According to 2 Timothy 2:25, it is GOD who grants repentance. Yet, somehow, it is WE who are held responsible for our fate?

The tension is real, and it is not a problem Christians invented; it sits in the text itself. Both truths are stated plainly, sometimes in the same sentence, and any answer that deletes one of them is not an answer.

1. Both truths are explicitly taught. Scripture says God grants repentance: “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25), and the Jerusalem church concluded that “God has granted repentance that leads to life” to the Gentiles (Acts 11:18). Scripture also commands repentance: “now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30), and holds unbelief accountable (John 3:18). You cannot remove either side without tearing the book.

2. A paradox is not a contradiction. A contradiction is A and not-A at the same time and in the same respect. Here we have two claims in different respects: God is the source of salvation, and humans are genuine actors who answer for their acts. That is a tension to be lived with, not a logical impossibility.

3. Scripture puts them in one sentence. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13). Paul does not treat divine work and human effort as rival explanations. He treats God's work as the reason your effort is possible at all.

4. The objection assumes one cause per event. If God grants repentance, the argument goes, then we did not repent. But causes stack: an author writes a character's choice and the character still chooses. Joseph said to his brothers, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20) — one event, two agents, two intentions, and the brothers were still guilty.

5. The cross is the clearest case. Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,” and in the same breath Peter tells the crowd, “you crucified and killed him” (Acts 2:23). If divine purpose destroyed human responsibility, the crucifixion would be God's crime alone. The New Testament will not allow that.

6. Our inability is moral, not mechanical. The reason we do not come to God on our own is not that we are physically blocked but that we do not want to: “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11). Jesus said, “you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40). A refusal is an act, and acts are the kind of thing we answer for.

7. Grace is a gift, not a wage. No one is owed repentance, so no one is wronged by not receiving it. Paul's answer to the fairness question is God's word to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy” (Romans 9:15). That is a hard saying, but it is the opposite of injustice — injustice would be giving people less than they deserve.

8. Christians honestly disagree here. Calvinists hold that God's choice is unconditional and effectual; Arminians hold that prevenient grace restores a real capacity to resist or accept; Wesleyans and others land in between. Each camp has texts and arguments, and none has carried the field. This is a live disagreement among faithful readers, not a settled consensus being concealed.

9. No one who comes is turned away. Whatever the mechanism, the invitation is unrestricted: “whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37). The practical upshot is that the objection's fear — that a person might want God and be refused because they were not chosen — is excluded by the text. The command to repent is sincere, and the door is open.

You are not being asked to choose between divine sovereignty and human responsibility; the Bible refuses that choice, and so should we. What remains is a question about mechanism, and there faithful Christians have differed for centuries without either side being able to claim the text settles it.

Sources: R.C. Sproul; William Lane Craig; Norman Geisler; D.A. Carson.

Related challenges:
• My Grandma was a sincerely nice person who happened to NOT be a Christian. Let me get this right...your "all-loving" God is going to punish her in hell for eternity because she didn't "accept" Jesus?
• Can God make a rock so heavy that even HE can't lift it?
• Is it fair that a North Korean woman who never heard 'boo' about Jesus, let alone the Gospel, is going to burn in hell for eternity because she didn't choose the right set of parents, geographically?