📜 Augustine
Augustine taught that since the Fall, sin holds people so tightly that nobody can turn to God by their own power. Only God's grace can rescue a person, and God chooses who receives it.
Christian Beliefs about the Universe and Human Beings » Free Will and Predestination in Christianity
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, 1.4 (Christianity)
- Why Christians believe free will is a gift from God
- What limits human freedom: sin, weakness and God's knowledge of the future
- What predestination means for Christians, and why they disagree about it
- Why Christians hold people responsible and believe God judges fairly
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Unlock This CourseFree will: God's gift
Free Will, Determinism and Predestination gave the general ideas. Remember, free will is the ability to make real choices. Most Christians believe it is a gift from God.
In Genesis 2, God places Adam in the Garden of Eden and says, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil' (Genesis 2:16-17). God gives a command, but he does not fence off the tree. Adam and Eve are able to obey or to disobey. In Genesis 3 they choose to disobey. This is the Fall.
Why would God give a freedom that could be misused? Christians answer that love cannot be forced. A robot programmed to say 'I love you' does not love anyone. They believe God wanted people who freely choose to love him and to do good, and that is only possible if they are also able to refuse.
The Bible often speaks as if people have a real choice. Moses tells the people of Israel, 'I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life' (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Key terms:
- Foreknowledge: God's knowledge of events before they happen.
- The elect: the people God has chosen to be saved.
- Double predestination: the belief that God decided, before the world was made, who would be saved and who would not.
- Synergy: the Orthodox Christian word for God's grace and human free will working together.
Limits on human freedom
Christians do not think human freedom is complete. The Bible points to three limits.
🔗 Sin
Jesus said, 'everyone who sins is a slave to sin' (John 8:34). Christians who believe in original sin say the Fall left every person with a pull towards doing wrong. Bad habits become hard to break.
💔 Human weakness
Paul wrote, 'I do not do the good I want to do' (Romans 7:19). When Jesus' disciples fell asleep after he had asked them to keep watch, he said, 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak' (Matthew 26:41).
👀 God's foreknowledge
Christians believe God is omniscient (all-knowing). 'Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely' (Psalm 139:4). If God already knows what you will do tomorrow, can you do anything else?
Many Christians reply to the third limit by saying that God is outside time. Picture someone on a hilltop who can see a whole road at once. They see where each traveller is going, but they do not push anyone. In the same way, they say, God sees all of a person's life without forcing their choices.
Predestination: has God already chosen?
Paul wrote, 'those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son' (Romans 8:29). He goes on to say that those God predestined he also called, put right with himself and will bring to glory in heaven (Romans 8:30). Christians disagree about what these words mean.
📖 John Calvin
Calvin went further and taught double predestination. Before creation, God decided who would be saved (the elect) and who would not. Nobody earns a place. Christians who follow Calvin, in Reformed and Presbyterian churches, find comfort here: their salvation rests on God's choice, not on their own weak efforts. They add that people sin willingly, so they are still to blame.
🙏 Arminius and Wesley
Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch Protestant thinker who lived around 1600, disagreed with Calvin. He taught that God offers grace to everyone and each person is free to accept or refuse it. God 'predestined' those he foreknew would freely believe. John Wesley, who founded the Methodist movement in the 1700s, preached the same.
⛪ Catholic and Orthodox
The Catholic Church teaches that God's plan includes each person's free response to his grace, and that God predestines no one to go to hell. Orthodox Christians speak of synergy: God offers grace and a person must freely work with it.
Why most Christians today stress free will
- God wants everyone to be saved. The Bible says God 'wants all people to be saved' (1 Timothy 2:4) and that 'whoever believes' in Jesus will have eternal life (John 3:16).
- God is just. Many Christians say a fair God would not punish people for a path they could never have left.
- The Bible gives commands. Calls to 'choose life' and to repent only make sense if people are able to respond.
- Love must be free. A forced relationship with God would not be love at all.
Responsibility and God's fair judgement
In Genesis 3, Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent. God does not accept the excuses: each one faces the results of their own choice. Christians take from this that people must answer for what they do. Paul wrote, 'A man reaps what he sows' (Galatians 6:7), and that God 'will repay each person according to what they have done' (Romans 2:6).
Christians trust this judgement to be fair for three reasons.
- God is perfectly just. Abraham, an early father of God's people in Genesis, asks, 'Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?' (Genesis 18:25).
- God 'does not show favouritism' (Romans 2:11). Wealth and status count for nothing.
- God knows everything about a person, including how much they understood. Jesus said, 'From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded' (Luke 12:48).
This shapes how Christians live. They are taught to own up to their sins and repent instead of blaming others, and to show mercy because everyone is weak. What Christians believe happens at God's judgement is covered in Heaven, Hell, Judgment and Resurrection.
Common mistakes
Do not write that all Christians believe in predestination in Calvin's sense. Do not say God's foreknowledge is the same as predestination: knowing a choice in advance is different from making it for someone.
Exam-style question
Paper 1 style. (a) and (b) test AO1; (c) and (d) test AO1 and AO2.
(a) Identify three religious beliefs about human freedom. [3 marks]
(b) Choose one religion. Outline two limits on human freedom in this religion. [4 marks]
(c) Choose one religion. Explain why there are different attitudes to predestination in this religion. [6 marks]
(d) 'If God knows everything we will do, we cannot be blamed for our actions.' Evaluate this statement, showing you have considered different points of view. In your answer you should refer to at least one religion. [12 marks]
Model answer
(a) 1. Free will is a gift from God (1). 2. Sin limits a person's freedom (1). 3. God will judge people for the choices they make (1).
(b) Christianity. Sin limits freedom (1), because Jesus taught that everyone who sins is a slave to sin, so wrong habits become hard to break (1). Human weakness is another limit (1), for example Paul wrote that he did not do the good he wanted to do (1).
(c) Christianity. Some Christians, following John Calvin, believe in double predestination. They read Paul's words that God 'predestined' people to mean that God chose the elect before creation. This is because they believe sin has left people unable to turn to God by themselves, so salvation must be God's choice alone.
Other Christians, such as Methodists, follow Arminius. They believe God offers grace to everyone, because the Bible says God wants all people to be saved. For them, God predestined those he foreknew would freely believe.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians stress that grace and free will work together. They argue that a just God would not send people to hell without giving them a real choice.
(d) Plan. For: if God's foreknowledge cannot be wrong, it seems a person could not have acted differently; Calvin taught that God chose the elect before creation, which looks as if the result is fixed; hard determinists (non-religious) also say nobody could have done otherwise.
Against: most Christians say knowing is not causing, because God sees all of time without forcing any choice; Genesis 3 shows God holding Adam and Eve responsible; even Calvin's followers say people sin willingly; God judges fairly and takes account of what each person knew.
Possible conclusion: pick a side. For example: I disagree. Blame depends on whether I was forced, not on whether somebody knew what I would do, and Christians believe God knows without forcing.
Exam tip
In part (d), separate 'God knows' from 'God decides'. The statement only says God knows, so a strong answer asks whether knowing a choice in advance takes away the freedom to make it.