Notes 2. John Feinberg, "God, Freedom, and Evil in Calvinist Thinking," in The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will, volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1995), p. 465. 3. I wish to make a quick comment here about the position which affirms that God is control, yet also affirms that He does not determine everything that happens. This view tries to say that God is in control, yet many things happen that He does not ultimately want, all things considered (I say all things considered because I am speaking of God's sovereign will, not His moral will. This is an important distinction, which I deal with under the heading "God does not ordain sin for its own sake," above). This position is not only contrary to the Scriptures we have just seen, it is also inconsistent with itself. To say that A is in control of B is to say that Adecides what B will do and causes it to do those things. To the extent B does things that A does not want it to do, A's control is frustrated. Thus, if B does things that A does not want it to it, to that extent it is not in control. Applying this to the sovereignty of God, we see this: to the extent that creation does what God does not, all things considered, want it to do, to that extent His control is frustrated. Thus, if God does not determine everything that happens, we cannot speak of Him as being in control because His control would very often be frustrated. We can only affirm that He is completely in control if we affirm that He ordains everything that will happen. The Scriptures we have seen above very clearly show that God determines all things. An especially relevant text which shows that God has in no way limited His control is Psalm 135:6, which says "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps." If God wants to do something, He does it. "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does." Thus, for anything that happens, if God had not wanted it to occur, all things considered, He would have prevented it. We see this also in Isaiah 46:10, where God says that "I will accomplish all My good pleasure." There is therefore nothing that God wants to happen, all things considered, that will be left undone. 4. This is only a small sampling of the Scriptures that teach God's control over evil. For a collection of many others, see the list I have made, The Sovereignty of God, or my article The Amazing Providence of God. 5. Gordon Clark, God and Evil: The Problem Solved, (Hobbs, NM: The Trinity Foundation, 1996), p. 53. 6. D.A. Carson, Reflections About Suffering and Evil: How Long, O Lord? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1990), p. 213. 6. Here is a relevant quote by Edwards: "It would be strange arguing, indeed, because men never commit sin, but only when God leaves them to themselves, and necessarily sin when he does so, that therefore their sin is not from themselves, but from God; and so, that God must be a sinful being: as strange as it would be to argue, because it is always dark when the sun is gone, and never dark when the sun is present, that therefore all darkness is from the sun, and that his disk and beams must needs be black" (from On the Freedom of the Will, part IV section IX). 8. The gist of this section is that the potentiality and source of sin lies in the human heart, but the determination of how this source manifests itself in actuality is by God. A closer look at the means in which God shapes the way the human heart exereses itself will be covered in part II of this article. That article will also cover God's sovereignty over our good choices more in-depth. At this point one may wonder about why Christians sin, for they have had their hearts changed to become good. However, while our hearts have been made new, they are not yet perfectly new. We still have remnants of sin left in us. God continually is working in our lives to cause us to overcome the sin that is left in us and make us more holy. But we will not have perfectly holy hearts until we die and God removes the final remnants of original sin. 9. While not directly related to our task of trying to show the consistency between God's sovereignty and human responsibility, it is important to understand the difference between general permission and specific permission in order to have a more accurate view of God's sovereignty. Specific permission means that God could have prevented the particular thing that happened, but He willingly chose to let it happen in order to fulfill a greater purpose. Thus, each and every thing that God permits is permitted because it is part of His plan--because He wants that specific event to happen. Specific permission, in other words, means that if God permits something, it is because He wants it to occur, all things considered. God only permits what He has purposed, and everything that God permits in this sense happens. General permission, on the other hand, would mean that disobedient actions are not specifically permitted because God planned them to occur; instead, He permits disobedience in the sense that He gave us the free choice and made it possible for us to disobey. But, on this view, no specific disobedient actions were part of God's plan. Rather, they are simply the unfortunate consequence of free will, and not a part of a plan that God is enacting to bring the greatest glory to Himself. Obviously, the Scriptures teach specific permission. When God permits something, it is a specific--directive--permission. 10. Jonathan Edwards, "Concerning the Divine Decrees in General and Election in Particular," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, volume II, (Banner of Truth, 1995 reprint), pp. 525-543. 11. See my article The Importance of Providence. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation.
1. Westminister Confession of Faith, 3.1. Reproduced in full in Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Intervarsity Press and Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), pp. 1179-1196).
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