Week Seven – Predestination, Part II
At Issue:
What is the Role of Human Free Will in Salvation?
Key Text
4
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless
before him. 5He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his
will, 6to the praise of the glory of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved…
11
In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will
we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory.
(Ephesians 1.4-6, 11, RSV)
The Purpose-Driven Life:
From the Forward:
This book is dedicated to you. Before you were
born, God planned this moment in your life. It is no
accident that you are holding this book. God longs
for you to discover the life he created you to live –
here on earth, and forever in eternity.
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what
we are living for. Long before we first heard of
Christ,…he had his eye on us, had designs on us
for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is
working out in everything and everyone.”
(Eph 1.11, The Message)
From Chapter Seven: The Reason For Everything:
“Right now, God is inviting you to live for his glory by fulfilling the purposes he made you for. It’s really
the only way to live. Everything else is just existing. Real life begins by committing yourself completely
to Jesus Christ. If you are not sure you have done this, all you need to do is receive and believe. The Bible
promises, ‘to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become
children of God.’ Will you accept God’s offer? First believe. Believe God loves you and made you for his
purposes. Believe you were made to last forever. Believe God has chosen you to have a relationship with
Jesus, who died on the cross for you. Believe that no matter what you’ve done, God wants to forgive you.
Second, receive. Receive Jesus into your life as your Lord and Savior. Receive his forgiveness for your
sins. Receive his Spirit, who will give you the power to fulfill your life purpose…wherever you are
reading this, I invite you to bow your head and whisper the prayer that will change your eternity. “Jesus I
believe in and I receive you.” Go ahead. If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations! Welcome to
the family of God! You are now to discover and start living God’s purpose for your life.
(The Purpose Driven Life, pp. 58-59)
I.
The Church Fathers:
Justin Martyr:
“But neither do we affirm that it is by fate that men do what they do, or suffer what they suffer, but that
each man by free choice acts rightly or sins…The Stoics, not observing this, maintained that all things
take place according to the necessity of fate. But since God in the beginning made the race of angels and
men with free-will, they will justly suffer in eternal fire the punishment of whatever sins they have
committed. And this is the nature of all that is made, to be capable of vice and virtue.” (2nd Apology, 7)
How the Bible Changed the World
Kevin Dodge
February 23, 2014
John Chrysostom:
“What Paul means is that we are not to expect everything to be given to us in this life, but we are to have
hope as well. For the only thing we brought to God was our faith in the promises of what was to come,
and it was in this way that we are saved. If we lose this hope, we lose the one thing which we have
contributed to our salvation.” (Homily on Romans 14)
Early Augustine:
“Nothing is so much in our power as the will itself. Surely it is at hand with no delay as soon as we
will…who is so made as to dare to say ‘We do not will by our will?’ Consequently, although God
foreknows our future wills, it does not follow from this that we do not will something by our will.”
On Free Will, 3.3.7.27
Later Augustine:
“In order that we may confess the highest and true God, so we confess his will and highest power and
foreknowledge. Therefore let us not fear that we do something not by the will which we think we are
doing by the will, because he whose foreknowledge cannot fail foreknew that we would do it.”
City of God, 5.9.1
II.
Luis de Molina
“[middle knowledge] is the aspect of divine omniscience that comprises God’s knowledge, prior to any
determination of the divine will, of which contingent events would occur under any hypothetical set of
circumstances.” William Lane Craig, “Middle Knowledge: A Calvinist-Arminian Rapprochement?”, 147
“in virtue of the most profound and inscrutable comprehension of each faculty of free choice, he saw in
his own essence what each such faculty would do with its innate freedom were it to be placed in this or
that or, indeed, in infinitely many orders of things – even though it would really be able, if it so willed, to
do the opposite.” (Corcordia,4.52.9)
III.
Jacobus Arminius
“God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the
foreknowledge of God by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his
[prevenient] grace, believe and through his subsequent grace would persevere, according to the beforedescribed administration of those means which are suitable and proper for conversion and faith; and, by
which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere.”
The Declaration of Sentiments (1608), 5.
“The certainty of the event is properly from the foreknowledge of God; but the necessity from the
omnipotent and irresistible action of God: which, indeed, can be the foundation of the foreknowledge of
some event; but it is not of this [irresistible action], because God has decided to save believers through
grace, that is, through gentle and sweet persuasion, agreeing or congruent with their free choice; not
through omnipotent action or motion, which they are neither willing nor able to resist, nor can be willing
to resist. Much less does the condemnation of some people proceed from an inescapable necessity
imposed by God.” (Examen modestum libelli, quem D. Gulielmus Perkinsius; Works: 3.443)
How the Bible Changed the World
Kevin Dodge
February 23, 2014
IV.
The Anglican Tradition/Thomas Cramner
Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world
were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation
those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting
salvation, as vessels made to honor.
39 Articles, Article XVII: On Predestination and Election
For Further Reading:
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologicae. Volume Three. Notre Dame: Christian Classics, 1981.
Arminius, James, Arminius Speaks: Essential Writings on Predestination, Free Will and the Nature of
God. Edited by John D. Wagner. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011.
Arminius, James. Declaration of Sentiments: An Annotated Translation with Introduction. Baylor: Baylor
University Press, 2012.
Arminius, James. The Works of James Arminius. Edited and Translated by James Nichols and William
Nichols. 3 Volumes. 1825, 1828, 1875. Reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1986.
Augustine. Answer to the Pelagians. Series I. Volume 23. Works of Saint Augustine. Hyde Park, NY:
New City Press, 1997.
Crag, William Lane, “Middle Knowledge: A Calvinist-Arminian Rapprochement?” in The Grace of God
and the Will of Man. Edited by Clark H. Pinnock. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989.
de Molina, Luis. On Divine Foreknowledge (Concordia, Part IV). Cornell Classics in Philosophy.
Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Most, William. Grace, Predestination and the Salvific Will of God: New Answers to Old Questions. Fort
Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 2004.
Salza, John. The Mystery of Predestination. Charlotte: TAN Books, 2010.
Stanglin, Keith and McCall, Thomas. Jacob Arminius: Theologian of Grace. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012.
Thuesen, Peter. Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009.
Witt, William. Creation, Redemption and Grace in Theology of Jacob Arminius. Unpublished PhD
Dissertation. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1993.
How the Bible Changed the World
Kevin Dodge
February 23, 2014