Concept

Free Will and Determinism

Intro

Are humans free? When you make a choice (what to eat, who to marry, whether to forgive someone), are you the genuine source of that choice, or is the choice already fixed by the chain of causes (your genes, your upbringing, your brain chemistry, or for Christians, God's decree) that produced it?

Three classical answers compete. Hard determinists say no human ever acts freely; every choice is the necessary outcome of prior causes. Libertarians say humans are genuinely free; at the moment of decision, the person could really have chosen otherwise. Compatibilists say determinism is true, but free will is real in a softer sense: acting freely means acting from your own desires without external coercion, even if those desires were themselves determined.

Inside Christian theology the dispute takes a distinctive shape. Scripture presents both God's exhaustive sovereignty (Ephesians 1:11, Romans 9, Acts 4:27-28, Proverbs 16:9) and genuine human responsibility (Deuteronomy 30:19, Joshua 24:15, John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9). Four major theological positions try to hold these together. Calvinism says God ordains all that happens, including human choices, and humans freely will what God has decreed. Arminianism says God knows the future but does not determine it; humans have libertarian free will. Molinism says God uses "middle knowledge" of what every possible person would freely do in every possible situation to sovereignly order history while preserving genuine freedom. Open theism says the future free choices of creatures do not yet exist as facts to be known; God responds to actual unfolding choices.

The choice matters because it shapes everything downstream: who is responsible for sin and evil, what salvation looks like (is God the one who chooses, or do we?), whether the gospel offer to "whoever believes" is genuinely open to all, what prayer is doing, and whether justice (divine or human) makes sense if no one could have done otherwise. Recent neuroscience (the Libet experiments, work by Sam Harris) has added a secular front to the question, with some claiming science has refuted free will.

This page lays out each position in its strongest form, surveys the biblical texts each side leans on, and presents the major scholarly defenses across both philosophical and theological literature.

In full

The cross-domain master hub for the philosophy and theology of human free agency, divine sovereignty, and the determinism / compatibilism / libertarianism dispute. The topic spans Philosophy and Logic (epistemology, agency, ethics) and Theology and Doctrine (predestination, providence, the problem of evil).

The basic question

Does any human ever act freely? Three classical positions:

Position	Free will exists?	Determinism true?	Examples
Hard determinism	No	Yes	Spinoza; eliminative materialists; some neuroscientists (Sam Harris); Skinner-style behaviorists
Libertarian free will	Yes (incompatibilist)	No	Aquinas; classical theism; Plantinga; W. L. Craig; J. P. Moreland; Roman Catholic / Eastern Orthodox traditions
Compatibilism	Yes (in a soft sense)	Yes	Hobbes; Hume; Edwards; most Reformed theologians; Daniel Dennett (atheist version)

A fourth position, hard incompatibilism (Derk Pereboom), claims libertarian free will would be required for moral responsibility but doesn't actually exist, concluding that no one is truly responsible. Most discussions treat this as a variant of hard determinism.

Definitions

Determinism, every event (including human choice) is the necessary causal outcome of prior events + natural laws. Could have done otherwise is denied.
Libertarian free will (LFW), at the moment of decision, the agent is genuinely able to do otherwise; the choice is not determined by prior causes; the agent is the uncaused source of the action (agent-causation) or the choice has no sufficient cause (event-causation models like Kane's).
Compatibilism, free will is the absence of external compulsion combined with acting from one's own desires / reasons. Determinism is true; but acting freely means acting from your own nature without external coercion, even if your nature itself was determined.

The biblical-theological tension

Scripture contains both:

Strong divine-sovereignty texts

Ephesians 1:11, God works all things after the counsel of His will
Romans 9, election; "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated"; the potter and the clay; "He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires"
Acts 4:27-28, Herod, Pilate, Gentiles, Israel did "whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur" at the crucifixion
Genesis 50:20, Joseph: "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good"
Proverbs 16:9, "the mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps"
Proverbs 21:1, "the king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes"
Daniel 4:35, "He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth"
Acts 13:48, "as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed"

Strong human-responsibility / choice texts

Deuteronomy 30.19, I have set before you life and death… choose life
Joshua 24:15, "choose for yourselves today whom you will serve"
Mark 1:15, "repent and believe"
John 7:17, "if anyone is willing to do His will, he will know"
Acts 17:30, "God now declares to men that all everywhere should repent"
Revelation 22:17, "let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost"
2 Peter 3:9, God "is not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance"
1 Timothy 2:4, God "wills [thelei] all men to be saved"

The dispute: how to harmonize these two streams.

The major theological positions

Calvinism / Reformed compatibilism

Position: God ordains all that comes to pass, including human choices, in such a way that humans freely choose what God has ordained. The human's freedom consists in willing what they desire, but the desires themselves are determined by God's decree (and post-fall by sin's bondage, until grace regenerates).

Key texts: Romans 9; Ephesians 1; John 6:37, 44, 65; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29-30

Defense: Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will (1754), develops compatibilism rigorously. The "ability of nature" / "ability of moral will" distinction: post-fall, humans retain natural ability to choose but lack moral ability to choose holiness apart from grace. Salvation is monergistic (by grace alone); regeneration precedes faith; grace is irresistible (effectual) for the elect.

Modern defenders: Wayne Grudem; John Piper; James White; D. A. Carson; R. C. Sproul; John MacArthur; Paul Helm.

Arminianism / classical theism

Position: God knows all (including future free choices) but does not determine them. Humans have libertarian free will; salvation is offered to all conditionally; election is based on God's foreknowledge of who would believe (the prevenient grace allowing all to respond).

Key texts: Deuteronomy 30.19; John 3:16 (universal scope); 1 Tim 2:4; 2 Pet 3:9; Heb 2:9

Defense: Jacob Arminius (1559-1609); Wesleyan tradition; modern Arminians like Roger Olson (Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, 2006), ris3n Walls (Hell: The Logic of Damnation, 1992).

Molinism (middle knowledge)

Position: God possesses three logically-prior types of knowledge:

Natural knowledge, necessary truths
Middle knowledge, counterfactuals of free creatures (what any possible free creature would freely do in any possible circumstance)
Free knowledge, what God will actually bring about

By selecting which possible world to actualize, God sovereignly orders history while creatures retain libertarian free will. Middle knowledge mediates between sovereignty and freedom.

Defense: Luis de Molina (Concordia, 1588); modern: Alvin Plantinga (God, Freedom, and Evil, 1974); William Lane Craig (The Only Wise God, 1987; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom, 1991); Kenneth Keathley (Salvation and Sovereignty, 2010).

Open theism

Position: God knows all that can be known, including all past, all present, all causally-determined future, and all future possibilities. But the future free choices of creatures don't yet exist as facts to be known; they are open. God adapts His responses to actual unfolding choices.

Defense: Greg Boyd (God of the Possible, 2000); Clark Pinnock (The Openness of God, 1994); John Sanders. Highly contested by both Calvinists and classical Arminians as outside historic orthodoxy.

The neuroscience challenge

A 21st-century challenge: neuroscientific evidence (Benjamin Libet's 1983 readiness-potential experiments; subsequent work) is sometimes claimed to refute libertarian free will. Sam Harris (Free Will, 2012); ris3n Coyne; eliminative materialists argue that conscious decision-making is post-hoc rationalization of subconsciously determined neural events.

Critical responses:

Methodological, Libet-style experiments measure simple finger-press readiness, not full deliberative choice; extrapolation to libertarian-relevant decisions is unwarranted (Mele, Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will, 2014)
Philosophical, even if the conscious experience trails the neural event, this doesn't entail no agent-causation; agent-causation models can accommodate this
Theological, biblical anthropology is dualist or holistic-personal; consciousness is not reducible to neurons; the nephesh / psychē / nous tradition (see Mind, Soul, Consciousness in raw notes)

Free will and the problem of evil

The free-will defense (Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil, 1974) is the most influential modern response to the logical problem of evil:

A world containing creatures with significant free will is more valuable than a world with no free creatures. To create creatures capable of moral good, God must create creatures capable of moral evil. He cannot give creatures freedom and at the same time prevent them from doing wrong.

See Problem of Evil, Free Will Defense for the syllogism.

Free will in raw notes

ris3n's corpus engages free-will themes:

Free Will Argument from Love (#7 in ), God creating free beings as the precondition of love
The Problem of Evil, free-will defense framing
The mind is a physical thing, engages eliminative materialism critique
Justification in
Belief Vs Knowledge
Atheists Cant Define Truth Without Jesus (in LIVE notes), engages naturalism's problem with free will
Mind, Soul, Consciousness, anthropology; non-physical mind

Free-will-anchor passages (rich hubs built)

Deuteronomy 30.19, choose life
Romans 5.12, Adam-Christ federal headship (Calvinist-Arminian dispute)
Romans 5.8, God's love (free-will-defense underwrite)
Romans 6.23, wages of sin / gift of God
Romans 10.13, universal salvific call
Genesis 1.27, imago Dei (rational-volitional capacity grounding)

Syllogisms

Argument from Reason, naturalism undermines reason / free will
Problem of Evil, Free Will Defense
Free Will Argument from Love, love requires freedom
Modal Argument from Mind, consciousness / dualism

Lexicon entries

G1577 - ekklesia, community / called-out
G2309 - thelo (pending), to will / wish
G871 - aireomai (pending), to choose
H977 - bachar (pending), to choose

Key scholarly works

Compatibilist:

Jonathan Edwards (Freedom of the Will, 1754)
John Piper (The Pleasures of God, 1991; Desiring God, 1986)
D. A. Carson (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, 1981)
Paul Helm (The Providence of God, 1993)
Daniel Dennett (atheist compatibilist: Elbow Room, 1984; Freedom Evolves, 2003)

Libertarian:

Alvin Plantinga (God, Freedom, and Evil, 1974)
Richard Swinburne (Responsibility and Atonement, 1989)
William Lane Craig (The Only Wise God, 1987)
Kevin Timpe (Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives, 2008)
Roger Olson (Arminian Theology, 2006)

Molinist:

William Lane Craig
Kenneth Keathley (Salvation and Sovereignty, 2010)
Thomas Flint (Divine Providence: The Molinist Account, 1998)

Hard determinist (atheist):

Sam Harris (Free Will, 2012)
ris3n Coyne (Faith vs Fact, 2015)
Robert Sapolsky (Determined, 2023)

Free-will defenses against eliminative determinism:

Alfred Mele (Free: Why Science Hasn't Disproved Free Will, 2014)
Christian List (Why Free Will Is Real, 2019)

Open questions / tensions in the corpus

ris3n's notes are not consistently committed to one of the four positions; the cluster engages but doesn't fully resolve toward Calvinism / Arminianism / Molinism. The free-will-defense framing for the problem of evil suggests libertarian-friendly leaning, but Romans 9.1-29 / Romans 5:12 / monergistic-grace material would push Calvinist.