What Does Predestination Mean, and Does Free Will Hinder God's Sovereignty?

Many skeptics attack the Bible's mention of predestination in Christ, and how that somehow is an internal contradiction to free Will and God's sovereignty. Many believers have also misunderstood certain verses and caved under the pressure of difficult understanding. Many of these people are making Mistake #6 from my "6 Big Mistakes People Make When Reading The Bible" (https://www.ptequestionstoeden.com/post/6-big-mistakes-people-make-when-reading-the-bible). That being:

6. Difficulty Of Understanding Makes A Passage False: Many parts of the Bible are like very big pills, they are very hard to swallow, and because of that, hard to digest. If the Bible really was a book that portrays truth and heals the broken, then we should expect lots of areas within that challenge the reader to think, study, and question. If this book reveals the Truth to a wicked generation, then we should expect to see conviction strike those who hear the word and the truth of Jesus Christ. What exactly do we see? Lots of people turn their backs on Jesus once intellectual constipation arises. Lots of people are angry at God for revealing and confronting their sin, and lots of people react to conviction with suppression of the Word in favor of arbitrary emotional pleasure. We see exactly what we should expect if 1. people are broken, 2. Truth is objective, and 3. these broken people suppress the truth arbitrarily (and I guess 4. if God is real). Now I am not saying that all humans will run from the truth; we have many people who are saved today, but rather, that the vast majority of people will and already have.

Today, let's look at what Biblical Predesination means, and what God's foreknowledge implies.

God's Foreknowledge of the Future

"According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (1 Peter 1:2)

To get things started, I think we must understand what God's foreknowledge of the future means. God knowing our future actions does not equate to God directly causing our actions for us. If I say, first thing in the morning, that the sun will set in the west this evening. As the day passes, the surprising fact reveals itself that the sun sets in the west. Have I caused the sun to set in the west? Moreover, if I prepare the soil of my garden, plant some tomato plants, and then say, "In about 60-100 days, if I take proper care of it, I will have a healthy, fruitful tomato plant." Have I had any direct causation on the fact that my tomato plant did end up growing under ideal conditions? Only my input to sustain the ideal environment, but my agency itself had no causation on the growth of the plant. That happened sperate from me, in the biological mechanisms of the plant.

Again, say I have one of those water-grow animal toys, and as I place it in a tub of water, I say, "This cow will be 9x bigger than ot is now in about 6 hours". Then, say, 6 hours later, the animal has grown 9x its previous size. Knowledge does not equal causation.

Say I have a time machine, and I travel to the future and see you performing some actions. Say you woke up, made coffee, and sat on the couch to watch television. Now, say I travel back to the present, and then wait for the next day to play out, and you do the exact actions I observed when I used my time machine. Does the fact that I know what you will do equate to me causing it?

Some may critique the analogies, but fail to take into consideration that analogies are not explanations. If we exist in finite spacetime, then it is expected that we would not be able to fully comprehend what experience external to spacetime would be like. We do not exist as pure spirits, so it is completely fine that we cannot fully understand that experience. Analogies serve the purpose of steering a person's thought process in a direction that can quasi-grasp a hard-to-understand subject. And not all analogies perfectly describe or equate to the topics they illuminate. Taking this into consideration, we can see that there is no reason to suggest that, since we cannot fully comprehend what being omniscient would be like, that it somehow means an omniscient being cannot exist.

Now, extrapolate this concept to a being external to time, a being that God created the convention of time for the human experience. A being external to time that creates time would know what would happen in the time that is going to be created. Simply knowing something does not mean there is a causal connection between God and the universe He created. Existing outside of time and being omniscient to the universe entails this characteristic. But there is no reason to equate that to causation.

God Knows the Outcome

If God is all-knowing, then it is unavoidable for Him not to know the outcome of every possible universe that He can cause. For a moment, think of yourself as God deciding to create the universe, as you imagine all of the possibilities, you are aware of every single one's outcome because you are all-knowing. You know every single possibility.

*Important Point: God has seovereignty over all posibilities.*

If God causes a specifc possible universe, He has no direct cause in its playing out, once it has started, other than being the creator who enables them to occur. He is the creator who enabled the possibilities to occur, but He is not overriding free will to cause historical events and human choices.

The Usage of Predestination

Many cite the passage of Ephesians 1:5 to support their doctrines of calvinistic predestination (where there is no free will, but God chooses those who will be saved with no human involvement).

"He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will." (Ephesians 1:5)

The word used in this verse for predestination is the Greek word, προορίζω (Proorizō), which simply means to "limit in advance" and "determine before". It is not used to mean we have no free will. It expresses God guaranteeing the outcome of our choice in Christ. When you choose to trust in the salvation that Jesus offers, God "limits in advance" the possibilities of your eternal outcome and therefore is "determining" your outcome before it occurs. Here is an analogy from a video game called "Fallout":

The Vault-Tec Analogy

The Fictional Corporation Vault-Tec Ind. is responsible for building nuclear bunkers across the U.S. in the video game series Fallout. This is their logo.

In the Fallout games, oil has become a scarce resource, and international tensions have grown because of it. Specifically between the United States and China. After some violent interactions between the two at specifc oil sites, fighting over control of oil production, China launched a nuclear strike, which started what is known in the Fallout universe as "The Resource Wars". During the time that tensions were rising, the United States hired a corporation called "Vault-Tec" to build secret bunkers around the United States in case of a nuclear war breaking out (along with other motives, discussed shortly).

A depiction of what a vault in the game looked like. This is Vault 13. If you want to read more about this, and more fallout lore, visit: https://fallout.neoseeker.com/wiki/Vault_13

When the bombs begin to drop, if Vault-Tec told the U.S. citizens, "if you stay in our bunkers, you are predestined to survive the bomb drops, but if you stay out, you are predestined to die in the blasts," then those who enter these bunkers, are predestined to live, and those who don't are predestined to be consumed in the nuclear explosions. Who is making the choices here? Vault-Tec is not choosing the outcome for the people; they are solely there to guarantee the outcome of their choice. The people still have the free will to enter to stay out of the bunkers.

*Important Point: God guarentees the outcome, not the choice.

Now, every analogy can only go so far because, in the Fallout universe, the U.S. Government forced people into bunkers under the impression of safety, just to have the majority perform experiments on the vault dwellers. But that part of the lore has nothing to do with my point here. that being if Vault-Tec made it a choice, there would be no involvement on their behalf in the people individually choosing safety or death.

If you are in Christ, you are predestined to be glorified with Him; if you are not, you are predestined to be separated from Him. But God does not choose a person; He only guarantees the outcome of the choice, once it has been made. (Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:29-30).

Does Free Will Hinder God's Sovereignty?

Does the fact that we have free choice, and that God is not overpowering it, make Him not sovereign over His creation? Does human free will place us above God in that respect? How is God sovereign if He has no control over free will? Not only is that incorrect, but it is absolutely absurd! If God wants to overpower a person's will, He has the power to do so, but as Frank Turek has said:

“I think God is so sovereign that he can get his will done through our free will. It’s the people who say the only way God can be sovereign is if he overpowers everyone's free will… How is that a sovereign God?"

Frank also provides another analogy of observing two different chess players.

First Player: Say you are attending a chess convention and you come across a player who is at a board alone. You stop by to see what he's up to, you notice that he makes a move for the black side, then runs across to the white side and makes a move, and then back over to the black side, and so on. You ask him why he's doing this, and he replies, "Because it's the only way that I can guarantee the outcome."

Second Player: You then continue on to see a master chess player who is beating every single opponent that challenges him. He is defeating world-class players left and right, no matter what the opposing side chooses to do.

Which chess player has more power over the game's circumstances? It is the second player who knows all the possibilities an opponent may freely choose, and also knows how to accomplish his victory no matter what is done. This second player is more like God being sovereign over free will. Why hinder God's power?

Conclusion

"Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand" (Proverbs 19:21)

The verse above is the perfect way to end this discussion of predestination. The wording of this verse implies that there are many free choices made by man, but no matter what decision is made by humans, God's will will remain and be accomplished. This directly supports the idea of God being sovereign over free will in that He can still accomplish His will through the free choices of man, exactly like a master chess player knowing every move, and how to counter them. May God bless you with spiritual growth, and may we all grow closer to the creator of all possibilities. The only God who is truly sovereignly reigning over all the universe, sustaining every moment by His very glory and power. Ruling over all possibilities, able to maneuver His will through every single one with justice and love. Amen.