Is God sovereign or deterministic? I do not believe a sovereign God has to be deterministic. A God who upholds and sustains his creation does not have to be a controlling God. I think there is a distinction between God's will and what he decrees.
God decreed or spoke the earth and the laws governing it into existence. But to speak the laws of nature into existence and then control each event on the earth as a deterministic God would do is to wonder why God even created the laws of nature.
God gave man free will and because God issued that for man, that decree is perfect. You cannot have man being controlled by a deterministic God if that same God has issued a command/privilege/granted man free will.
The argument is God is perfect in all he does, and if he decides man to be free, that gift of freedom is perfect.
Preachers have said if God wants all men to be saved, all men would be saved. This is an argument of either/or. In this argument, there is no granting of a third option. I believe the third option is that God does not have to apologize for man's self-determined nature. Those who teach limited atonement are basing their argument on an either/or God. God has to be either sovereign/deterministic and man must be subject to a deterministic God.
A deterministic God controls every minute detail. How do you love a God freely if your desire to love is chosen by him to love him? If God chooses us to salvation by an act other than our free will or self-deterministic nature, then we have not freely chosen, therefore we are not free.
God decreed or spoke the earth and the laws governing it into existence. But to speak the laws of nature into existence and then control each event on the earth as a deterministic God would do is to wonder why God even created the laws of nature.
God gave man free will and because God issued that for man, that decree is perfect. You cannot have man being controlled by a deterministic God if that same God has issued a command/privilege/granted man free will.
The argument is God is perfect in all he does, and if he decides man to be free, that gift of freedom is perfect.
Preachers have said if God wants all men to be saved, all men would be saved. This is an argument of either/or. In this argument, there is no granting of a third option. I believe the third option is that God does not have to apologize for man's self-determined nature. Those who teach limited atonement are basing their argument on an either/or God. God has to be either sovereign/deterministic and man must be subject to a deterministic God.
A deterministic God controls every minute detail. How do you love a God freely if your desire to love is chosen by him to love him? If God chooses us to salvation by an act other than our free will or self-deterministic nature, then we have not freely chosen, therefore we are not free.
