By Jimmy Stephens

Introduction

Christianity teaches God is the creator of all things. This Creatorhood encompasses not only physical objects like planets or the human body, but every fact whatsoever. God creates not only galaxies and physical laws, but truth and events and even our thoughts. This theology, rooted in the creature-Creator distinction, insists that nothing comes into being independently of God’s creative will.

The Principle of Universal Divine Creation

We find this theology in Johannine theology. As D.A. Carson notes, the Prologue of John’s Gospel identifies the divine Word as the Agent through whom “all things came into being” (John 1:3; Carson, 117). This Prologue, which Carson calls a “foyer to the rest of the Fourth Gospel,” introduces themes of creation, revelation, and incarnation that resonate throughout (Carson, 111). In other words, John introduces the Son as the Creator so that we read what follows as a history the Word Himself speaks into being. The creative act is not a long-ago moment in time among man others, but a ubiquitous speech that encompasses all things, speaking all reality into existence, including time itself.

William Lane Craig reinforces this by emphasizing that John 1:3’s use of ginomai (“to become” or “to be created”) implies that “all things” other than God and His Word have originated through divine agency (Craig, 14). Craig notes the verse’s dual structure: the affirmative (“all things came into being through him”) and negative (“without him not one thing came into being”), implying the scope of creation is comprehensive (Craig, 15). Craig’s observation aligns with the Old Testament depiction of God’s Word (dāḇār) as the means of creation (Genesis 1:3; Psalm 33:6), revelation (Isaiah 9:8), and salvation (Psalm 107:20), the same backdrop of John’s Gospel that Carson highlights (Carson, 118–119).

The Nature of Choice as Fact

This creation theology is a twofold metaphysics of God and creation. Everything that is, is God or one of His creations. Whatever is not God, is created. There is no third category. After all, if there were something other than God which He did not create, that thing would trivialize, if not falsify, John’s characterization of the Word in the prologue. Whether trivialized or falsified, once the prologue suffers, so does the Johannine picture of Christ’s deity suffer hermeneutic ramifications, and therewith, God’s deity in general.

What we have called John’s creation theology has a powerful entailment. Among the things that are not God are creaturely choices. Human choices occur in time. If said choices are not God Himself but come into being, then they are created by God. Read straightforwardly, John teaches theistic determinism.

The agency of humans and angels and spirits are not uncreated accidents or emergent abstractions but concrete events, facts that reshape history as we experience it firsthand. When Sarah chooses to forgive her friend, a new truth emerges that did not exist before: “Sarah forgave her friend.” This choice-fact is felt deeply, has moral significance, has witnessable behavioral correlates, and carries causal power, such as mending a relationship, shaping its future options, motivating the friends’ future choices, and weaving itself into history’s enduring tapestry as a reportable event.

Where do these choice-facts come from? What grounds them? Facts about choices are either created by God or not. If created, then God is the ultimate source of all choices ever made. That means, when Sarah chooses to forgive her friend, that choice-fact is a divinely created event, and all its psychological, moral, causal, motivating significance is created too.

Biblical Foundation: John’s Prologue and Universal Creation

Thus, John 1:3 declares, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” This verse echoes Genesis 1:1-3 and establishes the Word (ὁ λόγος) as the divine agent of creation (Lincoln, 94; Carson, 118). The Greek verb ēn (“was,” signifying eternal existence) contrasts with egeneto (“came into being,” denoting temporal origin). The Word is eternal, non-contingent, and responsible for making all contingencies and temporal affairs (Carson, 117; Michaels, 1503–1529). Human agency is one of those.

D.A. Carson sees this theistic determinism when he notes about John’s Prologue that it introduces “central, thematic words” such as “life, light, witness, true (in the sense of ‘genuine’ or ‘ultimate’), world, glory, truth” (Carson, 112). These terms, particularly “light” and “life,” reflect God’s self-disclosure, His purposes revealed through creation and redemption. The Apostle John brings these themes to the fore in order to show that even human choices are integral to God’s sovereign work of bringing light and life into the world, and that means they must be planned and brought into existence by God Himself no less than anything else integral to the plan He originated, for which He is ultimately responsible.

Carson emphasizes the Prologue’s “tight connections” to the Gospel as a whole as well as the Prologue’s conceptual progression from eternal existence to temporal becoming (Carson, 113). John moves from the timeless Father and Word of God, to their creation. The Word’s entry into “the sphere of time, history, tangibility” (John 1:14; Carson, 112) parallels the emergence of choice-facts in history, the Word’s creation. Therewith, themes of “light” and “life” underscore God’s self-revelation, which enables humans to be agential instruments of His sovereign plan.

God’s creation and revelation makes agency what it is. For instance, the “light” that “shines in the darkness” (John 1:5) and the “life” that is “the light of all mankind” (John 1:4) categorize all human life choices, and demand human responses of a destiny affecting significance, such as the choice to receive or reject the Word. Human lives are then divinely ordained participations in God’s predetermined plan.

We can articulate this negatively this way. If God did not create our choices, then they have no ensured meaningfulness and compliance with God’s plan. If God did not reveal Himself, then our motivations and judgments would be blind to the story of reality that makes choices meaningful. Only if God creates and reveals Himself through our agency can we be successful participants in God’s redemptive-historic purpose worked out in Christ.

Carson also proposes a chiastic structure in John’s Prologue. Recall: that’s an old literary device where ideas are presented in a sequence (A, B, C) and then repeated in reverse (C’, B’, A’), forming a symmetrical pattern of crescendo-decrescendo, one that highlights a central theme at the peak between incline and decline. Carson specifically proposes John 1:12b (“he gave them the right to become children of God”) as the mountain peak of John’s chiasm, a literary pivot that involves us deeply: the human response to Christian revelation (Carson, 115). John’s chiastic arrangement underscores that our choices, as human agency divinely created – created with no less integration into God’s self-witnessing plan than any other created thing – are integral to the Word’s purpose for creation. And in particular, the choice to receive the Word (John 1:12) is a historical event created by the Word, a choice-fact enabled by God’s grace, aligning with the Prologue’s theme of “coming into being” (egeneto), as Carson notes (Carson, 117).

Consider that deeply. If v1:12b serves as the structural center of John’s prologue, then it emphases the transformative power of human agency, that our destiny-affecting choice-facts are a divine gift. It is grace, unmerited favor, at the deepest level, because every choice we make, including that to believe, is created by God, determined by Him. The act of faith, of “receiving” the Word, our illumination by the “light” of the Word, our quickening by the “life” of the Word, is an instance of God-ordained human agency that redefines the individual as a “child of God.” Our identity is spoken and respoken into being, in a sense.

John’s idea mirrors our imaginary situation above, Sarah’s forgiveness. Her decision to forgive her friend changes a lot about the world. It affects her identity and her friend’s, their relationship. But that’s only possible if it is a choice brought about by God’s sovereign rule, spoken into existence no less than light itself or Sarah’s nose. Without being created, nothing ensures their comportment to God’s plan, and at the same time, God is no longer a Creator, strictly speaking, but a collaborator.

Carson’s chiastic proposal deepens this interpretation. He suggests John 1:1–2 (the Word’s pre-existence) parallels John 1:18 (revealing God), while John 1:3 (universal creation) aligns with John 1:17 (grace and truth through Christ) (Carson, 115). The pivot at John 1:12b emphasizes human response, portraying choices to receive the Word as divinely created acts within God’s redemptive plan. Themes of life (John 5:26) and light (John 8:12) permeate the Gospel, framing choices as responses to divine revelation, integral to the Word’s ongoing creative work (Carson, 111; Michaels, 1411–1427).

Imagine an author telling a story for the first and only time. His characters cannot conceive the story for him. And if they could, they would be interrupting to make additions He would then react to in a back-and-forth collaboration. They would become coauthors. John neither assigns co-creatorhood to creatures, nor does he characterize the Word hesitantly speaking to make room for collaborators whose input He would have to respond to. No, for John, God alone is the Creator, and God alone can create human agency in such a way as to honor it, make it cogent, make of it significant threads by which He weaves His tapestry of history, a cloth that in the end will depict the very face of God in Christ so that every knee shall bow, every tongue confess.

When our choices are created by God, they function as historical realities with enduring consequences and eschatological significance, both guaranteed within the framework of light and life that characterizes all that the Word speaks into being. John’s Prologue, by tying light and life to God’s self-revelation, and by tying light-and-life self-revelation to His act and purpose of creation, is teaching us that human choices are no mere accidents. They are created. They are planned. They are determined by God.

A key idea here is Christological integration. Our choices happen and they matter for the at least same reason any created thing does. Namely, they are part of Jesus’ story. God Himself authors His whole story in terms of its parts and its parts in terms of the whole. He sets the goal in terms of its means and selects His means in terms of the goal, top to bottom. Everything is accounted for so as to ensure a disclosure of His glory through the Word in Christ. Take that theistic determination away and our agency becomes meaningless in consequence and motivationally blind, for otherwise it would require for us to be co-creators, collaborators alongside God just as responsible for historic realities as He is.

Another key idea here is the absolute and exhaustive distinction between Creator and creation. John teaches a true dichotomy between God and non-God.

Rooted in Jewish Monotheism, John’s Prologue teaches by entailment that God alone is uncreated (Craig, 16). Richard Bauckham confirms this, identifying God as the “Creator and sovereign Ruler of all,” with all other entities—angels, Wisdom, or choice-facts—created through the Word (Craig, 16–17; Lincoln, 97). The Prologue’s Old Testament echoes, particularly Genesis 1:3 and Psalm 33:6, depict the Word as God’s creative instrument (Carson, 118–119). The emphatic repetition—“all things” and “not one thing”—employs universal quantification, affirming that every reality, from galaxies to human choices, originates through the Word, with only God and His Word (and His Spirit) excluded from the created order (Craig, 15).

Craig rightly extends the scope of creatureliness even to things unknown to John, such as quarks or abstract objects like numbers (Craig, 15–16). This aligns with Bauckham’s view that God alone is self-existent, ensuring all temporal realities, including choices, originate through divine agency (Craig, 17). Michaels highlights what we have already noted before, the shift from ēn to egeneto in John 1:3–4, marking the transition from divine being to divine action (Michaels, 1503–1529). The “light of humans” (John 1:4) signifies eternal life, inherent to the Word and distinct from the created light of Genesis 1:3, symbolizing salvation through revelation (Michaels, 1558–1583).

This absolute creature-Creator distinction goes even further when we consider that John’s use of “Logos” draws on Jewish Wisdom traditions, where Wisdom and God’s Word are personified as agents of creation and revelation (Wis. 9:1–2; Lincoln, 97–98). Unlike Stoic or Philonic concepts, John’s Logos is a personal, divine entity, both “with God” and “God” (John 1:1–2; Lincoln, 95–96). This evinces that John selected the term “Logos” specifically to demarcate the Person of Christ from all that is not God while at the same time securing this Person as both the mediating Wisdom of God and as the cohering Arche of the cosmos. In other words, the Word cannot be confused with creation for the very reason that the creation can only be rightly understood in contradistinction with its Creator, the Word. John’s logic is genius unattributable to human intelligence.

As K. Scott Oliphint underscores, the deliberate shift in John 1 from the imperfect verb ēn (“was”) to the aorist egeneto (“came into being”) is a theological maneuver reinforcing the absolute ontological distinction between Creator and creation. When John writes, “the Word was (ēn) with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), the imperfect tense signals timeless, continuous existence, underscoring the eternal preexistence and self-sufficient being of the Logos. Oliphint highlights the imperfect tense as “an indication of the continued, eternal existence of the Word” (Kindle loc. 2984). The Logos does not merely precede creation temporally; He transcends it ontologically, existing independently and necessarily.

The explicit contrast emerges forcefully in John 1:3: “All things came into being (egeneto) through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Here, John deliberately employs the aorist verb egeneto, emphasizing the created status of all things distinct from God. Oliphint observes that John’s wording entails “not simply that he created all physical things, but that whatever exists that is not God was brought into existence by him” (Kindle loc. 2985). This comprehensive assertion covers not merely physical realities—such as galaxies and atoms—but all rational, moral, and volitional phenomena, including human thoughts, choices, behaviors, logical structures, and temporal frameworks. All contingent realities find their ultimate origin and continuing sustenance in the Logos.

In John 1:4–5, the theological focus intensifies further: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Drawing from Geerhardus Vos, Oliphint clarifies that this “life” refers specifically to the Logos’s universal sustaining activity, distinct from the life bestowed through redemption. Vos emphasizes that John’s priority here is creation and providence—this life denotes the universal sustaining principle given to creation by the Logos, but the Gospel nonetheless teaches both (John 5:19-6). Oliphint adds that “light” signifies moral illumination, spiritual clarity, truth, goodness, righteousness, and holiness (Kindle loc. 3002). The divine Word inherently embodies revelation—His self-disclosure penetrating and illuminating the moral and spiritual darkness. The shift to the present tense (“shines,” phainei) in verse 5 underscores the ongoing, active presence of the Logos’s illumination within a world darkened by sin.

John 1:9 enhances this theological clarity: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” Oliphint elucidates this verse by pointing to John’s intentional use of “enlightens” (phōtizei), a verb indicating active, effective, and universally subjective illumination. Vos further reinforces this by stressing that John’s claim here “passes beyond the sphere of objective potentiality into that of subjective effectuation” (Kindle loc. 4112). Thus, the Logos actively enlightens every person born into His created world, objectively revealing God and humanity’s moral condition. Even though fallen humans suppress this revelation (cf. Romans 1), the universal enlightening presence of the Logos remains objective, persistent, and inescapable.

The profound theological echoes of Exodus 3:14 deepen this understanding. There, God reveals Himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM” (ehyeh asher ehyeh), a declaration encapsulating divine aseity, immutability, and eternity. As John Currid elucidates, God’s revealed name signifies absolute self-existence, independence from creation, and eternal constancy. Mackay further clarifies that God’s self-designation implies active covenantal faithfulness, a committed presence to sustain and deliver His people. Oliphint integrates this insight, noting how John’s use of the imperfect ēn parallels the eternal ehyeh of Exodus 3:14, reinforcing the Logos’ divine identity as the eternal, self-existent Creator and covenant Lord.

John 1:14 represents a profound Christological fulfillment deeply rooted in Exodus 33–34: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.” This intentional language evokes the pivotal episode in Exodus where Moses implores God, “Please show me your glory” (Exod 33:18). God’s response clarifies that a direct visual encounter with His unveiled glory would overwhelm Moses, as “no one may see me and live” (Exod 33:20). Thus, God places Moses in the cleft of the rock, covers him protectively with His hand, and then passes before him, proclaiming His covenantal character and sacred name: “YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (hesed) and faithfulness (emet)” (Exod 34:6).

Currid elucidates that the Hebrew concept of “glory” (kavod) fundamentally conveys weightiness, significance, and essential substance. Thus, when Moses requests to see God’s glory, he desires not merely a spectacular visible phenomenon, but a revelation of the essence of God’s very nature and moral character. God’s answer aligns precisely with this request: His glory is fundamentally communicated through the proclamation of His name, which encapsulates His self-existence, immutability, eternity, and covenantal fidelity. As Currid emphasizes, God’s declaration—His “idem per idem” formula of “gracious… gracious,” “mercy… mercy”—highlights His sovereign freedom and autonomy in extending grace, mercy, and faithful commitment to His covenant people.

John explicitly and purposefully invokes this Exodus background in his Gospel, describing the incarnation in deliberately evocative terms: “The Word became flesh and dwelt (eskēnōsen, literally ‘tabernacled’) among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). By using the term eskēnōsen, John evokes the imagery of God’s Shekinah presence—His dwelling, covenantal presence—in the tabernacle and temple, the very presence Moses glimpsed in partial and mediated form. Now, however, this presence appears fully and personally in the incarnate Word. Just as Moses received God’s glory through divine attributes—His steadfast love and faithfulness—so John explicitly highlights that Christ manifests the same attributes: “grace and truth” echo precisely the Exodus pair, hesed and emet.

Thus, what Moses experienced on Mount Sinai in shadow and proclamation, John and the apostolic witnesses experienced in fullness and incarnation. The covenantal name and character revealed to Moses are now definitively disclosed in Jesus. As Currid articulates, the glory that once descended upon Sinai and later filled the tabernacle now dwells bodily in Christ. Far from a mere symbolic parallel, John is articulating a theological reality of radical continuity and culmination: the incarnate Christ, the Logos who is God Himself, is the definitive embodiment of Yahweh’s glory, essence, and covenantal self-disclosure, personally descending from the heavenly reality into historical, tangible, human form.

Oliphint, building on John Ronning’s insights, emphasizes that John’s use of the Logos in 1:14 echoes Jewish Targumic traditions. These Aramaic paraphrases, particularly Targum Onkelos, Targum Neofiti, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, consistently present God’s revelation to Moses through the Memra, “the Word,” emphasizing a mediated yet genuinely divine self-disclosure. Ronning notes explicitly that these Targums portray Moses seeing “the glory of the divine Word, but not the face of God” (The Jewish Targums and John’s Logos Theology, 68–69). John’s identification of Jesus with this Memra thus constitutes a radical Christological assertion, aligning the incarnate Logos with the visible, covenantal presence of Yahweh among His people.

Moreover, Currid points out that John’s term “dwelt” (eskēnōsen) directly invokes the Old Testament shekinah glory—God’s covenantal, dwelling presence in the tabernacle. This connection underscores that the incarnation represents the supreme, definitive manifestation of God’s glory. In Jesus, the covenant God, whose glory once filled the tabernacle and temple, now definitively tabernacles bodily among humanity. As Currid powerfully summarizes, “Jesus is the true glory of God,” the incarnate presence revealing God’s very essence.

Thus, John’s choice of Logos is strategically loaded with theological depth and intercultural significance. To Hellenistic thinkers, logos represented cosmic rationality, the universal organizing principle. To Jewish audiences, Logos recalled Wisdom’s creative role (Prov. 8), God’s powerful Word in creation and covenant revelation (Psalm 33:6; Isaiah 55:11), and the Targumic Memra as divine mediator. John declares that this Logos, far from being merely instrumental, is personal, fully divine, and eternally existing as God Himself. The one through whom everything exists has now entered creation as flesh.

What emerges clearly from John 1 is an all-encompassing Christological metaphysic: Everything that is not God is created, sustained, and defined by the Word. Human minds, volitions, moral actions, and every created entity exist because the Logos personally authors and upholds their being. In the incarnate Word, the divine Author Himself has entered His creation, demonstrating that every facet of reality—including human agency and responsibility—finds its ultimate coherence and significance in His eternal, sovereign plan. John’s Prologue, therefore, demands recognition of the universal scope of the Logos’ creative and revelatory activity—affirming that all of existence, from physical reality to moral and rational human life, exists by and for Him.

So far we have been, to borrow a Framism, circling the tree. We have rounded the tree of theistic determinism in John’s prologue and made several observations from different angles to help tease it out and elucidate it. We can do this further by considering causality. How does causality factor into this text and its creation theology?

The Mystery of Divine Concurrence

Divine concurrence is a phrase used to describe how God’s Creative Causality harmonizes with creaturely causality. For example, the Word’s creative speech enables human choices because it causes human choices to be, to occur, and to be the result of authentic creaturehood. In a sense, God Causes causality. And it is because God generates human agency that it is free, that is, neither coerced nor added from without. Just as a human nose is no less human, no less a nose, and no less authentically either just because God causes that nose-having human nature, so also human choices are no less cases of genuine agency just because God causes our choices-making nature. The Word’s creation of agency and causality is precisely what secures harmony between God and the universe with respect to both.

This concept bridges divine omnipotence and creaturely power, God causation and created causation, divine agency and human agency. John portrays God as the Creator of the whole network of what we sometimes call secondary causes, such as human deliberation, and as the creator of this causal system, it is effortless for Him to design the causal network with cogency, and design it to abide the choice-facts of creatures with causal powers. Contrary to the shibboleth of all-too-many libertarian Christians, the internal harmony of creational causality, the God-universe harmony of causality, and the harmony of causality and agency is established and preserved by God’s determination of all things, including human choices.

Philosopher Brian Leftow’s models of “late creation” help us articulate how God cogently creates temporal realities such as human choices. Leftow outlines four models.

1. Fundamental Component Creation: On this model, God creates (ex nihilo) the fundamental particles or composite materials that form material things. God creates the composite “stuff” of which material things consist. God does not, however, create the respective wholes, structures, relations, activities, effects, numbers, and so forth, beyond the basic building blocks.
   
   Unfortunately, this model implies removes all that God does not create from His original intent. First of all, this makes all the aforementioned accidents just that: accidental. Among other things, this model disconnects God’s creative care from redemptive history, including human agency in toto, which is integral to God’s plan! Second, this view reduces the proper objects of God’s creative activity to a bundle of incomprehensible simples, offering no created overarching unification to what they compose, produce, participate in structurally, etc. In other words, it carries the same bugs infecting positions like mereological nihilism. And lastly, it is a far cry from any serious exegesis of John’s Prologue.
   
2. Causal Systems with Free Agents: “Free agents” here, of course, means people with powers of agency independent from God’s determination. In this model, God designs deterministic causal systems primed to produce specific outcomes from set conditions and perhaps powers, including through free agents as proximate causes. For example, a missionary’s service in a dangerous region results from their evoking the causal system shaped by God’s providence. Yet, the choice itself to be a missionary is not caused or created by God. God creates the space and the tools to move around in it, but we decide where and how we go in that space with those tools, not Him.
   
   This model (2) results in the same three problems we covered for (1). First, by disconnecting human choices from God’s creative care, they become accidental and so unimportant to, if not discordant with, God’s plan. It entails a sort of fatalism in which some created things, such as events (esp. end-times affairs), are indifferent to human agency, the way a video game might be set up to end a certain way no matter how you choose to get there. Second, whatever explanation offers choice-facts independence from God’s creative decree does not select for choice-facts over any other facts in creation. If choices can occur without God causing it, then why can’t anything pop into existence without God creating it? There simply is no answer. Finally, and again, John simply makes no exception in his verbiage for human activity. Even William Lane Craig, a libertarian, supports the reading that John is making an absolute dichotomy between God and non-God, that only God is uncreated, all non-God is created, and what does that mean for human choices that we all agree are not God?
   
3. Complete Causal Sequence Creation: God creates entire causal sequences, from initial conditions to final outcomes, including every event leading to a creature’s existence. A student’s choice to study medicine may result from their upbringing, education, and reflections – a complete antecedent sequence orchestrated by God as a causal explanation, yet including the execution of their own agency as part of that very sequence. Each member of the sequence, every link in the chain has causal antecedents, prior links, but God causes the entire chain, emphasizing His sovereignty over the temporal unfolding of events.
   
   We can affirm this model if we add two clarifications. One, that God’s creation of the sequence is not itself a member of the sequence. God is not the first domino, nor merely the finger that pushes the first domino before sitting back, nor even the table that merely upholds dominos to potentially fall. The second clarification arises naturally with the next and last model.
   
   
4. Moment-by-Moment Conservation: God sustains all realities, including choice-facts, moment by moment by willing their persistence. Our hypothetical scenario, in which Sarah forgave her friend, persists because God wills its continued existence, ensuring that human choices have lasting significance. In this model, late creation is God’s act of conserving the world in being, preventing metaphysical dissipation at every moment.
   
   This model, even more than (3), requires disambiguation. If Moment-by-Moment Conservation means mere conservation, so that God merely permits and upholds something generated elsewhere, then (4) suffers the same three problems as before. Indeed, it would be hard to say God creates at all. He would be comparable to a shelf on which creatures set things, rather than the one who originates things to be upheld.
   
   However, there seems a way to interpret (3) and (4) in which they are complementary and Trinitarian supplements. That is, the Word not only creates the universe in total by speaking it into existence, including all its causal and historic reality, including human agency. It is also the case that the Spirit providentially hovers over the world to sustain and culminate what the Son has created. Indeed, we might be inclined to say that the Father plans creation, the Son speaks the plan into existence, and the Spirit maintains and moves it.
   
   We should be careful with Trinitarian metaphors, but I find myself drawn to that of an orchestra. The Father’s economic role in creation is comparable to a music composer. His composition is then taken, interpreted, and directed by the conductor, the Son. Finally, the Spirit performs the piece, bringing from the score written, to the chart directed, then to the song played.
   
   Don’t make too much of this metaphor, but if it has merit, it is this: there is a place for (a certain take on) Leftow’s models (3) and (4) in light of the Economic Trinity. Creation is neither permanent in itself without the Spirit once the Word speaks it, nor is the Word’s speaking it separable from the Spirit’s keeping it, anymore than the Word or Spirit could create without the Father. It is one act and yet three in another respect, inasmuch as it is one God in three Persons. God’s design, causation, and conservation are aspects of His numerically singular creative decree.

These models aim to flesh out how choice-facts relate to God’s act of creation. William Lane Craig aligns with Leftow’s first two models, arguing that biblical authors like John and Paul, particularly in John 1:3 (“all things came into being through him”), primarily refer to God’s initial creative act “in the beginning” as described in Genesis 1 (Craig, 29–30). Craig interprets egeneto (from ginomai, meaning “to become” or “to be created”) as indicating that everything other than God and His Word came into being through the Word, emphasizing the initial act as the foundation for all realities, including the “stuff” of physical and volitional entities (Craig, 14). He supports this with Colossians 1:16–17 (“all things were created by him and for him”) and Hebrews 1:2 (“through whom also he made the universe”), suggesting that human choices are proximate causes within this framework, analogous to artisans shaping God-given materials (Craig, 30).

However, D.A. Carson does not fully agree. As previously noted, Carson notes that egeneto in John 1:14 (“the Word became flesh”) parallels the emergence of choice-facts as historical realities created through the Word, with John 1:3 affirming both positively (“through him all things were made”) and negatively (“without him nothing was made that has been made”) that absolutely nothing but God Himself is uncreated by the Word (Carson, 118–119). Contrary to Craig, Carson’s observation that ginomai contrasts the eternal existence of God and His Word with everything else that “comes into being” (Craig, 14) undermines the molinist overemphasis on the initial act.

There is a better explanation for the connection between Genesis and the Johannine Prologue. Namely, in Genesis 1, God’s universe building, perhaps especially Christ’s interpretation of the seventh day (viz. it is unended) as well as the exhaustive language of verse 1, has in view that “all things” come into being across creation’s entire timeline by God’s creative will. John’s use of egeneto in 1:3–4 signifies a continuous creative process encompassing all temporal realities, including human choices, as does Colossians 1:16–17’s comprehensive scope (“all things were created by him and for him, and in him all things hold together”) and Hebrews 1:2’s reference to God making the “ages” (aiōnas, implying the temporal unfolding of history). These texts indicate that God’s creative act, through the Word, extends beyond the initial moment to the entire timeline of creation, aligning with (my take on) Leftow’s third and fourth models.

In addition, the libertarian view of Craig and others entails a grounding problem. If choice-facts do not abductively terminate in God, but in human agents, then: (1) God is no longer the sole Creator, violating the monotheistic claim of John 1:3; and (2) humans (or other created things) possess divine attributes, like self-sufficiency. On the other hand, as I’ve been at pains to point out time and again, if choice-facts are created by God, then theistic determinism is true. The critics of Calvinistic determinism face this dilemma.

Often, the retort is that it’s not an either-or but both-and situation. Libertarians often try to rebut the dilemma by suggesting that it’s neither that God creates human agency ex nihilo, nor can humans (or any other created thing) explain their choices on their own, precisely because they depend on God to exist. This is incoherent. We need only point out that the causal or explanatory relation between the agent and their choice-fact(s) is created by God or it is not.

If so, then it follows that God creates the agent as one who entails said choice-fact(s) by nature, which is logically identical with saying that he determines the agent to produce that choice-fact. Alternatively, if God does not create the relation between the agent and their choice-fact(s), then John was gravely mistaken when he said all things that come into being are created by the Word, since relations between things that come into being come into being themselves, and on this horn, some of those relations aren’t created. In the final analysis, the libertarian suffers under their ideological burden of trying to rationalize God as determining things to be undetermined or as creating things to be uncreated.

So we see that, by portraying human choices as independent causes akin to artisans shaping divine materials provided, Craig’s view effectively positions humans as co-creators, metaphysical collaberators, contradicting his own prooftexts—John 1:3, Colossians 1:16–17, and Hebrews 1:2! These passages stress that all things receive existence from the Word. The Logos names their part, declares their role in reality.

It is Leftow’s third and fourth models, despite their potential overlap and ambiguity, which better align with the apostolic view, rooted in Jewish monotheism’s “transcendent uniqueness” (Craig, 16–17). For example, when Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah (Matthew 16:16–17), his choice is a reality actively brought into being through God’s ongoing creative will, not a co-creative act. Similarly, the Good Samaritan’s decision to help (Luke 10:30–37) exists as a choice-fact because God wills the entire sequence of events—upbringing, moral deliberation, and action—while sustaining the agent’s existence moment by moment.

Incompatibilist Objection: Divine Determinism Nullifies Human Freedom

Critics often argue that if God creates our choices, human freedom and moral responsibility are nullified, reducing us to mere puppets or pets. This incompatibilist objection employs vivid metaphors—humans as “smoothly operated puppets,” “dancing mannequins,” “falling dominos,” or even “vicious dogs”—to suggest that divine determinism strips choices of authenticity, likening them to the actions of non-moral agents like pets or robots. The charge implies that if our choices are determined by God, we lack the spontaneity and dignity of true moral beings, rendering moral responsibility meaningless.

This objection, however, rests on a false dichotomy between divine sovereignty and human agency. Divine concurrence—the harmonious operation of divine and human causation—allows God to create choices through secondary causes, such as human reasoning, desires, and will, preserving genuine freedom. Carson’s analysis of John’s Prologue illustrates this synergy. John 1:12–13 states that those who “received him” were given “the right to become children of God,” yet this is attributed to being “born of God,” not of human will (Carson, 115). Carson notes that the Prologue highlights “certain people” becoming children of God, reflecting a divine-human interplay (Carson, 115). The choice to receive the Word is a genuine human act of faith, enabled by God’s creative initiative, as seen in John 3:6 (spiritual birth) and John 8:41–42 (true sonship) (Carson, 111).

The incompatibilist critique often assumes that determinism equates human choices with those of pets or puppets, arguing that both lack moral responsibility due to their determined nature. For example, it might claim that just as a dog’s attack on a postman is driven by instinct and thus not morally accountable, a human’s determined choice—say, to harm another—lacks responsibility because it was inevitable. This analogy, however, commits a logical fallacy by assuming that determinism alone negates moral responsibility. The key difference lies in self-consciousness, a property humans possess but pets and puppets lack. Human choices, even if divinely created, involve self-conscious deliberation, awareness of moral implications, and intentionality—qualities absent in non-moral agents. For instance, when Sarah chooses to forgive her friend, she reflects on her values, weighs consequences, and acts intentionally, unlike a dog acting on instinct or a puppet moved by strings. Self-consciousness, the hallmark of human agency, enables moral responsibility, whether choices are determined or not.

This distinction refutes the incompatibilist analogy. Consider the syllogism: (1) Pets and puppets lack moral responsibility due to a property (e.g., lacking self-consciousness). (2) If pets and puppets lack moral responsibility due to this property, then determined human choices share this property. (3) Therefore, determined human choices lack moral responsibility. The flaw lies in the second premise, which assumes that determinism is the property negating responsibility. Instead, the lack of self-consciousness in pets and puppets explains their non-responsibility, a trait not shared by humans. Philippians 2:13 supports this, stating that God works in believers “to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose,” suggesting that human willing, though divinely enabled, remains intentional and morally significant. The disciples’ choice to follow Jesus (John 1:37–43) exemplifies this: their decision was both a human act and a divinely created reality, preserving their agency within God’s plan.

The incompatibilist might weaken their claim, arguing that there is merely some similarity between determined human choices and those of pets or puppets. However, without specifying this similarity, the argument lacks force and risks begging the question. By contrast, the compatibilist view—affirming that God creates choices through self-conscious human agency—offers a robust explanation. Just as a novelist crafts a character’s decisions while allowing them to act freely within the story, God creates choices through human faculties, ensuring they are authentically ours. This preserves moral responsibility, as our choices reflect our self-conscious intentions, even as they are sustained by divine creation.

Incompatibilist Objection: Divine Determinism Entails Occasionalism and Makes God the Author of Evil

Another incompatibilist objection claims that divine determinism entails occasionalism—the view that God is the sole cause of all events, rendering human actions mere occasions for divine activity. This perspective argues that if God creates every choice, human agency is illusory, and God becomes the direct cause of all actions, including evil ones, making Him the author of evil. For instance, if God determines a person’s choice to commit a sinful act, such as theft, the objection holds that God is morally responsible for the sin, undermining His goodness and justice.

This objection misunderstands the compatibilist framework and the nature of divine causation. Divine determinism, as understood in compatibilism, operates through secondary causes, not occasionalism. God creates human choices by sustaining and directing human faculties—reason, will, and desires—without bypassing them. This is distinct from occasionalism, which denies secondary causation altogether. For example, in Joseph’s story (Genesis 50:20), his brothers’ evil actions were intended for harm, yet God used those same actions for good, working through their choices. Joseph’s declaration, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,” illustrates that human moral responsibility remains intact, as the brothers acted freely according to their intentions, while God’s sovereign purpose was fulfilled.

Regarding the charge that divine determinism makes God the author of evil, compatibilism distinguishes between God’s sovereign will and human moral accountability. God’s causation of choices does not entail His approval of sinful intentions. Humans, as self-conscious agents, bear responsibility for their intentions and actions, as seen in Acts 2:23, where Peter declares that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” yet “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The “lawless men” are held accountable for their actions, even though they fulfilled God’s predetermined plan. Similarly, when David chose to number the people (2 Samuel 24:1–10), God’s provocation and David’s sinful choice coexisted, yet David acknowledged his guilt, saying, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done” (2 Samuel 24:10). God’s sovereignty enabled the choice, but David’s moral responsibility stemmed from his self-conscious intent.

The occasionalism objection also falters because it overlooks the qualitative difference between divine and human causation. God’s causation is ultimate, sustaining all existence (Colossians 1:17), but human causation operates within this framework, involving genuine deliberation and moral agency. The charge that God is the author of evil collapses when we recognize that evil arises from human intentions, not divine necessity. As James 1:13–14 states, God does not tempt anyone to evil; rather, “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire.” Thus, compatibilism maintains that God creates choices through human agency or creaturely causation without being morally culpable for human sin.

Incompatibilist Objection: Divine Causation of Human Choices Undermines Genuine Human Causation

A further incompatibilist objection asserts that if God causes our choices, He also causes our causation, negating the authenticity of human agency. This view argues that divine causation overrides human causation, reducing humans to mere conduits of God’s will, akin to tools or instruments. The objector claims that for human choices to be genuinely free, they must originate solely from the human agent, independent of divine causation—an assumption rooted in libertarian free will. For example, if God causes Jane to choose to donate to charity, the incompatibilist argues that Jane’s causation (her reasoning and intent) is itself determined, stripping her of true agency and making her action no different from a programmed response.

This objection begs the question by assuming a libertarian definition of freedom, which requires human choices to be uncaused or independent of divine influence. Compatibilism, however, posits that God’s causation of human choices operates through human causation, not in place of it. God causes our causation by sustaining and enabling the human faculties—reason, will, and desires—that produce choices. This is evident in Ephesians 2:10, which states that believers are “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Here, God’s prior causation prepares human actions, yet humans actively “walk” in them, exercising their own causation. Similarly, in the calling of Paul (Acts 9:4–6), God’s sovereign intervention caused Paul’s choice to follow Christ, yet Paul’s response involved his own reasoning and volition, as he later reflects in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.”

The incompatibilist’s insistence on libertarian freedom assumes that genuine causation requires independence from divine influence, but this overlooks the dependency of all creation on God’s sustaining power (Hebrews 1:3). Human causation is real and meaningful because it operates within God’s sovereign framework, not in opposition to it. For instance, when Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ (Matthew 16:16–17), Jesus affirms that this revelation came “not from flesh and blood, but from my Father in heaven.” Peter’s confession was a genuine human act, yet divinely caused, demonstrating that God’s causation enables rather than negates human agency. The objection’s reliance on libertarian freedom fails to account for this compatibility, as it presupposes that any divine influence nullifies human responsibility—an assumption not supported by Scripture or reason.

Moreover, the incompatibilist objection falters by ignoring the nature of human causation as derivative. Human agents cause actions through deliberation and intent, but these faculties exist only because God sustains them. The incompatibilist’s analogy of humans as tools or instruments breaks down because tools lack self-consciousness and intentionality, whereas humans, as image-bearers of God (Genesis 1:26–27), possess these qualities. When Jane donates to charity, her choice reflects her deliberation and values, even if God caused the circumstances and faculties enabling her decision.

Scriptural examples further illustrate this dual causation. In the case of David’s census, 2 Samuel 24:1 states that “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’” Yet, 1 Chronicles 21:1 attributes the same action to Satan: “Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to number Israel.” Both accounts describe the same event, indicating that God’s sovereign causation worked through Satan’s influence and David’s decision, yet David remained morally accountable, confessing, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done” (2 Samuel 24:10). Similarly, Saul’s death in 1 Samuel 31:4 describes him taking his own life: “Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.” However, 1 Chronicles 10:4–14 attributes his death to God’s judgment: “The Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David.” Saul’s self-conscious choice to end his life was real, yet it fulfilled God’s sovereign purpose. These examples demonstrate that divine causation operates through secondary causes—human or even satanic agency—without negating moral responsibility.

Thus, compatibilism affirms that God’s causation of human choices works through human causation, preserving the authenticity of human agency and moral responsibility. The incompatibilist’s libertarian assumption lacks biblical grounding and fails to account for the harmonious interplay of divine and human causation evident in Scripture.

Incompatibilist Objection: Divine Causation of Evil Events Implies God’s Culpability for All Evil

A further incompatibilist objection argues that if God can cause evil events—such as the actions of Joseph’s brothers, natural evils, or the cited examples of David’s census and Saul’s death—then God could cause all evils, rendering Him morally culpable for all sin and suffering. The objector contends that divine causation of any evil event implies that God is the ultimate source of all evil, undermining His moral perfection. For instance, if God caused the evil actions of Joseph’s brothers (Genesis 50:20) or natural disasters like earthquakes or floods, the incompatibilist claims that God’s causation of these events makes Him responsible for every instance of moral and natural evil, negating His goodness.

This objection fails to distinguish between God’s sovereign causation and moral culpability, a critical distinction in compatibilism. God’s causation of events, including those involving evil, operates through secondary causes—human choices, natural processes, or satanic influence—without Him being the author of sinful intentions or moral guilt. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph’s brothers acted with evil intent, yet God caused the same event for a good purpose, preserving human culpability: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Similarly, natural evils like earthquakes result from God’s sustaining of natural laws, not from divine malice. The compatibilist view holds that God’s causation enables the conditions for evil (e.g., human free will or natural processes) without endorsing or being the creaturely cause of the moral defect. As seen in Job 1:12 and 2:6, God permits Satan to cause suffering, yet Job’s afflictions serve God’s purpose while Satan and human agents bear moral responsibility.

Scriptural examples like David’s census (2 Samuel 24:1; 1 Chronicles 21:1) and Saul’s death (1 Samuel 31:4; 1 Chronicles 10:14) further illustrate this. In both cases, God’s causation worked through secondary agents—Satan, David, or Saul’s own choices—yet the moral responsibility remained with the human or satanic agents. David confessed his sin (2 Samuel 24:10), and Saul’s death was his own act, even as it fulfilled God’s judgment. Natural evils, too, reflect God’s sovereign ordering of creation (Psalm 104:14–21), but their destructive outcomes stem from the fallen state of the world, not divine intent to harm (Romans 8:20–22). The incompatibilist’s claim that divine causation of some evils implies culpability for all evils ignores this distinction, assuming that causation equates to moral endorsement—a leap not supported by Scripture.

The theological framework of Isaiah 45:7, as elucidated by Blenkinsopp and Smith, reinforces this compatibilist perspective. Isaiah 45:7 states, “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.” Blenkinsopp notes that this verse, part of a discourse emphasizing Yahweh’s unrivaled sovereignty (Isaiah 44:24–45:7), asserts God’s control over all aspects of existence, including light/darkness and well-being/adversity, without implying moral evil (Blenkinsopp, 245–247). Smith clarifies that these contrasts refer to God’s sovereignty over historical events and natural phenomena, not a dualistic endorsement of moral evil (Smith, Kindle Locations 6365–6381). The Hebrew term ra (often translated “calamity” or “adversity”) in this context denotes disastrous events or hardships, not moral sin, aligning with Isaiah’s broader theme of God’s governance over creation and history. For instance, God’s raising of the Chaldeans to judge Israel (Habakkuk 1:5–11) demonstrates His causation of events involving evil actions, yet the Chaldeans remain culpable for their wickedness (Habakkuk 2:9–16).

Moreover, the objection presupposes a libertarian view that moral responsibility requires absolute independence from divine causation, which Scripture does not affirm. Isaiah 45:7’s assertion of God’s sovereignty over all events, including calamities, underscores His ultimate causation without imputing moral evil to Him. James 1:13–14 clarifies that God does not tempt anyone to sin; rather, “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire.” Human sin originates in the heart, even if divinely permitted within God’s broader plan. The incompatibilist might argue that God’s causation of all events, including evil, makes Him morally culpable by analogy to human causation—if a human orchestrates an evil act, they are blameworthy. However, this analogy fails because God’s causation is not equivalent to human causation. God’s ultimate causation sustains all existence (Colossians 1:17), including the conditions for free human choices and natural processes, without Him intending or approving evil outcomes.

Thus, compatibilism maintains that God can cause all events, including evils, through secondary or (as I like to put it) creaturely causes while remaining morally blameless. His purposes are good, and His nature is holy, as moral responsibility lies with self-conscious agents or the fallen creation, not with God’s sovereign causation.