For the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness
of men,
who suppress the truth
in unrighteousness,
because what may
be known of God
is manifest in them,
for God has shown
it to them.
Romans 1:18-19
The Deist would have God be absent from His creation leaving the creation to their own devises. Others would make God be the author and cause of all things that occur. The Reformers, for the most part, have God be the first cause and allow man to be free agents and responsible for second causes. As Paul so aptly put it, God is revealed to men, therefore we are responsible to our actions and exercises in response to all that has been revealed to us. Those who object to the Doctrine of Concursus as to the nature of God's Providential government have a broad distinction between those two views: the theory of concursus and the theory that resolves all events, whether they be necessary or free, into the immediate agency of God. One theory admits and the other denies the reality and efficiency of second causes. One theory makes no distinction between free and necessary events. They, the opposers attribute them equally to God and the creative energy of God while the other admits the validity and unspeakable importance of this distinction. In regards to sinful acts and good acts one theory denies that the agency of God is the same in both while the other theory admits the sameness. One theory admits that God is the author of sin; the other repudiates that Doctrine with abhorrence. The Reformed theologians protested against slandering attack made by the Romanists and Remonstrants that this Doctrine led to the conclusion that God is the cause of sin. This is most important; as it is a historical fact but more than that it is a moral truth of its influence that the Reformers knew and recognized and rejected the doctrine that makes God the author of evil and sin; God is not the efficient cause of sin or evil.
The objections to the Doctrine of Concursus does not admit that this doctrine intentionally really destroys the free agency of man or that it makes God the author of sin. Those who oppose say that it is founded on arbitrary and false assumptions. That it denies that the creature can originate action. To admit this is not an admittance of proof. All that is being derived or influenced is bound upon the assumed nature of man being dependent totally upon God and this so that they can assign total control of God over His creatures. To say that is only to contradict our consciousnesses. We are, and this is known by all men within our consciences, free agents, that we have the power to act freely. If we act freely, and this we know we do, then this implies that we originate our own acts. To admit that this is inconsistent with the fact that we are moved and influenced is wrong in that this liberty of man to act freely is only moved or influenced so that we can exert our ability to act by our reason or by our inclinations, or by the grace of God; it means we can and have the power to act. Furthermore, this power to act spontaneously is essential to our nature and of God for He created us with a nature, our spirit, and endowed us with the power to originate our own acts. Another objection is espoused that this is an attempt to explain the unexplainable. The Bible is clear and in simplicity declares with certainty that God does govern all His creatures and all their actions, and this is an attempt to explain how this is done. This is impossible from our nature. Look around, and you will see that things act but we cannot tell how they act. Our muscles move due to the reflex action of the nerves, we see the movement, we understand that process of the nerve towards the muscle, but we cannot determine how the muscle acts or responds to that nerve. This passes our comprehension. If we cannot understand how simple things of everyday life work and respond to any volition then how can we expect to understand God's mode of action?
Allow me to get to the bottom line. All we know and need to know, is, that God does govern all His creatures, and that His control over them is consistent with their nature and with His own infinite purity and of His excellence. It is admitted that the Doctrine of Providence is difficult as we attempt to give explanation. Even theologians and philosophers have difficulty as to the world of created things, beings, the Doctrine of Providence concerns with the relation of God to external or material things within the universe and His relation to the world of mind, or to His rational creatures.
It is then important that we involve ourselves in the principles of the Scriptural Doctrine of Providence. What is taught in the Bible? This is the scope of the next blog.
Blessed by the God
and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His
abundant mercy has
begotten us again
to a living hope through
the resurrection
of Jesus Christ
from the dead,
1 Peter 1:3
Behold, what manner of Love God has bestowed upon us
Richard L. Crumb
God not only permits the wicked to do many evil things, and not only leaves the godly from the wicked that they will suffer what inflicted, but also presides over the evils of the will itself, rules and governs them, bends and twists in them, working invisibly, that although they might be the fault of their own evil, but a divine providence rather to one evil, than to the other, but not positively permissive ordered in it.
By these words among our more severely, nothing occurred.
God not only an evil will incline to one thing rather than to the other by permitting, in order to be enacted at one thing and not permitting him, to be enacted at a another thing, as Hugh rightly taught, but also positively in one by inclining and turning away from another.
The objections to the Doctrine of Concursus does not admit that this doctrine intentionally really destroys the free agency of man or that it makes God the author of sin. Those who oppose say that it is founded on arbitrary and false assumptions. That it denies that the creature can originate action. To admit this is not an admittance of proof. All that is being derived or influenced is bound upon the assumed nature of man being dependent totally upon God and this so that they can assign total control of God over His creatures. To say that is only to contradict our consciousnesses. We are, and this is known by all men within our consciences, free agents, that we have the power to act freely. If we act freely, and this we know we do, then this implies that we originate our own acts. To admit that this is inconsistent with the fact that we are moved and influenced is wrong in that this liberty of man to act freely is only moved or influenced so that we can exert our ability to act by our reason or by our inclinations, or by the grace of God; it means we can and have the power to act. Furthermore, this power to act spontaneously is essential to our nature and of God for He created us with a nature, our spirit, and endowed us with the power to originate our own acts. Another objection is espoused that this is an attempt to explain the unexplainable. The Bible is clear and in simplicity declares with certainty that God does govern all His creatures and all their actions, and this is an attempt to explain how this is done. This is impossible from our nature. Look around, and you will see that things act but we cannot tell how they act. Our muscles move due to the reflex action of the nerves, we see the movement, we understand that process of the nerve towards the muscle, but we cannot determine how the muscle acts or responds to that nerve. This passes our comprehension. If we cannot understand how simple things of everyday life work and respond to any volition then how can we expect to understand God's mode of action?
Allow me to get to the bottom line. All we know and need to know, is, that God does govern all His creatures, and that His control over them is consistent with their nature and with His own infinite purity and of His excellence. It is admitted that the Doctrine of Providence is difficult as we attempt to give explanation. Even theologians and philosophers have difficulty as to the world of created things, beings, the Doctrine of Providence concerns with the relation of God to external or material things within the universe and His relation to the world of mind, or to His rational creatures.
It is then important that we involve ourselves in the principles of the Scriptural Doctrine of Providence. What is taught in the Bible? This is the scope of the next blog.
Blessed by the God
and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His
abundant mercy has
begotten us again
to a living hope through
the resurrection
of Jesus Christ
from the dead,
1 Peter 1:3
Behold, what manner of Love God has bestowed upon us
Richard L. Crumb
God not only permits the wicked to do many evil things, and not only leaves the godly from the wicked that they will suffer what inflicted, but also presides over the evils of the will itself, rules and governs them, bends and twists in them, working invisibly, that although they might be the fault of their own evil, but a divine providence rather to one evil, than to the other, but not positively permissive ordered in it.
By these words among our more severely, nothing occurred.
God not only an evil will incline to one thing rather than to the other by permitting, in order to be enacted at one thing and not permitting him, to be enacted at a another thing, as Hugh rightly taught, but also positively in one by inclining and turning away from another.
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