Does the Fact that Man does not have Free Will make God Evil?
When God created Adam (Gen 1–2), He gave him a will in which the man would make decisions. Adam was innocent. He could choose good and evil. The test was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the Garden of Eden. Adam knew good, but he did not know evil. The promise of the serpent was that Adam would be like a god (Gen 3:5), if he disobeyed God and ate of the fruit. Having herself already eaten, the woman gave the fruit to the man and he ate (Gen 3).
The fall of man was the willful decision of the first man, Adam. As the federal head of humanity, Adam was the prophet, priest, and king of his offspring. He represented all people who were in him, before God, although everyone was seed at the time of his being expelled from Eden. All people, with the exception of Jesus Christ, have inherited Adam’s original sin and his sin nature (Rom 5:12–21).
Instead of becoming a god, like God, Adam and his posterity were now slaves to sin, Satan, and Satan’s world system (Jn 8:34; Rom 6:6, 16–20). Slaves do not have free will. Their will is to do their master’s bidding. Men love the darkness (Jn 3:19). It is natural for them to sin because of their sin nature (Eph 2:1–3). The practice of sin is an enjoyable exercise for children of Adam, who are children of the devil (1 Jn 3:10). They do the works of their father, the devil, who is the father of lies (Jn 8:44).
Satan lies to his subjects. He delights in confusing them. He has no compassion on them when he hurts them. He abuses his children in a myriad of ways. They learn to do evil from birth.
One way Satan deceives humanity, his slaves, is to tell them they have free will. Imagine telling the alcoholic, the cigarette smoker, the obese glutton, the pornographer, the workaholic, or the heroin addict, “You are free to leave your addiction anytime. You just have to use your free will and decide to do something else.” Wouldn’t we say that was cruel, considering what we know of the power of addiction?
So when a man tells you that you have free will, he is a liar. Autonomous free will is a myth because man’s will is influenced by the mind and the heart. The mind and the heart are influenced by outside ideas and forces. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one (1 Jn 5:19), and everything he orders is for your destruction. Evil is ever influencing the heart and mind, hence, the will.
The sinful flesh of man objects, “I have a brain. I am not stupid. I am no one’s slave. I am free to do as I choose.” This man is deceived and a fool. Satan may even suggest to this self-sufficient superman, “If God has not given you free will, then He is the author of sin and evil.” This is another lie from the wicked god of this world (2 Cor 4:4), whose business is to blind the minds of those who cannot see the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel is that God created all things, including man. He gave man free will and called it, “very good.” Did God know Adam and Eve would sin against Him? Of course, for He is omniscient (all-knowing) and has ordained all things that come to pass (Is 42:9; Jn 13:19). Then, why did God let Adam and Eve ruin themselves, using the free will He gave them?
First, God does all things for His glory. So when He ordered all things that would come to pass, He included the devil, sin, the fallen world, and fallen man. The lesson for man is to see the impossibility of life without God, as God. Man needs God, and he himself utterly fails as pseudo-god (Rom 3:10–12).
Second, the fall of man provides the perfect scenario where God displays His glorious attributes of justice, judgment, wrath, and the power to execute all things with perfect wisdom. Reprobate rebels, who hate God (Rom 1:30) and who suppress the truth of His very existence (Rom 1:18), will be resurrected to just judgment on the day of the Lord (Jn 5:28–29; 1 Cor 15), with the sentence of eternal punishment in fiery hell (Mt 25:46; Jude 1:7).
These are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction (Rom 9:22), who were appointed for this by their Creator (1 Pet 2:8), who has the sovereign right to do as He pleases, with what He has made (Ps 115:3; 135:6). The creature is never permitted to query the Creator, “Why did you make me this way (Rom 9:20)?”
Third, God displays His attributes of mercy and grace, when He saves His chosen people from their sins (Mt 1:21; 1 Pet 2:9). He gives His elect to His Son (Jn 6:37), Jesus, who redeemed them from slavery by His precious blood (1 Pet 1:19). These were spiritually dead (1 Cor 2:14; Eph 2:1–3), but God made them alive (Eph 2:5). God is glorified, having made them to be vessels of mercy, prepared for glory (Rom 9:23). They did not choose God, but He chose them and appointed them to eternal life in His Son (Acts 13:48).
God is not evil because man forfeited his endowment of will, given to Adam and Eve as a gift. It must be acknowledged that the forfeiture of the gift, by free will, was the loss of free will. Man’s will, then and now, is only to do evil all the time (Gen 6:5).
When Christ rescues His lost sheep (Jn 10), they do not return to the state of autonomous Adam. Rather, they are grafted into the True Vine (Jn 15), Jesus Christ, in order to have inseparable union with Christ (Rom 6:1–11), who has inseparable union with God the Father (Jn 10:30).
The born again are “in Christ” (Eph 2:5; 1 Pet 3:18), and they have Christ living in them (Col 1:27). They are called slaves of Christ (Eph 6:6), which means they are no more autonomous, as Christians, than they were as Satan’s slaves (Rom 6:6).
It was Jesus Christ’s will to do what was pleasing to God the Father (Jn 8:29), and with His Spirit living in us (Gal 2:20), it should be our will to do what is pleasing to Christ, our sovereign Head (2 Cor 5:9).
In conclusion, God is good all the time. He gave free will to Adam, who forfeited it. Instead of giving free will back to His redeemed people, for them to lose their salvation, He keeps it for Himself and accomplishes everything that concerns His beloved (Ps 57:2; 138:8), working everything for good, for those who love Him and who are called according to His eternal purpose (Rom 8:28; Eph 3:11).
Christian, give thanks to God that He did not give you free will. Instead, He has made you a beneficiary of His sovereign will, which gives you a sure hope and future because our God is forever good.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
August 24, 2022
