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.
Free Will: What is a free agent?
What does it really mean to be a free agent? In this reflection, Greg offers some thoughts on free agents and how it can be that they are not exhaustively determined.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism, Philosophy
Topics: Free Will and the Future
Related Reading
Isn’t God “changing his mind” an anthropomorphism?
Question: Traditionalists argue that passages that refer to God “changing his mind” are anthropomorphic, depicting God in human terms. Open Theists take these passages literally, however. But if you’re going to take these passages literally, it seems you should, for consistency’s sake, also interpret passages about God “coming down” from heaven literally (e.g. Gen. 11:5;…
How do you respond to Galatians 1:15–16?
“…when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me…I did not confer with any human being…” As with Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5), John the Baptist (Luke 1:13–17) and other God-ordained prophets, Paul was aware that God had decided on a…
Why Compatibilistic Freedom Does Not Make Sense
Compatibilism is the view that free will is compatible with determinism. In this view, freedom is defined as the ability to do what you want, though what you want is determined by factors outside of you. Theologians who espouse this perspective, hold that God ultimately determines what individuals want. This is in contrast to “self-determining…
Problems with the Simple Foreknowledge View
Some have proposed a model of divine foreknowledge which allows them to avoid the dilemma of affirming either that God creates people for the purpose of sending them to hell (Calvinism) or that he creates them without certain knowledge of their fate (open theism). In this alternative view God knows that certain individuals will be…
How do you respond to Daniel 2:31–45?
Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to the effect that he possesses a kingdom of “gold” (vs. 38). After this there shall arise “another kingdom inferior to yours, and yet a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over the whole earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron…it shall crush and shatter all…
The Centrality of the Cross in Church History
Some readers of Crucifixion of the Warrior God may be assuming that the emphasis I’m placing on the cross is unprecedented in church history. While I will not deny that the cross-centered approached to interpreting Scripture’s violent divine portraits is new, the fact that I’m placing the cross at the center of my understanding of…