Les Feldick Bible Study

Does God opening your understanding take away your free will or predestine you to heaven or hell?

No. God’s opening of understanding enables a person to comprehend spiritual truths, but it does not take away free will or bind anyone by God’s decision to heaven or hell. As Jesus indicated with Peter, the Father reveals truth, yet the individual is not forced into a decision.

Les explains that spiritual truths cannot be comprehended unless God opens our understanding. He says this is part and parcel of it, but it does not take away our free will, nor does it make us bound to a decision by God that we are going to hell or heaven. Before we can comprehend spiritual truths, God has to open our understanding, even as Jesus said God did with Peter: flesh and blood had not revealed it, but the Father in heaven. Thus God’s opening of understanding enables comprehension without predestining whether a person goes to heaven or hell.

Matthew 16:17

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.