43: God’s Sovereignty: Does It Mean He Causes Everything?

Welcome to the Ready for Eternity podcast, a podcast and blog dedicated to inquisitive

Bible students exploring biblical truths that might not be fully explored in typical sermons or Bible studies.

My name is Eddie Lawrence. For centuries Christians have wrestled with a big question.

If God is truly sovereign do we really have free will?

We've got to tackle this question before we can move through verses 4 & 5 of Ephesians chapter 1.

The opening verses of the book of Ephesians contains wording that has been a source of substantial theological disagreement among Christians for over 1 ,500 years.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.

For he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in his presence.

In love he predestined us for adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will.

Ephesians 1 3 through 5. A small but vocal group of Christians who follow

John Calvin's teachings claim that verses 4 & 5 prove God personally selects each individual's eternal destiny.

This interpretation misunderstands two key points. The nature of God's sovereignty and the idea that humans lack the ability to make their own spiritual choices.

We've got to work through these two ideas before attempting to understand what verses 4 & 5 teach us.

God's sovereignty and mankind's free will are deeply interconnected theological concepts.

Countless books and scholarly works have explored these ideas and this podcast episode will not resolve the long -standing debate.

Instead, I aim to offer a clear biblical perspective on what

Scripture reveals. This episode will focus on God's sovereignty and next week we'll talk about human free will.

Calvinism asserts that God's sovereignty means he is the ultimate cause of all things.

He actively brings about everything that happens according to his divine will.

Every event in history, every human decision, and even the smallest details of life occur because he has ordained them.

In this view, God causes human choices and actions and governs them through his overarching plan.

This ensures that his purposes are always accomplished. This perspective emphasizes

God's absolute authority, his control over creation, and the belief that he actively causes all things to happen.

The following quotes exemplify this view. John Calvin, in his

Institutes of the Christian Religion, wrote, The will of God is the supreme and primary cause of all things, because nothing happens without his order or permission.

R .C. Sproul, in his book, Chosen by God, said, If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God's sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.

And finally, John Piper, in his book, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, shared this disturbing thought.

In other words, it isn't just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him.

It is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory. This includes as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem.

God's having even brought about the Nazis brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz, as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader, and even the sexual abuse of a young child.

In this view, God controls absolutely everything that happens, including all evil and suffering.

If anything at all existed outside God's control, even something as tiny as a single autonomous molecule, it could mess up God's plans and make his promises unreliable.

Thus, according to this perspective, God's sovereignty means his absolute control is the ultimate cause of everything.

The implications of this view, as John Piper explicitly states, are deeply troubling.

It makes God responsible for every sin ever committed. To put it bluntly, this view shifts the blame for the works of the devil onto God himself.

Now, this podcast episode is not an attempt to engage in a point -by -point refutation of this view of sovereignty.

Many, many books and scholarly works have explored this debate in great detail.

Rather than rehashing those arguments, my goal is to focus on what

Scripture does say about God's sovereignty, rather than framing the discussion around what it does not say.

So what does the Bible say? What is the biblical view of God's sovereignty?

Let's consider three passages which clearly demonstrate that while God is in control, he is not the cause of all actions.

This passage presents a direct challenge to the Calvinist idea that God decrees all events, including evil actions.

Here, God explicitly states that he did not command nor even conceive of the horrific practice of child sacrifice.

If God were the primary cause of all things, then such atrocities would have to be part of his defined decree.

Yet, this passage refutes that notion by showing that some human actions are entirely outside his will.

This supports the idea that God's sovereignty does not require him to be the deterministic cause of all events, particularly sinful ones.

In this lament, Jesus expresses his heartfelt desire to gather the people of Jerusalem to himself, yet he acknowledges that they were not willing.

This reveals a tension between God's will and human response.

If God were the primary cause of all actions, as Calvinist interpretations suggest,

God would also cause the unwillingness of Jerusalem's people, making

Jesus' longing and lament inconsistent or insincere.

Instead, the passage portrays a genuine divine desire thwarted by human choice, indicating that people can resist

God's will. This resistance demonstrates that humans possess free will, and their actions determine their response to his invitation.

Thus, while God retains ultimate authority, he does not force or predestine every action, allowing human will to play a significant role.

This passage suggests that God desires all people to come to repentance, creating tension with the

Calvinist doctrine that God predetermines who is saved and who is lost.

If God directly caused all events, including salvation, then this passage would indicate internal conflict within God's will.

He would be willing that none should perish, while simultaneously causing some to perish.

God's patience only makes sense if people have some causal role in their own repentance.

God's sovereignty does not necessitate meticulous control over every human action, but allows for genuine human choice.

The biblical narrative presents God as desiring certain outcomes while permitting people to resist his will, making moral responsibility meaningful.

If God directly caused all things, his expressions of grief over sin and longing for repentance would be incoherent.

Instead, scripture portrays a God who governs with authority, yet does not override human agency.

This demonstrates that sovereignty and free will are not mutually exclusive.

This understanding of sovereignty aligns with the insights of various scholars who distinguish between God's supreme authority and the idea that he directly causes all events.

Consider what Jesse Morell said from his book The Natural Ability of Man. The sovereign, by definition, is one who exercises supreme authority.

God is the sovereign of the universe because God is the ultimate authority over everything, not the ultimate cause of everything.

Dr. Jack Cottrell, in his book The Bible vs. Calvinism, says,

The biblical view is that divine sovereignty is God's absolute lordship over all things, understood not in terms of causation, but in terms of control, being in control.

So what's the Bible's definition of God's sovereignty? The Bible defines

God's sovereignty as his ultimate authority over everything, not as him controlling every detail of our choices.

He's fully in charge, yet he allows people to make real decisions, which means our actions truly matter.

If God caused everything directly, his sorrow over sin and desire for people to repent wouldn't make sense.

Instead, he rules with wisdom, guiding history towards his purposes, while still giving us the freedom to respond to him.

Dr. Leighton Flowers has a superb chess analogy which challenges the idea that God's sovereignty requires him to control every move.

Take a listen. We all believe God's sovereign. What does that mean?

It means that he has the right to rule as he pleases. That means he even has the right to give you a free choice if he wants to, because he's that sovereign.

And this is a different view of sovereignty. We were talking about this earlier. I really do agree with what you said.

We have, I think, in our view, a higher view of God's sovereignty than that of our Calvinist friends. That's no disrespect to them.

I'm sure they think the same thing. They wouldn't hold to their view if they didn't think that. But the reason I say that can be illustrated this way.

If you're walking down a boardwalk and you come across a man playing both sides of the chessboard, he moves a black piece and he goes around that side and moves a white piece.

And you say, sir, why are you playing both sides of the chessboard? And he looks at you and he says, what's the only way

I know how to ensure my victory? So you have to control both sides, the evil and the good.

You have to control everything meticulously in order to ensure your sovereignty, your control, your victory.

Okay. Well, you go down the boardwalk a little ways and you find another man who's playing a line of chess masters with like six or seven or 10 or 12 different chessboards around him.

You've seen those chess masters that are just taking on everybody. He's doing that just one after another. He's beating every single one of them without even a seeming effort.

Which one of those two are you going to go on the brag about? He's ensuring his victory, not on the basis that he controls what his opponents will do.

He ensures his victory based upon how good he is at chess. He's just better than everybody else is.

And I think that's a higher view of sovereignty. And I think that's the view that scripture paints of an actual opponent.

An opponent, yes, that's been given his authority by God. He's created by God. I'm not dualist here in the sense that they're saying there's two equal powers.

No, God's given Satan his authority. God's given us choice. But God's able to handle our choices.

He's so sovereign. He's so powerful. He has so much knowledge and so much ability. He's able to accomplish his purpose even when we choose to do things against his will.

He doesn't have to control meticulously our moves on the chessboard in order to bring about his victory.

True sovereignty is not about God micromanaging every molecule in the universe or directly causing all events past and future.

Rather, true sovereignty centers on God's ultimate authority. While God grants both humans and spiritual beings genuine freedom to choose paths contrary to his will, he maintains supreme lordship and control.

His sovereignty means that despite these freedoms, God still determines the final outcomes.

So in the end, we must ask ourselves, which God is truly greater?

Is it a God who can only accomplish his purposes by meticulously controlling every molecule, thought, and action in the universe?

Or is it a God so supremely sovereign that he can achieve his ultimate purposes even while granting his creatures genuine freedom?

A God who can work through, around, and despite the actions of those who oppose him.

Scripture consistently portrays the latter. A God whose sovereignty remains undiminished by allowing real human choice, but is rather magnified through his ability to bring about his perfect will without overriding our will.

This God demonstrates a sovereignty far more profound than mere deterministic control.

His is a sovereignty of wisdom, relationship, and redemptive purpose that invites our participation rather than rendering it meaningless.

The problem isn't that Calvinism goes too far with God's sovereignty.

The problem is that it doesn't go far enough. God's true sovereignty isn't in causing our actions, but in fulfilling his purposes through our choices.

Thanks for listening to the podcast. We hope this episode has deepened your understanding of Scripture.

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