QUESTION: Does the Bible indicate that God planned ahead of time every human action, or do humans have real options?

ANSWER: Most of the time the Bible presents humans as having real options, rather than their individual futures being predetermined. For example, Hebrew and Greek both have words and linguistic constructions which mean “if.” The word if implies a contingency (i.e., that something may or may not occur or be the case). There are 1,441 verses in the Bible which are legitimately translated if, which shows that contingency is a common view in the Bible.

IF stats by book

List of IF references

Complete verses with IF

William P. Griffin, Ph.D.