Recently at Church we had a three week series on decision making that brought up lots of thoughts to do with God's sovereignty. Thinking about God's sovereignty was one of the things that impacted me the most last year on Relay. And so as I'm a bit of a geek, during the two snow days I had off this week I spent some time re-reading the chapter Grudem wrote on God's providence and it was really helpful to try and get things clearer in my mind. Anyway...here are some thoughts on what's been mulling around my head for probably the last year:
Scripture presents that God is completely sovereign- everything is under his control, all things are held together by him and ordained by him, yet we still are responsible for the choices and decisions we make. To try to understand this is in some ways not possible because we are not God and can not understand how he can create individuals with the ability to make full decisions and act of their own will- yet still be completely under his will. Basically we are not God!
The hardest part in understanding this is when considering evil and suffering. We know God takes no pleasure in evil and does no evil himself- yet we see it still happening and as God is sovereign it must be under his will- for his ultimate good purposes, i.e. the cross! We know God is completely without evil and does not do evil himself, thus it would seem easy for us to conclude he then just allows others to do evil. But then this poses the problem that someone/thing else has greater control than God...and that has scary consequences as if God's not in control of evil, then our salvation could be at risk. Hmmm. I think Grudem/the Reformed position concludes that God does sometimes will suffering/evil/sin to be done by others for his good purposes. But God himself does no evil. We know that suffering often disciplines us and helps us grow in holiness etc. (Hebrews 12) And so if we remember God is in control this gives us hope amidst seeing the evil and suffering in the world...that his good purposes are the end result.
This is hard to understand and take- I have not suffered greatly in my life (yet), so when I do will I still be so positive? I guess once again its about remembering who God is and who we are. We obviously have limited perspectives and can't see the bigger picture but thankfully we can have peace that God is good and is in complete control!
Anyway, I may have got some of this wrong...any thoughts anyone?!!
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'How long O Lord: reflections on suffering and evil' by Carson is really helpful on this.
ReplyDeletequickly, there is evil and suffering because we live in a fallen world.
on the issue of sovereignty and evil, God is omnipotent. however his will can be broken down into 2 types (there are posh names that i cant remember) but when God wills something it happens! eg he spoke and created the world. however God can also allow things to happen which to us may appear to be evil. a good example of this is in the 2nd half of Romans 1 where God gives them over in their lust. God is in control (he is omnipotent and sovereign) but he allows them to do what they want to do even though it is against what he has set out as best for man.
this brings in the important distinction that although God is sovereign we are still wholely responsible for our actions as humans and God will hold us accountable for them... but that opens up a whole different discussion!
great blog btw.