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 5:E-42
The second Son (Jesus), also a spoken Seed-Word of God was given a bride like as was Adam. But before He could marry her, she also had fallen. She, like Adam's wife, was put to the test whether she would believe the Word of God and live, or doubt the Word and die. She doubted. She left the Word. She died.
Unbelief does not hinder God
62-0128M §55
Unbelief never stopped Him. He just kept right on going. He healed the sick, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, went right on. And when they didn't believe that such things could happen... And their unbelief didn't stop Jesus at all. He went right on doing just what He was supposed to do. Never bothered Him a bit. Now there has to be unbelievers. God predicted that. And there's going to be ten unbelievers to one believer. More than that---maybe a thousand to one, because the church is in the minority. "Fear not,...
Blind Bartimaeus
54-0402 §42
How do you do, sister? Do you believe Him now with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind? Believing God is going to do this for you? Such great faith. You believe the asthmatic condition's going to leave you, don't you? All right. You go ahead now. You're healed. Got spinal trouble, haven't you? Do you believe God's going to make you well? You're a stranger too, here. Do you believe God will tell me where you're from? If I will, would you stand and accept your healing? You're from Michigan. Sta...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 9:E-8
The Laodicean Age The Laodicean Age began around the turn of the Twentieth Century, perhaps 1906. How long will it last? As a servant of God who has had multitudes of visions, of which NONE has ever failed, let me predict (I did not say prophesy, but predict) that this age will end around 1977. If you will pardon a personal note here, I base this prediction on seven major continuous visions that came to me one Sunday morning in June, 1933. The Lord Jesus spoke to me and said that the coming of the Lord was drawing...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 1:E-55
Now some of you Oneness people baptize wrong. You baptize for regeneration as though being immersed in water saved you. Regeneration does not come by water; it is a work of the Spirit. The man who by the Holy Ghost gave the command, "Repent and be baptized every one in the Name of the Lord Jesus," did not say that water regenerated. He said it was only an evidence of a "good conscience toward God." That was all. I Peter 3:21, "The like figure where-unto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of th...