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-47
Now we've been talking about the offices and manifestations of the one true God and beholding His glory in a Scriptural study. But He is not to be known intellectually. He is known Spiritually; by Spiritual revelation. This same One Who was known as Jesus after the flesh went back to the pillar of fire. But He promised He would come again and dwell amongst His people by the Spirit. And on the day of Pentecost that pillar of fire came down and it separated itself in tongues of fire upon each one of them. What was Go...
Unbelief does not hinder God
62-0128M §57
All right. To stop, I say this: unbelief does not stop God, does not stop his program, does not stop his move, does not stop nothing but the unbeliever. It stops him in his sin, and there he is, standing looking at himself. Today they say there is no such a thing as the Holy Ghost, but that don't stop it. The people go right on getting it just the same. They say there's no divine healing; but they go right on getting healed just the same. They say there's no joy; people go right on shouting just the same. "There's...
Presuming
62-0117 §39
People say, "Well, He's too good. He's too good to do it. God is so good." I believe that. I believe God is good. A teenage boy said not long ago in our town, our city, he said, "You know what?" He said, "God is so good, Brother Branham." He said, "You know, God is so good He just let's me do anything." He said, "He don't care. He don't mind, 'cause He's just so good to me." Nonsense! God is a good God! We hear so much about Him being a good God, and I believe He is a good God. That's right, He is a good God. But i...
The unity of one God in the one Church
58-1221E §1
[Brother Neville read John the 17th chapter]: These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Fat...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 7:E-82
There is another point to see here. In the great White Throne judgment there will be a separation of people. The Book of Life will be opened and another book will be opened. Matthew 25:31-46, "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats...