Does God Have More Than One Will?

Passage: Ephesians 1:5

“…having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,…”  

The common way of thinking about God's will today runs along the line that God has more than one will.  He has a decretive will, or a determinative will that always comes to pass.  He also has a permissive will, things that He allows, but doesn't really want to happen, but allows for one reason or another.

The reason for this thinking is easy to understand.  After all, a lot of stuff happens that is evil, that is wicked, and we know that God is not the author of evil.  It must be then, we reason, that God allows this stuff to happen, though He certainly is not the cause of it, and doesn't really want it to happen.  There is, of course, a certain amount of good sense to this reasoning.  God is not the author of evil, not in the sense of causing it to happen.  That is certain.  Further, we must agree that there are many things go on in the world that God certainly could be said to frown on, and to not wish to happen.  Any two-year old can understand that God wants people to do what is right, and He wants them to refrain from doing that which is evil.

Where we begin to get confused is, once again, when we begin to think of God in human terms.  We are, for some reason, anxious to maintain the idea that God does not "violate" the human will. For most people, it seems self-evident that God would never do anything that would, in any way, seem to impinge on our human quality of self-determination. The error we make is in the assumption that in order for God to be sovereign, and to be victorious in His will, it must be at the expense of ours.

This is because that is the way it is with men. Two people cannot both win the prize. Only one can win out. Because this is true; and it is true; we assume it must be so with regard to God. Further, we assume that for God to exercise His will, He must "force us" to yield to Him. We fail to see that doesn’t teach that God “forces” anyone, but that He persuades His elect to receive His gift of salvation of their own choice and as an exercise of their God-given freedom.  We think of God as we would a human despot.  Therefore, we think of His exercise of His will as if it were a human being doing the exercising.  In this, we do Him an injustice.

Further, we need to understand that the dichotomy of allowing versus causing is, in reality, a false dichotomy; that is, it doesn’t really solve the problem without creating a more serious and objectionable one.  The problem is, we don’t want to see God as violating our freedom.  We seem to see the Scriptures teaching, from a certain point of view, that men are free, if free, must be able to choose any of the perceived “choices” set before him.  To solve this, and still allow God the illusion of being sovereign in our minds, we say that He merely “allows” things that He really doesn’t want, or of which He disapproves. 

This doesn’t solve the problem.  In fact, it creates a worse problem, because it then suggests that God doesn’t stop things that are terrible when He could.  It is either that, or He is unable to stop those things, though He knows about them.  On the one hand, we are faced with a God Who doesn’t stands by and stop evil though He has the power.  On the other hand, we have a God Who is not the strongest force in the universe, and is at the mercy of another power, in this case, the will of man.  Suggesting that this is because He chooses to be this way, or that He delegates His authority are stop-gap and insufficient answers at best. 

Only the Sovereigntist position even approaches satisfactorily answers such questions by asserting that God does not have two wills.  He has one will, and that will includes the presence and existence of evil (though secondary causes) for purposes and reasons to which we are not privy.  Some will suggest that this position abdicates intellectual integrity and hides behind the skirts of an unknowable God.  I would argue that is simply recognizes where we are limited and He is not. There is nothing wrong or silly, or foolish about acknowledging where our ability to know falls short and is inadequate for the task at hand.  Rather, there is everything wrong with insisting that we inflict our limited ability to reason through to conclusion in matters where we are ill-equipped to do so. 

It is simply a matter of ego.  Who is God and who is not?