When I do premarital counseling, one of my standard initial questions for the couple is, “When did you know he or she was the right one?” Couples often have fun disagreeing about who took the initiative in the relationship. One person will say, “I chose you.” Then the other will say, “That’s what I wanted you to think. But I really chose you.” Everyone laughs. It makes little difference on their wedding day who chose first. When it comes to a relationship with God, however, the paradox of divine sovereignty and human free will—does God choose first or do we?—creates an uncomfortable tension at the very center of Christian life.
Does my salvation depend on God’s sovereign choice of me (often called election) or my response to the gospel message (human free will)? Does God’s choice of me predetermine my choice for God? Or is my choice the main event, like choosing teams on the playground, with Jesus jumping up and down, shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!” How can two choices coexist without one dominating or determining the other?
History shows just how difficult it has been for both sides of this paradox to vibrate freely in tension with one another. After an exhaustive study of biblical literature, D. A. Carson concludes that this tension is indeed inescapable,
“except by moving so far from the biblical data that either the picture of God or the picture of man bears little resemblance to their portraits as assembled from the scriptural texts themselves.”
It is a crucial point. This paradox in particular is one where taking some biblical evidence to its logical conclusion violates other biblical evidence. Taking predestination to its logical conclusion, for example, seems to violate all we know about God’s love and justice. Taking human free will to its logical conclusion seems to violate the sovereignty of God.
As personal beings, we have some idea about what choosing means. God is a personal being who also chooses, yet God transcends our space/time existence, so we really have no idea what choosing means for God. Our Creator’s choices are not commensurate with the choices we creatures make; they aren’t even in the same ballpark. God’s way of choosing is itself a mystery to us! However, as soon as we speak about who chooses first (divine sovereignty versus human freedom, God’s intentions versus our intentions), we begin to treat God like any other creature.
As we look through this paradox, one arena of Christian life illuminated is God’s will and my will, the issue of guidance. Do I choose first—make my own plans and life decisions and then (perhaps as an afterthought) ask God to bless them? Or does God choose first—create a detailed plan for my life that I must discover and implement step by step in order to be happy and fulfilled? Are God’s will and my will mutually exclusive, or might they coexist?
Through this paradox, we might conclude that just as divine sovereignty can underlie human freedom without negating it, so God’s will can underlie my will. For example, if I totally surrender my will to God’s will and want nothing but God’s plans for my life, what happens when I discover God’s plans for me? I must reengage my will!
As some of us have experienced only too well, it often takes a stronger will to act on God’s marching orders. Thus we live paradoxically: throwing down our will at God’s feet, only to take it up again as soon as God calls us to do something. Without engaging our will, how can we do anything?
Question: Where have you experienced this paradox of God’s will vs. my will? Please share it in a comment.
I like discussing the “sticky” unsolvable controversies of Christian life with my friend Ann in Nashville, definitely a Mensa intellect, scholarly Bible teacher and a devoted follower of Jesus. She is probably my best friend in the world. We have also come to the point you make about ‘not going too far in one direction,’ because if we believe like (what we call) hyper-Calvinists that we’re saved solely by election, the conclusion would have to be that God made some people for hell. Since that cannot be the case, free will has to be part of the equation. Just from personal experience I know I sought God; on the other hand, He was wooing me – the ‘hound of heaven.’
In the 70s I knew many, many, many hyper-Calvinists and they confused me so I went to my pastor (as a new believer/Bible thumper as my former husband called me). He said many people who believe they were chosen, and then see their two natures warring with each other (a la Paul in Romans), begin to doubt their salvation. He steered me to Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast.” Like you, he believed it’s not either/or but both. I like that too.