God’s Sovereignty and Evil (3)

And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.  Ez. 14:9.

I have quoted only one verse referred to by the questioner.  The entire question refers to various texts and reads as follows (the reader is asked to look up the other texts): "I Ki. 22:20-23 and verses teaching similar truths, such as Ez.14:9, Jer.4:10 and 20:7, II Thess. 2:11-12 -- these verses seem to indicate that God does not simply permit evil to exist, but in some way causes it.  I believe this, but also believe that God cannot be the author of sin, since He is holy and there is no darkness in him (I Jn. 1:5), and he is too pure even to 'behold evil' (Hab. 1:13).  Could you explain how these things fit together?"

In the last article on this subject which is posed by our correspondent I made especially two points: 1) The term "permission" does not seem adequate either to escape the charge that God is the author of sin and to describe sufficiently strongly the sovereignty of God in relation to sin.  2) We must maintain the strong Biblical emphasis which inescapably teaches us that God's sovereignty over sin is complete.

But, as the correspondent points out, God may never be said to be the author of sin; and we are also accountable to God for our sins and are justly punished in eternal hell because we sin.  Scripture makes it clear that Jesus was delivered by the eternal counsel and foreknowledge of God, and was also crucified with wicked hands.  Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Jews did to Christ what God had determined before to be done.

This problem is certainly not new to our present time; it has been discussed times without number in the history of the church.  Nor do I claim any original light on the problem or an ability to understand how both God's sovereignty and man's accountability can be maintained.

But there are four or five remarks which need to be made about this question.

The first is that the problem is abstract in a certain sense.  Every single man in the universe, including ourselves, know that we are accountable before God for our sins.  We know that, if we are punished in hell, we are punished justly.  We deserve what we get.  No man can question that.

In the second place, Scripture does not seem to recognize the problem, nor does Scripture say anything about it.  God moved David to number Israel.  David cried out, "I have sinned."  God punished David for his sin and the punishment was absolutely just.

In the third place, the heart of the question is this: What is the relation between God's will and the will of man?  I phrase it that way because God's will is sovereign, and everything man does is done willingly.  The willing character of man's deeds always makes him accountable for them.  God does not, so to speak, take a man by the scruff of the neck and force him to steal an automobile, while the man is saying, "I don't want to do it.  I don't want to do it."  Man sins willingly.

In the fourth place, the problem is that we cannot understand just exactly how God's sovereign will touches our will; i.e., what is the relationship between God's will and our will.  But this inability to understand does not bother me in the least.  And it does not bother me, simply because I cannot understand God's work in any single part of the creation.  I cannot understand how God makes a blade of grass to grow.  I cannot understand how God forms a baby in the womb of its mother.  I cannot understand how the God moves the planets in their orbits around the sun in our solar system.  And, as a matter of fact, no scientist can fully understand those things.  All God's ways are past finding out.  Is it then strange that I cannot understand the relation between God in His sovereign work and man?

Fifthly, God's sovereignty and man's accountability are not contradictory.  We may not understand the relationship, but they do not contradict each other.  They do not contradict each other any more than the growth of a rose bush contradicts God's providential control of it.  In fact, I make bold to say that a true understanding of man's accountability must rest upon the truth of God's absolute sovereignty.

Finally, the two fit together in this way.  God's will is sovereignly executed in such a way that at that point where God's will touches upon man's will, man's will is not violated.  God does not bypass. coerce, force, override, or destroy the will of man.  God's purpose in His will comes to pass.  Man sins willingly and deliberately.  He is therefore responsible.

You say you cannot understand that?  Well, so what?  Tell me one work of the great and glorious God which you do understand.  There is none.  Let us bow in reverence and awe before Him Whose ways are past finding out.

I cannot refrain from one last comment, originally made by my pastor when I was a youth and my professor in Seminary, Herman Hoeksema.  In a speech on the subject of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility he said something to the effect: If I had to choose between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility -- I do not have to choose, of course; but if I did have to choose between the two, give me God's sovereignty.

I join my "yes" to that!