If God Chose Us Before Creation, How Can We Be Free? (podcast)

Why believe in free will? [Video] July 17, 2012

In this video excerpt from his April 29, 2012 sermon tracing the Pietistic influence on Woodland Hills Church, Greg explains why they—along with John Wesley—believe that God does not control everything, but rather gives human beings free will.

What is omni-resourcefulness? December 23, 2007

Question: What do you mean when you refer to God’s omni-resourcefulness? Can you support this with Scripture? Answer: I and others use the term omni-resourcefulness to highlight a feature of God in Scripture that the classical theological tradition consistently overlooks. Part of the greatness of the God of the Bible, we argue, is that he…

“Whatever it means, it cannot mean that.” March 18, 2014

pure9 via Compfight Roger Olson wrote a great article a couple of days ago entitled Why (High) Calvinism Is Impossible. He points out that there is no way to understand God as “good” while also believing in double predestination. The idea that God predestines some to heaven and a vast majority to hell for his “glory”…

Predestination Part 2: Seeing Destiny Rightly July 7, 2014

For Part 1, click here. In Ephesians Paul teaches that God “chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph 1:4). In Christ, Paul continues, God “predestined us for adoption to sonship…to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in…

Lighten Up: Fate January 3, 2014

Is Free Will compatible with Predestination? December 23, 2007

Question: Isn’t “freedom” simply our ability to do what we want? And if this is so there seems to be no incompatibility between saying that a person is “free” on the one hand, but predestined (or at least foreknown) by God, on the other. But why do you say that freedom is not compatible with…