A while back, I wrote a post titled: God’s Will For Your Life Is That You Would Suffer. The heart of the piece dealt with three aspects of the Will of God and built a theology showing that indeed, God does will that we would suffer. These aforementioned aspects included God’s Decretive Will (His decreed or sovereign will), His Preceptive Will (His revealed will in the Scriptures), and God’s Permissive Will (His allowance of evil, and so forth). In the piece itself, I demonstrated that it is the case, but not necessarily how and why. Stemming from this post, a dear friend asked a good question: When God sovereignly ordains something against His moral will via His permissive will, why would I say, in effect, He desires this to happen? Why would He desire our suffering?
In essence, the logic didn’t quite make sense to see that God would actively cause something to come to pass that violates His revealed will. This is a similar question to the Arminian’s, save the large difference in taking it a step further to ask how such a thing is morally good. For our purposes, this touches heavily on His permissive will – so I want to take some time to explain this more clearly and also provide answers as to why God would desire something, like suffering at the hands of persecutors, yet simultaneously ordain the persecutor to rise against His people. I use suffering as an example because it was the topic of the previous post, as well as the context the question came forth from.
I believe one of the ways we tend to get lost in this is by framing things purely in terms of His “allowing” these things to happen. By virtue of the fact that He has a sovereign will that He exercises freely, He actively brings all things that come to pass. The idea behind this is that God, in exercising His right over all things to do with them as He pleases, does so in utter perfection. In that, God is not passive, but active. It is not enough to say God merely permits the evils of this world to happen (consider Job 1:8). We must be consistent in acknowledging that all things come from His hand – He ordains whatsoever comes to pass and in so doing, He desires it to happen (Pro. 16:33; Eph. 1:11).
Naturally, when you raise such a proposition, the problem of evil comes up (i.e. how can God actively ordain all things, such as for sin to come into the world, and yet be without fault?). Most plainly stated: when God handles anything, it is by virtue of His being, not evil or wicked. He is the fountainhead of all goodness, indeed, the very source of our understanding of good. What then flows from His character, being, and deeds, is utterly and wholly good. The inherit problem in this is not that I have said He is good, but that many cannot reconcile how all His deeds can be good, if it is said that such deeds are perceived as evil in the human mind. I believe the misconception of our Arminian friends in this is that God is inadvertently defined in terms of perceived goodness, rather than actual goodness being defined in terms of God.
God is good, therefore, goodness bears qualitative likeness to God’s own being and flows from his essence. The clearest place one sees this is in His creative genius in Genesis 1-2, and it is no small wonder why the very first words of the Bible set up this portrait for the Christian. Straight away, the Scriptures propose the existence of God, demonstrate His complete mastery over all things by virtue of the fact that He speaks them into existence, and then displays all of His works to be good. In each instance of Creation, God brings something into existence, shapes it for His purposes, and then calls it good. When He has completed His work, He steps back, delights in it, and declares it all to be very good.
The ultimate proposition of the Scriptures then is that whatever God does, it is good. This should be an uncontroversial statement for those who claim Christ. What we need to do then is turn the corner, and simply see that God does many things that don’t align with our initial perception. This does not then flip the former notion of God’s goodness on its head, but rather, reveals a deficiency in our own minds in comprehending His goodness in and through such things. Yet what I would propose here is that the deficiency is not only in the inadvertent defining of God in terms of perceived goodness. It is likewise a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of sin.
We tend to define sin in terms of a tangible thing. However, sin is not a substance, but rather a state of being that falls short of the standard of God. Therefore, nothing God does can be intrinsically sinful or short of that standard. Not one act from the hand of the Creator and Sustainer can be said to fall short of His own standard – He’s the very source of the standard! This is precisely why we see God bearing attributes, which in humanity, quickly lead one into all sorts of gross misconduct. The fundamental difference, again, is that God exercises these things in perfect fashion, in accordance with His will or desire.
In essence, the logic didn’t quite make sense to see that God would actively cause something to come to pass that violates His revealed will. This is a similar question to the Arminian’s, save the large difference in taking it a step further to ask how such a thing is morally good. For our purposes, this touches heavily on His permissive will – so I want to take some time to explain this more clearly and also provide answers as to why God would desire something, like suffering at the hands of persecutors, yet simultaneously ordain the persecutor to rise against His people. I use suffering as an example because it was the topic of the previous post, as well as the context the question came forth from.
I believe one of the ways we tend to get lost in this is by framing things purely in terms of His “allowing” these things to happen. By virtue of the fact that He has a sovereign will that He exercises freely, He actively brings all things that come to pass. The idea behind this is that God, in exercising His right over all things to do with them as He pleases, does so in utter perfection. In that, God is not passive, but active. It is not enough to say God merely permits the evils of this world to happen (consider Job 1:8). We must be consistent in acknowledging that all things come from His hand – He ordains whatsoever comes to pass and in so doing, He desires it to happen (Pro. 16:33; Eph. 1:11).
Naturally, when you raise such a proposition, the problem of evil comes up (i.e. how can God actively ordain all things, such as for sin to come into the world, and yet be without fault?). Most plainly stated: when God handles anything, it is by virtue of His being, not evil or wicked. He is the fountainhead of all goodness, indeed, the very source of our understanding of good. What then flows from His character, being, and deeds, is utterly and wholly good. The inherit problem in this is not that I have said He is good, but that many cannot reconcile how all His deeds can be good, if it is said that such deeds are perceived as evil in the human mind. I believe the misconception of our Arminian friends in this is that God is inadvertently defined in terms of perceived goodness, rather than actual goodness being defined in terms of God.
God is good, therefore, goodness bears qualitative likeness to God’s own being and flows from his essence. The clearest place one sees this is in His creative genius in Genesis 1-2, and it is no small wonder why the very first words of the Bible set up this portrait for the Christian. Straight away, the Scriptures propose the existence of God, demonstrate His complete mastery over all things by virtue of the fact that He speaks them into existence, and then displays all of His works to be good. In each instance of Creation, God brings something into existence, shapes it for His purposes, and then calls it good. When He has completed His work, He steps back, delights in it, and declares it all to be very good.
The ultimate proposition of the Scriptures then is that whatever God does, it is good. This should be an uncontroversial statement for those who claim Christ. What we need to do then is turn the corner, and simply see that God does many things that don’t align with our initial perception. This does not then flip the former notion of God’s goodness on its head, but rather, reveals a deficiency in our own minds in comprehending His goodness in and through such things. Yet what I would propose here is that the deficiency is not only in the inadvertent defining of God in terms of perceived goodness. It is likewise a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of sin.
We tend to define sin in terms of a tangible thing. However, sin is not a substance, but rather a state of being that falls short of the standard of God. Therefore, nothing God does can be intrinsically sinful or short of that standard. Not one act from the hand of the Creator and Sustainer can be said to fall short of His own standard – He’s the very source of the standard! This is precisely why we see God bearing attributes, which in humanity, quickly lead one into all sorts of gross misconduct. The fundamental difference, again, is that God exercises these things in perfect fashion, in accordance with His will or desire.
