We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Re-Thinking Divine Sovereignty
Many people in the church have been taught that divine sovereignty is synonymous with unilateral control. Some have even argued that if God is not in control of everything, then something must be in control of him. Still others have proposed that if God is not sovereign over all, then he has no sovereignty at all.
But why should we accept this understanding of divine sovereignty? Why should we think that God would cease to be God because he decided to create something he does not meticulously control? On the contrary, this view seems to severely restrict God’s omnipotence! It reduces the Creator to one mode of behavior: unilateral control. God must control everything in order to exist! Why should we suppose that this is the most exalted, let alone the only conceivable, form of sovereignty?
It could be argued that this is not actually sovereign at all. It is hard to conceive of a weaker God than one who would be threatened by events occurring outside of his meticulous control. It is difficult to imagine a less majestic view of God than one who is necessarily limited to a unilateral, deterministic mode of relating to his creation. Power is about having choices. If this is so, then if God cannot choose to create an open creation, his power is actually undermined.
What is praiseworthy about controlling something simply because a being possesses the innate power to do so? For instance, I have the power to exercise total and exhaustive control over my little finger as I twitch it. But no one would think me praiseworthy on this basis. Yet this is precisely what we do when we claim that God’s sovereignty is praiseworthy because he controls everything. God could control everything if he wanted to, since it is his creation, but that is not what he chose to do.
There is nothing intrinsically praiseworthy about sheer power. Praise has to do with character. What is praiseworthy about God’s sovereignty is not that he exercises the omnipotence he obviously has, but that out of his character, as ultimately revealed on the cross, he does not exercise all the power he could.
The greatest testimony to God’s sovereignty is the fact that God created beings who possess the power to say no to him.
Our common experience confirms this. On the one hand, we tend to view leaders as insecure, weak, and manipulative when they seek to meticulously control other people in order to ensure that things go exactly the way they want. On the other hand, we commonly admire leaders who influence others through the respect their character earns.
A truly great leader who is sovereign over all—the God revealed in the Bible—is one who is secure enough in the character he possesses that he does not need to resort to coercion. This is what we see in the ultimate revelation of God on the cross. As Irenaeus said, “There is no coercion in God.”
Adapted from Satan and the Problem of Evil, pages 146-151
Category: General
Tags: Cross, God's Sovereignty, Open Theism, Power
Related Reading

What is the significance of Jeremiah 3:19–20?
“I thought how I would set you among my children…And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife…you have been faithless to me…” If the future is eternally and exhaustively settled, and if God therefore knows it as such, he could not have…

Free Will: Is it a coherent concept?
Greg is going to be spending the next several blogs talking about the idea of free will. In this first reflection, he discusses whether it is coherent to speak of a decision that is not determined or exhaustively caused.

The Cross as a Trinitarian Event
On Calvary, the all-holy God fully identified with sinners, suffering the consequences of our sin as though he himself were guilty. While God is never culpable for the evil he allows, he nevertheless assumes responsibility for it by fully identifying with those free agents who are in fact culpable. While the Son alone suffered as…

What is the significance of Jeremiah 18:7–11?
The Lord states that “if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.” But if a nation which he has declared he will bless “does evil in my sight…I will change my mind about the good that…

What is the significance of Hosea 8:5?
The Lord asks, “How long will they [Israel] be incapable of innocence?” The Lord’s continual striving with Israel regarding their lack of innocence suggests that this question was not merely rhetorical. If God knows the future to be eternally settled, however, he could not in earnest ask this (or any other) question about the future.…

What is the significance of 1 Samuel 23:9–13?
“David heard that Saul knew that he was hiding in Keliah. Saul was seeking to kill David, so David wisely consulted the Lord as to what he should do. David said, ‘O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has heard that Saul seeks to come to Keliah, to destroy the city on my account.…