The topic of God as Sovereign has often disturbed Christians. It stirs up indignation. "Are you saying I have no free will???!!" No. "Are you saying that God is the cause of sin??!!" No. "You seem to be saying that God is arbitrary, even capricious!!!" No. And, still, it works people up. The concept of the absolute Sovereignty of God is unacceptable even to many well-rounded, biblically-minded believers. All genuine believers will agree with the doctrine that God is Sovereign, but immediately thereafter the doctrine will collapse into a morass of mitigation. "Yes! God is Sovereign," all will agree, and then, "but that doesn't mean that He's absolutely Sovereign." No, no one will ever say that. No genuine believer. Still, as in so many other things, we will often claim a position and almost immediately backtrack from it.
It's not like the question is a question biblically. "Whatever the LORD pleases, He does." (Psa 135:6) "Our God is in the heavens; He does as He pleases." (Psa 115:3) Paul tells Timothy that He is the "only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords" (1 Tim 6:15). The only Sovereign. In Acts 4 the believers pray to God because of the persecution of the Jews. They call Him "Sovereign Lord" (Acts 4:24) and go on to declare that God appointed "Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place." (Acts 4:27-28) God "has mercy on whomever He wills and hardens whomever He wills." (Rom 9:18) We are described as pottery that God makes as He will (Isa 64:8; Jer 18:1-6; Rom 9:19-23). The wicked are described as being made for a purpose (Prov 16:4). He commands kings (Prov 21:1). Everything that is is under His authority (Eph 1:16-23; Col 1:16-17; Col 2:10). Oh, the list is extensive (Prov 16:9; Prov 16:33; Isa 14:24; Isa 46:10; Isa 43:13; Isa 45:5-7; Jer 32:17; Lam 3:37; Dan 4:35; Luke 1:37; Job 23:13; Job 9:12; Job 42:2 for starters.) It is the clear declaration of Scripture that God "works all things according to the counsel of His will" (Eph 1:11). Sovereign. Absolutely.
None of this requires that humans would have no ability to make choices without coercion. We call that "free will". None of it requires that God causes sin (James 1:13). None of it makes God arbitrary or capricious. Instead everything is tied to His purposes (Rom 9:11). Conversely, nothing that happens is random or out of control. Nothing is purposeless. God is not surprised by anything. He is Omniscient but not contingently so -- He doesn't depend on contingencies to know what is true. He does not change (Num 23:19; Mal 3:6).
"Okay," some overwhelmed readers might plead, "fine. I mean, we're not giving in, but so what? What does it all matter? Why make such a big deal about it?"
Good question. Here's why. It is this point upon which we hang everything we believe. We have promises from God, promises of salvation, of forgiveness, of justification and sanctification, of heaven some day. We have promises that He will keep His own. We have promises that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient to save us. We have promises that the evil one will not harm us. We have the promise that His Word is sufficient for us. We have lots of dear and precious promises from God so depend completely on His Sovereignty. If anything -- Satan, nature, human beings -- can override God at any point, then we have no ground on which to stand that we can rely on His promises. He might want to do them all, but you know how it is. Satan or Man's Free Will or "that terrible storm the other night" conspired against Him and His hands were tied. Too bad. Better luck next time.
Why is it imperative that we know the true nature of God -- His Omnipotence, His Omniscience, His Omnipresence, His Justice, His Love, His Sovereignty? It is His nature that makes Him good and His nature upon which we can stand. Anything less is a slippery slope. (Not a slippery slope argument; like standing on a slope that is slippery.) Who He is determines how good He is. None of these are negotiable. Our God is good indeed!
12 comments:
Josephine is at a crucial juncture in her life where she is trying to decide whether to do X or Y. God sees that if she does X, it will put her on a path leading to Heaven, while if she does Y she will wind up in Hell. If you think some souls are in Hell, you are saying that God deliberately allowed those folks to choose Y, whatever that item may have been in their individual cases. If God allows such devastating choices to be made by humans, is there any reason to think he ever intervenes in ANY decision they make, such as the relatively trivial decision on whether to buy a Chevrolet or to buy a Ford?
The initial setup assumes that humans have the capability, by the power and virtue of their own free will, to choose not to go to Hell. Setting aside the problems of such a premise, the assumption of the question is that a Good God would not allow/want anyone to end up in Hell. Is that a valid assumption? I don't think it is.
The underlying belief of many (most) is that Human Beings (capitalized for a reason) have all the intrinsic power and importance to choose Heaven and Hell and to impose on God the value of such a choice. It's called "anthropocentrism". I think it's a mistake. (Read, "The Bible calls that 'idolatry'.")
Free will isn't idolatry. Using free will to serve the self over God is idolatry. Indeed, I would say there can be no idolatry if one cannot choose. There would be no commandment to have no other gods before Him if one cannot choose to do so.
The issue I've had thus far in those times this you've brought this up is not a matter of not believing God is absolutely sovereign. I absolutely believe He is. I just don't think it follows that by giving us free will He gives up that absolute sovereignty. It can't be any other way given that He is the Supreme Being and Creator of all things. How can the created possibly usurp the Creator? It's not possible. But the created can choose against God and by his rejection choose hell. How that works to God's purpose is His business and not necessarily something we can understand, but it is not conceding that He is giving up sovereignty by granting us the ability to choose between Him and anything or anyone else.
You bring up a conscious choice by a human not to go to Hell, but I can easily imagine a scenario where the level of intentionality is lower than what you may have in mind.
Let's say Josephine is contemplating whether to try a new Italian restaurant she heard about, or to try a new Chinese restaurant she also heard about. If she chooses the Italian, she will drive past a roadside billboard that advertises "REPENTANCE CHURCH OF CHRIST / SERVICES 9 AM SUNDAYS." The sign intrigues her enough that she attends the next service there. She responds to the altar call and is born again. Thereafter she devotes herself to living in accordance with the word of God.
But if she chooses the Chinese, she will continue on her churchless path, and die unsaved.
Would the following do any violence to your interpretation of scripture?
If Josephine's name is NOT in the Lamb's book of life and God sees she is about to choose the Chinese restaurant with her free will, He lets her go that route. But if she is about to choose the Italian restaurant, in the last second before she finalizes her decision He supernaturally nudges her mind so that she will make the other choice, in line with His preordained judgement for her. In the latter case her free will has been supplanted, though she would not be aware of it.
Really convoluted, but ... let's just say that God doesn't have a plan, doesn't care at all about His glory or if people choose Him or anything and is just a devil in disguise. I suppose that God would fit into your scenario. A random God who picks names out of hat to write in the Lamb's book of life and, "Oh, too bad, Josephine, you just didn't make it!" No, that doesn't happen.
Marshal,
When Man's Free Will contravenes God's divine will, we end up with a God who can't. That's not a God in whom we can rely. That was my point.
(I offered a lot of Scripture on the subject. I'd be interested in seeing the Scripture you see that demonstrates the concept of Human Free Will -- that kind that can block God's will. Not just you, anyone who can.)
Anon, your scenario presupposes that she has the capability within herself to choose Christ. Scripture says otherwise. In our natural state, we are incapable of choosing God because we are of the flesh. Only when Christ makes our spirit alive again are we capable, and this will, choose Him.
By the way, Marshal, I didn't say I didn't believe in free will. I do. You can't be culpable for choices if you can't make them. I simply don't believe in absolute free will. The most popular version of that is Libertarian Free Will, the belief that humans are capable of making any choice any time without coercion or influence externally or internally. This one is manifest nonsense ... and still quite popular.
No, I believe in the Sovereignty of God as presented in Scripture. The trick, to me, is not in figuring out how Sovereign God is. The trick is in figuring out how far our free will goes, because it cannot limit God.
Superbly provocative topic, Stan!
Maybe some "third party" can resolve a conflict I see between Stan and David. Stan tells us God doesn't operate capriciously (no "picking names out of a hat"), so that leaves us to conclude that He operates in a way that recognizes different levels in individuals of willingness to follow Him, SEPARATING the wheat from the chaff--not MORPHING some of the chaff to wheat. But David says Christ is the one who has to be proactive (He "makes our spirit alive") and the decision on Christ's part looks quite arbitrary if ALL of us are undeserving chaff before He morphs SOME of us into wheat.
Anon,
What you are describing is termed "Molinism". It centers around what they term "middle knowledge" where God knows in advance who would choose Him if they had the proper circumstances and then ensures those circumstances occur so they do choose Him. I am not an advocate of Molinism. I don't believe that God acts capriciously nor that He figures out who will choose Him and chooses them. I believe that the Bible teaches that God chooses whom He will say for His purposes (therefore, not capriciously or arbitrarily) and those will be saved. I believe the Bible is abundantly clear that, left to our own devices, no human would freely choose God because it is against our nature to do so. Because you don't know the purposes of God in His choosing whom He will save does not logically require that He has no purpose -- that it is arbitrary. As such, there is no conflict between Stan and David.
Just because we can't see the rhyme or reason, doesn't mean that His choices are arbitrary. The Bible says that He chooses who He will without regard for what we "bring to the table". He is the Creator, and as such is perfectly right to choose which of us are for honorable use, and which of us are for the demonstration of His wrath. He chose those that He would use to do His good works. However, our inability to choose Him without His action does not remove our culpability for our sin.
I believe there is confusion about the "cannot" phrase, the concept that natural humans lack the ability to choose Christ. We understand it when given in other circumstances. We read, for instance about Joseph's brothers. "His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers; and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms." (Gen 37:4) Really? "Could not"? As in "lacked the ability"? What, were their vocal chords disabled? How does that work? Well, we understand that this "could not" doesn't necessarily mean "lack the faculties to". Something is "disabled", but not necessarily the physical function. So when we say that natural humans "lack the ability" to choose Christ, it's not because they do not possess the mechanism to do so, but they lack the will to do so. Described as "dead in sin" (Eph 2:1), "hostile to God" (Rom 8:7), "inclined only to evil" (Gen 8:21), "unable to understand" (1 Cor 2:14), "blinded" (2 Cor 4:4) and so forth, while humans have the natural ability to choose Christ, their sin condition means that to do so would be to violate their own nature. It is not, quite obviously, "free will" to choose something you do not will. Until that fundamental nature is changed, they cannot choose Christ. He must first produce a change in their nature before they can freely choose Him.
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