Both you and I find Scriptures teaching that salvation is solely God's action. "It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy" (Rom. 9:16; see also 8:29,30; Eph. 1:11; 2:8,9; John 6:35-40; 10:25-30; & many more).
My question: As you feel the force of that group of Scriptures, does a desire for logical consistency in your theological system set in as you read the rest of Scripture? Do you expect that every other Scripture will neatly "fit in" with those first Scriptures?
Concerning your answer, let me say two things:
1) If you answer "yes", perhaps that is the correct one; one passage can help us understand another as we fit their truths together. However, there is a danger to be avoided. Logical consistency should not be a primary concern; faithful exegesis (letting the text speak, rather than "reading into" it our ideas) should be the primary concern.
Logical consistency should only be a secondary concern. God in his being will not be inherently contradictory (every part of his nature will be consistent with the whole); however, from our (limited) perspective, two apparently contradictory teachings about God may both be true. Much of our knowledge of God is only in picture form, and analogies always break down. Since God is a being beyond our comprehension, it is actually logical to expect an illogical description of God and his actions in saving us. A cube has all right angles; yet a two-dimensional true sketch of a cube does not have all right angles. God and his actions are a couple (at least!) dimensions higher than our descriptions of him.[1] So perhaps two scriptural descriptions of God *will*--even after being exegeted correctly--appear to contradict each other.
2) It seems your answer is indeed "yes," and that you have not successfully avoided the danger inherent in that answer.
Why do I say that? I find Scriptures which, if taken at face value, say that peoples' actions determine their eternal destiny and that Christ died for more than the elect.
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ENDNOTES
[1] For instance: God is one; yet God is three. I have faith that there is an explanation adequate
to explain both while denying neither. But until we have that, let us not settle for a solution
that denies either, for that would be error. [See John M. Frame's *Van Til: The Theologian*, p.
14,15, if you think the Trinity should be described in a less blatantly contradictory form.]
Packer (*Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God*, p.16) uses this reasoning to plead for
openness to the apparently contradictory teaching of God being sovereign and man still held
responsible. Would not that reasoning also allow us to say God is sovereign and yet man is
free? Exegesis (whether Scripture uses the language of freedom, not just responsibility) should
determine the form of the antinomy.
[2] Louis Berkhof (*Systematic Theology*, p397) argues that the destruction of the one spoken
of in Rom 14:15 and I Cor 8:11 is "a supposition, for the sake of argument, of something that
does not and cannot happen." But wouldn't referring to cases that cannot actually occur destroy
Paul's whole argument?
Berkhof also argues that the false teachers in II Pet. 2:1 are "described according to their own
profession....They gave themselves out as redeemed men, and were so accounted in the
judgment of the Church while they abode in her communion." But the Bible as a rule
designates men to be what they really are, not what they pretend to be. Also, the verse
designates these men as "false teachers," although they hardly professed to be such.
I suggest the crucifixion of Christ as the best "perspective" on this question. The crucifixion of Christ is ordained by God and at the same time the actions of Herod and Pilate are morally disapproved by God (Acts 2:23; 4:26-28). Similarly, the perdition of some is ordained by God and morally disapproved by God. Since all of us must affirm the richness of God's will with respect to the crucifixion, we are really not "fudging" or inventing a new kind of distinction of "two wills" when we come to other matters....
...resolution of biblical "paradoxes" will never come through abstract rationality or irrationality, but through the paradigms of biblical teaching, particularly the person of Christ. The so-called dilemma of God's sovereignty and human responsibility/freedom is not solved philosophically but is solved illustratively, even paradigmatically, through the freedom of Christ's obedience as the true Son of the Father (John 8:36). Of course God's sovereignty and human "freedom" (in the sense of John 8:36) and responsibility within the family of the Father are in harmony! Christ's own person shows it as clear as day.
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24 Nov 1996
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