Recently a fellow wondered that given that God ordains all things should we not be just considered pawns on a chessboard?
I would like to respond to that view..
Pawns on a chessboard are not moral agents.
As our Confession states:
Chapter 3
1. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: (Eph. 1:11,Rom. 11:33, Heb. 6:17, Rom. 9:15,18) yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, (James 1:13,17, 1 John 1:5) nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. (Acts 2:23, Matt. 17:12, Acts 4:27-28, John 19:11, Prov. 16:33)
Chapter 9
1. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil. (Matt. 17:12, James 1:14, Deut. 30:19)
Yes, God ordains all that has, is, or will happen. But note from WCF 3.1 above, that ordaining includes the liberty or contingency of second causes. In fact, the liberty and contingencies are established by God, else there would be none at all. Note from WCF 9.1 above, that no moral agent is being forced to act the way he or she so acts. God's decree is exhaustive, taking into account the whole complexity of choice, with all its options and motivations. God's ordaining that you will wear a blue shirt tomorrow is no part of the consideration which will enter into your rational process when you will certainly don that blue shirt. The necessity of God's decree will exercise no influence on your internal motivations tomorrow. Your rational motivation will operate freely without any necessitating control. You will act as yourself in every way. You will be the proximate cause of your actions. Yes, God is the First Cause of all things, the antecedent cause, yet God's ordaining includes and establishes the very liberty you possess and which you will leverage when you act within a realm of contingencies (upbringing, environmental factors, motives, abilities, etc.).
Neglecting the truths described in the WCF sections above leads to the usual anti-Calvinist canards that we are just puppets or robots. Rather, we are moral agents with wills and inclinations that drive our wills.
The advice given to not spend inordinate time about the secret will of God is important, for that matter, it is Biblical (Deut. 29:29) as one tends to focus on the how our wholly sovereign God can pull off holding man responsible. Just as we can accept that God is capable of uttering a few words and the universe springs into existence, we should be willing to accept that God can know all things since, after all, God ordained all things, yet He does so such that our moral culpability remains intact. We finite creatures tend to make dichotomies where none exist from God's perspective.
