Choices
The Rev. Lou Tiscione, Pastor, Weatherford Presbyterian Church (PCA)
We always do the things we desire most at any given time. In light of that truth there is another. God is sovereign and He has ordained the steps of men. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” At first glance, this seems to present a contradiction. Yet, there is no contradiction between God’s sovereignty and man’s choices. These two truths represent what is called by theologians an antinomy. An antinomy is an apparent contradiction that can be resolved. The link between these two truths, as well as their resolution, is understood best the doctrine of secondary causes.
Secondary causes are those actions which God uses to accomplish His ordained decrees. For example, Joseph told his brothers that they “meant evil against [him] but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).
Jeremiah declared the principle of God’s sovereignty. “Who has spoken and it came to pass unless the LORD has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come” (Lamentations 3:37-38)? Isaiah also wrote concerning God’s sovereignty. “Also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work, and who can turn it back” (Isaiah 43:13)? Jesus, who is God, declared “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).
Most Christians affirm the sovereignty of God, but confusion comes when God’s sovereignty is placed against the choices we make. On the one hand, God has ordained the daily routines and minute details of our lives. On the other hand, we all choose to do what we desire at that precise moment in time.
We search for answers that suit our finite minds. One such answer given is that God is sovereign over the beginning and the end, but for all that is in the middle He has given man a free will to choose whatever course he desires. If God is not sovereign, He is not God!
But God is sovereign over the ends and the means. He uses secondary causes to accomplish His ordained purpose. King Solomon wrote, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the Hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will” (Proverbs 21:1). Luke recorded the Apostle Peter’s explanation of a secondary cause used by God to accomplish redemption. “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless me” (Acts 2:23).
The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 3, Paragraph 1, states this concerning secondary causes:
God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Every action and circumstance have been ordained by God. Yet, He has chosen to accomplish His ordained plan through secondary causes, namely our choices.
Thereby, the sovereignty of God does not excuse man for his actions. The Bible affirms from cover to cover that every man is responsible for his actions!
The Creator has the right to make creatures as He wills. The Apostle Paul used very strong words aimed at those who rejected the absolute sovereignty of God in choosing some for salvation and passing over others. “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you make me like this”’ (Romans 9:20)?
You may be thinking that the doctrine of secondary causes is interesting but all that one needs is to believe in Jesus. True, but simply saying His name is not the extent of the saving faith given by God. When one comes to Jesus, he comes to the One who is Lord of all. He is the one by whom and for whom all creation was made. His word declares that we are accountable to Him for our choices. He has also revealed Himself to be the sovereign ruler of the Universe. True, all that is necessary is to believe in Jesus, but in what Jesus do you believe? Is He the one who somehow permits you to wander in life as you choose or is He the one offered in the gospel who has ordained the steps of your life?
