In Jack Cottrell’s article, Sovereignty and Free Will, he discusses the question: is there a logical incompatibility between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man? He points out that every detail may be included in God’s decree without everything’s being determined or effectuated by God. God decided to give man freedom; God has sovereignly and absolutely determined man’s freedom, but not man’s free acts. This is the way he planned it, decreed it, created it. God is in control, in that he is the creator and sustainer of all and that God controls the external circumstances of a man through his divine providence and he works within the heart through the Holy Spirit, but not to the point that man is left without choice. God works even to the point of opening or hardening the heart, yet without turning the will itself to one side or the other and always within the frame work of His foreknowledge.
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