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.
Confirmation and Evidence
62-0621E §26
Man looks for that. It's the nature of man. God made man that way. That's the way God made up a man. Now, so therefore, making up a man with that kind of a make-up, God does something to answer to that man's desire. God is a good God, as Oral Roberts has often remarked. He's a good God, but don't take that too far now. He's a just God, too. He sure is. Don't take Him too good. Like someone ... the teenage boy said not long ago, "God's so good He don't care what I do." Oh, yes, He does. If disbelieving his Word, jus...
Unbelief does not hinder God
62-0128M §54
And He never took credit for Himself, but connected Himself with God. "It's not me that doeth the works," He said. "You claim God to be your father, and you say He is---then you don't believe me? If you can't believe me, believe the works that I do. They are my credentials. They are the one that testifies of me. They are the one that speaks whether it's truth or not. Read the Scriptures, what the Messiah was to do. Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they that testify of m...
Unbelief does not hinder God
62-0128M §45
And the believer that receives it, it isn't ridiculous to him because by that is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things he can't see, taste, feel, smell, or hear. But he knows it's there! It's not ridiculous to him because it's just as good as done. He don't have to worry anything about it. He knows God told it, and God said it; that's enough for him. All right. So we want to have faith. God wants us to have faith. And unbelief won't destroy his plans. It won't do a thing to them. It'll go right...
Abraham and his Seed after him
61-0423 §20
Now, if He's infinite, by his foreknowledge He knew who would come to Him and who would not come to Him. He knew who would be saved and who would not be saved. That would certainly clear up Romans 8 and 9 for you, if there's any question about God, whether He calls his children by election or not. For there Paul, speaking of Esau and Jacob, before either child was born, not even knowing what was right or wrong, God said, "I love Jacob and hate Esau," before either child had a way to even make a choice. But God knew...
A Court Trial
64-0412 §24
He claims also in John 14:12 that 'He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also.' He hasn't been able to support that. "He said also in the Scripture, 'Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. Yet ye shall see me, for because I live, you live also.' Notice, again, He claims that in Mark, the 17th chapter, speaking of the days of Sodom---which we're now living, like it was in the days of Sodom---that the scene of the world would be in the same position. And if God would come down, being th...