The book, Chosen But Free by Norman Geisler is one of the books that show a “Balanced view of Divine Election.” This book presents the Biblical foundation for the sovereignty of God by highlighting God’s essential attributes and functions.  The comparison views were over extreme free-will and extreme sovereignty belief view. This book helped me define other views which gave me better understanding.

Extreme free-will view is something that God gives human total free will and He does not know the choice we will make. This is how he showed Calvinism through this book. Geisler states that they are too extreme because they limit the power of God, but focuses on too much free will. They are not able to react to God. They will also make excuses for their behavior. Free will is placed over God’s sovereignty. The other opposing view is extreme sovereignty, which is that God rules everything and planned everything. God chooses who he wants to offer salvation too. The problem with this one is that we subject to sin. God’s sovereignty is placed over our free will. The balanced view is that God has control over the universe by His foreknowledge. You cannot lose your salvation and God predetermined some of us to go to Heaven.

I agree with Norman Geisler in many points he makes in this book.  I agree that God’s will is not something that he can break away from his nature. He says that due to God’s sovereignty, He even controls our free choices. God is in charge of everything, like fallen angels, humans, and even Satan. To support the fact that god is in control of everything, he states Isaiah 46:10 “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.” I like how he put scriptural context in the book, which supported his arguments as well as to compare the opposite side.  However, I don’t think we are like robot that is controlled by god. The point that Geisler made after these view is that God does not tempt us. And God has given us the free will to make our own choices. I think as a human, we choose to sin. Even though we got salvation from God, we do sin, and we must repent before God.

I believe in the balanced view of this book. However, it is really important not to judge anyone if they received salvation or not. People can pretend or they might think they got salvation, but only God knows. When we die, we will see some random people in Heaven and we might not see people who expected to see. In Phil 3: 12 states that “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus hold on me. As Christians, we always need to live with God’s words, follow God and hold on to God.