Is God’s “Gift of Free Will” Actually an Example of Hate?

I want to talk about a statement I’ve heard my entire life in Christianity:

“God loves us so much that He gives us a choice. He won’t force anyone to love Him. We have to freely choose to accept or reject Him, because without free will, it wouldn’t be love.”

It sounds reasonable from the human perspective. But when you really think through what Scripture says about human beings, influences, circumstances, the heart, Satan, faith, and God’s sovereignty, I think the argument creates the exact opposite problem.

If God could change the influences that lead someone to reject Him, but deliberately refuses to do so and then punishes that person forever for the resulting rejection, how is that love?

That sounds much closer to hate.

We aren’t born neutral. We enter this world under sin, corruption, weakness, ignorance and death. Romans 8:20 says creation was subjected to vanity not voluntarily. We didn’t choose the condition into which we were born.

Then Christianity tells us God loves us so much that He allows our ultimate destiny to depend upon a choice made while living under these conditions.

Let’s think about that.

What Does “Free Will” Actually Mean?

If free will means making a choice free from influence, nobody has it.

Everything influences us: genetics, parents, childhood, culture, education, personality, intelligence, fears, desires, relationships, suffering, temptations, spiritual forces and circumstances.

You didn’t choose your parents, genetics, birthplace, childhood or the experiences that formed you. Yet all of these contribute to the person supposedly making this completely “free” decision.

The response is usually:

“Sure, people are influenced, but influences don’t determine choices. Two people can experience the same thing and respond differently. Someone with terrible influences can make a good choice, while someone with wonderful influences can make a bad one.”

That’s true.

But it doesn’t establish an independent will.

It raises another question:

Who formed the person responding to those influences?

Psalm 139 says God formed our inmost being and knit us together in the womb. God didn’t merely create the external circumstances. He created the individual experiencing them. In fact, He can turn the heart wherever He desires (Proverbs 21:1).

So yes, two people can react differently to the same influence. But God knows precisely who each person is, how each heart responds, and what influences and circumstances will move that individual.

And Scripture shows that God can change those influences.

God Is Not Outside the Influences

Acts 17:26 says God determines people’s appointed times and boundaries. Proverbs 16:9 says a person plans his way, yet the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 21:1 says the king’s heart is in God’s hand and He turns it wherever He desires.

Philippians 2:13 goes even further:

God operates in us “to will as well as to work.”

That’s enormous.

God isn’t merely influencing what happens around you. Scripture places Him at the level of the will itself.

Now, people will immediately point to the verse right before it, Philippians 2:12, and say, “See! It says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That proves it’s our choice.”

But keep reading. Why are they working it out? What is producing the willing and the working in the first place?

Verse 13 gives the reason: God is operating in you to will as well as to work for the sake of His delight.

In other words, we work out what God is working in.

“Work out your own salvation” doesn’t suddenly make the human will independent of God. We live it out. We walk through it. We make the decisions. We perform the actions. But underneath our willing and working, Paul identifies God as the One operating in us to produce both the willing and the working.

The order matters.

It isn’t:

You independently will → you independently work → God responds to your choice.

It’s:

God operates in you → you will → you work → you live out what God is working within you.

So yes, the choice is experienced as our choice. We’re the ones thinking, deciding, willing and acting. But the willing itself isn’t independent of God.

If God operates within someone to will and to work, what happens?

They will and they work.

That doesn’t mean people don’t choose. They absolutely do.

The question is who is ultimately behind the willing that produces the choice?

Philippians 2 doesn’t leave that unanswered.

It is God Who operates in us to will as well as to work.

So “work out your own salvation” isn’t a free-will escape hatch from verse 13. Verse 13 explains how verse 12 happens. We work it out because God is working it in.

The choice is ours in experience, but the willing behind that choice originates in God’s operation. God is not waiting to discover what an independent will decides. He is the One operating in the will itself.

What would it mean if God withheld influences that would bring people to accept Him? You would have to conclude that He is hate unless you believe that He does not control influences at all, then He is not God. Which is it?

I contend that God controls all influences and everntually everyone ends up at God’s perfect workmanships. So, God is God, and He is the God of love.

The argument, “But God tells us to choose,” proves nothing about independent free will. Of course God tells us to choose good rather than evil, because those choices are part of the experience through which He is forming us. A command does not mean God is standing back, waiting to discover what an autonomous will decides. Paul confronts that very assumption: “Who has withstood His intention?” (Romans 9:19).

People can resist God’s commands while still fulfilling His ultimate intention—Pharaoh and the crucifixion are obvious examples. God can intend for people to experience disobedience, failure, and evil, not because evil is His final goal, but because He is using even those experiences to produce His workmanship, ultimately bringing His creation into a deeper knowledge, appreciation, and love of Him.

Scripture Shows God Controlling the Influences

Consider Satan.

Second Corinthians 4:4 says the god of this eon blinds the apprehensions of unbelievers so that the illumination of the evangel of Christ does not irradiate them.

That’s an influence.

But is Satan independent of God?

Look at Job. Satan couldn’t simply do whatever he wanted. God established exactly how far he could go. Satan could affect Job’s possessions, family, body and circumstances only within boundaries established by God.

So Satan influences people, but God governs Satan’s boundaries.

Now compare 2 Corinthians 4:4 with 2 Corinthians 4:6. Satan blinds, but God is the One Who shines light into the heart.

That’s fascinating.

One spiritual influence blinds.

God can illuminate.

Acts 16:14 gives us Lydia. Why did she respond to Paul’s message?

The Lord opened her heart.

Matthew 16:16–17 gives us Peter. Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God. Did Jesus congratulate Peter for figuring it out through his independent free will?

No.

Jesus tells him that flesh and blood did not reveal it to him, but His Father in the heavens did.

Acts 26:18 describes Paul’s commission in terms of opening eyes, turning people from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God.

Notice the pattern.

Satan blinds.
God illuminates.
The Lord opens hearts.
The Father reveals Christ.
People are turned from Satan’s authority to God.

And we’re supposed to believe God has nothing to do with the decisive influences that result in belief?

Saul of Tarsus Proves God Can Change the Influences

Saul may be the clearest example.

Saul wasn’t sitting neutrally between Jesus and unbelief trying to decide which one he preferred.

He had already rejected Christ.

He was persecuting Christ’s followers, imprisoning believers and traveling to Damascus with authority to arrest more of them.

What did Christ do?

Did He stand back and say:

“I love Saul too much to interfere with his free will”?

No.

Christ changed Saul’s circumstances.

A light from heaven suddenly surrounds him.

Christ personally confronts him:

“Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting Me?”

Saul is struck blind.

He is led into Damascus.

Ananias is sent directly to him.

His entire understanding of Jesus is shattered.

God radically changes the information, circumstances and influences surrounding Saul—and Saul changes.

That’s the pattern.

Saul rejected Christ under one set of influences. Christ changed the influences, and Saul became Paul.

So don’t tell me God cannot interfere because that would violate free will.

He did.

And don’t tell me changing someone’s circumstances somehow makes their response meaningless. Paul’s faith wasn’t less real because Christ confronted him personally.

If anything, it demonstrates exactly how sovereign grace works.

What About Ahab?

First Kings 22 shows the same sovereignty operating in the opposite direction.

Micaiah sees God upon His throne surrounded by the heavenly host. A spirit proposes becoming a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets so that Ahab will go into battle. God authorizes it.

Think about the chain:

Ahab chooses.
The prophets influence Ahab.
The spirit influences the prophets.
God governs the entire circumstance.

Ahab genuinely makes the decision, but the influences leading to that decision are not outside God’s sovereignty.

Judges 9:23 says God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. First Samuel 16:14 is equally revealing. The Concordant Old Testament says, “As for the spirit of Yahweh, it had withdrawn from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh frightened him.” Both the departing spirit and the troubling spirit are described in relation to Yahweh.

And look again at Ahab: First Kings 22:22 describes the spirit undertaking to deceive Ahab through his prophets, while verse 23 declares that Yahweh has put a lying spirit in their mouths. Scripture describes the spirit acting and then attributes the action to God.

Do you see the pattern? God’s creatures participate in what He is accomplishing. Their actions are not independent events to which God must react. He governs the spirits, the influences, and the circumstances through which His purpose unfolds.

Second Thessalonians 2:11 likewise speaks of God sending an operation of deception, while Romans 1 repeatedly describes God giving people over.

God isn’t watching influences from the sidelines, responding to whatever His creatures decide to do.

He governs them. His sovereignty is absolute.

Evil Intention and God’s Intention Are Not the Same

None of this means God possesses the evil motives of His creatures.

Genesis 50:20 gives us the distinction.

Joseph’s brothers intended what happened to Joseph for evil.

God intended it for good.

Same event.

Different intentions.

The brothers weren’t secretly righteous because God was sovereign. Their intention remained evil. But their evil could not prevent God’s good purpose.

The cross is the ultimate example.

Judas chose. Herod chose. Pilate chose. Israel’s leaders chose.

Yet Acts 4:27–28 says they ultimately accomplished what God’s hand and counsel designated beforehand to occur.

Human choice and divine determination existed in the same event.

Choice does not equal independence.

Now Apply This to Salvation

This is where the traditional argument falls apart for me.

We’re told God wants everyone saved but loves people too much to interfere with their decision.

Yet Scripture says believing is graciously granted (Philippians 1:29). God grants repentance (2 Timothy 2:25; Acts 11:18). The Lord opens Lydia’s heart (Acts 16:14). The Father reveals Christ to Peter (Matthew 16:16–17). God shines into hearts (2 Corinthians 4:6). Paul is commissioned to turn people from darkness to light and Satan’s authority to God (Acts 26:18).

Put everything together:

God forms the person.
God knows the heart.
God directs the steps.
God determines times and boundaries.
God governs circumstances.
God establishes Satan’s boundaries.
God can overcome Satan’s blindness with light.
God opens hearts.
God reveals Christ.
God grants repentance.
God grants belief.
God works within us to will and to work.

And Ephesians 1:11 says God operates all according to the counsel of His will.

Where exactly is the human decision that exists independently of all of that?

“But Different People Respond Differently”

Of course they do.

But that doesn’t solve anything.

If I know two people will respond differently to the same circumstances, and I know exactly what circumstances would change each person’s response, then their differences don’t somehow remove my involvement if I control those circumstances.

How much more does that apply to God?

He didn’t discover our personalities after we were born.

He formed us.

He knows what each heart needs.

He knows which experiences will humble one person, which revelation will open another person’s eyes, which circumstances will break another person’s pride and exactly what it will take to bring someone from darkness into light.

Saul proves that God knows how to change a person’s entire direction.

So here’s the uncomfortable question:

If God knows exactly what influence would bring someone to Christ, has complete authority over the circumstances necessary to provide that influence, demonstrated with Saul that He can do exactly that—and nevertheless intentionally withholds it forever—how could we call that love?

Especially if the alternative is supposedly endless torment.

If God places someone into circumstances He controls, permits Satan to blind that person’s mind within boundaries He controls, knows precisely what revelation would overcome that blindness, but refuses to provide it—and then endlessly punishes that person for remaining blind—

that isn’t a convincing picture of love.

If that were actually God’s final intention toward that person, I would call it hate, not love.

Thankfully, I don’t believe that’s God’s intention.

Which View Actually Demonstrates Greater Love?

Now return to the original claim:

“God loves us so much that He lets us choose.”

I believe Scripture gives us something infinitely better.

Love isn’t God creating people, subjecting them to mortality, placing them among influences they never chose, allowing spiritual blindness He could overcome, knowing exactly what would change their hearts, and then refusing to provide it because He supposedly respects their “free will.”

Love is God refusing to lose them.

Love is God knowing every detail of every person’s journey because He planned the journey toward the greatest possible outcome.

Not necessarily the greatest happiness right now.

The greatest ultimate joy.

The greatest understanding.

The greatest appreciation of righteousness, life, immortality and God Himself.

That means even our darkest experiences aren’t evidence that God lost control. Joseph eventually looked backward and understood that what others intended for evil, God intended for good.

Romans 8 says creation was subjected to vanity in expectation of liberation.

And Scripture carries God’s purpose all the way to its conclusion.

Christ reigns until every enemy is subjected.

The last enemy abolished is death (1 Corinthians 15:26).

And finally:

God becomes “All in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

That’s the destination that makes sense of God’s sovereignty and God’s love.

Imagine reaching that point and finally seeing every detail of your life from God’s perspective—every joy, sorrow, weakness, failure, relationship, influence, loss and victory—and understanding what God was creating through all of it.

We appreciate life because we experienced death.
We appreciate righteousness because we knew sin.
We understand strength because we experienced weakness.
We appreciate immortality because we experienced mortality.
And we know God in a way we never could have without experiencing what existence was like before He became our All.

That’s a much greater love than:

“I loved you so much that I let you reject Me forever.”

God’s love says:

“I knew you before you knew yourself. I formed you. I know your heart. I know every influence. I control the circumstances. I know exactly what is necessary to bring you from darkness into light—and I will not fail.”

That is sovereignty.

And God’s sovereignty isn’t the enemy of love.

His sovereignty is what guarantees that His love ultimately accomplishes everything it intends.