January 28, 2008

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.

Sept. 9, 2007

Determinism means God is the one who controls every event.  Some say we cannot respond to God's grace without Him first giving us a gift of faith.  This makes you totally at the mercy of God giving you this faith and somehow after you have received it, you must be able to know when it was given.

If I say I live in a cause & effect universe and God does not stop me from sinning or God does not interfere with my actions, am I being arrogant?  How do we separate free will to sin from God's perfect plan for our lives?  

If I start a church and it grows to impressive numbers, does God have anything to do with it?  Some would use the verse in Acts 2:47 to say God is always in charge of the membership in church.  If this is the case then we have to assume one of two possibilities.  If every member or attendee is God adding to the church, then who is responsible when the attendance drops?  Is God responsible for the one attending your church who later steals money from members?  

If we are going to be consistent, some determining factor has to get credit if man is not allowed to be free to attend whatever church he wants.  I have heard preachers say it is not by accident but divine appointment you are in this church, usually followed by a warning to take some action while you're there.

Deists say God made the earth like a watchmaker:  once all the parts were in place, God, the watchmaker, wound it up and left it alone.  I do not agree with this belief because the Bible is an historical account of God's intervention in history.  

If I accept the Bible's claims, I must see it as God's intervention in history.  I see a middle ground between Deist and Determinism.  If God controls all events then ultimately He allows man to kill himself by the shear fact He is in control and does not stop it.  If however, He places the laws of nature in place and sustains them but allows man to move in those laws' consequences, He cannot be be held accountable since the laws of nature were made to operate in a perfect world.  

Man is operating in a world of laws meant to govern without the effects of sin.  James 1:17 tells us every perfect gift is from the "Father of lights" which means  the creator of the universe gave its physical laws.  If Satan is the cause of evil events and has so much influence over the laws of nature, he is essentially using the laws God created to taunt God's very creation.