The following are numerous comments I received challenging God’s sovereignty and my responses to those comments.
COMMENT: Do Christians still struggle with basic laws and principles of God? Why would anyone ask such a question? God knows the past, present and future. And he gave free will to mankind to decide for themselves if they want to follow his laws, or disobey. He cannot accept anything but perfection. If he did not require perfection, he cannot be God. All laws are justified, and must be satisfied. He does not control, he commanded all elements to be obedient, and they are. Each one according to their design. The difference is, just because he knows all, has no effect on all that we do not know
MY RESPONSE: So God infallibly knows the future, but somehow you’re “free” to do something different from what He already knows? Go ahead—surprise God tomorrow. If God knows with certainty what you will choose, you cannot choose differently without making God wrong. So where exactly is this supposedly independent “free will”?
And Scripture goes much further than God merely “knowing.” He is the Potter and we are the clay (Rom. 9:20–21), He works in us to will and to do (Phil. 2:13), and He works all according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11). The Bible doesn’t portray God as a cosmic fortune-teller watching our independent decisions unfold.
And “God requires perfection”? Exactly—which is why you need Christ. Christ is your Savior, not your obedience to law. The law exposes sin and demonstrates our inability to achieve righteousness ourselves—it points us to Christ (Gal. 3:24; Rom. 3:20).
If the final outcome rests on your obedience, your decision, and your perfection, congratulations—you’ve managed to make yourself the savior in a religion supposedly about Jesus Christ. Christ accomplished what you never could. Apparently you missed the memo.
COMMENT: God controls everything. He does not control humans individually. He gave us free will. Without free will you cannot have love between humans and God.
MY RESPONSE: Why do you assume love between God and humanity can only exist if humans possess an independent free will? Is that actually taught in Scripture, or are you taking the rules of human relationships and imposing them upon God? The argument seems to be, “If one human controlled another human, that wouldn’t be love.” But God is not another human being. He is the Creator. He is the Potter; we are the clay.
God demonstrates His love by working all things toward the eventual freedom of His entire creation. Creation is presently subjected to vanity and corruption, but Romans 8 says it will ultimately be set free from the slavery of corruption. Christ reigns until every enemy is subjected, even death is abolished, and God becomes All in all (1 Cor. 15:25–28). That is love: God doesn’t abandon His creatures to their broken condition—He ultimately sets them free from it.
And how is the so-called “free will” you’re defending actually free? A person enters this world already surrounded by sin, mortality, weakness, ignorance, upbringing, trauma, culture, genetics, circumstances, desires, fears, and experiences they never chose. Then you’re saying God leaves their eternal destiny resting upon a decision made through that corrupted and dying condition—and if they choose incorrectly, He tortures them forever. How is that freedom? How is that love? That turns human weakness into an eternal death sentence.
I believe something far greater about God. He doesn’t merely give broken creatures a decision and then abandon those who get it wrong. He works all according to the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11), works in us to will and to do (Phil. 2:13), judges and corrects, defeats sin and death through Christ, and eventually liberates His entire creation.
That’s love: not God giving sin and death permission to permanently keep His children, but God accomplishing His purpose until every creature is finally free. To insist that God must surrender the ultimate destiny of His creation to human will in order to be loving isn’t exalting God as God—it’s placing a human definition of love above Him.
So God controls everything… except humans? Then He doesn’t control everything. Scripture says God ‘is operating all in accord with the counsel of His will’ (Eph. 1:11)—not ‘everything except human decisions.’ Love doesn’t require independence from God; it requires God to be its source. You deny God in favor of worshipping your ‘free will.’ By the way, never once is ‘free will’ mentioned in scripture when it comes to human decision.
And saying you worship Jesus “to the best of your human abilities” doesn’t answer any of those verses. I’m not asking how sincere you are. I’m asking whether your theology survives the text.
You said, “God creates and sustains. That isn’t the same thing as control.” Scripture goes considerably further: He directs, hardens, has mercy, turns hearts, works the will, predetermines events, declares the end from the beginning, and works ALL according to the counsel of His will.
At some point, calling all of that merely “sustaining” isn’t better verbiage. It’s avoiding what the verses actually say.
You finally asked the right question: “Where does the Bible say God controls everything?” Let’s see what Scripture actually says instead of arguing philosophy.
Ephesians 1:11 — God “works all things according to the counsel of His will.” What exactly does all things exclude?
Isaiah 46:9–10 — God declares “the end from the beginning” and says, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.” Is He merely predicting the future, or accomplishing His purpose?
Daniel 4:35 — God does according to His will among heaven and earth, and “none can stay his hand.” Where is the creature who can override Him?
Proverbs 21:1 — even the king’s heart is in God’s hand, and He turns it wherever He wills. If God can direct the heart of a king, why suddenly can’t He direct yours?
Philippians 2:13 — “God is the one working in you both to will and to work.” Notice that carefully: not merely your actions—your willing. So who is working behind the will?
Proverbs 16:9 — a man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. Yes, we make plans and decisions. Scripture never denies that. The question is: Who ultimately directs them?
Proverbs 16:33 — the lot is cast, but “its every decision is from the LORD.” Apparently even what looks random isn’t outside Him.
Romans 9:18–21 — God has mercy on whom He wills and hardens whom He wills. Paul anticipates your exact objection: “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” And Paul’s answer isn’t “because everyone has free will.” He says, Who are you, the thing formed, to answer back to the One who formed you? Potter. Clay.
Acts 17: 25,28 — In God, we live, move and exist for He gives to all…life, breath, and all.
And here’s the one that destroys the idea that God merely “creates and sustains” but doesn’t control events: Acts 4:27–28. Herod, Pilate, the nations and Israel committed the greatest evil in history—the crucifixion—and Scripture says they did whatever God’s hand and counsel had predetermined to occur. They acted, they were accountable, and yet God’s predetermined purpose was accomplished.
So I have some questions for you:
Does “all things” mean all things in Ephesians 1:11?
Does God work in us “to will,” or doesn’t He?
Does God turn hearts wherever He wills, or doesn’t He?
Can anyone frustrate God’s purpose?
Did God predetermine the crucifixion, or didn’t He?
Is God actually the Potter, or is the clay ultimately determining what the Potter gets to make?
@jasoncroxford
COMMENT: God set this universe into motion. Its all happened beginning, middle, end from outside the 3rd demension but to us its happening real time. God set this into motion but left it up to us to choose how we play and where we end up. Our soul is at stake.
MY RESPONSE: So you don’t actually believe what Scripture says—you believe God started everything and then surrendered the outcome to human “free will.” Scripture says God “operates all in accord with the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11), even working in us “to will as well as to work” (Phil. 2:13). Your view makes our eternal destiny depend on us; Scripture makes it depend on God and what Christ accomplished. So, you make ‘your decison’ the god of the universe and deny the one true God.
COMMENT: Because sovereign doesn’t mean meticulous Devine determinism. God isn’t controlling everything you do. That would make us puppets.
MY RESPONSE: Here we go again with the “puppets” analogy. Why use that when Scripture gives us its own analogy in Romans 9? God is the Potter; we are the clay. Does clay have any more “free will” over what it becomes than a robot or a puppet does? We live, choose, feel, suffer consequences, and experience life—but all within what the Potter is forming. So no, we aren’t puppets. We’re clay in the hands of the Almighty. Why replace God’s analogy with “puppets”? Maybe because arguing with the Potter-and-clay analogy means arguing with the actual text of scripture.
COMMENT: Also since you would like to address Roman’s 9.
“For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”
Romans 9:17-18 KJV
Do you not know that it was pharaoh who hardened his heart first, God gave him more of the same.
“But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.”
Exodus 8:15 KJV
You see, Calvinism reads assumptions into a few texts to try and justify their position instead of just taking it for what it says. You don’t need to add anything to speak for God.
MY RESPONSE: What about the passages that explicitly say God hardened Pharaoh’s heart first? Before Moses even returned to Egypt, God said: “I will harden his heart, so that he shall not let the people go” (Exodus 4:21). God repeats it in Exodus 7:3: “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” This wasn’t God reacting to something Pharaoh unexpectedly did. God announced beforehand exactly what He was going to do.
Yes, Scripture later says Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:15, 32). That’s not a contradiction. It gives us both perspectives. Pharaoh genuinely made the decision, while God was sovereign over the circumstances and the man through whom that decision occurred.
And we don’t have to invent an explanation because Paul already interprets Pharaoh for us: “Whom He wills He hardens” (Romans 9:18). Then Paul gives the analogy: God is the Potter; we are the clay (Romans 9:20–21). Why are you determined to explain Pharaoh in a way that avoids Paul’s own explanation?
God planned for Pharaoh to harden his heart and worked through Pharaoh’s circumstances, desires and inner being so that, when the time came, Pharaoh himself chose to do exactly that. That’s what you continually fail to understand: I have never said humans don’t make choices. We make choices constantly. I’m saying none of those choices are independent of the God in whom we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
And frankly, calling me a Calvinist every time I mention God’s sovereignty is getting ridiculous. Is your theological framework really so small that every affirmation of God’s sovereignty has to be shoved into a “Calvinist” box so you can dismiss it without dealing with the verses? Calvin didn’t write Romans 9. Calvin didn’t write Exodus 4:21. Calvin didn’t write Ephesians 1:11 or Philippians 2:13.
In fact, I’m not a Calvinist, and my conclusion is radically different from Calvinism. I don’t believe God sovereignly chooses a few people to be ultimately saved while leaving the rest eternally lost. Scripture says God is “the Savior of all mankind, especially of believers” (1 Timothy 4:10). God’s sovereignty is precisely why I believe He ultimately accomplishes what He intends.
The same principle applies to faith. God apportions faith (Romans 12:3), and “God is the One operating in you to will as well as to work” (Philippians 2:13). We believe. We choose. We act. But none of it makes us independent little gods operating outside our Creator.
Romans 9 even anticipates the objection: “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” Paul’s answer isn’t, “Don’t worry, man has free will.” His answer is Potter and clay.
So spare me the Calvinist label and deal with the Scriptures. Calling every verse about God’s sovereignty “Calvinism” isn’t an argument; it’s a way of avoiding the argument. Your human reasoning doesn’t get to shrink God down until He fits comfortably inside your theology.
COMMENT: Free will is still yours. You choose everything you do. It is my understanding that God knows all the decisions you will make before you make them….. yet they are still your choice. That’s not his problem if you make certain choices one way or another. They are still yours and so are the consequences.
MY RESPONSE: Again, nobody is arguing that human beings don’t make choices. We obviously do. The mistake is pretending that making a choice automatically proves free will. Those are not the same thing.
By “free will,” you’re claiming that your will can operate independently of God’s determination and influence. That’s the part I reject because Scripture never teaches it. We make real choices, experience real consequences, learn, suffer, grow, and change—but God uses those very choices and consequences to teach us and form us according to His purpose.
Look at faith. We genuinely choose to believe, but why does one person believe while another doesn’t? Scripture says faith is God’s gift (Eph. 2:8), that God apportions faith (Rom. 12:3), and that “God is the One working in you both to will and to work” (Phil. 2:13). You make the choice—but would you make that choice if God had not first given what produced it?
Pharaoh makes the same point from the opposite direction. God announced beforehand, “I will harden his heart” (Ex. 4:21). Yet Scripture also says Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15). Which was it? Both. Pharaoh really chose, while God was sovereign over the choosing. Paul even explains it: “whom He wills He hardens” (Rom. 9:18)—Potter and clay.
That’s the distinction you keep missing: choice is biblical; an independent will operating outside God’s sovereignty is not. Scripture doesn’t teach that God eliminates our choices. It teaches that God is sovereign over the creatures making them.
So show me the verse that says man’s will is free and independent of God. Don’t just show me someone making a choice—we already agree people choose. Show me the independence. That’s the part your doctrine assumes but Scripture never says.
COMMENT: This is in serious error as it makes some foundational misjudgments. 1) Chastisement is loving correction. Judgment is a penalty that must be paid. 2) There is room in God’s sovereignty for man’s free will, which God has given as a gift to man and of which he cannot take back. 3) God does not control men’s free will. He controls everything else. Otherwise we live in a hellish masquerade where some incredibly whimsical God, knowing people cannot change themselves, yet commands them to repent and so deceives them into believing they are capable of it and voluntarily responsible for their destiny by their sin, when all the while he is pulling all men’s puppet strings, whether by omission or commission, having capriciously chosen beforehand who will not go to hell and thus who will suffer for being born evil in order to make his glory of grace to the others known. Does it make sense? Clearly no.
MY RESPONSE: You’re accusing me of “serious error,” but your first point starts by ignoring the meaning of the Greek word actually used in the New Testament. Do you realize the New Testament was written in Greek? The word in Matthew 25:46 is kolasis, a word associated with punishment/chastisement. And Scripture itself tells us what God’s judgments accomplish: “When Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). Why do you continually ignore that verse? Judgment is not God inflicting a meaningless penalty forever. God judges for a purpose.
Second, where does Scripture say God gave mankind an autonomous “free will” that He cannot take back? You just asserted that as though it’s a Bible verse. Show me the Scripture. Making choices and possessing a will that is independent of God are completely different claims. Of course we make choices. We experience consequences for those choices, and God uses those consequences to teach, discipline and shape us. But Scripture says God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11) and “works in you both to will and to do” (Phil. 2:13). Apparently your theology requires one enormous exception: God works everything according to His will—except man’s will.
And the tired “puppet strings” argument is your analogy, not Scripture’s. Scripture never calls us puppets. Paul knew perfectly well what objection God’s sovereignty would produce: “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” (Rom. 9:19). If your free-will argument were correct, this was Paul’s perfect opportunity to say, “Because God doesn’t control man’s free will.” He doesn’t say it. Instead he says, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” and gives us the actual biblical analogy: the Potter and the clay (Rom. 9:20–21). So why do you keep replacing Paul’s Potter and clay with your emotionally loaded “puppet” caricature? Does clay have more of a ‘free will’ than a puppet does. What a pathetic statement.
Pharaoh destroys your argument. Before Pharaoh made those later decisions, God had already announced: “I will harden his heart” (Ex. 4:21), and again, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (Ex. 7:3). Yet Scripture also says Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15). Both are true. Pharaoh made the choice, but that choice was not independent of God. Paul explicitly interprets it: “whom He wills He hardens” (Rom. 9:18).
The same thing happens with repentance and faith. You act as though God commanding repentance proves man possesses some autonomous ability to manufacture it. Yet Scripture actually says God grants repentance (2 Tim. 2:25; Acts 11:18). We really repent—but God grants the repentance. We really believe—but faith is associated with God’s gracious gift (Eph. 2:8–9), and God is operating in us “to will as well as to work” (Phil. 2:13). God doesn’t deceive people by commanding them. He uses commands, consequences, judgment, mercy and grace as means through which He forms His creatures.
Finally, your conclusion isn’t my theology at all. You’re attacking Calvinism and pretending you’ve refuted me. I don’t believe God sovereignly creates most humanity merely to torture them forever while saving a predetermined few. I believe God’s sovereignty is vastly greater than that. God is “the Savior of all mankind, especially of believers” (1 Tim. 4:10). Christ reconciles all through the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20). As all die in Adam, all will be made alive in Christ, “each in his own order” (1 Cor. 15:22–23). Christ reigns until every enemy is subjected and death itself is abolished (1 Cor. 15:25–28).
Your argument actually creates the powerless God you accuse me of teaching. Your God controls “everything else,” but the human will is apparently the one territory in creation where Almighty God cannot operate. Worse, your supposedly invincible free will can permanently defeat the saving work of Christ. Man’s will gets the final word, death keeps its victims, and the Cross fails to reconcile most of creation.
And somehow that is supposed to make more sense?
Stop arguing against “puppets” and Calvinism and deal with what Scripture actually says: Potter and clay. God hardens. God shows mercy. God grants repentance. God operates in us to will. God works all according to His will. And through Christ, God ultimately abolishes death and becomes All in all. Your philosophical commitment to autonomous free will doesn’t overturn any of those verses.
COMMENT:
This is how I understand the omniscience of God. Yes God knows what we’re going to do in the future whether good or bad, but He doesn’t pull our “strings” because of the freewill He’s given us to make our own choice(s). God gave Adam and Eve the freewill to eat of every tree in the Garden except one tree that they were warned against from eating. ( Genesis 2:17). If God wasn’t omniscient, He wouldn’t be God. We just can’t use our human minds and intellect to understand everything about God. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”——————- Deuteronomy 29:29
MY RESPONSE: Adam and Eve disobeying God does not prove autonomous free will. Scripture repeatedly shows people going against God’s stated command while accomplishing God’s intended purpose.
Adam and Eve violated His command, yet Christ was already the Lamb foreknown before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:19–20). Joseph’s brothers intended evil against him, but Joseph says, “God intended it for good” (Gen. 50:20). Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and Israel committed the greatest act of disobedience imaginable by crucifying Christ, yet Acts 4:27–28 says they did whatever God’s hand and counsel had predetermined to occur. Israel repeatedly broke God’s law, yet Paul ultimately says God locks all up together in stubbornness so that He may be merciful to all (Rom. 11:32).
That is the distinction being missed: people can violate God’s commands without defeating God’s intention. Paul couldn’t be clearer: “For who has withstood His intention?” (Rom. 9:19). People make real choices, but those choices are not independent of God or capable of overthrowing His purpose.
So yes, Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command. But disobedience proves choice; it does not prove a will independent of God. Scripture repeatedly shows God accomplishing His intended purpose through the very actions of creatures who are opposing His stated will.
COMMENT: @scotthicko8643 All the scriptures you have cited affirm God’s sovereignty over the affairs of men regardless of man’s freewill to do good or evil. For instance, Joseph’s brothers used their freewill to do evil against their brother, but God in His sovereignty and omniscience, already knew the good outcome that was to come out of it. All I know and believe is, I’m the creature, and God is the Creator. That’s good news for me. I can’t worry myself about not knowing about all the mysteries of God the Creator. Also, we must be careful not to implicate God in sin, because God cannot sin. (James1:13)
MY RESPONSE: That’s the point: God wasn’t reacting to their choices—He devised the plan beforehand. How could God specifically plan to preserve Israel through Joseph, plan the cross, and plan salvation, yet leave the necessary details to independent human free will?
Your position seems to be that God simply foreknew the choices humans would make and then turned those choices toward good. But then did God actually plan anything? Was the cross merely something God determined in response to the future free-will choices He saw humans making? That makes no sense.
God would not leave the salvation of His creation dependent upon the unpredictable decisions of the creature. And if you agree that God actually planned these events, then He necessarily planned the means and circumstances by which those events would occur.
Of course we make choices, but Scripture shows those choices occurring within what God has already determined. God works in us “to will as well as to work” (Phil. 2:13), and Acts 13:48 says, “as many as were set for life eonian believed.” They were set for it first; then they believed. Likewise, grace was given to us in Christ “before times eonian” (2 Tim. 1:9).
Think about the contradiction: God chooses who will receive this grace and faith, but then supposedly gives them the “free will” to overturn His choice and refuse to believe? No. God chooses according to His purpose and then works out the circumstances that bring about exactly what He determined.
Yes, the choice to believe is ours—we really do make that choice—but the choice itself has been determined by God. God works in us both to will and to do according to His purpose. He determines the outcome and then brings about the circumstances, experiences, understanding, and faith that cause us to willingly make that choice.
Making a choice does not prove independent free will. We choose, but our choosing does not originate independently of God. God determines; God works; we consequently choose. If God chose beforehand who would believe, it makes no sense to say their independent free will is what ultimately determined whether God’s choice would actually happen.
And even if you reduce God’s sovereignty to merely foreknowing every choice, you still haven’t established independent free will. If God infallibly knew before I was born exactly what I would choose tomorrow, can I actually choose something different from what God already knows? If yes, God’s knowledge can be wrong. If no, then there is already only one possible outcome. You can’t have it both ways: exhaustive, infallible foreknowledge and a will that is independent enough to make God’s foreknown future turn out differently.
God didn’t watch Adam, Joseph’s brothers, Pharaoh, Judas, Pilate, and everyone else exercise independent free will and then scramble to make something good out of it. The Lamb was foreknown before the foundation of the world. Joseph was sent ahead by God. Pharaoh was raised up for God’s purpose. The cross occurred according to God’s predetermined counsel.
God doesn’t merely choose the ending and hope billions of independent wills somehow produce it. He determines the purpose, prepares the means, and directs history toward that purpose. We make real choices—but our choices are part of the story God is writing, not independent of the Author.
COMMENT: @NP-29
I see a major contradiction in your argument at minute 17:12.
How can you claim that God is behind every human decision, but then add that He will hold man accountable for them? It is completely illogical. If God has absolute control and everything happens according to His plan, then take that idea to its logical conclusion: man cannot be imputed with sin, since he has merely walked the fixed path traced by the Creator.
If free will does not exist—and I agree with you on this—then it is unjust for God to punish man. Man is innocent in an absolute sense; he has merely lived exactly what was prescribed for him, being a slave to that script with no option to deviate from it (just like clay in the hands of the potter).
MY RESPONSE: Thank you for the kind words at the end. I really appreciate that. And actually, I agree with almost everything you wrote. I think the contradiction you’re seeing comes from what I mean when I use the word “accountable.” Maybe I need to use a different word, because I’m clearly using it differently than you are.
When I say a person is “accountable” for his choices, I am not saying God determines that person’s choices and then punishes him for doing what God determined. I agree with you—that would create the very problem you’re pointing out.
What I mean is much simpler: my choices, sins, experiences, suffering, consequences, failures, and lessons are mine. I experienced them. They belong to my journey, not yours. Your experiences belong to you. In that sense, I have been using the word “accountable”—not to mean that God needs to punish me for them, but that they are genuinely my experiences even though, from the absolute perspective, God incorporated them into His predetermined purpose.
That’s also why I believe every detail of our lives matters. God isn’t creating billions of interchangeable people who all arrive at the end with exactly the same experiences. Each person has an individual life, individual circumstances, individual relationships, individual suffering, individual choices, individual consequences, and individual lessons. Those experiences are specifically accounted to that individual because that individual actually lived them.
That includes our choices. If I make a terrible decision, it is genuinely my decision from my relative human experience. I experience the desire that led to it, the decision itself, its consequences, what I learn through it, and eventually how God uses even that experience to reveal Himself to me. None of that requires the decision to have originated independently of God’s absolute sovereignty.
That’s why I don’t see our experiences as meaningless simply because God planned them. I see almost the exact opposite. They have meaning because God planned them for a purpose.
God knows exactly what each individual creature needs to experience in order to ultimately know Him in the fullest possible way. The suffering isn’t someone else’s suffering. The joy isn’t someone else’s joy. The failure isn’t someone else’s failure. The choices aren’t someone else’s choices. They become part of the unique contrast through which God ultimately gives that individual the greatest possible appreciation of His goodness, grace, love, life, and immortality.
This is also why I don’t believe God’s goal is punishment. His goal is creation—bringing His creatures through this process to the finished result He intended from the beginning. We’re looking at unfinished creatures in the middle of the process and asking why they aren’t perfect yet. God sees the finished product.
So maybe “accountable” is simply causing unnecessary confusion because people naturally hear that word and think I mean culpability followed by punishment. That’s not what I’m trying to communicate.
When I say “accountable,” I mean that every individual detail of our lives—including our choices—is specifically accounted to us because we are the ones who experience it. God uses that unique combination of experiences to ultimately give each individual the greatest possible joy, appreciation, and knowledge of Him. It has nothing to do with God needing to punish us for choices He already knew and purposed. It is part of the process by which the Potter finishes what He started and ultimately creates us exactly as He intended. Of course, every sin will be justified in the end because every decision is determined by God.
So on your central point, I don’t think we disagree nearly as much as you thought. I probably just need a better word than “accountable.”
ANOTHER THOUGHT: Stop Trapping the Eternal God Inside Time
Christians constantly say, “God looks into the future and sees what we will choose.” But why are you imagining God like a man traveling through time with better eyesight?
God created time itself.
Hebrews 1:2 says God made the ages through Christ. The Greek is aiōnas—the ages. Hebrews 11:3 likewise says the ages were framed by the word of God. And 2 Timothy 1:9 speaks of God’s purpose and grace being given to us in Christ “before times eonian.”
Think of time as a closed package. Inside that package is creation, the cross, your birth, every day of your life, every choice, judgment, the abolition of death, and the consummation.
We live inside the package. God holds the package.
We move through it one moment at a time, so tomorrow is future to us. God doesn’t have to travel forward and peek into tomorrow to discover what we’ll do. He created the ages and holds the entire purpose.
That’s why He can say:
“Declaring the end from the beginning… My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” — Isaiah 46:10
And Paul says God “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11).
So enough with reducing the eternal God to a really powerful man with supernatural binoculars who watches history happen before Him.
He created the ages. He declares their end from their beginning. He works ALL according to His will.
We move through the package and genuinely experience our choices.
God holds the package.
@russwhite3952 • 5 hours ago (edited)
COMMENT: speaking to your title , yes, he does need billions of humans, humans are the only creation that has offspring that are considered made in the image of God , not animals, not angels, all the angels were made for a purpose , and all the fallen angels will end up in the lake of fire , those positions have to be filled when they are removed ,we have always been told that God has place for us in heaven, its not a place to live, more so, a position ,a job, God does not need us as part of his council he wants us as part of his council and he has made a way for us to be part of his council, we are all called but not all will submit to the training.
MY RESPONSE: That still misses the point of the title. There is a huge difference between saying God uses billions of human beings to accomplish His purpose and saying God needs billions of independent human wills to cooperate before His purpose can succeed. Ephesians 1:11 says God is “working all things according to the counsel of His will.” Philippians 2:13 goes even further: God operates in us both to will and to work. So even the submitting is ultimately God’s work, my friend.
And I think you’re starting with a mistaken understanding of the “image of God.” Genesis isn’t describing Adam’s condition as the finished goal of humanity. The language of Genesis 1:26—“Let Us make humanity in Our image”—can be understood as God’s purpose for what He is making humanity into. Look at Adam: he sinned, became corruptible, and died. Is that the completed image of the incorruptible God? Of course not. The process obviously wasn’t finished in Adam.
Christ is the actual image of God. Colossians 1:15 explicitly calls Christ “the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature.” And Romans 8:29 says God’s purpose is for humanity to be conformed to the image of His Son, while 1 Corinthians 15 describes the same transformation: just as humanity bears the image of the earthy Adam, humanity will bear the image of the heavenly One. That’s the destination.
And notice where Paul takes this in Colossians. The One who is the image of God and Firstborn of all creation is also the One through whom ALL things were created—things in the heavens and things on earth—and then Paul says those same ALL things, whether on earth or in the heavens, will be reconciled to God through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:15–20). That’s why Christ is the Firstborn. He isn’t merely rescuing a few creatures from a creation that permanently failed. He is the beginning and pattern of the new creation God is ultimately producing.
That includes the fallen celestial beings. The lake of fire isn’t their eternal victory over Christ. Revelation 20:14 explicitly identifies the lake of fire as “the second death.” Paul says the last enemy, death, will be abolished and the consummation ends with God becoming “All in all” (1 Corinthians 15:26–28). If death is abolished, the second death cannot continue eternally. And Colossians 1:20 specifically includes the reconciliation of things in the heavens through Christ.
The same applies to humans who don’t submit now. They aren’t lost forever because they failed to make the right independent decision. They face judgment and may not receive the same calling, allotment, or position as those God prepares beforehand, but judgment isn’t the end of God’s purpose for them. Christ remains their Savior too. They will ultimately be reconciled and brought into what God intended humanity to become.
So I would turn your argument around: the image of God isn’t primarily something humanity successfully preserved from Adam; it is the destination God is bringing His creation toward in Christ. Adam shows us the old humanity—mortal, corruptible, dying. Christ shows us the finished image—incorruptible, immortal, and alive.
The image of God is ultimately the destination, my friend. And the Potter—not the clay—determines whether His creation reaches it.
COMMENT: Scott, you argue that God meticulously authors every single detail and circumstance down to the atom. But in Jeremiah 19:5, God explicitly says of burning children to Baal an unspeakable evil that it is ‘something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.’
If God meticulously “pre-determines” & causes every human thought & action, how do you reconcile absolute determinism with a Creator who declares that such evil never even entered His mind? You can’t have it both ways… either God is actively authoring every wicked act, or human agency and moral reality actually exist outside of a mechanical script.
Even Paul himself explicitly recognized this distinction. In Philemon 1:14 he writes “without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, but voluntary.” And in 1 Corinthians 7:37, he speaks of a man “having no necessity, but having power over his own will.” If every human act is pre-programmed and forced by divine decree, why does Paul explicitly distinguish between compulsion and a voluntary choice of one’s own will? You are defending a mechanical blueprint that both Jeremiah and Paul contradict.
MY RESPONSE: You are confusing having a will with having an independent FREE will. Nobody is arguing that people don’t make decisions. The question is whether those decisions originate independently of God.
Regarding Philemon 1:14 and 1 Corinthians 7:37, compulsion and voluntary acts are distinctions in the RELATIVE sense. A person can act voluntarily without being externally compelled, but that does not prove we are free to operate independently of the God in whom we live, move, and exist (Acts 17:28), the One who gives everyone life, breath, and ALL things (Acts 17:25).
How do you justify concluding from those passages that human beings possess an independent free will? Neither passage says that! In fact, Paul explicitly declares that God operates in us BOTH to WILL and to WORK for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Our willingness itself is not independent of God.
Now, regarding Jeremiah 19:5, the Hebrew word is heart (leb), not the usual Hebrew word for mind. The expression communicates how completely contrary these horrible practices were to God’s heart, character, and commandments. God was not commanding or approving child sacrifice. But that does not mean these events existed outside His predetermined purpose. The very wickedness of these practices provides a contrast through which humanity comes to understand what false gods demanded and how different the true God is. Even this evil has its place within God’s larger purpose of revealing Himself to His creation.
And how can you argue that evil operates outside God’s sovereign purpose when God Himself says in the first person, “I … create evil” (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)? God does not say Satan created evil independently of Him. He says, I CREATE EVIL. Who created the tree of the knowledge of GOOD and EVIL? Who placed it in the garden? Who created the serpent? Who subjected creation to futility, NOT WILLINGLY, but in expectation of its eventual liberation (Romans 8:20–21)?
Psalm 139:16 declares that our days were written before one of them came to be. Are we supposed to believe God planned every day of our lives but somehow excluded the evil, suffering, failures, and circumstances that shape so much of human existence?
And consider something even more important: Without evil, sin, suffering, and death, how would we ever come to know Christ as Savior, Redeemer, Reconciler, and the One who abolishes death? How would we understand mercy without the need for mercy, forgiveness without offenses, or resurrection without death?
Are you actually going to credit Satan and evil with independently producing the very conditions necessary for Christ to be revealed in all these ways? Or are you going to credit GOD with designing the entire process through which His creation ultimately comes to know Him?
Think about that. If evil operates independently of God, then Satan and humanity are responsible for introducing the very conditions through which God’s greatest revelation of love and grace becomes possible. In that view, God is merely reacting to what His creatures have done rather than accomplishing a purpose established from the beginning.
Yet Scripture says Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20). His death was not some emergency response to an unforeseen disaster.
And consider the greatest wicked act in human history: the crucifixion of Christ. Acts 4:27–28 says those responsible did whatever God’s hand and counsel had determined beforehand. Their actions were wicked, yet those very actions accomplished God’s predetermined purpose! Evil did not overthrow God’s plan. It served it.
God does not need to morally approve of wickedness for that wickedness to serve His ultimate purpose.
You are presenting a false choice between God’s sovereignty and human decisions. Human beings make real decisions and remain accountable for them, but that does not establish independence from their Creator.
And Romans 8:20–21 reveals something remarkable: creation was subjected to futility in EXPECTATION of being freed from corruption. That means the futility was never the final objective. Liberation was always the goal.
God created evil for a purpose, not as an eternal condition. Through the contrast of evil and good, darkness and light, death and life, His creation will ultimately come to understand His righteousness, wisdom, mercy, and love.
Ephesians 1:11 declares that God is operating ALL things according to the counsel of His will. Not merely the good things. ALL things.
So I ask you: If God created all things, gives all life and breath, operates all things according to His will, and determined the end from the beginning, exactly where does this supposed independent human free will originate?
And if evil exists outside His purpose and control, how can He guarantee its ultimate defeat?
God is not reacting to a creation that escaped His control. He is bringing everything toward His predetermined goal: the reconciliation of all through Christ (Colossians 1:20), the abolition of death (1 Corinthians 15:26), and ultimately GOD ALL IN ALL (1 Corinthians 15:28).
COMMENT: I think you would make more headway if you articulated the difference between free will and choice….cuz you just flopping back n forth but not clarifying anything ….the issue of predestination and choice are well debated….they lead to the same question….wats the difference between predestination and choice,and because they are both scripturally supported the mystery remains…
MY RESPONSE: I’ve explained this distinction many times in my videos, but perhaps you’re new here, or I didn’t articulate it clearly enough in this particular video. So I’ll hold myself accountable for that.
CHOICE and FREE WILL are NOT the same thing.
We absolutely make choices. We think, reason, desire, and decide. But that doesn’t mean we possess an independent FREE WILL operating outside God’s sovereignty.
Choice is the act of deciding. Independent free will is the supposed ability to determine our decisions apart from God’s operation and purpose.
To make this even clearer, God determines what we will choose long before He creates us. Then He creates us, places us in the circumstances He has prepared, and we make the very choices He planned for us to make. From our human perspective, we are making decisions in real time. From God’s perspective, those decisions were already part of His purpose.
Consider 2 Timothy 1:9. Paul says God saved us and called us, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN.
Think about what that means! God determined who would receive grace in Christ before time even existed. Then, at the appointed time in each person’s life, God gives the faith through which that person believes. The person genuinely chooses to believe, but that choice is the RESULT of God’s operation, not the cause of it.
This is why Philippians 2:13 declares that God operates in us BOTH TO WILL AND TO WORK for His good pleasure. And Ephesians 1:11 says He operates ALL things according to the counsel of His will.
Now, you say predestination and choice are both supported by Scripture, so the matter must remain a mystery. But why are you assuming they contradict one another?
God’s predestination is the ultimate cause and purpose. Our choices are part of the means through which that purpose unfolds. We genuinely choose, but our choices are not independent of the One who created us and determines the circumstances in which we live.
God’s ways may certainly be a mystery. HOW He operates His will through every person and circumstance may be beyond our understanding. But the FACT that He is sovereign is NOT a mystery! Scripture declares it repeatedly.
The mystery is not WHETHER God is operating all things. The mystery is HOW He accomplishes His purpose through all things.
And that is precisely why I believe God will accomplish everything He has promised, including the reconciliation of all creation through Christ (Colossians 1:20), the abolition of death (1 Corinthians 15:26), and ultimately becoming ALL IN ALL (1 Corinthians 15:28).
Making a choice does not make you independent of God. It simply means your choice is one of the countless means through which God accomplishes His purpose.
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