Excerpt of a letter from Lewis Machen to 4th Presbyterian Church
as quoted in
J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir:
"In pursuing this course, I am actuated by no unfriendly spirit, and I have felt the difficulties which surround the points in controversy. To reconcile the foreknowledge of God, and his absolute control over all events with that free agency of man which makes him accountable for the moral conduct upon which these events apparently depend, is not the work of human reason. The brightest intellect has never yet penetrated the mysterious cloud which envelopes this subject. Taught by experience the fallibility of my judgment, I bow with submission to that Divine Word which represents God as the moral governor of the world and the absolute disposer of events; operating by his spirit upon the hearts of men; and, according to the councils of his own will, making some of the fallen posterity of Adam vessels of wrath, and others vessels of mercy." (6)
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I don't know why the paradox bothers people so much. When my actions make someone else angry, we find it easy to say, simultaneously, that I caused someone else to be angry and that this person was responsible for their anger. Why is it that we have so much trouble when we apply a similar situation to God?
ReplyDeleteExcellent quote! The sovereignty of God is not a doctrine I grew up understanding, but the longer I study the Word the more I love this doctrine! Sections #3 (Of God's Decree) and #5 (Of Divine Providence) have been my favorites so far in our church's study of the 1689 London Baptist Confession.
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