Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Sovereignty of God

I have always said I believe in the sovereignty of God. I have never had a problem with the concept of God being sovereign, and I still don’t. I still totally believe it. However, I truly don’t get it. Its such a massive subject with so so so many different debates to be had and questions to be asked. I am not attempting here to provide an argument for or against the sovereignty of God, this is simply a few questions that have crossed my mind recently.

Let me start with a quote from John Piper’s book, “Desiring God”, as it was whilst reading this that many of these questions were brought to my attention:

The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. The reason this may sound strange is that we are more accustomed to think about our duty than God’s design. And when we do ask about God’s design we are too prone to describe it with ourselves at the centre of God’s affections. We may say, for example, His design is to redeem the world. Or to save sinners. Or to restore creation. Or the like. But God’s saving designs are penultimate, not ultimate. Redemption, salvation and restoration are not God’s ultimate goal. These He performs for the sake of something greater; namely the enjoyment He has in glorifying Himself.”

This, by the way, is the first paragraph of the first chapter! It totally blew my mind! What is this saying? Surely God’s ultimate aim is not to glorify Himself. Wouldn’t that make him arrogant and proud? The Bible surely teaches us to do the complete opposite of this. I have to say, that by reading on in the chapter, this concept now sits a lot more comfortably with me than when I first read that paragraph, and lots of those initial questions were answered. I will not go into this right now, but you can always read the book if you want to look deeper at this. However, it has raised a number of other questions which, whilst not directly related to the above, do stem from it. I am going to focus mainly on one big topic here, and may write more about my other questions in a future post.

Gods Plan

In my experience, Christians are reminded regularly that God has a plan for them. The Bible does also say this (Jeremiah 29:11 – though this message was actually for the exiles of Judah, but lets not get into that!). My question is, “Is God’s plan for us limited to that which will help to fulfil his plan for mankind, and therefore ultimately to that which glorifies Him?” In other words, if I get to a hypothetical crossroads in my life, where I have a decision to make, has God definitely already planned which way I go? Is this true even if the decision will in no way affect His Kingdom, or His “Salvation plan”. As Rachel and I say, does God care whether I choose a tuna sandwich for lunch today as opposed to some other delicious filling? Plus, if all this is already in God’s plan, and as John Piper says, God’s plan can not be frustrated, (He is sovereign after all!) then how can I possibly do the wrong thing?

Could I offer an alternative suggestion, which is likely to be completely wrong, and maybe even heretical! Please leave a comment to say why this is wrong if you do have an opinion, because in truth I don’t really believe it, but don’t know why as it seems to make a lot more logical sense: Could it be that God has a plan. One plan which is for the whole of mankind. Wherever we are required in order to fulfil a certain part of that plan, (which may be very regularly and may even include seemingly small details of our lives, such as what friends we have or where we work, and also, could include different things for different people), there God plans for us. In that sense, He cannot be frustrated. Those things will happen as God wants them to. This would mean that God has planned for us, but only to the point where that satisfies his ultimate plan for mankind. The smaller, more mundane parts of our lives are ours to decide what to do with. Me choosing tuna over cheese, would not affect God’s plan for Salvation, and ultimately to glorify Himself, therefore He really doesn’t mind. In this sense, God hasn't planned each detail of my life, rather He has a plan, and I often fit into it and therefore much of my life is indirectly planned out for me. If this is not true, then what is the point in praying for anything? I know it shows our dependence on him, but could we not just tell Him that we know we are and stop praying for the things that we want to happen? If God's plans every tiny detail of our lives, and cannot be frustrated, then why bother desiring anything? We might as well just wait and see what we get.

Also, whilst on the subject of plans, if God is out of time, then how can he plan? Surely by definition a plan is produced in order to achieve a future goal. Why would you plan an outcome you can already see? It doesn’t make sense!


See my confusion?!?!?! And thats just the start!

Its a good job God knows what He's doing isn't it!

I realise that this has many connections to a previous post of mine, (God, an individual relationship), particularly the part that says, "Does God care about the things of "life", that I really care about unless these are the very things that themselves have an impact on His Kingdom." I will retrack, and read the comments that were left for me back then, but I did just want to bring this up again because I think it is really important.

3 comments:

thesamesky said...

Wow Kirsty, what questions! I'm not sure I can answer them either. (Not surprising, I'm not God - thankfully! I'd do a terrible job!!!!) Good questions though. When you find someone to answer them could you let me know??!! I could have a guess . . .

I know you said you had worked through the Piper quote, but I read something similar in his other book (the one I'm reading), and it's not arrogant or proud of God to give himself the glory he deserves - because he is worthy of it. It is arrogant and proud of us though, to attempt to attain glory this way because we are NOT worthy of it. If that makes sense. But I'm guessing you've sorted this all out for yourself anyway.

I'm not sure that God minds whether you eat a tuna or cheese sandwich though. I think in some things he gives us liberty to decide for ourselves - after all, he probably made the sandwiches and just wants you to enjoy them. By doing that you are glorifying him anyway right?

Don't know about the rest though. Phew!

Unknown said...

Hi Rach.

Yeah I totally agree with the whole "God deserves it and we don't", thing. It still feels a bit weird though. I guess I have been brought up to believe that God loves us so much, and its just odd to suddenly think that He actually loves Himself more. Doesn't mean its not true though. Just different, and I think it will take a while to get used to it.

I will let you know if I get any help with these questions. I might ask some people at church what they think.

xxx

Joanna said...

I don't think these things need to cause you to change your view of God's love for us. The fact that He values His own worth above anything else does not need to minimise His love for us in any way. Always remember that we cannot ever plunge the depths of his love for us, and the fact that he loves us at all is amazing.

The sovereignty of God is sooo hard to understand! I guess it is one of those things we never will. All I know is that it is clearly taught in the Bible. But our freedom to make choices and our responsibility is also taught. So, I think we are free to chose what sarnies we eat (to use your example!). And God's sovereignty does not minimise our responsibility when it comes to sin. We can't say, "I'm not guilty because God planned it all anyway!". God holds us completely responsible and accountable for our actions in life.

I don't understand all of this - how can we be free and responsible, at the same time as God being completely sovereign over everything? But we have to believe it because both are taught. We cannot use the teaching of God's sovereignty to reject our responsibility, or our responsibility to reject God's freedom - cos that would be rejecting part of the Bible! And to make it even harder there is no such thing as a contradiction in the Bible, even though these two concepts together seem like a contradiction - aggghhh!!!! So, I guess you could call it a paradox. Keep looking into it and you may start to get your head around it because a paradox is possible to understand!! Or at the very least be comfortable with!

So there you go - I can't answer your questions but I can recommend a book!!! 'Chosen By God' by R.C.Sproul - in my opinion - is brilliant at dealing with the sovereignty of God, and quite clear too. It talks about contradictions, paradoxes, antinomies, mysteries - sounds complicated but it really isn't. I think it irons it all out and is very very good.

xx