The CatechismGlobal Methodist Church
Question 53 of 77 · Wesleyan Characteristics

Does God determine all human actions?

No. Influenced and empowered by the Holy Spirit, humans are responsible in freedom to exercise their wills for good.

Catechism for the Global Methodist Church, question 53

Session 9Can anyone choose God?Opens at 15:41, where question 53 begins.
Commentary

If every good response is enabled by grace, does God decide what people do? No. Article VII of the Confession of Faith teaches that "man influenced and empowered by the Holy Spirit is responsible in freedom to exercise his will for good." Fallen people are helpless on their own; under grace they are free, and they are answerable for what they do with that freedom.

Scripture speaks to people as agents who can choose. In Eden, "the LORD God commanded the man" and set a real prohibition before him (Genesis 2:16-17). Moses told Israel, "the life and the death I have set before you, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19). Joshua told the tribes to "choose this day whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15). Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24), and to the church at Laodicea, "If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him" (Revelation 3:20). A command or an invitation assumes that the hearer can respond or refuse. God is "not planning that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9); there is no secret decree that some are made to refuse.

This freedom is never self-reliance. Only people "influenced and empowered by the Holy Spirit" exercise it. Believers "were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13); the new birth is God's act. Grace restores the will's freedom, and God then holds the will responsible for how it is used.

For a Methodist this teaching brings dignity and accountability together. No one can excuse sin by appealing to fate or to God's hidden will, and no one can boast of obedience as if it were self-made. The right response to God's call is the one Paul describes: "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and trust in your heart that God raised him out from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).