Predestination

Free Will Baptists hold a conditional view of election based on God's foreknowledge. God, knowing from eternity all things that will come to pass, foresaw who would believe in Christ and chose those individuals for salvation. However, this foreknowledge does not determine or cause the belief; rather, God's election is conditioned on the faith that God foresees will be freely chosen by the individual.

This view explicitly rejects Calvinist double predestination (the doctrine that God unconditionally predestined some to heaven and others to hell). Instead, Free Will Baptists affirm that God's election is conditional on faith, and all are invited to believe. The offer of salvation is universal, and the human will, enabled by prevenient grace, is free to accept or reject it. Predestination applies to those whom God foreknows will believe, not to a predetermined, unconditional choice made before the foundation of the world apart from human response.

Free will is foundational to Free Will Baptist theology and cannot be compromised for the sake of emphasizing divine sovereignty. The doctrine of predestination must be understood in a way consistent with human freedom and moral responsibility. Believers are free to maintain or lose their salvation; they are called to persevere through their own continued faith and obedience.