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 is the significance of Genesis 2:19 ?
“So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was the name.” God wanted Adam to have authority over the animal kingdom…
Non-Violence and Police Protection
Scott Davidson via Compfight Question: I am a President of a State University. As a frequent podcaster of your sermons and reader of your books, I’m seeking your advice on a matter. Because our campus is some distance from the police headquarters in our city, many within the State University are arguing that we should…
What do you think of the left wing Christians who are calling on Christians to stand up for “biblical justice”?
Yes, we’ve been hearing a lot of this recently, especially from more “progressive” (left-tending) Christians calling on people to vote “God’s politics” and stand up for “biblical justice.” On the one hand, I along with everyone else applaud such rhetoric, for what Bible-believing Christian in their right mind would take a stand against “biblical justice”?…
Are you an annihilationist, and if so, why?
Annihilationism is the view that whoever and whatever cannot be redeemed by God is ultimately put out of existence. Sentient beings do not suffer eternally, as the traditional view of hell teaches.I’m strongly inclined toward the annihilationist position. The reason is that it strikes me as the view that has the best biblical support. I’ll…
Should churches have armed security guards?
Question: Recently (December, 2007) a security guard at New Life Church in Colorado Springs shot and apparently killed a man who was shooting people in the church parking lot. The pastor (Brady Boyd) hailed her as a “real hero.” Do you think churches should have armed security guards and do you think the pastor was…
Is speaking in tongues the initial evidence of receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
Pentecostals have traditionally taught that speaking in tongues is evidence that a person is filled with the Holy Spirit. Those who defend this position do so primarily on the basis of a pattern they discern in Acts. They note that when the disciples were first baptized in the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, “all…