Accounting for God's Sovereignty and Man's Free Will: Resolving Calvinism and Arminianism with a Third Scriptural Way

ARTICLE

Abstract

The historic debate between Calvinism and Arminianism has left the Church at a theological impasse regarding divine sovereignty and human responsibility. This paper proposes a Third Scriptural Way that moves beyond the traditional stalemate. By establishing the biblical principle of absolute individual responsibility (Ezekiel 18) as a representative hermeneutical lens, this model posits that God created humanity with Libertarian Free Will (LFW) as an essential component of the imago Dei.

This faculty, manifesting as a capacity for self-reliance, is inevitably misused by a created being to choose autonomy over dependence. This inaugural act of personal sin corrupts the individual's nature and results in a self-chosen bondage of the will, making divine regeneration an absolute necessity. This framework demonstrates how God's sovereign plan is perfectly fulfilled not in spite of human freedom, but through its certain outcome, logically necessitating the salvation of those incapable of moral choice and proving more biblically consistent than the traditional systems.

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Introduction: The Enduring Stalemate

1. The Gordian Knot of Theology: The tension between God's absolute sovereignty and meaningful human free will has defined centuries of debate.
2. The Two Dominant Camps:
   • Calvinism: Upholds divine sovereignty but struggles to provide a satisfying answer to charges of determinism and the problem of vicarious guilt (imputed Adamic sin).
   • Arminianism: Upholds human free will but struggles to reconcile with biblical texts on man's spiritual deadness and God's absolute foreordination.
3. The Need for a New Approach: Both systems appear to compromise a key aspect of biblical revelation to protect another. This suggests the need for a new synthesis that honors all biblical data without contradiction.
4. Thesis Statement: This paper will articulate a Third Scriptural Way, a reconstructed model wherein Libertarian Free Will—a component of the imago Dei—serves as the very mechanism through which God's sovereign purposes are realized. This model eliminates the problem of inherited guilt and grounds both divine justice and grace in a more rigorously logical and scriptural foundation.

I. The Hermeneutical Mandate: Testing Everything (1 Thess. 5:21)

1. The Principle of Discernment: Our method is not to defend a tradition but to obey the scriptural command to "test everything; hold fast what is good."
2. The Anchor of Justice: Ezekiel 18: This chapter is established as the model principle for understanding divine justice: condemnation is always personal and never vicarious ("The soul who sins shall die").
3. Re-examining the Evidence: All traditional proof-texts (e.g., Romans 5, Ephesians 2) will be interpreted through this lens of absolute individual responsibility.

II. The Third Way: A Reconstructed Model of Will and Sovereignty

A. The Nature of Created Will: Imago Dei and the Inevitability of Choice

• LFW as a Component of Imago Dei: God creates humanity in His image (imago Dei). A core component of this image is Libertarian Free Will (LFW), a created reflection of God's own perfect freedom, which manifests as a capacity for self-reliance. This is an essential, good, and necessary gift for a genuine relationship.
• The Metaphysical Law of Created Beings: A created being, possessing this tool of self-reliance (LFW), will, by its very nature as a creature (and not the uncreated Creator), inevitably misuse it by choosing autonomy (self-reliance apart from God) when presented with a definitive choice. The gift is good; its corruption into rebellion by a creature is certain.

B. The Fall: The Prototype, Not the Inheritance of Guilt

• Adam, created innocent, exercises his LFW to rebel. This act does two things:
  1. It corrupts his own moral nature.
  2. It introduces the "effects of the curse" (death, temptation, a fallen environment) into the world.
• We do not inherit Adam's legal guilt; we inherit the conditions in which we will face our own choice.

C. The Human Condition: The Universal and Personal Fall

• Every human is born innocent of nature (Deut. 1:39) but into the cursed environment.
• At the first point of moral awareness, every human uses their LFW to freely choose to rebel, thereby corrupting their own moral nature. We do not inherit a corrupt nature; we freely choose rebellion, which drives our moral corruption.
• This provides the most direct reading of Romans 5:12: "...death spread to all men because all sinned"—personally, individually, and freely.

D. The Self-Imposed Bondage of the Will

• The will uses its initial freedom to enslave itself.
• After this first, free act of sin, the now-corrupted nature dictates the will's desires. The will is still "free" to choose what it wants, but it now only wants what is contrary to God.

III. The Coherent Outcomes: Justice and Grace Perfected

A. A More Just Condemnation:

• God's condemnation is perfectly just because it is based exclusively on an individual's own free, inaugural act of rebellion and the subsequent sins that flow from their self-corrupted nature. The primary ethical objection to Calvinism is resolved.

B. A More Sovereign and Necessary Grace:

• Because the will is in a state of self-imposed bondage, salvation is humanly impossible.
• Regeneration by the Holy Spirit becomes an absolute necessity. The Spirit does not violate the will but liberates it by changing its desires.
• The regenerated person then uses their LFW to freely and joyfully choose the Christ they now desire. God's grace is thus both irresistible in its effect and freely received. The primary logical objection to Arminianism is resolved.

C. The Necessary Salvation of Infants and the Mentally Unable:

• This model provides the only logically necessary conclusion for their salvation.
• Since condemnation requires a conscious act of personal rebellion, those incapable of such an act cannot meet the condition for just condemnation.
• Therefore, the grace of Christ's atonement applies to them by default. This is supported by David's confidence (2 Sam. 12:23) and Christ's words (Matt. 19:14).

D. A Superior Christology:

• Christ stands as the unique exception to the "Metaphysical Law." As the perfect imago Dei, His human will (LFW) was the only one to perfectly wield the capacity for self-reliance in complete, voluntary dependence on the Father, proving His divine nature and unique qualification as Savior.

Conclusion: Beyond the Stalemate

1. A Coherent Whole: The Third Scriptural Way harmonizes divine sovereignty and human responsibility by demonstrating that the latter is the very mechanism for the former.
2. The Authority of Scripture: This framework was not reached by compromising with tradition, but by a rigorous application of scriptural principles. It stands not on the authority of a thinker, but on the claim that "Scripture is true" and therefore must be internally coherent.
3. The Final Synthesis: God, in His perfect wisdom, established a reality where humanity's free rejection of Him would create the necessary conditions for His even more glorious, free redemption of them, to the eternal glory of Jesus Christ.