Do we choose our beliefs?

Theology
21

Blindwatchmaker (sometime you will need to explain that handle to me)

After reading the insightful responses to your query, It feels like were getting close to an acceptable answer for you. Are we? @Johann’s scholarly explanation surely illuminates the intrinsic difficulty with the idea you have presented. The debate is as old as the Church (as @Johann has also pointed out). A neatly boxed and bowed solution eludes even the most erudite minds. He confesses:

Likewise @SincereSeeker has not let us stray from the path.
I hear your concern, as if you are saying:
We know if we claim “My faith came from my own will”, we dance dangerously close to some form of meritorious acceptance into The Kingdom, and if we say “my faith came solely from God”, we dance dangerously close to some robotic kind of irresistible grace; denying any real opportunity for our humanity and obedience to His invitation. This is why I suggest Faith is a unique kind of belief that defies easy definition.

“I say this because faith apparently implants itself into both realms of our experience; it bellows like a home-born resident of my personal will, while at the same time boasting of having come upon me unaware, a subconscious conclusion born from my experiences, and something inside of us knows neither voice tells the full story.” There are at least three caveats we must keep in mind as we ponder this gift of faith:

  1. All the world is undeserving of this gift, and moreover actually do not want it; the ideas of faith are summarily rejected, the implications of faith ridiculed. The whole world has experienced the blindness of self-importance. That self-importance makes us believe we can challenge God’s morality. God’s morality is not the same as your morality (Isaiah 55:8), God’s ways are above our ways, so we cannot hold God to our sense of righteousness. We learn rightweousnes from Him and what He does. He is not subject to our infantile ideas of rightnes.

  2. God did not gift faith to those in whom he saw great promise (Sorry Rick Warren), but rather those whom the world thinks less of, and this He did for His own supreme glory:

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe….
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. (1 Corinthians 1:21 & 27-29)

  1. Don’t worry. No one who does not receive this gift will complain. Prophecy reads like, through every revelation of Himself, men “did not repent of their evil, nor give God glory” (Rev 9:20,21, 16:9,11) It seems if you have the gift, you want the gift, if you don’t have it, you don’t want it and feel you can get along quite well without it.

My testimony may help. I grew up through adolescence in an unbelieving household. We didn’t “reject” God or religion, we didn’t think we were rejecting Him, but still never gave God much more than lip service. I did not want to believe in God, I had no inclination to believe in God. The idea of religion seemed like an unnecessary weight on my life. I wanted to trust in myself, and depend on myself for my needs and future enjoyment of my life. I was not seeking God; I did not need God for anything (in my mind). I had no concept of how God was already preparing the dead soil of my self-centered life for the implantation of His Holy Word. “But God!” God began a good (God) work in me. Not because I wanted it, or thought I needed it, but because He wanted it. I am now confident that He that began that work in me, will complete it… (Phil 1:6) Knowing He began the work in me generates thanksgiving back to Him; because He did it, He deserves the credit for it. It feels like He began it “so that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:15

One of the manifest, yet insidious, artifacts of “the fall” is man’s deepest desire for personal autonomy which carries with it a sense of moral superiority. Even some who consider themselves saved (and they probably are) think they allowed themselves to be convinced of the truth, some capitulated to persuasive apologetics, some think they deserved it somehow, some think trusting in God just made good sense to them, so they did it. But the common thing with them all is they believe they held the decision; they need to be the decider. The hardest thing for a man to relinquish is his deeply ingrained sense of autonomy. (Just my opinion, I’m open to correction),and it seems to be one of the last strongholds he repents of. I personally do not think God is even slightly challenged by a man’s futile need to hold on to some tiny vestige of their own self-determination. But, in my opinion, even autonomy will eventually lose its value, even that will fade and fall away in the emerging face of the magnificent Glory, the glory of the ever-gracious God of our own creation. The more intense the encounter with God, the less capable the individual feels, (“woe is me, I am disintegrated!” cried Isaiah) I understand, everything about my personal faith may feel completely like I made an intentional decision. I don’t think that is a problem. I remember making the decision. I remember walking the aisle. But, deep down, just like I know I didn’t choose to begin my physical life (I’m not even sure my parents did, honestly), so I’m not fighting the idea that I also didn’t choose my being born from above. I know now THAT was God’s choice, He did it as a demonstration of His great love and compassion, He made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear as only He could. Furthermore, He even wrote my name in His book before He even said “Let there be light!”.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, Ephesians 1:3-4

All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. Revelation 13:8-9
But there shall by no means enter it (the great city, the holy Jerusalem) anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Revelation 21:27

Much encouragement for your journey
KP

1 Like
22

@Blindwatchmaker something I have noticed–

But thanks for your thoughtful reply. I want to understand where you’re coming from, so let me reflect back what I’m hearing — and please correct me if I miss it.

You’ve openly identified as a doxastic involuntarist, meaning you believe that belief isn’t something we can choose directly — it happens when something becomes convincing to us, and that persuasion lies outside our control.

From there, you raise a moral concern: if salvation depends on belief, and belief isn’t volitional, then how can it be just to judge someone for unbelief?

But here’s what stands out most: you’re not really working within a biblical framework, even if you reference it.

You’re stepping outside of all three major theological traditions — Calvinism, Arminianism, and even Universalism — and evaluating them from a different mountain altogether: a philosophical one.

Your real question isn’t, “What has God revealed?” but “Would this make sense if I were judging it as a moral system?”

That’s a shift from exegesis to moral philosophy.

Your framework seems grounded more in post-Enlightenment rationalism than in the text of Scripture. You’re looking for a kind of justice that conforms to modern moral intuitions — fairness, equal access, non-punitive consequences — and you’re evaluating God’s dealings through that grid.

That’s not a bad question to ask, but it’s a different kind of question. It isn’t the question the biblical writers ask. When they wrestle with divine justice (like in Job, Habakkuk, Romans 9), they’re not trying to measure God by our standards — they’re trying to humble our standards before God.

So I’ll just ask gently: Are you willing to let Scripture define what justice is? Or are you committed to a view that God must be just only if He conforms to human categories of fairness?

Johann.

Because if it’s the latter, then we’re not just interpreting Scripture differently — we’re standing in entirely different starting points.

23

I agree with you Johann. Who would dare speak to (or of) God questioning His Righteousness?

To this point, I remembered Job (who seemd to have reason to complain) said:

Then Job answered the LORD and said:
“Behold, I am vile; What shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth.
Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.”
Job 40:3-5

What Isaiah said:

So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone! (disintegrated)
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts.”
Isaiah 6:5 (NKJV)

And also:

The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might;
They shall put their hand over their mouth;
Their ears shall be deaf.

They shall lick the dust like a serpent;
They shall crawl from their holes like snakes of the earth.
They shall be afraid of the LORD our God,
And shall fear because of You.

Who is a God like You,
Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?
He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He delights in mercy.
He will again have compassion on us,
And will subdue our iniquities.
You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:16-19

1 Like
24

Thank you @KPuff.

Stay rooted in Messiah.

Johann.

25

Thanks both for these thoughtful responses. I genuinely appreciate the engagement — and the sincerity and personal investment that’s clear in both of your posts.

Johann, you’ve correctly identified my position: I’m arguing that belief is not a voluntary act, but something that arises (or doesn’t) when we become convinced — something not under direct control. And yes, I’m asking whether it’s just to judge someone for a belief they couldn’t will into being.

You suggest I’m stepping outside the biblical framework and evaluating from a “Western philosophical” standpoint — judging God’s justice by human standards. But I’d argue that’s unavoidable. It’s not about preferring Western reason to Eastern paradox — it’s that calling anything just or loving requires some meaningful frame of reference. Even Scripture appeals to recognisable moral intuitions — crying out for mercy, fairness, righteousness. If we discard those categories entirely, then we’re no longer describing justice; we’re simply renaming power.

We’re told that God is just, good, and loving — and those words carry meaning because they connect with our moral understanding. The Bible doesn’t preface such claims with, “But not in any way you’d recognise.” So if those terms are meant to be emotionally resonant and morally compelling, they must retain some continuity with our sense of what they mean.

That’s the deeper tension I want to surface. You say God’s justice may not align with ours — that we must humble our standards before His. But if “justice,” “goodness,” and “love” don’t track with any humanly comprehensible meanings, then the terms collapse. They cease to describe moral qualities and become mere affirmations of divine prerogative. And you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “God is loving and just” in ways meant to move and reassure us — then, when the implications become troubling, retreat into “But those words don’t mean what you think.” That’s not a paradox. That’s a bait and switch.

Kpuff, I really appreciate your warmth and humility, and the way you’ve shared your own story. I resonate with what you said about faith feeling both received and chosen. I think there’s insight in that ambiguity. But even with all its nuance, the core question remains: Is it just to condemn someone eternally for lacking faith if that faith never came — despite openness, sincerity, and effort?

Because it happens. Many people have done all the “right” things — read the Scriptures, prayed, pleaded, surrounded themselves with believers — and still, belief didn’t come. They weren’t stubborn. They weren’t resisting. They were simply not convinced. That was me for many years. And just as you can’t force yourself to find a joke funny, you can’t force yourself to find a claim credible. Conviction either arises, or it doesn’t.

If faith is truly a gift, and its absence carries eternal consequences, then that raises a profound moral question — one no appeal to paradox can dismiss. Saying “no one wants the gift anyway” doesn’t work. Many do. Desperately. But it never came.

So yes, I’m raising a meta-level challenge. But I don’t think it’s peripheral. Because at some point, doctrines must answer not only to tradition or internal consistency — but to moral coherence. If a system punishes people for lacking what they could not choose and did not receive, we’re not describing justice. We’re just describing sovereignty divorced from goodness.

And that, I believe, deserves real wrestling — not reverent deferral.

26

The New Testament presents belief (πιστεύω, pisteuō, present active indicative 3rd person singular) not as an autonomous feat nor a coerced action, but as a response to revelation — a yielded trust arising when the heart is pierced by unveiled truth. As seen in John 3:16, πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν (“whoever believes in Him”), the verb πιστεύων denotes continuous, willing entrustment, not passive reception.

Romans 10:17 makes this even more explicit: ἡ πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς — “faith comes from hearing” — where ἀκοῆς is genitive singular of ἀκοή, meaning “hearing” or “message,” stressing that faith is awakened by an encounter with truth.

Yet this awakening is not unaided; it is drawn. John 6:44 says οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρὸς με ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ… ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν — “No one can come to Me unless the Father… draws him.” The verb ἑλκύσῃ is aorist active subjunctive, 3rd person singular of ἕλκω, meaning to draw or attract — used again in John 12:32, where Jesus says He will draw all to Himself.

This drawing is persuasive, not deterministic. It mirrors what Jeremiah 31:3 expresses in Hebrew: בְּאַהֲבַת עוֹלָם אֲהַבְתִּיךְ עַל־כֵּן מְשַׁכְתִּיךְ חָסֶד — “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” The verb מְשַׁכְתִּיךְ (m’shakhtikh) is Piel perfect 1cs of מָשַׁךְ, meaning “to draw out,” again showing that God’s initiative is loving, not forceful.

Where then does condemnation lie?

Scripture is clear: not on those who never heard, but on those who heard and rejected.

Romans 1:21 declares διότι γνόντες τὸν θεὸν, οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν — “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God.” The verb ἔγνωσαν (egnōsan) is aorist active indicative, 3rd plural of γινώσκω, “to know, to perceive.” This was not innocent ignorance but deliberate dismissal.

Romans 1:18 adds τῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων — “those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” where κατεχόντων is present active participle, genitive plural of κατέχω, “to hold down, restrain.” The Hebrew parallel in Proverbs 1:24 states: כִּי־קָרָאתִי וַתְּמָאֵנוּ — “Because I called and you refused.” The verb וַתְּמָאֵנוּ (vat’ma’ēnu) is Qal imperfect 2mp of מָאַס, meaning “to reject” or “to despise.” This is personal rejection, not passive nonbelief.

The moral weight of divine justice is not disconnected from human conscience.

Scripture assumes shared categories of justice. Genesis 18:25 has Abraham appeal to God: הֲשֹׁפֵט כָּל־הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט — “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The word מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) means “justice” or “judgment,” from שָׁפַט (shafat), “to judge.” This appeal presumes moral intelligibility. Romans 3:26 likewise affirms that God is both δίκαιος καὶ δικαιοῦντα — “just and the justifier,” where δίκαιος and δικαιοῦντα are respectively nominative masculine singular (adjective) and present active participle of δικαιόω (“to justify”), built on δικαιοσύνη (“righteousness”).

Divine justice is not brute force; it is righteous, coherent, and open to moral scrutiny.

Judgment thus falls on those who, having seen light, hardened themselves. Romans 2:5 describes this: κατὰ τὴν σκληρότητά σου… θησαυρίζεις σεαυτῷ ὀργήν — “because of your hardness… you are storing up wrath.”

The noun σκληρότης (sklērotēs) means “stubbornness,” and ties directly to the refusal of μετάνοια — “repentance,” a dative feminine singular of μετάνοια, from μετανοέω (“to change one’s mind”). Romans 2:4 shows that God’s kindness ἄγει εἰς μετάνοιαν — “leads you to repentance,” not forces belief but draws to a point of yielded change.

This yielding is not coerced belief but a surrendered recognition of truth.

Finally, divine love is not abstract or cryptic. It is demonstrated. Romans 5:8 says συνίστησιν δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην — “God demonstrates His own love,” where συνίστησιν is present active indicative 3rd singular of συνίστημι, “to exhibit, to establish.” The noun ἀγάπη (“love”) denotes covenantal, sacrificial benevolence. This is love seen, known, and morally discernible — not shrouded in inaccessible definitions.

Therefore, belief is not a power one flips on. It is the soul’s surrender to truth when it is pierced, unveiled, and invited.

Refusal is judged not because one lacked power, but because one rejected mercy.

This is not moral incoherence, but moral clarity rooted in the linguistic and ethical texture of the Scriptures themselves.

I believe @KPuff gave you a thoughtful response, brother. Wishing you safety and clarity on your journey.

Johann

27

Ahhh Blindwatchmaker

I surely get you, I understand what you are saying. I hear you when you say:

“We’re told that God is just, good, and loving — and those words carry meaning because they connect with our moral understanding. The Bible doesn’t preface such claims with, “But not in any way you’d recognize.” So if those terms are meant to be emotionally resonant and morally compelling, they must retain some continuity with our sense of what they mean.”

But it seems you are reacting with a too simplistic hyperbole defense. But to challenge your logic, just because God expresses some characteristic of His that we are familiar with, it doesn’t require that either God’s expression of that characteristic is EXACTLTY the same as ours, or else it must necessarily be NOTHING like ours. I agree with you that The Divine speaks of Himself in terms that we can relate to, (i.e justice, goodness, and love, etc.); God surely speaks to us in our language, but God’s expressions of those things are not EXACTLY like ours, neither are they NOTHING like ours, but, by His own testimony, they are HIGHER than ours. We are made in His image, not that we are EXACTLY like Him, but we embody His characteristics, but in a lower manner. It may be simpler to think of God’s Justice as being, to us, a superjustice, or His goodness being supergoodness, etc. We can understand what He is expressing, but only dimly, only partially veiled, not in His Full Glory We do no damage to the consistent message of The Bible to think this way.

The other highground you seem to retreat to is your idea:

“Is it just to condemn someone eternally for lacking faith if that faith never came — despite openness, sincerity, and effort?”

I really can’t address that directly because I don’t think anyone is “condemned eternally for lacking faith”, but for rejecting God. Your posit seems like a strawman, and I have no skill at struggling against straw. I really understand your contention that you have witnessed, and maybe even experienced what you say:

“Many people have done all the “right” things — read the Scriptures, prayed, pleaded, surrounded themselves with believers — and still, belief didn’t come.”

This is straw, because divine sources have never taught us that doing these “right things” would produce belief. Nor have we ever been taught that these things would move God to pity, and compel Him to do our will. That is our invention; our own sin maintaining its independence. The Kingdom of God is not comprised of the “independent”, but of the dependent! You will meet no saints in eternity who are there because they were clever enough to have struck a deal with God. (I know you know this)

You prophesied yourself,

“you can’t force yourself to find a joke funny, you can’t force yourself to find a claim credible.”

You said more than you may actually know.

“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6

This may sound counterintuitive, but it has been my experience (contrary to your own) that all who seek The Truth, I mean sincerely seek The Truth on His terms, find Him. Not that they can muster sincerity, but because the humble heart to seek The Truth is also a gift. That gift has already previously been installed into the rebellious stony heart, making it pliable, before it begins to manifest in visible actions.

“No one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Jesus draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day., John 6:44

"I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms; But they did not know that I healed them.
I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them. Hosea 11:3-4

You are seeking, so I assume you will find what you are looking for. I’m here to help (reassure). I know from experience your seeking will require a setting aside of yourself, a relinquishing of your strongholds, an intentional death, not because you are smart enough or sincere enought to do these things fromyour will, but because these things are how The Living-Loving God demonstrates that He is working in you. I love to watch God work.

We are all here with you.
Don’t give up

KP

28

Thanks, Johann — your response is learned, thoughtful, and clearly motivated by a sincere desire to be both biblically grounded and pastorally clear. I want to say from the outset that I appreciate that.

Much of what you’ve said affirms that belief is not self-generated. It’s a response to revelation, it’s drawn, it’s evoked by hearing, it arises from encounter — not coerced, but not purely willed either. And I agree with that. That’s precisely the point I’ve been making: belief is not something one can simply “decide” to have. It’s an involuntary outcome of becoming convinced — and conviction is not an act of will.

You say that the drawing is persuasive, not deterministic — and yet the implication remains that those who are drawn are ultimately moved to believe, while those who are not drawn, or not drawn effectively, remain unconvinced. And here is the problem that still stands: if God is the initiator of the drawing, and if He does not draw all equally or effectually, then some are left in unbelief through no fault of their own — and yet still face eternal condemnation for that unbelief.

You rightly emphasize that condemnation falls on those who reject the truth. But I have to ask: what about those who never found it persuasive? Who read, prayed, sought, opened themselves up — and still could not believe? I’ve spoken to many such people. I was one of them. They didn’t reject the truth. They simply didn’t see it as truth. The drawing never culminated in conviction.

This is the space where your linguistic precision doesn’t resolve the moral tension — it just reframes it. If belief is a yielded response to divine unveiling, and that unveiling does not occur for everyone, or not with equal clarity or persuasion, then we are still left with a system in which the eternal fate of human beings turns on something they could not ultimately control.

And that returns us to the moral question at the heart of this: can it ever be just to condemn someone for failing to receive something God chose not to give — or did not give in a way that made belief possible for them?

Appeals to the beauty and subtlety of divine love — and to the linguistic richness of scripture — are powerful and moving. But they don’t dissolve that basic dilemma. If the final explanation is, “They were judged because they rejected what they truly saw,” then my reply is: many never truly saw. Not because they closed their eyes, but because the light never broke through.

If God’s love and justice are morally discernible — as you say they are — then they must withstand moral scrutiny. And if we’re going to call Him “loving” and “just” in ways that resonate, then we can’t retreat to mystery when the implications start to strain coherence.

Again, I say this with respect. But I still find that the system you defend — however rooted in scripture and carefully parsed — leaves a troubling moral remainder: that salvation is offered to all, but belief is not equally enabled; and yet unbelief is still punished. That isn’t moral clarity. That’s divine selectivity cloaked in theological eloquence.

That’s where I remain… unconvinced.

29

KPuff,

Thank you. Your tone throughout has been so generous — and I genuinely feel your desire to reassure, not just persuade. I appreciate that more than I can say.

I hear your point that God’s attributes, while expressed in human terms, aren’t exact replicas of ours. They’re higher, fuller, richer. And I’m happy to grant that. But here’s where I struggle: if we say God’s justice is not exactly like ours, that’s one thing. But if we say it’s not even recognisably like ours — that when we call God just, we may mean something utterly unlike justice as we understand it — then I think we lose our footing.

Because we don’t treat other divine attributes that way. When we say God is loving, we assume that means something at least intelligible to us — that His love isn’t cruel or indifferent or sadistic, even if it’s more perfect than ours. But when challenged on the moral coherence of eternal judgment, some seem to shift gears and say, “Ah, but His justice isn’t what you think justice is.” That feels inconsistent. It undermines the very categories we use to speak meaningfully about God’s goodness.

As for the question of condemnation: I accept that you don’t see people being condemned merely for unbelief, but rather for rejecting God. But I’d ask you to consider this: what if the unbelief isn’t rooted in pride or rebellion? What if it’s simply a matter of not being convinced — not out of resistance, but out of honesty? What if a person opens themselves, seeks sincerely, does all the things you described — and belief still doesn’t come?

You say that those who truly seek, find — but that seeking heart, you argue, is itself a gift from God. And I think that’s the heart of it. If even the capacity to seek is granted to some but not to others, then again, we’re back to a system where what ultimately matters is not our choice, but what we were given — or not given.

And so I return to the same quiet question: If God withholds the gift, and the absence of that gift leads to loss, can we really call that just?

I’m not asking this as a provocation. I’m asking it because I’ve wrestled with it for years, and because I believe — as I think you do — that God’s goodness and justice should make sense. Not in full, not without mystery, but at least enough to be morally coherent. Otherwise, what are we really affirming?

Warmly,
BW

30

@Blindwatchmaker

You remain unconvinced — and I respect your honesty. But know this: Scripture never calls unbelief a mere failure to be persuaded. It calls it blindness (2 Cor_4:4), hardness (Heb_3:13), and suppression (Rom_1:18).

And when the Light — ὁ λόγος — shines (John 1:5), some behold and believe (John 1:12), while others “receive Him not” (John 1:11). That rejection is not innocent.

Brother, I don’t ask you to agree. But I do ask you to consider: perhaps the problem isn’t that God is unjust — but that we have redefined justice to mean what flatters man.

That’s not moral clarity. That’s anthropocentric selectivity cloaked in modern eloquence. Correct?

Let the Light shine on both of us.

Shalom to you and family.

Johann.

31

Peace to all,

In the context of spiritual discussions, a “soulish man” refers to someone who is dominated by their fleshly desires and the earthly world, rather than being guided by their spirit and God’s wisdom.

Peace to all,

To me the soul is created from the spirit through the soul for the flesh to manifest by the power of the spirit choice becoming.

Peace always,
Stephen

32

My Blind watchmaking friend.
I sure hear you when you say:

Sure, absolutely. I wouldn’t expect God to call a pig a petunia. I sure hope you didn’t read from me that anyway God describes himself is “not even recognisably like ours”. I definately never meant to imply that. In fact, I believe God is so knowledgable of how we think, he speaks to us in our personal language. When God speaks of His justice, I think He expects us to internalize that attribute in the highest form our minds can conceive of. Not unrecognizable, but what we know of Justice - PLUS!. Now we are back on solid footing; now we are not “undermining the very categories we use to speak meaningfully of God”

You said:

…what if the unbelief isn’t rooted in pride or rebellion? What if it’s simply a matter of not being convinced — not out of resistance, but out of honesty? What if a person opens themselves, seeks sincerely, does all the things you described — and belief still doesn’t come?

I’m not sure how to respond, since God says “unbelief is rooted in (a universal) pride and rebellion” and you say, " what if it isn’t? I’m going to go with the Word of God on this one. It sounds like saying “you say birds can fly, but what if they can’t?” I guess I don’t know.

Likewise, the speculation that a person might claim to be sincerely unconvinced, and that’s because God is not helping them to be convinced" slides into an area of which I have no expertise. Your “what-if” scenario assumes facts not in evidence; it assumes one can know with surity what is actually in someone elses heart, that one can even know what is in their own heart, and we with confidence believe they are accurately representing what is in their heart to us. Those are all in the realm of “unknowble” to us, so I have no expertise in confbulating about the unknowable. In Faith, I firmly belive that even though mankind looks carefully on the outward apearance, only God fully plumbs the depths of a man’s heart. If God says the heart is guilty, who am I to argue. If the Doctor says my heart is diseased, who am I to question him.

and so:

You would have standing in the eternal court if God were in the dock, and you had been wronged by him. You might have a case if God, as the defendant were as unsure of any persons innocense or guilt as we are. But He is not. Being God does give him an unfair advantage in court. God is never the defendant. God is THE righteous judge because God, and only God has all the evidence; God and only God only does right!

It may be time for you to concede your case, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.
(smile)

With you
KP

33

In the context of spiritual discussions, a “soulish man” refers to one governed by the natural mind — the ψυχή (psyche) — rather than the Spirit of God, perceiving only what belongs to the earthly and sensual realm, and unable to receive or discern the things of the Spirit.

Explanation:

The Greek ψυχικός comes from ψυχή, often translated “soul,” but in this context refers to the natural, unregenerate person who lives by human faculties alone.

Paul contrasts the ψυχικός ἄνθρωπος with the πνευματικός ἄνθρωπος (spiritual man) in 1 Corinthians 2:14–15.

1Co 2:14 But the natural [unbelieving] man does not accept the things [the teachings and revelations] of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness [absurd and illogical] to him; and he is incapable of understanding them, because they are spiritually discerned and appreciated, [and he is unqualified to judge spiritual matters].

natural man – The verse itself identifies him. A reference to a man who does not discern spiritual things.
NLTSB says “people who aren’t spiritual”, Unbelievers, whose minds are blinded, function in the natural world and see life only through physical eyes (see 2Co_4:4). They cannot appreciate the significance of the Good News, for it is essentially a spiritual message.

But the natural man – The NIV inserts “the man without the Spirit” for the Greek “the natural man” or “physical man”. In 1Co_2:12-13 the word “know” becomes “understand”, and erroneously teaching that we cannot understand the Scripture without the direct operation of the Spirit.

the natural man – Literally, “a natural man,” that is, a man who is not spiritual minded; one un-converted to Christ, one whose interests are confined to the things of this life.

Such a man depends on human wisdom for the solution of all his problems. He lives to please himself and to gratify the desires of the unconverted heart, hence is incapable of understanding and appreciating the things of God.
To him the plan of salvation, the wonderful revelation of God’s love, is folly. He cannot distinguish between worldly philosophy and spiritual truth.

no able to understand – Man cannot arrive at spiritual truth without being taught the gospel, Rom_10:17.

spiritually – One who has been taught the gospel of God and has received it into his heart by faith and obedience is spiritually-minded and looks at God and the world in a different light than the carnally-minded man.
.
discerned – . Gr. anakrinô, “to examine,” “to investigate,” here to arrive at truth after examination and judging. Compare the use of anakrinô in Luk_23:14; Act_4:9; 1Co_2:15; 1Co_10:25; etc.

This does not mean someone who is simply “fleshly” (which would be σαρκικός) but one whose reasoning is limited to the natural world and devoid of the Spirit’s illumination.

Johann.

1 Like
34

Johann,

Before engaging the substance of your reply, I want to name something that I think cuts deeper than doctrine.

There are few things more painful and dehumanizing than being told — implicitly or explicitly — that your most sincere convictions are not really sincere. That beneath the surface, your motives are corrupted, your heart is hard, or your soul is suppressing a truth you secretly know. It’s a uniquely stinging feeling — to speak from a place of honesty and authenticity, only to be told you’re somehow acting in bad faith. That kind of dismissal doesn’t just reject the argument; it invalidates the person. It says: You don’t even know your own heart. You think you’re being genuine, but you’re not.

And if the response is to shift that hardness into the subconscious — to say that I’m blind or resisting without even knowing it — then I have to ask: what does that actually mean in moral terms? How can someone be held eternally accountable for something they’re not even aware of? That’s not rebellion. That’s anatomy. You might as well condemn someone for their blood type or skin colour. If unbelief is the result of unconscious resistance, and that resistance is immune to sincere seeking, then any language of justice, choice, or condemnation begins to break down.

That’s the frame I’m working from. Not an attempt to flatter man, but to take seriously what moral responsibility actually requires.

You’ve drawn a line between unbelief and willful rejection, citing passages like 2 Corinthians 4:4 and Romans 1. But I’d suggest these are not psychological assessments so much as theological declarations. They assume what they need to prove — that unbelief stems from a culpable failure, rather than simply the absence of conviction. But not believing something is not, in itself, a moral act. It’s a condition. And many of us arrive at it not through rebellion, but through honest investigation.

Which is where the deeper tension lies. If God desires that none should perish, and if belief is a necessary condition for salvation, then surely those who sincerely seek — who open themselves, who read, who pray, who ask — should not be left without it. And yet, we both know people for whom belief simply never came, despite their desire for it. That is not suppression. That is the painful reality of being unconvinced.

And here’s where the language itself adds to the weight of that burden. In the Greek of the New Testament, the word apistos doesn’t just mean “unbelieving” — it also means “untrustworthy.” The linguistic overlap is revealing. It subtly but powerfully codes unbelief not as an intellectual position, but as a moral defect — a betrayal of trust, even a failure of loyalty. The result is that someone who sincerely cannot believe is still framed as faithless in character. Their epistemic state becomes a moral stain.

But if belief is not under our direct control — and if unbelief can arise from sincere inquiry and honest wrestling — then this conflation is both unjust and dehumanizing. It casts suspicion on the motives of the unconvinced, no matter how open-hearted or intellectually honest they may be.

To condemn someone for that — for failing to experience what only God can give — is not justice in any recognizable sense. It’s not the justice of Abraham’s question, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” It’s not the moral intelligibility assumed in Romans 3:26, where God is described as both just and the justifier. It’s sovereignty, yes — but it’s sovereignty without moral coherence.

And if we say God’s justice and love are utterly unlike our own, then those words lose their meaning. They become empty labels. They no longer function as moral categories — only as declarations of power. And power, however divine, is not the same as goodness.

I know we may never agree on this. But I want to say sincerely: I’m grateful for your tone, your depth, and your willingness to stay in the conversation. These are hard and important questions, and while we come at them differently, I respect the care you’ve shown in engaging them.

Warmest wishes to you and your family too.
BW

1 Like
35

KP — I genuinely appreciate your tone and the spirit in which you’re engaging. But I need to say this plainly: beneath the affable language, what you’re defending is a view that twists honest doubt into guilt, and paints the vulnerable as villains.

When someone says, “I sought, I prayed, I opened myself sincerely — and belief never came,” and the reply is, “Well, the Bible says the heart is proud and rebellious, so that must be what’s really going on,” that’s not just theologically rigid — it’s morally corrosive. It erases human testimony, invalidates honest self-reporting, and replaces lived experience with a presumption of guilt. It’s the spiritual equivalent of gaslighting.

Yes, I understand you’re appealing to divine omniscience — that God knows the heart better than we do. But let’s consider what that really implies. If someone can be unconvinced despite every effort — and if this is ascribed to a subconscious pride or rebellion they themselves can’t detect — then what kind of moral responsibility is that? You’re condemning someone not for what they chose, but for what God withheld — and then claiming their lack of belief is proof they never deserved it. It’s circular. And it’s cruel.

You say God’s justice isn’t unrecognizable, just higher. That might be fine — if it still resembled justice. But condemning someone for a heart condition they didn’t create, couldn’t detect, and couldn’t change unless God intervened — that’s not “justice plus.” It’s holiness used as a shield for cruelty.

And the pain of this isn’t theoretical. It’s personal. There’s a uniquely stinging kind of hurt that comes from being accused of bad faith when you are being as honest and open as you know how to be. To speak from the core of your sincerity and be told, “The Bible says you’re lying to yourself” — that’s not care. That’s spiritual violence. It treats authenticity as either self-deception or rebellion, and leaves no space for genuine, morally innocent unbelief.

I said before: if belief is a gift, and its absence leads to loss, then a moral accounting is required. Shrugging that off with, “God is the Judge, case closed,” doesn’t answer the question. It silences it. And if divine goodness and justice are to mean anything from our side of the veil, they must bear some continuity with our moral vocabulary. Otherwise, those words collapse into empty affirmations of power.

I know you mean well. I know your intent is to help. But the framework you’re offering isn’t healing — it’s alienating. And for those of us who have walked this path sincerely, with real moral effort, it doesn’t reveal a loving God. It reveals a system that justifies exclusion while pretending to offer grace.

As for throwing myself on the mercy of the court — I’d be more inclined to, if I believed the court were just.

Still here. Still listening. Still grateful for the conversation.

36

Shalom to you and family as well brother.

J.

1 Like
37

Blindwatchmaker

I surely hear you, I appreciate your candor, and I share the pain you are expressing. I think we would better understand each other face-to-face, over a cup of coffee.

Let’s look at what I was “trying” to say from a slightly different angle. I honestly thought you were asking generic questions and seeking generic answers; that is, questions and answers that apply to human beings in general. I was not speaking to you specifically, about your personal experiences and your personal struggle. I was speaking about the world in general. When I speak to a person directly, (not generically), when I strain to hear their personal struggles, and empathize with their personal agony, I speak in a more personal way, and listen for more personal clues to what it actually going on. Thanks for providing that.

When you say:

““I sought, I prayed, I opened myself sincerely — and belief never came,”

That’s personal. To you personally I might ask, by what evidence or metric did you decide “belief never came”? What were you expecting “belief” to look like, or feel like? How would you know if it came? Here’s why I ask.

When the writer to the Hebrews writes:

“… without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6

would you say that describes you? Surely you “believe that He is”, otherwise whom were you seeking, to whom were you praying, to whom were you opening your self up to sincerely”? No one does this kind of devotion to someone they don’t believe exists. Right?. If, in your seeking, praying, and opening, were you not expecting that He would reward you? I believe you were (are). I think that’s one reason you are here in this forum too.

When Jesus prayed to The Father:

… this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. John 17:3

What part of that do you feel is missing in your “belief”? Quite possible none of it. God knows, even if you don’t yet. What i’m trying to covey is the lost man does not do what you have done. Nobody seeks, prays to, or yields to the tooth fairy, and the reason they DON’T is because they don’t believe he “is”, they are sure the tooth fairy is a fairy tale. It seems to me if you did devote yourself to discovering the tooth fairy as you described, that would be strong evidence to me that you DO believe that the tooth fairy exists.

I’m not trying to put words into your mouth, but what would convince you that you actually do believe? Gideon thought he didn’t believe God, but he obviously did. Thomas thought he didn’t believe Jesus actually did what he said he would do (rise from the dead), but Jesus showed him. Maybe that’s where you are at; maybe you are waiting to be shown your own heart. I’m a little out of my bailiwick here, but I thought I might mention it to you for your consideration.

I’m curious, what would convince you that your pursuit of God is evidence of Him already pursuing you?

Much love and patience in Jesus
KP

1 Like
38

Nicely done brother, I can sense he is hurting.

The Hound Of Heaven
By Francis Thompson (1890)
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat—and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet—

‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,

Trellised with intertwining charities;

(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,

Yet was I sore adread

Lest having Him, I must have naught beside).

But, if one little casement parted wide,

The gust of His approach would clash it to.

Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.

Across the margent of the world I fled,

And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,

Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;

Fretted to dulcet jars

And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.

I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;

With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over

From this tremendous Lover—

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!

I tempted all His servitors, but to find

My own betrayal in their constancy,

In faith to Him their fickleness to me,

Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;

Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,

The long savannahs of the blue;

Or whether, Thunder-driven,

They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their

feet:—

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

Came on the following Feet,

And a Voice above their beat—

‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’

I sought no more that after which I strayed

In face of man or maid;

But still within the little children’s eyes

Seems something, something that replies;

They at least are for me, surely for me!

I turned me to them very wistfully;

But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair

With dawning answers there,

Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.

‘Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share

With me’ (said I) ‘your delicate fellowship;

Let me greet you lip to lip,

Let me twine with you caresses,

Wantoning

With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses,

Banqueting

With her in her wind-walled palace,

Underneath her azured daïs,

Quaffing, as your taintless way is,

From a chalice

Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’

So it was done:

I in their delicate fellowship was one—

Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies.

I knew all the swift importings

On the wilful face of skies;

I knew how the clouds arise

Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;

All that’s born or dies

Rose and drooped with; made them shapers

Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;

With them joyed and was bereaven.

I was heavy with the even,

When she lit her glimmering tapers

Round the day’s dead sanctities.

I laughed in the morning’s eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,

Heaven and I wept together,

And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;

Against the red throb of its sunset-heart

I laid my own to beat,

And share commingling heat;

But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s gray cheek.

For ah! we know not what each other says,

These things and I; in sound I speak—

Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;

Let her, if she would owe me,

Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me

The breasts o’ her tenderness:

Never did any milk of hers once bless

My thirsting mouth.

Nigh and nigh draws the chase,

With unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;

And past those noisèd Feet

A voice comes yet more fleet—

‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st

not Me.’

Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!

My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten me to my knee;

I am defenceless utterly.

I slept, methinks, and woke,

And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

In the rash lustihead of my young powers,

I shook the pillaring hours

And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,

I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years—

My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.

My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,

Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

Yea, faileth now even dream

The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;

Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist

I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,

Are yielding; cords of all too weak account

For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah! is Thy love indeed

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?

Ah! must—

Designer infinite!—

Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn

with it?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust;

And now my heart is as a broken fount,

Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever

From the dank thoughts that shiver

Upon the sighful branches of my mind.

Such is; what is to be?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?

I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;

Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds

From the hid battlements of Eternity;

Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then

Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.

But not ere him who summoneth

I first have seen, enwound

With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;

His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.

Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields

Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields

Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit

Comes on at hand the bruit;

That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:

‘And is thy earth so marred,

Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

Strange, piteous, futile thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),

‘And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited—

Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

Halts by me that footfall:

Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’

— Francis Thompson (1859–1907)

Johann.

1 Like
39

You say you’re not raising a moral objection to God—just to “the system.” But brother, don’t kid yourself: if your issue is with a sovereign God who chooses whom He saves, then your issue is with God. You’ve put on courtroom robes, declared divine election immoral, and handed Romans 9 a citation for contempt of man’s moral intuition.

But let’s scrape off the philosophy and drop it straight into Scripture, because your problem isn’t logical—it’s theological.

You keep using words like “capacity,” “ability,” and “moral coherence.” But the Bible doesn’t talk about sinners lacking capacity—it says we’re hostile to God (Rom. 8:7), not neutral. We don’t just lack belief—we reject God. Not passively. Willfully.

You ask how it’s just to condemn someone for what they can’t change. But sin isn’t some spiritual birth defect—it’s treason in the soul. No one goes to hell because they missed out on a heavenly lottery. They go because they loved their sin, hated the light, and refused to bow the knee (John 3:19–20).

You think inherited sin voids responsibility? Then take it up with David: “Surely I was sinful at birth” (Ps. 51:5). Or Paul: “In Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22). Adam fell, and we all fell with him. That’s not unfair—that’s federal headship. If that makes you bristle, maybe the real issue is that you don’t like that God plays by His rules instead of yours.

You say Romans 9 doesn’t solve the tension—it silences the question. Exactly. Because when the clay starts accusing the Potter of injustice, Paul doesn’t explain—he rebukes. Why? Because the very question presumes God needs our moral approval to be righteous. He doesn’t.

You want goodness to be defined by moral coherence. But whose standard are you using? God is the standard. His character is the definition of good. If something seems off, the problem isn’t with the righteousness of God—it’s with the unrighteousness of your assumptions.

Let’s land this hard: If justice requires giving everyone the same chance, then the cross makes no sense. The scandal of the Gospel is not that some are passed over. It’s that any rebel gets mercy at all—at the cost of God’s own blood.

God doesn’t owe us grace. He doesn’t owe us explanation. He doesn’t owe us fairness as you define it. He owes justice. And you either get it at the cross—or you get it in hell.

But don’t say He didn’t offer life. You just didn’t want it.

—Sincere Seeker. Scripturally savage. Here for the Truth.

40

KP and Sincere,
Thanks to both of you for your replies — very different in tone, but united by a shared commitment to your faith and a desire to speak truth as you see it. I want to acknowledge that sincerely. KP, I appreciate your kindness and care. SincereSeeker, I recognize your passion and conviction.

But I need to respond plainly.

At the heart of this conversation is a simple and profoundly human question: Is it just to condemn someone for unbelief if that belief never came — not from resistance, but from sincere seeking met with silence?

KP, your reply seemed to suggest I might actually believe — without knowing it — and that my seeking was itself a kind of faith. I hear the generosity in that. But it misses something fundamental: I was not seeking a God I believed in. I was hoping to believe. I was told that belief might come if I prayed, surrendered, opened myself. I did all of that — many years ago now, at a time in life when I was struggling and longed to feel part of the fellowship of believers around me. I waited. And nothing came. Not because I was defiant — but because I remained unconvinced. I had the door wide open, and no one walked through.

To call that rebellion — to suggest, as SincereSeeker does, that it amounts to “treason in the soul” — is to recast honest doubt as moral failure. And that’s what I find both unjust and deeply troubling.

I want to be clear that I’m not speaking today from a place of pain. My own search has long since settled, and I’m at peace. But I still remember what that search felt like. And I continue to care deeply for those who are still in it — those who are told, in effect, that the harder they try to believe and fail, the more blame they must bear. That is a cruel burden to place on people who are already seeking with sincerity and vulnerability.

When someone says, “You didn’t want the truth,” or “You hated the light,” they’re not engaging with the person in front of them. They’re projecting a theology onto that person — one that leaves no room for sincerity, no category for moral innocence in unbelief, no acknowledgment that disbelief can stem from integrity rather than depravity.

Let’s talk about Romans 9. It’s a hard chapter, I know. But when it says “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” — we must ask: is this a legitimate appeal to divine mystery, or a silencing move? Because if “justice” just means whatever God does, regardless of how it would be judged by any moral standard we’d apply to anyone else, then the word justice loses all meaning. We’re not describing a moral attribute anymore. We’re just asserting power.

SincereSeeker, you say I’ve “put on courtroom robes” and “handed Romans 9 a citation for contempt of man’s moral intuition.” I’d suggest instead that I’m doing what Abraham did in Genesis 18: asking, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” That question doesn’t dishonor God. It honors Him by assuming that righteousness, justice, and goodness have meaning — even from our side of the veil.

And this is where I think the real tension lies. You want to say that God defines goodness — that whatever He does isgood by definition. But if that includes creating people who cannot believe unless He chooses to give them faith — and then punishing them eternally for lacking it — then we’ve turned morality into might. We’ve made “justice” indistinguishable from authoritarianism. That’s not virtue. That’s sovereignty dressed in moral language.

You say God doesn’t owe us grace, and I agree. But if we’re talking about justice — not grace — then the terms change. Justice involves fair judgment. And to judge someone for something they could not control — whether that’s inherited sin, a lack of spiritual conviction, or a heart God chose not to draw — is not justice. It’s a system rigged to blame the broken.

And perhaps most painfully — it erases people’s stories. When you hear someone say, “I wanted to believe. I tried. I begged. And belief never came,” and you reply, “You didn’t really want it” — that’s not truth-telling. That’s a refusal to listen.

If your theology demands that all doubt must be rebellion, and all unbelief must be pride, then there’s no space left for honesty. No space for those of us who have walked this path sincerely, humbly, and without guile — and found, in the end, that we simply were not persuaded.

I know that doesn’t fit the script you’ve been handed. But it is the truth — and I believe that truth still matters.

With respect,

BW