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Bible-believing Christians affirm God’s sovereignty and free will. Why? Because the Bible never pits them against each other but holds them together as complimentary truths.
I’ll illustrate this through one example in Deuteronomy where Moses talks about loving God as a choice of our will and a gift of God’s grace.
Deuteronomy is an extended sermon by Moses on the Ten Commandments. Like every good preacher, he brings the congregation to a moment of decision. In the light of who God is, and how God saved them, they are called to commit fully to him.
I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, love the Lord your God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Deut 30:19–20).
To choose life means to love, obey and be faithful to God. It's a choice of my will. Some will take these words and say: if it's our choice, it must be free from God's sovereign work.
Moses wouldn't agree. Just before this command, Moses says “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love him with all your heart and all your soul so that you will live” (Deut 30:6). God’s circumcision of the heart results in love and obedience and faithfulness to God. The very thing they are called to choose in 30:19-20. God is not described as foreseeing obedience, but as creating it. Ezekiel likewise describes obedience and faithfulness to God resulting from his work in the heart. “I will give them integrity of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh, so that they will follow my statutes, keep my ordinances, and practice them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (Eze 11:19–20).
I know myself well enough to know that loving God is not an instinct. If I had only myself to depend on for a real change of heart, it wouldn’t happen. It is good news to know that while sin flows from our agency alone, love for God flows from his goodness and his love in transforming our hearts. The internal work of God creates the change in our affections and actions.
Love, obedience and faithfulness to God is not an "either" "or", but a "both" "and." God’s work doesn’t nullify our will and turn us into robots. New Birth is not a new circuit board. The call to “choose life” and commit to loving God has all the force of God’s command and God circumcising the heart is the power to obey his command. We choose life and love God through God’s agency and ours.
There is mystery in how these two truths come together so we ought to be humble. At the same time, we can confidently say God’s sovereignty isn’t the enemy of free will. They are not in a cosmic clash with one destined to lose. If I’m being faithful to scripture, I’ll affirm both.
True freedom is not the ability to choose good or evil. If free will is defined that way then it vanishes in heaven. Choosing life after all is choosing love, obedience and faithfulness to God. True freedom is the absence of evil and complete alignment with only what is good, true, and beautiful. Our will is free when it is completely aligned with God’s.
In his epic, The Divine Comedy, Dante beautifully pictures this freedom. In the first sphere of Paradise Dante is told that God’s will is the joy of every soul in heaven.
Brother, the power of love, which is our bliss,
calms all our will. What we desire, we have.
There is in us no other thirst than this.
Were we to wish for any higher sphere,
then our desires would not be in accord
with the high will of Him who wills us here;
and if love is our whole being, and if you weigh
love’s nature well, then you will see that discord
can have no place among these circles. Nay,
the essence of this blessed state of being
is to hold all our will within His will,
whereby our wills are one and all-agreeing. (Paradise Canto 3 lines 70-80)
A free-will desires only good because it is wholly captive to the love of God. By liberating our will from sin and selfishness, God gives us the wonderful freedom to love, enjoy and glorify him in everything.