The book Resolving the Free Will Dilemma presents the Many Beings Framework to show how God’s absolute sovereignty and genuine human choice cohere, uniting biblical synthesis with rigorous logic to resolve free‑will tensions.
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Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Publication Brief
Subtitle: A Biblical, Analytic Framework for Divine Sovereignty and Human Choice (The Many Beings Framework)
Author: Brett D Henderson
Publication Date: April 25, 2025
Series: The Many Beings Framework (Book 1)
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Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Book Positioning
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: A Biblical Framework For Divine Sovereignty and Human Choice (The Many Beings Framework) is a Scripture‑governed, analytically transparent monograph aimed at Protestant Christian academics who work at the intersection of Christian philosophy, theology, and ontology. Book 1 in The Many Beings Framework series, it advances a no‑compromise account of sovereignty and authentic human agency for readers trained in systematic theology and the analytic philosophy of religion. The project’s positioning is simple: rather than “solving” the free will debate by trimming either doctrine, it formalizes how maximal definitions can coexist without contradiction when terms are indexed to the natures and perceptual frames proper to different kinds of beings. The result is not a denominational platform or a partisan brief in favor of Calvinism or Arminianism, nor an attempt to relabel compatibilism or incompatibilism; it is a methodological foundation that lets these long‑standing conversations proceed with greater precision and fewer equivocations.
At the heart of the volume is the Many Beings Framework (MBF), a rigorously defined approach that combines essentialism as a base axiom with frame indexing and a disciplined mapping from nature‑indexed facts to frame‑indexed predicates (the novel N_x → F_x mechanism). Rooted in Sola Scriptura and in continuity with the classical tradition (Augustine, Aquinas) and modern interlocutors (Calvin, Edwards, Plantinga), the book articulates how one should reason about God and man without collapsing their natures. In so doing, it focuses on conceptual hygiene rather than offering a programmatic soteriology or a new anthropology, enabling scholars to revisit disputed loci (e.g., predestination and God’s foreknowledge) without begging the question or committing category errors. The intended readership—seminary faculty, graduate students, pastors with formal training, and research‑focused apologists—will find a carefully argued toolset for engaging determinism, libertarianism, and related positions in a way that is auditable, scripturally anchored, and constructive for the wider Christian worldview.
Method in one line: Essentialism supplies the ontology; frame indexing supplies the grammar; N_x → F_x supplies the normalization; authorized bridges (analogy, participation, conservation) supply the cross‑frame pathways.
Guardrail for divine action: God eternally knows and wills in one simple act; no change, sequence, or learning in God is implied.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Abstract
This book addresses the centuries‑old tension at the center of the free will debate: how to affirm God’s absolute sovereignty while upholding genuine, indeterministic human freedom. Across the history of Protestant theology, positions tied to Calvinism and Arminianism, as well as modern variants of compatibilism and incompatibilism, have often traded one intuition for the other, or declared a mystery where argument runs thin. Related disputes—over theological fatalism, predestination, God’s foreknowledge, and the status of libertarianism and determinism—regularly turn on subtle but consequential shifts in definition. The thesis here is neither to adjudicate those schools by fiat nor to smuggle in a preferred outcome; it is to show formally why these disputes deadlock when they unconsciously rely on unindexed terms that cross ontological boundaries.
The Many Beings Framework provides the needed discipline. Beginning with essentialism as a stated base axiom, the work distinguishes natures (N_x) from perceptual frames and shows—by deduction—that beings with different natures necessarily reason, perceive, and “intuit” key concepts within different frames. Frame indexing is then made explicit: terms such as will, freedom, necessity, and possibility are attached to the appropriate frame rather than treated as if univocal across God and man. The novel N_x → F_x mechanism plays a central role: nature‑indexed facts (about a given kind of being) are lawfully projected into that being’s frame‑indexed predicates, preventing equivocation while preserving maximal definitions. This mapping is kind‑preserving and non‑invertible by default; it does not reduce essence to psychology, nor psychology to essence, but keeps reasoning coherent within each being’s domain.
With those guardrails in place, the argument identifies a recurrent error—the Many Beings Fallacy—where debates conflate frame‑native definitions from the Absolute Metaphysical Frame (AMF) and the Human Finite Frame (HFF) and then treat the resulting hybrid as if it were a single concept. By making the indexing visible and keeping deductions auditable, MBF shows how one can maintain an absolute doctrine of divine sovereignty alongside a robust, indeterministic account of human agency without diluting either. The approach remains Sola Scriptura throughout: every premise and inference is constrained by biblical testimony, and the final architecture aligns with the broad stream of the Christian philosophical tradition. Because the book presents line‑by‑line proofs, the case is open to acceptance or refutation on the merits—a posture appropriate to academic theology and to analytic debate.
The upshot for systematic theology and adjacent disciplines (soteriology, anthropology, and the philosophy of religion) is pragmatic as well as principled. Scholars gain a clear typology for diagnosing when arguments smuggle in unindexed terms, a reproducible procedure for checking cross‑frame leakage, and a vocabulary for clarifying where genuine disagreement lies. Pastors and professors gain apologetic leverage with secular critics who exploit alleged contradictions between a sovereign God and meaningful human choice, as MBF makes those charges legible and answerable without resorting to special pleading. While further volumes will explore additional dilemmas with the same method, this opening installment is intentionally non‑partisan: it is a framework for improved reasoning and clearer discourse, not a rallying cry for a camp. Readers seeking an academically rigorous, Scripture‑anchored path toward coherence will find here a carefully constructed foundation on which genuine resolution becomes thinkable without compromise.
MBF identity (series posture): MBF is a deductive ontology (Part I). Its applications function as inference to the best explanation (Parts II–III).
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Reader Profile and Use Cases
This volume is written for graduate and doctoral students, seminary faculty, formally trained pastors and theologians, Christian philosophers and apologists, and research‑minded readers in adjacent disciplines. We assume familiarity with formal logic and the Calvinism–Arminianism debate (including compatibilist and incompatibilist literature), so that the argument can proceed without detours into elementary background.
Readers will find the book suitable for academic study, apologetic engagement, curricular modules at the seminary or graduate level, research reference in analytic and systematic theology, and ecumenical dialogue across Reformed and Arminian traditions. Each chapter is crafted to be teachable, testable, and citable, with staged definitions and claims that support classroom use, scholarly debate, and pastoral application.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: The Five Obligations
- First, we define free will in its fullest, indeterministic sense within the Human Finite Frame (HFF; F_M): responsibility‑grounding sourcehood and live alternatives under rational deliberation. We affirm this robust freedom without exporting creaturely modal profiles into the Absolute Metaphysical Frame (AMF; F_G).
- Second, we define God’s sovereignty in its fullest, absolute sense, refusing any formulation that implies sequence, change, or learning in God. Divine knowledge and will are predicated in AMF and are eternally simple.
- Third, we employ transparent, testable formal logic and analytic philosophy so that every step can be audited. Claims are stated before they are used; proofs are staged; and conclusions follow from premises without hidden assumptions.
- Fourth, we show broad continuity with the historic Christian philosophical tradition while advancing clarity through precise indexing. The aim is not novelty for its own sake but disciplined retrieval that resolves long‑standing equivocations.
- Fifth, we remain completely faithful to Scripture. Sola Scriptura governs both premises and conclusions, and biblical synthesis functions as an anchor, not an afterthought.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: The Problem Landscape
Historically, debates about divine sovereignty and human freedom have often organized around Calvinism and Arminianism, and—within analytic philosophy—around compatibilism and incompatibilism. Contemporary pressure points include theological fatalism, determinism, libertarian free will, predestination, and foreknowledge, where arguments frequently talk past one another because key predicates are left unindexed.
Stalemates persist largely because of equivocation, scope creep, cross‑frame inference leakage, and unindexed predicates—the Many Beings Fallacy, which treats Creator and creature predicates as if they were univocal. Without a disciplined method that keeps kinds, frames, and modal operators properly separated, debates collapse either into determinism that threatens responsibility or into freedoms that appear to dilute divine governance.
The Many Beings Framework (MBF): Overview
The Many Beings Framework (MBF) is a deductive ontology that prevents equivocation between Creator and creature by indexing all primary predicates to being‑kinds and to their proper frames. Its aim is to preserve maximal definitions—absolute divine sovereignty and responsibility‑grounding human freedom—by keeping reasoning kind‑true and frame‑consistent, so that biblical theology’s data, systematic theology’s architecture, and analytic theology’s rigor can work together without collapse or compromise. MBF identifies and blocks the Many Beings Fallacy, the error of treating predicates such as will, cause, knowledge, and freedom as if they were univocal across God and creatures. It does so by (1) indexing nature‑level truths to kinds, (2) mapping those truths to frame‑level predicates in a disciplined, kind‑preserving way, and (3) relating what God eternally wills and knows to what creatures temporally do via one‑way, non‑competitive bridges that do not imply change, sequence, or learning in God or erase genuine agency in creatures. MBF is not a semantic dodge, not soft compatibilism, not Molinism, and not novelty for its own sake; conclusions about compatibilism or libertarianism are downstream of the frame discipline, not assumed a priori.
Many Beings Framework Logic
For precision, MBF introduces two frames once per chapter: the Absolute Metaphysical Frame (AMF; F_G), in which God eternally knows and wills all in one simple, nonsequential act; and the Human Finite Frame (HFF; F_M), in which temporal sequence, deliberation, and secondary causation obtain. Distinct being‑kinds (G for God, M for human/creature) possess essences that ground which predicates are even allowable; all primary predicates are therefore kind‑indexed and frame‑indexed to avoid cross‑kind and cross‑frame leakage.
Nature and frame predicates
- Nature‑level facts: N_x denotes essence‑level truths about kind x (e.g., N_G, N_M).
- Frame‑level predicates: F_x denotes valid predicates about kind x within a frame (e.g., simplicity in F_G; deliberation in F_M).
- Normalization (kind‑preserving, non‑invertible by default):
Nx→Fx
This licenses movement from nature to frame for the same kind while blocking inference from F_x back to N_x without explicit warrant.
Domain control and non‑univocity
- Quantification is restricted by a domain operator D_x(C) to keep claims within proper scope, preventing illicit export across kinds or frames.
- Primary predicates are non‑univocal across F_G and F_M; terms like “will,” “cause,” and “knowledge” must be frame‑indexed to avoid the Many Beings Fallacy.
Lawful translation bridge (from God to history)
- MBF relates divine act and creaturely history via a one‑way, non‑identity bridge that respects the Creator–creature distinction:
F_G→F_M (lawful bridge; non‑competitive, non‑invertible)
Intuitively, what God eternally wills/knows (F_G) is instantiated as created history (F_M) through ordered ends‑and‑means, without implying sequence in God or eliminating secondary causation in creatures.
Core guardrails
- Immutability and simplicity: never ascribe change, sequence, or learning to God; divine knowledge and will are one simple act in F_G.
- Non‑competition: the same event is fully divine‑governed in F_G and genuinely creature‑originated in F_M; causes are layered, not rival.
- Permission vs. efficient causation: God’s decree in F_G permissively orders evil to good ends without being the efficient cause of sin; in F_M, sinful acts arise from creaturely defect and disordered love.
Modal indexing (blocking fatalism and collapse)
- Necessity and possibility are frame‑relative; do not export modal force across frames. If God eternally knows p in F_G, then p obtains in F_M by lawful bridge, but this does not yield creaturely fatalism:
F_G(God knows p) ⇒ F_M(p) and not □Mp.
- In F_M, responsibility is grounded in creaturely origination with live alternatives under rational deliberation; this preserves accountability without importing creaturely modality into F_G.
In short: MBF secures maximal sovereignty and robust human freedom by strict kind‑ and frame‑indexing (N_x → F_x), disciplined domain control D_x(C), and a one‑way lawful bridge that relates God’s eternal act to temporal history without cross‑frame equivocation or causal competition.
The Classical Tension, Reframed for Analytic and Biblical Theology
The longstanding tension between divine sovereignty and human free will is typically cast as a zero‑sum contest: the more meticulously God ordains, the less meaningful creaturely freedom becomes; the more robustly human freedom is secured, the more fragile strong accounts of providence appear. In analytic theology, this is often presented as a problem of modal entailments—how decretive providence relates to alternative possibilities, counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, or dependence relations between divine foreknowledge and temporal acts. In biblical theology, a parallel anxiety surfaces whenever meticulous sovereignty texts (e.g., Isaiah’s declarations of the Lord’s purpose standing) are read alongside passages that call for genuine repentance and responsible agency. The present project reframes this dilemma not by diluting either pole but by interrogating the hidden premise that generates the collision: tacitly treating key terms as univocal across beings, as if divine and human predication shared a single definitional frame. The result is a category mistake that presents as contradiction.
Reframing begins by recognizing that Scripture commits us to both divine sovereignty and human freedom without embarrassment, and that the appearance of contradiction typically arises when creaturely categories—temporal sequence, discursive knowledge, causal priority, dependence—are smuggled into the divine context without qualification. The Many Beings Framework argues that what looks like a conflict is better explained as equivocation across kinds: terms that bear one definition within a finite, temporal nature are illicitly imported into an absolute, eternal nature and then treated as identical. Once the definitional frames are kept distinct—what we call frame indexing—the classical tension can be analyzed with greater precision, preserving exegetical integrity while clarifying the logical architecture of divine–human discourse in systematic theology.
The Many Beings Fallacy
The Many Beings Fallacy is the error of equivocating on key theological terms by treating definitions appropriate to one kind of being as if they were interchangeable with definitions appropriate to a fundamentally different kind of being. In practice, this fallacy occurs when a human‑centered definition—formed within a finite, temporal, composite nature—is taken as the implicit default and then applied to God without accounting for the Creator–creature distinction. For example, foreknowledge in a human frame typically involves temporal acquisition, discursive processing, and inferential uncertainty; when those features are projected onto God, “knowing beforehand” is unwittingly construed as a kind of divine prediction within time, which then appears to threaten either divine sovereignty (if knowledge is reactive) or human freedom (if knowledge causally fixes outcomes). The contradiction is not demanded by Scripture but generated by a cross‑frame equivocation.
More generally, the fallacy exploits the surface similarity of theological vocabulary—knowledge, will, causation, permission, decree, freedom—while masking the essential difference in natures that gives these terms their proper content. Within the creaturely frame, causation is typically analyzed with temporal priority and physical mediation; within the divine frame, causation names an underived, non‑temporal act whose relation to effects is neither competitive nor sequential. Likewise, freedom in a human frame is measured by rational appetite and the absence of coercion under conditions of temporality and potency; in the divine frame, willing is simple, underived, and identical with God’s own being. MBF names and isolates this equivocation so that analytic theology can examine the logical form of our claims without flattening the Creator–creature distinction. This diagnosis does not settle debates about compatibilism or libertarianism; rather, it protects the debate from being misshaped by unindexed terms.
The Many Beings Framework and Frame Indexing
The Many Beings Framework advances a method grounded in essentialism and frame indexing. Essentialism insists that kinds of beings have real natures, and that definitions of core terms must respect those natures. Frame indexing operationalizes this claim by explicitly tagging key predicates to the frame that supplies their content. Thus, knowledge in AMF and knowledge in HFF are not two instances of a single univocal property but frame‑indexed terms whose definitions are calibrated to the divine and human natures, respectively. The same holds for will, cause, permission, decree, and freedom. This simple discipline of indexing does immediate work: it prevents the slide from “God knows” to “God knows as a human would if scaled up,” and it blocks the inference patterns that rely on unmarked semantic shifts. In short, frame indexing is a guardrail against equivocation that makes analytic theology more precise without diluting biblical theology’s affirmations.
MBF’s methodological posture is constructive rather than revisionist. It preserves robust claims about divine sovereignty and genuine human freedom by keeping the grammar of each claim inside its proper nature‑frame. The framework also clarifies why some long‑standing impasses persist: arguments frequently pass each other because premise‑level terms are imported across frames without translation. Within MBF, translation is not identity mapping but a principled cross‑frame relation: a term’s theological role is preserved, while its content is supplied by the nature to which it is indexed. This preserves the Creator–creature distinction in systematic theology, guards against category mistakes in analytic theology, and honors the texture of biblical theology. The result is not a “third way” that splits the difference, but a method that keeps our predicates honest about their frames so that claims about divine sovereignty and human free will can be affirmed together without contradiction—or, at minimum, without contradictions of our own making.
Frame‑Indexed Vocabulary: Defining Knowledge, Will, Freedom, Cause, Permission, and Decree
Within the Many Beings Framework, essentialism and frame indexing work together to discipline our theological vocabulary so that divine sovereignty and human free will are not forced into contradiction by equivocation. Knowledge, will, freedom, cause, permission, and decree are not univocal abstractions that float free of natures; they receive their content from the kinds of beings to which they are indexed. Knowledge in AMF names an underived, simple act identical with God’s being—non‑temporal, non‑discursive, and without the incremental acquisition that characterizes knowledge in HFF. By contrast, knowledge in HFF unfolds within time, involves discursive reasoning, and is perfected through reception and learning. When we neglect this indexing, we smuggle human modalities into the divine frame and thereby generate problems for analytic theology that Scripture itself does not impose.
Will in AMF and will in HFF exhibit a similar asymmetry. In systematic theology, will in AMF is simple and underived, not a composite of competing appetites and deliberations. It is not temporally prior to effects, as if God waited and then chose; rather, it is the eternal, personal act by which all things are. Will in HFF, by contrast, is a rational appetite that deliberates among perceived goods and moves within conditions of potency, habituation, and moral growth. Freedom in AMF follows suit: because the divine will is identical with God’s goodness, freedom in AMF names the uncoerced, self‑consistent act of the Good, not the toggling among contraries that characterizes freedom in HFF. When human freedom is indexed properly—as freedom in HFF—it denotes responsible agency under conditions of reason, appetite, and contingency, capable of alternative practical reasonings even when the divine decree in AMF is unequivocally certain from the divine frame.
Causation in AMF and causation in HFF likewise diverge across frames. Causation in HFF ordinarily involves temporal succession, intermediate mechanisms, and finite powers, which analytic theology often models with probabilistic or counterfactual analyses. Causation in AMF, however, is non‑competitive and non‑temporal: the Creator’s causality does not jostle with creaturely causes as one force among others but grounds their very being and operations. This distinction preserves both divine sovereignty and the integrity of creaturely causation without collapse. Permission in AMF then is not divine indifference but the wise ordination of an order in which secondary causes in HFF genuinely operate; permission in HFF is a human stance of allowing that presupposes partial knowledge and limited control. Finally, decree in AMF refers to the eternal counsel of God, not a sequence of temporal choices; in biblical theology this decree is confessed alongside earnest calls to repentance and obedience that presume freedom in HFF. Frame indexing keeps these paired terms honest about their natures so that systematic theology can articulate their relations with conceptual clarity.
Author‑of‑sin guardrail: In addressing evil, we deny that God is the efficient cause of sin (Genesis 50:20; Acts 2:23; James 1:13). “Permission” in AMF ordains an order of secondary causes in which freedom in HFF is real and accountable.
The net effect is a disciplined lexicon that resists covert univocity. By keeping knowledge, will, freedom, cause, permission, and decree indexed to the divine or human frames, the Many Beings Framework blocks the slide from “God knows” to “God knows as a human scaled up,” and from “humans act freely” to “humans act outside of providence.” This protects exegesis in biblical theology from imported philosophical pressures and enables analytic theology to model arguments without hidden category mistakes. Frame indexing thereby functions as a methodological safeguard that strengthens coherence where debates about divine sovereignty and human free will have too often been defined by avoidable equivocation.
Inference Hygiene Under MBF: Reasoning Within and Across Frames
Inference hygiene names the set of rules that govern how we argue so that our conclusions do not depend on frame‑shifts we never acknowledged. Within the Many Beings Framework, valid arguments about divine sovereignty and human free will proceed in two disciplined steps. First, one reasons intraframe: premises and definitions remain within a single frame—divine or human—so that modal operators, causal attributions, and definitions share the same indexed content. Second, one undertakes cross‑frame translation deliberately, not by identity mapping but by principled correspondence. This preserves analytic theology’s logical rigor while honoring systematic theology’s commitment to the Creator–creature distinction and biblical theology’s textual claims.
Intraframe reasoning avoids the familiar error where a premise about knowledge in HFF (e.g., acquired, discursive, probabilistic) surreptitiously supports a conclusion about knowledge in AMF. When every premise is indexed, such inferences are flagged and blocked. Likewise, when we argue about freedom in HFF, we do not import conclusions that presuppose freedom in AMF, and vice versa. This has immediate payoffs in debates over foreknowledge and alternative possibilities: The inference “If God knows p, then p is necessary” succeeds only by illicitly treating knowledge univocally across AMF and HFF; indexed, the modal profile does not export across frames.
Cross‑frame reasoning then becomes a matter of translation disciplined by essentialism. Because the natures differ, terms carry different content across frames, yet Scripture authorizes us to speak truly—though analogically—about God. Frame indexing acknowledges this analogical stretch without collapsing the terms into equivocation. The upshot is a stable pathway for theological discourse: we can preserve divine sovereignty in the divine frame and human free will in the human frame, then articulate their harmony without erasing the distinction that keeps both claims meaningful. Biblical theology supplies the data of revelation; systematic theology preserves the doctrinal architecture; analytic theology checks the logic for hidden frame‑shifts. MBF coordinates these tasks.
Practically, inference hygiene equips scholars and pastors to read and teach difficult texts without rhetorical overreach. When we say that the divine decree in AMF is exhaustive and that human repentance in HFF is urgent and responsible, we are not toggling between contradictory assertions but speaking consistently within indexed frames whose relations are carefully mapped. This encourages confidence that Scripture’s dual affirmations are not a defeater for faith but an invitation to precision. By making our predicates and inferences frame‑aware, the Many Beings Framework replaces stalemate with disciplined clarity, allowing the church’s confession of divine sovereignty and human free will to retain its biblical force without internal logical defeat.
N_x → F_x Mechanism (Nature‑to‑Frame Mapping)
N_x → F_x names MBF’s normalization step: whenever a theological term X appears with only an implicit nature (N) in view, we translate it into an explicit frame‑indexed predicate (F) before drawing any inferences. “N” marks the nature supplying background intuitions (divine or human); “F” marks the explicit frame tag (AMF or HFF). The rule is straightforward: no argument proceeds on unindexed terms. Instead, every premise is rewritten so that knowledge, will, freedom, cause, permission, and decree carry their AMF/HFF indices. This prevents illicit export of modalities or properties from one frame to another.
Operationally, N_x → F_x applies three constraints:
- Indexing Rule (I): Replace all occurrences of X with X indexed to AMF or HFF prior to inference; mixed terms in a single step are disallowed unless a translation bridge is explicitly specified.
- Non‑Collapse Rule (NC): Do not substitute an AMF‑indexed term for an HFF‑indexed term (or vice versa); they are analogically related but not identical. Modal force (necessity, possibility) does not automatically transfer across frames.
- Translation Bridge (TB): Cross‑frame moves must name the bridge (e.g., analogy, participation, conservation) that preserves theological role while acknowledging content difference. TB is defeasible and requires justification from biblical theology and systematic theology.
Examples:
- “God’s knowledge is certain” (N_x) becomes knowledge in AMF is certain; this does not entail that knowledge in HFF acquires the same necessity‑of‑mode.
- “Humans could have done otherwise” (N_x) becomes a claim about freedom in HFF under practical deliberation; it does not negate the divine decree in AMF, because modal scope does not export from HFF to AMF.
- “God permits evil” (N_x) becomes permission in AMF, which ordains an order of secondary causes in HFF; it must not be reduced to permission in HFF, a finite stance of allowing based on partial control.
N_x → F_x is kind‑preserving and non‑invertible: essence‑level facts norm frame‑level predicates for that being, but frame‑level predicates do not read back into essence or export across kinds.
Essentialism Under MBF: Natures, Predication, and Theological Semantics
Essentialism is the backbone of the Many Beings Framework because it explains why frame indexing is necessary in the first place. If kinds of beings have real natures that determine how properties are possessed and predicated, then our theological terms must take their content from the nature to which they are applied. In the divine frame (AMF), God’s nature is simple, underived, and immutable; in the human frame (HFF), our nature is finite, composite, and temporal. Analytic theology often treats terms like knowledge, will, freedom, cause, permission, and decree as though their intensions were fixed independent of natures. MBF rejects this unanchored usage. Instead, essentialism supplies the semantic discipline that underwrites frame indexing: predicates receive their meaning from essences, not vice versa. This is why equivocating across kinds produces artificial conflicts between divine sovereignty and human free will—because the same word is silently filled with different content.
On this account, predication about God is neither univocal with creaturely predication nor sheer equivocation. It is analogical predication governed by the Creator–creature distinction, which preserves both continuity of reference and difference of mode. Biblical theology authorizes our speech about God; systematic theology guards the doctrinal architecture of that speech; analytic theology checks its logical coherence. Essentialism coordinates these tasks by insisting that what is true de re of God must follow from what God is, and what is true de re of humans must follow from what humans are. Thus, knowledge in AMF is simple and non‑discursive because it follows from the divine essence; knowledge in HFF is acquired and discursive because it follows from a creaturely essence situated in time. Frame indexing is therefore not a stylistic choice but the semantic consequence of essentialism.
Essentialism also clarifies the modal landscape that often fuels debates about foreknowledge and alternative possibilities. Necessity in AMF does not export unfiltered to HFF, and contingency in HFF does not jeopardize the divine decree in AMF. Instead, modal profiles are indexed to natures: what is necessary given God’s essence may coexist with contingent creaturely acts within time, because the relation between Creator and creature is not competitive or zero‑sum. This protects robust claims about divine sovereignty while making room for responsible agency and genuine deliberation characteristic of human free will. Many apparent contradictions in theological argument turn out to be failures of essentialist discipline coupled with unindexed terms.
Essentialist Constraints for Indexed Predication
The essentialist stance of MBF imposes constraints that improve inference hygiene and protect doctrine from category mistakes.
- Content rule: properties are read off essences, not imposed on them. We do not begin with a human template of knowing or willing and then scale it up to God; we begin with God as God is confessed to be, and we let that essence determine what knowledge and will in AMF mean.
- Mode rule: even where a predicate is shared across frames, its mode of possession differs according to the nature—simple and underived in God, composite and participated in humans.
- Scope rule: modal and causal claims retain the scope of their frame. A necessity claim tied to knowledge in AMF does not automatically render the corresponding event necessary within freedom in HFF, and a contingency claim tied to freedom in HFF does not dissolve the divine decree in AMF. These constraints explain why N_x → F_x normalization is mandatory: only when a term’s nature‑supplied content is made explicit through frame indexing can we assess validity without smuggling.
Applied exegetically, these constraints offer a principled way to read texts that ascribe human‑like actions to God without collapsing divine simplicity or immutability. When Scripture speaks of the Lord “repenting,” essentialism and frame indexing caution us against importing the creaturely psychology of regret into the divine frame. Instead, we preserve the reality signaled by the text within the divine mode of willing and knowing, while affirming in the human frame the seriousness of moral change and covenant response. In systematic theology, the same constraints prevent us from treating divine causality as if it were one force among others, thus preserving secondary causation without weakening providence. In analytic theology, they force us to specify which frame our modal operators quantify over, preventing equivocation that would otherwise generate contradictions.
Translation Bridges: Analogy, Participation, and Conservation
Essentialism does not isolate the frames; it furnishes principled bridges for cross‑frame discourse. MBF highlights three such bridges.
- Analogy preserves true predication about God without univocity: the same term names proportionally related perfections in God and creatures, with content calibrated by essence.
- Participation explains how creaturely perfections derive from and depend upon the divine plenitude without collapsing into identity; this is why knowledge and goodness in HFF can be real and robust while remaining gifts grounded in God.
- Conservation articulates the ongoing relation by which God’s causality sustains creaturely being and action without competition, enabling us to affirm both the divine decree in AMF and the integrity of causation and freedom in HFF.
In practice, the bridges operate in tandem with the N_x → F_x mechanism. We first normalize a term by indexing it to the proper frame, then we specify the bridge that licenses any cross‑frame inference. If a line of reasoning claims that divine foreknowledge nullifies human deliberation, essentialism asks: what is the bridge that would allow knowledge in AMF to export its modal profile into knowledge in HFF? If none is stated—and none can be justified—then the inference fails for want of a lawful bridge. Conversely, if an argument insists that human contingency undermines the divine decree in AMF, essentialism asks whether the conservation relation has been acknowledged, which secures creaturely acts within divine providence without compromising freedom in HFF. By making the bridges explicit, MBF turns vague appeals into testable claims grounded in biblical theology, disciplined by systematic theology, and checked by analytic theology.
The upshot is a method that replaces rhetorical stalemate with careful semantics. Essentialism supplies the ontology; frame indexing supplies the grammar; N_x → F_x supplies the normalization; the translation bridges supply the lawful pathways. Together they allow us to speak rigorously about divine sovereignty and human free will without the equivocation that produces unnecessary contradictions, while inviting further scholarly work to refine how these bridges are exegetically warranted and doctrinally secured.
Scripture and Method (Sola Scriptura)
The project is explicitly Sola Scriptura in posture, practicing canonical synthesis rather than proof‑text shortcuts. Exegetical work proceeds across the canon, allowing the whole counsel of Scripture to inform how we speak about divine sovereignty and human free will. Where tensions appear, we resist importing unexamined philosophical assumptions and instead ask how biblical usage itself constrains our theological grammar. Frame indexing serves biblical theology here: it prevents us from sneaking creaturely definitions into divine predicates, or vice versa, and it helps systematic theology retain coherence without overruling Scripture’s own patterns of speech.
Scripture synthesis (illustrative, non‑exhaustive): Scripture affirms God’s exhaustive counsel and meticulous providence (Isaiah 46:9–10; Ephesians 1:11) alongside earnest calls to repent, believe, and obey under real contingency (Deuteronomy 30:19; Acts 17:30; 1 Corinthians 10:13). The passion narratives portray events ordained by God and freely enacted by responsible agents (Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27–28). MBF preserves both affirmations by indexing predicates to AMF/HFF and refusing cross‑frame equivocation.
From text to premise, each step is transparent. Every premise is tethered to specific biblical loci and then typed to the appropriate frame (AMF for divine, HFF for human), so that allowable inferences are constrained by Scripture and by the Creator–creature distinction. The line‑by‑line argumentation is designed for acceptance or refutation on the merits: when the Many Beings Framework proposes a move, the reader can see the supporting texts, the indexed definitions, and the inferential rules. If a critic wishes to challenge a conclusion, they can engage either the exegesis, the frame assignment, or the inference, without having to guess at hidden premises.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Apologetics Utility
In apologetic settings, the perceived “contradiction” between divine sovereignty and human free will is often an artifact of equivocation on unindexed terms. By exposing where the equivocation occurs—typically when knowledge, will, or causation are treated as if they had the same definition across beings—the Many Beings Framework dissolves the charge of inconsistency without minimizing either doctrine. This is not a rhetorical escape hatch; it is an analytic diagnosis of a category mistake, backed by careful biblical theology and disciplined by systematic theology’s account of the divine–human difference.
MBF also adds modal clarity. It distinguishes logical, metaphysical, and physical necessity within and across frames, so that claims about what must be, what could be, and what is contingently actual are not blended into a single undifferentiated “necessity.” Modal profiles remain indexed; necessity in AMF does not export as a necessity‑of‑mode in HFF, and contingency in HFF does not weaken the certainty of decree in AMF.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Research Integrity and Reviewability
Research hygiene is built into the method. Definitions, lemmas, propositions, and proofs are explicitly typed and frame‑indexed, allowing readers in analytic theology to audit the argument formally, while readers in biblical and systematic theology can verify that the premises remain anchored in Scripture and classical doctrinal boundaries. Nothing depends on rhetorical flourish; everything depends on clearly stated terms and valid inferences.
The framework is also falsifiable in the philosophical sense. It names what would count as disconfirmation: a biblical premise misread in context, a mistaken frame assignment (e.g., importing creaturely modes into divine predication), or an invalid cross‑frame inference without an authorized translation bridge (analogy, participation, conservation). By stating these points of potential failure, MBF invites rigorous review rather than avoiding it.
Finally, the project situates its claims in respectful continuity with the classical tradition—not novelty for its own sake, but retrieval and clarification. The Many Beings Framework is a contemporary tool for avoiding the Many Beings Fallacy; it does not seek to replace catholic commitments about God’s simplicity, immutability, or providence, but to give analytic precision to how we speak of them alongside genuine human agency.
The Many Beings Framework: Series Context and Roadmap
About the Six‑Book Series
Resolving the Free Will Dilemma is Book One in a six‑book series that applies the Many Beings Framework (MBF) to hard theological problems. Across the series, we use essentialism, frame indexing (Absolute Metaphysical Frame [AMF; F_G] / Human Finite Frame [HFF; F_M]), N_x → F_x normalization, and lawful translation bridges to prevent the Many Beings Fallacy and keep biblical data, systematic architecture, and analytic rigor in one coherent register.
Book 1 focuses on sovereignty and human choice because the free will dilemma concentrates the broader challenge of cross‑frame predication. Forthcoming volumes extend the same method to other paradoxes (e.g., divine timelessness and temporal creation, petitionary prayer and providence, Christological two‑nature predication), offering a reusable discipline rather than ad hoc fixes.
Next in the Series
Book 2: Resolving The Problem Of Evil — A Multilayered Approach To Theodicy
Promise: This volume promises a disciplined, frame‑indexed theodicy that will offer a novel resolution to the logical problem of evil.
Use the form below to join the waitlist for Book 2.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Product and Catalog Metadata (Amazon Specific)
- Title: Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: A Biblical Framework For Divine Sovereignty and Human Choice (The Many Beings Framework)
- Author: Brett D Henderson
- Series: The Many Beings Framework (Book 1)
- Publication date: April 25, 2025
- Language: English
Print length: 381 pages - ISBN‑13: 979‑8280500488
ASIN: B0F6K8B72P - Publisher: Independently published
- Item weight: 1.25 lb
Dimensions: 5.5 × 0.96 × 8.5 inches
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma: Glossary
Glossary (Many Beings Framework Specific Distinctions)
Frames used: Absolute Metaphysical Frame (AMF; F_G) and Human Finite Frame (HFF; F_M).
Many Beings Framework (MBF): A deductive ontology that indexes all primary predicates to AMF/HFF to prevent equivocation between Creator and creature. It separates discourse about God and creatures so sovereignty and freedom cohere without collapse or compromise.
Absolute Metaphysical Frame (AMF; F_G): The frame of God’s simple, eternal act—no sequence, change, or learning in God. Divine predicates (knowledge, will, decree) belong here and must not be described as creaturely processes.
Human Finite Frame (HFF; F_M): The frame of creaturely temporality, sequence, deliberation, and secondary causation. Responsibility, rational deliberation, and choice are predicated here.
Kind (x): A being‑kind index (typically x ∈ {G, M}) that disciplines predicates by nature (N_x) and frame (F_x). It lets us say what belongs to God’s nature (N_G) versus human nature (N_M) without mixing them.
Nature‑predicate (N_x): Facts about the nature of kind x prior to any frame‑level description. They ground but are not identical to frame‑level predicates, which is why we map N_x → F_x rather than equating them.
Frame‑predicate (F_x): Valid predicates about kind x within a frame (e.g., deliberation in F_M; simplicity in F_G). These capture how a nature is expressed within its proper frame.
Mapping N_x → F_x: A kind‑preserving, generally non‑invertible mapping from nature‑indexed truths to frame‑level predicates for the same kind. It licenses movement from nature to frame while blocking unwarranted inferences from frame back to nature.
Non‑invertibility Principle: From F_x do not infer back to N_x unless an explicit theorem licenses it. This prevents smuggling creaturely sequence into God or projecting divine simplicity into human psychology.
Non‑univocity Principle: Primary predicates are not univocal across F_G and F_M. Terms like “will,” “cause,” and “knowledge” must be indexed by frame to avoid the Many Beings Fallacy.
D_x(C): A domain/context operator restricting quantification to domain C for kind x. It keeps claims within proper scope so conclusions are not exported across frames or domains.
Modal Indexing (necessity/possibility): Modal profiles are frame‑indexed and do not export across frames. What is necessary in F_G need not be necessary in F_M (and vice versa).
Counterfactual Openness (F_M): “Could do otherwise” ranges over live alternatives indexed to powers, reasons, and conditions within HFF. This preserves meaningful alternatives for agents without implying change or uncertainty in God.
Responsibility (F_M): Grounded in creaturely origination within HFF—agents truly author their moral acts in F_M. Praise and blame attach to what agents originate within this frame, not to God’s simple act in F_G.
Divine Simplicity (F_G): God eternally knows and wills all in one simple act without sequence or composition. Therefore we must never describe divine knowing or willing as if it unfolds or reacts in time.
Decree Modes (indexed): Decretive will (AMF) infallibly obtains; preceptive will (HFF) is often violated by sinners. This is a frame distinction, not a divided will in God, explaining how sin can break commands without defeating God’s purpose.
Permission (F_G) vs Efficient Causation (F_M): God’s decree permissively orders evil to good ends without being its efficient cause. Sinful acts arise from creaturely defect and disordered love within F_M.
Concurrence (cross‑frame): The same event is fully divine‑governed in F_G and genuinely creature‑originated in F_M without causal competition. This non‑competitive causation preserves both sovereignty and authorship.
Prayer as Ordained Means: In F_G, God wills ends and means together; in F_M, petitions function as real secondary causes. Prayer is neither redundant nor informative to God but participatory within the ordained order.
Sovereignty (indexed): Maximal, absolute governance predicated in AMF, expressed through wise ordering of ends and means. It unfolds through contingent secondary causes in F_M without erasing creaturely authorship.
Freedom (liberty; indexed): In HFF, responsibility‑grounding sourcehood with live alternatives under rational deliberation. We do not project this creaturely modality onto God, whose act is simple and not one option among many.
Foreknowledge/Predestination (indexed): Divine knowing and willing belong to AMF and are simple and eternal. They map to creaturely history in HFF (N_G → F_M) without imposing fatalistic necessity on our deliberations.
Many Beings Fallacy: The error of treating predicates as if univocal across being‑kinds or frames, thereby conflating F_G and F_M. It generates pseudo‑dilemmas (e.g., “either sovereignty or freedom”) that dissolve once predicates are properly indexed.
Resolving The Free Will Dilemma FAQs
Many find “knowing isn’t causing” too thin against modal fatalism; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God eternally knows all in one simple act; the mapping N_G → F_M is non‑invertible, so in F_M agents genuinely deliberate and could have done otherwise without F_G imposing temporal necessity.
Many hear “decree” as making God the efficient cause of sin; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God wills a wise order that includes permission without efficient causation of sin; in F_M, responsibility tracks creaturely powers and origination, avoiding the Many Beings Fallacy of univocal “cause.”
Many fear prayer becomes redundant or makes God “learn”; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God wills ends and means together; in F_M, our petitions are real secondary causes within N_G → F_M, making prayer participatory, not informative to God.
Many equate predestination with blind fate; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, decree is wise and purposive; in F_M, outcomes arrive through contingent reasons and means, so providence is reason‑structured, not fate.
Many find compatibilist “doing what you want” too thin, while libertarianism seems detached from providence; Many Beings Framework Answer: Modal openness is indexed to F_M (live alternatives within powers and reasons) while divine simplicity remains in F_G, preventing cross‑frame collision.
Many think strong sovereignty imputes evil to God; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God’s decree permissively orders evil to good ends without efficient causation; in F_M, sin arises from creaturely defect and disordered love.
Many think hardening cancels culpability; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, hardening is just judicial handing‑over; in F_M, agents act from their own prideful will—F_G → F_M does not erase F_M agency.
Many hear “meticulous” as micromanagement; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God sustains and concurs with all causes; in F_M, secondary causes truly act according to their natures—one event is fully God‑governed and genuinely creature‑originated noncompetitively.
Many read narrative “relenting” as divine mutation; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God is immutable and wills all in one act; in F_M, his relational stance varies as creatures change within the covenant he eternally wills.
Many find proof‑texts inconclusive and worry about sovereignty; Many Beings Framework Answer: MBF does not canonize a school; it indexes freedom to F_M (real alternatives within powers) while preserving exhaustive, simple governance in F_G.
Many doubt truthmakers for counterfactuals or fear dependence in divine knowledge; Many Beings Framework Answer: Complete knowledge is secured by frame separation, not middle knowledge—God eternally knows all truths in F_G; F_M counterfactuals are known without sequence or dependence.
Many perceive arbitrariness; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, election is wise, just, and gracious in Christ; in F_M, the call is sincere and refusal imputable—“grace” and “justice” are not measured by the same finite standard across frames.
Many think secured outcomes sap urgency; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God ordains ends with means; in F_M, preaching and prayer are instrumental causes within N_G → F_M, dignifying, not diminishing, mission.
Many find “irresistible” coercive and “resistible” uncertain; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_M, common grace is resisted; saving grace effectually elicits consent without violation, perfecting faculties; in F_G, the act is simple.
Many conflate decretive and preceptive will; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, the decree infallibly obtains; in F_M, God’s precepts are often violated—distinct modes of “will” prevent false either/or.
Many find greater‑good defenses speculative or implicating God; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, God wisely permits and orders evil to defeating ends without being its efficient cause; in F_M, evil stems from finite defect and disordered love—the cross exemplifies both frames.
Many see tension between security and warnings; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, preservation is certain; in F_M, perseverance occurs through means (warnings, promises, discipline) ordained within N_G → F_M.
Many fear the loss of liberty if sin is impossible; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_M eschaton, powers are perfected—non posse peccare without loss of rational spontaneity; in F_G, God eternally wills this consummation.
Many worry sacramental efficacy bypasses agency; Many Beings Framework Answer: In F_G, sacraments are God‑ordained means; in F_M, recipients actively engage by faith—divine efficacy and human participation are noncompetitive.
Many think classical theism is static and impersonal; Many Beings Framework Answer: MBF preserves responsive relationship in F_M without positing change, sequence, or learning in God in F_G—God eternally wills the full drama of covenant history.
Responses