Joseph: A Story of Love, Hate, Slavery, Power, and Forgiveness

by John C. Lennox

This Genesis account goes to the heart of the age-old complex and often impassioned debate about determinism and free will or the parallel, though not completely identical, debate about the relationship between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility.4 It is to be noted that there are two separate questions here: 1. Does Scripture teach both that God rules and that humans have a certain degree of freedom? 2. If the answer is yes, how can this be so? If we do not distinguish between these questions, there is a danger that failure to find a satisfactory answer to question 2 leads to reluctance to answer question 1 in the affirmative. This response is somewhat strange since there are many things in nature that we do not understand completely. For instance, it is well accepted by scientists that light behaves both like particles and waves. Understanding exactly how this works is another matter entirely.