Cannons from Canon

I recently attended the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. G3 is an evangelical ministry that holds conferences with close to 10,000 attendees. This year the theme was the Sovereignty of God, and the event featured Steve Lawson, Voddie Bauchum, Paul Washer, Ken Ham, James White, and other reformed theologians. I was very excited to listen to some of my favorite preachers talk on one of my favorite subjects: God’s sovereignty. Sadly, even though it was the theme of the conference, sovereignty was never defined. Instead, it was equated with deterministic 5-point Calvinism. The point is not to contend with the position of those respected theologians but rather to show that sovereignty is a doctrine that non-Calvinists can subscribe to as well, and it does not mean determinism.

“God’s Unquestionable Sovereignty” was the title of the opening message, and for the next two days, a dozen different speakers carried that same theme by sprinkling the phrase “God is sovereign!” into their messages while talking about different theological subjects. Yet, I questioned God’s sovereignty—what they meant by “God is sovereign!”

James White, while discussing God’s sovereignty at G3, made the claim “the only consistent Arminian is an open theist.” Open Theism teaches that God is not all-knowing and that He is restricted by that lack of knowledge. Arminian theology fully affirms God is all-knowing and rejects Open Theism. So why did James White make this claim? The issue revolves around foreknowledge and foreordination. Most branches of Calvinism teach that God “foreordained,” “predestined,” “authored,” and “decreed” all things—even sin. This is how, according to this theology, God foreknows all things. It is a logical point: God can know all things with certainty because He decreed them to happen with certainty. Non-Calvinistic theology (Arminianism, Traditionalism, Molinism) rejects that God authored or decreed sin but still affirms God’s total and complete foreknowledge of everything that happens. How can they do this? In their teaching, God is so transcendent and exists outside of time; therefore, He can know everything perfectly, even the future, without directly causing or determining it. To the Calvinist, God cannot know infallibly what He did not predetermine. To the non-Calvinist, God knowing the future choices of free agents poses no problem.

In James White’s and other Calvinists’ minds, God is not sovereign if He did not predetermine all things. Because of this fact, sovereignty is so closely connected to determinism that the two words become one and the same. Therefore, when G3 holds a conference on sovereignty or the Calvinist and Arminian debate the subject, it is often determinism that is discussed.

Is God sovereign if He did not predetermine all things? Before we answer this potentially complex question, let’s define sovereignty. At its core, “sovereign” means “having the right to rule.” The word comes from the Latin and French, “super-reign.” A sovereign is someone who governs or reigns over a specific domain. For example, the sovereign of China has authority over China, but not over Russia, and vice versa. It’s important to note that any human sovereignty has its limitations. When we consider God’s sovereignty, we must recognize that it goes far beyond any human ruler. God is often referred to as the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords,” which can be understood as the “Sovereign of all sovereigns.”

God’s sovereignty can then be understood as His “complete authority over all of creation to do whatever He pleases.” This is often the battle cry of deterministic theology: God does whatever He wants. Somehow, deterministic theology has claimed this as a doctrine that is only true in determinism. Yet non-deterministic theology can echo the cry: God does whatever He wants. The debate is not on God’s ability but God’s desire. No one debates that God can do whatever He wants, rather the debate should be “what does He do?”

With this understanding of sovereignty, being sovereign does not mean that God predetermined all things; it simply means that He has the right to do so. God is still sovereign even if He does not predetermine all things. Likewise, God is sovereign if He does determine all things.

If Christians can all conclude theologically, logically, and most importantly biblically that God can do whatever He wants, we should then look to the Bible to see what God wants to do and what He does do. The Bible offers a corpus of material describing God. Understanding the sovereign must be the first step in understanding His sovereignty. The Bible also offers help in answering the question of how God governs or exercises His authority.

The first two chapters of the Bible give incredible insight into God’s sovereignty. Genesis 1 assumes God’s eternal existence. The Biblical creation account stands in stark contrast to other ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) creation accounts. It paints a creation and Creator far superior to the gods of pagan nations. The Babylonian creation account, called the Enuma Elish, for example, tells the story of the god Marduk battling with other gods. In this bout, Marduk proves victorious, and with the defeat of his enemies, earth and heaven are created. Marduk then proceeds to create man and make some order out of the chaos. The living God, however, is the only true God. He spoke, and everything came to be. Everything YHWH made was good. God’s extreme power is on display, and His sovereignty is clear. God alone created everything; therefore, He has every right to do whatever He wants with that creation. God gives us insight into how He wanted to exercise His right to rule.

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Ge 1:26).

The grand finale of God’s creation is to make man as representatives of God. There is an inseparable link between bearing God’s image and having dominion. God created man to rule and govern the earth. “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” (Psalm 115:3) the psalmist states. What pleases God? “The heavens are the heavens of Yahweh, but the earth He has given to the sons of men” (Psalm 115:16) he tells us.

God is a delegator. He delegates His authority to men and this is clear all throughout scripture.

• God gave man dominion over earth (Gen 1:26)
• God gave man permission to exercise capital punishment (Gen 9:5-6)
• God chose David to rule Israel (1 Sam 16:12)
• God gave husband’s authority over their household (1 Tim 3:4)
• God gave human government authority (Rom 13:1)
• God gave elders authority over their flock (1 Pet 5:2)
• God gave all authority to the Son (Matt 28:18)

Supreme authority will always exist within the Godhead, but time and time again, God delegates that authority. God gives men stewardships. He entrusts them with certain amounts of information and authority and wants them to be faithful with it.

• “In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found faithful” (1 Co 4:2).
• “For the overseer must be beyond reproach as God’s steward” (Tt 1:7).
• “As each one has received a gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Pe 4:10).

Sovereignty can offer insight into the determinism discussion, but sovereignty itself does not prove that determinism is true. Sovereignty is a fascinating doctrine that provides insight into how God relates to humanity. God graciously teaches us, tests us, and rewards us through His sovereign decision to delegate authority. Every believer can rejoice and praise the loving Sovereign who uses the Church to spread His gospel and His glory to all corners of the earth.