My hubby has the under-appreciated position of being my sounding board. In that, the poor guy has been listening to my frustrations for the last week about the Reformed V. Not-Reformed posts I've been drowning in.
He just sent this to me, and it's worth posting here. Something he got from FB, and then looked up all the verses and posted them from eSword for me. (He so deserves a strawberry milkshake in our garden for all this effort. lol) This is it!
Upon being asked how he reconciled divine sovereignty and human responsibility, Charles H. Spurgeon simply replied, “I do not try to reconcile friends.”
We find two points coinciding throughout all of scripture.
1. Scripture will not tolerate any view of God’s sovereign control that eliminates human responsibility.
2. We are morally responsible creatures but all such moral accountability never makes God absolutely contingent.
“At no point whatsoever does the remarkable emphasis on the absoluteness of God’s sovereignty mitigate the responsibility of human beings who, like everything else in the universe, fall under God’s sway. We tend to use one to diminish the other; we tend to emphasize one at the expense of the other. But responsible reading of the Scripture prohibits such reductionism.”
~ D.A. Carson.
According to Scripture, our decisions constitute real causes that produce real effects — for which we will be held accountable. The wise teacher wrote, “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
“God is absolutely sovereign, but His sovereignty never functions in such a way that human responsibility is minimized or mitigated.”
Psa 115:2 Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?"
Psa 115:3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Psa 135:6 Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps
Eph 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
Act 17:26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
Pro 21:1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
Pro 16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.
Jer 10:23 I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Isa 45:6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other.
Isa 45:7 I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.
“Human beings are morally responsible creatures—they significantly choose, rebel, obey, believe, defy, make decisions, and so forth, and they are rightly held accountable for such actions; but this characteristic never functions so as to make God absolutely contingent.”
(see: Joshua 24:14-15, Romans 10:9-11, Exodus 19:4-6, Ezekiel 18:30-32).
(Truthfully, I'm back to not participating in Reformed-bashing again, so I'm leaving this here, and won't be arguing it. Believe it. Don't believe it. I don't care!)
See this statement:
“Human beings are morally responsible creatures—they significantly choose, rebel, obey, believe, defy, make decisions, and so forth, and they are rightly held accountable for such actions; but this characteristic never functions so as to make God absolutely contingent.”
Is FREE WILL of humans.
What folks forget is God's will and power is greater than ours.
My daughter used to make "play dates" with her preschool friends and tell me when I picked her up that so and so we're having a sleep over that night. I would raise an eyebrow and say "oh, really?"
My will happened to over ride my daughter's will. She now had a few choices.
1. Throw a tantrum and get punished.
2. Try to convince me her idea was feasible (her favorite choice)
3. Accept that it wasn't going to happen and listen to my plans for our evening instead.
****
We will things all the time but if they are not part of God's plans, we have a few options: obey God or throw a tantrum and be punished.
We are still responsible for our actions and God is still sovereign.