The Mystery of Divine Sovereignty & Human Responsibility: Brief Thoughts on Grudem, Kermit the Frog, Pinnock, Yancey & Theatre

"Our words, our steps, our movements, our hearts, and our abilities are all from the Lord," writes Wayne Grudem in his book, Systematic Theology. In other words, he holds to God's complete sovereignty--the belief that God exercises complete causal control over everything. Despite the lengths to which he goes to affirm human responsibility, the problem remains that this position either eliminates man's moral responsibility for sin or creates a God that is completely enigmatic. In anticipation of this criticism, Grudem responds, "[W]e must remember that… Scripture nowhere shows God as directly doing anything evil, but rather as bringing about evil deeds through the willing actions of moral creatures." Is it just me or does this reasoning sound like an attempt at creating a divine loophole whereby God transfers culpability to the puppet while retaining his role as puppet master? It's like saying Jim Henson wouldn't be responsible if Kermit the Frog committed murder. When pressed Grudem undercuts such criticisms with a convenient appeal to the mystery of God's wisdom. I cannot help but think, 'Mystery? What mystery? In his conception, mystery was razed by his pronouncement that God controls everything.' The late Clark Pinnock captured my sentiments well when he wrote, "To say that God hates sin while secretly willing it, to say that God warns us not to fall away though it is impossible, to say that God loves the world while excluding most people from an opportunity of salvation, to say that God warmly invites sinners to come knowing all the while that they cannot possible do so--such things do not deserve to be called mysteries when that is just a euphemism for nonsense."

While written from the perspective of a journalist rather than a theologian, I appreciate the way Philip Yancey described God's interaction with man in The Bible Jesus Read. He observes, "One who reads [the Bible] encounters not an impassible, distant deity but an actual Person, a God as passionate as any person you have met. God feels delight, and frustration, and anger. He weeps and moans with pain. Again and again God is shocked by the behavior of human beings... behavior that, God says, 'I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.'" Somehow this God has sovereignly guided all of history without coercing it. What I cannot figure out is how He knows the coming plot without having dictated the actors' actions and dialogue; that is, from my perspective the true mystery is how God built the set, produced the storyboard, served as the director, trained the actors, and even took on the leading role Himself, yet has been able to retain true improv, if you will.