Nearly 4 in ten American Evangelicals believe that God has already chosen his people for salvation before the world came into existence.

The State of Theology Survey, which was conducted by Lifeway Research in collaboration with Ligonier Ministries, found that 38 percent of evangelicals agree with the following statement: “God chose the people he would save before he created the world.” By contrast, 44 percent disagree with the aforementioned statement.

U.S. adults, however, displayed further disagreement than evangelicals with 50 percent of respondents rejecting God’s plan of salvation while 26 percent were in agreement.

In response to evangelicals, Ligonier Teaching Fellow Dr. Stephen Nichols explained how most Christians today have a difficult time affirming that God is sovereign in salvation, otherwise known as the doctrine of election.

For Christians who do affirm God’s election of His people, Nichols explains that “we cannot live the Christian life without it.”

“But sadly, there are many who do read their Bibles, and they attend evangelical churches, and they call themselves an evangelical, who stumble over this doctrine and outright find it offensive,” he noted. “They cannot envision a God who would violate their free will, and they cannot attribute to God this doctrine, which we would say is a biblical teaching, of divine…