‘Compatibilism’ refers to the view that divine sovereignty and human responsibility, being both taught in Scripture, must be compatible with each other, even if we cannot see exactly how.

A key conviction of semi-Pelagian and Arminian thinking is that the will must be free, otherwise we could not be held responsible for our actions:

‘Unless man is really free, he cannot be justly held responsible for his actions, any more than for the date of his birth or the color of his eyes. All alike are inexorably predetermined for him.’ (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Of course, the dilemma is not limited to the relationship between sovereignty and responsibility.  It also applies to the Godhead (God is three, and God is one), to the incarnation (Jesus Christ is truly God, and truly man), and to the Holy Scriptures (equally the word of man and the word of God).

There are a number of Bible passages which explicitly teach that the divine will and the human will are compatible.  In some cases, this is so, even when the divine and human intentions seem opposite.

Some notable examples:

Gen. 50:19–20 ‘You meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose.’

‘When God addresses Assyria in Isaiah 10:5ff., he tells them that they are nothing more than tools in his hand to punish the wicked nation of Israel. However, because that is not the way they see it, because they think they are doing all this by their own strength and power, the Lord will turn around and tear them to pieces to punish their hubris after he has finished using them as a tool.’ (Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God)

Acts 4:23-29 Carson: ‘On the one hand, there was a terrible conspiracy that swept along Herod, Pilate, Gentile authorities, and Jewish leaders. It was a conspiracy, and they should be held accountable. On the other hand, they did what God’s power and will had decided beforehand should happen.’

1 Cor 15:10 ‘By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.’

Phil 1:6 ‘Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’

Phil 2:12f  ‘Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.’

The principle of compatibilism is required in order to reconcile apparently contradictory teachings.  Take, for example, the appeals to the human will in the following words of our Lord:

John 5:40 – “You will not come to me, that you may have life” – woth

Mt 11:28 ‘Come to me…’

Mt 23:37 ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!”‘  The implication is that our Lord wishes to save Jerusalem, but that he respects their choice to continue in sin and unbelief.

But behind such human decisions lies the will of God.  As Spurgeon put it:

‘Come you to Christ; and if you do, it will be because the Holy Spirit draws you. If you find the Savior, it will be because the Savior first found you.’

It is sometimes asserted that we cannot be held responsible for something over which we have lost the ability to control.  Not so, writes John Rodgers:

‘If a man foolishly and drunkenly cuts off his arm in a sawmill, he becomes limited and cannot do what he could do as a two-armed person. He remains responsible for that limitation. Or, if a man rebelliously jumps off the Empire State Building in New York City and then, while falling, decides that he doesn’t like the upcoming consequences, the responsibility for his present state and the coming consequences are still with the jumper. Or, to take another sort of example, if you are a spendthrift who places yourself and your family into great debt and cannot pay the income tax, you remain responsible for the debt and to the Internal Revenue Service, which will not forgive the debt, even though you do not have the ability to pay. In all of these cases, the resultant inability does not cancel accountability.’

J.I. Packer:

‘Is not God’s power to fulfill his purposes limited by the free will of man? No. Man’s power of spontaneous and responsible choice is a created thing, an aspect of the mystery of created human nature, and God’s power to fulfill his purposes is not limited by anything that he has made. Just as he works out his will through the functioning of the physical order, so he works out his will through the functioning of our psychological makeup. In no case is the integrity of the created thing affected, and it is always possible (apart from some miracles) to “explain” what has happened without reference to the rule of God. But in every case God orders the things that come to pass.’ (Growing in Christ)

Spurgeon deals with our difficulty in reconciling these seemingly conflicting approaches:

‘‘That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts few can see clearly.  They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory, but they are not.  The fault is in our weak judgment.  Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other.  If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other.  I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity.  They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that the converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, when all truth doth spring.’

Autobiography I, 174.

An illustration:

The famous American Bible teacher Donald Grey Barnhouse (1895–1960) often used an illustration to help people make sense of election.

He asked them to imagine a cross like the one on which Jesus died, only so large that it had a door in it.

Over the door were these words from Revelation: “Whosoever will may come.” These words represent the free and universal offer of the gospel. By God’s grace, the message of salvation is for everyone. Every man, woman, and child who will come to the cross is invited to believe in Jesus Christ and enter eternal life.

On the other side of the door a happy surprise awaits the one who believes and enters. From the inside, anyone glancing back can see these words from Ephesians written above the door: “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.”

Election is best understood in hindsight, for it is only after coming to Christ that one can know whether one has been chosen in Christ. Those who make a decision for Christ find that God made a decision for them in eternity past.

(Ryken, The Message of Salvation)

The resolution of election and free will has troubled theologians for centuries. One found an explanation in a picture of the door to heaven. On the side of the door facing the one who was about to enter heaven were written the words “Every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). On the side of the door facing those who were already in heaven were written the words “called through his grace” (Gal.1:15).