# The two "wills" of God?



## OneOfHisElect (Jan 6, 2015)

Does God have both a decreed will and a permissive will?


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 6, 2015)

For many years after first believing in the 5 points of Calvinism I was taught that God both decreed things to happen and allowed things to happen. Now, as I am still learning, I am beginning to see how God could ultimately only have a decreed will. I will assert that in believing this way I am not accusing God of being the author of sin. I just simply cannot see a 100% sovereign God "allowing" anything. For Him to allow something would mean that that something was working outside of His ultimate control . I am not alone in thinking this way and it may seem heretical but I think it is a good issue to be discussed and am open to anyone's input on the subject. There just may be some other Clarkians out there I hope


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## NaphtaliPress (Jan 6, 2015)

Hi; welcome to the board. Please fix your signature; see the link in mine for instructions.


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 6, 2015)

This ok?


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## earl40 (Jan 6, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> For many years after first believing in the 5 points of Calvinism I was taught that God both decreed things to happen and allowed things to happen. Now, as I am still learning, I am beginning to see how God could ultimately only have a decreed will. I will assert that in believing this way I am not accusing God of being the author of sin. I just simply cannot see a 100% sovereign God "allowing" anything. For Him to allow something would mean that that something was working outside of His ultimate control . I am not alone in thinking this way and it may seem heretical but I think it is a good issue to be discussed and am open to anyone's input on the subject. There just may be some other Clarkians out there I hope



Does God allow people to follow their wicked will by removing restraint?


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 6, 2015)

Does God allow man to do wickedly? Or does God decree sin to be committed in order to accomplish His purpose? He hardened people's hearts throughout the OT and used Judas in the NT all in order to fulfill His purposes. So does God allow sin sometimes? All the time? Or has the sin committed been decreed since the foundation of the world? To best illustrate the point, could Judas have refused to sell out Christ? I think not but again I'm still learning.


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## Philip (Jan 6, 2015)

What, if anything, do we mean by secondary causation?


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## Toasty (Jan 6, 2015)

Philip said:


> What, if anything, do we mean by secondary causation?



The things that are used by God to bring about God's plan. For example, God used ravens to give Elijah some food.


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## Philip (Jan 6, 2015)

Toasty said:


> The things that are used by God to bring about God's plan.



So then, secondary causes would be causes in the sense that a hammer is the cause of a nail being driven into a plank?


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## RamistThomist (Jan 6, 2015)

Would it not be better to speak of two modes of the one divine will or two distinctions? Saying two wills runs into problems when we come to the 6th Ecumenical Council, for will was read as a faculty of nature.


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## Stephen L Smith (Jan 6, 2015)

You might find Dr McMahon's book on this helpful: The Two Wills of God (McMahon) by C. Matthew McMahon (Paperback) - Lulu
Note: I have not read it myself but hope to get it one day.


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## Toasty (Jan 6, 2015)

Philip said:


> Toasty said:
> 
> 
> > The things that are used by God to bring about God's plan.
> ...



Yes.


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 6, 2015)

Thank you Stephen I will look in to it!


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## Philip (Jan 6, 2015)

Toasty said:


> Philip said:
> 
> 
> > Toasty said:
> ...



That's a fairly weak understanding of causality.


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## Christoffer (Jan 7, 2015)

My 2 cents:

Everything happens by the will of God. Even if we say that God "permits" something, He still willed to permit it. So it all comes back to Gods will. There is no escape from this fact once we acknowledge a sovereign God.

God might harden someones heart which causes the person to sin. However, He does not force the person to act (controlling his limbs or anything similar), rather the person freely chooses to act based on the circumstances God has placed him/her in (hardened heart, outside temptations/restraints etc)

1 Kings 22:19 - 23 comes to mind. God sent a lying spirit into the hearts of the prophets. The prophets responded to the spirits temptations and lied.

This is not lawful, the prophet ought to have resisted the temptation. Likewise, God did was not the author of sin, the prophet acted freely.

So God willed that the prophet should lie, but it is not Gods will that people should lie. Am I being theologically sound here? Hopefully


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## MichaelNZ (Jan 7, 2015)

There is also a "prescriptive will" of God, that is, God's will for mankind. E.g. Don't steal, don't lie, don't commit adultery. His permissive will is that He allows us to steal, lie and commit adultery.

"In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11).


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## RamistThomist (Jan 7, 2015)

Turretin and others were wise to say that these so-called "wills" in God were actually distinctions or modes of the one divine will. Strictly speaking, there is only one will (classically defined) in God


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 7, 2015)

I agree that His will is ultimately one divine will. I simply see all events and acts of nature and mankind as being before ordained in eternity past. Again, to say that God permits an event to happen would mean that the event was opperating outside of the will of God and God has only the power to restrain it or permit it to take place. This, in my thinking, would take away from His ultimate control of all things. There cannot be anything opperating in this universe without being under the ultimate control of God. The two modes of one divine will is a good idea to think on and I certainly intend on doing so.


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## Philip (Jan 7, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> I simply see all events and acts of nature and mankind as being before ordained in eternity past.



"Eternity past" is a meaningless term. "Past" is a temporal term, and therefore can have no reference to eternity, which is time-free.


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## BGF (Jan 7, 2015)

Philip said:


> OneOfHisElect said:
> 
> 
> > I simply see all events and acts of nature and mankind as being before ordained in eternity past.
> ...



"Eternity past" has been the accepted phrase to refer to God's activity, existence, etc. outside of temporal frameworks. Our finite nature precludes the ability to describe eternality with eternal language.


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## Theogenes (Jan 7, 2015)

Hi Jeremiah!
Have you read G. Clark's book "Predestination"?
Jim


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 7, 2015)

Not yet Jim but I loved his book, "God and evil problem solved." I am currently working his book, "What is saving faith?" He is becoming one of my favorite authors!


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## Philip (Jan 7, 2015)

BGF said:


> Philip said:
> 
> 
> > OneOfHisElect said:
> ...



My concern here is that if we are going to talk about God's eternal decree, then we need to begin with the orthodox understanding of the Triune God as simple, eternal, and absolutely distinct from the world.

Simplicity here means that there are no real distinctions in God, only conceptual ones. This means, in turn, that God is pure act, and that his action is itself absolutely simple. The acts of God are plural only within the constraints of temporal sequence, not in eternity.

Atemporality (however that is spelled out) and the creator-creature distinction both entail that the ordinary providence of God works through secondary causes in the sense that these things, which derive their being from the creator, are allowed creaturely freedom within the sovereignty of God. All things work toward God's purpose of their own volition, whether they are aware of it or not.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Jan 7, 2015)

The issue with pure actuality, unless properly defined, is the notion of immobility. Berkhof would argue _Systematic Theology_, 59:

The divine immutability should not be understood as implying _immobility_, as if there were no movement in God…. The Bible teaches us that God enters into manifold relations with man and, as it were, lives their lives with them. There is change round about Him, change in the relations of men to Him, but there is no change in His being, His attributes, His purpose, His motives of action, or His promises.​


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 9, 2015)

Though things change as we see them from our viewpoint, do those changes ever take God by suprise? If He has created all things including the concept of a future then there could be nothing that happens or changes without His eternal decree for it to do so. I may not have understood your statement but this is the answer I would give to it.


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## Philip (Jan 9, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> Though things change as we see them from our viewpoint, do those changes ever take God by suprise?



No, but what does this have to do with whether created beings have creaturely freedom? Certain reformed theologians have reckoned causal determinism to be a logical consequence of the reformed teaching of the decrees of God, while certain others, like Jonathan Edwards, have launched into pure speculation. However, causal determinism is deism by another name, while Edwards comes perilously close to panentheism.


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## nick (Jan 9, 2015)

I came from a New Calvinism Baptist mega-church that taught the "Two Wills of God" position. It made a lot of sense then, but not so much now.

Dig through some of the articles on this site under Sovereign Grace, Five Points of Calvinism, God's Effectual Saving Desire, and Uncommon Grace. A lot of good stuff in there that might be helpful with your questions.


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 9, 2015)

Thanks Nick I will be sure to do that! I do still have a few questions but I must admit that I am pretty settled on the subject. I love seeing the views of other concerning this matter it really strengthens my belief.


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## Toasty (Jan 9, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> Does God have both a decreed will and a permissive will?



Do you mean two different definitions of the word "will"?


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 9, 2015)

What I mean is 2 different ways that He accomplishes His will so it my be better to say 2 modes of the same will. Does He allow something to happen and also decree something to happen? Or is everything decreed since eternity past?


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## Philip (Jan 9, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> What I mean is 2 different ways that He accomplishes His will



Are you referring to ordinary providence here?


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 9, 2015)

When someone speaks of providence I see that concept as a clear definition of a decreed will only. Mankind has no control over providence. We are simply living out the providence in what we see and understand as time. Again, and no one has yet to address this question, could Judas have refused to sell out Jesus? There was no possible way that he could have said no. Judas had to do what he did, exactly the way he did it, in order for the cross work to come to pass. Every thing that happens had to have been decreed to happen or else God could make a mistake when mankind disrupts His plan and we all agree that God cannot make a mistake.


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## Philip (Jan 10, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> Mankind has no control over providence. We are simply living out the providence in what we see and understand as time.



In other words, apparent choices are illusory in nature?



OneOfHisElect said:


> Again, and no one has yet to address this question, could Judas have refused to sell out Jesus?



From Judas's perspective, it was a live option, otherwise he wouldn't be blameworthy for it. God could have created the world such that Judas didn't betray Jesus and sent the Holy Spirit to quicken his heart rather than giving him over to sin. Simply because this particular sinful act played a particular part in God's redemptive purposes does not mean that it was necessitated. God can work how He wills.

Here are the things we have to affirm:

1) God is sovereign over all decisions.
2) Humans are free and responsible for those decisions.
3) God neither tempts nor causes people to sin.
4) God's ordinary providence works through genuine secondary causes and effects which work according to God's design according to their own peculiar natures. We can, in other words, affirm both that a hurricane is caused by variations in the atmosphere in tropical regions, and that it is, in a real sense, an act of God.


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 10, 2015)

Yes I agree that God uses the means to accomplish His purposes. I am just simply saying that those means He uses and how He uses them were decreed before time as we know it began. That is why I said Judas could not have said no because Judas and his decision were the means that God decreed to take place in order to accomplish His will. I have also heard other odd theories about to roll of Judas in God's plan but that is a discussion for another day


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## Philip (Jan 10, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> I am just simply saying that those means He uses and how He uses them were decreed before time as we know it began.



Not sure that this is helpful language given that every event takes place in the eternal present of God's decrees. When we start thinking in terms of decrees "before time began" we end up with causal determinism of some sort. That is, if we affirm the reality of secondary causation and begin thinking of God's decrees as taking place "before time" (which is itself confused) then we end up with a Christianized deism where God initiates first causes and then intervenes in the clockwork of the world from time to time, but by and large there are chains of cause and effect that could not be otherwise.

As for our Judas case, it's fairly clear, even within the text, that Judas' essential moral freedom is preserved, as Pharaoh's was, and yet God is giving him over to evil precisely because Judas had chosen it. One of the sobering things about the narrative is how it illustrates that God often punishes by giving people exactly what they want, which is sin, and is gracious when He removes it.

A further question would be how prayer works within the decrees of God.


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## Semper Fidelis (Jan 10, 2015)

From one of my new favorite sources:


> The Puritan writings on providence are easy to read, yet they are deeply thought provoking. They are biblically focused, yet they throb with a sense of God’s ongoing activity. They are rigorously Reformed, yet they are wonderfully sensitive to human pain. They were written for people living in a time of social, political, and religious upheaval in the seventeenth century. They were written for people who knew a great deal of the angst that we moderns often mistakenly view as peculiarly modern or even postmodern. The Puritan writings also apply to people in the twenty-first century who suffer massive change. More than that, they spell out clearly some biblical principles that Christians today desperately need to hear:
> 
> • God is in control of His universe.
> • God is working out His perfect purposes, also in my life.
> ...


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 12, 2015)

MichaelNZ said:


> There is also a "prescriptive will" of God, that is, God's will for mankind. E.g. Don't steal, don't lie, don't commit adultery. His permissive will is that He allows us to steal, lie and commit adultery.
> 
> "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will" (Ephesians 1:11).



I agree with this, God's decretive will includes everything that will happen including all sorts of wickedness. However the elect included in the covenant of redemption are secure according to the decretive will of God. 

But there is also the precletive will of God, which is what we pray for in the Lord's prayer: "thy will be done". God wills that all men repent and will be obedient to His law. It is not possible for this to happen so God sent His Son to fulfil the law on our behalf. Because it is not possible for God to lie, he is eternally righteous, and has decreed that all sin will be paid for by death, so the only possible way was for the Christ of God to pay the penalty for sin.

I came across this concept when studying the difference between the general call of the gospel (we are commanded to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature), and the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit which only comes to the elect.

The question is sometimes asked - is God fair by commanding all men to repent and yet supplying grace to do so unto the elect? The answer is that God's free offer of salvation to all is a genuine offer to all (genuine AKA bona fide):



> b. It is a bona fide calling. The external calling is a calling in good faith, a calling that is
> seriously meant. It is not an invitation coupled with the hope that it will not be
> accepted. When God calls the sinner to accept Christ by faith, He earnestly desires this;
> and when He promises those who repent and believe eternal life, His promise is
> ...


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## Toasty (Jan 12, 2015)

Philip said:


> OneOfHisElect said:
> 
> 
> > I am just simply saying that those means He uses and how He uses them were decreed before time as we know it began.
> ...



His freedom was preserved because his actions flowed from his heart. Correct?


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## Philip (Jan 12, 2015)

Toasty said:


> His freedom was preserved because his actions flowed from his heart. Correct?



Right. God did not cause Judas to sin. Judas caused Judas to sin, even as that action was within the will of God.


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 13, 2015)

Basically Judas did exactly what he wanted to do at every point in time, and made decisions based on his senses, his thoughts and using every aspect of his reason in an identical way in which any regenerate saint of God has the full capacity to do.

The only difference between Judas and the apostle John, was that God hated Judas, but loved John. Roman 9:20


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 13, 2015)

Ben_Ives said:


> Basically Judas did exactly what he wanted to do at every point in time, and made decisions based on his senses, his thoughts and using every aspect of his reason in an identical way in which any regenerate saint of God has the full capacity to do.
> 
> The only difference between Judas and the apostle John, was that God hated Judas, but loved John. Roman 9:20



Are you saying that Judas was regenerated? And if so, does God hate some of those who are?


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 13, 2015)

Philip said:


> Toasty said:
> 
> 
> > His freedom was preserved because his actions flowed from his heart. Correct?
> ...



God does not "cause" anyone to do anything. To say He caused Judas to do something means that Judas did not want to but God forced Him to. I think when we use "cause" we confuse the idea of pure providence. Just my opinion.


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## Philip (Jan 13, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> To say He caused Judas to do something means that Judas did not want to but God forced Him to.



Ok, so then we cannot say that Judas sinned of necessity. If Judas sinned of necessity, then either a) it was because God caused him to do so or b) because forces other than God compelled Judas to sin (ie: a deterministic chain of causal necessity). But in either case, then sin was not really chosen, as Judas had no other real options. Judas' choice was contingent in nature.

All that is to say, that the relation between human wills and the Divine will is complex, and we can affirm the reality of the sovereignty and providence of God over all events while still acknowledging real human choice.


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 13, 2015)

OneOfHisElect said:


> Ben_Ives said:
> 
> 
> > Basically Judas did exactly what he wanted to do at every point in time, and made decisions based on his senses, his thoughts and using every aspect of his reason in an identical way in which any regenerate saint of God has the full capacity to do.
> ...



No I am not saying that Judas was regenerated.

I'm saying that the free will of man is a complete doctrine in and of itself, everyone possesses a, 'free will'. Regenerated and non-regenerated people alike all have a free will in an absolute sense that is not dependant on anything. 

The fact that an elect child of God chooses to follow God of his own free will is completely consistent with this statement.

When a person is regenerated, they are simultaneously justified and then adopted into the family of God. God will never then send that person to hell, and Christ said of Judas, "Woe unto him by whom the Son of man is betrayed, good were it for him had he not been born". God would never speak this way about his own children.

If you want to ask, did Judas ever have a chance to accept Christ - the fact is yes he did have such, a 'chance', but he was never predestined, but because he rejected his chance based upon his own free will, it increases his accountability in that he wilfully rejected the lord and betrayed him.

The best way I believe to answer the nagging question, how is God able to create a person destined to hell: firstly we need know and understand that the Holy Ghost asks this question rhetorically in Romans 9:19 - and provides for us the answer for us to accept.

The answer is basically - how dare anyone question the mind of God?

If you ponder on a being (with reverence we call Him the LORD of glory), who is infinite in righteousness, and inhabits eternity and fills it with His presence, everywhere in the universe at once with the fullness of His presence, then consider that as the universe has no end, even so God has no end, it will mean that whatever God does or makes or plans is not simply true but eternally righteous. And I don't mean righteous because he is bigger than us and able to bully us into accepting what He says without questioning , I mean that due to the character of His person and His attributes, whatever He says and does, is infinitely righteous also. God is infinitely righteous and powerful and wise, so He is able to create a man who of his own free will rejects Him and spends eternity in hell.

So many of our difficult to answer questions can be, "easily" answered when we stop trying to place our own limited wisdom and human capacity in the place of the LORD's when seeking to understand His character. We think that because we only can look and understand things a certain way, that because our brain can't come up with a rational explanation, that there can't be one. OK then - ponder on the eternal righteousness of God, and see if that answers your question


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## Ben_Ives (Jan 14, 2015)

The Westminster Confession of Faith has a section on the free will of man, which Hodge includes in his commentary on the WCF:

Westminster Confession: A Commentary: A. A. Hodge: 9780851518282: Amazon.com: Books

I have this as a PDF, its an invaluable tool to help understand many things in theology, Ive just seperated te section on free will and uploaded and shared it on one drive if anyone wants a look they can at this link:

http://1drv.ms/1DFdTsG


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## Eoghan (Jan 14, 2015)

ReformedReidian said:


> Turretin and others were wise to say that these so-called "wills" in God were actually distinctions or modes of the one divine will. Strictly speaking, there is only one will (classically defined) in God



I always assumed this was just a way of us understanding Him a little bit better and not really indicative of two distinct "wills"


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## OneOfHisElect (Jan 14, 2015)

I have really enjoyed all of the comments made to my first forum thread! God has greatly used all of you who commented. I still firmly hold to my original stance on this issue but have also learned a great deal. I would ask all of you to pray for my wife and I as we are now expecting our first child! Glory to God! I hope to post a new thread soon but for now I am formally bowing out of this one to study and seek wisdom for the next coming months. Thank you all again! Feel free to keep posting though!


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