Subtitle : Defending God's sovereignty against a prevalent misconception thereof
"If [such-and-such can happen] then God is not actively sovereign over all human actions." - name withheld
Time and again I've come across well-meaning Christians who use Scripture to prove that God is "sovereign" and then use the dictionary definition of the word "sovereign" to prove some other point. The author of the above quote, for example, believes that God's sovereignty is challenged if it is possible that something not to God's utmost delight occurs. He (and many others I've encountered) are convinced that if God is truly "sovereign", then it is impossible that anything other than His greatest delight could come to pass.
If He wants something to happen, it will happen, and thus, whatever has happened, God wanted it to happen.
But in actual fact rather than exalting God, this view demeans God, and strips Him off His ultimate power.
God is not much of a god if all He can create is a mechanism of a universe that operates flawlessly. Agreed - that is a mighty feat, and well beyond any human's capacity, but there are many heathen 'gods' who are attributed with this kind of power. The God of the Bible is more glorious. He creates a universe, and the very timespace continuum in which the universe hangs, but He goes one step further and does that which NO-ONE and NOTHING else can do. He creates choice.
He first gives choice to Adam. He then gives choice to Eve. Is choice a farce? Does God create a world in which Adam must inevitably sin? No - Adam's sin was wholly his own. Did it take God by surprise? No - God from His eternal perspective sees the course of human history all at once, and 'God' in any temporal perspective knows every possible outcome in every situation. Adam's sin does not take God by surprise, but Adam could have chosen not to sin.
God is not a one-act artist who lacks the creativity to envisage more than one outcome for His creation. Had Adam and Eve chosen differently - and God gave them the power to do so - the course of earth history would have been unrecognisably different. Would that have taken God by surprise? No - He still from His eternal perspective would have known their choices "in advance", and besides, He knows everything including every possible choice a human heart can make, whether an innocent or fallen heart. God would not have been taken by surprise if Adam had not sinned. God is not capable of being taken by surprise, but He is capable of putting real power to make real choices into the hands of sinless humanity.
Sinless humanity employed their real choice, to devestating consequence.
Was God's sovereignty threatened, abrogated, or in any way denied by man's voluntary disobedience? No! Man's sin was entirely his own, authored in no way by the Father of Light. Yet God's sovereignty was preserved, as both the lawful lawgiver and the capable judge. He is sovereign, as having the authority to set the rules. He is sovereign, having the power to reward those who obey and punish those who disobey. He is sovereign, having no flaw in His own righteousness by which any could charge Him with hypocrisy or partiality in judgement. Because His power is absolute, none can disobey and escape His judgement. But at least for Adam & Eve (and I believe also for the adversary of our souls), at least the first choice to sin was entirely of their own selves, not an inevitable outcome of God's handiwork in their lives.
To charge God with Adam & Eve's sin - to say that it was somehow the best and most glorious outcome He could envisage - is to say that He is sufficiently impotent as to be unable to create true choice, and further, that He is responsible then for all that has proceeded from Man's first sin (all manner of wickedness, including rape and murder and child sacrifice).
God is not the author of confusion. God is not the author of a humanity that was inevitably bound to create confusion. If God made a world that would inevitably go wrong, humans that would inevitably sin, then He authored the sin itself. You can't say "Sure I pulled the trigger, but I didn't kill him - the bullet did!". Responsibility is not only for direct actions, but the inevitable outcomes of those actions. Tie a man to a rock at low tide and blame the moon he drowns? Not so! You are guilty. And so is God, if Adam's sin was inevitable.
And so we return to the assertion that sparked this comment; the assertion held by so many who would be jealous for God's honour by defending His sovereignty, but who err by dreaming their own definition of God's sovereignty, instead of holding strictly to what Scripture says on the matter. God is sovereign. He is and has at all times been King over all of creation. He demonstrates His glory by not only having the right and power to rule, but by doing something none other can do, which is creating real choice. Real choice was given to Man; Man misused it; the course of human history was affected by man's choice (in that the course at that pre-Fall point was not inevitably pre-set by God); and in all of this, God remains sovereign. His sovereignty is insulted by we who break His rightful laws, but it is not His sovereignty that determined that Man would fall. It is His sovereignty that allowed and empowered Him to let a creature make a choice with eternal ramifications for himself and billions to come. Were He not sovereign, He could not have allowed any other to have power to choose, or else the course of history might have escaped His grasp, if but for a moment. Because He is sovereign; because His laws are just and rightful, and because He has the power to punish disobedience, and to force into instant submission any and all of His creatures and thwart the plans of men and angels; it is because of His total power and absolute mastery over creation and all His creatures that He can afford to give unfallen Man true choice. Were God not truly sovereign, it would be too great a risk. God demonstrates the greatness of His glory and His incomparable power by unafraid, unflinchingly, unperturbed by the possible outcomes, knowing that in any case His rightful rule will never be withstood one moment longer than He tolerates; God demonstrates His power and glory by creating undetermined choice and giving it to one of His creation.
