Answering Your Questions: God’s Sovereignty
Alright, recently we opened up discussion on what you the readers would like addressed on this blog. During the open period we received three suggestions. And we’re going to tackle them one at a time. Before we get going, by the way, I should say that the purpose of these posts is to foster discussion. So, let’s make the most of that comment feature, huh?
The first suggestion we got, came from Marc, who wondered about God’s sovereignty in all things and how it relates to human responsibility. When we talk about God’s sovereignty, we are talking about his freedom to do as he pleases. It also relates to his activity of ruling over his creation (also called Providence).
To begin, the Bible clearly teaches that God is in sovereign control of all things. Romans 8.28 speaks of him working all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And Ephesians 1.11 refers to him as working all things after the counsel of his will. These verses are universal in scope. There are no things that are excluded. God controls everything that happens in his creation, including the actions of his creatures.
But wait, you may be thinking, don’t we make choices? How can we really make a decision if God is in control? The answer to this comes in such places as Genesis 50.20, where Joseph tells his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” That verse clearly teaches that the brothers made a choice, and they had a purpose for that choice. But it also teaches that God was in control and had his own purpose for their choice. This is commonly called “compatiblism,” which means that God’s sovereignty is compatible with genuine human choices. We don’t know exactly how this works, but the Bible tells us that it does work. The clearest example of this is seen in Acts 4, where we read about how the religious leaders and Pilate killed Jesus with wicked hands, according to God’s predetermined purpose. They genuinely, and evilly, decided to kill Jesus. But this was all a part of God’s good plan. He rules over history, including our choices. And he does this in such a way as to 1) allow us to genuinely choose what we choose (hence we are responsible for our decisions), and 2) not himself ever do anything wrong. Though God is sovereign over our sinful choices, he is not the Author of Evil.
How this could happen is a mystery, but it is also a great comfort. This means that no matter how random life seems to be, even when it seems like you are screwing everything up and the world is coming down around your ears, God is in control, and has a good purpose for you. This means that when disasters take place (wars, Tsunamis, earth quakes, wildfires, rape, etc.), that God is in control, and that they are happening for a good reason. We may not know his reasons. But we can know his heart.
That heart was revealed in the most despicable act ever committed by humanity (which was also the most gracious act ever committed by God), the death of Jesus. Here we see a God who loves his people so intensely that he will let nothing stand in the way of taking care of them, even his own death. Here we see a God who will go to the cross: to hell, as it were, so that we would not have to. When we realize that this is the God ruling over history, we can trust and worship him, knowing that nothing comes to us that hasn’t come through him. And that he won’t let anything come through to us that isn’t ultimately for our good and his glory.
Posted by: Gene Schlesinger
Dear Gene,
I like what you said, “this teaches that God was in control…. commonly called ‘compatiblism,’…. “We don’t know exactly how this works, but the Bible tells us that it does work.” That is the kind of faith I can appreciate. Trusting in God to take care of the things that are just way to complicated for us to ever understand. I think that if more people took that approach Science and Religion would be able to get along a little bit better. However, that given, we still have a Christian duty to seek to understand as much about God and God’s ways as we possibly can. So Gene I want to push you for a little more understanding on the topic of ‘evil’
First let me say I truly appreciate you putting ‘rape’ in the category of disaster. Maybe that kind of attitude will get men to recognize how awful they have treated women through out history, and that the cycle of abuse and oppression need to end. On the other hand, calling ‘rape’ a disaster seems to take away some of the individual responsibility to that particular sin (something conservatives are rarely guilty of as stated in our previous conversation). I would also advise you to take extreme caution in saying that ‘rape’ [is] happening for a good reason. That is very dangerous ground, and trying to argue that point would make you come across as very sexist and chauvinistic—two things I know you are not. Furthermore, saying the cliché words “God has a purpose for this” to a rape victim, or a hurricane evacuees, or a Muslim mother who’s son was killed by American troops, if not only infuriatingly unhelpful in their time of crisis, you stand more of chance of them turning away from God the hearing the Gospel (remember Mark 9:42). But I digress.
“Though God is sovereign over our sinful choices, God is not the Author of Evil.” Taking that statement with your prior one “God controls everything that happens in creation” forces us to ask the impossible question of, where the hell did evil come from and how did hell come to be? I will admit I have unsatisfactorily wrestled with this issue for year and any possible hint at an answer either makes God weak or mean.
If you take the route that God didn’t author evil but evil exists then you push into a real of dualism and there is some cosmic force other then God that is controlling evil and propagating sin. This of course is a contradiction with Romans 8.28 and Ephesians 1.11 among others.
If you want to stick by your guns, or rather God’s guns, that God is all powerful and the only cosmic force in the universe and truly in control of everything, then God is portrayed as the nonchalant cool kid on the play ground who goes around punching some kids in the arm and giving the good stuff to others completely at random. God becomes a mean bully, or an uncompassionate deity who is in all control but has no care about our suffering. Or as Jim Carey put it in Bruce Almighty, “God is a mean kid over an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if he wanted to, but he’d rather burn off my feelers, and watch me squirm!”
If you take the route that God didn’t author evil, and that evil is not some otherly force in universe but rather the absence of God’s goodness in a particular place or person, or even the corruption of God’s love, then who is responsible for that? who is it that has corrupted God’s love or who is holding back God’ love from spreading to all the world? Is it Satan? Or is it us? Is the very definition of free will, and our ability to make choices in the world the fact that we can choose to distort God’s perfect image, or choose to abuse God’s love? Is free will, and the ability to choose evil, the very reason that evil exists?
-Liberal minded reader
Asking Why do bad things happen?
Well, on the issue of rape as disaster. We certainly don’t want to minimize the personal responsibility of rapists. It’s not an environmental disaster. But it is a moral one. Both for the victim and the perpetrator (though in different ways). Anyone who would diminish the heinous nature of rape has some serious problems.
At the same time, though saying “God has a purpose” can seem glib and superficial (and is often given as a glib and superficial answer), it is, in one sense, the only answer that can give any comfort. If God does not have a purpose in it, then rape is truly meaningless suffering. We don’t say that rape is a good thing (ever), but God can have a good purpose in bad things (Genesis 50.20). The alternative is a god who allows rape for no good reason. Or a god who can’t stop rape from happening. Neither of those is a god worth worshiping. So, yeah, JUST saying, “There’s a purpose” may not be enough. But we should also be telling them about the God who was stripped naked and had his body hideously (and publicly) violated. Or the God who was murdered by nationalistic forces (not implying anything about our current wars here…that’s another conversation). Or about the God who was dislocated twice in childhood, and who grew up to be homeless…telling them that, helps to better explain things I think.
I would also remind you that the Westminster Confession (5.4) states “The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin.” I don’t know if PCUSA ordination vows still involve the promise to uphold the WCF, but historically that’s been the case.
As to how that works, again, the fact that you can’t come up with a satisfactory answer makes me think perhaps we are incapable of formulating an answer. Of course, I’m open to suggestions. Just because WE can’t come up with one doesn’t mean that no one can. I think that George Lindbeck’s post-liberal approach to doctrine is helpful here. We have rules. 1) God determines all things that come to pass. 2) It is never proper to charge God with evil. 3) Mankind is responsible for their moral decisions. And then theological dialogue can take place as a game that follows those rules. Whatever formulation you come up with that follows those rules is considered orthodox.
Augustine had the view that evil is not so much something positively that’s there, but rather a privation of good. Privation is more than lack. For example rocks lack sight, but that’s not a privation because rocks aren’t designed to see. Human beings, however, should be able to see. When they can’t that’s a privation. I think that’s similar to what you’re talking about. I don’t think that the privation view can answer EVERYTHING…but it is a helpful perspective. And, in that case, evil, strictly speaking, does not exist.
I find free will to be an unsatisfactory answer to the question: 1) because I think the term is misleading, and 2) because even if we posit free will it doesn’t solve the problem of why there’s evil. After all, if God knew there would be evil if we had free will, then why would he give us free will? It doesn’t solve the problem, it just pushes the problem back a step.
Evil does exist because of human agency. But that human agency is never outside of God’s sovereign control. I can’t point to the specific reasons for why bad things happen. But I can say that they happen for the greater glory of God. How that works, we won’t be able to say on this side of eternity. But we have the promise that when we see him, we will recognize his glory, and the wisdom of his purposes in all that he has ordained to pass.
I don’t know how rape and poverty and hunger and infanticide fit into God’s purpose. But I know the God who works his purpose. And I trust that (as Derek Webb sings) these too shall be made right. Because he is a God who does not stand aloof to suffering. He enters into it. When we understand the cross of Christ, our pains, our suffering, and our objections to God’s ways are relativized, and we are led to worship.
i love this. good conversations on this blog. keep it up.
i think this puts it simply “That heart was revealed in the most despicable act ever committed by humanity (which was also the most gracious act ever committed by God), the death of Jesus.”
I like that quote from Derek Webb, Gene… it’s a good one. These too shall be made right.
Perhaps the whole of it all, is being able to make God famous in our own particular circumstances, whether we have good “breaks” or seeming “bad breaks”….. Perhaps it is not about the breaks or the feeling of God with a magnifying glass or anything like that…. perhaps it is simply our ability to allow God to be God.
let’s go philosophical….
I mean, in all honesty, if God is truly God, then He is God….. and truthfully… If God is God then we would never had been without Him. So since we are here, it can be assumed that there is a purpose…. involving us… and involving God.
I hope liberal minded reader will continue to be open minded about this stuff.
good conversation, friends. good day!
“This means that no matter how random life seems to be, even when it seems like you are screwing everything up and the world is coming down around your ears, God is in control, and has a good purpose for you.”
Romans 8.28 speaks of him working all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
The water is a little deep for me in this conversation but just to add a little more,
Does God have a good purpose for everyone or just those who love him and are called?
Marc…great question. First, let’s say that we can’t give a definitive answer to this question because the Scripture doesn’t definitively answer it…so it’s kind of speculation. I’ll go ahead and give my two cents though.
To quote Reverend Lovejoy when asked some question by Ned Flanders that I can’t remember, “Yes with an if…no with a but.”
God has a good purpose for everyone, including the lost and the reprobate. Even God’s purpose in eternal punishment is good…it just doesn’t benefit those who are punished. It IS a good purpose though, no matter how much our minds may recoil at the idea of hell. So, we have to ask what we mean when we say good.
But also, we have to remember God’s common grace. All of humanity deserves to be cast into hell the moment we exist. We are sinners by nature. Therefore, anything else that we get is grace to us. It’s God’s favor that we don’t deserve. Those whom God saves receive what we call special grace. But all people receive common grace. Simply by his goodness God gives us life and breath. Simply by his goodness God gives us houses and food and friends. By his goodness God restrains the evil in the hearts of even the reprobate so that they are not as wicked as they could be (and therefore do not store up as much wrath for themselves as they could). All of these things are common grace blessings from God. And, hence, we could say that there is a good purpose.
But whenever we move beyond God’s sovereign purposes for those who are redeemed and called, we are entering into very deep water and must speak very carefully. God has simply revealed his saving purposes much more clearly than his other purposes. So we try to major on the majors. And allow some of the secret things to belong to the Lord our God (Deuteronomy 29.29).
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