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.
How do you respond to Psalm 135:6?
“Whatever the Lord pleases he does,
In heaven and on earth…” (cf. Job 23:13–14; Ps. 115:3; Dan. 4:35)
Some conclude from passages such as this that God’s will can never be thwarted. Since Scripture explicitly teaches that God’s will is in fact sometimes thwarted (Isa. 63:10; Luke 7:30; Acts 7:51; Eph. 4:30; Heb. 3:8, 15; 4:7), we must reject this conclusion.
These passages certainly teach that the Lord can do whatever he pleases, but they only support the view that God meticulously controls everything if we assume that it pleases the Lord to control everything. There is no basis for this assumption, however. No mentally healthy parent would be pleased to meticulously control their children, even if they could.
We all know that relating to free persons is infinitely more rewarding than controlling people, though it is also much more risky. Why then should we assume that God’s greatest agenda for creation—what “pleases God”—is to meticulously control it?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Q&A, Responding to Calvinism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Psalm 135
Related Reading
What about the thief on the cross?
Question: You hold that most people who are saved will nevertheless have to go through a “purging fire” to have their character refined and fit for heaven. Whatever is unfinished in our “sanctification” in this epoch must be completed in the next. But how does this square with Jesus telling the thief on the cross,…
Does your “dispositional” ontology avoid substantival categories?
Question: In Trinity and Process you argue against a “substantival” ontology and instead advocate a “relational,” “process” and/or “dispositional” ontology in which being, being-in-relation and being-in-process are one and the same. In your view, entity x is its relation to entity y (and all other relations) and is the disposition to interact with y (and…
How do you respond to 1 Kings 8:58?
Solomon prays as he dedicates the temple, “The Lord our God be with us…[and] incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments…” (vs. 57-58). Compatibilists sometimes cite biblical prayers such as this one to support the view that God determines the human heart. If this were the…
How do you respond to Romans 9?
The Deterministic Interpretation of Romans 9 Many people believe that Romans 9 demonstrates that God has the right and power to save whichever individuals he wants to save and damn whichever individuals he wants to damn. I’ll call this the “deterministic” reading of Romans 9, for it holds that God determines who will be saved…
What do you think of “confrontational evangelism”?
Question: In The Myth of a Christian Nation, you emphasize our need to sacrificially serve others. But you didn’t emphasize our need to “preach the Gospel to every living creature.” I’ve been intrigued by the movement known as “confrontational evangelism,” associated with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. They stress the need to get people to…
What is the significance of Numbers 11:1–2?
The Lord was in the process of judging Israel by fire when Moses interceded in prayer “and the fire abated.” A common sense reading of the verse suggests that the fire would have continued had Moses not prayed. Scripture is full of examples of God changing his plans in response to human prayer and repentance.…