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Election and Free Will

Do we truly choose to be saved, or does God make the choice for us?

Election
On the one hand are the Bible passages that deal with God's sovereignty. God is completely in control of His creation (including us). He holds creation together. He raises kings and nations. He exercises control in every aspect of our reality. We are told that He has even chosen who would be saved before He created the universe. This is the doctrine of Election: God elects or chooses those who will be saved.

Does that make me nothing more than a robot, helpless to decide whether or not I believe? Why should I bother sharing the Gospel with others if they have no freedom to accept it?

Free Will
On the other hand the Bible teaches Free Will: that we must choose how we will respond to God's offer of salvation. Commands to believe, to witness, to repent, etc. indicate that we are to obey and choose. Taken to the extreme, those taking this position have downplayed God's sovereignty. They have relegated God's choosing to a result of His knowing the future, seeing who would be saved, but not actually choosing those individuals.

At first glance, these teachings seem to be in direct opposition to each other. This has resulted in strong disagreement between various groups. Of course, taking either extreme results in difficulties explaining Biblical passages dealing with the other teaching.

The conflict and confusion stemming from these seemingly contradictory teachings is rooted in our human logic. We can't comprehend God's complete control coexisting with our free will. And yet the Bible clearly teaches both.

Now what?
In the book of Romans, Paul writes about both of these issues. He deals clearly with the fact that God has total control over everything. At the same time he has clearly explained the role of faith and belief over the first several chapters of this book. He further shares his burden for the nation of Israel that they need to submit themselves to the righteousness of God (11:3) Let's focus on his conclusion. He makes some critically important statements in Romans 11:33-34,36:

(33) O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (34) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?...(36) For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

God is not boxed in by our way of thinking or our limited perception. The ways, powers, workings, etc. of the infinite God are above our finite understanding.

As soon as we stop trying to force God into our limited way of thinking, we find the obvious, third option: there is no contradiction. This God teaches both Free Will and Election in His Word. Both Election and Free Will are involved in our salvation.

A simple way to summarize what is taking place is that God uses Free Will as the means to accomplish His sovereign will. Within our reality we truly have the freedom and responsibility to choose for ourselves. A difficult concept to imagine, but no more than other truths in this universe.

An example of a similar truth would be gravity and the laws of physics. God is in control of the physical universe, but has established these physical laws to make it all run. However, just because God uses gravity to keep us on the ground doesn't diminish the fact that He is still in control of the physical realm. In fact, without His keeping the physical laws in force, they would cease to exist.

God's control is at a level above our ability to imagine. But it is only reasonable that God (Who created all things and the laws that govern all things) is greater than His creation. It is clearly foolish to limit the Creator to the restrictions we experience as part of the Creation.

The combined truths of Election and Free Will are better than any teaching humans could concoct. We either come up with a God who plays unfairly or a God Who doesn't care. Thankfully, the real God has both chosen us and given us true freedom to believe.