Chapter III: The Decrees Of God (1)

I. Definition of Decrees.

By the decrees of God we mean that eternal plan by which God has rendered certain all the events of the universe, past, present, and future. Notice in explanation that:

(_a_) The decrees are many only to our finite comprehension; in their own nature they are but one plan, which embraces not only effects but also causes, not only the ends to be secured but also the means needful to secure them.

In _Rom. 8:28—_“called according to his purpose”—the many decrees
for the salvation of many individuals are represented as forming
but one purpose of God. _Eph. 1:11—_“foreordained according to the
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his
will”—notice again the word “_purpose_,” in the singular. _Eph.
3:11—_“according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in
Christ Jesus our Lord.” This one purpose or plan of God includes
both means and ends, prayer and its answer, labor and its fruit.
Tyrolese proverb: “God has his plan for every man.” Every man, as
well as Jean Paul, is “der Einzige”—the unique. There is a single
plan which embraces all things; “we use the word ‘decree’ when we
think of it partitively” (Pepper). See Hodge, Outlines of
Theology, 1st ed., 165; 2d ed., 200—“In fact, no event is
isolated—to determine one involves determination of the whole
concatenation of causes and effects which constitutes the
universe.” The word “plan” is preferable to the word “decrees,”
because “plan” excludes the ideas of (1) plurality, (2)
short-sightedness, (3) arbitrariness, (4) compulsion.

(_b_) The decrees, as the eternal act of an infinitely perfect will, though they have logical relations to each other, have no chronological relation. They are not therefore the result of deliberation, in any sense that implies short-sightedness or hesitancy.

Logically, in God’s decree the sun precedes the sunlight, and the
decree to bring into being a father precedes the decree that there
shall be a son. God decrees man before he decrees man’s act; he
decrees the creation of man before he decrees man’s existence. But
there is no chronological succession. “_Counsel_” in _Eph.
1:11—_“the counsel of his will”—means, not deliberation, but
wisdom.

(_c_) Since the will in which the decrees have their origin is a free will, the decrees are not a merely instinctive or necessary exercise of the divine intelligence or volition, such as pantheism supposes.

It belongs to the perfection of God that he have a plan, and the
best possible plan. Here is no necessity, but only the certainty
that infinite wisdom will act wisely. God’s decrees are not God;
they are not identical with his essence; they do not flow from his
being in the same necessary way in which the eternal Son proceeds
from the eternal Father. There is free will in God, which acts
with infinite certainty, yet without necessity. To call even the
decree of salvation necessary is to deny grace, and to make an
unfree God. See Dick, Lectures on Theology, 1:355; lect. 34.

(_d_) The decrees have reference to things outside of God. God does not decree to be holy, nor to exist as three persons in one essence.

Decrees are the preparation for external events—the embracing of
certain things and acts in a plan. They do not include those
processes and operations within the Godhead which have no
reference to the universe.

(_e_) The decrees primarily respect the acts of God himself, in Creation, Providence, and Grace; secondarily, the acts of free creatures, which he foresees will result therefrom.

While we deny the assertion of Whedon, that “the divine plan
embraces _only_ divine actions,” we grant that God’s plan has
reference _primarily_ to his own actions, and that the sinful acts
of men, in particular, are the objects, not of a decree that God
will efficiently produce them, but of a decree that God will
permit men, in the exercise of their own free will, to produce
them.

(_f_) The decree to act is not the act. The decrees are an internal exercise and manifestation of the divine attributes, and are not to be confounded with Creation, Providence, and Redemption, which are the execution of the decrees.

The decrees are the first operation of the attributes, and the
first manifestation of personality of which we have any knowledge
within the Godhead. They presuppose those essential acts or
movements within the divine nature which we call generation and
procession. They involve by way of consequence that execution of
the decrees which we call Creation, Providence, and Redemption,
but they are not to be confounded with either of these.

(_g_) The decrees are therefore not addressed to creatures; are not of the nature of statute law; and lay neither compulsion nor obligation upon the wills of men.

So ordering the universe that men _will_ pursue a given course of action is a very different thing from declaring, ordering, or commanding that they _shall_. “Our acts are in accordance with the decrees, but not _necessarily_ so—we _can_ do otherwise and often _should_” (Park). The Frenchman who fell into the water and cried: “I will, drown,—no one shall help me!” was very naturally permitted to drown; if he had said: “I shall drown,—no one will help me!” he might perchance have called some friendly person to his aid.

(_h_) All human acts, whether evil or good, enter into the divine plan and so are objects of God’s decrees, although God’s actual agency with regard to the evil is only a permissive agency.

No decree of God reads: “You shall sin.” For (1) no decree is
addressed to _you_; (2) no decree with respect to you says
_shall_; (3) God cannot cause _sin_, or decree to cause it. He
simply decrees to create, and himself to act, in such a way that
you will, of your own free choice, commit sin. God determines upon
his own acts, foreseeing what the results will be in the free acts
of his creatures, and so he determines those results. This
permissive decree is the only decree of God with respect to sin.
Man of himself is capable of producing sin. Of himself he is not
capable of producing holiness. In the production of holiness two
powers must concur, God’s will and man’s will, and God’s will must
act first. The decree of good, therefore, is not simply a
permissive decree, as in the case of evil. God’s decree, in the
former case, is a decree to bring to bear positive agencies for
its production, such as circumstances, motives, influences of his
Spirit. But, in the case of evil, God’s decrees are simply his
arrangement that man may do as he pleases, God all the while
foreseeing the result.

Permissive agency should not be confounded with conditional
agency, nor permissive decree with conditional decree. God
foreordained sin only indirectly. The machine is constructed not
for the sake of the friction, but in spite of it. In the parable
_Mat. 13:24-30_, the question “_Whence then hath it tares?_” is
answered, not by saying, “I decreed the tares.” but by saying:
“_An enemy hath done this_.” Yet we must take exception to
Principal Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Theology, 456, when he
says: “God did not _permit_ sin to be; it is, in its essence, the
transgression of his law, and so his only attitude toward it is
one of opposition. It _is_, because man has contradicted and
resisted his will.” Here the truth of God’s opposition to sin is
stated so sharply as almost to deny the decree of sin in any
sense. We maintain that God does decree sin in the sense of
embracing in his plan the foreseen transgressions of men, while at
the same time we maintain that these foreseen transgressions are
chargeable wholly to men and not at all to God.

(_i_) While God’s total plan with regard to creatures is called predestination, or foreordination, his purpose so to act that certain will believe and be saved is called election, and his purpose so to act that certain will refuse to believe and be lost is called reprobation. We discuss election and reprobation, in a later chapter, as a part of the Application of Redemption.

God’s decrees may be divided into decrees with respect to nature,
and decrees with respect to moral beings. These last we call
foreordination, or predestination; and of these decrees with
respect to moral beings there are two kinds, the decree of
election, and the decree of reprobation; see our treatment of the
doctrine of Election. George Herbert: “We all acknowledge both thy
power and love To be exact, transcendent, and divine; Who dost so
strongly and so sweetly move. While all things have their will—yet
none but thine. For either thy _command_ or thy _permission_ Lays
hands on all; they are thy right and left. The first puts on with
speed and expedition; The other curbs sin’s stealing pace and
theft. Nothing escapes them both; all must appear And be disposed
and dressed and tuned by thee Who sweetly temperest all. If we
could hear Thy skill and art, what music it would be!” On the
whole doctrine, see Shedd, Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:1-25.

II. Proof of the Doctrine of Decrees.

1. From Scripture.

A. The Scriptures declare that all things are included in the divine decrees. B. They declare that special things and events are decreed; as, for example, (_a_) the stability of the physical universe; (_b_) the outward circumstances of nations; (_c_) the length of human life; (_d_) the mode of our death; (_e_) the free acts of men, both good acts and evil acts. C. They declare that God has decreed (_a_) the salvation of believers; (_b_) the establishment of Christ’s kingdom; (_c_) the work of Christ and of his people in establishing it.

A. _Is. 14:26, 27—_“This is the purpose that is purposed upon the
whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all
the nations; for Jehovah of hosts hath purposed ... and his hand
is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” _46:10,
11—_“declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times
the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand,
and I will do all my pleasure ... yea, I have spoken, I will also
bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.” _Dan.
4:35—_“doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and
among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or
say unto him, What doest thou?” _Eph. 1:11—_“the purpose of him
who worketh all things after the counsel of his will.”

B. (_a_) _Ps. 119:89-91—_“For ever, O Jehovah, thy word is settled
in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: Thou hast
established the earth and it abideth. They abide this day
according to thine ordinances; For all things are thy servants.”
(_b_) _Acts 17:26—_“he made of one every nation of men to dwell on
all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed
seasons, and the bounds of their habitation”; _cf._ _Zach.
5:1—_“came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the
mountains were mountains of brass”—the fixed decrees from which
proceed God’s providential dealings? (_c_) _Job 14:5—_“Seeing his
days are determined, The number of his months is with thee, And
thou hast determined his bounds that he cannot pass.” (_d_) _John
21:19—_“this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he
should glorify God.” (_e_) Good acts: _Is. 44:28—_“that saith of
Cyrus, He is my shepherd and shall perform all my pleasure, even
saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy
foundation shall be laid”; _Eph. 2:10—_“For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
afore prepared that we should walk in them.” Evil acts: _Gen.
50:20—_“as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for
good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people
alive”; _1 K. 12:15—_“So the king hearkened not unto the people,
for it was a thing brought about of Jehovah”; _24—_“for this thing
is of me”; _Luke 22:23—_“For the Son of man indeed goeth, as it
hath been determined: but woe unto that man through whom he is
betrayed”; _Acts 2:23—_“him, being delivered up by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men
did crucify and slay”; _4:27, 28—_“of a truth in this city against
thy holy Servant Jesus, who thou didst anoint, both Herod and
Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were
gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
foreordained to come to pass”; _Rom. 9:17—_“For the scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up,
that I might show in thee my power”; _1 Pet 2:3—_“They stumble at
the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed”;
_Rev. 17:17—_“For God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and
to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast,
until the words of God should be accomplished.”

C. (_a_) _1 Cor. 2:7—_“the wisdom which hath been hidden, which
God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory”; _Eph 3:10,
11—_“manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose
which he purposed in Christ Jesus our lord.” _Ephesians 1_ is a
pæan in praise of God’s decrees. (_b_) The greatest decree of all
is the decree to give the world to Christ. _Ps. 2:7, 8—_“I will
tell of the decree:... I will give thee the nations for thine
inheritance”; _cf._ _verse 6—_“I have set my king Upon my holy
hill of Zion”; _1 Cor. 15:25—_“he must reign, till he hath put all
his enemies under his feet.” (_c_) This decree we are to convert
into our decree; God’s will is to be executed through our wills.
_Phil. 2:12, 13—_“work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to
work, for his good pleasure.” _Rev. 5:1, 7—_“I saw in the right
hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on
the back, close sealed with seven seals.... And he [the Lamb]
came, and he taketh it out of the right hand of him that sat on
the throne”; _verse 9—_“Worthy art thou to take the book, and to
open the seals thereof”—Christ alone has the omniscience to know,
and the omnipotence to execute, the divine decrees. When John
weeps because there is none in heaven or earth to loose the seals
and to read the book of God’s decrees, the Lion of the tribe of
Judah prevails to open it. Only Christ conducts the course of
history to its appointed end. See A. H. Strong, Christ in
Creation, 268-283, on The Decree of God as the Great Encouragement
to Missions.

2. From Reason.

A. From the Divine Foreknowledge.

Foreknowledge implies fixity, and fixity implies decree.—From eternity God foresaw all the events of the universe as fixed and certain. This fixity and certainty could not have had its ground either in blind fate or in the variable wills of men, since neither of these had an existence. It could have had its ground in nothing outside the divine mind, for in eternity nothing existed besides the divine mind. But for this fixity there must have been a cause; if anything in the future was fixed, something must have fixed it. This fixity could have had its ground only in the plan and purpose of God. In fine, if God foresaw the future as certain, it must have been because there was something in himself which made it certain; or, in other words, because he had decreed it.

We object therefore to the statement of E. G. Robinson, Christian
Theology, 74—“God’s knowledge and God’s purposes both being
eternal, one cannot be conceived as the ground of the other, nor
can either be predicated to the exclusion of the other as the
cause of things, but, correlative and eternal, they must be
coequal quantities in thought.” We reply that while decree does
not chronologically precede, it does logically precede,
foreknowledge. Foreknowledge is not of possible events, but of
what is certain to be. The certainty of future events which God
foreknew could have had its ground only in his decree, since he
alone existed to be the ground and explanation of this certainty.
Events were fixed only because God had fixed them. Shedd, Dogm.
Theol., 1:397—“An event must be _made_ certain, before it can be
_known_ as a certain event.” Turretin, Inst. Theol., loc. 3,
quaes. 12, 18—“Præcipuum fundamentum scientiæ divinæ circa futura
contingentia est deoretum solum.”

Decreeing creation implies decreeing the foreseen results of creation.—To meet the objection that God might have foreseen the events of the universe, not because he had decreed each one, but only because he had decreed to create the universe and institute its laws, we may put the argument in another form. In eternity there could have been no cause of the future existence of the universe, outside of God himself, since no being existed but God himself. In eternity God foresaw that the creation of the world and the institution of its laws would make certain its actual history even to the most insignificant details. But God decreed to create and to institute these laws. In so decreeing he necessarily decreed all that was to come. In fine, God foresaw the future events of the universe as certain, because he had decreed to create; but this determination to create involved also a determination of all the actual results of that creation; or, in other words, God decreed those results.

E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 84—“The existence of divine
decrees may be inferred from the existence of natural law.” Law =
certainty = God’s will. Positivists express great contempt for the
doctrine of the eternal purpose of God, yet they consign us to the
iron necessity of physical forces and natural laws. Dr. Robinson
also points out that decrees are “implied in the prophecies. We
cannot conceive that all events should have converged toward the
one great event—the death of Christ—without the intervention of an
eternal purpose.” E. H. Johnson, Outline Syst. Theol., 2d ed.,
251, note—“Reason is confronted by the paradox that the divine
decrees are at once absolute and conditional; the resolution of
the paradox is that God absolutely decreed a conditional system—a
system, however, the workings of which he thoroughly foreknows.”
The rough unhewn stone and the statue into which it will be
transformed are both and equally included in the plan of the
sculptor.

No undecreed event can be foreseen.—We grant that God decrees primarily and directly his own acts of creation, providence, and grace; but we claim that this involves also a secondary and indirect decreeing of the acts of free creatures which he foresees will result therefrom. There is therefore no such thing in God as _scientia media_, or knowledge of an event that is to be, though it does not enter into the divine plan; for to say that God foresees an undecreed event, is to say that he views as future an event that is merely possible; or, in other words, that he views an event not as it is.

We recognize only two kinds of knowledge: (1) Knowledge of
undecreed possibles, and (2) foreknowledge of decreed actuals.
_Scientia media_ is a supposed intermediate knowledge between
these two, namely (3) foreknowledge of undecreed actuals. See
further explanations below. We deny the existence of this third
sort of knowledge. We hold that sin is decreed in the sense of
being _rendered certain_ by God’s determining upon a system in
which it was foreseen that sin would exist. The sin of man can be
foreknown, while yet God is not the immediate cause of it. God
knows possibilities, without having decreed them at all. But God
cannot foreknow actualities unless he has by his decree made them
to be certainties of the future. He cannot foreknow that which is
not there to be foreknown. Royce, World and Individual, 2:374,
maintains that God has, not _fore_knowledge, but only _eternal_
knowledge, of temporal things. But we reply that to foreknow how a
moral being _will_ act is no more impossible than to know how a
moral being in given circumstances _would_ act.

Only knowledge of that which is decreed is foreknowledge.—Knowledge of a plan as ideal or possible may precede decree; but knowledge of a plan as actual or fixed must follow decree. Only the latter knowledge is properly _fore_knowledge. God therefore foresees creation, causes, laws, events, consequences, because he has decreed creation, causes, laws, events, consequences; that is, because he has embraced all these in his plan. The denial of decrees logically involves the denial of God’s foreknowledge of free human actions; and to this Socinians, and some Arminians, are actually led.

An Arminian example of this denial is found in McCabe,
Foreknowledge of God, and Divine Nescience of Future Contingencies
a Necessity. _Per contra_, see notes on God’s foreknowledge, in
this Compendium, pages 283-286. Pepper: “Divine volition stands
logically between two divisions and kinds of divine knowledge.”
God knew free human actions as _possible_, _before_ he decreed
them; he knew them as _future_, _because_ he decreed them.
Logically, though not chronologically, decree comes before
foreknowledge. When I say, “I know what I will do,” it is evident
that I have determined already, and that my knowledge does not
precede determination, but follows it and is based upon it. It is
therefore not correct to say that God foreknows his decrees. It is
more true to say that he decrees his foreknowledge. He foreknows
the future which he has decreed, and he foreknows it because he
has decreed it. His decrees are eternal, and nothing that is
eternal can be the object of foreknowledge. G. F. Wright, in Bib.
Sac., 1877:723—“The _knowledge_ of God comprehended the details
and incidents of every possible plan. The _choice_ of a plan made
his knowledge determinate as _fore_knowledge.”

There are therefore two kinds of divine knowledge: (1) knowledge
of what may be—of the possible (_scientia simplicis
intelligentiæ_); and (2) knowledge of what is, and is to be,
because God has decreed it (_scientia visionis_). Between these
two Molina, the Spanish Jesuit, wrongly conceived that there was
(3) a middle knowledge of things which were to be, although God
had not decreed them (_scientia media_). This would of course be a
knowledge which God derived, not from himself, but from his
creatures! See Dick, Theology, 1:351. A. S. Carman: “It is
difficult to see how God’s knowledge can be caused from eternity
by something that has no existence until a definite point of
time.” If it be said that what is to be will be “in the nature of
things,” we reply that there is no “nature of things” apart from
God, and that the ground of the objective certainty, as well as of
the subjective certitude corresponding to it, is to be found only
in God himself.

But God’s decreeing to create, when he foresees that certain free
acts of men will follow, is a decreeing of those free acts, in the
only sense in which we use the word decreeing, _viz._, a rendering
certain, or embracing in his plan. No Arminian who believes in
God’s foreknowledge of free human acts has good reason for denying
God’s decrees as thus explained. Surely God did not foreknow that
Adam would exist and sin, whether God determined to create him or
not. Omniscience, then, becomes _fore_knowledge only on condition
of God’s decree. That God’s foreknowledge of free acts is
intuitive does not affect this conclusion. We grant that, while
man can predict free action only so far as it is rational (_i.
e._, in the line of previously dominant motive), God can predict
free action whether it is rational or not. But even God cannot
predict what is not certain to be. God can have intuitive
foreknowledge of free human acts only upon condition of his own
decree to create; and this decree to create, in foresight of all
that will follow, is a decree of what follows. For the Arminian
view, see Watson, Institutes, 2:375-398, 422-448. _Per contra_,
see Hill, Divinity, 512-582; Fiske, in Bib. Sac., April, 1862;
Bennett Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 214-254; Edwards the younger,
1:398-420; A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 98-101.

B. From the Divine Wisdom.

It is the part of wisdom to proceed in every undertaking according to a plan. The greater the undertaking, the more needful a plan. Wisdom, moreover, shows itself in a careful provision for all possible circumstances and emergencies that can arise in the execution of its plan. That many such circumstances and emergencies are uncontemplated and unprovided for in the plans of men, is due only to the limitations of human wisdom. It belongs to infinite wisdom, therefore, not only to have a plan, but to embrace all, even the minutest details, in the plan of the universe.

No architect would attempt to build a Cologne cathedral without a
plan; he would rather, if possible, have a design for every stone.
The great painter does not study out his picture as he goes along;
the plan is in his mind from the start; preparations for the last
effects have to be made from the beginning. So in God’s work every
detail is foreseen and provided for; sin and Christ entered into
the original plan of the universe. Raymond, Syst. Theol., 2:156,
says this implies that God cannot govern the world unless all
things be reduced to the condition of machinery; and that it
cannot be true, for the reason that God’s government is a
government of persons and not of things. But we reply that the
wise statesman governs persons and not things, yet just in
proportion to his wisdom he conducts his administration according
to a preconceived plan. God’s power might, but God’s wisdom would
not, govern the universe without embracing all things, even the
least human action, in his plan.

C. From the Divine Immutability.

What God does, he always purposed to do. Since with him there is no increase of knowledge or power, such as characterizes finite beings, it follows that what under any given circumstances he permits or does, he must have eternally decreed to permit or do. To suppose that God has a multitude of plans, and that he changes his plan with the exigencies of the situation, is to make him infinitely dependent upon the varying wills of his creatures, and to deny to him one necessary element of perfection, namely, immutability.

God has been very unworthily compared to a chess-player, who will
checkmate his opponent whatever moves he may make (George Harris).
So Napoleon is said to have had a number of plans before each
battle, and to have betaken himself from one to another as fortune
demanded. Not so with God. _Job 23:13—_“he is in one mind, and who
can turn him?” _James 1:17-_“the Father of lights, with whom can
be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.” Contrast
with this Scripture McCabe’s statement in his Foreknowledge of
God, 62—“This new factor, the godlike liberty of the human will,
is capable of thwarting, and in uncounted instances does thwart,
the divine will, and compel the great I AM to modify his actions,
his purposes, and his plans, in the treatment of individuals and
of communities.”

D. From the Divine Benevolence.

The events of the universe, if not determined by the divine decrees, must be determined either by chance or by the wills of creatures. It is contrary to any proper conception of the divine benevolence to suppose that God permits the course of nature and of history, and the ends to which both these are moving, to be determined for myriads of sentient beings by any other force or will than his own. Both reason and revelation, therefore, compel us to accept the doctrine of the Westminster Confession, that “God did from all eternity, by the most just and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”

It would not be benevolent for God to put out of his own power
that which was so essential to the happiness of the universe.
Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 231-243—“The denial of decrees
involves denial of the essential attributes of God, such as
omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence; exhibits him as a
disappointed and unhappy being; implies denial of his universal
providence; leads to a denial of the greater part of our own duty
of submission; weakens the obligations of gratitude.” We give
thanks to God for blessings which come to us through the free acts
of others; but unless God has purposed these blessings, we owe our
thanks to these others and not to God. Dr. A. J. Gordon said well
that a universe without decrees would be as irrational and
appalling as would be an express-train driving on in the darkness
without headlight or engineer, and with no certainty that the next
moment it might not plunge into the abyss. And even Martineau,
Study, 2:108, in spite of his denial of God’s foreknowledge of
man’s free acts, is compelled to say: “It cannot be left to mere
created natures to play unconditionally with the helm of even a
single world and steer it uncontrolled into the haven or on to the
reefs; and some security must be taken for keeping the deflections
within tolerable bounds.” See also Emmons, Works, 4:273-401: and
Princeton Essays, 1:57-73.

III. Objections to the Doctrine of Decrees.

1. That they are inconsistent with the free agency of man.

To this we reply that:

A. The objection confounds the decrees with the execution of the decrees. The decrees are, like foreknowledge, an act eternal to the divine nature, and are no more inconsistent with free agency than foreknowledge is. Even foreknowledge of events implies that those events are fixed. If this absolute fixity and foreknowledge is not inconsistent with free agency, much less can that which is more remote from man’s action, namely, the hidden cause of this fixity and foreknowledge—God’s decrees—be inconsistent with free agency. If anything be inconsistent with man’s free agency, it must be, not the decrees themselves, but the execution of the decrees in creation and providence.

On this objection, see Tyler, Memoir and Lectures, 244-249;
Forbes, Predestination and Free Will, 3—“All things are
_predestinated_ by God, both good and evil, but not
_prenecessitated_, that is, causally preördained by him—unless we
would make God the author of sin. Predestination is thus an
indifferent word, in so far as the originating author of anything
is concerned; God being the originator of good, but the creature,
of evil. Predestination therefore means that God included in his
plan of the world every act of every creature, good or bad. Some
acts he predestined causally, others permissively. The certainty
of the fulfilment of all God’s purposes ought to be distinguished
from their necessity.” This means simply that God’s decree is not
the _cause_ of any act or event. God’s decrees may be executed by
the causal efficiency of his creatures, or they may be executed by
his own efficiency. In either case it is, if anything, the
execution, and not the decree, that is inconsistent with human
freedom.

B. The objection rests upon a false theory of free agency—namely, that free agency implies indeterminateness or uncertainty; in other words, that free agency cannot coëxist with certainty as to the results of its exercise. But it is necessity, not certainty, with which free agency is inconsistent. Free agency is the power of self-determination in view of motives, or man’s power (_a_) to chose between motives, and (_b_) to direct his subsequent activity according to the motive thus chosen. Motives are never a cause, but only an occasion; they influence, but never compel; the man is the cause, and herein is his freedom. But it is also true that man is never in a state of indeterminateness; never acts without motive, or contrary to all motives; there is always a reason why he acts, and herein is his rationality. Now, so far as man acts according to previously dominant motive—see (_b_) above—we may by knowing his motive predict his action, and our certainty what that action will be in no way affects his freedom. We may even bring motives to bear upon others, the influence of which we foresee, yet those who act upon them may act in perfect freedom. But if man, influenced by man, may still be free, then man, influenced by divinely foreseen motives, may still be free, and the divine decrees, which simply render certain man’s actions, may also be perfectly consistent with man’s freedom.

We must not assume that decreed ends can be secured only by
compulsion. Eternal purposes do not necessitate efficient
causation on the part of the purposer. Freedom may be the very
means of fulfilling the purpose. E. G. Robinson, Christian
Theology, 74—“Absolute certainty of events, which is all that
omniscience determines respecting them, is not identical with
their necessitation.” John Milton, Christian Doctrine: “Future
events which God has foreseen will happen certainly, but not of
necessity. They will happen certainly, because the divine
prescience will not be deceived; but they will not happen
necessarily, because prescience can have no influence on the
object foreknown, inasmuch as it is only an intransitive action.”

There is, however, a smaller class of human actions by which character is changed, rather than expressed, and in which the man acts according to a motive different from that which has previously been dominant—see (_a_) above. These actions also are foreknown by God, although they cannot be predicted by man. Man’s freedom in them would be inconsistent with God’s decrees, if the previous certainty of their occurrence were, not certainty, but necessity; or, in other words, if God’s decrees were in all cases decrees efficiently to produce the acts of his creatures. But this is not the case. God’s decrees may be executed by man’s free causation, as easily as by God’s; and God’s decreeing this free causation, in decreeing to create a universe of which he foresees that this causation will be a part, in no way interferes with the freedom of such causation, but rather secures and establishes it. Both consciousness and conscience witness that God’s decrees are not executed by laying compulsion upon the free wills of men.

The farmer who, after hearing a sermon on God’s decrees, took the
break-neck road instead of the safe one to his home and broke his
wagon in consequence, concluded before the end of his journey that
he at any rate had been predestinated to be a fool, and that he
had made his calling and election sure. Ladd, Philosophy of
Conduct, 146, 187, shows that the will is free, first, by man’s
consciousness of ability, and, secondly, by man’s consciousness of
imputability. By nature, he is _potentially_ self-determining; as
matter of fact, he often _becomes_ self-determining.

Allen, Religious Progress, 110—“The coming church must embrace the
sovereignty of God and the freedom of the will; total depravity
and the divinity of human nature; the unity of God and the triune
distinctions in the Godhead; gnosticism and agnosticism; the
humanity of Christ and his incarnate deity; the freedom of the
Christian man and the authority of the church; individualism and
solidarity; reason and faith; science and theology; miracle and
uniformity of law; culture and piety; the authority of the Bible
as the word of God with absolute freedom of Biblical criticism;
the gift of administration as in the historic episcopate and the
gift of prophecy as the highest sanction of the ministerial
commission; the apostolic succession but also the direct and
immediate call which knows only the succession of the Holy Ghost.”
Without assenting to these latter clauses we may commend the
comprehensive spirit of this utterance, especially with reference
to the vexed question of the relation of divine sovereignty to
human freedom.

It may aid us, in estimating the force of this objection, to note the four senses in which the term “freedom” may be used. It may be used as equivalent to (1) _physical_ freedom, or absence of outward constraint; (2) _formal_ freedom, or a state of moral indeterminateness; (3) _moral_ freedom, or self-determinateness in view of motives; (4) _real_ freedom, or ability to conform to the divine standard. With the first of these we are not now concerned, since all agree that the decrees lay no outward constraint upon men. Freedom in the second sense has no existence, since all men have character. Free agency, or freedom in the third sense, has just been shown to be consistent with the decrees. Freedom in the fourth sense, or real freedom, is the special gift of God, and is not to be confounded with free agency. The objection mentioned above rests wholly upon the second of these definitions of free agency. This we have shown to be false, and with this the objection itself falls to the ground.

Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, 133-188, gives a good
definition of this fourth kind of freedom: “Freedom is
self-determination by universal ideals. Limiting our ends to those
of family or country is a refined or idealized selfishness.
Freedom is self-determination by universal love for man or by the
kingdom of God. But the free man must then be dependent on God in
everything, because the kingdom of God is a revelation of God.”
John Caird, Fundamental Ideas of Christianity, 1:133—“In being
determined by God we are self-determined; _i. e._, determined by
nothing alien to us, but by our noblest, truest self. The
universal life lives in us. The eternal consciousness becomes our
own; for ‘he that abideth in love abideth in God and God abideth
in him’_ (1 John 4:16)_.”

Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 226—“Free will is not the
independence of the creature, but is rather his self-realization
in perfect dependence. Freedom is self-identity with goodness.
Both goodness and freedom are, in their perfectness, in God.
Goodness in a creature is not distinction from, but correspondence
with, the goodness of God. Freedom in a creature is correspondence
with God’s own self-identity with goodness. It is to realize and
to find _himself_, his _true_ self, in Christ, so that God’s love
in us has become a divine response, adequate to, because truly
mirroring, God.” G. S. Lee, The Shadow Christ, 32—.“The ten
commandments could not be chanted. The Israelites sang about
Jehovah and what he had done, but they did not sing about what he
told them to do, and that is why they never did it. The conception
of duty that cannot sing must weep until it learns to sing. This
is Hebrew history.”

“There is a liberty, unsung By poets and by senators unpraised,
Which monarchs cannot grant nor all the powers Of earth and hell
confederate take away; A liberty which persecution, fraud,
Oppressions, prisons, have no power to bind; Which whoso tastes
can be enslaved no more. ’T is liberty of heart, derived from
heaven, Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind, And sealed
with the same token.” Robert Herrick: “Stone walls do not a prison
make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for
a hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above Enjoy such liberty.”

A more full discussion of the doctrine of the Will is given under
Anthropology, Vol. II. It is sufficient here to say that the
Arminian objections to the decrees arise almost wholly from
erroneously conceiving of freedom as the will’s power to decide,
in any given case, against its own character and all the motives
brought to bear upon it. As we shall hereafter see, this is
practically to deny that man has character, or that the will by
its right or wrong moral action gives to itself, as well as to the
intellect and affections, a permanent bent or predisposition to
good or evil. It is to extend the power of contrary choice, a
power which belongs to the sphere of transient volition, over all
those permanent states of intellect, affection, and will which we
call the moral character, and to say that we can change directly
by a single volition that which, as a matter of fact, we can
change only indirectly through process and means. Yet even this
exaggerated view of freedom would seem not to exclude God’s
decrees, or prevent a practical reconciliation of the Arminian and
Calvinistic views, so long as the Arminian grants God’s
foreknowledge of free human acts, and the Calvinist grants that
God’s decree of these acts is not necessarily a decree that God
will efficiently produce them. For a close approximation of the
two views, see articles by Raymond and by A. A. Hodge,
respectively, on the Arminian and the Calvinistic Doctrines of the
Will, in McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, 10:989, 992.

We therefore hold to the certainty of human action, and so part
company with the Arminian. We cannot with Whedon (On the Will),
and Hazard (Man a Creative First Cause), attribute to the will the
freedom of indifference, or the power to act without motive. We
hold with Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 188, that action without
motive, or an act of pure will, is unknown in consciousness (see,
however, an inconsistent statement of Calderwood on page 188 of
the same work). Every future human act will not only be performed
with a motive, but will certainly be one thing rather than
another; and God knows what it will be. Whatever may be the method
of God’s foreknowledge, and whether it be derived from motives or
be intuitive, that foreknowledge presupposes God’s decree to
create, and so presupposes the making certain of the free acts
that follow creation.

But this certainty is not necessity. In reconciling God’s decrees
with human freedom, we must not go to the other extreme, and
reduce human freedom to mere determinism, or the power of the
agent to act out his character in the circumstances which environ
him. Human action is not simply the expression of previously
dominant affections; else Neither Satan nor Adam could have
fallen, nor could the Christian ever sin. We therefore part
company with Jonathan Edwards and his Treatise on the Freedom of
the Will, as well as with the younger Edwards (Works, 1:420),
Alexander (Moral Science, 107), and Charles Hodge (Syst. Theology,
2:278), all of whom follow Jonathan Edwards in identifying
sensibility with the will, in regarding affections as the causes
of volitions, and in speaking of the connection between motive and
action as a necessary one. We hold, on the contrary, that
sensibility and will are two distinct powers, that affections are
occasions but never causes of volitions, and that, while motives
may infallibly persuade, they never compel the will. The power to
make the decision other than it is resides in the will, though it
may never be exercised. With Charnock, the Puritan (Attributes,
1:448-450), we say that “man hath a power to do otherwise than
that which God foreknows he will do.” Since, then, God’s decrees
are not executed by laying compulsion upon human wills, they are
not inconsistent with man’s freedom. See Martineau, Study, 2:237,
249, 258, 261; also article by A. H. Strong, on Modified
Calvinism, or Remainders of Freedom in Man, in Baptist Review,
1883:219-243; reprinted in the author’s Philosophy and Religion,
114-128.

2. That they take away all motive for human exertion.

To this we reply that:

(_a_) They cannot thus influence men, since they are not addressed to men, are not the rule of human action, and become known only after the event. This objection is therefore the mere excuse of indolence and disobedience.

Men rarely make this excuse in any enterprise in which their hopes
and their interests are enlisted. It is mainly in matters of
religion that men use the divine decrees as an apology for their
sloth and inaction. The passengers on an ocean steamer do not deny
their ability to walk to starboard or to larboard, upon the plea
that they are being carried to their destination by forces beyond
their control. Such a plea would be still more irrational in a
case where the passengers’ inaction, as in case of fire, might
result in destruction to the ship.

(_b_) The objection confounds the decrees of God with fate. But it is to be observed that fate is unintelligent, while the decrees are framed by a personal God in infinite wisdom; fate is indistinguishable from material causation and leaves no room for human freedom, while the decrees exclude all notion of physical necessity; fate embraces no moral ideas or ends, while the decrees make these controlling in the universe.

North British Rev., April, 1870—“Determinism and predestination
spring from premises which lie in quite separate regions of
thought. The predestinarian is obliged by his theology to admit
the existence of a free will in God, and, as a matter of fact, he
does admit it in the devil. But the final consideration which puts
a great gulf between the determinist and the predestinarian is
this, that the latter asserts the reality of the vulgar notion of
moral desert. Even if he were not obliged by his interpretation of
Scripture to assert this, he would be obliged to assert it in
order to help out his doctrine of eternal reprobation.”

Hawthorne expressed his belief in human freedom when be said that
destiny itself had often been worsted in the attempt to get him
out to dinner. Benjamin Franklin, in his Autobiography, quotes the
Indian’s excuse for getting drunk: “The Great Spirit made all
things for some use, and whatsoever use they were made for, to
that use they must be put. The Great Spirit made rum for Indians
to get drunk with, and so it must be.” Martha, in Isabel Carnaby,
excuses her breaking of dishes by saying: “It seems as if it was
to be. It is the thin edge of the wedge that in time will turn
again and rend you.” Seminary professor: “Did a man ever die
before his time?” Seminary student: “I never knew of such a case.”
The decrees of God, considered as God’s all-embracing plan, leave
room for human freedom.

(_c_) The objection ignores the logical relation between the decree of the end and the decree of the means to secure it. The decrees of God not only ensure the end to be obtained, but they ensure free human action as logically prior thereto. All conflict between the decrees and human exertion must therefore be apparent and not real. Since consciousness and Scripture assure us that free agency exists, it must exist by divine decree; and though we may be ignorant of the method in which the decrees are executed, we have no right to doubt either the decrees or the freedom. They must be held to be consistent, until one of them is proved to be a delusion.

The man who carries a vase of gold-fish does not prevent the fish
from moving unrestrainedly within the vase. The double track of a
railway enables a formidable approaching train to slip by without
colliding with our own. Our globe takes us with it, as it rushes
around the sun, yet we do our ordinary work without interruption.
The two movements which at first sight seem inconsistent with each
other are really parts of one whole. God’s plan and man’s effort
are equally in harmony. Myers, Human Personality, 2:272, speaks of
“molecular motion amid molar calm.”

Dr. Duryea: “The way of life has two fences. There is an Arminian
fence to keep us out of Fatalism; and there is a Calvinistic fence
to keep us out of Pelagianism. Some good brethren like to walk on
the fences. But it is hard in that way to keep one’s balance. And
it is needless, for there is plenty of room between the fences.
For my part I prefer to walk in the road.” Archibald Alexander’s
statement is yet better: “Calvinism is the broadest of systems. It
regards the divine sovereignty and the freedom of the human will
as the two sides of a roof which come together at a ridgepole
above the clouds. Calvinism accepts both truths. A system which
denies either one of the two has only half a roof over its head.”

Spurgeon, Autobiography, 1:176, and The Best Bread, 109—“The
system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one
straight line but two, and no man will ever get a right view of
the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once....
These two facts [of divine sovereignty and of human freedom] are
parallel lines; I cannot make them unite, but you cannot make them
cross each other.” John A. Broadus: “You can see only two sides of
a building at once; if you go around it, you see two different
sides, but the first two are hidden. This is true if you are on
the ground. But if you get up upon the roof or in a balloon, you
can see that there are four sides, and you can see them all
together. So our finite minds can take in sovereignty and freedom
alternately, but not simultaneously. God from above can see them
both, and from heaven we too may be able to look down and see.”

(_d_) Since the decrees connect means and ends together, and ends are decreed only as the result of means, they encourage effort instead of discouraging it. Belief in God’s plan that success shall reward toil, incites to courageous and persevering effort. Upon the very ground of God’s decree, the Scripture urges us to the diligent use of means.

God has decreed the harvest only as the result of man’s labor in
sowing and reaping; God decrees wealth to the man who works and
saves; so answers are decreed to prayer, and salvation to faith.
Compare Paul’s declaration of God’s purpose (_Acts 27:22,
24—_“there shall be no loss of life among you.... God hath granted
thee all them that sail with thee”) with his warning to the
centurion and sailors to use the means of safety (_verse
31—_“Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved”). See
also _Phil. 2:12, 13—_“work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to
work, for his good pleasure”; _Eph. 2:10—_“we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared
that we should walk in them”; _Deut. 29:29—_“the secret things
belong unto Jehovah our God: but the things that are revealed
belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all
the words of this law.” See Bennet Tyler, Memoir and Lectures,
252-354.

_Ps. 59:10 (A. V.)—_“The God of my mercy shall prevent me”—shall
anticipate, or go before, me; _Is. 65:24—_“before they call, I
will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear”; _Ps.
23:2—_“He leadeth me”; _John 10:3—_“calleth his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out.” These texts describe prevenient grace in
prayer, in conversion, and in Christian work. Plato called reason
and sensibility a mismatched pair, one of which was always getting
ahead of the other. Decrees and freedom _seem_ to be mismatched,
but they are not so. Even Jonathan Edwards, with his deterministic
theory of the will, could, in his sermon on Pressing into the
Kingdom, insist on the use of means, and could appeal to men as if
they had the power to choose between the motives of self and of
God. God’s sovereignty and human freedom are like the positive and
the negative poles of the magnet,—they are inseparable from one
another, and are both indispensable elements in the attraction of
the gospel.

Peter Damiani, the great monk-cardinal, said that the sin he found
it hardest to uproot was his disposition to laughter. The homage
paid to asceticism is the homage paid to the conqueror. But not
all conquests are worthy of homage. Better the words of Luther:
“If our God may make excellent large pike and good Rhenish wine, I
may very well venture to eat and drink. Thou mayest enjoy every
pleasure in the world that is not sinful; thy God forbids thee
not, but rather wills it. And it is pleasing to the dear God
whenever thou rejoicest or laughest from the bottom of thy heart.”
But our freedom has its limits. Martha Baker Dunn: “A man fishing
for pickerel baits his hook with a live minnow and throws him into
the water. The little minnow seems to be swimming gaily at his own
free will, but just the moment he attempts to move out of his
appointed course he begins to realize that there is a hook in his
back. That is what we find out when we try to swim against the
stream of God’s decrees.”

3. That they make God the author of sin.

To this we reply:

(_a_) They make God, not the author of sin, but the author of free beings who are themselves the authors of sin. God does not decree efficiently to work evil desires or choices in men. He decrees sin only in the sense of decreeing to create and preserve those who will sin; in other words, he decrees to create and preserve human wills which, in their own self-chosen courses, will be and do evil. In all this, man attributes sin to himself and not to God, and God hates, denounces, and punishes sin.