I. Introduction: The Mystery at the Heart of Divine and Human Agency
Few subjects have provoked greater controversy in theology than the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human will. It is a question that has occupied philosophers, divided denominations, and humbled saints: How can God be absolutely sovereign over all things, and yet human beings act freely and be held morally responsible?
The apostle Paul provides, in passing, a profound glimpse of the answer in 2 Corinthians 8:16–17:
“But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you. For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest he is going to you of his own accord.” (ESV)
In these two sentences, Paul compresses the entire mystery of grace and freedom: God acts first-He puts into Titus’s heart the same care that Paul feels. Titus responds-He goes of his own accord. The text refuses to let us choose between divine sovereignty and human willing. God initiates; man responds freely. The paradox stands, not as a puzzle to be solved but as a window into the nature of divine–human cooperation.
This essay will explore how Scripture sustains this tension, how philosophy has distorted it, and how the Christian vision of freedom differs from every worldly notion of autonomy.
II. The Common Misconception: God as a Being within the System
The most basic error in understanding divine freedom arises when people imagine God as one being among others-simply the most powerful entity in the universe. In this view, divine and human wills share the same stage and therefore compete for control of the same events. The more God acts, the less man seems to.
This conception collapses the Creator–creature distinction, the very line that defines biblical reality. Peter Jones calls this worldview One-ism-the idea that everything, divine and human alike, belongs to one great continuum of being, an “ocean of being.” In this ocean, God is imagined as the largest whale surrounded by smaller fish. His strength would necessarily crowd out theirs; His will would nullify their freedom.
But the God of Scripture is not the biggest creature in the ocean; He is the Creator of the ocean itself. His being is of another kind altogether. To confuse the two orders-divine and created-is to commit the oldest theological error in history: the sin of making God in our own image.
III. The Zeus and Prometheus Analogy: Freedom as Competition
This mistaken view of God can be illustrated by an ancient myth. Imagine Zeus upon Mount Olympus, thundering his commands. Below him stands Prometheus, the rebellious Titan who dares to defy the ruler of the gods. Zeus’s power operates on the same plane as Prometheus’s will; the more Zeus exerts his force, the less freedom Prometheus retains. Zeus’s freedom displaces Prometheus’s.
Such is the pagan vision of divine sovereignty-freedom as domination. The might of the stronger robs the weaker of his agency. If we project this image onto the Christian God, we create a tyrannical deity, a cosmic Zeus whose sovereignty obliterates human liberty.
But the Bible insists that God is not within the system at all. He is not one billiard ball knocking another. He is the foundation of the table, the cue, the energy, and even the laws of motion themselves. His freedom does not suppress creaturely freedom but sustains it. Without Him, we would not act at all.
IV. Two-ism: The Creator–Creature Distinction Restored
In Peter Jones’s Two-ism, reality is divided between Creator and creation-two fundamentally distinct orders of being. God alone is self-existent, eternal, and absolute; creation is derivative, contingent, and dependent.
This distinction is not a barrier but a relationship. The Creator sustains the creature’s being at every moment. When God acts, He does not intrude into the world like an external cause; He moves all things from within as the ground of their existence.
Acts 17:28 captures this perfectly: “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Understood this way, divine sovereignty and human willing are not rivals but harmonious levels of causation. God is the First Cause; man is a real secondary cause. God’s sovereignty is not a zero-sum game; it is the condition that makes all creaturely action possible.
Thus, when Paul says that God put into Titus’s heart the desire to serve, he is not describing coercion but creation. God’s grace enables Titus’s love. The more God acts, the more alive Titus becomes.
V. False Freedom vs. True Freedom
To grasp this, we must distinguish false freedom from true freedom.
In Paradise Lost, Satan declares, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” He defines freedom as autonomy-the right to do as he pleases. But the result of his rebellion is isolation, misery, and slavery to pride. Milton’s Satan embodies the tragic irony of the fallen will: his quest for independence destroys the very capacity to love.
By contrast, Psalm 84:10 proclaims: “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
The psalmist finds freedom in service. He is not diminished by obedience but exalted through it. To serve God is to live in harmony with one’s created purpose.
Here lies the heart of biblical liberty: Freedom is not the power to do whatever we wish but the ability to desire and to do what is right. The will liberated by grace is not neutral or autonomous but aligned with divine goodness. Only in union with God’s will can man be truly free.
VI. The Illusion of Neutral Freedom: Sproul’s Analogy
R.C. Sproul, in Chosen by God, demolishes the myth of “neutral” freedom-the idea that the will can choose without any governing motive or inclination.
He imagines a donkey placed perfectly between two identical piles of hay. Unable to prefer one over the other, it starves to death. This is absurd, yet it mirrors the concept of a will without bias. The will cannot choose in a vacuum; it always moves toward what the heart most desires.
Sproul also invokes Alice in Wonderland, where Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which road she should take. “That depends,” the Cat replies, “on where you want to go.” If she doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter which way she walks. Choice is meaningless without direction.
The biblical view agrees: the heart governs the will. “Out of the heart flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Our choices reveal our nature. Thus, a fallen heart inevitably chooses sin; a renewed heart delights in righteousness. Freedom lies not in indifference but in transformation.
VII. Jonathan Edwards and the Renewal of the Will
No one articulated this truth more powerfully than Jonathan Edwards in his 1754 classic, Freedom of the Will. Edwards defined the will as “that by which the mind chooses.” He argued that every act of choice follows the strongest motive presented to the understanding-and that motive arises from the disposition of the heart.
Hence, to be “free” is not to act contrary to one’s nature but to act in accordance with it. A corrupt nature produces corrupt choices; a regenerate nature produces godly ones.
This is precisely what Paul describes in Titus’s case: “God put into his heart…” The new desire was implanted by grace. God’s work did not override Titus’s will but recreated it.
Edwards wrote, “The will always is as the greatest apparent good is.” When God changes the heart, He changes what appears good-and thereby liberates the will.
The sinner in bondage cannot choose holiness because he loves darkness. The saint, renewed by the Spirit, freely loves the light. Grace does not chain the will; it heals it.
VIII. The Puppet Master Rejected: Divine Causation as Empowerment
One of the most persistent caricatures of divine sovereignty is the puppet master image. If God determines human choices, are we not merely puppets on strings?
The answer is no-because personhood is not mechanical. A puppet has no consciousness or moral responsibility. But humans are made in God’s image: rational, moral, and free.
When Scripture says, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), it describes empowerment, not manipulation. God’s sovereignty operates at a deeper level than physical causation. He moves the will from within, by transforming desire, not by bypassing it.
The puppet analogy fails because it imagines God as one agent among others in a causal chain, rather than the author of the whole play. The human actor performs his role freely, yet the story unfolds precisely as the Author intends. Divine sovereignty does not eliminate moral significance; it guarantees it.
IX. Exposition of 2 Corinthians 8:16–17
Let us return to Paul’s text.
“Thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same earnest care I have for you.” The verb didōmi (“put into”) carries the sense of placing, granting, or bestowing. Paul credits God with initiating Titus’s affection. It is the language of divine implantation, reminiscent of Ezekiel 36:26–27-“I will give you a new heart… and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
Then Paul adds, “For he not only accepted our appeal, but being himself very earnest, he is going to you of his own accord.” The Greek word authairetos (literally “self-chosen”) emphasizes voluntary action.
Thus, in one breath Paul attributes Titus’s zeal to God’s sovereign work and in the next celebrates Titus’s voluntary obedience. The grammar of grace unites divine causality and human freedom: what God ordains, the believer desires.
This is the living out of Philippians 2:12–13-“Work out your salvation… for God works in you.” God’s work and ours are not sequential but simultaneous. His sovereignty energizes our freedom.
X. The Logic of Paradox: Harmony, Not Contradiction
Reason protests that if God determines all things, man cannot be free; and if man is free, God cannot determine all things. But this is a false dilemma created by the limits of creaturely understanding.
From eternity, God’s comprehensive providence encompasses both the ends and the means-including the willing choices of His creatures.
In the author’s metaphor, God writes the play, and each actor plays its part freely. Put another way, the violinist’s bow is his own, yet the melody is the composer’s. Human freedom operates within the field of divine intention; the two do not cancel but complete one another.
This is the logic of paradox-not contradiction, but complementarity. The mystery does not weaken faith; it deepens awe. What human reason cannot reconcile, worship can adore.
XI. The Biblical Pattern: Sovereignty and Responsibility Intertwined
From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture intertwines divine sovereignty with human responsibility:
Genesis 50:20: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Human intent and divine purpose converge in a single act.
Exodus 9:12 / 10:1: Pharaoh hardens his heart, and God hardens it-both active, both true.
Isaiah 10:5–7: Assyria, moved by pride, becomes the rod of God’s anger, unaware it fulfills His plan.
John 6:37: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”
Acts 2:23: Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” yet men “crucified and killed Him.”
Philippians 2:12–13: “Work out your own salvation… for it is God who works in you.”
The Bible never apologizes for holding both truths together. God’s sovereignty is absolute; man’s choices are real. Every human act unfolds within the encompassing will of God, yet each person remains accountable for his own decisions.
XII. The Pastoral Implications: Assurance, Humility, and Worship
This doctrine is not mere speculation; it is profoundly practical.
Assurance: If God works in the hearts of His people, their perseverance rests not on fragile willpower but on divine faithfulness.
Humility: Recognizing that every good impulse originates in God leaves no room for boasting. Titus’s zeal was a gift. So is ours.
Worship: The believer sees in every act of obedience not self-achievement but grace realized.
As Paul says elsewhere, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
XIII. Conclusion: Freedom in Sovereign Grace
The paradox of divine sovereignty and human freedom, so clearly revealed in 2 Corinthians 8:16–17, is not an intellectual trap but a theological treasure. God moves the heart, and man freely responds. Grace does not coerce; it creates willingness.
The gospel does not offer independence from God but communion with Him. The will that once resisted His rule now rejoices in it. True liberty is found, not in self-assertion, but in self-surrender.
As Jesus declared, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
The only truly free person is the one whose will has been captured by the love of God.
