Verses Predeterminism Misunderstands

by Dr. Peter A. Kerr

This article is mostly just Bible interpretation and clarification. When read in literary, historical, and canonical context, proof texts used to support determinism fall short. Readers are encouraged to have a Bible handy to be able to see these verses in context as misinterpretations most commonly arise from using verses without considering how they fit into the main thrust of the writer’s arguments.

NOTE: Unlike God and His Word, I (the author) am fallible. I have attempted to list the most prominent texts that support a deterministic framework, as well as clearly delineate both the determinist interpretation as well as the free will response. If I misrepresent anything here or missed important Scriptures, please email me and I will consider incorporating your insights into this article.

Identifying the soil: Explaining Determinist Proof Texts

Romans 9:15-16 “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy” (NAS). [As well as all of Romans 9]

Determinist Interpretation: Determinist interpreters traditionally understand this passage to mean God sovereignly determines whom He will save and whom He will harden—entirely apart from any human response. Human volition plays no role in the reception of mercy; it depends solely on God’s unilateral decree. From this view, Romans 9 serves as a grand assertion of divine determinism, demonstrating that all events, including salvation and condemnation, unfold according to God’s immutable will (Calvin, Institutes, III.xxiii.2; Piper 1993, 57–59).

Free-Will Response: Romans 9 is arguably one of the most misinterpreted chapters in the New Testament and so will be discussed here at length. Jaroslav in his tracing of doctrine explains that how we interpret this pericope reveals if we revere the Old Testament or if we have detached from a Jewish understanding to forge ahead with a Reformed view[1].

Romans 9–11 forms a single argument explaining Israel’s unbelief in light of God’s covenant faithfulness. A careful reading of the context shows Paul is not addressing individual predestination to salvation but rather God’s sovereign freedom in directing nations and groups within redemptive history[2]. His concern is covenantal and historical, not metaphysical or personally deterministic. Paul is explaining why ethnic Israel—though chosen as a nation—largely rejected the Messiah, while Gentiles were now being grafted into the covenant promises. Even the eminent Reformed theologian John Stott frames Romans 9–11 primarily as addressing the problem of Israel’s place in redemptive history, seeing election in a national/covenantal context rather than simply as a mechanistic pre-selection of individuals[3].

The “mercy” of which Paul speaks is God’s decision to extend His covenant compassion beyond Israel to the Gentiles (Romans 9:23–24). This passage concerns how God orders salvation history, not who is individually saved or damned. When Paul writes that salvation “does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs,” he is rejecting the idea that ethnic privilege, legal observance, or human achievement can secure covenant inclusion. He is not denying the existence of free will but refuting human boasting and pride in works-based righteousness.

Paul clarifies this point: “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him” (Romans 10:12). The message of Romans 9–11 as a whole is that God’s gracious initiative drives redemption history, yet human faith remains the condition for participating in His mercy (Romans 9:30–32; 10:9–10).

John Chrysostom (c. 349–407), himself a native Greek speaker and so best able to interpret the passage linguistically, explicitly rejected any deterministic reading of Romans 9:

He does not say that it is impossible for one who wills to be saved, but that it is not of him alone. For we need both things—that we should choose, and that God should extend His hand. Therefore, when he says, ‘It is not of him that wills,’ he is not depriving us of free will, but showing that the greater part belongs to God. (Homilies on Romans 16.2)

Chrysostom interprets Paul’s words as a warning against self-reliance, not a denial of human agency. “All depends indeed on God, but not so as to deprive our free will… God draws, but He draws the willing” (Homily on Romans).

Similarly, Origen of Alexandria (c. 184–253) reads Romans 9 through the lens of divine foreknowledge, not fatalism:

God’s mercy is given to those whom He knows will turn to Him… Pharaoh’s hardening was not caused by God’s will but by Pharaoh’s own obstinacy, which God foreknew and used to manifest His power. (Commentary on Romans 7.13–16)

For both Origen and Chrysostom, divine sovereignty and human freedom coexist harmoniously. God initiates grace, but man must freely cooperate with it. Paul’s examples—Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Pharaoh—illustrate that God’s redemptive purposes are not bound to lineage or merit but to His gracious plan. These cases from Israel’s past never imply individuals were eternally predestined to salvation or damnation. Pharaoh’s hardening, for instance, demonstrates divine patience: Pharaoh hardened his own heart multiple times before God confirmed that condition with judicial hardening (Exodus 7–9[4]). God used Pharaoh’s rebellion but did not cause it.

Paul’s central claim in Romans 9 is that faith—not ancestry or law-keeping—defines who belongs to God’s people: “They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel” (Romans 9:6). The potter-and-clay metaphor (Romans 9:20–21) underscores God’s sovereign right to shape His redemptive story, not His supposed pleasure in creating some for destruction. No potter forms a vessel solely to destroy it; rather, he fashions each for a purpose but may discard what becomes defiled (Jeremiah 18:1–10).

When the entire argument is taken together, Romans 9 reveals not God’s narrowing of election to a few, but His broadening of mercy to include the Gentiles. God is free to save whomever He wills; none can question His right to extend compassion to those once considered outsiders. “He has mercy on whom He wills” (Romans 9:18) does not mean He condemns the rest for being born—it means He is sovereignly gracious toward all who believe. The conclusion of the chapter (Romans 9:30–33) confirms this: Paul contrasts “righteousness by faith” with “righteousness by law,” he does not even mention some sort of argument between divine decree and human helplessness that Calvinism reads into the text.

Thus Romans 9 does not teach individual predestination to salvation or damnation. It defends God’s freedom to redefine His covenant community through faith in Christ—inviting both Jew and Gentile alike into His mercy. Paul’s argument is corporate and historical. God’s freedom in mercy opens the covenant to Gentiles; His justice hardens only the self-hardened. The passage proclaims God’s inclusive plan, not a decree of exclusion.[5]

Romans 9:13 “Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’.” (NAS)

Determinist Interpretation: God hated Esau and loved Jacob before they were even created, even when it does not make sense to us. God chose Jacob (his name means “heel grabber” or “deceiver” in Hebrew) over his older brother who was the rightful receiver of his father’s inheritance.

Free-Will Response: First, any Jewish reader would know that Jacob is the progenitor of Israel and that he honored his father and sought the inheritance (if in an unethical way). Culturally Esau is the progenitor of the Edomites who frequently teamed up with Israel’s enemies. Paul’s audience would understand Esau’s rejection of his father’s blessing for a bowl of stew and hairy animalistic nature conclusively makes him the bad character not the good one in the story.

Second, Paul’s readers would know he is quoting Malachi 1:2–3, where God says: “I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” In its original context, this refers not to the individual brothers Jacob and Esau, but to their descendants—Israel and Edom—long after their deaths. God’s “love” for Jacob means He chose Israel as the covenant nation. His “hatred” for Esau means He did not choose Edom for that same redemptive purpose. Even Reformed theologian Thomas Schreiner writes, “Neither as they occur in Genesis nor as they are used by Paul do these words [e.g., ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’] refer to the eternal destinies either of the two persons or of the individual members of the nations sprung from them; the reference is rather to the mutual relations of the two nations in history.”[6] It is a statement of divine election for service, not of eternal salvation or emotional animosity.

In Hebrew idiom, love and hate often function as comparative hyperbole—strong, polar words used to express preference, priority, or covenantal favor, not literal affection or animus. Examples include:

Genesis 29:30–31 — Jacob “loved Rachel more than Leah,” yet the text then says, “When the LORD saw that Leah was hated (Heb. śānē’), He opened her womb.” Leah wasn’t literally despised; she was less loved or unpreferred.

Deuteronomy 21:15–17 — A man has two wives, one “loved” and one “hated.” Again, this means favored versus unfavored, not emotional hatred.

Luke 14:26 — Jesus says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother... he cannot be My disciple.” Christ is not commanding literal hatred of our parents but emphasizing supreme loyalty—to love Him more than family.

In each case, “hate” is a figure of speech for “love less.” This Hebraic style uses extremes to sharpen contrast and make the choice unmistakable.

When Paul cites Malachi in Romans 9:13, his goal is to illustrate God’s sovereign freedom to choose the line through which the Messiah would come, not to define individual salvation. Jacob and Esau serve as representative heads of nations (Israel and Edom). God’s “love” of Jacob means choosing him for covenantal blessing; His “hate” of Esau means passing him over for that role. The focus is on vocation, not damnation. Paul’s Jewish audience would have recognized this rhetorical contrast immediately, understanding that the idiom expressed divine preference for a covenant purpose, not eternal rejection of a soul. Paul’s citation of Malachi 1:2–3 reinforces divine freedom in history, not fatalistic selection of souls.

Ephesians 1:4–5 “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world… He predestined us to adoption as sons.”

Determinist reading: God unconditionally predestined certain individuals for salvation before the foundation of the world.

Free-will response: Paul’s focus is not on who was chosen but on how the covenant people are constituted. God’s election is corporate—“in Christ” the Church was chosen[7]. (Greek: eklexato hēmas en autō—plural, so “He chose us in Him”). God predestines the class of those “in Christ” to be holy and adopted, not specific individuals. Everywhere “elect” is used in the Bible it is plural and refers to the Church of believers and never to a specially-chosen individual. This is God’s eternal plan that all who freely unite with Christ are destined for glorification. This is clarified in verse 13 that says we are only sealed after we believe (“having believed, you were sealed”). This also means regeneration, the infilling of the Spirit, happens after not before repentance (See also Rom. 5:1; Luke 13:3; 2 Peter 2:3; Acts 16:31; Rom. 3:24-25; John 3:6-7; Titus 3:5-7 etc.).

John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”

Determinist reading: No one can come to Christ unless irresistibly drawn by the Father. God ordained from eternity who will be His.

Free-will response: We completely affirm this sentence in its most plain meaning. It never says “irresistible” but rather says it is God who acts first by calling us to repentance and empowering our ability to repent through prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is the Spirit’s universal work awakening the human will to respond, without compelling it. The Greek helkō (“draw”) can mean “attract” or even the softer “woo,” and is the same word used in John 12:32 that says, “I will draw all men to Myself.[8] ” God draws universally through grace and revelation, empowering the will to choose to repent. This draw is not irresistible because God cannot force the will and still say we have a will. Put in other terms, repentance must be a choice or else it is not repentance.

To repent is not simply to say you are sorry you got caught and you hope not to be punished—it involves a deep acknowledgment of fault, a desire that you had not done the thing you now find onerous, and a willful dedication to resist temptation in that area in the future. Salvation involves loving God more than anything else, and love cannot be forced. Compelled love is not love. The human will may respond or resist God’s calling. "You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did” (Acts 7:51, NAS).

John 10:26–28 “You do not believe because you are not of My sheep.”

Determinist reading: Only the predestined “sheep” can hear and believe; others cannot.

Free-will response: Jesus speaks to those hardened by unbelief, not excluded by decree. The “sheep” are those who respond to His voice (v.27). Being a sheep results from hearing and believing, not the reverse. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” (John 1:12, NAS).

Acts 13:48 “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Determinist reading: You must be appointed to have eternal life, so that appointment is called “election” and happens before time. Belief comes after appointment.

Free-will response: The participle tetagmenoi translated here “were appointed to” can mean “disposed” or “set toward” eternal life, describing receptive hearts rather than divine decree (F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles, 269). Many lexicons (e.g., BDAG) and early commentators (Theophylact, Erasmus) favor “inclined” rather than “ordained” or “appointed.” Furthermore, a good judge does not “appoint” without good cause, and that cause was God’s foreknowledge that they would repent—that they would chose belief.

Romans 8:29–30 “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Rom. 8:30 NAS)

Determinist reading: This is the “golden chain” of causation. It goes from irresistible call to justification to glorification and implies fixed, unbreakable election.

Free-will response: This “chain” starts with Gods’ foreknowledge. The Greek word here is “proegnō” which means a relational foreknowledge[9]—God’s prior knowing of those who repent, accept His grace, and will love Him (see also 1 Pet 1:2). Thus yes, those He knew from the beginning, who are the reason He created (why create if no one will repent?), are called (and empowered by grace to repent), justified, and glorified. God’s predestining purpose is to conform believers to Christ’s image, not to exclude some people who have no chance to repent. The gospel is repeatedly offered to all humanity as in Acts 17:30, "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent” (NAS).

Proverbs 16:4 “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”

Determinist reading: God made the wicked as well as the good, and all are created/ordained by Him for His glory.

Free-will response: This refers to God’s ordering of moral consequence, not creation of wickedness. God uses evil choices for His justice but does not decree/ordain them. In James 1:13 we see God emphatically does not even TEMPT people. If He doesn’t do that, then He certainly doesn’t do evil or make people evil without any trace of His good image in them and thus also the possibility of choosing good instead. He allows evil but redeems it to His glory. The cross was the ultimate expression of evil and the ultimate expression of loving redemption. If nothing goes wrong because all is as God ordains it then the entire idea of “redemption” is a farce. However, God is so great He can turn our sin into His glory and use the wickedness He allows and even people who do evil to work for good for those who are called and who love him (see Rom. 8:28).

Isaiah 46:10 “My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”

Determinist reading: God declares He gets exactly what He wants accomplished. This suggests He ordains all things.

Free-will response: It is true that God gets exactly what He wants—but what He wants (His purpose) is humans with Free Will so they can learn to love and become His sons and daughters. A sovereign God can even decide to limit the expression of His sovereignty in this world to get the loving family He wants in the next. God’s sovereignty is not expressed here by coercive determinism but rather His redemptive plan includes genuine human choice, as seen in Isaiah’s broader theme of Israel’s calling and response (Isa 48:18). God frequently gives humans the choice to obey or not to obey. Nowhere in Scripture are we told God forces human will.

Determinism’s God is less glorious not more so than the God believed by the early Church. He would be uncapable of giving up His micro-management of the world and He must be made blind to His foreknowledge at the point of “election.” Furthermore, determinism frequently shirks all challenges as to “why” by saying because it was “God’s good pleasure.” How do Determinists know exactly what God’s good pleasure is? A coerced will cannot love and so is of lesser value. My child would far more desire a real puppy with limited free will than a perfect robot puppy that only did as it was told. God’s good pleasure is to give humans free choice that we may learn how to love and thus give Him (reflect back to Him) even more glory and pleasure.

Romans 11:7 “What then? That which Israel is seeking for, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened”

Determinist reading: “The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened” means God destined both the chosen to salvation and those chosen to perdition. No one can resist God’s action “hardening” a heart.

Free-will response: All of Israel was not saved because many thought they were saved by ethnicity or works rather than by faith. This is consistently Paul’s point in Romans. Those who were chosen obtained salvation—they were the ones God saw in eternity who would repent. The hardening that is mentioned is judicial—God gives people over to their own unbelief (Rom 1:24). It is conditional (they hardened their hearts first). It is not arbitrary or related to being “unelected” before time. Rom 11:23 proves this as it reads, “If they do not continue in unbelief, they will be grafted in again.”

Scripture speaks of God “hardening hearts,” yet this does not mean God injects evil, overrides freedom, or forces anyone into unbelief. Hardening is what happens when God continues to shine the same radiant holy-love on someone who persistently resists it. The problem lies not in the light but in the response. Divine goodness, refused over time, forms a shell of self-protection around the will.

The classic concrete metaphor makes this clear: the sun that melts wax also hardens clay. The sun does not change; the materials do. God’s unchanging love softens the receptive and solidifies the resistant—not by manipulation, but by the person’s freely maintained posture toward the same radiant presence.

Hardening, then, is not God taking away freedom. It is God honoring freedom so fully that a person can tragically become the kind of person they insist on being. God normally works to soften the heart and so delays judgement because He is loving the offender. When He allows the heart to go hard without intervening it is also out of love: it limits the time for the offender to do evil and serves to hasten action for the sake of the victim. When a person is fully committed to evil God acts in judgement.

2 Timothy 1:9 “Who has saved us… not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.”

Determinist reading: God gives grace and works to the elect, so His purpose was decided from all eternity. People are not saved by works or self-generated faith but only by God’s election.

Free-will response: Grace was eternally purposed in Christ, not individually dispensed before existence. God foreordained the gracious means of salvation, not the fixed identity of recipients. Election is a doctrine that pertains to the whole Church as a community—all those who repent and surrender to God’s prevenient (universal) grace are part of the elect. Paul is declaring that we are not saved by our own works but by God’s grace, and it was God’s purpose from eternity to send Christ Jesus to save us.

Philippians 2:13 “for It is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Determinist reading: God causes our will and does all the work for the sake of His good pleasure.

Free-will response: Paul speaks to believers cooperating with grace, not being puppets. God energizes willing hearts. The exhortation “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling;” (Phil. 2:12 NAS) immediately preceding this verse clearly presupposes voluntary participation. Using this verse out of context risks intentional misrepresentation.

1 Peter 2:8 “They stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.”

Determinist reading: People are appointed to salvation, or as the verse states, to be doomed.

Free-will response: The appointment concerns consequence, not cause. Those who reject Christ are appointed to stumble because of their disobedience—not disobedient because appointed.

Genesis 50:20 “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

Determinist reading: Even when we experience evil we can be confident that God caused it for good.

Free-will response: God’s foreknowledge allowed Him to use evil for good, not cause it. Divine providence can redeem human evil without negating moral agency—what C. S. Lewis called a chessmaster using the free moves of others.[10]

Matthew 11:27 “No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”

Determinist reading: God chooses some to salvation—people do not choose God. Only the power of Christ can overcome original sin and reveal God to the sinful hearts of men.

Free-will response: Jesus reveals the Father to those who humbly receive Him. Once again it is context that matters. The following verses say, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:28-29, NAS). Obviously this is an invitation – an appeal – to freely choose Christ. If we do, Jesus will reveal Him. The choice is moral and reciprocal: divine initiative meets human receptivity.

Revelation 13:8 “And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. (Rev. 13:8 NAS)

Determinist reading: If your name is written in the book of life it cannot be erased. God chooses who will be saved from the foundation of the world.

Free-will response: Greek syntax allows the clause “from the foundation of the world” to modify “the Lamb slain,” not “written.[11]” Thus, it refers to Christ’s eternal redemptive plan, not pre-temporal election of individuals. Furthermore, we know you can get “blotted out” or “erased” from the Book of Life as Rev. 3:5 says, “He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels” (NAS). This is just one of many warnings that Christians must persevere (rather than making perseverance a granted gift).

See also: Exodus 32:32–33, “But now, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book” and Psalm 69:28: “May they be blotted out of the book of life and may they not be recorded with the righteous.”

John 6:37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

Determinist use: The Father has already chosen a specific group of people (“all that the Father gives Me”) who will infallibly come to Christ—proof of unconditional election and irresistible grace.

Free-will reply: The giving here refers to believers—those who respond in faith. God “gives” to Christ those who believe (v. 40: “everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life”). The Father “gives” believers because they willingly receive the Son (see also John 17:6-8).

John 17:2, 6, 9 “You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life… I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world.”

Determinist use: “Given” means there is a fixed number of elect people entrusted by the Father to the Son. These were chosen before time.

Free-will reply: The “given” are those who responded to God’s call as just prior to this we read “They have kept Your word… they have believed” (vv. 6–8). God “gives” to the Son all who freely believe His word (cf. John 6:37, 40). The giving is relational, not deterministic. Once again, these verses must be taken out of context to be imbued with deterministic meaning.

John 15:16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit.”

Determinist use: Humans cannot choose God—God chooses us. This is a statement showing unconditional election.

Free-will reply: The context is the apostles’ commissioning, not eternal predestination. Jesus chose them for service and fruitfulness, not for exclusive salvation. Just prior in John 15:8 we are told the disciples give God glory and prove they are His disciples by bearing much fruit. Fruit clearly refers to works not salvation in this verse.

John 3:3–8 “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God… The wind blows where it wishes… so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Determinist use: This teaches monergism—God sovereignly regenerates without human cooperation. He chooses to select whom He will just like the wind blows where it will.

Free-will reply: The text describes the necessity of regeneration, not the mode. Later verses (3:14–18) clearly place the condition on belief—“whoever believes in Him shall not perish.” The Spirit’s work is mysterious and powerful, but not irresistible. We are born of the Spirit when God’s grace allows us to choose repentance and so we are born again.

John 8:47 “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

Determinist use: This shows only the elect can understand God’s words. Those “of God” are the elect, and those who are not elect cannot hear and have the gift of faith.

Free-will reply: “Of God” means those who align themselves with God’s truth and moral will. Jesus rebukes His listeners’ resistance, not their destiny. Seeing predestination here is eisegesis—reading into Scripture a former conviction. The listeners are “not of God” because of hardened unbelief. Just prior in John 5:40 we see, “You are unwilling to come to Me”. Human will resists God and so they cannot hear Him.

John 1:12–13 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God… who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Determinist use: Emphasizes that new birth is solely God’s work, not human decision.

Free-will reply: The verse distinguishes natural will or heritage from spiritual rebirth, not from free response. The “receiving” in verse 12 precedes regeneration—human faith is the condition for divine adoption. Because people repented, God’s power was applied and they were born of God.

 Ps. 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”

Determinist use: We are born with original sin—already deserving of Hell from the womb.

Free-will reply: Neither the Jews nor the early Christians interpreted this passage as meaning babies go to Hell or that humans are born with sin rather than being born with a nature that will sin. First, making doctrine out of a single Psalm is foolhardy and poor exegesis. This is how the Church justified persecuting Galileo due to Psalm 93:1 which states, "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved". Psalm 51 is filled with hyperbole as David expresses his anguish. David was not physically harmed yet he writes a few verses later “Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which Thou hast broken rejoice” (Ps. 51:8, NAS). He also says he only sinned against God, but we know he also sinned against Bathsheba and her husband. That should suffice to show this is hyperbole, but if people want another reason for David’s phrasing, it could be referring to how birth makes a mother unclean in Jewish law—we are all born through blood and thus unclean.

 Summary on Determinism

Many Christians have been helped by insights from Reformed thinkers. Their shared emphasis—that salvation does not rest on unstable human striving—is a real gift. It reminds us that God’s grace always comes first and that no one earns their way into God’s family. Free-will theologians, including Wesley and the broader Arminian tradition, have long affirmed the same: divine grace awakens, empowers, and sustains every genuine human response. In that sense, both sides desire to honor God’s initiative.

Determinist readings often arise from passages like Romans 9, Ephesians 1, and John 6. These texts rightly highlight God’s sovereign purpose in history. Yet the question is not whether God’s will prevails, which all Christians confess, but how God chooses to work in harmony with the freedom He lovingly gives His creatures.

The most life-giving way to interpret Scripture is to let the whole biblical portrait of God shape our reading of any single passage—especially the ones that are dense or complex. God is revealed as love (1 John 4:8). God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34–35; Romans 2:11). God desires all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:3–4). God takes no pleasure in anyone’s destruction (Ezekiel 33:11). God welcomes children with open arms (Matthew 19:14). God waits patiently for repentance (2 Peter 3:9). These clear declarations of God’s heart provide the luminous backdrop against which more difficult texts must be heard. They guide us toward a picture of the Father that looks like Jesus—self-giving, humble, and inviting.

When read in this fuller light, the main passages typically used to support TULIP need not be dismissed; they simply do not require the deterministic conclusions often drawn from them. Each has compelling, contextually grounded interpretations compatible with genuine human freedom and God’s holy love. The internal logic of classical Calvinism can be admirable in its consistency, yet systems can sometimes become so neat that they reshape Scripture to fit their contours rather than letting Scripture reshape the system.

The LUMEN approach is therefore not a rebuttal but an invitation: to read the whole Bible through the radiant goodness, truth, and love revealed in Christ, and to trust that God’s sovereignty operates not by overriding freedom but by sustaining a world in which love can be real.

References:

[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600), vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 23 (and then throughout his volumes).

[2] See N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (2013), and Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Letter to the Romans (2004).

[3] Stott, John R. W. The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World. The Bible Speaks Today series. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994 (or 2001 revised edition).

[4] Pharaoh’s hardening is judicial, not creative; God confirms the condition Pharaoh freely chose (Exod 8:15, 32; 9:34)

[5] For a more detailed analysis of all three chapters see Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (for Romans 9–11).

[6] Schreiner, Thomas R., Does Romans 9 Teach Individual Election unto Salvation? Some Exegetical and Theological Reflections, JETS 36/1 (1993): 25-40.

[7] See William Klein, The New Chosen People (2016).

[8] See Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (NICNT); BDAG 3 ed., 472

[9] Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (2018), on proegnō.

[10] In The Problem of Pain, Lewis uses a chess-board analogy: “In a game of chess you can make certain arbitrary concessions … But if you conceded everything that at any moment happened to suit him … then you could not have a game at all.”

[11] Aune, Revelation 6–16, WBC 52B, 1998, p. 738.