|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
Bible
|
Is God's Sovereignty limited by Man's Free will or vice-versa?
God is certainly sovereign over all things. As I understand Calvins theology, he would conclude that since God is in complete control of everything, He must have predetermined all those that are going to be saved and all those that are not, and there is nothing anyone can do to change that.
However, that is a rather limited understanding of Gods sovereignty, and the conclusions drawn from it do not square with the references in scripture that clearly demonstrate (and presuppose) the free will of each person to choose to cooperate with Gods saving grace or not. (Please read my discussion of this.)
God is sovereign over any and all of our free will choices. He doesnt have
to predetermine all our choices in order to maintain His sovereignty over all
creation. In other words, like the best and most perfect Father that He is,
He is completely capable of dealing with any of the choices that His children
make. From my discussion of this on my website: "When therefore He [God] establishes
His eternal plan of 'predestination', He includes in it each person's free response
to His grace: 'In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the
Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant
Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined
to take place.'[Acts
4:27-28 ; cf. Ps 2:1-2.] For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation,
God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.[Cf. Mt
26:54 ; Jn 18:36 ; Jn 19:11; Acts 3:17-18.]..."
In other words, God knows all the free will choices that we will make, but His knowledge of that does not limit our free will. But neither does our God-given free will, limit Gods sovereignty. Rather His sovereignty allows Him to take all of that into account in establishing and carrying out His eternal plan of salvation.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Bible Answers for Bible
Christians This site hosted by Veraprise Incorporated. |
|||||||||||||||||||||