8 essential components for discerning God’s will

If by sovereign will you mean everything that happened was God’s will, then yes.

Did all leave Jerusalem to see John the Baptist?

means that all events coordinate God’s will, which in Eph 1:11 means my salvation. All DOES NOT MEAN that God decreed my every choice.

Do you think that God decrees every choice?

Things that God is sovereign over:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/10/18/what-is…

Is God sovereign over every single event that takes place on earth? (with Scripture references)

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qna/godsovereign…

Great list.

Real quick. I am grading so I can’t do too much.

Prov 16:33 Is a lot any dice roll, or ones to make decisions?

Prov 21:1 Is everyone a king? If God turns his heart where He will, does that say EVERY DECISION is controlled by God, or is is limited to the ones He wants to control?

Carry on down the list.

If there is no difference between what God allows and what He decreed (by decree I mean a direct choice by God in an individual situation), then how do you explain sin?

An appeal to mystery between man’s choice and God’s sovereignty?

[Mark_Smith]

Great list.

Real quick. I am grading so I can’t do too much.

Prov 16:33 Is a lot any dice roll, or ones to make decisions?

Prov 21:1 Is everyone a king? If God turns his heart where He will, does that say EVERY DECISION is controlled by God, or is is limited to the ones He wants to control?

Carry on down the list.

[Mark_Smith]

If there is no difference between what God allows and what He decreed (by decree I mean a direct choice by God in an individual situation), then how do you explain sin?

An appeal to mystery between man’s choice and God’s sovereignty?

God gives us a specific example of this as He describes why Pharaoh was so evil. We are told God raised up Pharaoh and hardened his heart so that God’s power and glory could be more fully displayed through the full extent of the Ten Plagues and the Red Sea Crossing (Ex. 9:16; 14:4, 17; Rom. 9:14-18; see also Ex. 4:21; 7:3-5; 9:12; 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:8). If the Israelites hadn’t been slaves for 400 years, and if Pharaoh hadn’t kept saying no to Moses, and if Pharaoh hadn’t changed his mind and coming charging after them after letting them go, then God’s power and glory wouldn’t have been as greatly displayed.

If this is true of Pharaoh—that God ordained that Pharaoh would sin by being hard of heart (and keep in mind he willingly sinned because the Scriptures also tell us he hardened his heart; God didn’t force him to do anything against his own evil will and desire)—then couldn’t we extrapolate that out into the larger problem of why he ordained a world that would contain evil?

Decreeing a world in which sin would enter through the sinful actions of his creatures must be the way that brings Him the most glory, just as a diamond shines brightest against a dark background.

No, it makes God culpable for evil itself. If God has to decree that sin must enter the world through creatures, then God has effectively decreed evil, and I refuse to go there on the basis of other Bible passages. There must be a compatibility between the two where man is morally and absolutely ‘free’ to choose to sin (as Adam did in Genesis 3:6) and what God knows will exist. Eve, at least, was duped. Adam made a conscious, willful, and deliberate rejection of God and His Word, and we see the results of that even now.

If you believe anything else, you must end up at determinism, as I have continually argued. Chip’s statements, as I took them on their face originally, proves this. So do the writings of Boettner and Calvin, although they get all ‘wiggly’ in the wording. Well, they explain that God’s not really responsible…you just need to shut up and not think about it. And I realize that I’m oversimplifying their argument, but that is more or less what they say.

There is a way for evil’s existence to bring God glory, and it has nothing to do with God determining or foreordaining that it must occur because He says so. It has everything to do with God continually saving mankind from itself and its own fallen, morally repugnant rebellion against Him against our natural and sinful wishes. That’s what gives God the most glory.

Sorry to come so late into the discussion but had password and other troubles. I would like to see answered some load-bearing questions on the subject under discussion.

1. What is a biblical/theological definition of human “free will?” Many seem to be saying that a choice must be free if could have been made otherwise or to the contrary. Or that such a choice can be made independently, ultimately against would-be inhibiting factors such as the effects of sin on one’s decision-making apparatus, much less against the will of the God of the Bible?

2. Is the sovereignty of God absolute? Or is man’s will absolute? Or is there some kind of parity here, as it has been said by some, “God is almighty, almost.”

3. What is the basis of God’s “foreknowledge,” or even simply His omniscience? How does God know, or on what basis know, what will happen in what we call “the future.” Is such data just free-floating “out there” and God can access it and, if need be, adjust His plan accordingly in order to absolve Himself from any responsibility for what autonomous human freedom may decide to do that is sin? Or must He resign Himself to such human freedom and simply exercise His “omnicompetence” as one put it? I.e., He can cope with but cannot ultimately control, or even know, what is coming down in the future.

4. Would all agree to the Creator-creature distinction which says, in summary, that nothing exists in man as it exists in God?

5. Is grammatical-historical-theological interpretation of Scripture sufficient to carry a believer all the way through these Bible-science, sovereignty-freedom and like issues? I’m not sure that physical science, mathematics, philosophy or any other extra-biblical discipline, can be normative or authoritative in these matters.

[Jay]

Decreeing a world in which sin would enter through the sinful actions of his creatures must be the way that brings Him the most glory, just as a diamond shines brightest against a dark background.

No, it makes God culpable for evil itself.

No, it doesn’t

[Jay] If God has to decree that sin must enter the world through creatures, then God has effectively decreed evil, and I refuse to go there on the basis of other Bible passages. There must be a compatibility between the two where man is morally and absolutely ‘free’ to choose to sin (as Adam did in Genesis 3:6) and what God knows will exist. Eve, at least, was duped. Adam made a conscious, willful, and deliberate rejection of God and His Word, and we see the results of that even now.

[Jay] If you believe anything else, you must end up at determinism, as I have continually argued. Chip’s statements, as I took them on their face originally, proves this. So do the writings of Boettner and Calvin, although they get all ‘wiggly’ in the wording. Well, they explain that God’s not really responsible…you just need to shut up and not think about it. And I realize that I’m oversimplifying their argument, but that is more or less what they say.

[Jay] There is a way for evil’s existence to bring God glory, and it has nothing to do with God determining or foreordaining that it must occur because He says so. It has everything to do with God continually saving mankind from itself and its own fallen, morally repugnant rebellion against Him against our natural and sinful wishes. That’s what gives God the most glory.

[Jay] There is a way for evil’s existence to bring God glory, and it has nothing to do with God determining or foreordaining that it must occur because He says so. It has everything to do with God continually saving mankind from itself and its own fallen, morally repugnant rebellion against Him against our natural and sinful wishes. That’s what gives God the most glory.