The late Norman Geisler writes in Chosen but Free that there must be some "balance" between God's sovereignty and man's will. Hilarious.
The Sovereignty of God
If we assume beforehand that man is free to decide his fate,
that he is not compelled by any external force, desire, or purpose, nor is he
limited by any deficiency within himself, then we encounter severe scriptural
problems as we read the Bible. Scripture speaks of a God who acts unilaterally
to accomplish his goals. He takes no consideration for the plans of man into
account. In fact, he uses our plans to accomplish his (Acts 2.23). No one can
thwart his will (Job 42.2), yet our will is subject to his (Proverbs 16.33;
James 4.13-16). This God says
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’[1]
Isaiah tells us
that God is unique in all of Creation. God turns hearts towards himself (1
Samuel 10.9; 1 Kings 18.37; Ezra 6.22). God brings calamity (Isaiah 45.7). God
does what he pleases (Psalm 115.3; 135.6). He asks, “I act and who can reverse
it?” (Isaiah 43.13).
Charles Hodge
explains
If God be a Spirit, and therefore a person, infinite, eternal, and immutable in his being and perfections, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, He is of right its absolute sovereign. Infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, with the right of possession, which belongs to God in all his creatures, are the immutable foundation of his dominion.[2]
Hodge gives us
numerous verses to cement his claim:
Our God is in the heavens; he hath done whatsoever he pleased.
All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?
All that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine.
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.
Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine.
Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioned it, What makest thou? Or thy work, He hath no hands?
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?
[He] worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
Of him and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.[3]
We can list many
more. Hodge continues
It is plain that the sovereignty of God is universal. It extends over all his creatures from the highest to the lowest. It is absolute. There is no limit to be placed to his authority…It is immutable. It can neither be ignored nor rejected. This sovereignty is exercised…in appointing to each individual his position and lot. It is the Lord who fixes the bounds of our habitation. Our times are in his hands. He determines when, where, and under what circumstances each individual of our race is to be born, live, and die…Although this sovereignty is thus universal and absolute, it is the sovereignty of wisdom, holiness, and love…This sovereignty of God is the ground of peace and confidence in all his people.[4]
A God who is not
sovereign is not God. If he does not absolutely rule his Creation, then how can
we trust him? How can we trust the promises of a God who builds his world
around the actions and decisions of sinful men? Why should we believe in a God
who submits to the fleeting whims of fallen man? How can we trust his word? Why
should we submit to his will?
Arminian theologians
refuse to trust in a sovereign God because they do not understand him. They do
not understand how God can allow evil yet remain loving and just. If they do
not understand the God portrayed by scripture, then the portrayal must be
incorrect. If God acts sovereignly in all the universe, over our lives, our
thoughts, our decisions, why are we held responsible? Is God not responsible?
If God is sovereign, is he not responsible for evil? If God is sovereign, how
are all not saved? They fail to trust the wisdom and justice of God and instead
resort to fallible human philosophy. They can only conclude that God is not
absolutely sovereign because that is the limit of their understanding and they
only believe in what they understand. This is not faith, however. Faith is
believing in spite of the absence of evidence. In fact, faith itself is the
evidence that God is just, wise, and loving. Our comprehension is not the
evidence of his justice, but faith. We do not rely on complete comprehension or
absolute knowledge of the inner workings of his mind when we seek him (Hebrews
11.1).
Modern Arminians take this convincing yet shallow argument
and attempt to reframe the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism into a
debate about God’s character. The Calvinist God is not fair. He cannot love all
men. Conveniently, the debate always circles back to preserve man’s freedom and
tread upon God’s sovereignty. God is love, and therefore he gives man freedom
to choose. God is love, and therefore he gives every man a chance to choose.
God is love, and there is no love without free choice. If God is sovereign and
man is not free, then we are robots. Scripture teaches none of these positions
explicitly, but Arminians must read them into the text by implication and
inference. There is no complexity or depth in their objections or their
comprehension of God, of his character, or of the nature of the will. They
pretend to believe in his sovereignty, yet they blatantly deny it when they
face the difficulty of reconciling free will with sovereignty. The Arminian
prefers his freedom over the freedom of his Creator. Man must be free before
God can be. Man must be sovereign over himself, over his choices, his will, and
his destiny. God can only be “sovereign” inasmuch as his sovereignty is
compatible with man’s freedom. While this contradicts scripture, it does not
contradict man’s rebellious desire to be his own master.
Logically inconsistent Arminians maintain that God is
sovereign and that man is free.
Norman Geisler tries to stride the middle of the fence. He describes all the
ways in which God is sovereign in Chapter 3 of Chosen but Free, but then
immediately questions and contradicts every single assertion in the next
chapter in order to preserve free will.[5] This
is how he “balances” free will and sovereignty, by ultimately destroying
sovereignty in favor of human freedom. Consistent Arminians know that God
cannot be sovereign if man is to be free. God is omnipotent and omniscient,
like no other entity or person in Creation. If he knows all and can do all,
then he can change anything he wants to change to accomplish his will, and he
knows exactly what he needs to change in order to do so. He knows everything in
time, past, present or future, according to scripture, and he can change
anything or accomplish anything, from the ends of the heavens to the thoughts
of our hearts. We can only scripturally arrive at the same conclusion as Job, “I
know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted”
(Job 42.1), yet if we must persist into this blatantly defiant philosophy of
free will, either his omnipotence or his omniscience must go.
The Balance between God and Man
Geisler confuses the entire issue. He pretends to believe in
sovereignty to the point of arguing for it in detail, and then immediately
denies everything he says. God is before all things and “There was never a time
when God was not. In fact, he existed before all things.”[6] God
created all things, upholds all things, is above all things, knows all things
and can do all things.[7] “God’s
sovereignty over all implies also that he accomplishes all things that he
wills,” he says.[8] Geisler argues that God controls
all things, including kings, human events, angels, demons, Satan, and human
decisions.[9] “Scripture
portrays God as in sovereign control of everything we choose, even our
salvation,” Geisler continues.[10] He
supports his assertions with clear scripture:
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.
Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
He chose us in him before the creation of the world.[11]God sovereignly predestines our decisions, as “other verses affirm God’s actions on the human will, even in matters of salvation” and “God’s sovereignty over human decisions includes both those for him and against him.”[12]All who were appointed to eternal life believed.
God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
[Christ] is a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.[13]
Geisler fully seems to agree that God sovereignly rules his
Creation, over every detail, over every desire, every decision, every event,
every thought, etc., yet when he begins to explore the implications of God’s
sovereignty, he balks. Geisler argues against sovereignty not by scriptural
evidence, but through rigorous objections. These objections in no way reflect
any kind of biblical testimony, but merely his own conclusions. Unable to
reconcile biblical testimony with the objections of his human mind, he abandons
biblical testimony altogether.
Geisler objects to clear statements of God’s sovereignty. If
God is sovereign, then he is responsible for our sin. If God is supremely
sovereign, then he should give everyone a desire to do good all the time. Why
doesn’t he? If God is sovereign, then he is responsible for Lucifer’s sin.[14]
Geisler abandons every scriptural conclusion in the previous chapter merely
because he cannot reconcile his objections with scripture. Scripture must be
false if it does not answer his objections. Geisler cannot reconcile God’s
sovereignty with our desire to sin. He cannot understand how God could ever
ordain an act of sin, yet he quotes Acts 2.23, where Peter tells the Jews, “This
man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you with
the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.”[15] God
ordained the actions that led to Joseph being sold to slavery. Joseph tells his
brothers, “Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me
here, for God sent me before you to preserve life…God sent me before you to
preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great
deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis
45.5, 7, 8). God can have purpose in allowing sin. This does not mean he sins,
nor tempts anyone to sin, but he desires it for his purposes. His ways are not
our ways (Isaiah 55.8, 9). He is wiser than us. Geisler’s problem lies in this,
that he cannot accept a God whose wisdom far surpasses his own.
Scripture affirms sovereignty and scripture affirms our
responsibility. Neither of these can be weakened through scripture. Scripture
does not affirm our free will but it does assert that we do make choices. Are
these choices entirely and absolutely free? No, but they are our choices. We
are responsible for them. How can this be? I do not know but this is what the
Bible says. Why do we insist that these choices be absolutely free? No choice
is ever free. Our needs constrain us. Our desires, our upbringing, our genetic
makeup, our circumstances—all of these greatly affect our choices. We never
truly have a free will but we always make choices that belong to no one but us,
for no one bears the full consequences of our choices but us. If Geisler or
Pinnock ever describe our choices as free, they either do not understand what
they say or they lie. If they say that our sinful, corrupt nature does not
restrict our choices, they deny scripture. Free will reflects the wishes of
proud men unwilling or unable to trust in the Bible. It is not biblical.
Scripture repeatedly affirms God’s sovereignty over every
decision of men. Geisler admits this. God guides when we perceive that we make
our own decisions. Proverbs says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every
decision is from the Lord” (16.1) and “The mind of a man plans his way, but the
Lord directs his steps” (16.9). God changes hearts toward his will (Ezra 6.22;
Proverbs 21.1). He hardens hearts against obedience (Exodus 4.21; Isaiah 6.10)
in order to judge men. God can change hearts, either to trust in him or to
disobey him (Romans 9.18)[16]. He
can at any time change our hearts, so when he turns us toward him, this is his
will, and when he allows us to continue in our natural disobedience, this is
also his will. Geisler says that God cannot be sovereign over our decisions
because that would make him the author of sin. To say God is sovereign is to
say that as supreme ruler and potentate, God orders everything that occurs and
so in this sense, he is responsible. Scripture does not lay our sin to his
account, obviously. Herein lies the antimony. We remain responsible in the
moral sense for every word, action, intent, or thought. God does not hold
himself accountable for our actions; he holds us responsible. How can he do
that? Scripture does not explain—it merely declares. Geisler and others build
their theology not from clear declarations of scripture but from foggy whims
based on weak implications that directly contradict clear declarations. Geisler
repeatedly uses language such as “it would seem”, “it would appear”, and “it
would follow.”[17] He cannot make a clear,
direct statement against sovereignty because scripture does not. He stands on
weak foundations built on sinking sand and neither faithful men nor God have
upheld these teachings, but rather Satan, for it was he who said to Eve, “You
will be like God.” Free will maintains this old lie, that we, instead of God,
order our lives. Free will teaches that we live independently of God and that
we master our eternal fate rather than him.
Let's assume that everything in Chapter 3 is true because,
well, all of it is directly taken from scripture. We cannot refute this truth:
God orders all. How do we then make sense of evil? How do we reconcile the
first act of sin? From where did it originate?
Calvinists believe that God allowed sin to enter the world
so that he could redeem humanity and be glorified in her redemption. We see
redemption as soon as Adam sins (Genesis 3.15), then God prophesies his
redemption will flow through Abraham (Genesis 12.3). Scripture records this
thread all throughout, in every book of the Bible. God delivers his people from
Egypt (Exodus). God leads them to the land of Canaan (Joshua). He teaches them
his ways. He disciplines them. He gives them a king to lead them when they
reject him as their king (1 Samuel 16). God accomplishes all of his works to
glorify his name (Joshua 7.9; Isaiah 48.9-11; Ezekiel 20.9, 14, 22). Conversely,
Calvinists believe that godly desires can only come from God. We believe that
man is fully enslaved to sin and therefore can in no way desire good. Scripture
makes this clear (Genesis 6.5; Jeremiah 17.9; Romans 8.7, 8). Geisler strongly objects
to this. He says, “If all good desires come from God, then it follows logically
that God is responsible for Lucifer’s sin against God.”[18]
If we lived in a purely three dimensional, material world
where God only operated in ways that we understood, then perhaps Geisler might
have a point. God does not, however, operate, think, reason, or act as we do. He is infinitely
beyond us. Scripture makes two things very clear: (1) Man sins and man only
sins. He is incapable of righteousness apart from God (John 15.5). (2) God does
not sin. How then do we reconcile these two? We may say that God allows sin, but does not himself sin. He
allows it for his purposes, to bring redemption out of failure and to glorify
himself, while at the same time not being the direct author of sin.
Geisler explains what he thinks is the self-defeating
position of sovereignty in a series of propositions:
1.
God is sovereign (assumed).
2.
God cannot give anyone the desire to sin.
3.
God must have given Lucifer the desire to sin
since (1) he did not get the desire from his nature, and (2) he did not get the
desire from any other creature.[19]
Proposition 3 fails because scripture tells us very little
about Satan’s nature. Scripture tells us that God created everything “good,”
but again, gives us no details regarding exactly what “good” entails. Does “good”
mean absolutely and forever sinless? Everything created by God is good but does
that statement necessarily equal a nature incapable of sin? Does scripture
teach that all created things are incapable of sin? Geisler himself admits that
“good” creatures can sin of their own volition.[20]
Calvinists do not dispute that God created Adam in a free state. Obviously, a
created man can sin because that is what happened. Clearly this sin did not
originate from God because that would contradict his nature. The Bible does not
teach that Adam was incapable of sin. Jesus was the only man incapable of sin
but scripture does not teach this of any other person. Scripture does not teach
that “good” equals “perfectly sinless and without any capacity to sin” or even “always
entailing righteous and holy occurrences, intentions, and activities.” Creation
was “good” but became corrupted (Genesis 1.31). Adam was “good” but he sinned.
God causes all things to work together for good, but my life will not be
perfect nor will I be without sin (Romans 8.28). God meant good to Joseph and
his brothers but this good contained much evil within it (Genesis 45.5-9). God
allowed Satan to work much evil in Job’s life without any explanation, yet
ultimately, he blessed Job in his later years.
Christ’s death was good. When God works in our lives, even in the case
of Adam, righteousness and holiness always mix together with sin because we are
not God. Geisler wants to explain these terribly complex ideas by
oversimplifying the terms involved.
Geisler also fails to understand or mention that sovereignty
asserts the will of the creature, just not a free will. Sovereignty does not say that God causes
evil, but God allows it. Sovereignty believes that every creature has a will of
his own. The creature makes his own decisions, but God remains sovereign over
them. We do not understand the mechanisms behind these two phenomena, but we
know scripture assumes them both. God sovereignly ordained that Lucifer, by his
own will and not by any temptation of God, chose to rebel against him. Geisler
struggles to place these two in harmony with each other by limiting God’s
sovereignty. He wants desperately to understand them but they will not be
understood unless we do great violence to God’s sovereign nature.
Geisler is confused about this “strong sovereignty” position
that he dislikes. Sovereignty does not say that God actively performs, incites,
tempts or causes acts of sin. The language here fails to adequately express the
intent. He may “ordain” or desire a sinful act when he has a greater purpose in
the sin, other than the righteous act or holy abstinence that would have
replaced the sin. God ordained Christ’s death. He desired this sinful act for
the greater purpose of the redemption of his people. This is his sovereignty.
He hates sin but he allows it. He is wiser than us. We cannot explain him. God
has purposes in sin but he does not cause it. Failure brings redemption and
humility in the heart of the believer. God desires affliction in our lives to
drive us to him (Psalm 118.67, 75). Israel suffered at the hands of many foreign
nations as judgment against her sin. King Nebuchadnezzar went mad but
eventually gave glory and praise to God because of his ordeal (Daniel 4). God
ordains sin but it does not originate from him. Our language cannot express the
true meaning behind this because our minds are too limited to understand it. We
should expect this when we seek the knowledge of the infinite, almighty,
incomprehensible God.
Geisler’s entire thesis revolves around this idea of
“balance” between God and man. Scripture tells us of no such balance. Scripture
describes no such virtue as this “balance.” God describes us as “dust,”
(Genesis 3.19), a “worm,” (Isaiah 41.14), “grass,” (Isaiah 40.6), and “grasshoppers,”
(Isaiah 40.22). Even our rulers are “nothing,” and “meaningless” (Isaiah 40.23).
There can be no balance between God and dust. We cannot even add a cubit to the
span of our life (Matthew 6.27) because God has numbered our days (Psalm
139.16), yet Norman Geisler declares some kind of “balance” exists between God’s
sovereign might and man’s pitiful will. Little exists on
earth more arrogant than this kind of doctrine that brings God down to the
level of a man and sets this “good power of free choice”[21]
against the Almighty.
[1]
Isaiah 46.9,10
[2]
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology:
Volume I: Theology, (Peabody, Hendrickson Publishers: 2016), page 395.
[3] Ibid.
Psalm 115.3; Daniel 4.35; 1 Chronicles 29.11; Psalm 24.1; Ezekiel 18.4; Isaiah
45.9; Matthew 20.15; Ephesians 1.11; Romans 11.36, King James Version.
[4]
Hodge, 441.
[5]
Geisler, Chosen, Chapters 3 and 4. Geisler explains how God is sovereign
over all of creation, including events, man’s decisions, Satan, angels, etc.,
but in Chapter 4, he says none of this is possible if man is to be morally
responsible for his actions, and God not the origin of evil.
[6] Ibid,
22.
[7] Ibid,
23-24.
[8] Ibid,
25.
[9] Ibid,
26-30.
[10]
Ibid, 29.
[11]
Ephesians 1.11; Romans 8.29-30; Ephesians 1.4, New International Version.
[12]
Geisler, Chosen, 29.
[13] Acts
13.48; Romans 9.18; 1 Peter 2.8, NIV
[14]
Geisler, Chosen, 31-33.
[15]
Ibid, 29.
[16] There
may be some leeway here in interpreting whether or not God actively or
passively hardens hearts. God needs to do nothing in order for our hearts to
turn away from him, though scripture tells us that he actively “hardens”
hearts, possibly to emphasize the severe nature of his judgment.
[17]
Geisler, Chosen, 32.
[18]
Ibid, 33.
[19] Ibid,
36.
[20]
Ibid, 34.
[21] Ibid,
37.
No comments:
Post a Comment