8 essential components for discerning God’s will

I appreciate the conversation.

Personal story (the short version):

I was a rebellious teenager, and ended up getting expelled from college at the end of my 1st semester. I returned to that school 10 years later with a wife and children and graduated when I was 33 instead of 22.

My life is significantly different as a result of that single event. It is likely that had I stayed in school, I would have married a different woman and my work through the years would have been different. According to those who affirm what I like to call, the one-school-one-wife-one-ministry-for-life approach to the will of God, my failure at the age of 18, cost me the opportunity to enjoy God’s perfect will.

When in my 40’s, I finally understood the sovereignty of God, I realized that God planned this present course for my life, and wouldn’t trade it, mistakes and all, for whatever the other line of my life would have been.

Thankful for the places I have been, the people I have met, and the influence of all of that on my life.

In addition, some of the options I had in my life, were because of choices my parents made, long before I was born. It’s also true that the options my children have are related to choices my wife and I made along the way—some good, some bad. I am glad that God’s sovereignty encompasses all the choices my parents, and my wife and I made.

that my original point was to critique the component that every compatibilist puts in their “how to know the will of God” list called “advice/counsel from those you trust”.

when you define the will of God to be everything that happens whether good, bad, evil, righteous, etc. That is exactly how Friesen in Decision Making and the Will of God defines it.

A few quotes from Schizophrenic God by Steve Shank:

The word sovereign is not used in the King James Version of the Bible, and when the concept is used, it is never used in the manner in which the extreme sovereignty view defines it. This view leaves people with a passive, “Que sera, sera; whatever will be, will be” attitude about life. This view in its extreme form tells us that all things are of God, so God is behind all things. However, if you see God behind all things, you then see God behind all evil. In effect, you are calling good evil; worse yet, you are calling God evil!

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Jesus instructed us to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven (see Matt. 6:10). Why would there be a need to pray that if everything that happens on earth was already God’s will? This presupposes that God’s will is not always being done on earth.

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If the devil is one of the tools under God’s control whose purpose is to work God’s will into your life, why would God tell you to resist him?

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You will never find in Jesus’ teachings or practices that Father God has some higher good or greater purpose behind the evil in this world, as if satan and his demons were somehow carrying out a higher, sovereign purpose of God.

Its easy to stay in the will of God when you define the will of God to be everything that happens whether good, bad, evil, righteous, etc. That is exactly how Friesen in Decision Making and the Will of God defines it.

Two questions, Mark:

1. Are you saying that things happen apart from and in contradiction to the will of God?
2. Can you show where Friesen defines the will of God this way? I don’t recall that from Friesen’s book.

It pervades the entire book!

Friesen calls the sovereign will of God everything that happens. Strong Example, on page 222 of the 25th Anniversary revised and updated edition, he has his famous Venn diagram. In a circle he has the sovereign will of God that on the next page (223) he says “God’s sovereign plan encompasses what actually takes place, though God knows of other possibilities that do not happen”. He then goes inside tha circle to the Moral Will of God. He notes that outside of the moral will but in the sovereign will “includes all actual sinful actions”. In the Moral Will of God are things that are moral. Within that circle there is the “freedom” circle of moral things that aren’t required by some specific decree or law of God.

The key is Friesen, and I think most compatibalists, call everything that happens the will of God by definition and go so far as to say God chose all things to happen. This is different from the “freedom” side that says, while God allows all things that have happened, He didn’t chose all of them.

The two camps use the same word “will” but have different definitions.

[Michelle]

A few quotes from Schizophrenic God by Steve Shank:

[Steve Shank] The word sovereign is not used in the King James Version of the Bible, and when the concept is used, it is never used in the manner in which the extreme sovereignty view defines it.

But of course, as Shank himself even acknowledges, the real issue is not whether the word is used (as the word “Trinity” is never used), but whether the concept is clearly taught.

[Steve Shank] This view leaves people with a passive, “Que sera, sera; whatever will be, will be” attitude about life. This view in its extreme form tells us that all things are of God, so God is behind all things. However, if you see God behind all things, you then see God behind all evil. In effect, you are calling good evil; worse yet, you are calling God evil!

~~~~~

[Steve Shank] Jesus instructed us to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven (see Matt. 6:10). Why would there be a need to pray that if everything that happens on earth was already God’s will? This presupposes that God’s will is not always being done on earth.

~~~~~

[Steve Shank] If the devil is one of the tools under God’s control whose purpose is to work God’s will into your life, why would God tell you to resist him?

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[Steve Shank] You will never find in Jesus’ teachings or practices that Father God has some higher good or greater purpose behind the evil in this world, as if satan and his demons were somehow carrying out a higher, sovereign purpose of God.

Second, even if that were true. you will also never find in Jesus’ teachings any clear exposition of the Rapture, the Millennial kingdom, and many other topics. Are you suggesting that if something is taught elsewhere in the Bible but that Jesus didn’t teach that we shouldn’t believe it? That’s the position of the so-called “Red Letter Christians,” who elevate Jesus’ teachings above the rest of inspired Scripture.

Friesen calls the sovereign will of God everything that happens.

So you are disagreeing with that?

The key is Friesen, and I think most compatibalists, call everything that happens the will of God by definition and go so far as to say God chose all things to happen. This is different from the “freedom” side that says, while God allows all things that have happened, He didn’t chose all of them.

So what is the difference here?

[Michelle] You will never find in Jesus’ teachings or practices that Father God has some higher good or greater purpose behind the evil in this world, as if satan and his demons were somehow carrying out a higher, sovereign purpose of God.

Just an add-on to Greg’s comment above:

If evil does NOT serve God’s purpose, then it is has no purpose, and God is helpless to do anything about it. Greg and others have provided a number of texts above that show that man’s evil plans worked to accomplish God’s will, and yet those men were held responsible for their evil.

God uses MEANS to accomplish the ENDS he has planned, and while God is SOVEREIGN man is RESPONSIBILE for his sin.

God is above us, and is in complete control of His creation. We have our own free will, but in a way we cannot ever understand, God’s will is above our own. I am not denigrating the efforts by folks who want to pry deeper into this mystery. I’ve done a great deal of thinking about it myself over the years. I am a compatibalist. I genuinely think the alternative is a God who is not sovereign.

Can’t we acknowledge that God is just smarter than we are? I know everybody would agree, but do we act like we really believe this?

• God is in complete control.
• We each make our own free choices.
• Yet, everything still happens just as God decreed and intended.
• Yet, we’re each personally responsible for the consequences of our decisions
• Yet, God is not the author of sin

In the end, God is simply smarter than we are. This isn’t a cop-out to mystery, but a humble conclusion. It’s not a cop-out to believe God is absolutely sovereign, yet we are personally responsible for our actions, and that we can’t ever put it all together.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

Actually Mark, that’s exactly what I am saying. The only individual who actually has free will is God. If His decisions are limited in any way, including by our choices, He is actually not sovereign. That’s the underlying thought, the only explanation for, verses like Ephesians 1:9.

So you’re really, then, a determinist, almost bordering on fatalism.

This is what cracks me up about five point Calvinists. They stress God’s sovereignty so much that man is reduced to mere programmed creations that will always fulfill the Lord’s will - even if they don’t want to - and then they insist that those preprogrammed creations are guilty of making decisions that they insist cannot be made.
O_o
As TylerR said, this isn’t an either/or. There is a compatibility between man’s guilt and God’s control, where man is free to choose some things and yet God knows and controls all of it, and to reduce this idea to a view as simplistic as Chip’s defames both God’s omnipotence and omniscience. And possibly more than that.

I would rather stand in front of a church or ordination council and answer “I don’t know” to questions on this subject for forty thousand hours than say that the only way God can be sovereign is if man has the option and will of a Perl script and defame God’s name in this way.

But this statement:

Michelle wrote:
You will never find in Jesus’ teachings or practices that Father God has some higher good or greater purpose behind the evil in this world, as if satan and his demons were somehow carrying out a higher, sovereign purpose of God.

is simply ludicrous on it’s face.
Luke 22:4-6
Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd.
Luke 22:52-53
​Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders, who had come out against him, “Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”

John 13:21-27
After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
Acts 2:22-24
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

I want to expand just a bit on what I wrote earlier:

A cop-out is when you realize the potential dilemma of holding a particular view, so you waffle in the middle to avoid drawing flak from either side.

Appealing to mystery means you draw a conclusion and can back it up, even though you confess you don’t know how to resolve every potential objection or implication. For example:

• If you come right down to it, I believe God is sovereign, has an eternal decree and everything happens because He predetermined it and wants it to happen
• I believe man’s will is subservient to God’s will, yet still voluntary, in a way we won’t ever understand
• Our job is to obey the commands we have lovingly and willingly, not speculate beyond what the Scripture says
• I can’t reconcile this apparent conundrum, but I won’t cop-out by claiming God is not sovereign and doesn’t have a decree