Love Grows Dim Where Determinism Reigns

by Dr. Peter A. Kerr

One of the most serious casualties of deterministic theology is not merely clarity. It is charity.

Ideas do not stay in the mind without effecting the heart. They teach us how to look at people. They train instinct before we notice it. They shape the moral imagination. Once that happens, doctrine stops being abstract. It becomes atmosphere.

This is why bad theology can make love harder.

Many believers who hold deterministic views are gracious, sincere, and sacrificial. This is not a judgment on their character. It is a warning about the pressure a system places on the heart. A theology can contain devout people and still carry a logic that, if followed consistently, cools love at its root.

When people are taught to see humanity primarily as born ruined, born as fixed objects of wrath, born as those who may already belong to condemnation in the deepest sense, tenderness begins to erode. Once some are imagined as destined for hell from birth, neighbor-love cannot help but weaken. Once people are described as natural enemies of God in a way that becomes their defining identity, Christians may begin to regard them less as neighbors to be won and more as adversaries to be endured.

How we name people shapes how we love them.

If I think a person’s deepest truth is corruption, I will struggle to delight in them. If I think a person may never have been intended for mercy, my hope for them grows thin. If I think some people stand before me already marked out for final ruin, I may still act politely toward them, but I will not love them with the same openhearted expectancy. Determinism may say it is merely honoring divine sovereignty. In practice it often teaches suspicion before compassion.

Scripture teaches us to begin somewhere brighter.

Human beings are not introduced to us in Genesis as refuse. They are introduced as royalty. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him” (Gen. 1:27). Even after the fall, James warns believers not to curse people because they “have been made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9). The biblical picture is not that humanity has become worthless. The picture is that humanity has become wounded. The glory is marred, not erased. The mirror is bent, not annihilated. Sin is real. Fallenness is real. Human value is real too.

This is where LUMEN begins. LUMEN begins with Christ.

It begins with the God revealed in Jesus Christ, not with a hidden decree behind Him. It begins with the God who loves the world (John 3:16), seeks the lost (Luke 19:10), calls the weary (Matt. 11:28), weeps over the resistant (Matt. 23:37; Luke 19:41), takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 18:23, 32), is patient toward the perishing (2 Pet. 3:9), and desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:3–4).

Once that light fills the center, people stop looking like disposable outcomes in a secret decree. They begin to look like what they truly are: creatures of immense value, made in the image of God, pursued by divine mercy, and invited into everlasting communion. They are not problems to be sorted. They are persons to be loved. They are not interruptions in the plan. They are the very field in which the love of God is meant to shine.

Everything changes when Christ becomes the criterion.

Jesus did not move through the world as though the lost were a class of the unwanted. He did not speak with icy detachment about sinners as though their ruin were the outworking of a hidden delight. His invitation was for all to come see and hear.

He looked on the crowds and “felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). He wept over Jerusalem: “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matt. 23:37). He came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He did not merely tolerate the lost. He pursued them. He did not merely explain their condition. He lamented it. He did not merely expose resistance. He grieved it.

This matters more than many realize. Christ is not one doctrine among others. He is the light in which every doctrine must be seen. Any theology that trains us to look upon human beings with less compassion than Jesus did has already gone dim at the center. The cross raises human worth rather than lowering it.

Some theological systems speak as though human depravity is the truest thing about us. Scripture never allows that. The cross reveals something deeper. It reveals both the horror of sin and the height of human value. John 3:16 does not say God so loathed the world that He barely rescued a few from it. It says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son.” The object of divine love in that verse is the world. The gift is the Son. The invitation is open to everyone who believes.

This is why belief in universal divine love enlarges the soul. Once I believe Christ died for all, every person I meet acquires renewed radiance. Every stranger bears a significance sharpened by Calvary. Every enemy stands before me as one for whom Christ shed blood. Every child carries a dignity that cannot be measured by utility, success, intelligence, race, tribe, class, or moral record. The cross forbids contempt. The cross forbids indifference. The cross forbids writing people off.

First John says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10–11). Human love grows out of divine love. Once divine love is narrowed, human love tends to narrow with it. Once divine love is proclaimed in its breadth, human love is summoned to become broad as well.

This is why false deterministic doctrines do more damage than they first appear to do. They do not merely adjust one’s view of causation. They retrain perception. They teach the heart to ration its hope. They quietly make tenderness less natural.

The language we use matters here.

When people are described chiefly as born hateful toward God, born as His enemies in a totalizing sense, born as a mass of condemned humanity from which only an eternally selected few will be rescued, a subtle deformation follows. The Christian may still say the right things about evangelism. The church may still fund missions. The preacher may still plead with sinners. Yet the instinct beneath the effort has shifted. Love becomes more selective in tone. Patience becomes thinner. Expectation narrows. Mercy begins to feel exceptional rather than expansive.

We must resist that entire path, and instead insist that while all sin , God’s love is greater. The Father’s love revealed in Christ is not reluctantly merciful—it is abundantly merciful. He is not the author of a tiny compassion hidden inside a larger decree of abandonment. He is the God who loved the world, gave the Son, sent the Spirit, and now commands “all people everywhere” to repent (Acts 17:30). He is the God who “wants all people to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4). He is the God who is “not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). He is the God who says, “Why will you die?” and “Repent and live” (Ezek. 18:31–32). He is the God who stretches out His hands even to the disobedient (Rom. 10:21).

Once that vision grips the church, love becomes more possible again.

The harvest is not finished. That matters. Deterministic systems often tempt Christians to look at people as settled cases too soon. The field starts to look divided before the sickle has even been lifted. The heart begins to suspect that the deepest answer about a person was fixed before their first breath. Hope then becomes brittle.

Jesus speaks differently. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matt. 9:37). That is not the language of a world emptied of possibility. That is the language of divine expectancy. Second Peter 3:9 explains the delay of judgment as mercy. God waits because He is patient. He waits because He desires repentance. He waits because history is still a mission field.

Romans 11:32 says, “For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” The universality of sin becomes the theater for the universality of mercy’s offer. This does not mean all will finally be saved regardless of response. It does mean God’s posture toward the world is not one of selective coldness. It is one of patient invitation. He is waiting for the fullness of the harvest.

That truth changes how we see people. Strangers are no longer likely reprobates in disguise. They are candidates for glory. They are prodigals who may yet come home. They are blind men who may yet see. They are wandering sheep who still matter to the Shepherd.

A doctrine that lowers the value of people cannot nourish the love Christ commands.

Jesus said the second great commandment is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). He even said, “Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44). Such commands require more than moral effort. They require a theology spacious enough to sustain them. It is hard to love all people well if one suspects that many were created without any saving intention behind their existence. It is hard to cherish the stranger if one’s imagination has been trained to wonder whether that stranger is, in the deepest sense, an object of divine refusal. It is hard to love one’s enemies as neighbors-to-be if one has come to think of humanity itself primarily through the category of fixed enmity.

The gospel teaches us a better sight.

People are not born as trash. They are image-bearers.
People are not born as divine leftovers. They are summoned by grace.
People are not beneath the tears of Christ. He wept over the unwilling.
People are not outside the scope of love. God so loved the world.
People are not names in a cold ledger. They are neighbors, enemies, sons, daughters, wanderers, sufferers, and future worshipers.
People are not worth little. They were bought at the price of the blood of the Son of God.

This is why perhaps the greatest casualty of false deterministic doctrine is love for others. The system does not merely make errors in metaphysics. It can diminish wonder before humanity. It can make mercy feel narrower than Jesus makes it feel. It can make us less eager to hope, less ready to bless, less quick to pray, less willing to suffer for the lost, and less able to see the radiance that still clings to every human being made in God’s image.

The church must recover a more luminous vision.

We must learn again to see people in the light of Christ. We must learn again to let John 3:16 mean what it says. We must learn again to speak of humanity as fallen but beloved, sinful but summoned, lost but sought, resistant but pursued, guilty but invited.

Divine love is not small, and Christ did not come merely to rescue a few from humanity. He came because God loved the world. Once that truth burns at the center, love rises.

Evangelism gets warmer.
Prayer gets bolder.
Mercy gets wider.
Patience gets deeper.
Hope gets harder to kill.

This is the moral atmosphere of the gospel. This is the brighter air true Christianity. We do not look at people through the shadow of a hidden decree. We look at them through the face of Jesus Christ. There, at last, humanity is seen in its true height.

Is humanity fallen? Yes. Dangerous? Sometimes. Rebellious? Often. However, humanity is never worthless, never unloved, never outside the reach of the God who still seeks the lost and waits for the harvest.

Scripture Referenced (in NAS)

Genesis 1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

James 3:9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in the likeness of God.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”

Luke 19:41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it.

Ezekiel 18:23 “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he would turn from his ways and live?”

Ezekiel 18:32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. “Therefore, repent and live!”

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

1 Timothy 2:3–4 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Matthew 9:36 Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd.

1 John 4:10–11 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Acts 17:30 So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent.

Ezekiel 18:31–32 “Hurl away from you all your offenses which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why should you die, house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord God. “Therefore, repent and live!”

Romans 10:21 But as for Israel, He says, “I have spread out My hands all day long to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

Matthew 9:37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”

Romans 11:32 For God has shut up all in disobedience, so that He may show mercy to all.

Matthew 22:39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”