Determinism
What Does It Mean that God Hardens Hearts?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Choice, Determinism, Free Will, Is God to Blame?, Open Theism, Predestination
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Some argue that passages which speak of God hardening human hearts (Jos 11:19-20; Ex 7:3; 10:1; Rom 9:18) demonstrate that God controls everything, including people resistant to this declared intentions. He hardens whomever he wills,…
A Metaphysical Defense of Free Will
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Metaphysics
Topics: Free Will and the Future
Warning: As the title of this post may have already suggested, this post is a bit heady – and a bit long. I’m going to get into some rather tall metaphysical grass as I go…
Free Will in the Bible
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Open Theism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Scripture portrays humans as having minds and wills of their own. They are, in a real (though limited) sense, creators of their own behavior and determiners of their own destinies—whether this behavior and destiny is…
Support for Open Theism from Science and Experience
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Einstein, Open Theism, Polkinghorne, Science
Topics: Defending the Open View
I have discussed the scriptural support that depicts the future as partially open and that God knows it as such. I do this in God of the Possible. If a position is true, every avenue of…
Why Compatibilistic Freedom Does Not Make Sense
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Evil, Free Will, Problem of Evil, Satan and the Problem of Evil
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…
God is Flexible: Romans 9, Part 4
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Israel, Open Theism, Potter and Clay, Predestination, Romans 9
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Verse: Romans 9
As we continue this series on Romans 9, [Here’s the link to the first post in the series.] today we will look at the famous potter/clay analogy. Most tend to interpret the potter and clay image…
Paul Teaches Free Will, Not Determinism: Romans 9, Part 3
Category: General
Tags: Belief, Determinism, Faith, Free Will, Mercy
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Verse: Romans 9
In this series of posts, I am challenging the deterministic reading of Romans 9, which interprets Paul’s teaching as saying that God chooses some to be saved and others to be damned. There are six arguments…
Paul Was Not Writing about Personal Salvation: Romans 9, Part 2
Category: General
Tags: Covenant, Determinism, Election, Israel, Romans 9, Salvation
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Verse: Romans 9
In yesterday’s post, I summarized the deterministic interpretation of Romans 9 and offered the first argument against it. In this post I offer the second and third of six arguments that reveal that there is something…
Rethinking Election: Romans 9, Part 1
Category: General
Tags: Christ, Determinism, Love, Predestination, Romans 9, Unconditional Election
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will
Verse: Romans 9
Many people believe that Romans 9 demonstrates that God has the right and power to save whichever individuals he wants to save and damn whichever individuals he wants to damn. I’ll call this the “deterministic”…
Lighten Up: Fatalism and the Seeds of Doubt
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Doubt, Fatalism
The Open View of Messianic Prophesies
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Divine Foreknowledge, Free Will, Open Theism, Prophesy
Topics: Open Theism
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr A number of passages speak of particular events being foreknown by God, even events resulting from individuals’ free will. For example, dozens of prophesies in the OT accurately predict details about…
Does the Open View Undermine God’s Sovereignty?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Determinism, Divine Foreknowledge, Free Will, God's Sovereignty, Open Theism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
A common objection to the concept of a risk-taking God is that it seems to undermine God’s sovereignty. If any particular individual can opt out of God’s plan, then every individual could conceivably opt out…
Isn’t the World Unsafe If God Doesn’t Control Everything?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Determinism, Fear, Free Will, freedom, God of the Possible, God's Character, Open Theism, safety
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
If God isn’t in control of everything, the world feels unsafe. If the future is open and if things can happen outside of God’s will, what guarantee is there that there is a point to…
Dealing With Objections to Open Theism, Part II
Category: General
Tags: Across The Spectrum, Chaos Theory, Determinism, Objections to Open Theism, Open Theism, Probability
Topics: Open Theism
There are four major objections to Open Theism. In this post, we are dealing with the third and fourth. (See yesterday’s post to read about the first two.) Objection #3: God cannot foreknow only some of…
Confronting Divine Determinism
Category: General
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Free Will, Love, Open Theism, Predestination, Responding to Calvinism, Woodland Hills Church
Part of the fallen human condition inclines us to shirk our moral responsibility and accept that everything is predetermined, whether by God, the gods, fate, or blind chance. Various forms of determinism have been prevalent…
Predestination: What Does It Mean?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Calvinism, Destiny, Determinism, Free Will, Is God to Blame?, Open Theism, Predestination
Topics: Free Will and the Future, Providence, Predestination and Free Will
When some people hear the biblical teaching that God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4) and that “he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Christ,” (Eph 1:5) they…
Sermon Clip: Does Romans 9 predestine you to Hell?
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Determinism, Free Will, Greg Boyd, Open Theism, Predestination, Responding to Calvinism
Did God predestine you to Hell? Can he even do that? In this short sermon clip, Greg Boyd talks about his own struggles when trying to understand Romans 9 which on the surface seems to…
The Lego Movie & Free Will
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Love, Predestination
Last week Greg tweeted about two movies that have themes related to human free-will and God’s control of the world. They were: @greg_boyd: Does God want a permanently frozen “perfect” world or an open-ended world…
Romans 8:28: What Does It Mean?
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Evil, Free Will, God's Will, Romans 8:28
The Bible is very clear that God has nothing to do with evil. There is “no darkness” in God. (I Jn 1:5). Far from intentionally bringing about evil, God’s “eyes are too pure to look…
Resignation to Evil: Not an Option
Category: General
Tags: Calvinism, Determinism, Evil, Kingdom Revolution, Revolt, Warfare Worldview
One lucky guy via Compfight While few Christians would deny that Satan is in some sense the ruler of this world, since it’s so clearly taught in the New Testament, many nevertheless insist that everything…