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Theology Online |
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QUESTION: How do the passages like John 12:39-40 ( For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn -- and I would heal them." ) fit with 1 Timothy 2:3-4 ( This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.) I know this is flirting with predestination "vs" free will. All roads seem to lead back to that for me. I can start thinking about a totally unrelated topic of faith (e.g. baptism) and if I think long enough, I some how wind up at predestination "vs" free will every single time. I understand how hard it can be to keep the Bible view of God's part and our part in decisions and choices sorted out. Whenever you notice the issue as you read or think, then you seem to see it everywhere. I am glad to think along with you on this, but want to give a couple of caveats. First, faithful believers disagree on how to understand the relationship between God's choices and our choices as his creatures. And our respect and enjoyment of others shouldn't hinge on this one issue alone. Second, coming to grips with a difficult issue like this may take some time and study. Hard issues don't usually resolve in a moment. The text you mentioned, John 12:40, isn't as hard to explain, though. In John 12:40 the author is quoting Isaiah 6:10, an Old Testament judgment on God's people who were given covenant access to God. They had been given his revelation in the Law and a unique covenantal relationship with him. In Isaiah 6 God through Isaiah accuses them of having refused to believe or understand what was clear to them. They refused because the implications of who God is and what he requires. His judgment on them confirms their choices. Since they won't see spiritual truth, he confirms that choice with spiritual blindness. Since they won't hear revelation, he confirms that decision with spiritual deafness. So, in the passage God is responding to men's choices. Again, in the New Testament passage in John, even though Jesus has come personally so that God was actually and physically present with them, his national and religious people still refuse to respond to him. The very ones who should have been waiting and delighted, his own people, don't receive him (John 1:10ff). And God judges their refusal by giving them what they have chosen.... But if I stop here, I haven't actually answered your question, have I? And that doesn't seem right! So, let me push ahead to say that I see that there is only a limited number of ways to reconcile passages in Scripture that teach God's sovereignty and control of all things with other Scripture passages that talk about men's decisions, choices and responsibility. One way that some reconcile these passages is to remove one side of the tension or the other by reinterpreting one set of the texts in Scripture. For example, someone may say that God isn't really sovereign as we have thought. He's not that big; he is more limited than we might think. Or perhaps he has limited himself to avoid the conflict with men's choices. The tension you noted now disappears. God is limited or else limits his own choices to accommodate our understanding of human freedom and will. This seems to be the approach of the 'Open Theology' movement. They seem to say that most other Christians have gotten it wrong when we think that God controls everything. Open Theology says He doesn't. He is more limited that that. Writers like Clark Pinnock (Most Moved Mover) or John Sanders (The God who Risks) say that the old view of God was essentially too big, influenced by Greek thinking, and we just misunderstood. God either doesn't, won't or can't control everything and especially human decisions. So the problem we feel between two sets of Bible texts is solved by reinterpreting one set to remove the usual understanding God's sovereignty. Some in the newer Open Theology view may take the stance that God has chosen to limit himself. So he isn't smaller than we thought, but he has just chosen to limit himself to preserve our choices. You can see the appeal of this position. But it doesn't solve as much as it might seem initially. I mean, if an evil man is beating an innocent person, how is he comforted by God having chosen not to interfere with evil men? Or if someone is choosing a destructive way of life that harms themselves and everyone around them, how is God choosing not to be involved escape the same problems as God's sovereignty. How does God's choice of non-involvement help anyone or anything? If he could limit evil men's choices, shouldn't he choose to do that? This seems like the same kind of difficulty that Open Theology claims to avoid. And we don't actually preserve the significance of our choices by shrinking our view of God and by limiting his choices, or even more subtly, by having him limit his choices as a virtue. It's a popular view with some folks, and when you read their literature they claim it solves not only the problems of sovereignty and choice, but many historical church struggles, divisions and difficulties from the time of Martin Luther to today. Thankfully, many evangelical leaders have distanced themselves from this approach because the redefinitions involved simply mishandle Scriptures that don't fit the model. There are other approaches that take a similar tack, but are not as extreme. Some look to resolve the tension they feel by making God's choice dependent on men's choice through God's foreknowledge. God looks in the future, sees what we will choose and then agrees with our choices in his acts of predestination. But there are texts that just don't fit this scheme, I my opinion. As a Christian, I believe that though God can be known in part from creation, conscience and reason, these avenues of understand him are limited by our nature, the fall and our sin. For us to know who God is, he must reveal himself to us. He has chosen to do this in real time and history by becoming a part of our struggling, culturally determined world. But he doesn't abandon his nature as God even as he enters and reveals himself to us. We know these things from his revelation, and God has chosen to reveal himself over time through the Old and New Testament Scriptures and especially in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is the incarnation of God himself. The best approach to the question about God and man's choice is not a philosophical resolution that explains how everything works. I believe that the best approach is to approach God's revelation in Scripture with humility and admit there are areas where we do not understand how everything works out when talking about God's sovereignty. We can admit limits even while we continue to hold what we do know about God, what he has shown us about himself. In Scripture God shows us that he is passionate and presently involved. He isn't the 'unmoved mover' or 'first cause' that philosophers and theologians have sometimes suggested. His heart for people and their struggles has moved him to enter our world and to suffer with us and for us. It is what the incarnation was all about. God sent his son because he loved the world. And as Paul says in 1 Timothy 2, God wants everyone to understand his love and what he has done for them. So, there is a free and open offer of the gospel to all that comes from God's heart for the lost and desire to see them blessed. God has said that he is good. He has said that he is over all things. He is active in choosing and is completely free. That is, God can do everything and anything he wants. His choice is confined only by his character. God has also said that we live in a world where our choices are real. There is nothing in Scripture that tell us we are puppets or that we are predetermined and without actual choices. These are the basic truths that I take from God's revelation of himself and of our nature as well. But I am not left with an answer to exactly how God's sovereign choices 'fit' with our choosing. I am left knowing a God who is good and who loves, who establishes our choices and who also makes his own. Isn't that a paradox? Well, yes and no. The American Heritage on-line dictionary defines paradox as:
I would hold, and believe that Scripture teaches us, that the sovereign will of God and human choice and responsibility present a paradox under definitions 1and 4, but not 3. There is an apparent or seeming contradiction in these things but that comes from our present limitations, not from the inherent nature of who God is and what we are. So, I would refer to this area and a very few others as 'mysteries,' as places where my reasoning can't quite resolve completely what God has revealed about himself with a common sensical view. Confused? I hope not. I will admit that when I think about these things I often remember a passage in C.S. Lewis' 'Perelandra,' the second book in his 'space trilogy.' Near the beginning of Perelandra the character Weston encounters an angelic being called an 'eldil.' As this creature appears Weston describes what it was like to meet and eldil: What I saw was simply a very faint rod or pillar of light... What one actually felt at the moment was that the column of light was vertical but the floor was not horizontal -- the whole room seemed to have heeled over as if it sere on a board ship. the impression, however produced, what that this creature had reference to some horizontal, to some whole system of directions, based outside the Earth, and that its mere presence imposed that alien system on me and abolished the terrestrial horizontal. Whenever I get a glimpse of God that shows him bigger than my understanding or imagination, I also experience this same kind of vertigo, as if I am looking at things from an angle that isn't what I am used to. I would be glad if this helps. I know it isn't the usual discussion in some ways and I can recommend some books to look at. And again, there are good folks who disagree with me and who resolve this issue in other ways. So as we talk and wrestle, I also hope to keep an open heart and the willingness to engage and enjoy those who might see it differently. Answered by Pastor Josiah Bancroft
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Grace Community Church • 495 Cardinal Road, Mills River, NC 28759 • graceccinfo@gmail.com 828 891-2006 or 828 684-0033, fax 828 891-3534 |
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