Divine Sovereignty vs. Human Responsibility

[Vambram]

Divine Sovereignty vs. Human Responsibility | Bible.org

This is a chapter from my book, God, I Don't Understand.

bible.org

I. Introduction​

Mysteries are forced upon us by the facts of God’s Word; we are not inventing them ourselves. Since His written revelation teaches concepts that appear to be mutually exclusive, we must realize that with God both truths are friends, not enemies. In God’s higher rationality, things that we think must be either-or can in reality be both-and.

Thus, when the biblical facts warrant them, we can embrace incomprehensibles in the Bible and relate them to the omniscience and omnipotence of God. There is no need to abandon rationality for nonsense as the White Queen does in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”1

Neither do we need to adopt Tertullian’s position: “I believe it because it is absurd.” Christians should say instead: “I believe it because God says it in the Bible.”

II. The General Problem​

God has revealed to us in the Bible that He not only created all things but He also preplanned everything that would happen in His creation. He both knows everything that has happened and everything that is yet future. He actively decreed every detail of this reality, and He is sovereign over all. But here is where the mystery comes in: even though God is sovereign, man still has real responsibility and freedom in the choices he makes. These choices are his; he cannot blame God for them. And they will genuinely affect and modify the rest of his life.

Because this mystery more intimately affects us than most of the others, it is one of the most difficult to accept. When people face it, they tend to overemphasize one truth (God’s sovereignty) or the other (human responsibility). This produces a lack of balance.

This mystery manifests itself in different ways. For instance, it relates to the issue of election and faith in the doctrine of salvation, as we will see later in this chapter. It also relates to the problem of evil, that is, how evil could enter the creation without God being responsible for it. We will examine this age-old problem in chapter 5.

But first we need to demonstrate from the Word of God the truth of the two basic propositions in this mystery. Do the Scriptures really say that man is completely responsible for what he does even though God planned everything that would come to pass?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Divine Sovereignty vs. Human Responsibility | Bible.org

This is a chapter from my book, God, I Don't Understand.

bible.org

Well written.

Maybe not many people believe as I do; I've found even Calvinists that believe in some form of uncaused reality to the choices of mankind. To me that is logical absurdity, and is not what Scripture teaches, and to me there is no mystery as to the fact that choice is real, and even with eternal consequences.

While I agree to a point that one must not place a grid or lens (of concept or structure or any other bias) over Scripture, I have to say that to hold to "balance" is also a structure that is not called for. Both, if true, are true, but what God does and God's point-of-view are far and away the active and powerful of the two. The one is subjugated to the other, and never the other way around. God is not a victim of human will, even when the Christ was put to death, but rather, is accomplishing exactly whatever he planned from the beginning to accomplish. God is the cause of our very existence, and so, of every detail within it.

I don't call myself a compatibilist, though I agree that the two are compatible, because they are generally attributed with a certain reasoning for their conclusions that I don't need. I don't have to reason deeply to understand that the one, human will, is absolutely subject to the decree of God. It is both the simple logic of causation and within a necessary meaning for "existence" that in every way we are sustained by God himself. God is not, like us, a resident of reality. He is the cause of it.

I also must admit to a large amount of consternation at the self-determinism apparent in the complaint of incompatibility. We do not operate within God's economy, where he alone 'resides', but even more available to our good sense is the understanding that he is above both our judgement and our understanding, in the fact that he CAN indeed be just to cause and condemn those who by their own will, ordained though it be —even caused— to be as their will is, they have no just complaint; it is his to do with what he creates as he wishes. We know that he is absolutely just in doing so. No mystery there. Just submission, because God OWNS his creation. —That last, of course, invokes the defeat of many arguments, including, mainly, (to my mind, anyway), the realization that we are not even real in the same sense that God is—that is, particularly, that we are not sentient in the sense that God alone, (and not even the angels), is.

Obviously, there are many other considerations, too, such as the notion of not only temporal reality being but a vapor, according to scripture, but our very selves being only what God sees, and entirely for his purposes and of no other truth than that, and not what we see.

Anyway, it's fun thinking and talking about. Thanks.

 

[HarleyER]

Divine Sovereignty vs. Human Responsibility | Bible.org

This is a chapter from my book, God, I Don't Understand.

bible.org

God planted the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden all the while knowing Adam would willfully take the fruit. Did God cause Adam to take the fruit? No. Did God tempt Adam to take the fruit. No. Did God warn Adam what would happen if he took the fruit. Yes.

Adam had everything but he wanted just a bit more. Adam willfully rebelled against God and ate of the fruit. God knew this would happen and did not try to stop Adam. Adam freely and willfully understood what he was doing and desired to rebel against God.

God was in sovereign control of the situation. God certainly set up the situation. But Adam exercised his will and rebelled against God (no surprise to God). God is sovereign. Adam rebelled against that sovereignty. And Adam was a perfect human. So, do we really think we can do better than Adam? (And, btw, Adam sure learn a bit about himself that day.)

The question in my mind isn’t about sovereignty or human will. Rather it is why did God design things to be this way? This is the mysterious Will of God.

As far as our situation, if Adam would not have sinned, we would never understand just how forgiving and loving God is towards all of us. We’d simply be sitting under some palm tree wanting another pear all the while thinking about tilling the perfect garden.

This really isn’t all that complicated. The reason people don’t want to accept this doctrine or to make it far more complicated that it is, is simply because people don’t want to REALLY admit they would do just as Adam did-take the fruit. They don’t want to admit they're rebellious towards God. But wave a $10 million dollar lottery ticket under their nose and see how fast they'll jump.