This year at Spiritual Leadership Conference, Dr. Tobi England addressed one of the most important theological discussions of our day: free will and Calvinism. His session blended both truth and grace, tackling difficult questions with biblical clarity. This article is a condensed version of that session, you can listen to the full session here or access any session from SLC 2025. We're already looking forward to this year's conference, September 27-30th—register here.
If you've ever tried to sort through Calvinism, depravity, and the "regeneration before faith" debate, and you want a biblical way to think about it, this article will be a great help to you.
Three Starting Points
Before diving in, let me establish three things that matter for this conversation.
First, this is a Christians-with-Christians discussion. The conversation about Calvinism distinguishes Christians from other Christians, not believers from non-believers. Not everybody who disagrees with you is a heretic. There is such a thing as heresy, for instance if you deny the resurrection of Jesus, you need to get saved, but the Calvinism debate lives in the category of in-house theological disagreements. That being said, I do believe there are some errors in theology we can and need to correct, and I hope to address some of those today.
Second, theological errors often begin as imbalances. Many don't start by teaching something obviously false. They start by over-emphasizing one particular point in theology until it crushes the others. While we don't have unlimited space here, I want to be clear: we must affirm the sovereignty of God without reservation, without caveat, and with great clarity. God is sovereign, absolutely. God is fully unlimited in His power and complete in His authority. Yes, the sovereignty of God is relevant when we're discussing free will.
Third, we should judge positions by their best arguments, not their worst. Very few things can hurt a good position more than bad arguments for it. There are bad arguments against Calvinism, just as there are bad arguments for it. We're much more critical of somebody's reasons when their conclusions don't align with ours. I hope you'll join me in being thorough and thoughtful, because what we're addressing here is one of the central issues.
Where Scripture Starts: God Desires Salvation for All
First Timothy 2:4 says God "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." Scripture is clear, and repeats, that God desires the salvation of all men. A ministry focused on evangelism and soul-winning recognizes this instinctively: God's heart is for people to be saved. Jesus died for everyone. He died for the sins of the whole world. We're commanded to spread the gospel, and God's desire is for the salvation of the lost. It's not God's fault if the lost remain lost.
A Biblical Understanding of Free Will
What do we mean by free will? In general, it's the human capacity to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Scripture teaches that free will is part of God's creation.
But we need to define our terms carefully, because people use "free will" to mean very different things. Some define freedom like this: you're free to act according to your desires, but you're not free to choose your desires. That's not genuine free choice. If you could not have chosen otherwise because those desires were caused outside of yourself, then you have free will in label only.
What I'm arguing for (what I believe Scripture teaches) is that we genuinely have the ability to choose, and we are responsible for those choices. This is what theologians call a libertarian view of free will.
Where We See This in Scripture
Adam had a choice in the garden. Genesis 2:17 warns him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam wasn't destined or determined to sin, he deliberately chose to rebel against God. That's an important point, because if he didn't choose to disobey, then where's the fall? We find that Adam is blameworthy because of the choice he made.
We see it with Joshua, telling the people to "choose you this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15). We see it when Jesus looks over Jerusalem and says, "how often would I have gathered thy children together... and ye would not" (Matthew 23:37). We see it when Stephen says, "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost" (Acts 7:51).
Here's the principle underneath it all: culpability requires capability. If I'm culpable for something, that means I'm blameworthy. But I can't be blamed for something I had no capacity to do otherwise. You wouldn't blame me if you tripped over your own untied shoelace while I was unknowingly standing on it. Why? Because it wasn't intentional. It wasn't a choice I made.
Throughout Scripture, God holds us blameworthy for the choices He gives us. And culpability demands capability.
Romans 1:20 makes this explicit: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Notice that—the invisible things are not only seen, but understood. And it's that understanding that leads to accountability.
The Drawing of God Is Universal
Now, it's absolutely true that we need God active in our lives to be saved. God is the prime mover in salvation. That's not a Calvinist teaching, that's a biblical teaching. I'm not saved because I sought after God. I'm saved because God sought after me.
But here's where many jump the tracks theologically: the drawing of God, the moving of the Holy Spirit, that's a universal experience for all humans, not a selective one reserved for the elect.
John 12:32 says, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." Romans 1 speaks of general revelation - creation itself reveals God's eternal power and divine nature. Some people argue that dead men can't respond to truth, that there's no point in apologetics with unbelievers because they're spiritually dead. But Paul says even general revelation is understood by the unsaved world. That's why they are "without excuse."
We are hopeless without divine revelation and the moving of the Holy Spirit. But Scripture also teaches that all humans have access to both.
A Biblical Understanding of Depravity
Let's be equally clear: we believe the Bible teaches depravity. Romans 3: "There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." We're not only sinners because we sin and we sin because we're sinners. We have a sinful nature. Original sin is real. Read Romans 5.
But depravity is not the same as total inability. This is where so many philosophies (Calvinism and others) go off the rail.
Edwin Palmer, a Calvinist theologian, says this plainly: "Another way of describing total depravity is to call it total inability." I'm working hard not to create a straw man here, as you're going to hear from Spurgeon, Piper, Frame, Sproul, and others. But what we find is that total inability is not a scriptural teaching.
Depravity means I have a sin nature. Depravity means I'm guilty before God. Depravity means Adam's sin passed to all of us. But the Bible does not teach total inability.
The Jack-in-the-Box Illustration
Look again at Romans 1. Verse 18 says men "hold the truth in unrighteousness." What does it mean to "hold" the truth? It doesn't mean holding it like you hold a remote. The idea is to suppress or withhold it.
When my kids were little, we had one of those jack-in-the-box toys. You turn the crank, it plays the music, and then—pop!—the clown jumps out. My kids figured out they could put their hand on the lid and hold it down while they turned the crank. They liked the music, but they didn't want the jump. So they suppressed it. They kept it in.
That's what Paul is teaching. We withhold the truth. We suppress it. We reject it. But Scripture says God has made Himself so clear through creation that the invisible things are "clearly seen and understood, so that they are without excuse."
General revelation is sufficient to condemn, not to redeem. But it is enough to make man accountable.
Why Total Inability Leads to Determinism
Here's the pivot: total inability leads to determinism.
Determinism says it's already planned out. You can't change it. You're not really in charge of your own decisions. It's all scripted. You're just playing the part.
And determinism isn't an uncommon worldview. Multiple worldviews deny libertarian free will. I read a whole book by an atheist materialist who argued that every atheist ought to be a genuine determinist. Why? Because if everything is caused by what came before, and what came before goes outside your lifetime, you're not responsible for the chain of events that leads to your decisions. They're determined.
So determinism has more in common with Islam or atheistic materialism than it does with a biblical view of moral responsibility.
The Problem of Adam's Sin
Look at where the determinist system breaks down: Adam.
R.C. Sproul wrestles with this in his writing. He acknowledges that before someone can commit an act of sin, they must first have the desire to perform that act. Evil actions flow from evil desires. But Adam and Eve were not created fallen. They had no sin nature. They were good creatures with free will and yet they chose to sin.
Sproul's response? "Why? I don't know."
But I think we can know. We can know because the choice to sin is always something we're responsible for, because God holds us responsible, because we have moral free will. Why did Adam and Eve sin? Because they chose to. It's as simple as that. God didn't cause them to sin. God didn't force them. God didn't put them on a track where they could do nothing but sin.
When I was a kid, we had a slot-car race track. You'd squeeze the trigger to control the speed, but there was a pin on the bottom of the car that tracked a groove in the track. The kid driving the car wasn't choosing direction, only speed. The path was determined.
That's unlike a radio-controlled car today, where you can make it go right, left, forward, or back. The path isn't predetermined.
God hasn't predetermined everything that's going to happen. He's given us genuine free will.
Foreknowledge Isn't Causation
Now, some people get hung up here. Does God know all things future? Yes, He does. Every characteristic God has, He has to its fullest extent. God's knowledge is absolutely complete. God knows the future.
So here's the question: if God knows what you're going to choose for breakfast tomorrow, could you choose something different?
The honest answer is no, you couldn't choose differently than what God knows you're going to do.
But that doesn't undermine free will. God's foreknowledge doesn't cause us to lose our freedom.
Here's an example: if I offered my wife a choice between sushi and Mexican food, I'd bet my entire net worth on what she'd choose. She doesn't like raw fish. I know she'd pick Mexican. Does that mean she's not making the choice? Does my knowing ahead of time mean I forced her to choose Mexican food? Of course not. It's her choice, and my knowledge of what she would choose doesn't determine it.
The foreknowledge of God isn't something that removes our free will or our culpability.
Four Errors We Must Avoid
Let me wrap up by identifying four specific errors we need to avoid.
Error #1: Teaching That Salvation Precedes Faith
Some argue that first you get saved, and then you have faith. Faith isn't how you receive the gospel, it's evidence that God flipped the light switch at some point.
Boettner argues, "A man is not saved because he believes in Christ. He believes in Christ because he is saved." John Piper echoes this: "We do not think that faith precedes and causes new birth. Faith is evidence that God has begot us anew." R.C. Sproul goes even further: "The cardinal point of reformed theology is this maxim: regeneration precedes faith."
But we contrast that with what we see in Scripture. We're saved by grace through faith. John 11 says, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." John 3:16: "Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Galatians 3:26: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."
Our faith is the response we're required to give to the gospel in salvation. Even Charles Spurgeon said plainly, "We are all ready to set our seal to the clearest possible statement that men are saved by faith in Jesus Christ and saved the moment they believe."
Error #2: Treating Foreknowledge as Deterministic
We absolutely believe the full sovereignty and omniscience of God. But if you turn God's knowledge into God's causation, the implications are terrible. How do you counsel someone who's been abused or raped and say, "Well, God is the primary direct cause of that suffering in your life"?
A better biblical explanation is this: we live in a fallen world, and God overcomes evil through the cross. God didn't eliminate the possibility of sin by removing free will. God conquered the reality of suffering and evil through Christ.
Norman Geisler states it well: "If God is the cause of all human action, then humans are not really morally responsible."
Error #3: Denying the Universal Offer of Salvation
Second Peter 3:9 says God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." Acts 17:30 says God "commandeth all men every where to repent."
God died for and desires the salvation of all. Not everybody will be saved—but that's because of our free will, our depravity, our rebellion against God. Just like Adam and Eve chose to go against God's will, so those who reject the gospel choose to go against God's desire.
Error #4: Making God the Cause of Sin
Kenneth Keathley puts it bluntly: "If determinism is true, then God is the first cause of sin."
That's a terrible problem. And it's one we must avoid.
The Bottom Line
I want to close with a quote from Charles Spurgeon that I can fully agree with:
"If a man be saved, all honor is to be given to Christ. If a man be lost, all the blame is to be laid upon himself. You will find all true theology summed up in these two short sentences. Salvation is all of the grace of God. Damnation is all of the will of man."
Second Peter 3:9 remains clear: God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."
The idea that you have to embrace determinism to affirm God's sovereignty simply isn't biblical. We can (and must) affirm both the absolute sovereignty of God and the genuine moral responsibility of man. Scripture holds both in perfect balance, and so should we.
