Is Divine Sovereignty One or Two Wills?
In a chapter called, “Is God In Control?” Jerry Bridges (in Trusting God Even When It Hurts) makes a few assertions, but one which seems so obviously unbiblical to me that I wonder how it slipped by its Evangelical publisher (or was it left there intentionally?). In an extended section that supports the idea of God’s absolute sovereignty, Bridges says:
God rules as surely on earth as He does in heaven. He permits, for reasons known only to Himself, people to act contrary to and in defiance of His revealed will. But He never permits them to act contrary to His sovereign will.xxvii
Even occasional churchgoers, some of who attend service and say the Lord’s Prayer but twice a year on the Christian holidays, may immediately observe a problem in the above quote. Despite Bridges’s claim that “God rules as surely on earth as He does in heaven,” the Lord’s Prayer states the very opposite thought. Jesus instructs Christians to pray to the Father, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Mt. 6:10). How much plainer could Jesus have stated the fact that the Father’s will is not being carried out on earth as it is in heaven? Indeed, in the same prayer Jesus even instructs us to ask for forgiveness for our sins, so obviously the presence of sin on earth is enough to conclude that the moral state of earth is hardly that of heaven. According to the verso of my copy of Bridges’s book, Trusting God has gone through 18 printings. How, I wonder, could such statements that obviously contradict the Lord’s Prayer be left intact by an Evangelical author and his Evangelical publisher for 15+ years without further explanation? On the other hand the reason is not hard to grasp if we realize that Bridges, as a Calvinist, will feel compelled to maintain God’s sovereignty even at the cost of having to make such a statement.
Another statement less obviously wrong but just as disturbing as the one that contradicts the Lord’s Prayer, is given immediately afterward.xxviii Here Bridges claims that there is a ‘revealed will’ which men disobey, but not in a way that is contrary to God’s sovereign will. Bridges’s term, ‘revealed will,’ occurs for the first time in chapter 3 and remains undefined throughout the rest of the book. Presumably, by ‘revealed’ will, Bridges is referring to revelation, i.e., the Bible and its specific commands, such as “Thou shalt not steal “and/or to creation through which God reveals His power and nature such that man is responsible to Him. At any rate, Bridges certainly attempts to draw a distinction between God’s revealed will and God’s sovereign will, since he says that a man can act contrary to the former while not acting contrary to the latter. But therein lies the problem. For throughout his book Bridges claims repeatedly that God’s sovereign will rules every act that takes place in the world. How, then, we ask, can it be understood that another kind of will other than God’s sovereign will exists, much less be disobeyed?
The off-hand manner in which Bridges introduces the idea of God’s ‘revealed will’ without ever defining it, as though its existence and his readers’ understanding of it were already taken for granted (despite the fact that God’s absolute sovereignty logically makes a different will of God impossible), shows how doublethinking can become so unconscious among its users that logical dilemmas are simply not felt.15 The reason, of course, that Bridges is forced to introduce the idea of a revealed will of God is because he doesn’t want it supposed that the sovereign will of God has caused men to sin. Yet Bridges knows he must admit that men sin against God, since it is obvious that sin exists. How, then, does Bridges ’solve’ or ‘reconcile’ this problem? Simple—by saying that there is another will of God (i.e., a ‘revealed will’) that is different from that sovereign will of God which Bridges had repeatedly assured us earlier in his book covered every possible circumstance in regard to all the activity and will of man. Hence, we find out that God’s ‘revealed will’ is apparently an exception to God’s sovereignty after all.16
But observe that in this attempt to keep God from being blamed for sin, Bridges ends up pitting God against Himself, and so much so that we can’t tell from Bridges’s description what will of God is really in play regarding the acts of men. This inconclusive way of expressing God’s will as one will and yet two different wills is something we should have anticipated of Bridges as a Calvinist, since one (and only one) will of God can account for God’s absolute sovereignty, while two different wills are needed to additionally explain the existence of man’s free will which causes sin. Thus Bridges has subtly changed ‘rocking horses’ on us, so that we hardly notice him jumping from the contradictory one with its ‘polar’ positions of The Sovereign Will of God and The Free Will of Man to another of the same breed, i.e., The Sovereign Will of God and The Revealed Will of God. The Calvinist problem is thus recast so that the question about man and his sin becomes a discussion now seemingly centered entirely within God. This ‘buzz’ around God leaves the subtle impression that perhaps there is no contradiction about the absolute sovereignty of God, after all. This is nothing more than a clever argument based on a dishonest use of language [though to Bridges’s credit (if credit it be) I am certain he is unaware of it].
There is yet one more important aspect to Bridge’s statement about a ‘revealed’ will of God. Insofar as distinctions are made by Bridges between God’s revealed will and God’s sovereign will, such that man’s will is positionally incongruent with the one will of God while at the same time positionally congruent with the other will of God, a question begs itself about the nature of God’s sovereignty.
For instance, assuming that the term ‘revealed will’ (i.e., God’s revelatory will), includes Bible commands like, “Thou shalt not steal,” then of what moral quality is God’s sovereign will were I to steal my neighbor’s TV, thereby breaking God’s revealed will? Just this—my incongruency with God’s revealed will is my congruency with His sovereign will. In fact, Bridges himself says that man’s defiance is never contrary to God’s sovereign will. It follows logically, therefore, that God’s sovereign command must be, “Thou shalt steal.” By extension, then, Bridges as much as says that God’s sovereign will is exactly opposite of everything the Bible teaches! At this point some of my readers are no doubt thinking to themselves, “Well, that whole thing sounds too silly. Bridges would certainly tell us that the sovereign will of God is not opposite of what the Bible teaches.” But I would challenge this assumption. What is Bridges saying, then? Will he not as a Calvinist slip out of every one of our logical, biblical conclusions by an irrational appeal? At all times one must keep in mind that whenever a Calvinist attempts a foundational, apologetic statement about God or man, what appears to be said isn’t really being said at all. All crucial statements by the Calvinist about God or man will eventually be withdrawn and replaced with its very opposite thought in any discussion about sovereignty. Were I Bridges, for example, I would further my viewpoint about God’s ‘revealed’ will with another irrationality. I would claim that although God’s revealed will is, in fact, a separate consideration, it is nevertheless ultimately and indistinguishably submerged within God’s sovereign and mysterious will. Thus I would use language in gobbly-gook fashion to invoke the idea of ‘a separate consideration’ which I would undo seconds later with the phrase ‘indistinguishably submerged.’ I would also state that God’s revealed will and sovereign will, though seemingly contradictory, form a mysterious truth (or more cleverly put, a difference) that finds its final explanation in God’s inscrutable judgments and unfathomable decrees which are past human discovery.
I hope my readers will see that the term, revealed will actually addsnothing new to the Calvinist’s contradiction. Bridges is still going back and forth adopting irrational statements that follow from his original, irrational premise, except that now he is adding an additional contradiction since another subject has arisen. In effect, instead of him eating an apple before eating an orange which he ate first, he has eaten the apple before eating a pear which he ate first. Once again, nothing is actually being said, and it is upon this kind of logic that Calvinists tell other Christians they ought to trust God in the face of evil.
15I believe this happens when a person thinks (or says something aloud) while alternately thinking something else. For example, one might say, “God is in some sense responsible for sin,” while repeating in his mind (virtually subconsciously) “But God is not guilty, but God is not guilty, but God is not guilty….” in an attempt to appease the guilt which the first premise demands.
16John Piper, quoted in the Supplement to this book, uses the word “different” in an attempt to convince readers that his contradictory interpretation of Scripture is “different,” but “not contradictory.”
xxvii Bridges, Jerry. Trusting God Even When It Hurts. (Colorado Springs, Colorado; NavPress) pp. 37-38.
xxviiiBridges, p. 38.