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A question about believing. Is faith a choice or not a choice? And if it isn’t a choice, isn’t there an element of the will in there somewhere?
Welcome, friend. This is the Grace in Focus radio broadcast and podcast coming to you from the Grace Evangelical Society. Learn more about us at our website, faithalone.org.
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Find it at faithalone.org/magazine. Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Ken yates and Kathryn Wright.
Welcome to another episode of Grace in Focus. I’m Ken yates and I’m here with Kathryn Wright, and we’re answering questions that have been sent in. And Duane asked a question that sometime asked, but he puts a little different spin on it.
And he’s struggling with this issue of faith is not a choice. I do not choose to believe in Christ. It’s a decision.
A decision. And of course, for those of us who grew up in Baptist churches, you know, how many times, not just Baptist, but a lot of different churches, you need to make a decision. You need to make a decision for Christ.
And sometimes you’ll go to a sermon and you’ll go, well, I’m not ready to make a decision for Christ. And what that normally means is, okay, next time we’re together, I’ll make a decision. And for those of us in the Baptist church, that usually meant I’ll walk down the aisle.
You’ve got to raise your hand too. Raise your hand if you’re ready to make a decision for Christ, and then you’re going to walk the aisle. Right.
And of course, at GES, we have said all along that faith is not a decision. It is being convinced that something is true. And like I said, Dwayne, he puts a little bit of a different spin on this when he asked his question.
If we say it like that, he says that it’s not a choice, it’s not a decision I make. Isn’t that really what Calvinists say? Because the Calvinists say we’re unable to believe.
In other words, I can’t decide to believe. And he doesn’t go into it that much detail, but he’s saying, Dwayne is saying, well, then if I can’t decide to believe, then isn’t it something that God has to give me? God does it.
And that was his point. Well, let’s talk about that a little bit. First of all, we still maintain that faith is not a decision.
And we’ve talked about this in the before, but I can’t decide to believe something. If I’m not convinced something is true, then I don’t believe it. And I can’t decide to be convinced that something is true when I’m not convinced that it’s true.
OK, so that’s part of it. But the distinction we make is that we still have the ability to believe. The Calvinist says we don’t.
The Calvinist says we cannot be convinced that something is true. And in this case, we cannot be convinced that jesus gives eternal life to everyone who believes in him for it. He must give us that faith.
I think also to add to that, not only is the Calvinist saying that the unbeliever is incapable of belief, the unbeliever is also incapable of responding or hearing the message. We talked about this in our last episode as well, that they’ll use passages like ephesians 2 and say, well, you are dead in your trespasses and sins, and so if you’re dead, that means you’re a corpse. Well, a corpse can’t even hear the message.
A corpse can’t even be willing to listen to John 3.16, because they’re a corpse, they’re dead, they’re incapable of even hearing. So I guess that would be our distinction. Not only are we rejecting the Calvinists’ perspective on our inability to believe, but we’re also rejecting the inability that they argue for the unbeliever and their lack of being able to hear the message either.
Right, so they would, the Calvinists would say the unbeliever cannot be drawn to faith, because he’s not, he’s not, he can’t even hear it. yes. He’s completely dead.
That’s right. And, but what we’re saying is a couple things. Number one, no one can come to faith without God drawing them.
But God draws people.
He draws all men to himself.
He draws all men to himself. Through creation, through his conscience, through his word, through preachers.
The Holy Spirit is drawing.
Yeah, the Holy Spirit is convicting the world of all these things in various ways. But of course, the Calvinist says that, no, if you’re not elect, you’re not being drawn. You can’t be drawn, right?
Is the point. And then they would say you have to be given faith. So when God draws the unbeliever through any of these means or through a number of these means, usually that’s the way it is, through a number of these means, the issue is not, am I able to believe or am I able to respond to his drawing first off, but am I willing to do it?
And that’s what we see in the scriptures. For example, in John chapter 5 verse 40, jesus is talking to a number of unbelievers, and he tells them, well, starting in verse 39, these are Jewish unbelievers. You search the scriptures.
He says, for in them, you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me.
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these are Jewish unbelievers. You search the scriptures. He says, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me.
But then he says in verse 40, but you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. Now, in that verse, the verb come is an illustration of believing in him. You see that in the Gospel of John, you have a number of illustrations or metaphors of believing.
Come to him, drink, eat, follow. Okay. And so these Jews that he was talking to were unwilling.
Now, why were they unwilling? What does that mean? He doesn’t say they were unable.
And what’s also interesting is that they’re technically looking at the evidence, right? They have the scriptures before them. He says, you’re reading them and these testify of me, but you’re unwilling to really see it.
You’re unwilling to believe in him. And I think, and I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed this on the radio or you and I’ve discussed this, but in that verse 39, he says, you search the scriptures. He’s talking to these self-righteous Jews who thought that eternal life was by keeping the scriptures, by keeping the commandments, by doing good works.
And if you get somebody like that, it’s not that they’re unable to believe, they’re just not willing to look at the evidence. And like you said, the evidence was right in front of their eyes. The miracles that jesus performed, his teaching, they could see that he was the Christ, but they were unwilling.
He was not from their approved schools. He was teaching a message that they rejected. And we can see this, for example, when you meet somebody who is heavily involved in works righteousness.
And I know many of our readers have met people like that. They are simply unwilling to have that belief, that tradition, their background, their culture challenged, and they’re not willing to look.
I mean, we see it even like, for example, I’m unwilling to even look at the evidence that we came from apes.
Right?
I’m just not, I’m not, you could show me, you know, a teacher of evolution could show me a chart, and they could show me all that stuff. But I’m unwilling to even consider the evidence. Right.
I’m just not.
We can say the same thing about a flat earth.
Yeah.
Right. There’s people who believe that the earth is flat, and they have reams of evidence, quote unquote. I’m not willing to look at that.
Right.
It’s not that I’m unable to believe that, to be convinced that that’s true. I’m perfectly able, but I’m unwilling.
Right.
You could say, well, I’ll fly you up in an airplane, and you’ll see that the world is flat. No, I would reject that. I’m not willing to do that.
It’s not a decision I make. In other words, I don’t decide not to believe that. It’s just I’m unwilling.
And that’s what we see here. And by the way, we see it in other places in the scriptures as well. For example, in Matthew chapter 23, jesus is weeping over Jerusalem as he is heading to the cross here.
He knows what’s going to happen here. As he weeps, he says in verse 37, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But notice what he says, but you were not willing.
And here he’s specifically talking to Jerusalem as he’s weeping over the city. And in the previous verses, he talks about the religious leaders.
Well, we see that too, right? Where he’s performing these miracles. I was just in class last night, and we were talking about, I don’t think this is a proper title for it, but the unpardonable sin in Matthew 12.
And it’s a similar thing where he’s performing these miracles, and it’s obvious that they are. In fact, they don’t deny that there are miracles that are taking place, but they’re unwilling to be convinced that those are from God. And so what in their legalism, what do they do?
They attribute it to Beelzebub. They twist it. They have to come up with their own excuse for why they’re not going to listen or have this evidence right before them and see utterly unwilling to look at it.
Yeah, we have people, and by the way, it’s not just self-righteous religious people who are unwilling. You have people who grew up in an atheist home, for example, in some homes, very secular, academic. And when they hear of eternal life, when they hear of resurrection from the dead, they mock that, and they’re simply not willing to believe that.
They’re not willing to look at the evidence to see if it is true. And so, to go back to the original question, this is not what the Calvinist is saying. The Calvinist is not saying you don’t have a choice.
We’re saying something different. We’re saying that the unbeliever is able to be drawn by God, but there are some who, when that drawing happens, are unwilling to look at the evidence. And there would be the difference.
So, we hope this helps. And until next time, remember, Keep Grace in Focus.
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The preceding has been a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
