles are based on Scripture’s account of God’s battle with Satan as well as our experience with the war-zone reflected in the world around us.

1. Love Requires Freedom
By definition, love must be freely chosen. We are able to program computers to obey our commands perfectly, but we don’t consider them “loving.” They lack the capacity for love because they have no choice but to do what we say. Humans would be in the same category as computers if God merely “programmed” our actions. In order for creatures to be loving, they must have the freedom to do otherwise.

2. Freedom Implies Risk
The freedom to choose or reject love constitutes a risk for God. Creatures may make choices that oppose his will for their lives and the lives of others. This risk is illustrated throughout Scripture, beginning with the Garden of Eden. Many of us have experienced the painful consequences of misused freedom in our own lives. God considered love to be well worth the risk inherent in giving his creatures freedom.

3. Risk Entails Moral Responsibility
God’s creatures are held responsible for how they use their freedom. We don’t hold computers responsible when they fail because their failure is ultimately the responsibility of their programmers. They could not do other than what they were programmed to do. Because we are free to choose or reject love, we can be held accountable for how our choices affect those around us.

4. Moral Responsibility is Proportionate to the Potential to Influence
The potential a creature has for love is proportionate to the creature’s potential for evil. The greater the creature’s potential for love, the greater risk their freedom entails, for they may choose to use their potential for evil instead. Greater potential also entails greater responsibility for how the potential is used.

5. Power to Influence is Irrevocable
Genuine freedom must be irrevocable. If it can be revoked, creatures cannot be held responsible for their use of it, nor can they fully realize their potential for love. Within the parameters of the freedom God gives creatures, God must tolerate evil. Since God is omnipotent, he is able to accomplish his will within these parameters without compromising his own integrity or limiting the potential of his creatures by revoking their freedom.

6. Power to Influence is Finite
God’s creatures are finite. Although their freedom cannot be revoked, it can be thought of as “probational.” The scope and duration of their freedom is conditioned by many variables and ultimately determined by God’s will. The warfare between God and creatures who choose to use their freedom for evil is not eternal. Christ will vanquish his enemies in the end and creatures will be completely free to participate in the triune love of God at last.

Related Reading

How Jesus Cursed the Curse

People who have committed to following Jesus are called to mimic even this aspect of Jesus’ life. As much as possible, we are to model what creation will look like when God’s Kingdom is fully come. We are to manifest as much as possible God’s original design for creation not only by how we love…

Black Lives Matter, the Police, and Spiritual Warfare

Christ calls us to stand for a different kind of kingdom and this requires that we think in different ways about the violence that is gripping our country. In this short clip from Greg’s sermon this last weekend, we are introduced to a different way. Listen and hear the challenge to understand the deeper reality…

Why Doesn’t God Heal When We Ask?

If we are called to manifest what Jesus manifested and revolt against what Jesus revolted against, and Jesus carried out the kingdom through healing, then why doesn’t God heal those we pray for? One of my personal kingdom heroes is a Vietnamese lady named Dr. Huyen Tranberg. She is a medical doctor who works with…

The Warfare Worldview

The Warfare Worldview from Roberta Winter Institute on Vimeo. Here’s a video presentation that Greg did at the Roberta Winter Institute regarding the Warfare Worldview. Enjoy!

The Victory is Already Won, But Not Yet

Christ came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to disarm “the rulers and authorities” (Col 2:15), and to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb 2:14). The result of this victory is that he is seated on his rightful throne, the whole cosmos is…

The Demonic Affects Us All!

Many contemporary Western Christians think we only engage in spiritual warfare when we encounter somebody who is exhibiting bizarre, demonically-inspired behavior, such as the demonized people Jesus confronted in the Gospels. Since most Western Christians rarely hear about, let alone personally encounter, such people, the concept of spiritual warfare plays little to no role in…