More than a Potter (1)
A reader has asked me to address the following objection against the biblical doctrine of divine sovereignty:
"If God determines all that we do so that we are not free from him in any sense, then we are nothing more than robots and puppets."
This is one of the most common objections against the teaching of divine sovereignty. Popular Calvinism answers it by attributing to man some kind of freedom or power of "self-determination," alleging that this is somehow "compatible" with God’s control over all things. Some Calvinists (e.g. A. A. Hodge, R. L. Dabney, etc.) answer the objection in a way that sounds dangerously close to open theism. They say that since God knows the dispositions of his creatures, he is able to "control" their decisions and actions by manipulating their surrounding circumstances, and thus "inducing" them to "freely" think and act in ways that are in accordance to God’s plans.
But many of these Calvinists also realize that this explanation of God’s "control" over the decisions and actions of man is in fact logically incompatible with their alleged belief in God’s sovereignty. So after some initial explanations and evasions, they finally have to call it a "paradox" and a "mystery." It will save everyone a lot of time if they will just admit the self-contradiction at the beginning, and call it a "paradox" and a "mystery" from the start. This way everyone can go home early.
Since I reject compatibilism and human freedom in any sense relative to God, it also follows that my answer to the objection is different. Instead, I affirm that God is sovereign and man is not free. This position provides the only biblical and rational answer, which also happens to be the simplest and boldest response against the challenge. And since I have already extensively explained and defended the biblical teaching of divine sovereignty elsewhere,1 I am not going to repeat all of that here. What follows will be an application of what I have already written about divine sovereignty to the above objection.
We begin by noting that the objection is incomplete. It fails to specify what exactly it is about robots and puppets that would make them relevant. Why would we be like robots and puppets if God indeed determines all our thoughts and actions? What would be the similarities? Then, the statement fails to even become an actual objection by neglecting to note why it would be a problem for us to be robots and puppets. Would it mean that Christianity is false if we are robots and puppets? The objection does not explain. Would it undermine moral responsibility if we are robots and puppets? The objection fails to prove or even mention this.
We must not allow our opponents to get away with making lazy and half-baked objections. They assume that they understand the issues and that their objections are unanswerable. One of the things that we must do in defending the faith is to show that our opponents are not nearly as intelligent and careful as they think, so that rather than challenging the teachings of Scripture, they ought to humble themselves before the wisdom of God.
The competent apologist should be able to show that no objection against biblical revelation ever makes any sense. After showing that the opponent fails to issue a challenge that demands an answer, since the challenge itself is unintelligible and the opponent himself never knows what he is really asking, the apologist can then address the topic from a position of knowledge and authority.2 That is, we answer objections not because our beliefs are so apparently problematic that we must awkwardly put out fires left and right, but we first humiliate the spiritual rebels, showing that they speak nonsense even in their protests, and now we pronounce to these defeated foes what God is saying to them through the Scriptures — to repent and believe the truth.
Notes
1 See Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology, Commentary on Ephesians, The Author of Sin, and Ultimate Questions.
2 See Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions, Presuppositional Confrontations, and Apologetics in Conversation.
(to be continued)
Recommended
Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology
Vincent Cheung, Commentary on Ephesians
Vincent Cheung, The Author of Sin
Vincent Cheung, Ultimate Questions
Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations