One of the distinctions that has been used to understand and explain the tension between God’s sovereign will and our will is the distinction between what is necessary and what is voluntary. From the perspective of God’s sovereign will, human rebellion is necessary: “They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for.” (1 Peter 2:8), but from the perspective of our will, human rebellion is a free choice that we all make: “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19).
Don Carson explains this with an analogy: “A man may be locked in a room, but not want to get out. He therefore cannot get out, but equally he does not want to get out.” (Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, page 207). While this helpfully illustrates the necessity of the lock and the voluntariness of his will, it still pits the two against each other. The implied question remains, is he locked in or has he locked himself in? There is still a tension between God’s sovereign will and human will.
However, I propose that the tension is between human will and God’s moral will (the imperatives of the bible), not God’s sovereign will (everything that happens), that is, we rebel against God’s will for us to be selfless (loving God and our neighbour), not against his will for us to learn the consequences of selfishness the hard way. To push the analogy, God created us knowing which room we would chose, and he graciously leads some people out into his room, but there is no lock. God doesn’t force peoples to sin, but he does hand people over to their sin. Predestination doesn’t mean that God is stopping people who want to become Christians from becoming Christians, because no one actually wants to become a Christian, left to ourselves, we all chose ourselves over God.
While this may sound like I’m simply pushing the tension into God’s complex will, it’s not quite that simple. Because God is omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful) he can actually use evil to achieve good, that is, God can use peoples rejection of his moral will, to ultimately achieve his moral will inside his sovereign will. The classic example is that of Jacob, where his brothers rebel against God’s moral will and harm Jacob, but God uses that event to prevent the harm of many in his sovereign will (Genesis 50:20). The ultimate is example is that of the cross, where God uses the greatest act of evil by humans to achieve the greatest good for humanity (Acts 2:23). Whether we listen to his will in the bible or learn it the hard way, it always part of God’s master plan, our will may be for or against God’s will, but never instead of God’s will.
This may also sound like God is just an awesome chess player, constantly responding to situations that we create, but God uses our acts of evil for good by his “set purpose and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). God’s sovereign will transcends our will such that there is no dichotomy between them. The realities of God’s sovereign will and our will is not either/or, it’s both/and. God created humanity knowing that they would chose to sin and so he planned and purposed for Jesus to come to save us, but he did not force Adam’s hand. God allows us to be tempted (1 Corinthians 10:13), but he himself does not tempt anyone (James 1:13).
After the fall Adam’s first thought was to blame the circumstances (Genesis 3:12), but we are all responsible for the choices we make. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13). God gives us every opportunity to see the rooms (or slaveries – Romans 6) of sin and righteousness for what they are, and gives us our life to chose which we will live in for eternity.
