Seventy-six-year-old Liviu Librescu taught aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech. On April 16, 2007, when a homicidal gunman tried to enter his classroom, Librescu barricaded the door, giving all but one of his twenty students time to escape out the window. The killer shot Librescu five times. The final shot to his head killed him.

A Holocaust survivor, Librescu chose to stand between his students and a mass murderer, giving his life for them on, of all days, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Librescu made a free and meaningful choice that saved his students’ lives.

God gave humanity a choice even though He knew what their choice would be.

Choice is a function of someone’s will. God has a will, and so do we. Satan also has a will, one opposed to God’s (see 2 Timothy 2:26). A will is the property of any intelligent being, and the ability to choose is a central aspect of personhood.

From the beginning, God knew what choices both angels and humans would make under what circumstances, and while He could have intervened to stop them from sinning, He wanted them to choose freely.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote,

Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. …Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Lewis added this important point:

Of course God knew what would happen… apparently, He thought it worth the risk.… If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will…making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings—then we may take it [that] it is worth paying.

Adam and Eve freely chose to sin.

Genesis 2:16–17 tells us, “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’”

We should take God’s words at face value. Perhaps hundreds of trees filled Eden, but God forbade eating from only one. The biblical narrative would be nonsensical if God required Adam and Eve to make a sinful choice. God, in His sovereignty, could have chosen to forbid nothing. He could have made the fruit unattractive, kept the snake out of the garden, kept temptation away and kept them from falling. But He didn’t.

God said to Eve, “What is this you have done?” (Genesis 3:13), not, “What did Satan make you do?” or “What did I cause you to do?” Adam, Eve, and Satan all made real choices—and God judged them accordingly. His creatures chose freely to sin, yet God didn’t surrender His sovereignty for a moment.

The term free will is potentially misleading.

I don’t like the term free will because it can convey an inaccurate impression. Our free will is limited because we’re finite. Even when morally perfect, Adam and Eve had no freedom to choose to fly or to make themselves taller or shorter. God alone is infinite and has completely free will that permits Him to do whatever He wants (always in keeping with His flawless character).

In a world of cause and effect, even our small choices are influenced by people, circumstances, and events. Your “free will” concerning what shirt you buy could be affected by the weather, inventory, what’s on sale, your style preference (influenced by your older brother), and the fact that you grew up where people loved the Seahawks and hated the Patriots.

Regardless, I believe we do have the ability to consider the options in front of us and make voluntary choices that have real effects. This is what I call “meaningful choice.”

Who can choose meaningfully?

A remarkable number of Bible verses speak of God’s choices. His free will dominates Scripture. God’s Word also regularly speaks of humans making meaningful choices: what to believe and whether to love God and love people, and countless others.

After God set forth His laws to Israel, Moses assured his fellow Israelites, “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach” (Deuteronomy 30:11). They had a choice. Therefore, Moses said, “Choose life…love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him” (verses 19–20).

Centuries later, God told His people, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11). Would God make such an impassioned plea to those who had no choice except to refuse Him?

“Restricted choice” is not the same as “no choice.”

Our addictions, desires, need for approval, and vulnerability to peer pressure may turn what appears to be a free choice into a “forced choice.” We may make free choices uncoerced by any external force, but powerful internal urges may compel certain choices. In the absence of an external constraint, sinners will normally choose to sin. They don’t have to do so; under threat of instant death they will often refrain.

While we may—with effort and assistance—modify certain behaviors, and even some attitudes, Scripture reminds us we cannot, on our own, alter our fundamental nature.

So how free are we, really? Free enough to be morally accountable, free enough to make consequential choices—yet not free enough to make ourselves righteous before God.

If loving God really means something, then the choice to follow Him must be both real and meaningful.

God is certainly capable of overruling me, and He’s entitled to do so whenever He wishes. But if God predetermines every choice I make, then when I sin, He’s causing me to do evil. Surely what prompts me to do evil are the forces at work within me, through my sin nature that dishonors God. If it were God who prompted me to sin, and sin is an act against God, then God would be acting against Himself (see James 1:13–14).

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, ESV). Doesn’t this verse mean that God allows us to face only the temptations we’re capable of choosing to resist? This affirms both God’s sovereignty and our freedom to make the right choice. However, the provision of a “way of escape” doesn’t seem to guarantee the end results—even God’s children sometimes surrender to temptation. And when we do, we’re held accountable. The fact that some believers do not live in this victory provided in Christ suggests a real ability to choose to accept or reject the Holy Spirit’s empowerment.

Even limited choices can be meaningful and consequential.

A prisoner may choose to read, watch television, lift weights, write letters, pray, think about his family, or plot an escape. But he cannot catch a plane to London. The man in bondage makes meaningful choices—free, yet within very real confines.

Does God grant real, even if limited, freedom to us? Yes, we use it when we cook and paint and sing and laugh and play. He gives us the power to tell the truth or to lie.

Call it free will, meaningful choice, or anything else; it is God-given and real. If it isn’t, then our decisions are merely illusions.

We should be grateful for the freedom of choice granted us.

The heroic choice Professor Librescu made to save the lives of his students was brave, meaningful, and consequential. What made his choice both powerful and significant is that he could have chosen differently. But he made the right choice, and his students and their families remain deeply grateful.

Adapted from Randy’s book hand in Hand: The Beauty of God's Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice.