Sovereignty and Free Will
JACK COTTRELL
Volume IX--Number 3,
Spring 1963
pp. 39-51
(C)opyright 1963
All Rights Reserved
The Cincinnati Bible
Seminary
One
of the most perplexing problems in theology is how God can maintain His
absolute sovereignty while holding man fully responsible for his sin. If
God is sovereign, must he not be the ultimate and determinative cause of
everything, including the so-called free acts of men? And if so, must we not then conclude that man is not really
free and that he is not responsible for his actions? On the other hand, if man
is really free to choose between good and evil, must
he not then be the ultimate cause of his own actions? And
if so, must we not conclude that God is less than sovereign? Is there any way
to solve the problem of divine sovereignty and human responsibility?
Reformed theology emphasizes the apparently contradictory nature of this and
other problems of doctrine, yet declares that inability to understand
completely such as antinomy is not sufficient grounds for the rejection of any
part of it. Reformed theology rather holds to both absolute divine sovereignty
and full human responsibility, appealing to the distinction between proximate
and ultimate causes as a possible solution or at least as an anthropomorphic
way of understanding the relation between sovereignty and responsibility. Man
himself is said to be the proximate cause, while God
is the actual and ultimate cause, of man's free acts. Ultimate choice is not ascribed to man.
How
does so-called Arminian theology approach the problem
of sovereignty and responsibility? The answer is that Arminianism
also holds to both the sovereignty of God and the full responsibility of man,
though not in the same sense as Calvinism. Man is said
to be not simply the proximate cause of his own free acts, but the ultimate
cause of them. Man is said to have full freedom of
will in the sense of being able to choose good as well as evil.
The Arminian doctrine of free will is, of
course, strongly denied by Calvinists. It is said
that such a notion of free will is a virtual denial of the absolute sovereignty
and responsibility by just doing away with sovereignty. Such
a doctrine of free will precludes the sovereignty of God, it is affirmed.
This
is indeed a serious charge, and it is this very problem that
I propose to deal with in this paper. Is it true that the so-called Arminian doctrine of free will makes God anything less than
sovereign? If man has the ultimate power of choice between good and evil, is the sovereignty of God excluded from the outset? As the
question is put, it is not entirely nor even primarily
a problem of what does the Bible teach. It is rather a theoretical or logical
problem. The idea of the charge seems to be that the Arminian
understanding of free will logically requires a denial of the sovereignty of
God. It is on this level, then, that I propose to discuss the problem: is there
a logical incompatibility between the sovereignty of God and the free will of
man?
At
this point the terms free will and
sovereignty must be more carefully defined. In this paper
free will is understood as the ability to freely choose between good and evil,
the choice being actually determined by the will of man and not by the will of
God. For example, when the gospel invitation is offered,
it is assumed that man has the ability to either accept it or reject it by an
act of his own will. The use of the term sovereignty in this paper may best be explained by saying that it means that God's
decree is all-inclusive, that God's control is absolute and all-inclusive, and
that God's knowledge is completely independent and all-inclusive. We may now
turn our attention to the problem as it was identified earlier,
does the doctrine of free will make God anything less than absolutely
sovereign?
I. THE CHARGE STATED
At
this point a more complete statement of the charge against Arminianism
must be given. Regarding the decree of God, it is said
that Arminianism will not allow that "whatsoever
comes to pass" comes to pass in accord with the
counsel of God.1
The Arminian doctrine of responsibility is said to presuppose the rejection of the idea that the
plan of God is all-inclusive.2
Regarding God's control, it is said that Arminianism
attributes to man a measure of ultimacy,
and thus by implication Arminians must believe in God
who is confronted by that over which he has no control.3 Man is said to have original powers next to God
on such a doctrine.4
It is said that the Arminian assumes that the facts
that happen as a result of the decisions of man happen
independently of the plan of God.5 The idea of freedom is said
to amount to a measure of independence over against God.6
Regarding God's knowledge, the Arminian position is said to lead to the conclusion that God does not know all
because he does not control all. God is not able to predict the future because
the future is not wholly under his control. There is mystery for God as well as
for man.7 God is then surrounded by brute facts.8 There
is possibility above God and man.9 The certainty of God's knowledge of future
events is annulled.10
God's knowledge is said to be made dependent on a temporal reality
which he does not wholly control. God has to await the election returns;11
God has to await man's decisions on many points.12
The very omniscience of God is said to be denied.13
The
God of the Arminians, therefore, is said to be a
finite God,14
a God who is dependent upon man,15 a God who is determined,16
a God who is limited by the facts of reality,17
a God who is subject to the same conditions as man.18
In other words, if free will is ascribed to man, then
God is no longer the sovereign God of the Bible. This is the charge made
against the Arminian doctrine of free will.
A
brief look at the positive teaching of Calvinism on these points may be helpful
here. The particular statements cited are mostly from the writings of C. Van Til. According to Dr. Van Til,
the decree of God means that every fact and law in the created universe is created and continues and accomplishes what it does
"by virtue of" the plan or purpose of God. God foreordains
"whatsoever comes to pass."19 God's will is
the final and exclusively determinative power of whatsoever comes to pass. The
nature of any created thing is what it is because of an act of determination in
relation to it on the part of God.20
Regarding God's control, Dr. Van Til affirms that
everything without qualification is under God's control and direction. Man's
created freedom operates in subordination to and in accord with God's ultimate
will. God's will is ultimate and all-controlling.21
God is self-sufficient, therefore he has control over
all.22 Man's will cannot frustrate any detail of God's
plan.23
Regarding God's knowledge, it is said that since all
reality is determined by God's will, therefore God knows all things. God
controls all, therefore knows all.24 It is on the basis of
his own decree regarding the world that God knows the world.25 God's foreknowledge is based on his
foredetermination.26
God's knowledge is of himself and of all possibility
besides himself.27 God knows the universe before it exists.28
God knows what might occur.29 There
are no brute facts for God, no indeterminacy, no contingency, no probability.
For God there is only absolute actuality.30 The omnipotence and omniscience of God are therefore asserted without qualification.31
II. GOD'S DECREE
The
charge against the doctrine of free will includes the accusation that it in
effect denies that whatsoever comes to pass is in
accord with God's eternal counsel. It is said to deny
that the decree or plan of God is all-inclusive. Is this a valid criticism of
the doctrine of free will? I propose to show that it is not. While affirming
free will, I also affirm, with Dr. Van Til, that God
has a complete plan for the universe, that all things happen in relation to
this plan, and that there is no indeterminacy for God.32
I agree that nothing happens outside the will and plan of God.33
How can such a view of absolute sovereignty be held
along with the doctrine of free will? The following paragraphs will attempt to
show that the two are not incompatible.
The
first and most important point to be noted here is that all-inclusive does not
necessarily mean all-determinative. The Calvinist says
that the decree of God is all-inclusive in the sense of being
all-determinative. That is, God's decree determines whatsoever comes to pass. God's will is the final and exclusively
determinative power of whatsoever comes to pass.34
This means that the free acts of man are already determined by the will of God;
the choice has already been made by God; God has
already determined every choice of man by his eternal decree. The implication
is that unless every detail is determined by God, the
decree would not be all-inclusive. It is true that all-inclusive could mean all-determinative. God would certainly be sovereign on the basis of an all-determinative decree. But the point here is that all-inclusive does not
necessarily mean all-determinative. Every detail may be included in God's
decree without everything's being determined or
effectuated by God, and God is no less sovereign if the decree be thought of in
this way. God is still absolutely sovereign on the
basis of an all-inclusive, though not all-determinative, decree.
This
is not to say that nothing is determined by God,
however. Indeed, nothing could be more determinative than God's absolute,
sovereign act of creation. As Dr. Van Til says, every
created thing is what it is because of God's determinative act toward it.35
This being so, it may be said that man is what he is because of God's
determinative act with respect to him. God has determined the nature of man.
God was free to bestow upon man whatever nature he chose. His choice was free
and sovereign. If man has free will, and I so affirm, it is because God has sovereignly determined him thus. In other words, God has sovereignly and absolutely determined
man's freedom, but not man's free acts, at least in the same sense. The reason
for making this qualification will be seen later. The
main thing to be noted here is that God has determined
and created man's free will in such a way that the exercise of that will is not
determined. Man's freedom, not his free acts, is determined. But
still, this is part of God's plan. This is the way he planned it,
decreed it, created it. Man's free acts are included
in God's decree, but are not determined by it. God's
decree is all-inclusive, but not all-determinative.
Can
we say, then, that the free acts of man are not determined by
God in any sense at all? This hardly seems to be the case. For instance,
to say that God has determined man's freedom means that God has determined that
there shall be free choices. God is the ultimate cause of every free choice
because he is the one who sovereignly endowed man
with freedom. On this basis God is the ultimate cause of free acts in the sense
that he created the freedom from which they spring; yet man is the ultimate
cause in the sense that it is he, not God, who determines whether this or that
particular choice will be yea or nay.
Perhaps there is another sense in which God determines even the particular
choices of men while at the same time leaving the will of man completely and
ultimately free. It is this: since every free act of man is included in the
decree and plan of God, though not ultimately determined by God, there is a
definite sense in which it can be said that all free
acts are certain. Berkhof uses this terminology. He
declares that God determines whatsoever will come to pass,36
but makes a distinction between the things that God effectuates and the things
that God permits.37
The latter, not being caused by God in, the same sense
as the former, are determined only in the sense that they are rendered certain.38
These points from Berkhof may be noted: In defining
the decretive will of God, he says that it is that will of God "by which
He purposes or decrees whatever shall come to pass, whether He wills to
accomplish it effectively (causatively), or to permit it to occur through the
unrestrained agency of His rational creatures."39
Berkhof says that it is all right to say that God's
will with respect to sin is a will to permit sin and not a will to effectuate
it," as long as it is "borne in mind that God's will to permit sin
carries certainty with it."40 He proceeds to say that the decree of God
pertains primarily to the acts of God Himself, but also embraces the actions of
his free creatures. The fact that the latter are included in the decree
"renders them absolutely certain, though they are not all effectuated in
the same manner." Some things he himself brings to pass, but others he
merely includes in his decree and thereby renders certain but does not effectuate them himself, as the sinful acts of his rational
creatures.41
To say that the decree is efficacious does not mean that God has determined to
bring to pass himself by a direct application of his power all things which are
included in his decree, but only that what he has decreed will certainly come
to pass.42 "By His decree God rendered the sinful
actions of man infallibly certain without deciding to effectuate them by acting
immediately upon and in the finite will."43 Finally, he says this:
The decree merely makes God the author of free
moral beings, who are themselves the authors of sin. God decrees to sustain
their free agency, to regulate the circumstances of their life, and to permit
that free agency to exert itself in a multitude of acts, of which some are
sinful. For good and holy reasons He renders these sinful acts certain, but He
does not decree to work evil desires or choices efficiently in man. The decree
respecting sin is not an efficient but a permissive decree, or a decree to
permit, in distinction from a decree to produce, sin by divine efficiency.44
In
these selected statements Berkhof
seems to be talking like an Arminian. Of course, he would and does qualify his position in other places.
As it has been noted, he says that God determines whatsoever comes
to pass. Yet as the above statements show, everything
is not determined in the same sense; and the way he explains God's
permissive will is not far from the Arminian view of
the free will of man.
Thus it may be possible that the free acts of man are
determined in the sense that the decree renders them certain without
effectuating them. The fact that the decree is all-inclusive makes the free
acts certain in this sense. Thus God may be said to be
the ultimate cause, the determinative factor, the responsible agent in the
sense that his decree includes every free act of man in a way that renders it
certain. Yet the free acts are man's choices, not God's.
We
have seen that the free acts of men are determined by God
in certain senses, yet the basic point is that in the ordinary sense of the
word determine, that is in the sense of to precisely and exactly
effectuate beforehand, God has not determined the free acts of man. Ephesians
1:11 is often appealed to in defense of the claim that God has determined
whatsoever comes to pass: "God worketh all things after the counsel of his will." But this does not necessarily mean that God has determined
all things after the counsel of his will in the sense just described. It may
legitimately be interpreted to mean that whatever comes to
pass happens the way God planned it. If man has free will,
that is the way God planned it. Man's free acts are within the counsel
of God; this is the very decree, that man should have the power of free choice.
God's decree may thus be all-inclusive without being all-determinative. Does
this mean that God is less that sovereign? Has the initiative
been taken out of God's hand? Is God limited, determined, finite, dependent? Not in the least. God's
freedom to decree whatever he pleases is proof of his absolute sovereignty. If
the decree includes the free will of man, or even a
self-limitation for God himself, God is still sovereign, because he is free to
decree what he pleases. God is free to determine man's will if he so chooses,
but if he decrees to suspend his determinative power with respect to the free
acts of men, it is because he sovereignly chose to do
so. God is absolutely sovereign in all that he does.
Contrary to the charge made against the Arminian
position, then, we may affirm that all things do happen in accord with God's
counsel, though we do not affirm that all things are
exclusively determined by God. Still, nothing is independent of God's
plan. Neither man's freedom nor the resulting free acts are independent of God,
because this is the very state of affairs which God
decreed.
III. GOD'S CONTROL
We
have affirmed that the will of man is free, and that this very freedom is a
part of God's all-inclusive, sovereign decree. The next point to be considered is God's control over his creation. The
assertion is made against Arminianism
that if such ultimate freedom is attributed to the human mind, then here is
something that God does not control. God's control is incomplete; the will of
man assumes a position of autonomy and independence over against God, and God is helpless in the face of it.
The question with which the Arminian
is faced, then, is this: how can God have control over a free-willed creature
if God himself does not actually determine the choices made by that will? And if God does not have absolute control, how can he be
sovereign? These questions may be answered by a
careful consideration of two separate points, absolute creation and the
sovereign decree of self-limitation.
The
first and most important point is that God is the absolute creator of all
things without exception. Man is a creature, and his freedom is
created. As a part of God's creation, man is under the absolute control
of God. God has not created a Frankenstein. The Calvinist's picture of the Arminian's free-willed man is greatly overdrawn; it is
usually a grotesque caricature. As it was mentioned
earlier, such a free-willed being is said to have original powers next to God,
to have ultimate powers correlative with God, to have autonomy over against
God, to be self-sufficient just as God is self-sufficient, and to be
independent of God's control. But these things would
be true only if man were not a created being. Nothing can be correlative with
God except that which is not created by God. Is man
self-sufficient and independent of God? Only if he is uncreated, which he is
not. Does man have autonomy over against God's plan? Only if he is uncreated,
which he is not. Man's autonomy is a created autonomy that lies within God's
plan, not over against it. Does the measure of ultimacy
in the will of man make man correlative with God? Only if man is uncreated,
which he is not. God the creator is still Lord of his creation.
God
controls all things, then, in the sense that he is the creator and sustainer of
all. But what of the will of man? How can God be said to control it if he does not determine its
choices? The answer is that God does not control the will in the sense of
determining what choices the will shall make. God controls the external
circumstances of a man through his divine providence and he works within the
heart through the Holy Spirit, but not to the point that man is
left without choice. God works even to the point of opening or hardening
the heart, yet without turning the will itself to one side or the other and
always within the frame work of His foreknowledge. God
controls the very life of a man, so that he can prevent any course of action a
man chooses by altering the external circumstances or even by striking him
dead. This last thought, that God may strike a man dead as a means of
exercising control over him, suggests the fact that God's control over the will
is frequently a negative one. God may prevent man from making certain choices by
withdrawing life from him before he has been confronted
with the necessity of choosing. But God does not
control man's will in the sense that he necessitates all choices to be made. He
can prevent certain choices, but He does not make particular choices for the
individual. For instance, God can through various means
prevent a young man from choosing to enter Seminary, but He does not
actively force a man to enter a seminary. He may exert influence through the
Holy Spirit, through providence, through an actual opening of a man's heart;
but the will is still in the power of man.
I
have affirmed that God has absolute control over all things because he has
created all things. In this sense God has control over
the total situation. On the other hand, I have said that there is a sense in
which God does not control the will of man, that is, in a determinative sense.
The picture is somewhat like a man holding a bucket with a bug in it. The bug
is free to move where he chooses inside the bucket, but the man has complete
control of the bucket.
Still
someone will say that God has been limited by such an
arrangement. If the will is free, is not God confronted
with that which he cannot control? The answer is no; he is confronted with that
which he will not control. There is a tremendous difference between
"cannot" and "will not." And in
saying that God will not determine man's will, we come to the second point in
this section, the notion of God's sovereign decree of self-limitation. The idea
of self-limitation means that God has created man with the ability to make his
own choices and has sovereignly decreed to suspend
his own control in the realm of man's will. If God is limited, it is only
through a sovereign act of self-limitation, a self-imposed suspension of his
control at this particular point. Man does not limit God; God limits himself.
The self-limitation is itself a sovereign and free choice on the part of God;
he was not forced in any way to limit his control. The
fact that he freely chose to so limit himself shows
that he is sovereign, that he does have control over the entire situation. Thus it is not that God cannot control man's will; in this
case God would not be sovereign. It is the case rather that God freely chooses
not to control man's will, and thus maintains his absolute sovereignty. It must also be remembered that this sovereignly
self-imposed suspension will one day be lifted when God sits as sovereign judge
over all.
What
has been said here amounts to this, that the measure
of God's sovereignty is not what God has decreed or what God has created, but
God's absolute freedom to decree and create what he pleases. God created man
with free will because he was pleased to do so; God limited his control over
this freed will because it it pleased him to do so.
In this case or in any other case God is no less than absolutely
sovereign.
IV. GOD'S KNOWLEDGE
The
final point to be considered in this paper is the
relation of free will to God's knowledge. The charge is that the doctrine of
free will necessarily means that there is indeterminacy, contingency,
possibility, chance, mystery, brute fact, or surprise for God. God's knowledge is said to be made dependent upon man; and if God is
dependent upon man in any way, he cannot be sovereign.
This
question may be posed immediately, then: does free
will make God's knowledge dependent upon man? The Calvinist answers yes. The
reason is that the Calvinist makes God's knowledge dependent upon his decree or
determination of all things. Dr. Van Til says that
all reality is exhaustively determined by the will of God and
"therefore exhaustively known by the mind of God."45
He stresses the idea that "God controls and therefore knows all things."46 Again, "it is on the basis of his own
decree with respect to the world that God has full knowledge of the
world."'47
Berkhof says that the problem of God's foreknowledge
is solved by the consideration that God has decreed all things along with their
causes and conditions in the exact order in which they come
to pass; thus God's foreknowledge of future things and of contingent
events rests on his decree.48 God's foreknowledge is "based on His
foreordination."49
Since foreknowledge is made to be dependent on God's foredetermination,
it is no wonder that the Calvinist says that if God does not determine the
will, then he can not know
what the will of man will choose until the choice is made. Berkhof
says, "We can understand how God can foreknow where necessity rules, but
find it difficult to conceive of a previous knowledge of actions which man
freely originates."50
He says that "it would seem to be impossible to
foreknow events which are entirely dependent on the chance decision of an
unprincipled will, which can at any time, irrespective of the state of the
soul, of existing conditions, and of the motives that present themselves to the
mind, turn in different directions. Such events can only be foreknown as bare
possibilities."51
This gross overstatement along with the other statements cited above are
sufficient to show that for the Calvinist, God's foredetermination
is not only a sufficient but also the necessary cause of God's foreknowledge.
Two
things may be said in reply to this. In the first
place, if God's knowledge is based on his decree, then
on the position taken in this paper God's knowledge is still complete because
the decree is taken to be all-inclusive. Of course the
Calvinist would insist that the decree must be a decree in the sense of foredetermination before God could know the results. A decree that is just all-inclusive is not enough. I affirm,
however, that it is enough. In the second place, even if God's knowledge of all
things is not based on his determinative decree, God
still knows all things simply because he is omniscient. By
suggesting that God could not know unless he determines, it is the Calvinist
who limits God's knowledge, not the Arminian.
Such a view of omniscience is patterned too closely
after man's powers to know. God's power to know,
however is unlimited. His omniscience includes the power to foresee even the
free acts of men.
Neither is this knowledge dependent upon man in any way. In order to be called dependent, the knowledge would truly have to be post-eventum knowledge. But it is
not. God knows the free acts of men even before the world is created, while the
universe exists only as an idea or plan in the mind of God. How can anyone then
say that God's knowledge depends on anything, if it is complete in his own mind
before anything else exists? God's knowledge is then completely independent and
absolutely all-inclusive. The free will of man does
not alter this one bit. God is still no less than absolutely
sovereign.
CONCLUSION
The
question under consideration in this paper has been whether the doctrine of
free will makes God anything less than absolutely sovereign.
Against the Calvinist charge that it does, I have sought to
show that it does not. The fact that the decree of God is all inclusive, including both man's freedom and his free
acts, is enough to maintain the sovereignty of God with respect to his decree.
The fact that God's control is absolute in the sense that he is the creator of
all, and that the limitation with respect to man's will is self imposed also
shows that God is sovereign. That God's knowledge of man's free acts is both complete
and independent also means that God is sovereign.
The
purpose of this paper has not been to prove that man has free will and that God
is sovereign. The purpose has been to show that free will and sovereignty are not incompatible, as the critics of the doctrine of free
will seem to suggest. Effort has been made to show
that free will does not in an a priori fashion preclude the absolute
sovereignty of God. Such a discussion is necessarily limited, and the
conclusions reached are by no means the final word. The final answer must come
from the revealed Scriptures. Only there may we learn whether man actually does
have free will, and whether God actually is the Sovereign Lord.
Endnotes
1Cornelius Van Til, Christian
Theistic Evidences (CTE), class syllabus 1961, p. 36.
2Van Til, Apologetics
(AP.), class syllabus, 1959, p. 91.
3Van Til, An
Introduction to Systematic Theology (ST), class syllabus, 1961, p. 187.
4CTE, p. 36.
5ST, p. 16.
6ST, p. 160.
7ST, p. 183
8AP, pp. 89, 91.
9Van Til, A
Christian Theory of Knowledge (CTK), class syllabus, 1957, p.2.
10L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology
(London: The Banner of Truth Trust, n.d.), p.68.
11AP, p. 70.
12AP, p. 89.
13Berkhof, p. 68.
14CTE, p. 36.
15ST, p. 160; AP, p.21.
16AP, p. 91.
17Ibid.
18CTK, p. 2.
19CTE, p. 55.
20AP, p. 11.
21ST, p.175
22CTK, p. 1.
23AP, p. 12
24ST, pp. 180,183
25ST, p. 236.
26Berkhof, p. 107.
27ST, p. 107.
28ST, p. 235.
29Ibid., p. 67.
30CTE, pp. 55, 58, 59, 60.
31ST, p 175.
32CTE, p. 58.
33ST, p. 175.
34AP, p. 11
35Ibid.
36Berkhof, p. 100.
37
38Berkhof, p. 103.
39Berkhof, p. 106.
40Berkhof, p. 79.
41Berkhof, p. 103.
42Berkhof, p. 104.
43Berkhof, p. 105.
44Berkhof, p. 108.
45ST, p.180.
46ST, p.183.
47ST, p.236.
48Berkhof, pp. 67-8.
49Berkhof, p. 107.
50Berkhof, p. 67.
51Berkhof, p. 107.