conclusion

here is the last chapter. there's also a chapter on a few objections i thought were important but didn't answer throughout the book. maybe i'll post that later

Despite the grand separation that the Reformers initiated which created the Protestant church, many believers today content themselves to return to the errors that necessitated the Reformation. These errors presently manifest themselves within the Church in a myriad of ways, including but not limited to, the charismatic, feminist, and homosexual movements. If the Church only had to contend with these kinds of blatantly obvious large-scale movements, we would have little problem exposing these errors, but we must also contend with more subtle errors that involve practices of worship, emphases of teaching, valuing experience over scripture, and men who enter and leave the faith merely to gain attention for themselves. We find that this onslaught of errors begins with a single, profoundly obvious error, and that is the denial of the sovereignty of God. Most believers, Arminian and Calvinist, affirm God’s sovereignty, but in fact all do not. If men affirm freedom, they must deny sovereignty. 

If men possess this freedom of will, then God either must lay aside his sovereignty in deference to it, or he must never have been sovereign in the first place. He either chooses to not exercise sovereignty, or he is not omniscient or omnipotent or both. If man is to be free, then God cannot know his choices before he makes them, for that would lock his choices into the Divine Mind and no other choice would be possible. If man is to be free, then God cannot change nor ordain his choices nor can he change the consequences that the free man desires. God cannot be omniscient nor omnipotent in a world where man is free. 

Men who believe they are free from the dictates of God and from his ultimate authority and control of their lives also believe they are free from the authority of his word. The Catholic Church has long upheld free will and they also have long maintained the authority of human tradition along with that of scripture. In fact, the Catholic Church gives precedence to man-made tradition over scripture. Arminian churches do the same today, resulting in the many previously mentioned errors. 

The Church must uphold scripture as the only rule and standard by which we know and serve God. If we ignore, dismantle, or belittle any part of it, we do the same to God. If we tear down the foundation of our faith, either by neglect or outright blasphemy, we tear down everything that we have built upon it. We must trust the Scripture that declares God sovereignly reigns over every part of our lives even though we do not understand it and we do not enjoy it. We must admit that we are proud, sinful, self-centered creatures that still harbor a measure of rebellion against the God who has saved us. 

Free will sounds like solid theology. It leads to responsibility, and responsibility leads to morality, and that is the goal, right? God wants moral people. False. That is not God’s goal. Free will may logically lead to moral responsibility, but it does so at the expense of the sovereignty of God. Free will necessarily denies God’s sovereignty, and when I say “necessarily,” I mean to say that we can arrive at no other conclusion, biblically, logically, or truthfully. This is why the consistent Arminians explicitly tell us that God is not sovereign, because “he chooses not to be.” 

If men have a free will, then God is not sovereign, as sovereignty requires sovereignty over the will of men. 

The two are incompatible. Arminian theology, with free will at the core, denies the deity of God. God reigns sovereignly and this is a necessary attribute of his deity. He is not God without it. If you say, “He chooses to not be sovereign,” then you are saying, “He chooses to cease being God.” You speak nonsense.  

The only way God can possibly choose to allow men their free will, to step back and not control, guide, intend every thought, deed, or word of men, is if he believed that they are wiser, more loving, and more powerful than him. If God allows men their free will, he must believe that they can order the universe better, with more blessed outcomes, with more souls saved, with more glory to him, than if he ordered the universe himself. The other option is that God allows men their free will because he knows they cannot order an improved universe, guarantee more salvations, or greater honor to himself, and he allows this because he hates men and despises his own glory. This is the arrogance of Arminianism.  

God does not seek moral people, or even primarily holy people. God desires, above and before all else, to glorify his name. Only this paradigm fits everything in scripture. How else can we explain the death of Christ? How else can we explain that God ordained, allowed, and desired the most immoral act in all of history? God not only ordains but directly causes horrible things that destroy entire nations—Egypt, Assyria, even Israel exemplify this. If God seeks primarily to bless humanity, how can we make any sense of this? He allows men to perish in their sin, refusing them the grace of repentance, not opening their eyes to his truth (Deuteronomy 2.30; Joshua 11.20; 1 Samuel 2.25; Matthew 11.25; John 9.39; Romans 11.7-8). Scripture clearly teaches this. How can anyone attest to the primacy of Scripture and still believe he loves all men and primarily seeks to save them? 

It is evident, by both Scripture and reason, that God is infinitely, eternally, unchangeably, and independently glorious and happy; that he cannot be profited by, or receive anything from, the creature; or be the subject of any sufferings, or diminution of his glory and felicity, from any other being.441 

God does not seek above all the happiness of men but instead his own glorification. Men exist for his pleasure and not he for ours. 

For this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth. 

But at the end of that period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever. 

For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, and for My praise I restrain it for you, in order not to cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another. 

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.442 

God “sets himself highest in his affections” because he deserves the highest place of all affections of himself and all created beings. 

[God] has respect to himself, as his last and highest end, in this work [of Creation]; because he is worthy in himself to be so, being infinitely the greatest and best of all beings. All things else, with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison to him. And therefore, if God has any respect to things according to their nature and proportions, he must necessarily have the greatest respect to himself.443 

We rightly give God worship, honor, praise, devotion, and glory and this is righteousness. God glorifies himself as his ultimate goal in Creation, in the life of every person in existence, some to salvation and the rest to damnation.