Are There Two Wills in God?
"We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen." I. Howard Marshall
"God's will for "all persons to be saved" (1 Tim. 2:4) and his will to elect unconditionally those who will actually be saved is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion." John
Piper
I've been doing a lot of studying here lately on many tough issues concerning how we view soteriology (doctrine of salvation), God's Sovereignty, and God's Will, and I can't help but have a lot of questions. One of those questions being how is it that God "wills all persons to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth," yet we know that not all are saved. This poses the thought that there has to be two different wills of God. That is to say that there is a difference between what God wants/desires to happen and what He actually does will to happen and bring to pass...a confusing thought I know.
As my belief system is becoming more and more Reformed, I find myself seeing this struggle between what could seem to be conflicting and opposing wills of God. We even see in many cases God sometimes willing to bring about what he disapproves, even sin, to accomplish some greater purpose. How can what God wants to happen not happen? It seems like whatever God wants to happen...well...it should and can happen...but that isn't exactly what seems to happen, or is it?
The issue isn't that God is weak and can't get what He wants...be certain God can get what He wants...the issue goes much deeper than that. The simple fact is: we are mere mortal humans. We can't fully understand the purposes and will of God. God accomplishes all that he chooses to accomplish. God ordains that which he chooses to ordain. God is very intentional in everything that he allows to happen, even if it may seem contrary to his nature. God's Ultimate Will is much greater than anything we can fathom or understand.
So how do we answer all the questions we have about God's Will? It's hard to say. The best we can do is seek guidance from the Holy Spirit through God's Word and pray for wisdom, but realize we may never have all the answers. I don't have all the answers...and I never expect to have them all answered, but I do know that by studying such things and developing a large view of God's Sovereignty, it's hard for one not to be amazed by God's grace and mercy. If you'd like to read more info on this topic and the different wills of God, check out the article below.
John Piper's: Are There Two Wills in God?
17 comments:
In reformed theology there is this whole worldview or backdrop that is central to the way they view things. Two important things in that view is: the sovereignty of God in all things and especially salvation, and the idea that God makes everything work together to bring Him glory.
In "Concerning the Divine Decrees" by Jonathan Edwards, Edwards pretty much exhausted this idea of two wills in God. He calls them "will of decree" and "will of command."
The main gist is that God ordains that certain things come to be, not because he delights in evil, but that a greater good will come of it, namely his name would be made more glorious than if it didn't happen.
The first time I read this, I was shocked at how Edwards anwsered this question. He basically concluded that the two wills in God aren't contridictory, and his name is made more glorious because He wills certain evil things to pass while at the same time not taking pleasure in evil or becoming the "author of evil." Here is how he put it.
"It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God's glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .
Thus it is necessary, that God's awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God's glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.
If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God's holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God's grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .
So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect."
It's good that you added some to the conversation. I wanted to include some of these ideas but it would have taken pages to explain,haha.
It is still a hard thought to grasp, and no theology or worldview is ever going to fully understand the working out of God's Will, no matter how convincing it may sound.
However, I do like the thought that because there is this backdrop of evil in the world, it allows so much more His grace and mercy to shine forth so that all may see.
Also, I think the Arminianist has a harder time trying to explain why God wants none to perish but some do. I know the Arminian anwser is,"the person uses their free will to reject God", but then it places God in a helpless position where he is just hoping some people choose him. Like he got us halfway and now he can't do anything but hope.
The Arminian also can't explain why some choose Him and some don't. The person could just as easily chose to reject God, so the same reason one person chooses God, is also the same reason another person rejects him. So the choice then becomes almost a 50/50 choice, when we know that God is of infinitely more value than the other side of the coice. So that doesn't seem to anwser the question of why God wants all to be saved but some are not.
I know both sides have there limits, because we will never fully comprehend God's plan, but the Calvinist side, I think, anwsers it better, and also represents the scriptures better.
Have you heard about or studied "Freedom of Inclination?" It's based off of Edwards work, "Freedom of the Will," and it explains how a compatibilist free-will view makes sense. It basically explains that we always choose to do what we most want to do. This makes compatibilism work because God can influence what we most want to do. That's the abbreviated version...
What you think?
I was going through my RSS feeds today and I noticed how calvinistic you guys are getting. Good Luck ;) with that in this area(Cleveland County/GWU).
Keep reforming,
Joshua
Philbeck, where did the other comment go, haha, I though the Steak and Dog analogy was pretty good. Anyways, thanks for the comment, and you'll have to add to the conversation as well. I'm sure Walk's Cavlinistic self will keep posting more blogs on the topic, haha.
I must have missed the steak and dog comment,lol.
Yeah, I am sure I got more stuff up my sleeve on the issue. It seems like we have a monopoly on the blog since there are only a couple people who post. Whatever happened to that Vitamin A kid, I am sure he has nothing else better to do, lol.
Oh I misspelled like 5 things so I deleted it! My net rep is important. I was going to re do it but i was lazy and lost what I wrote.
Here is that analogy:
I may throw a steak out the back door to the right. My dogs will always go to the right as well. They will never go to the left. Are they free? Yes. Am I forcing them to the right? No. They may go anywhere, but their nature will always compel them to follow the steak. Our depraved nature sees sin as a steak. We are free to choose sin. When we are converted, then we are free not to choose sin for now we have two natures. An old sinful garment that is worthless and a new garment that we must put on.
Best Advice on this subject: Get away from evidential apologetics. Embrace presuppositionalism. wink wink.
Yeah, thats a good example of compatibilist free will.
I think I heard maybe James White give a similiar analogy one time. It was about a father placing before a kid, a piece of candy and dirt or something. The father already new what the kid was gonna choose, but the kid was still using his free will to choose the candy. Given our new nature we are no longer blinded to the infinite worth of Christ, and will always choose it over dirt.
I think presuppositionalism follows somewhat from a reformed view of salvation, but I think God can use evidentialism also. I think Jesus used evidence (miracles, etc.) to point to himself, so I do think there is a place for evidentialism.
But I do think evidentialism can lead us to focus too much on our wisdom and not God's soverignty and the power that the Gospel has been given. To quote C.S. Lewis. everything is better in moderation.
I think I'm going to have to agree with Walk here on this one, even though I understand the presuppositionalist view and value it's emphasis on Solo scriptura. I think both schools of apologetics can be effective depending on the person you are debating with and the nature of the argument. My only hang-up with presuppositionalism is that most will say that the arguments are circular, which will more than likely not persuade a non-Christian to change his school of thought. However, I can see why a Reformed individual would value this kind of apologetics.
Concerning evidential apologetics, I think, like Walk affirmed, they have their place in the right time and I believe God can definitely use that school of thought as well. I think a perfect example, correct me if I'm wrong, would be all of Lee Strobel's writings. His work has been very effective with non-christians and Christian's alike.
Due to my extreme bias towards William Lane Craig, I think I will have to lean more towards a Classic Evidentialist view even though I've not studied the other schools much at all, thus creating my bias, haha.
Anyways, I did run across a book a few years ago that I never read but I'm sure it would be a great read on the topic:
"Five Views on Apologetics"
Authored by: William Lane Craig (classical); Gary Habermas (evidential); Paul Feinberg (cumulative); John Frame (presuppositional); Kelly James Clark (Reformed Epistemological).
First off, I am glad that you guys at least have a little bit of understanding of evidentialism and presuppositionalism, which most Christians, especially in the area do not. I for one was a strong advocate of evidential apologetics for a long time (maybe a year and a half) but I began to notice something. Probably because my dad constantly warned me about it, altough I loved the taste of it. I saw that the move was away from God, and towards the man. First off Jesus and his miracles were not just for evidential value. They were so people would know that He was Lord. Not necessarily for faith. Because faith is from above. Just before the great commission in Matthew it says, “But some doubted.” There is no amount of evidential apologetics that can make, or force, someone to believe. They must be born again in order to understand. I forget who said this, “I believe therefore I understand.” (Augustine? and Paul said something similar) If our apologetical method says to throw up evidence and decide for yourselves in an autonomous manner then that is quite contrary to scripture. Jesus said, “You are either for me or against me.” Basically taking use of the LEM. There is no middle, or neutral ground. Autonomy is what got us into trouble in the Garden. You presuppose God because with out him you could not ever prove anything.
Secondly, Chance that book is what let me to this view. (http://radioapologia.com/ has the audio of Frames Chapter)
Lastly, the reason for presuppositional over evidential is because it trains you to understand God on his terms, not ours. While evidential trains you to understand God our our terms. That is why I mentioned it.
You have added some pretty good thoughts Josh, and I agree with you on presuppositionalism. I have begun to move toward that side also, mainly over the past year as I have became more reformed and struggled with what I think about Calvinism. So, ultimately I do believe that God is the one who draws people to faith. But I guess the engineer in me still thinks evidential is useful also, lol.
Here are some thoughts about the role I think evidence plays. Take the ressurection for example, Jesus showed himself to the disciples after he was beaten and crucified to give evidence that he was alive. Also, Jesus let Thomas touch his scars when he demanded evidence. But like you said, they were to prove that he was Lord. Then the apostles went to the cities saying they were eyewitnesses to the ressurection, but they followed that up with the Gospel. So, I think that proving God exist just for the sake of it without any reference to Jesus and what he has done for us is useless.
Evidentialism must ultimately lead to the Gospel, because no amount of proof will convince someone to come into the light when they blind.
On the other side, I think just using presuppositionalism could lead to a hyper-calvinism mindset(I am just saying it could), where we preach the gospel and if people don't believe they weren't chosen to believe kind of thing. I think we aren't called to make that choice, I think we are called to preach the gospel and work our tails off to help people understand it in a way they can relate to(without compromising). And if evidence helps them understand then we use that evidence to lead to the Gospel, where ultimately God draws them to faith.
So I think they both could have their advantages and disadvantages. Anyway just some thoughts.
Yeah, I can see your concern. There is not one presuppositionalist that has ever said evidence is useless, but that the evdidence must be presented in a presuppositional manner. What helped me the most is listening to a theist vs. athiest debate God's existence. I have several on DVD and CD if you would like to borrow one (anyone is welcome). As for the hyper-calvinism concern, I totally agree. Which is why you should always study your beliefs and have a warrent for it. But if you don't then you are contradicting scripture (1 Peter 3:14, 2 Cor. 10:4,5, Phil. 1:7, etc).
"but that the evidence must be presented in a presuppositional manner"
Well put, that pretty much sums it up for me as well.
Who are the Debate videos between?
This is just the presup. approach ones.
You can find some Paul Manata ones online (the one with Dan Barker is great) He is young but the one debate I heard by him what really good.
The Great Debate: Does God Exist? Between Gordon Stien and Greg Bahnsen(my hero) This is the most famous one, mostly because it is one of the first ever using the Van Til method and the atheist didn't know what hit him.
The Bahnsen-Sproul Debate over Apololgetic Methods ( I love Sproul but wow his classical method gets demolished)
Does the Triune God Live? Douglas Wilson(my other hero) vs Dan Barker This one is good and includes a extra CD of Wilson reviewing the debate and what went on.
DVD of Greg Bahnsen vs Edward Tabash over God's Existence
Does the Christian God exist? Douglas Wilson vs Edward Tabash (CD)
I think that is all of God's existence, atleast that I can see from where I am sitting. I have some others but aren't focused the same topic (they are like Islam vs Christiany vs Judiasm, God and Governemt, RC vs Protestant, and all are done in a presuppositional manner)
I may have more but I have a bad memory(another reason for my retreat from evidentialism :) :) )
Greg Bahnsen- Considered one of the best thinkers and debates of our age and a leader in the Van Tillian revolution of apologet methodologies (I have several hours of CD lectures (www.cmfnow.com) by him, I let many people borrow them, he could convince me of anything.... is that bad?)Died at age of 45, I think the doctor was an atheist and let him die because of how he demoloished atheist in a respectful manner.
Douglas Wilson- He helps with and teaches at a Classical Grade School and College(type of school my kids will go to), has a publishing company (www.canonpress.org), writes for and publishes a Trinitarian Cultural Journal (www.credenda.org), pastors Christ Church in Moscow, ID (www.christkirk.com), and is notorious for being involved in the Federal Vision controversy (which I am not sure about yet). He recently wrote Letter from a Christian Citizen, a response to Sam Harris. It is a great read as well.
That is enough for now, my fingers hurt...
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