I Believe Both Free Agency and Predestination to be Facts!

It is clear that the divine will is accomplished--and yet men are perfectly free agents. We see no "divine interference" with them, no force or coercion; hence the entire sin and responsibility rest with each guilty one. And yet, acting with perfect freedom, none of them acts otherwise than divine providence had predetermined. 

Certain of my brethren deny free agency--and so get out of the difficulty.
Others assert that there is no predestination--and so cut the knot.

As I do not wish to get out of the difficulty, and have no wish to shut my eyes to any part of the truth, I believe both free agency and predestination to be facts!

How they can be made to agree, I do not know, or care to know. I am satisfied to know anything which God chooses to reveal to me--and equally content not to know what He does not reveal.

There it is--man is a free agent in what he does. He is responsible for his actions, and truly guilty when he does wrong--and he will be justly punished too; and if he is eternally lost the blame will rest with himself alone. 

But yet there is One who rules over all, who, without complicity in their sin, makes even the actions of wicked men to subserve His holy and righteous purposes. Believe these two truths and you will see them in practical agreement in daily life, though you will not be able to devise a theory for harmonizing them on paper.

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling--for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose!" Philippians 2:12-13

~Charles Spurgeon~