Sovereignty and Evil (or, God and Julian)

"Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee...." Ps. 76:10a

This is perhaps the hardest part of sovereignty to swallow, viz., that the evil of man (and nature) have their place in the tapestry of God. Often it is very little comfort to tell people that what seems senseless now will make sense in the end. Even if such a statement is true (and it is), it is hardly encouraging to those caught in the midst of the real consequences of real evil. That evil makes sense somewhere else, a place that we will get to one day, does not make the pain go away. Indeed, the element of mystery can be a joyous surprise, but also a frustrating agony. Darkness and silence are cold comforts, at least that's what the post-WW II twentieth century concluded.
Then again, perhaps the sovereignty of God in regards to evil is cold comfort because it is not considered fully. The truest pain (and subsequent anger) of any evil (both moral and natural) is the apparent senselessness of it all. A great hope burned into the psyche of all humanity is the hope that evil will not triumph, and part of that hope means that even if evil makes and initiates its plans on us, there is something behind it all that undermines their schemes and fits it into the ultimate victory. We could bear the wrath of man (and nature) if that wrath were fundamentally and ultimately supplanted by and in the service of grace and redemption. The mere existence of evil is no true weapon for an atheist or skeptic; the truest weapon is its apparent senselessness. It is that point that we must deal with.
We deal with it incorrectly, though, when we feel like we have to state the exact purpose in detail. God does not give the details of His purpose behind things. The only thing we know is that it will be glory to Him and goodness to us. It is not the details of the fact, however, that matter. Rather, it is the fact itself, i.e., God's sovereignty does have a point, and though it is temporarily hidden from view, a hidden point is a far, far better thing than no point at all. Actually, that every incident, no matter how indecent, is (in truth) all a part a grand purpose, a purpose whose goodness vastly exceeds the summation of the evil allowed in it, has been (and should continue to be) the sole Christian apologetic on the subject. I am not sure when, where, or how the sovereignty of God got turned against us (as though biblical truth could undermine the truth of the Bible), but it should not be so. The sovereignty of God does not mean that "God is in control"; it means what Lady Julian said that it means: "All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." That is the hope of the Christian faith, and it is time that we spread that hope around.

-Jon Vowell

Sovereignty and Wine (or, God as MC)

"For exaltation cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south; God is the judge. He pulleth down one and setteth up another; for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, whose wine is red and fully mixed, and He poureth it out, and the wicked of the earth shall drain and drink the dregs thereof." Ps. 75: 6-8

"See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me. I kill and make alive. I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." Deut. 32:39

"Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?" Job 2:10

The image mentioned in this psalm is a master of a feast doling out the wine to His guests, with everyone receiving from His hand alone. The wicked receive justly delivered wrath and calamity ("the dregs") while the rest receive their own circumstances from God, whether they be good or evil, the point being that it all flows from God and no one else.
Now, the dance of sovereignty and freewill is a complicated spectacle, and those who too quickly and flippantly disregard one over the other cheat themselves out of the full beauty and wonder of that spectacle. If we require that the truth be simple, we had better find another universe. As it is, the truth is mysterious, not only in that it is hidden but also in that, when it is uncovered, it is a spectacle, and a spectacular one at that. Christianity has long affirmed this: life through death, strength through weakness, glory through desolation, God made flesh, etc. Reality is an endless procession of apparent opposites standing side by side and working in collusion; thus, a "dance" is a proper analogy. Until we begin to think of truth in these terms, we will always be confused and at each other's throats.
For the purposes of this entry, we shall assert sovereignty. Of course, we must assert the reality and importance of man's freewill (as it relates to his value and dignity as an image of God-bearer), as well as the reality and importance of the consequences of their freewill actions; but we must also assert (without fear or pause) the absolute control of God over every instance and incident of our lives. If God's absolute control were not true, then He would not be God.
We must not, however, deceive ourselves on this issue like the world does. Sovereignty does not mean mere control. It means control towards an end, an end that is good (Rom. 8:28). Too many people talk of God's sovereignty in terms of a mere control or manipulation devoid of purpose of plan. It is no wonder then that they get so angry; God's "mysterious ways" come across as arbitrary and pointless. Such a view is tragic precisely because it is unbiblical. The scriptures assert that God's ways are headed to a certain and purposeful end. To put it in other ways: God doles out the wine as He pleases because He is making the greatest feast ever known. He uses what colors He pleases because He is making the greatest painting ever known. He writes notes where He pleases because He is making the greatest symphony ever known. He chisels where He pleases because He is making the greatest sculpture ever known. He plays where He pleases because He is making the greatest game ever known. He moves where He pleases because He is making the greatest dance ever known. He directs where He pleases because He is making the greatest production ever known. He woos as He pleases because He is undertaking the greatest romance ever known. He cuts where He pleases because He is undertaking the greatest operation ever known. He fights how He pleases because He is fighting the greatest war ever known. He reveals as He pleases because He is teaching the greatest lesson ever known. He hides as He pleases because He is preparing the greatest surprise ever known. Anyway you put it, our God's sovereignty is no mere tyranny; it is activity, the production of certain events in order to acquire a certain result, a result whose value far out-weighs and out-shines the whole of the events that made it possible. That is not just the fact of sovereignty, but also the hope of sovereignty, the reason why we rejoice to know that God is in control.

-Jon Vowell

"We are on the wrong side of the tapestry. The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else." -G.K. Chesterton

The Critical Moment

"...I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me; I girded thee, though though hast not known me..." Isaiah 45:4b, 5

Ignorance of the presence of God is not synonymous with His absence. We know that this is true of believers, but apparently it is the same with non-believers as well. The beauty of the will of God is that even those who do not know it are not necessarily outside of it. To be outside of it requires willful rejection after comprehension of it. Cyrus apparently neither knew of it nor had rejected it; he was apart of it all along.
God does indeed lead people through their ignorance to the realization of Himself, and that is the critical moment. Read John 3:19. Men are not condemned for merely rejecting the light, but for rejecting it after they have seen it, i.e., realized it. It perhaps goes without saying that meetings with God are critical moments, yet we treat them so lightly in spirit, and that to our hazard. On this side of the objective reality of redemption, the critical moment for the non-believer will be in regards to salvation; for believers, it will be in regards to deeper communion with Him. We reject either to our peril.

"To know You and be known.
Yet before I knew You,
You knew me..."
-Jon Vowell

Christian Nihilism, and Some Wrestlings

"Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first and the last; I am He...
"Thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend...I have chosen thee..." Isaiah 41:4, 8-9

Before I begin, I would like to apologize to my brothers and sisters who hold Calvinistic views of predestination (or anything else). I am not trying to be biting are mean, but merely state what I believe on the subject. I in no way seek to dishonor John Calvin or what he has done in Protestantism specifically and Christianity as a whole. I do not in any way wish to cause any alienation between my fellow Christians and I. I just want you to know where I stand and take it as you will.
The place Calvinism (generally speaking) gives to God's sovereignty, though quite pious, is actually quite despairing in the end. We are no longer awed or enraptured; we are terrified and confounded. We feel immutable destiny closing in around us, and freedom is lost in a darkened swirl of faceless tyranny,. Our lives mean nothing anymore: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die as God says so. There is no motive or point to action or initiative anymore; we are mere puppets on a string, and even our defiance of the puppetry is merely more puppetry. Life means nothing now; we may as well be machines to be programmed, animals to be controlled, but not persons to be known. Do not be surprised if this all sounds like Nietchize. Calvinism and Calvinistic ideas on God's sovereignty end, at the end of the day, in Christian Nihilism.
The fact is that Calvinistic and Hyper-Calvinistic ideas about predestination and election are, in reality, too simple. Instead of trying to cover all the facts in regards to understanding the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's freewill, they take an easy road: "What is the relationship between sovereignty and freewill? Why, there is no relationship between the two! There is merely sovereignty, and that's it! Freewill is an illusion (Nietchize anyone?)! That should solve all the debates." Such "pick-and-choose" logic hardy solves any debate, but instead creates new ones (ex: What purpose is Christ? Is John 3:16 a lie? What about Ezekiel 33:11?) and gives atheist enough firepower to level the whole of Christendom (the absence of freewill means that God is a egocentric sadist as He mercilessly and arbitrarily destroys and exalts, damns and saves His creation, as He wills, for no other reason than for more glory to Himself). My friends, the relationship, the dance (if you will) between sovereignty and freewill needs to be wrestled with, not dismissed. What follows is my own personal (and incomplete) wrestlings with two choices of God: of Israel, and of the Church. Take them for what they are, as you will.
Why did God choose Israel? In truth, no one knows why God picked them (i.e., those specific people) other than He wanted to. Why does an author make one character the hero and another the villain, one more vital to the plot and another not? Because: he is trying to tell a story. The same is true with God. He is trying to tell us a story, and that story is not about His glory, per se, i.e., God's story is not Him saying, "Look at Me!" His story is about redemption, i.e., God's story is Him saying, "Look at Me, and be saved." There is a difference between a story's end and its content. The end is His glory; the content is redemption. Jesus was God's glory (as I John says), but Him coming to earth was not about God's glory; He was about redemption (which is to and for God's glory). The same is true with Israel. Why did God choose them? We do not know. Why did God choose anybody at all? To serve as His witnesses (Isaiah 43:7-10; 44:1-2, 8), to testify of His truth, to be a light to the nations, to let all know that there is only one God and in Him alone is salvation (Isaiah 43:11). God does not choose us because of us, but because He has a story to tell (see Daniel 2:27-30).
Why did God chose us for salvation? For the same reason He chose Israel: He has a story to tell. He did not, however, predestine us as the elect. He predestined Christ as the Elect, and all who are of Him are the elect, are "accepted in the beloved," the beloved who is Christ (Romans 8:29; Galatians 3: 16, 26-29; Ephesians 1:3-14). Christ is the Elect, and neither is there salvation in any other whereby men might be saved. In order to be elect, you must choose to be of the Elect; in order to be "accepted," you must choose to be "in the beloved." Thus is the paradox, thus is the dance of sovereignty and free will. God chose Christ; we cannot change that immutable fact. We can either get with it or not, as we choose. The will of God is unchanging, His sovereignty immutable; but our attendance in it is not required. We can be swept up in it or run over by it, as we will.

"To You or to nothing,
We have the choice.
Condemned to be free,
We have no right not to choose..."
-Jon Vowell

A Hard Pill to Swallow

"What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and Himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years in the humility of my soul." Isaiah 38:15 (Rev. Marg.)

There is a humiliation involved in God's work in our lives, which is why so few people actually ask for His help. Having been ingrained by Sin with a holistic sense of independence and self-centered individualism, God's workings in our lives are an offense to our sensibilities. We do not need help, as far as we are concerned. "Do I look like a sissy to you?" One of the hardest pills mankind has to swallow is Christ's most stern claim: "Without me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5b)
This is why salvation (unwatered down and unfiltered) is so offensive to the natural man. The acceptance of the redemption of Christ is not even possible without a stepping down inside, a realization and admittance to being unable to save yourself. Reception is the hardest thing; it is a total realization and acceptance of the fact that you have nothing to bring to the table--no talents, skills, wit, wisdom, powers, or abilities. You can only receive, and that offends us; we do not want to be paupers, we want to hold onto every last conceit we have. Christ has purchased salvation to "whosoever will," but that "whosoever" must will to accept it. It is no wonder salvation comes to many at the breaking point of their souls.
There was a humiliation involved in Hezekiah's salvation from sickness. For all his powers, the king could not control God; salvation belonged to Him alone. "He spoke, and He did," says Hezekiah, "I had nothing to do with it." That is the hardest attitude to obtain, and it is easy to lose in the practical world. Each time it is obtained, however, there is a marvelous freedom, the realization that not only are you not in control, but you do not have to be in control. This is not your show, it's God, and He is working all things well. We should learn to rest in that truth every day.

"The lowest is the Highest.
From my knees I get to You,
From the dust You raise me up,
From death You bring me to Your Life..."
-Jon Vowell

The Wave

"Hast thou, [O Assyrians,] not heard long ago, how I, [the Lord,] have done it [see vs. 24, 25]; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou should be, to lay waste defensed cities into ruinous heaps...Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way that thou came." Isaiah 37:26, 29

C.S. Lewis once said that there is an inherit contradiction in trying to argue with God--He is the source of our reason by which we argue. We can no more argue against Him than a "river can rise above its source." The Assyrians learned the same truth: they could not raise arms against God, for it was God who had given them the strength to raise arms in the first place. They were attempting to cut the branch that they were sitting on. Interestingly, from this incident we learn that even if you are not God's people/children, without Him you are still nothing.
God's omnipotence and sovereignty should not terrify and vex us. They should be, in the end, a source of encouragement and strength. Though we should seek to clear up all the confusions about the relationship between God's power and control and our freewill choices, we need to ultimately seek to stress and embrace the deeper truth: nothing happens that is outside God's control or command. No enemy of ours can frustrate or stop Him; no obstacle can trip or snare Him; and our own imperfections and flaws do not stall Him for a second. God's will is a massive, building wave, rolling ever onward and upward. You can either know they joy of being swept up into and riding it, or feel the oblivion of rejecting and being run over by it. Such joy is real joy, and oblivion real oblivion; and the choice is yours.

You Who controls all things,
May Your wondrous Will
Sweep me away
And take me into You...
-Jon Vowell