Jesus and the sovereignty of God
I’ve recently been involved in a debate on another blog about the sovereignty of God – fundamentally, whether God controls everything that happens or not. The original post suggested that God had decided that the tsunami at the end of last year should happen, in a similar way to how God controls every event of our own lives and so, if we’re late for a meeting, we can at least take comfort from the fact that God planned that we should be late for some ineffable but good reason. The problem with this, as I see it, is that it is both completely wrong and a deep misunderstanding of who God is and how God interacts with Creation.
The problem with this issue is that it strikes right to the heart of our understanding of God and our relationship with God. That being so, I believe that the place to start is with Jesus, because Jesus is the clearest revelation we have of who God is. Jesus is (Christians believe) part of the very Godhead, one of the three co-equal Persons who make up God. Jesus himself said “whoever has seen me has see the Father”. So, to get an idea of how God deals with human beings, we should look at how Jesus dealt with human beings; to get an idea of how God exercises authority, we should look at how Jesus exercised it; to understand how God uses his power, we should look at how Jesus used power.
First of all, though, I want to establish what I hope is common ground between myself and those with whom I was debating. I believe wholeheartedly that God created the world and that God sustains it; without God’s continual sustaining power, Creation would not exist. I believe that God is the most powerful person or thing that there is, that God could (if God wanted to) control everything, and that God knows everything about Creation and every part of it. If that is so, then what we disagree about isn’t whether God could control everything but about whether God does control it.
Also, I want to get past an objection to this position that was raised in the original article – that if God does not control everything then something else must control it, and hence be more powerful than God. There are two problems here. The first is the assumption that if God doesn’t control everything then some other single entity must; it is quite possible that many, many different entities control different things. For example, if God doesn’t control my life or your life, it doesn’t follow that I control both your life and my own. Rather, each of us could control only our own lives, and only have the small amount of power required for that. Second, and more importantly (because it’s what I’m going to talk about for the rest of this article), it doesn’t follow that lack of control by God implies lack of power; that is, events could be controlled by someone else not because they are more powerful than God but because God permits them that control for some reason.
And this makes all the difference in the world. If God controlled every event then (for example) God is directly responsible for the deaths of everyone who died in the tsunami – both practically responsible and morally responsible. If God merely allows something else to control events (whether that be the devil, natural law or something else) then the practical and moral responsibility lie with that agent. Ultimate authority and responsibility still lie with God (the buck stops only there) but the responsibility for individual events do not. It’s the difference between the reponsibility that we all have for our own actions and the responsibility a parent has for their child’s actions.
So, how do I see God’s “allowing” as working? Or, if we like, how does control fall out of God’s hands?
As I said, let’s first look at Jesus. If we believe that Jesus was fully God and fully human then we have a problem right from the start, because being “fully God” means that Jesus should share in all God’s attributes – omnipotence, omniscience and so forth. However, Jesus clearly did not know everything (he admitted as much on several occasions, and his actions often strongly imply that he didn’t know what was going to happen next, or what had happened previously) and clearly did not have this total power (he had to spend long periods in prayer and meditation, and always deferred to his Father and called on Him when he needed to do something miraculous). If, then, Jesus was fully God (was truly the incarnation of the eternal God), how do we reconcile these things?
The usual way to do this is described in the Greek word “kenosis”, which means “emptying”. That is, Jesus emptied himself of much that we assume God is in order to become incarnate. He laid aside his divine glory, his power, his knowledge, when he took on humanity. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6,7). Thus, it seems to me, when we look at the God who was Incarnate, we see a God who relates to his creations not as a kingly ruler, an authoritarian potentate, a controlling governor, but as a servant, a friend, a teacher. If this is how God chose to relate to us in person, why do we look elsewhere for God’s character?
If Jesus “emptied” himself of divine attributes, how did this happen? Were these attributes amputated, so that Jesus’ divine nature was somehow less than the eternal God’s? Surely not – Jesus would then not be “truly God” as Christians have believed. We must then believe that Jesus had access to these things but that he chose for some reason not to use them. That is, Jesus abdicated his divine attributes when he came to live as a man; they were still there, still potential, but no longer something that he could use. So, if this is God’s character in the Incarnation (voluntarily to forego power and control), why do we expect God in eternity to be a control freak? Does Jesus’ character not suggest instead that God might genuinely prefer to allow His creations to act on their own, for good or ill, to exercise freedom from His control in order that they might freely choose the right?
Now, we do see in the Gospels some instances of Jesus being dominant, controlling, powerful. And these undeniably show an aspect of the divinity. God is ultimately in control and no one can ultimately frustrate God’s designs. However, that is very far from saying that every tiny event is controlled. Even when we humans create and control, we find that it works better if we allow some freedom – the great artist allows the material (stone, paint, pickled shark) to have its own say in the art; the writer allows their characters to speak with their own voices and to react in their own way, without the ending of the story ever being in doubt. And, when we look at Jesus in the Gospels, we do not see a man concerned mainly to control. Rather, Jesus’ interactions with others are governed vastly more often by love, acceptance, forgiveness. Jesus was concerned more to include and accept people than to judge and condemn them.
So, how do I see the relationship between God and Creation? Does God control Creation, governing every action, the movement of every wave in the sea and every breath of wind, or does God allow his human creations to act freely, which requires that the world itself is free to respond to our actions – if our actions are to be truly free, then we must be able to suffer their consequences. God, I believe, gives us the freedom to act in order that we can choose to love God. Or not. Without the possibility of rejection, there is no possibility of true love. And without the freedom to act, there is no possibility of acceptance or rejection.
If God controlled every event in Creation then we would not be truly free; our actions must have true consequences, which means that the created world in general must also be free to respond to our actions. Does this mean that the Creation is independent of the Creator? Not at all! Creation is sustained by God continually. Only the continuous (from our prespective) exercise of God’s creative energy and power means that this world continues to exist. But sustenance and control are two very different things.
What, then, do we mean when we talk about God “ordaining” all things from eternity. Does this mean that God controls every event so that God’s purposes will work out? No, I believe. Rather, God knows every event that has happened and will happen, but God does not determine those events. God tells the story of the world, but we write our own parts. God sets our course but we row the boat ourselves.
So, who or what do I believe controls the world? Well, I don’t believe that Satan controls it, either, not in the sense that we have been talking about. Rather, as I said, freedom requires that the world act not in obedience to an outside will but according to natural laws. So, I believe that, much of the time, God leaves the world to itself. (I am talking here of the world as object – I also believe that God is in continuous relationship with the world, and in continuous relationship with us if we let it happen. God is involved, but in relationship rather than simple acts of power.) There’s nothing deist about this: God does act sometimes. When asked to, often by working on people rather than things, and usually subtly. We are in many ways God’s hands, and eyes, and mouth. Unless we act, God will not. This is our world as much as it God’s – God created it for us and us for it. Its destruction is our responsibility and its healing is also ours.
Doing this sort of analysis means that we have to look at the whole of the Bible, the whole of God’s revelation of Godself to us. Doing this, we inevitably find clashes – in one place, God acts one way; in another place, God seems to act differently. In trying to understand this, we inevitably (whatever position we take) have to privilege some texts over other, one understanding over others. The question is what we allow to govern our understanding. Personally, I believe that Christianity requires that we place Christ at the centre of our faith. The Incarnation is the self-revelation of God above all other revelations, and provides the focus and guidance for our faith. All the rest of the Bible has to be read in the light of the Incarnation, allowing that remarkable event to illuminate the dark corners of history and the foggy areas of our understanding.
This is, of necessity, a partial and somewhat muddled and hurried discussion of my understanding of these things. Hopefully, though, my intention is clear and the reasons for my beliefs are also clear.
pax et bonum
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Don’t have time to read your post in detail or respond right now, but I wanted to point out I wrote a follow up post to my initial one, and it’s here. http://www.dmobley.com/archives/2005/05/...
Also, while I’m at it, I noticed you distort my position in your opening:
“in a similar way to how God controls every event of our own lives and so, if were late for a meeting, we can at least take comfort from the fact that God planned that we should be late for some ineffable but good reason”
I never suggest that I can take comfort in God’s sovereignty if I have personally done something wrong; that is, I never suggest that I can use it as an excuse for my own failure to do something. That’s contrary to the teaching of Scripture and I don’t agree with it. What I am saying is that God is so sovereign that he works even other people’s wicked actions to accomplish his purposes, and for our good. And he is in control over natural disasters, including whether they happen and who they happen to.
I’ll read your post in more detail when I have time — but I just wanted to point out that you’re not representing my position accurately in your opening paragraph.
David M. () (URL)
2:33pm on 18 May 2005
pax et bonum
John ()
3:34pm on 18 May 2005
Excellent quote. It’s astonishing how often people are prepared to talk about God with absolutely no reference to Christ whatsoever.
Sven (URL)
01:59am on 19 May 2005
What’s extraordinary here is that your post fails to interact with my specific criticisms of your appeal to the Incarnation.
Cf.
http://www.dmobley.com/archives/2005/05/..
http://www.dmobley.com/archives/2005/05/..
I mean, it’s been two weeks, hasn’t it?
Southwesterner ()
7:03pm on 19 May 2005
I have tried to present a coherent picture here for this blog entry (necessarily standing alone from the debate we were having elsewhere). However, I freely admit that it’s a bit of a rushed job. If you could suggest particular questions that you feel aren’t addressed here, I’ll do my best to answer
I suspect that the central question is the one you mention thusly:
My reply would be, first, that these are not false antitheses. They are in each case different and even opposed views; for example, we live either under law or under grace – it cannot be both. I believe that in each case the Gospel narrative unequivocally tells us that God prefers the second to the first – not that the first is necessarily foreign to God but that it’s not the defining characteristic. And nor do I believe that Jesus’ teaching gives us a different picture of God to his actions (how could it?). Although Jesus did talk about judgement, he spent more time talking about forgiveness; although he talked about hell, he spent more time talking about the kingdom of God; although he talked about law, he spent more time talking about how the spirit is more important.
(Oh, and BTW, the email you give seems to be wrong. I don’t require an email address to post here, so please don’t give a fake one. It gives us false hope of personal contact. Email addresses are cloaked so that they can’t be harvested
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
7:54pm on 19 May 2005
I wanted to apologize — the first time I mentioned my new post was up, it was actually defective — I had posted only the introduction, and somehow failed to post the extended entry. Anyway, I finally caught my error, so the rest of the post is up. I apologize — it must have seemed like I had said nothing, since the bulk of my post was absent.
David M. () (URL)
04:32am on 20 May 2005