Faith is Man's Choice - NOT God's Gift.
by Jesse Morrell

Faith is not merely a passive state of the mind; it is an active state of the heart. Faith is not only the assent of the mind to the truths of the Gospel but faith also includes the consent of the will to the demands of the Gospel. Gordon C. Olson said, "Saving faith is not merely an intellectual state.....Saving faith is an act of the will in total commitment....Saving faith is always our own act...." Gordon C. Olson (The Truth Shall Set You Free, Published by BRCCD, p. 135-136) Faith is the hearts active embrace and compliance with the truth. Faith is deliberate. Believing is a deliberation of the heart, a personal volition of the will.

Some say that faith is a gift from God in such a way that it is not man's free choice. This would make God responsible for all of the unbelief of the world. Unbelief would not be man's fault because he doesn't have the ability to have faith. Augustine even admitted that God was responsible for the unbelief of the world because he believed that faith was God's gift, not man's choice. Augustine said, "Faith then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God's gift....this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given." Augustine (God's Strategy In Human History by Paul Marston and Roger Forster, p. 258) A. W. Pink said "faith is God's gift, and the purpose to give it only to some, involves the purpose not to give it to others. Without faith there is no salvation....hence if there were some of Adam's descendants to whom He purposes not to give faith, it must because He ordained that they should be damned." A. W. Pink (The Sovereignty of God, p. 101)

Calvinists use Eph. 2:8-9 to support their doctrine that faith is not man's choice but is rather God's gift. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." Referring to this passage, John Piper said, "Faith is a gift from God." John Piper (A Godward Life, Book Two pp.327-332) This verse however is not saying that faith is a gift and not of ourselves, but that salvation is a gift and not of ourselves. Salvation is not something that we earn by our works but something we receive by a living and obedient faith. Paul is saying that cannot boast since salvation is unmerited and undeserved; it is by grace. Even John Calvin did not interpret the "gift" of this passage as "faith" but as "salvation."  John Calvin (The Epistle to the Ephesians, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1965, p. 144)

God gives the gift of salvation to those who choose to believe. Salvation is God's gift but faith itself is our choice. God inspires faith within us by giving us all the reasons necessary to believe, and in this way he "helps" our "unbelief" (Mk. 9:24), but we ourselves must do the believing. He helps our unbelief but He does not irresistibly force us to believe. He presents the truth to our minds but we ourselves must yield to the truth and embrace it, we ourselves must choose to believe. The word "heart" in the Bible is commonly used as a metaphor to refer to a man's will. Heart is figurative or symbolic for the human will. And the Bible says it is with the heart that men believe. "If thou believest with all thine heart...." (Acts 8:37) and "....believe in thine heart....for with the heart man believeth..." (Rom. 10:9-10). Jesus commanded men not only to repent, but to "repent and believe" (Mk. 1:15). This means that believing is a person's choice just as repenting is a person's choice. A command is a declaration of what you should choose. Telling men to "repent and believe" is nonsense unless repenting and believing is their choice. Jesus charged his audience to "believe the works" that he performed so that they might believe in his relationship with the Father (Jn. 10:38; 14:11). Jesus told his hearers to ?believe on the light? or the illumination which he had given them (Jn. 12:36). Paul told the jailer in Philippi to "believe on the Lord Jesus" (Acts 16:31). All of these examples show that believing is man's choice and that it is within man's ability to believe. To speak to men in this way or manner takes for granted that faith is a choice. If faith was not their choice, or if they were not capable of believing, commanding them to believe would be nonsense. To tell a man to believe presupposes that faith is a choice which they are capable of making. Therefore it is contrary to sound hermeneutics to interpret Eph. 2:8-9 in such a way as to say that faith is not man's choice, since that would contradict other plain passages which teach that it is.

A. W. Tozer said, "The day when it is once more understood that God will not be responsible for our sin and unbelief will be a glad one for the Church of Christ. The realization that we are personally responsible for our individual sins may be a shock to our hearts, but it will clear the air and remove the uncertainty. Returning sinners waste their time begging God to perform the very acts He has sternly commanded them to do." A. W. Tozer (Paths To Power, Christian Publications, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania)

The Apostle Paul said, "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?" (Rom. 10:13-15). While it is God who presents the truths of the Gospel to sinners by sending them a preacher, they themselves must do the believing. Paul's whole line of reasoning, that man cannot believe the Gospel unless he first hears it, presupposes that faith is a man's choice to embrace the truth of the Gospel when it is encountered. The very reason that I travel the nation preaching the Gospel to sinners is because of my presupposition that they are capable of believing the Gospel. If man's faith was God's choice, instead of man's choice, it would make more sense to ask God to give them faith than to ask man to believe. But you never see anyone in the Bible asking God to give faith to others, but you see lots of examples of men in the Bible telling sinners to believe.

Unbelief also is a personal choice of the will. Unbelief is a sinners own fault. Unbelief is not merely a passive state of the mind; it is an active state of the heart. Unbelief is the hearts active rejection of the truth. The Bible tells us to "take heed" lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief...." (Heb. 3:12). "Take heed" implies choice and "evil heart of unbelief" means that unbelief is not merely of the mind but is of the will. Unbelief is described as being deliberate. "For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed..." (Matt. 13:15; Acts 28:27). This shows their personal and intentional choice. Their unbelief was volitional. Men purposely turn their ears away from the truth (Acts 7:57; 2 Tim. 4:4). Unbelief is the wills active state of suppressing the truth (Rom. 1:18). "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Heb. 3:15; 4:7). This command implies that a man chooses to harden his heart or not. We are also told that men refused to believe in Jesus Christ (Ps. 118:22; Matt. 21:42; Mk. 12:10; Lk. 20:17; 1 Pet. 2:7) Just as faithfulness is obedience, faithlessness is disobedience. The Scriptures even contrast disobedience with believing. "Unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner..." (1 Pet. 2:7). An unbelieving heart is the wills rejection of the truth that is revealed to the mind.

Jesus even rebuked men for not believing, which implies that it is their choice to believe or not. Jesus "upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not..." (Mk. 16:14). Jesus blamed them for their unbelief, which means that it was their own fault! If it was their own fault, it was their own choice! It is a self-evident truth that they could not be blamed if it was not their own fault or choice. "Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." (Luke 24:25). It would make no sense to rebuke men for not believing, unless faith and unbelief is their free choice. Their unbelief was their own deliberate choice, as implied in the rebuke "slow of heart to believe..." Jesus did not look at them in their unbelief and think, "poor men, God has not yet granted them the gift of faith." He knew that their unbelief was their own fault, not God's. We are told that Jesus "marveled because of their unbelief" (Mk. 6:6). If they were incapable of believing, or if God simply did not grant them faith, Jesus would not have marveled. There would be nothing to marvel at. Jesus marveled because they could have and should have believed, but they didn't. Jesus commanded "be not faithless, but believing" (Jn. 20:27). Therefore it is our choice to be faithless or believing.

The reason that men do not know God is not because they are ignorant of God. God has given all men knowledge of Himself. The Bible says that God "lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (Jn. 1:9). The word "lighteth" means that to "enlighten" and "illuminate" (Strong's definition in e-sword) We are also told, "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:19-20). All men are "without excuse" for not acknowledging and serving God because no man is without the knowledge of God. The reason that men do not know God is because they choose not to seek after God. Jesus said, "...seek and ye shall find..." (Matt. 7:7). Paul said, "That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." (Acts 17:27). The knowledge of God, and knowing God, is available to everyone. The problem is that "there is none that seeketh after God." (Rom. 3:11). Seeking is volition of the will. "And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee" (Isa. 64:7). God said that sinners "refuse to know me" (Jer. 9:6). Sinners choose not to know God. They purposely choose not to know Him.

We see in the Bible that God calls all men to believe the Gospel and He blames them if they do not. If faith was God's gift, not man's choice, then all men would believe and God would not blame men for their unbelief. To teach that faith is God's gift is to accuse God of being partial instead of benevolent, and of being a tyrant instead of a reasonable and just Ruler, since you would accuse Him of withholding faith from most men because He doesn't want them to be saved, and then He blames and punishes them for not believing. It would be the height of unreasonableness, injustice, and cruelty than to blame a man for that which was not his fault, or for that which he could not have avoided, and nothing could be conceived of as being more partial and unloving than to damn men that you could have saved.

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