Revealing Questions Concerning the Will of God Over His Creation

Installment number one

Do you believe that God's deity is established by His radical freedom or that man's humanity is established by his radical freedom?

As I consider just exactly what 4 and 5 point Arminians and other various folk who deny the truths present in what we call "the doctrines of grace", I think I can boil the observation down to a difference over "rights". We speak a great deal about rights in America: religious rights, the freedom of speech, the right to an attorney, to name a few.

We American evangelicals unfortunately don't segregate our fight for our rights to an exclusively political realm, no, we (due to our total depravity which is often denied) often see that fight going on even between believers and their God...not that God has to fight to defend His rights over His creation, but that we creatures often play the fool in an attempt to impress our will on God. Certainly this is a mistake made in the books of theology of many who call themselves Christian, even evangelical (whatever that means anymore), but perhaps even more importantly, this is a mistake made even in the theological lives of those who call themselves Reformed or Calvinistic. This is nothing new, nothing uncommon, and nothing that will be relieved before glory, but it actually IS the struggle of the Christian life, the struggle Paul spoke of in Romans 7 that even believers practically attempt to usurp the mighty will of God; replacing His will with their own and lesser joys for joy in the Great Benefactor. Think of this: when we worry (sinfully meditate on something that may or may not happen rather than meditating on God's love for His children, His absolutely perfect knowledge of all things past present and future, and His sovereign ability to do as He pleases) we are practically rejecting those precious truths, and don't fool yourself, you probably do it more often than you would care to admit...I know I do.

Those who reject God's sovereignty (though they give lip service to the word) ultimately and inevitably try to overcome the will of God with their own. Regarding the diagnostic question I asked above, the reasonable man constrains his theology and anthropology by the Words of Scripture and determines that God's very deity is established by the biblical fact that He is able to do, though constrained only by His characteristic holiness, whatever He pleases. On the other hand, others reject the biblical revelation and assert that God has limited His sovereignty (a manifest absurdity to be sure) and that the very image of God in man and man's very humanity is established by man's "radical freedom", his ability to do or to do otherwise without any constraining element from without or within. Typically those who espouse that view necessarily don't even give God that privilege, and the bible and logic both clearly present God's will as being subject to His holiness and His ability to impress His will over His possessions, all creation...