What is the most important battle raging over today within Christianity? While many answers could be given, I would like to propose that the most important theological issue for a Christian is determined by whether they think God’s sovereignty or character is most important. Now, no Christian would deny God is not sovereign (e.g., 1 Chronicles 29:11-12), nor would any Christian deny God is not love (e.g., 1 John 4:16). The issue it seems is that whether consciously or subconsciously, some Christians have exalted one as more important than the other. Now at first, this may seem inconsequential, but there is a question I will now ask that will bring this issue into focus–for the answer to this question will invariably decide for you whether God’s sovereignty or character is most important. Here is the question:

Has God given true free will to His intelligent creatures?

If you answer, “No,” then the ultimate battle is over the sovereignty of God. Your ultimate evangelistic goal is to make people understand that they need to completely submit to God’s authority, regardless of His character, simply because He is God, and we are not.

If you answer, “Yes,” then the ultimate battle is over the character of God. Is God truly loving, just, and righteous?

The choice you make has significant implications for your theology downstream. To help make it clear, I have created a table that demonstrates the fruits of this choice. On the left column, you see some common (e.g., Evangelical) Christian beliefs. The middle column is how you relate to that belief if you believe there is NO true free will–that God as sovereign controls everything–including the choices we make. The right column is how you relate to that belief if you believe there IS true free will–that while God is sovereign He does not control our choices directly, but rather orchestrates the rest of creation (excluding rational, intelligent, conscious beings) to carry out His goals.

Common (e.g., Evangelical) Christian Beliefs	If You Believe: No Free Will	If You Believe: Free Will Exists
God’s sovereignty is more important than His character.	Exactly; I will obey God regardless of His character because He is in authority and I am not God.	This belief is problematic because I would not choose to worship and obey a God who is not loving and righteous.
God predestines which individuals are saved.	No problem; He is sovereign.	God is unfair, disregarding our desires.
An eternally burning hell torturing the unsaved is OK.	This just demonstrates God’s power & sovereignty.	God is not love, but a sadistic tyrant.
“Once saved, always saved.” It is not necessary for sinners on earth to confess & repent of their sins in order to be saved. In order for harmony to exist in Heaven, when you go to Heaven God changes you so you no longer want or can sin.	Saving you is God’s choice. The more you sin, the more it shows God’s grace. God removing your ability to sin once you get to Heaven is no problem.	God is forcing you, who chose to be in active rebellion against Him, to live forever with Him. Changing your thoughts & character without your consent violates free will & changes who you are as an individual; you become someone else.

As you can see from the table above, whether true free will exists affects the sustainability of various beliefs including predestination, an eternally burning hell, and salvation! The interesting thing, is that no one can prove that true free will exists or not–it is a belief–a theological presupposition if you will–that makes possible one of two very different Christian belief-systems. One of them involves a sovereign God who says He is love but hypocritically predestines some to be tormented eternally in hell, and you have no choice in the matter. The other view involves a sovereign God who equally is loving and righteous, and who has given His conscious creatures true freedom of choice to decide whether selfless love, the operating system of God and His government, is the best way to live. If there is no free choice, everyone is controlled by a God who relates with us as robots. This is obvious because one cannot have a real, loving relationship with a robot that is programmed to do whatever you command. More than that, a person lacking freedom of choice has no character. How could we be made in the image of God yet have no character? This is expressed more eloquently by A. T. Jones:

GOD is the Creator of all beings upon the earth. But it is not merely as the Creator that God reveals himself to us in his Word and in his works. In these he reveals to us his character. God might have made men . . . . merely for his own amusement, as boys make their play men of snow, or as dolls are made for the little girls. He might have made mere automatons,—that is, people who would have no will or choice of their own in anything that they did, but would act just as some power outside of themselves obliged them to. Some people wonder why the Lord did not make automatons who would have been compelled to do right, instead of men and women who have the power to choose to do right. . . . If we were automatons we would never have any character. If we only did what we could not help doing, we would have no credit, nor any blame, for doing it. We all like to have credit for doing well, and God means that we shall have credit for it. When we come to the end of this world, he is going to say, “Well done,” to everyone who has done well here in this life. It would only be ridiculous to say “Well done” to an automaton. So God gives us all freedom of choice, in order that we may have the credit of having done noble deeds of our own free will. God has a character, and his design is that the beings he has made in his own image, shall have a character. We would not be in God’s image if we had no character. What an honor it is that God has bestowed on us in making us in his own image! This is the highest proof that he does not mean us to be slaves. God’s character is love, and he wants men to have the same character that he has. Did you ever know any one of a very loving nature who did not want to be loved in return? This is the way it is with God. He is more loving than any of us, and he wants to be loved in return by all the human family. So he wants love to be our character, the same as it is his. But if we should do right only because we had to, there would be no love in that. . . . How perfect and how beautiful is God’s plan for the happiness not only of himself but of all his creatures!

A. T. Jones. “Why We Have Rights.” American Sentinel 12(35), Sept. 9, 1897, p. 557.

Friends, I believe God, as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, is the source and maintainer of our lives. I believe God is love, and that He desires a personal relationship with each one of us–one that will last forever! God has given us freedom of choice to choose whether we will follow His Law of Love (for they are one and the same) or deviate from God’s universal operating system on a selfish path of our own making. He respects our choices, and if we ultimately persist in rejecting His Way, we will reject the gift of eternal life with Him that He has made possible for us to have through the sacrifice and atonement of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Salvation is conditional upon our character (the sum total of our habits, which are formed based on the choices we make), but without God’s help we cannot form completely selflessly loving characters “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But there is a way, and that Way (John 14:6) is to repent (Acts 3:19), be justified (be forgiven and made righteous; Gal. 2:16-18; 1 John 1:9), and invite Christ to abide in us through His Spirit (Col. 1:27) and work out His righteousness (Rom. 3:22; Gal. 5:5; Phil. 3:9) through us, so that we may have His robe of righteousness by faith (Rev. 3:4-5, 18; Isa. 61:10; Zech. 3:1-7):

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine: no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” (John 15:1-11)

As long as we maintain our abiding connection with the True Vine, our salvation is secure, for it is the one who endureth to the end and overcomes the wicked one’s temptations who is saved (Mat. 10:22; 1 John 2:13-14, 24-29; Rev. 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7). How can we have assurance of salvation? The Apostle John describes how we can know:

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son [to be] the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:7-19)

To summarize, if we love each other, this is proof that God through His Spirit is living in us. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. If such is the case, one need not be afraid of the judgment, for perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment of sins we have committed, and this shows that God has not been abiding in us. Through repentance (confessing our sins to God and believing He has forgiven us and made us righteous), we can renew our cooperative connection with God, growing in grace and knowledge (2 Pet. 3:18) to more perfectly reflect the character of Christ (Eph. 4:15; 2 Thess. 2:13-17) and bear much fruit for His glory. We are not only rooted and built up in Christ, but also complete in Christ–if we are walking/abiding in Him:

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” (Colossians 2:6-10)

It is a sorry fact that many intelligent individuals have chosen to not believe in God, throwing the baby out with the bathwater of the repulsive doctrine of an eternally burning hell that God assigns people to. The concept of an eternally burning hell is only possible if one believes in an immortal soul and an unhappy dualism ontology. The latter comes from Greek philosophy (Socrates and Plato). Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 220 AD) was the first person to come up with the idea of an eternally burning hell, and this idea was then picked up by St. Augustine (354–430 AD) who forced the concept into Christianity. These teachings were not taught by Jesus or the Apostles, and have arguably come under the scope of the “philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world” the Apostle Paul warned about. If you want to learn more, a good Bible study on death, hell, and the soul can be found here.