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.

How do you respond to Acts 2:23 and 4:28?
Question: Acts 2:23 and 4:28 tell us that wicked people crucified Jesus just as God predestined them to do. If this wicked act could be predestined, why couldn’t every other wicked act be predestined? Doesn’t this refute your theory that human acts can’t be free if they are either predestined or foreknown?
Answer: In Acts 2 Luke records Peter saying that Jesus was handed over “by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge” and that he was put to death by “wicked men” (Acts 2:23). In Acts 4 it is said that Herod and Pilate did what God’s “power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” (Acts 4:27-28). Does this mean that these people were predestined to carry out the wicked actions they engaged in? I don’t believe it does.
Both texts speak of the event of the crucifixion being preordained and foreknown. But neither speak of Herod or Pilate being preordained or foreknown to carry out this event. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the crucifixion was presettled in God’s plan (whether it was from before the creation of the world or at some point in history can be debated). But it does not seem reasonable to accept the very paradoxical view that God predestines people to do wicked things, and yet holds them responsible for doing them.
Some might object that you cannot have a preordained event without preordaining who will carry out this event. The end cannot be certain while the means to the end remain uncertain, they argue.
The argument doesn’t follow, however. There is no logical problem created by conceiving of an omni-competent God deciding ahead of time that such and such an event will transpire, but leaving undecided the exact means (and also perhaps the exact time) by which the event will transpire. When “the fullness of time” had come (Gal. 4:4, cf. Mk 1:15)—when God saw that the conditions were just right—God decided to fulfill previous promises about a coming Messiah by sending his Son into the world. The time was “ripe,” as it were, for all the variables to be brought together by the wisdom of God to accomplish all that needed to be accomplished. Without pre-settling who exactly would do it, God knew that if Jesus came into the world under these conditions, he would get crucified.
Remember also that Satan’s regime was behind the crucifixion (1 Cor. 2:8). So all God would need to know is that Satan would stupidly see the Incarnation as an opportunity to kill the Son of God and that there were a sufficient number of people who, by their own choices, had made themselves susceptible to Satan’s influence.
In any event, affirming that the Romans and the Jews wickedly crucified Jesus according to “God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23) does not require that we accept that God predestines wicked acts.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Free Will, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Verse: Acts 2, Acts 4
Related Reading

What is the significance of Joel 2:13–14?
“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him…?” As we have seen, God’s willingness to alter his course of action—even after he’s prophetically announced…

When Did Jesus Bind the Strongman?
Question: In Luke 11:21-22 Jesus said: “When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.” My question is, when…

What about the thief on the cross?
Question: You hold that most people who are saved will nevertheless have to go through a “purging fire” to have their character refined and fit for heaven. Whatever is unfinished in our “sanctification” in this epoch must be completed in the next. But how does this square with Jesus telling the thief on the cross,…

How do you respond to John 6:44?
“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…” Calvinists sometimes argue that this passage teaches that the Father chooses and then “draws” certain people to Christ. Those who are “drawn” certainly come to Christ (John 6:37) while all who are not drawn remain in their sin. In short, this…

God’s Love and Your Freedom
The most distinctive aspect of the revelation of God in Christ is Jesus’ demonstration that God relies on love to defeat his enemies and to accomplish his purposes. More than anything else, it was the perfect love of God revealed in the incarnation, ministry, and self-sacrificial death of Jesus that in principle defeated evil and…

A Video Introduction to Open Theism
Here’s a video clip on Open Theism from Greg’s sessions with Travis Reed with The Work of the People. What is Open Theism? Open Theists affirm that God knows all of reality perfectly, so Open Theism really is about the nature and content of the future. Does the future contain real possibilities? We have to wrestle with…