6. Of God's Sovereign Plan over History (Westminster Confession, chapter 3)

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[00:00:08]I think we'll uh go ahead and get started.

[00:00:12]Church let out a little bit late and I think we're getting kind of a late start here and we may have a an abbreviated uh conclusion. So I'm going to go ahead and begin.

[00:00:25]We are, as you know, uh, treating the person and nature of God in the Westminster confession.

[00:00:34]>> I'm stalling here as I look for the right page. There we are.

[00:00:40]This morning, we're coming to the um to to chapter 3. We've, as you recall, made an initial distinction as we've gone between the question of what God is, which if we could use one word really to kind of summarize it, we use the word holy and then distinguishing that from what God does. And that is the material that we take up today. the so we have the being of God and then the the doing of God and our one-word summary at this point would be the word sovereign.

[00:01:19]And thus we open up a compatible topic and one that I hope will be of real um challenge and interest to you and that you will undertake to kind of see this thing through a little bit because this is as you might suspect one of the most on the one hand difficult and yet I think on the other hand fascinating subjects that we could take up in study of theology. But more on that in a moment. Just to uh briefly suggest what happened here.

[00:02:00]We're going to ignore all these good time next door. People are much too happy to finally get down to our business at hand here.

[00:02:11]You'll notice that the material that covers this chapters three, four, and five of the Westminster, which have a kind of chronological, though I prefer to say logical sequence to them. I don't want to say chronological because that suggests time. And we really can't think in terms of time when we think of what God does in eternity because eternity by definition is outside of time. So we'll say logical but there's still a sort of sequence here. The first of these is that God decrees and that's chapter 3. you'll see of God's eternal decrees and that's followed by creation that one of the first you know one of the first things he does subsequent to his decree is to create the creation becoming the forum within which the decrees are going to work themselves out and then the final one is providence which has to do with God's rule, especially his sovereign rule over the creation.

[00:03:25]Now, we're going to move through this material at a comfortable pace. We'll probably be moving through about two to three paragraphs a week, and I'm going to stay closer to the text than I have at any point along the way in our study of the Westminster. I've taken some liberties I will admit up till now kind of run from here to there but at this point I'm going to be very disciplined because I don't want to deviate far. I want to represent to you the Westminster confession both in its classic formulation and also in the ways that it has been at least the way in which uh commentary on it more recently has sought to either modify or at least clarify what the Westminster originally said. My heart is with the original form. That's what this course is on.

[00:04:15]It's on the original 1647 version of the Westminster. But I would not be doing my job if I didn't at least give you some of what's happened subsequent to that.

[00:04:24]It is especially important when we come to this question of the sovereignty of God as expressed in the Westminster. All right, one other word before we actually start. Uh I'm skipping over paragraph three of chapter two which treats the trinity.

[00:04:43]You might think, boy, that's a pretty big thing. You just skip over there and skipping over the trinity like fairly fundamental thing to be treating. Uh my reason again is that it's already I'm skipping it but I'm postponing it. If you read that paragraph and I won't take time to uh but if you read it you'll notice that there are two words that are used fairly critical words. One is the word begotten that's used with reference to Christ. The other is the word proceeding which is used with reference to the Holy Spirit.

[00:05:15]The only way to really deal with those terms which are technical terms in theology is to give somewhat extended treatment which ought to come under the doctrine of Christ and under the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. See what I'm saying? If we were to take those up now, we would in a sense be stealing some of the thunder that is actually properly treated when we actually get to the the person and nature of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. So we'll treat the trinity. We'll treat that subject in some extended detail. I promise you it'll be just about next year right now we'll be doing. So this is not uh I'm not bypassing it forever, but I'm simply putting it off to a point where I think we can uh treat it a little bit more in its appropriate uh context here. It would be incomplete for the Westminster not to have spoken to the issue and yet I feel like we can do better service to it later. So with that uh quick explanation that we come to chapter 3 and the first paracle just a couple of introductory comments then we'll have a word of prayer and then we'll actually get underway.

[00:06:24]The idea the concept of the sovereignty of God is is a frightening one. It's frightening to Christian people. It's frightening frightening to teachers. I approach it with some trepidation.

[00:06:42]It's controversial.

[00:06:44]In the history of the church, it has been a source of of important and continuing controversy. Now, some people just sort of despair immediately. Well, we just can't understand it. How can God be sovereign and we be free? There's no way to reconcile those. So, let's ignore it. See, that's one way of dealing with it. I can't do that. I, you know, I I don't know what it is, but I just can't do that. I want to look at it. And so, I want to take a funnel approach. I want to plow right in. Now, this may be kind of plowing in where fa angels fear to tread, that sort of thing. And and if so, then you may or may not want to come with me in this enterprise. But I just feel like there are some things that we can learn here that that are revealed in scripture, and we are being less than responsible as Christians if we don't at least look at them.

[00:07:34]So that's the first thing. The second thing, I don't want you to feel that you have to just buy everything you hear right off the bat. In the first place, you're going to be dealing with some material in the Westminster that may shock you.

[00:07:49]If especially if you haven't confronted this particular concept before and the way that it's set forth into the Westminster, it may be it may stun you a little bit.

[00:08:01]And I don't want you to feel like well to be a Presbyterian I just have to accept this so I'm going to or I can't believe that so I'm I can't must not be a Presbyterian. Maybe I'm not even a Christian. You see that's what Christians believe. I don't want you to leap to either conclusion in the first place. Please be aware that you can be a good Christian, you can be a good Presbyterian, you could say, and not necessarily fully either understand or embrace some of the concepts we'll be dealing with.

[00:08:30]So just kind of relax at that point.

[00:08:33]Now, you may not want to know what you're relaxing about yet, but you will soon it. Let me thirdly say this. Here is my primary objective.

[00:08:42]My primary objective is that we understand.

[00:08:45]I really don't care. I mean, I do care a little, but I don't care as much at the end of this. This this series will take about six weeks treating the sovereignty of God. I'm really not so concerned at the end of it, whether you agree with it or disagree with it. What I am concerned about is that if you reject it, you can do so intelligently. And if you accept it, that you can do so intelligently.

[00:09:08]I'd rather that you not either accept or reject from a posture of ignorance, but from a posture of good understanding.

[00:09:17]And that's my objective. My objective as a teacher is not to talk you into it, but to try to make it clear. And if it becomes clear what these Westminster thinkers were getting at and why.

[00:09:30]And if you begin to understand it, then I think you'll have a great advantage not only in understanding the Westminster, but in understanding the history of Christian thought and in forming forming your own convictions and conclusions. And if at the end of our six weeks, you're still not sure, that's fine. If I can give this a little personal testimonial here. Frankly, this was some years ago, but I spent a period of about three years, I suppose, in my own life struggling with this very issue until finally arriving at a conviction.

[00:10:03]Now, it's a conviction that's remained firm ever since. And I've reexamined it, and I still continue to have the same conviction.

[00:10:10]But the period of struggle was a real struggle. It was an intellectual struggle. It wasn't like it was emotionally tying me up, but it was it was a struggle to accept it, to understand it, to put it together. So, I don't want to and maybe that's where you are. Maybe you've already worked this all through and I' I'm you know, all all that I'm saying here is of no value because you've already come to that point. But if you haven't, you know, if this is your initial exposure or you've never had an opportunity to work these issues through in the way that we'll be treating them, don't feel like you have to just accept or come to a conviction too soon. A premature conviction can be unhealthy. Even if your conviction is over something that's true to believe the truth for the wrong reasons could still be an unhealthy situation to be in. It'd be better to believe the right things for the right reasons. And if that means postponing a final conviction, then do it. There's no hurry at that point.

[00:11:10]So that's my little introductory comment. And I hope I haven't alarmed you too much now about what uh we'll be doing. But having said that, let me call your attention then to chapter 1, I mean chapter 3, paragraph 1 of the Westminster. And uh just before we get underway, let's have a word prayer.

[00:11:31]Father, as we approach the material that's before us here, our prayer is that you would direct our understanding that as a result of having been here and having considered the material that's before us, that we would come to a deeper understanding of you, of your word, of the struggles that have engaged the minds of the best thinkers of the church in the history of your church.

[00:11:57]That as a result, we would be better at formed. and that whatever might be our own final conclusions or opinions on these matters that they might be opinions rooted in understanding and thus that our faith would be strengthened and that we would in turn be more inclined to love you and serve you.

[00:12:17]To that end we commit our time together now this morning in Jesus name. Amen.

[00:12:26]Okay.

[00:12:28]The first thing that I'd like to have you read, if you have a confessional book like I do here, you notice chapter three. There's a chapter three on the left hand margin and then over on the right hand margin. You see that? We're going to start the very basic stuff here. And you'll notice right after the chapter three on the right hand margin, there's a little J, which is a footnotes. I'd like you to look down at the bottom of the page to that footnote J where it says see declaratory statement at the end of the confession of faith.

[00:13:04]The declaratory statement is the authoritative interpretation of paragraph of chapter 3.

[00:13:13]Now that is that that should just ring a little bell in your mind. I bet there's something in chapter 3 that might have been a problem because we need anor an authoritative interpretation of chapter 3. Now, I'd like to read the authoritative interpretation before we read chapter 3, lest anyone think that I'm ignoring later authoritative interpretation. So, here we are at paragraph 6.191.

[00:13:39]This is at the end. So, if you could just flip ahead in your fashion there.

[00:13:45]Paragraph 6.191. I want to read this somewhat rapidly, but get the flavor of what's being said. This was written in 1903.

[00:13:53]Okay, just the turn of the century.

[00:13:57]And here's what we read. While the ordination vow of ministers, ruling elders, and deacons are set forth in the form of government requires the reception and adoption of the confession of fame only as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.

[00:14:14]Nevertheless, seeing that the desire has been formally formally expressed for a disavowel by the church of certain inferences drawn from statements in the confession of faith and also for a declaration of certain aspects of revealed truth which appear at the present time to call for more explicit statement. Therefore, the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America does authoritatively declare as follows. First, with reference to chapter 3 of the confession of faith, that concerning those who are saved in Christ, the doctrine of God's eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine of his love to all mankind, his gift of his son to be the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and his readiness to bestow his saving grace on all who seek it that concerning those who perish, the doctrine of God's eternal decree is held in harmony with the doctrine that God desires not the death of any sinner, but is provided in Christ a salvation sufficient for all, adapted to all, and freely offered in the gospel to all, that men are fully responsible for their treatment of God's gracious offer.

[00:15:46]that his decree hinders no man from accepting that offer and that no man is condemned except on the ground of his own sin.

[00:15:58]Now the next one has to do with uh chapter 10. So I'll say reading that one till chapter 10. All right.

[00:16:06]Now let me just make a little remark.

[00:16:10]My conviction is that there is nothing in the declaratory statements that any of the authors of the Westminster would have disagreed with that we do not have here a revision.

[00:16:23]We may have a clarification, we may have a warning, but it's my conviction that a that a honest reading of the entire confessional statement in the Westminster makes perfectly clear what is declared in that declaratory statement. So I don't think now there's those who would disagree with me and let me just admit that immediately. But we don't have a denial. We don't have a statement in the declaratory statement that you know we reject chapter 3.

[00:16:51]We do have statements like this. This statement chapter 3 must be held in harmony with this understanding and this understanding is certainly manifestly clear from the rest of the Westminster.

[00:17:05]So that's an opinion. That's that's what I that's my conviction on it having studied both the declaratory statement and the Westminster. So I I'd like to suggest that first of all, but I also want you to see that there is a tension here that some of what we encounter in chapter 3 may give rise to some inferences and implications that are pretty difficult to accept. And that's part of the reason that that declaratory statement became necessary.

[00:17:37]So again, I'm urging you to kind of hold it in suspension. Let's look at it.

[00:17:42]Let's see why these ideas were were set forth the way they were. See if we can understand them. Postpone arriving at decisions or conclusions until we looked at the whole matter. All right. We are now in paragraph one of chapter 3.

[00:18:02]The approach that's taken here is as is typical of the weather entirely logical.

[00:18:11]And what we have is the use of two approaches.

[00:18:17]One is called in philosophy the the Affirmatas and that's followed by the the negationus.

[00:18:39]This is called the way of affirmation followed by the way of negation. It's kind of interesting because the first two paragraphs of chapter 3 begin with an affirmative statements which is probably one of the most carefully worked out and concise propositional definitions of the sovereignty of God that you could find in any literature anywhere. It's a classic. It's one of the classic statements in the Westminster and it affirmatively defines what the sovereignty of God is as a doctrine.

[00:19:13]Then it immediately hastens to say but having affirmed that it is this let's be careful to not think that it is this it is not this it is not this it is not this or it is not that. So we have it is this but that cannot be led to these conclusions. So the way of negation affirmation negation and by doing that we sort of close in the parameters.

[00:19:42]Here's what we're dealing with. This is what it is. But it is not these things out here that could be misunderstood. So let's look at what it is first of all.

[00:19:52]This is very short.

[00:19:57]God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

[00:20:15]That's it.

[00:20:19]Now feel the force of that.

[00:20:23]You should let's take that one more time.

[00:20:27]God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

[00:20:49]All right.

[00:20:53]I think the best way to handle this is to take that sentence, that phrase, that clause if you will, and break it down into its components. Elements.

[00:21:05]There are maybe more, but at least for the sake of this presentation, I think there are at least four elements or components each of which deserves some some explanation, but I'll give it what explanation we have time for. The first of them is right off the bat, God from all eternity.

[00:21:27]This little phrase from all eternity.

[00:21:35]What's this what what this is getting at is that this is not something that God is doing on an ongoing basis. We're talking about decrees which took place from eternity. It's not that God wakes up each morning, looks over creation, and says, "Well, you know, I think it's about time. I think I'll knock off Marcos today and put in a keynote, and I think I'm going to do this and that in Spokane, and I think I'll It's not as if God on an ongoing basis is sort of making it up as he goes. Here's what I'm going to do today in the universe." You see, the first thing that we're encountering here is that all of this has happened from all eternity.

[00:22:12]Sometimes you hear the nonsequittor used eternity past. I've heard that expression. That is a contradiction in terms. Eternity is not in time and you can't talk about past eternity or future eternity. Eternity is not time. Now we have a hard time conceptually conceptualizing that because we are in time. You see, we are spatial temporal creatures. We live in time. But God does not live in time. Time is created by him for us.

[00:22:42]So he's outside of time and it's from the context of eternity in a sense you might say logically prior to all time but not chronologically prior to it but outside of it he has designed the whole of history all of it.

[00:23:04]So this first one is he's not making it up as he goes along. It is something that happened in his eternal counsel.

[00:23:12]Second, and I'll just make this little parenthetical remark. My intention this morning is not to try to explain any of this and I might not be able to explain it even if we had a longer time. My only point this morning is to try to be to under to just ex to understand what it is saying. You see, just sort of do an exogesis of it rather than a philosophical explanation. And so that's why I'll be moving more quickly than any of us might be comfortable with. All right. The second little element, God from all eternity did by the most and is this two-word combination wise and holy counsel. Those two words and holiness.

[00:24:06]The reason those two words are used, I believe, is that as we study what happens in the succeeding material, there are going to be times when we might really be inclined to question on the one hand God's wisdom or in the alternative his holiness.

[00:24:23]One of the things we encounter, for example, is that God does things for his own reasons. And we encounter the idea of his hidden council.

[00:24:33]Sometimes we look at what he does. We look at the, you know, the material in scripture. We look at human history and we think there could be no rational explanation for that event. It is so, you know, catastrophic. It is so whatever adjective you want to use, it is so irrational.

[00:24:52]It could never have been part of a rational plan. And again, there's no attempt to explain this, but simply to affirm that at least one of the things we must understand from the Westminster's point of view is that all of this whatsoever comes to pass originates in the wisdom of God. And while in the immediiacy of the circumstance, it seems like pure insanity, we do not posit back to God insanity in his counsel. But there is finally wisdom.

[00:25:28]The second one is holiness.

[00:25:31]Again, we see what happens and we might be led to think no holy God could ever have had any part in this.

[00:25:41]How could a holy God, you see, have in any sense been behind this event?

[00:25:49]And again, the affirmation here is that both with respect to the wisdom and with respect to the holiness of God, all things that come to pass ultimately are part of that ordained plan.

[00:26:08]Third, God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably.

[00:26:20]It just gets worse.

[00:26:24]Freely and unchangeably. Now you notice these words suggest a kind of tension or maybe a balance. We don't nor ordinarily think of those things that are free as being unchangeable.

[00:26:42]And by the same token, if we say something is unchangeable, it doesn't sound like it's very free.

[00:26:47]But the combination of terms here is carefully chosen that God has in his freedom ordained whatsoever comes to pass. That nothing was compelling from God's point of view. He wasn't bound to do it a certain way. The idea is that he was free to do it anyway. he wanted and he did it the way he f freely chose to do it. But having ordained it, he doesn't revise it as he goes along.

[00:27:13]It is unchangeable.

[00:27:15]It's free and it's unchangeable.

[00:27:20]The fact that it's unchangeable on the other hand is not leading us to the conclusion that therefore somehow God himself was in a straight jacket in these matters.

[00:27:31]So we have this balance at that point as well freely and unchangeably.

[00:27:38]And then the final phrase whatsoever comes to pass which is probably the point where we feel the greatest tension.

[00:27:52]I mean look all of us you know live in a life that is beset with among other things some real difficulties. We have personal pains, personal tragedies that have left us, you know, sometimes in a state of complete shock and we have a very difficult time trying to comprehend that God was ordaining that.

[00:28:24]>> That's a problem. I feel that problem at this point. I hope you understand this is a group of epic and I feel the tension of that very poignantly.

[00:28:32]Um, then we look at the world and I mean my own personal tragedies are nothing compared to some of the tragedies of the world that we're all aware of. In the 20th century, some of the greatest tragedies that have ever happened in human history have occurred. And then we look at the rest of human history.

[00:28:50]And to say that God from all eternity has by his most free and unchangeable perfect wisdom and holiness ordained whatsoever comes to pass has to at least leave us a little breathless.

[00:29:07]We would prefer, I suppose, at least on the face of it, to limit God's involvement, his sovereignty, and read in some separate explanation, you know, like a Persian dualism, an eternal struggle between good and evil. At least that would leave us a little more comfortable with, you know, what we're encountering here than somehow put all this back into God's original eternal plan.

[00:29:41]But that's what the Westminster said.

[00:29:42]Now, you may accept it or reject it.

[00:29:44]Now, as I've said, I'm not asking you to do either. I'm pleading with you not to do either yet. I'm just saying please comprehend that what they're saying.

[00:29:51]That's what they're saying. And they're not only saying it, they're purporting that the Bible teaches it.

[00:29:57]Not that it teaches it just sort of uh incidentally, esoterically lost in some obscure passages in Habach, but that this is taught plainly, evidently throughout the Bible. And that even the most cursory reading will make this evident that that is what the Bible teaches. Now, maybe it doesn't, maybe it doesn't. Maybe it doesn't. It's wrong.

[00:30:17]But again, my point here is just simply let's understand. That's what they're saying. Let's not try to, you know, edit our way out of the force of what's being said. Let's feel the course of what's being said and then deal with it. All right. Having given ourselves that affirmative statement, now we move to the viaus, which is what it is not.

[00:30:42]If you're thinking, if you're listening at all, then you must have some reactions. And I think one of the first reactions that just leaks to mind, you know, I mean, as I read that, one of the first reactions that just pops into my mind is, what about all of the evil that we see in the world? I mean, it sounds to me like all of a sudden we're making God responsible for evil. Doesn't mean that seems like the first almost instinctive bloodstream reaction we have to that that proposition.

[00:31:14]It's the problem of evil.

[00:31:17]Sometimes people say say the problem of evil this way. They say, "Well, if God is so good, then how can he allow evil to occur?"

[00:31:27]That doesn't put the question nearly forcefully enough. In fact, the only problem there'd be some easy answers.

[00:31:33]But from the from the point of view of classic Protestant Christianity, that's not the problem of evil. The problem of evil is put much more precisely this way. If God is holy, then how did he ordain that evil should be in this universe?

[00:31:48]See, the problem is much more critically, poignantly addressing how can God be both holy and the ordainater of evil?

[00:31:57]The problem of evil. That's a broad big problem. And we'll look at it. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to say we'll solve it. We'll look at it. But I want you to see the Westminster writers understood that was a problem. They weren't lying to this. So, one of the first things they said right after I'm at the semicolon there, what whatsoever comes to pass, yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin.

[00:32:26]First thing, lest we think that we are affirming that God has authored sin. No. Slam the door on that one.

[00:32:36]Now, this is where you see I want to give the Westminster authors credits.

[00:32:40]They knew what they were talking about.

[00:32:42]They knew they had insight into the implications. And one of the first implications they wanted to reject was that God authored Sin.

[00:32:52]But let's be careful. Let's not go too far on that one. They are not going so far as to say, you know, that um God has ordained freely, etc. whatsoever should come to pass that is good. That's not it. They're not saying God ordained all the good things that have come to pass, but the bad things came from somewhere else. That's not it. They're not saying that. They're saying that while God ordained all things that came to pass, all things, all things, he ordained it, that still when we get down to the to the creation of sin, to the perpetration of sin, that even though God has ordained all things, there is something there. I'm not trying to suggest how we explain it. I'm just saying that they are affirming that there is something that protects God from being the immediate author of sin. That he cannot be called a thinner in the sense that he has perpetrated sin even though he's ordained whatsoever comes to pass. Now, that's not an explanation of how it works. It's simply a calling your attention to the fact that the Westminster writers were not affirming that God is the author of sin.

[00:34:11]And we may say, well, they can't get out of it. It's a, you know, it's either one way or the other. He either ordained it all and therefore he's the author of sin or he didn't. But I'd like for us to just leave open the possibility of a third alternative that God could ordain all things that came to pass and still not be the author of sin.

[00:34:30]and um at least give the benefit of the doubt that there might be some way of explaining how that works to the point that we'd be satisfied with it even if we didn't fully grasp it in its totality.

[00:34:43]So that's the first warrant where he ordained all things that come to pass but not the author of sin.

[00:34:52]Sin is part of all things that came to pass.

[00:34:56]Not losing that.

[00:34:59]It's okay. The second one is maybe the second reaction that would come to your mind. I like the way they just deal with this in the order that they would naturally instinctively come to us. I think my second reaction would be well if God is sovereign I mean if he is freely ordained all things that come to pass start to finish if unchangeable can't be altered then that means all that we are in our humanity is like robots. We're puppets. I mean, if God has ordained all of it, then where is our freedom of choice? Our free will, can't we make choices? Moreover, to push that a little further, if God has ordained everything that comes to pass, then when I do something wrong, well, it was part of God's ordained plan. I mean, I didn't have much choice in the matter. How can he hold me responsible for the evil things that I do if God ordained at all? You see, it's the it's the problem. We might put it in as the problem of volition.

[00:36:04]Doesn't that leave us in a in a basically a fatalistic universe that everything is predetermined start to finish that we have no more meaningful role to play than just to be a cog on a wheel. You see, and that's I think a natural re reaction. And again, the Westminster writers were not the least bit uh unaware of that. And so the second little warning they give is this.

[00:36:29]The first one is he is neither the author of sin. Then continuing from there nor get this is violence offered to the will of the creatures.

[00:36:43]Now there's no explanation yet as to how that works but let's at least give them the benefit of the doubt. They recognize the problem.

[00:36:50]No, no violence is offered to the will of the creatures.

[00:36:56]I've heard it said more times than I care to count that on the way it'll be said something like this. Well, if you're a Calvinist, you don't believe in free will. Or if you hold to the classic reformed tradition, then you just you don't believe in the human will. I've heard that so many times. I just want to say at this point, it's wrong. That is not true. Okay? I don't want to be coronate but I want to make it clearable impression on you. Calvin firmly believed in free will. The reformed tradition had never rejected the idea of the freedom of the human will. And to say that is to caricature the reformed tradition grievously.

[00:37:39]Now there's more to be said on that point. And I don't want to leave it right at that, you know, but at the same time, let's not ever disparage this tradition by some sort of um kind of glip charge that well, there's no belief in free will. There is. It's only on the basis of the capacity we have to choose that we could be held responsible.

[00:38:03]You see, if we cannot choose, we cannot be held responsible. If we are just computers programmed to certain reactions with no capacity to choose, then how could we be held at fault or anything that we did? The reformed tradition is not so naive.

[00:38:21]There's much there's a much more profound treatment of this than simply to say ah there's no free will. And that's why this statement is made. Nor is violence offered to the will of the creature. Now again, it's not plain on the face of it how that works. how God can be ordaining all things that come to pass and yet that there's no violation of the will of the creature. I'm not saying that evidence plain, clear, and that we should all understand it. And why is anyone looking frowning at me? I'm not saying that. Not saying it's simple. I'm saying that let's again give the benefit of the doubt that maybe there is an explanation. Maybe there's a way of understanding it which protects both his sovereignty and the will of the creature.

[00:39:05]And if there is, then shouldn't we at least try to hear it?

[00:39:11]Third of this series of four.

[00:39:16]This is one which is um this is the one that would probably be the least likely to pop to your mind unless you're kind of a philosophy buff.

[00:39:26]And if you are a philosophy buff, then it might come to your mind first of all.

[00:39:30]But the problem, we'll just call it the problem of causation.

[00:39:43]Here's the way this one goes.

[00:39:46]Look, as I look at the world around me, I'm devil's advocate. Now, as I look at the world around me, it seems to me that the reason things happen is because they are caused.

[00:39:55]Things don't just happen willy-nilly in this universe by the hand of some deity who's up there ordaining everything that comes. They happen because they're caused. I am the product and part of the genetic makeup that was contributed to me by my parents plus my background, my upbringing. Those things all had causal effect on me. I am here this morning not because I poofed into being out of thin air. I was driven here in a car. I mean I drove a car down here. I was that was a causal relationship. Causes and effects. Causes and effects. Everything we see in this universe, isn't it? It's part of a chain of cause and effect.

[00:40:30]And it seems as if to say that God did freely ordain from the beginning all things that would come to pass is sort of counter to that normal view of the universe that things happen because they're caused.

[00:40:43]Kind of feel that that's sort of a philosophical reaction.

[00:40:46]I like the way the Westminster handled this one. Again, they didn't try to explain it, but they did kind of turn the guns on it. They said this. This is the final phrase there in paragraph one.

[00:40:57]nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away.

[00:41:05]I don't stop there though, comma, but rather established. You see, not only are the Westminster saying this does not destroy causation, this is the only way we can finally explain causation.

[00:41:21]These people were philosophically astute as well as theologically well-informed.

[00:41:25]And the reason they say that is if I can explain it very rapidly if we analyze causation certainly we see it at work in the universe we see it it's everything everything it appears has causal connections nothing happens just utterly utterly utterly without a cause.

[00:41:44]But the problem is that if you if you analyze causation itself carefully, you find it reduces to absurdity. That can be philosophically demonstrated. It's called the infinite regression in philosophy. That causation itself is absurd unless there is something that forms the primal cause.

[00:42:08]And thus the Westminsters are saying, not only do we not lose causation, friends, we establish causation, because if we can finally posit a first or primal cause, then all of these second causes some sort of explanation.

[00:42:25]Otherwise, we're left in the in the whirlpool of what the philosophers have recognized for, you know, millennia is a is a formal absurdity, the infinite regression. Now, I'd like to give you an hour discussion. That was a lot of fun.

[00:42:41]And um someday maybe we will, but not today. I just wanted to again see that they were identifying that that could be a problem. But then as a matter of fact, that doesn't become a problem. That becomes an argument in favor.

[00:42:57]So again the point here is that as God for ordains all that comes to pass he doesn't he for ordains it in terms of a creation with a normal progression a series of causes and effects working throughout the history of this world that that is part of the ordination of whatever comes to pass.

[00:43:22]All right one more.

[00:43:25]I'm sorry I have to uh zip along here, but this is not the last time we'll be dealing with any of this. So, the last one is in paragraph two and is a a slightly different character. These three have been, you might say, protests. Well, if God is sovereign, what about the problem of evil? If God is sovereign, what about human will? If God is sovereign, what about causation?

[00:43:49]Those are all kind of reactions. The third one is not so much a a uh reaction, but it's more a you might say a clarification. I think that's why it's put in a different paragraph here, but it's still it's still part of the via agos. It's still saying it is not this.

[00:44:06]And this one goes this way. It's the one that I'll just call the word for knowledge.

[00:44:17]One of the neatest ways that I know to explain your way out of the problem of the sovereignty of God, I've heard this one lots of times, you probably have too, is to explain it away by the term fornowledge. Well, I know the Bible said that God is sovereign, but you see that all has to be understood in terms of his fornowledge. This is usually explained in the context of the election goes like this. Well, God looked down through human history from all eternity past.

[00:44:44]That's always in there, too. He looked down through human history and he saw all the people who would eventually choose him and he chose them.

[00:44:56]You ever heard it put that way? That's how we explain election. God elected the people who he knew in his fornowledge were going to elect him. Yes, he does kind of have an appeal. I mean, I have to admit that that does get God off the hook on all of these problems. If all he's doing is decreeing what he knew we were going to do anyway, then where's the problem? You see, the problem shifts totally away from God being sovereign and back to our But, you know, think about that for a moment. That's kind of like me. I mean, I I know it escapes the problem, but it doesn't get us out of it. certainly isn't what the Bible teaches on the subject. I don't think it's certainly not what the Westminster is saying. And that's why they're so careful to reject it, as we'll see in a moment. But think about it for a moment anyway. You know what? If my I have my dog, I don't have a dog, but if I did, let's say, and my dog came in here and he was wagging his tail and I said, "Wag your tail?"

[00:45:51]You know, then a little while later, he sat down. I said, "Sit down." And then he kind of nonchalantly strolled over to have a drink of water. I said, "Have a drink of water." You know, after a while, you'd begin to think, you don't have this dog so well trained. You know, if all you can do is give command after the fact, it's when you give a command and then the dog performs that you have some, you know, that you're impressed that the dog is trained. And and if that's the way we're predicating the sovereignty of God here, that God looks at what's going to happen and says, "Okay, do that." You know, then I think that kind of loses something in the translation there, don't you think? You know, I I'd like to find some more substantial explanation for God's sovereignty.