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.
![Why believe in free will? [Video]](https://reknew.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/why-believe-in-free-will-video.jpg "Why believe in free will? [Video]")
Why believe in free will? [Video]
In this video excerpt from his April 29, 2012 sermon tracing the Pietistic influence on Woodland Hills Church’s origins, Greg explains why they—along with John Wesley—believe that God does not control everything, but rather gives human beings free will.
Interested in exploring this subject further? Check out some of Greg’s essays and Q&As on predestination and free will.
Or even better, buy his book Is God to Blame?
Video sourced via DeepCoffee.
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Free Will, Predestination
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Related Reading
Hearing and Responding to God: Part 1
A reader contacted Greg asking about making “right decisions” assuming an open future and in light of the fact that God seems to rarely speak clearly. In this first response, Greg acknowledges that even with the best of intentions, our decisions can have outcomes that are unexpected even to God! How can we move forward…
What is the difference between “libertarian” and “compatibilistic” freedom?
Question: I often hear philosophers and theologians talk about “libertarian” and “compatibilistic” freedom. What do these terms mean? Answer: A person who holds to “libertarian” freedom believes that an agent (human or angelic) is truly free and morally responsible for their choices only if it resides in an agent’s power to determine his or her own choices. Their…
Why God Sometimes “Can’t”
Greg continues his thoughts on sickness and spiritual warfare by addressing the question of why God “can’t” intervene in some circumstances of illness.
Re-Thinking Predestination
In Ephesians, we read that God predestined that there would be a church. It reads: “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in…
Living Into the Future
Why didn’t God create a “perfect world”? Here’s Greg’s response to that question. See more at The Work of the People.
How People Misunderstand Open Theism
Open theism holds that, because agents are free, the future includes possibilities (what agents may and may not choose to do). Since God’s knowledge is perfect, open theists hold that God knows the future partly as a realm of possibilities. This view contrasts with classical theism that has usually held that God knows the future exclusively as a domain…