Will, Volition
The Will of God
The Bible presents God's will as the foundational reality of the universe. Everything that exists and everything that happens is ultimately under the governance of God's purposes. Paul declares that God "works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11). Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10), acknowledging that the proper orientation of human life is alignment with divine purpose.
God's will operates on multiple levels in Scripture. There is His sovereign decree — the purposes that cannot be thwarted (Acts 2:23; 4:28; Romans 9:19). There is His moral will — His revealed commands about how humans should live (1 Thessalonians 4:3). And there is His disposition toward His creatures — He is "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
Human Will and Moral Agency
Alongside its robust affirmation of divine sovereignty, the Bible consistently treats human beings as genuine moral agents with the capacity and responsibility to choose. From the garden of Eden forward, humans are presented with choices and held accountable for them. God told Cain, "Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it" (Genesis 4:7). Moses set before Israel "life and death, blessing and cursing" and urged them to "choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Jesus affirmed the reality of human choice: "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God" (John 7:17). Paul recognized both the capacity to will and its limitations: "For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out" (Romans 7:18). This honest assessment acknowledges that the human will, though real, is damaged by sin and unable to achieve righteousness on its own.
The Tension Between Divine and Human Will
One of the Bible's most profound tensions lies in the relationship between God's will and human will. Scripture affirms both without resolving the tension into a tidy formula. Jesus in Gethsemane prayed, "Not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39), modeling the submission of human will to divine purpose. Yet human beings can and do resist God's will: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" (Matthew 23:37).
Paul affirms that God's sovereign purpose cannot ultimately be frustrated: "Who can resist his will?" (Romans 9:19). Yet Luke records that the Pharisees "rejected the purpose of God for themselves" (Luke 7:30). The Bible holds these truths in creative tension, refusing to diminish either God's sovereignty or human responsibility.
The Will Renewed by Grace
The New Testament teaches that the human will, enslaved by sin, can be renewed through God's gracious intervention. Paul tells the Philippians, "It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). This does not eliminate human willing but transforms it. The believer's will is liberated and empowered by the Spirit to desire and pursue what is good.
John's Gospel emphasizes that coming to faith involves the will but is ultimately enabled by God: "All that the Father gives me will come to me" (John 6:37), and believers are "born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). The new birth is not a product of human willpower but of divine initiative, which then empowers genuine human response.
Practical Implications
The biblical teaching on will has profound practical implications. Believers are called to actively seek and submit to God's will (Romans 12:2), to exercise self-control and moral choice (Galatians 5:16-25), and to trust that God's purposes are good even when they conflict with human desires. The prayer "Your will be done" is not passive resignation but active alignment — a daily choosing to prefer God's purposes over one's own, empowered by the grace that makes such choosing possible.
Biblical Context
The will of God is a central theme from Genesis through Revelation. Key passages include God's sovereign purposes (Ephesians 1:11; Acts 2:23; Romans 9:19), human moral choice (Deuteronomy 30:19; John 7:17; Romans 7:18), the submission of Christ's will to the Father (Matthew 26:39, 42), divine enabling of human willing (Philippians 2:13; John 6:37), and the call to discern God's will (Romans 12:2).
Theological Significance
The biblical teaching on will affirms both divine sovereignty and genuine human responsibility without collapsing one into the other. God's will is the ultimate reality governing all things, yet humans are true moral agents whose choices matter. The renewal of the human will through grace is central to salvation: God does not override human willing but transforms it, enabling believers to desire and pursue His purposes. This teaching stands at the heart of debates about predestination, free will, and the nature of faith.
Historical Background
The relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom has been debated throughout church history, from Augustine and Pelagius in the 5th century to the Calvinist-Arminian debates of the Reformation era. The biblical vocabulary includes Hebrew words like ratson (good will, favor), nephesh (desire, soul), and Greek terms like thelema (will, desire), boulomai (to intend, to purpose), and thelo (to will, to choose). Greek philosophical traditions also explored questions of volition, and the New Testament writers engaged with these concepts while grounding their teaching firmly in the character and purposes of Israel's God.