If God already knows everything that is going to happen, are our choices really free? Or are we simply carrying out a future that has already been determined for us?
This is one of the oldest questions in theology and philosophy. And while there are mysteries concerning God’s sovereignty and human freedom that our finite minds may never fully understand in this life, the Bible gives us good reason to affirm two important truths: God knows the future perfectly, and human beings make real choices for which God holds them responsible.
These truths are not contradictory. God’s knowledge of our future choices does not mean that He causes or forces those choices.
Let me explain.
1. God’s Foreknowledge Does Not Cause Our Choices
Knowing that something will happen is not the same thing as causing it to happen.
Suppose you somehow knew with absolute certainty that a friend was going to order a hamburger for lunch tomorrow. Your knowledge of his decision would not cause him to order the hamburger. He would still be the one making the choice.
Of course, the illustration has its limits. God is not merely an observer of history; He is its sovereign Lord. The point is simply that knowing a choice will occur is not the same thing as forcing someone to make that choice.
Our knowledge is nothing like God’s. We can make educated guesses about the future, but God knows the future perfectly. He declares:
“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done . . .” (Isaiah 46:9–10)
David likewise acknowledged God’s astonishing knowledge: “For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.” (Psalm 139:4)
God even knew all of David’s days before they occurred (Psalm 139:16).
But God’s knowing what we will choose does not mean His knowledge forces us to choose it. God knows what we will do because we will do it; we do not do it because God knows it.
His knowledge of our choices is perfect, but His knowledge should not be confused with causation.
2. Knowing a Choice in Advance Does Not Make It Involuntary
Sometimes people reason this way: If God already knows what I am going to do tomorrow, then I cannot do anything differently. Therefore, I am not really free.
But this confuses God’s perfect knowledge of an event with God forcing the event to occur.
The Bible consistently speaks of human beings as making meaningful choices. God told the Israelites: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
Joshua similarly told Israel: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” (Joshua 24:15)
Jesus told people, “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
Paul declared that God “commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).
And the final chapter of the Bible extends this invitation: “Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17)
Commands, warnings, invitations, promises, and judgments fill the pages of Scripture. God repeatedly calls people to respond to Him, and He holds them responsible for how they respond (Matthew 11:20–24; John 3:18–19; Romans 1:18–20).
God’s perfect knowledge of our decisions does not make those decisions meaningless or involuntary.
3. The Bible Affirms Both God’s Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
One of the clearest examples of these two truths appearing together concerns the crucifixion of Jesus. Peter told the people in Jerusalem that Jesus was delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23).
Yet in the very same sentence, Peter told his listeners, “you nailed [Him] to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. (Acts 2:23).
Notice both truths.
The crucifixion was not an accident that caught God by surprise. It occurred according to God’s sovereign plan and foreknowledge. Yet the people who participated in Jesus’ death were still morally responsible for what they did.
The early Christians made the same point in their prayer recorded in Acts 4. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel acted against Jesus, yet their actions also accomplished what God’s “hand and purpose predestined to occur” (Acts 4:27–28).
We see something similar in the life of Joseph. His brothers freely chose to sell him into slavery and intended evil against him. Years later Joseph told them: “You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)
Their actions were genuinely theirs. Their intentions were evil. They were responsible for what they did. Yet God was sovereignly at work through those same events to accomplish His good purposes.
The Bible presents God’s sovereignty and genuine human responsibility side by side without treating them as contradictory.
4. The Bible Treats Human Willingness—and Unwillingness—as Real
Jesus Himself spoke about people’s unwillingness to come to Him. He told the religious leaders: “You are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:40)
Later, grieving over Jerusalem, Jesus said: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37)
Jesus plainly attributes their rejection to their unwillingness.
Scripture repeatedly speaks this way. God calls people to turn from sin (Ezekiel 18:30–32), Jesus rebukes cities for refusing to repent despite the evidence they had witnessed (Matthew 11:20–24), and the apostles call people to repent and believe (Acts 2:38; 16:31; 17:30).
The Bible does not portray human beings as robots merely carrying out programming. It addresses us as moral creatures who make meaningful decisions and are accountable to God for those decisions.
5. God’s Knowledge Is Far Greater Than Ours
Part of our difficulty with this subject comes from trying to imagine God’s knowledge as though it were simply a larger version of our own.
It isn’t.
God not only knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen; Scripture indicates that He even knows what people would do under circumstances that never actually occur.
For example, when David learned that King Saul was coming to the city of Keilah, David asked God whether the citizens would surrender him to Saul. God answered that they would. David then left the city, so the surrender never occurred (1 Samuel 23:10–13).
Jesus said something similar about the ancient cities of Tyre and Sidon. He declared that if the miracles performed in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been performed there, “they would have repented long ago” (Matthew 11:21). He made a similar statement concerning Sodom (Matthew 11:23).
In other words, God’s knowledge extends beyond what will happen. He also perfectly knows what would happen under different circumstances.
This helps us understand how God can sovereignly accomplish His purposes while working through the real decisions of human beings. Nothing surprises Him. No human decision catches Him off guard. He knows every possible circumstance and every decision that would be made within it.
We may not understand precisely how God’s infinite knowledge and human freedom fit together, but God certainly does.
6. But Doesn’t the Bible Teach Predestination?
Yes. The Bible clearly teaches predestination, and Christians who believe in genuine human freedom should not shy away from the word. It is a biblical word.
Paul writes that believers are “predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29), and that God “predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself” (Ephesians 1:5; see also Ephesians 1:11).
The question, however, is not whether the Bible teaches predestination. It does. The question is what God has predestined and how His sovereign purposes relate to human choices.
Christians have disagreed about some of these matters for centuries. Some understand passages such as Romans 8–9 and Ephesians 1 as teaching that God sovereignly determines who will believe. Others understand election and predestination somewhat differently, emphasizing God’s foreknowledge and the repeated biblical invitations for people to repent and believe (Romans 8:29; 10:9–13; 1 Peter 1:1–2; Revelation 22:17).
Whatever position one takes in that larger theological discussion, the biblical teaching of predestination should not simply be equated with the idea that every human decision is caused or compelled by God. Scripture repeatedly holds people responsible for their choices, including sinful choices that God Himself condemns (Jeremiah 7:31; James 1:13–14).
The crucifixion again provides a helpful example. It occurred according to God’s predetermined plan, yet those who participated in it acted according to their own intentions and were held responsible for what they did (Acts 2:23; 4:27–28).
So we should affirm everything Scripture teaches about God’s sovereignty, election, and predestination without erasing what Scripture also teaches about human responsibility, meaningful choice, and the genuine call to repent and believe. We do not need to diminish one set of biblical truths in order to defend the other.
With all of this in mind, let’s return to the question we began with: Does God’s knowledge of the future mean that our choices aren’t really free?
No. Knowing what someone will choose is not the same as causing that person to choose it.
The Bible consistently affirms God’s complete knowledge and sovereign purposes while also treating human choices as meaningful and morally significant.
This is why Scripture can say that Jesus was crucified according to God’s predetermined plan and foreknowledge while simultaneously holding the people who crucified Him responsible (Acts 2:23). It is why Joseph could tell his brothers that they intended evil while God intended good through the very same event (Genesis 50:20).
And it is why the gospel can sincerely call people everywhere to respond to God:
• “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31)
• “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13)
• “Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17)
Our choices matter. God holds us accountable for them. And His perfect knowledge of those choices does not turn us into puppets or robots.
God knows what we will do because we will do it; we do not do it because God knows it.
God’s sovereignty, foreknowledge, and human responsibility are all taught in Scripture. We may not be able to explain every mystery surrounding how these truths fit together, but we need not conclude that they contradict one another. The difficulty lies not in any defect in God’s logic, but in the limitations of our own understanding.
God’s knowledge is infinite. Ours is not.
And the God who knows the end from the beginning still calls us to make real choices—to turn from sin, trust in Christ, follow Him, and live in obedience to His Word.
CHARLIE H. CAMPBELL
is the founder of ABR and the author of several books . . .
THEOLOGY & APOLOGETICS
• Evidence for the Bible: How Archaeology, Prophecy, and History Confirm the Word of God
• One-Minute Answers to Skeptics
• One-Minute Answers For World Religions and Cults
• One-Minute Answers About the End Times
• Evidence for God
• Evolution—Following the Evidence
• Archaeological Evidence for the Bible
• Jesus: Concise Answers to Skeptics' Objections
• If God is Loving, Why is there Evil and Suffering?
• Apologetics Quotes
• Islam: A Christian Perspective and Response
• Heaven: 10 Wonderful Truths About Our Eternal Home
• The End Times & Beyond: A Concise Chronological Overview of End-Time Bible Prophecies
• Teaching and Preaching God's Word
• Big Truths for Little Hearts
MILITARY, ESPIONAGE + ROMANCE THRILLERS
—with apologetics and the gospel woven in
• The Tehran Extraction
• Silent Night Siege
• The Spy in Dubai
• The Sky Between Us
• Saving Blake Dryden
• Mission to Mars
• Nighthawk: The Search for Everly Lark
• The Island and the Flame
• Love on the Run
• Beneath the Burning Sky
• The Spy and the Preacher
ROMANTIC COMEDIES
• Dating the President's Daughter
• Twenty Dates Later
• Twenty Dates, And I'm Doomed
For Teens/Young Adults
• Dakota Knox and the Archaeology Thief (Book 1)
• Dakota Knox: London, Love, and Terror (Book 2)
• Dakota Knox: Nightmare at the Museum (Book 3)
• Dakota Knox: Seconds to Meltdown (Book 4)
• Dakota Knox: The Spy Academy (Book 5)
• Saving Air Force One
• Staring Down Dragons
• Treachery
• Behind Enemy Lines
• The Howling Dawn
• The Spy in Waikiki
• The Da Vinci Heist (Finn Archer Adventures, Book 1)
• The Cyrus Secret (Finn Archer Adventures, Book 2)
For Middle Graders (ages 8–12)
• Hijack On Planet Draxen
• The Night Everything Changed (The Phoenix Time-Travel Chronicles, Book 1)
• The Day Hope Returned (The Phoenix Time-Travel Chronicles, Book 2)
• Saving A Pirate
For Younger Kids (ages 5–10)
• Big Truths for Little Hearts
• The Christmas Tree Thief
• Lost In The Jungle
• Dad, Does God Exist?
• Dad, Why Do We Believe the Bible?
PASTORS: WOULD YOU LIKE CHARLIE TO SPEAK AT YOUR CHURCH?
Charlie Campbell regularly speaks at churches throughout North America. If you're a pastor and would like him to speak at your church, please contact ABR here.
• Endorsements/Feedback
• Some churches where Charlie has taught
• Available topics
• Sample teaching below.