He was a theological rock star to me, a legendary scholar and bibliophile, as well as a kind and gentle man. It was my first semester of seminary and he offered an evening seminar on the doctrine of election. I met my life-long friend Mike Renihan there. And I heard something that deeply disturbed me. My professor, a strong proponent of the sovereignty of God, said, “God’s sovereignty and man’s free will are like two parallel lines that intersect in infinity.” I’m sure that disturbs you as well, but I’m asking you to soldier on.
Out of respect I didn’t ask my professor, “So God’s sovereignty and man’s free will are like two lines that never intersect that intersect.” His was a pious sounding response to what is admittedly a deep mystery. It’s also gobbledy-gook, word salad. It is true that God is absolutely sovereign over all things. It is true that man always chooses according to his strongest inclination at the moment, given his choices. It is true that man is accountable for all that he does wrong. It is true that seeking to reconcile all of this isn’t easy. The solution, however, isn’t to affirm contradictions, like lines that never cross that cross.
The solution, instead, is to understand that once there was God, and nothing else. Everything else is created, dependent, contingent, derived. Every bit of power, of any sort, including the power to choose, ultimately can be traced back to the God who alone has the power of being within Himself, to the uncaused Cause, the unmoved Mover. The solution is to understand that God is not only ultimate being but ultimate power. Just as all other being is dependent on Him so all other power is dependent on Him.
Human choices are real. We are not puppets on strings. Human choices, on the other hand, are not ultimate. And we are not God. As my father liked to put it, “I am free. God is free. God is more free than I am.” This ought to settle the matter in principle.
There are, of course, other questions not yet answered. How can we be held responsible? See Romans 9. How is God not guilty? See James 1:13. Can God set aside His sovereignty? (See Jeremiah 13:23.) Does this cast a shadow on the character of God? (See Isaiah 45). Does this make the love of the believer for Him inauthentic, or make God less than a gentleman? (See Ephesians 2). We should not be afraid to wrestle over these questions, or dive deeply into these texts. We ought to do so, however, from a position of certainty that God is God and we are not. (See Lamentations 3:37). Nor ought we ever come from anything other than a position of certainty that God is good, and we are not. (See Habakkuk 1:12).
For those of us already well persuaded that God is sovereign over all things, let us walk in peace with those who still struggle, knowing that even those struggles are part of His holy and sovereign plan.