Sin and Free Will: Why God Lets Us Choose (and How Jesus Saves Us)

One of the biggest questions people ask about God is: If He’s good, why is there so much evil in the world? If God really loves us, why didn’t He just make it impossible for us to sin in the first place?

That’s where Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga gives us something worth thinking about. He argues that the reason sin exists is tied directly to one of God’s greatest gifts: free will.

Why Free Will Matters

God didn’t create us to be robots, programmed to say, “I love You” on command. Real love has to be freely chosen. If God forced us to do good all the time, our “goodness” wouldn’t really mean anything—it would just be programming.

So God gave humans the ability to truly choose. But with that freedom came a risk: we might choose wrongly. And that’s exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve exercised their freedom, but instead of choosing trust and obedience, they chose rebellion.

In Plantinga’s words, God could create the possibility of good, but even He cannot create free creatures and at the same time guarantee that they’ll always do what’s right. Freedom makes love possible, but it also makes sin possible.

Sin: The Misuse of Freedom

That’s really what sin is—it’s us misusing the gift of freedom. We take what God gave us for good (our ability to choose) and twist it toward selfishness, pride, and disobedience. Every lie, every act of greed, every broken relationship is a reminder that we’ve all misused the freedom God gave.

But God didn’t abandon us there.

The Cross: God’s Answer to Sin

Here’s the good news: Jesus entered the very world damaged by sin and bore the weight of it Himself. On the cross, He took the punishment our freedom had earned us. The Apostle Paul puts it this way:

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

In other words, Jesus traded places with us. He paid for our sins with His death, and through His resurrection He opened the way back to the Father. Now, by trusting in Him, our freedom can be redeemed. We are not only forgiven but also given the power, through the Holy Spirit, to begin choosing rightly again.

Freedom Restored

Plantinga’s point about free will helps us see the seriousness of sin, but the gospel shows us something even greater: God’s plan doesn’t end in tragedy. Through Jesus, our freedom is being restored so that one day, in God’s new creation, we’ll still be free—but no longer capable of sin. We will freely love and obey God forever, without rebellion’s shadow.

Why This Matters

The existence of sin doesn’t prove God isn’t good. Instead, it shows just how weighty our freedom really is—and how deep God’s love must be, that He would send His Son to rescue us from the very mess we made with that freedom.

✨ Takeaway: Sin is the misuse of our God-given freedom, but Jesus’ death and resurrection provide the way back. In Him, our freedom isn’t just a risk—it’s redeemed for glory.