XXI

When a baby is born into the world and God determines that the baby will be endowed with eyesight, is this a violation of the infants’ free will? I mean, what right does God have to give the baby the ability to see? Perhaps the baby had no desire for sight and would have preferred to be left blind. How utterly intrusive of God to so presume on the baby’s freedom. The new baby wasn’t asked if that is what he wanted. Well, you can see where I am going with this. We all know such an argument would be nothing short of ridiculous. This is God’s world which is governed by His rules and persons born into it it have to live with what
God blesses them with. God gives the baby eyes and he/she uses them. May I suggest to you that similar logic plays a role in our new birth in Christ. The moment God opens our spiritual eyes, we see. The moment He unplugs/circumcises our ears, we hear. Likewise, the moment God capacitates us with understanding and illumination, we believe. God isn’t doing the believing for us, He has only restored the spiritual capacity we were meant to have. If God miraculously gives new eyes to a blind man and he sees, it is not God who is doing the seeing but the man, yet all glory goes to God because without this new capacity, sight would not be possible. So it is with new spiritual eyes.

John Hendryx, Does Monergism Rob Humanity of Free Will