Matthew Coleman
May 25, 2021
Question #
14

How can God be all loving if he unites people against their will?

Question:

What happened to our free will? God would not be all loving if he made the souls that love their sin, unite with Him against their will.

Answer:

If all people choose to breath, is their free will somehow overridden?

If all people choose to eat when hungry, have they no free will?

If all people drink when they thirst, has their freedom of choice been removed?

God is not some cosmic sky ‘being’ that imposes his will like a tyrant—it’s Satan that does this.

God on the other hand is the very foundation of our ‘wills’, God sustains all that is within us, our souls, our reason, our intellect, and our very ability to will. Man can no more eternally say no to God anymore than a tree can eternally say no to sunlight, to water, to the soil it’s planted in. It is the freedom of a tree to grow heavenward, and it is the freedom of a man to grow into God, theosis.

If a man is still in sin, it is not because he is truly free, it is because he is enslaved to sin. Only the truth can set him free—it is the Truth Himself that can bestow a truly free will upon the slave of sin.

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:34-36

If all finally, rightfully, and freely choose Christ, it will not be because ‘Being Itself’ imposed Itself upon the ‘will of man’—but rather it will be because Christ the Truth has freed all enslaved men from their task masters, sin, death, and Satan.

“God would not be all loving if he made those souls unite with Him against their will.”

On the contrary, God could not be all loving if he allowed any ‘will’ to remain enslaved to sin. But Because God is Love itself, He frees all men in Truth. It is the Truth, in Love, that enables the will and restores the will to freedom, and thus gives men a truly free will.

“”Compulsion would be without value. But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another’s—not the Shadow’s. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!”

“That light shall not enter me: I hate it!—Begone, slave!”

“I am no slave, for I love that light, and will with the deeper will which created mine. There is no slave but the creature that wills against its creator. Who is a slave but her who cries, ‘I am free,’ yet cannot cease to exist!””

~ George MacDonald ‘Lilith’


“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Matthew Coleman

Matthew Coleman is co-founder of Mercy On All. He lives in Western Kentucky with his wife and two children. He loves reading science fiction, fantasy, and anything written by George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, or C.S. Lewis. By the way, Christianity is True.