Can We Not Also Say That It Is God That Caused or Made the Unbeliever to Choose Not to Believe?
1) Direct Answer
No—not in the same way. God is not the author of unbelief or sin. Unbelief springs from man’s own fallen heart and love of darkness. Yet the Bible also shows that God judicially blinds and hardens those who refuse the truth, and He withholds saving revelation from those who are not His sheep.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- James 1:13: God “tempteth no man.” He does not create evil in the heart.
- John 3:19–20; John 5:40: Men “loved darkness rather than light… Ye will not come to me.” The refusal is theirs.
- Acts 13:46: “Ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.”
- John 10:26: “Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep.” Those not given do not believe.
- John 12:39–40 (Isaiah 6): “Therefore they could not believe… He hath blinded their eyes.” Judicial hardening after rejecting light.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:10–12: Because they “received not the love of the truth… God shall send them strong delusion.” Judgment fits their chosen unbelief.
- Romans 1:24–28: “God gave them up” to their own desires.
- Romans 9:18: “He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”
- Acts 13:48: “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” God grants faith to His own.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- God positively grants faith to His sheep; that is grace.
- Man, left to himself, already loves darkness and will not come.
- God never forces a willing heart to reject Christ; rather, He righteously leaves some to their own choice and then seals that choice in judgment (hardening/blinding).
- So we must not say, “God made them not believe,” but rather, “God did not give them saving grace, and He judicially hardens those who reject the light.”
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice, the Gospel separates: as many as are ordained to life believe, and those who spurn the light are blinded by the very light they refuse. God authors faith in His own; unbelief is man’s sin, and hardening is God’s righteous judgment.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 1:E-68
Let me drop in something here that will both amaze and help you. There is hardly a student that does not believe the New Testament was originally in the Greek language. All our great Bible students have said that God gave the world three great nations with three great contributions for the sake of the Gospel. He gave the Greeks who gave a universal language. He gave us the Jews who gave us the true religion and true knowledge of God through the Saviour. He gave us the Romans who gave us a unified empire with law an...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-98
Notice what God said to them in the garden. Genesis 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed, It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." If we give credit to the Word that the woman did have a Seed, then the serpent must have surely had a seed also. If the Seed of the woman was a man-child apart from the man, then the seed of the serpent will have to be in the same pattern, and that is another male must be born apart from human male instrumentality....
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 9:E-114
The mystery of the tares and wheat of Matthew 13:24-30, is now also fulfilled. "Another parable put He forth unto them, saying,The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares...
Unbelief does not hinder God
62-0128M §53
Now Jesus, when He came into the world, He came in the time of a massive unbelief. That's right. He came in such a way that it caused the unbeliever to disbelieve more. God just pulled the... He's such a wonderful Father! Brought right in the time, and give Him the ... (as the people thought) an illegitimate child, and never sent Him into any schools, and so forth. And He was a odd sort of a boy. But yet there was something about Him that seemed to be that what He said was truth. What He spoke, it was so.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 1:E-24
They also state, "God, according to the Bible, is not just one person, but He is three persons in one God. That is the great mystery of the Trinity".