It's a privilege to be able to be with you here this afternoon, and I am really excited to be able to discuss with you and to talk with you about what the Westminster Confession of Faith, or of course, Second London Confession, has to say about the intersection between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility. On the one hand, I think we could say that this is perhaps one of the more challenging subjects that we would look at when it comes to what the confession teaches. And so we are definitely going to be wading into some very deep, complex waters. On the other hand, despite the issue's complexity, despite the weight and the exegetical anchoring that is often very difficult to wade through and to figure out, It is, I think, one of the most eminently practical and pastoral doctrines and teachings that we could look at. I think on that note, you know, it was around maybe seven years ago that I was talking to my son. He was four years old at the time. And we had had plans where we were going to take him to the wild animal park, which is a little bit of an extension site of the San Diego Zoo. And he was excited because he was going to go with one of his friends. And he woke up, and he just was all congested, and he had a fever, and he was obviously not feeling well. And so he was really disappointed when we told him, hey, son, you're not going to be able to go to the wild animal park. And so he began to get some tears in his eyes, and it was understandable. He was very much looking forward to this event. And I sat him down, and I can remember very distinctly, we sat down on the tub in my bathroom, in our bedroom, the bedroom of my wife and me. And so we sat down there, and I said, look, son, you have to understand that we make our plans. And we certainly have the desires that we want to carry out. But at the same time, at the end, God is in control of everything. And I was doing my best to try to explain to him the sovereignty of God and what the confession says when it says that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass. And I said, you know, we made plans that we wanted to take you to the wild animal park, but God decided that he wanted you to stay home today He wanted you to rest today. And he wanted you to realize that ultimately he's in control. And he seemed to understand as best as I could tell. I mean, he was four at the time, so how much can, you know, theology can somebody grasp at that age? But I thought he seemed to grasp what it was that I was trying to convey to him. He went downstairs and we began getting breakfast ready. And as he took this large pitcher of water, And he was trying to pour himself a glass, he tilted it too far, and the entire pitcher just dumped out onto the countertop. And he burst out very quickly and he said, Dad, look what God made me do. I thought, okay, we've talked to him about divine sovereignty, now we need to talk about human responsibility. And so that, I think, that little story really, I believe, illustrates the pastoral necessity of what we're about to discuss. And so although the complexity of it may get a little bit thick, it may get a little bit heavy, remember how pastorally important it is. Now the Westminster Confession of Faith in Chapter 3, Paragraph 1, which there's a corresponding chapter there in the Second London Confession says, God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Yet so is thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. Now, I think one of the more common assumptions when we are looking at Reformed theology is that the Protestant Reformation took everything that preceded, swept it away into the dustbin, and began afresh simply with the scriptures, and they began to, you know, chisel out new theological formulations on a host of different topics. But what we have to recognize is that the Reformation was just that. It was a reformation, a reform movement. The reformers didn't start from scratch, but rather they reformed, they corrected various areas of erroneous practice and doctrine. Perhaps I'm guilty of a little bit of an overgeneralization, but I think we would say that the chief areas were matters pertaining to soteriology, Matters pertaining to worship and matters pertaining to polity or church government. You know, if you were talking to Luther, Luther might toss in their marriage, for example, would be another topic. But we have to recognize that the doctrine of God wasn't a significant area of debate. It wasn't a significant area of debate. Reformed theologians, I think, sharply disagreed with Rome, where the doctrine of God intersects with soteriology. So, for example, in the doctrine of predestination. And in that sense, we can say that the reformers promoted a renewed Augustinianism, as well as we could say a renewed Paulinism. In other words, they were reading the scriptures, looking at what Paul the Apostle had to say, looking what various Old Testament passages, such as in Exodus, where God is interacting with Pharaoh. And there they would say, no, Roman Catholic Church has things wrong as it pertains to the doctrine of election. But as it pertained to broader matters in the doctrine of God, they really didn't have much in the way of correction or change. And so in this respect, we have to remember that the Catholicity of the Reformation, that is, that the Reformation is still Catholic in the sense that it is Catholic with a small c. In other words, it is part of the church universal. You know, I usually lecture with very little. In other words, I don't have slides and what have you, so if you permit me to do an interpretive dance here for a minute. I think most people conceive of the Reformation as a breakaway branch. In other words, here's church history, and then here's the Reformation as it breaks away from the church. and that it views the Roman Catholic Church as a continuation. I think that is really a false conception of the Protestant Reformation. Rather, we would say that the Protestant Reformation continues and taps into the very best theology of the universal church, going back into the patristic age, into the Middle Ages, and that it continues on with corrections so that it grows right, and that it's the Roman Catholic Church that, with the Council of Trent, breaks away and separates from the true Catholic Church with its condemnation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So if this is the case, then we want to recognize that there is much in the earlier Church that is valuable. And not only valuable, but that the Protestant reformers saw it as biblical and consistent with the teaching of Scripture. And so this is the idea that we want to approach the topic of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, particularly as it appears here in Chapter 3, Paragraph 1. And so what I want us to do is I want us to understand what the confession says here. And first, we're going to survey briefly the medieval background, the medieval background to Westminster Confession 3.1. Second, we're going to look at what the confession has to say in terms of the theological backdrop. In other words, what Dr. Renahan said a little while ago in his previous lecture, He talked about the connections between the doctrine of God and then everything else that follows. That is so important here as we look at chapter 3, paragraph 1, because there are significant connections. So we want to look at that theological backdrop. And then third and finally, we want to look at the two chief topics in terms of recognizing that the decree, the sovereign decree of God, is both necessary In other words, it is something that God decrees and therefore its outcome is necessary, but at the same time it is also contingent. It is also contingent. In other words, when we say that something is contingent, we're saying that it could be otherwise. Now, at first glance, this may sound somewhat contradictory. How can it be necessary in some sense, but in another sense, how could it also be contingent? Well, that's what we're going to unpack on that third section there. And then we also want to look at the connections between Chapter 3 and chapter nine, at least in the Westminster ordering, on free will. In other words, the whole time we're looking here at divine sovereignty and human responsibility. We affirm both because both are biblical. Both are true. Both are true. So the medieval background, the theological backdrop, and then the two chief topics, the decree as necessary and contingent, and then the connections between Chapter 3 and Chapter 9 on free will. So what about the medieval background? Well, it's Thomas Aquinas who talks about the question of whether when God decrees something, does it impose a necessity upon human wills? And he discusses this in Part 1 of the Summa Question 19, Article 8, if you want the reference. And in this particular discussion, he's asking the very relevant question. It's a question that the Apostle Paul raises, for example, in Romans Chapter 9. If he wills it, then who can fight against his will? If God decrees that I'm supposed to speak here today and I'm supposed to deliver this lecture, then does that not impose a necessity upon me that keeps me from doing otherwise? And so in these discussions and in this treatment of the topic, Aquinas considers three particular objections. First, He says, he considers the objection, if God wills something, then it certainly imposes necessity. If he wills it, then it's got to come about. It's going to happen. And therefore, human freedom doesn't really exist. A second objection he addresses is that every cause that is not hindered produces a necessary effect necessarily. In other words, if God decrees something that it will necessarily come about, then it will with no doubt, it will certainly come about. And then third, he says, whatever is necessary by its antecedent cause occurs necessarily and absolutely. In other words, isn't this the case? All three of these objections, essentially, Aquinas is dealing with the topic of, if God decrees that I will lecture, then isn't it absolutely necessary that I will lecture and that I don't have a choice in the matter? That's what it boils down to when he's dealing with these objections. And so he responds to these objections in the following manner. He says, the divine will imposes necessity on things willed, but not on all. The reason of this, some have chose to assign to intermediate causes, holding that what God produces by necessary causes is necessary, and what he produces by contingent causes is contingent. So the way that he's explaining this is he says, sure, some things occur necessarily if that's how God decides to decree it. But on the other hand, God can decree things contingently so that they come about freely, so that they come about freely. Now, at first glance, we might say, boy, this sounds a little fishy to me. It sounds perhaps maybe even a little Arminian. But I say, hold on. Let's not turn Thomas into a theological pinata just yet. You know, you take a theological piñata, beat it until the candy comes out. Here, God ordains all things, but he ordains things in different ways. He ordains things in different ways. And so Aquinas will say, nothing, nothing escapes God's all-pervasive providence, absolutely nothing. But he ordains things in different manners. There is no contingency in the divine will, because God knows all things perfectly, but there is contingency. In other words, things can be otherwise from the vantage point of the created order. So some things are necessary. For example, a triangle consists of three angles. There's no way to avoid that. It is necessarily so. But other things, such as human choices, are contingent, and that God decrees them as contingent. Now this sounds complicated, but the bottom line, what Aquinas is saying is God is sovereign, and human beings are responsible. These are not antithetical claims, but rather he is acknowledging that God is God, And that human beings are creatures. Human beings are creatures. Now, Aquinas does appeal to a number of passages of scripture here, and some of them we would say that we would dismiss because he's appealing to apocryphal scripture. Okay, so that's problematic in his explanation. And then, for example, he appeals to Romans 12.1, those things are well ordered. He says, and he's saying, look, God orders everything. Now, I'm not so sure that that is perhaps the very best passage to which we could appeal, but the point that we want to recognize here is that Aquinas sees the teaching in scripture that God ordains everything. And so he's trying to do justice to the claim that God is sovereign over all. But on the other hand, he also recognizes that the scriptures teach that human beings are responsible for their actions. And so he's trying to do justice to that. And so he's explaining that God ordains some things necessarily, and that he ordains some things contingently. In other words, some things absolutely come about, necessarily so, and other things come about contingently, freely. So that is, we would say, the medieval background. So in other words, this discussion about necessity and contingency is going on in the 13th century, and arguably even before. So that when we finally get to the shores of the confession, we want to recognize that the Westminster divines are participating in a discussion that is hundreds of years old, and they are not going to reinvent these basic categories, but rather they are going to continue to use them because they see the fidelity that they represent to the scriptures. Now, secondly, we want to talk briefly about the theological backdrop. So we looked at the, you know, there's the medieval backdrop, this ongoing discussion in the Middle Ages that we find there in Thomas. But now we want to talk about the theological backdrop. And in Westminster Confession, Chapter 2, Paragraph 1, we see that it lists the various attributes of God. There is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute. They also say in 2.2, God is all sufficient, quote, not standing in need of any creatures he has made. And so his knowledge is independent of the creature, which is infinite and infallible. And so it says there that nothing is contingent or uncertain to him. So in other words, when God looks upon the creation, and he looks, say, into the future through his knowledge of vision, Nothing is uncertain to him. He doesn't look at it and say, gee, I wonder what Fesco's gonna say next. You might wonder that. I might wonder that. But God doesn't wonder that. He knows. Nothing is contingent to him. Nothing is contingent to him. And so the confession when it is talking about God and his attributes at this point, it's dealing with God as he is in and of himself, absolutely. But on the other hand, God also relates to his creation. And the confession talks about this in this regard, in Confession 2, paragraph 1, God is most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, the rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and with all, most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty. Now, the confession doesn't use these labels, but we can say that on the one hand, they're talking about what has historically been called the opera ad intra, the internal workings of God, who God is in and of himself. And then conversely, we can say that they're also in that second list of attributes and the way in which they describe God's interaction with the world. It's talking about his opera ad extra, the external work of God. the external work of God. Now, in this respect, we can say that there's a sense in which God is absolute, and there's a sense in which God is relative. How he is unto himself, how he is when he relates to his creation. Now, this is tied to a whole set of theological terms in classic theology that is common both to classic Catholic theology, as you would say, find it in, say, Thomas Aquinas, as well as it is in common classic Reformed theology. You have, for example, archetypal theology, the theology that it is God's knowledge that he has unto himself. He knows himself perfectly. But then conversely, there is ectypal theology, the shadow, the copy of the finite but nevertheless true revelation of who God is. God is as he is absolutely. God is as he is relatively. Same God, but just these distinctions to understand who he is unto himself and how he relates to the creation. There is God's hidden will. and his revealed will, the knowledge that he has unto himself in terms of the decree, but only in terms of what it is that we know that he has decreed because it comes to pass. Think Deuteronomy 29, 29. What is revealed belongs to us, but what is secret belongs to God. There is the deliberations, if you will, among the Trinity versus the created order, which is the imminent will versus the transient will. imminent will versus the transient will. There is God's necessary knowledge versus the knowledge that he has related to the creation, that is the knowledge of his will. There is God's righteousness in himself versus the righteousness that is related unto creatures, the absolute righteousness versus the righteousness of relation, or justitia relata. So understanding God's being as it pertains to who he is in and of himself versus how he relates to the creation I think is important and vital in comprehending the relationship between the decree and human responsibility. So we've got the medieval backdrop, and then we've got this theological backdrop. In the simplest of terms, as Dr. Renahan says, what the confession says about God in chapter 2 carries over into the rest of the confession. But particularly here, what is especially relevant is how it connects to chapter 3. Because when we look here now, as we're looking first at the decree, and then secondly as its relation to free choice, is that when we look at the decree in general, we can say that this absolute relative distinction immediately strikes the reader. Because it says in 3.1 that God freely and unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass. He does so without consideration of the creation, but rather in terms of his own will. This is what we would talk about in terms of unconditional election, for example. That God is not looking down the corridors of the future to decide whether or not he will choose somebody based upon whether or not they choose him. In that type of an Arminian formulation, That is not God sovereignly decreeing, but rather simply ratifying the person's choice. Oh, you choose me? Well, then I choose you. Whereas what they are saying is, no, God freely and unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass. In other words, the decree originates in His will, not with a consideration of our will. So God is under no obligation internally or externally to create. Edward Lee, who's one of my favorite theologians, he was in Parliament during the creation of the Westminster Assembly. He's an interesting individual in that he wrote a massive systematic theology. He wrote other works on linguistics. He was something of like a gentleman who was also into military things. He must have been profoundly wealthy because he had all sorts of hobbies. Imagine if you just had a hobby, I think I'll write a systematic theology. And he goes about and just writes this massive work. But it's incredibly learned. He says there in his work, he says, God's absolute decree is that whereby the Lord, according to the counsel of his own will, has determined with himself what he will do, command or forbid, permit or hinder, together with the circumstances of the same. So here we see the decree in terms of its absolute nature that it originates in God. But then the confession immediately stipulates, yet so is thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. I think that the first part of that statement is as equally important as the latter part of the statement. Yes, God ordains whatsoever comes to pass. But then notice immediately the qualifications that follow. He's not the author of sin. They want to protect the righteousness of God. Because remember the objections that Aquinas was dealing with. If God decrees something necessarily, then it's imposed by necessity. If God decreed the fall, then that means that God is responsible for the fall, not Adam. So they say, yet God is not the author of sin. They also say, nor is violence offered to the will of creatures. So my son was theologically wrong. when he said, look what God made me do. Look what God made me do. Now, just for the record, I didn't get angry at him. I mean, it's just like, oh, for pity's sake, look at all this water everywhere. But that's our first immediate reaction. And it's not one that's restricted to my, you know, viper and diapers at that point, my four-year-old son. That's something that the apostle Paul deals with in Romans chapter nine, who can resist his will. But then they also say, nor is the liberty, you could say the freedom, or contingency that it could be otherwise of second causes taken away but rather established. So that from the vantage point of the creation, human free choices are contingent. In other words, we freely choose the things that we do. God decrees them, but we freely carry them out. And God does not do violence to our wills. There's a story that I remember hearing from some of the lectures of Dr. John Gerstner, who was R.C. Sproul's mentor, and he was giving a lecture in a class, and that one of the students raised his hand and said, yes, and he, you know, he said, you know, are you a Calvinist? And Dr. Gerstner said, yes, I am. And he said, okay, all right. And so then the student, you know, you know, continued taking notes. And about five, ten minutes go by, and then Dr. Gerstner stopped and said, wait a minute. What do you mean by, are you a Calvinist? How do you understand, what is Calvinism to you? And the student responded, that God forces people to be saved? And he says, yeah, no, then I'm not a Calvinist. In other words, there's a lot of misperception out there regarding this point. If you affirm divine sovereignty, then you can't affirm human responsibility. Or if you affirm human responsibility, you cannot affirm divine sovereignty. not according to the Confession, not according to Westminster, not according to Second London. And that the divines are affirming the necessity of the decree, its absolute nature, God's sovereignty, but they're also affirming contingency, freedom. And that they say that whatever God ordains comes to pass, but it can come to pass either necessarily or contingently. God was free to decree or not to decree, but once he decreed, there is no longer contingency from the divine perspective. Again, Westminster Confession 2-2, in his sight, all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain. This is the same point that Aquinas was making. From God's vantage point, there is nothing that is contingent. It is absolute. Now in case you might be wondering, I'm not sure how this all fits together. What I want to do is I want to read a series of statements from a number of reformed theologians so that you can hear them yourself explaining these things. And I dare say that if I didn't label them, you might begin to think that you were listening to Arminian quotations. But I think it's because we have often become so far distant from how the tradition has historically explained these things as to become unfamiliar with our own theology. William Twiss, who was the moderator of the Westminster Assembly, he said that God preordained that Josiah would burn the bones of the prophets on the altar. He preordained that Cyrus would proclaim liberty to the Jewish exile so they could return to Israel. And yet he comments, what sober divine has made doubt whether Josiah and Cyrus did not hear in that which they did freely? Says God ordained it, but they did it freely. They freely chose to do it. in that particular argument pulls from the Irish Articles written by James Usher, which is a document at the Westminster Divines. It's kind of like if the Second London Confession has Savoy as a cousin and then the Westminster Assembly as a father, well then the grandfather would be the Irish Articles because the Westminster Divines were pulling from the Irish Articles sometimes entire statements almost verbatim. And so he's pulling from that but then twist goes and cites Aquinas. He cites Duns Scotus on these points. You might say, well, that's William Twist. Who's ever heard of Twist? You know, maybe a few, you know, a few theological nerds out there have heard about him, you know, but, you know, I don't know him from Adam. Okay, well, what about Calvin? Let's talk about Calvin. Calvin, listen to this and listen to how similar this sounds exactly to the points raised here in the Westminster Confession of Faith. You know, somebody might think, oh, look, the Westminster Confessor is just repeating what Calvin says. I'd say, no, Calvin is repeating what Aquinas says. What God decrees must necessarily come to pass, yet it is not by absolute or natural necessity. What's a natural necessity? A natural necessity is, say, for example, when God ordains that a lightning bolt should strike a tree. What's going to happen when that lightning bolt strikes the tree? The sap is going to superheat at such a rate because of the heat generated by the lightning that it creates an explosion and it blows the tree to smithereens. It's pretty cool, actually, when you think about it. Makes me think of David Letterman dropping watermelons off the roof of his building. It's only something that kids or people like me who's seven years old at heart enjoy watching. But he says, it's not by natural necessity. In other words, you may be sinful, you have a sin nature, but you don't sin by a natural necessity. You freely choose the sin that you engage in. God decrees must necessarily come to pass, yet it is not by absolute or natural necessity. When he answers the question, when he answers the question, was it absolutely necessary that Christ's bones not break? throughout the entirety of his ministry, but especially in his crucifixion. This was one of the regular questions that comes up on a basis. You find multiple theologians raising this very example. He says, here we perceive the distinctions of relative and absolute necessity, or we can say absolute necessity and hypothetical necessity, as well as necessity of consequent and of consequence. were not without reason invented in the schools. So in other words, he's saying, yeah, those distinctions that they use in the Middle Ages, they were invented for a good reason. Since God made the bones of his son capable of being broken, which however, he had exempted from being actually broken and thus prevented by the necessity of his purpose, what might naturally have come to pass. All right, thick, thick, heavy material there. Let me try to illustrate this. If I enter a room, like say this room, it's a hypothetical necessity that I could sit down in any one of the chairs, any one of the seats that's available. It's a hypothetical necessity because I'm in the room, so it's possible that I could sit down in any one of these seats. it becomes an absolute necessity if I enter into the room and I sit in one chair or one seat, it's therefore absolutely necessary that I am in that seat because of my action that I cannot be by absolute necessity in any other seat. That's the fine tooth distinction that Calvin is making. Aquinas uses the same one. And so what he's saying is, is that by the decree of God, It is by absolute necessity that Christ's bones would not break. But by virtue of Christ's life in terms of the incarnation, it's a hypothetical necessity that his bones could have broken or that they could have been broken. So they make these distinctions between absolute necessity, hypothetical necessity. What does something look like from God's vantage point in the decree? What does something look like from the vantage point of the creation and the created order? William Ames, same kind of statement. He says here, the will of God does not imply a necessity in all future things, but only a certainty in regard to the event. So here he's making another razor-fine-tooth distinction that it's not imposed upon people, but things will certainly come about. Thus, the event was certain that Christ's bones should not be broken because God willed that they should not be. But there was no necessity imposed on the soldiers, their spears, and other secondary causes then present. God decreed that Christ's bones would have been broken, but the soldiers freely refrained from breaking Christ's bones. So important that we recognize this. And I want you to understand what they're doing here is I don't believe that they are trying to pry behind the veil of these great and divine mysteries. I think in many respects, all they're trying to do is saying from this vantage point, it's absolutely certain that it will come to pass. But from this other vantage point, human beings are freely making these decisions, even though they are decreed by God. They're getting about as close as they can into the white hot glory of the mystery of the divine decree without going in too far. They want to recognize divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Listen, for example, to this particular passage that comes again from William Twiss when he discusses the betrayal and the crucifixion of Christ. But how came it to pass? Not necessarily, but contingently. That is, in this author's phrase, evitably and avoidably, inasmuch as it was joined with an absolute possibility to come to pass otherwise, nor with a possibility only, but with a free power in the agents to have foreborn all these contumelious carriages of theirs towards the Son of God, for both Judas had free will to abstain from betraying him, and Herod with his Herodians could have abstained from their contumelious handling of him, and Pilate from condemning him, and the priests and people from conspiring against him. and the soldiers from crucifying him, only they had no power to abstain from all or any of these vile actions in a holy manner, as no man else hath power to abstain from any evil in a gracious manner without grace." So this is what he's saying. He's saying God decreed that it would certainly come to pass, but not by necessity. He doesn't force anybody to do any of these things. He said, Judas freely chose to betray Christ. Pilate freely chose to condemn him. The Herodians freely chose to condemn Jesus. The soldiers freely chose to crucify Jesus. He says, now, if they had avoided it, it wouldn't have been that they were doing something meritorious or that they were doing something godly. They would have done it for sinful reasons. They would have just avoided one sin for another. Now, it's so important that we grasp this, because what the confession is teaching is ultimately echoing vitally important pastoral truths, is that God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass, but if he ordains it in such a way that we are not free to do otherwise, then how can God hold us accountable for sin? then we can legitimately say, it wasn't my fault. My son could legitimately say, look what God made me do. People in your church can say, look what God made me do when I sinned. And this, at least in the history of theology, certainly has been a problem. People recognize the sovereignty of God, and they think of it in binary terms. If God is sovereign, then I am not responsible. I'm not responsible for my sin. I'm not responsible for divorcing my wife. I'm not responsible for committing adultery. I'm not responsible for any of these things, because God ordained it so. And who am I to argue with the sovereign will of God? But the scriptures don't say that. The scriptures don't say that in the least. And this brings us to our second point, which is the relationship here, this sub-point I could say under this third chief point, is the relationship between the decree in chapter three and the freedom of the will in chapter nine. because we want to say that okay they're free to choose these things but free in what sense? Free in what sense? Because it is important. In chapter nine, which is again Westminster Confession numbering, we see in paragraphs two through five that the divine set forth humanity or placed humanity in what has historically been called the fourfold estate. The fourfold estate. First there's the estate of innocency. that Adam had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good. Then there's the estate of sin, where human beings, because of the fall, have wholly lost all ability of will to do any spiritual good. Then there's the estate of grace. By God's grace alone, he enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritual good, but doth also will that which is evil. So in other words, in the state of grace, people can freely sin or freely not sin. And then in the state of glory, the fourth and final estate, they are immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only. Now here is where we have to distinguish between freedom of the will and freedom of choice. Two important, two very different ideas. Because of the fall, we have lost our freedom of the will. And it's what we would call the voluntas. Our wills are bound to sin. But we have not lost the librem arbitrium, the freedom of choice. You say, well, wait a minute. How can those two things work together? Think of somebody who commits a crime and they're then imprisoned. When they're imprisoned, they have lost their will in the sense that they cannot will to do one thing or the other because they're stuck in that cell. But within the confines of that cell, they are free to choose to do a number of things. They can lie on the bed, read a book, maybe watch a TV show if they have cable TV. I don't know what prisons are like these days, praise God. Within the confines of that cell, they are free to exercise their freedom of choice within the confines of the cell or within the confines of the prison. That's the nature of sin. We've lost our freedom of will, the ability to will that which is good versus that which is evil. We've lost that in Adam. But we have not lost our freedom of choice, that we are confined to sinful things so that we can freely choose one thing or another within the confines of sin. And so this is what goes back to what Twist was saying when he says Judas could have freely chosen otherwise. not to righteousness, but he could have refrained from betraying Christ. Because if he couldn't refrain from betraying Christ, then how can God hold him accountable? Now, as I said at the beginning of the lecture, this is some heady stuff. And just to give you some assurances, one of the things, almost a year ago, when I was talking with Jim Renahan about this, Jim said, we need to make sure that we really make the connection to the practical side of things. In my next lecture, I promise you, it's highly, highly, highly practical, so practical that I think we're gonna have a lot of fun, okay? I don't think you're gonna have to sit there with furrowed brows going, I'm not sure I follow. But at least on this particular topic, I think we have to recognize that the confessions chapter on the decree and its relationship to chapter nine represents, I think, some of the most nuanced and complicated doctrines in the whole document. It's some very challenging issues. But despite all of the terms, despite all of the distinctions, We want to remember what their chief goal was here, which is to preserve theologically the teaching of God's divine sovereignty to degree whatsoever comes to pass, and human responsibility, that neither is violence offered to the will of creatures, nor is things come about necessarily, but rather contingently, so that people freely do these things. Now some theologians, and some might object, because they say scripture doesn't feature prominently in the explanation of these things. But yet I think what theologians are doing here, what the Westminster divines are doing, what Thomas Aquinas is doing, is that they recognize that there are passages of scripture, such as Genesis 50-20, where Joseph confronts his brothers. And he says, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. How is it possible to have two agents bringing their wills to bear upon the same event, yet to different and disparate ends? God for good, and Joseph's brothers for evil. That one statement right there recognizes that when God decrees something, he can still hold Joseph and his brothers accountable for their evil action, even though he intends it for good and for a different purpose. But of course, I think the absolute perfect example where you see the decree and human responsibility seemingly colliding I would say that they're not colliding, but rather fitting together, ever mysteriously so, is when we read Peter's sermon at Pentecost. When he says in Acts chapter 2 verses 22 and 23, men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know. This Jesus delivered according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass. Yet violence is not offered to the will of creatures. God did not force them to crucify Jesus. He decreed that it would certainly occur. But here Peter says they were still guilty. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Multiple wills converging upon the same event, but to different ends. But it's not that they are multiple equal wills, but rather it is the sovereign will of God's decree coming down and ensuring that these events occur. And then it is human beings being held responsible for their freely chosen sins. These points, I think, are both doctrinally and pastorally vital. How often, as I've said before, do we as sinful human beings try to blame God for the decisions that we make? Paul's statement, as I've alluded to in Romans 9, 19, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? All too often, we present these things in binary terms. Either God is sovereign, or human beings are sovereign, or God is free, or we are free. But there's no way in which these two things could potentially fit together. Or critics label reform theology as deterministic because they can't conceive of how the confession holds these truths harmoniously together. I think in the end, what the confession does is it speaks both doctrinally true things and pastorally necessary words when it says, God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. It's a truth that we can take great solace in, because we know that God is ordained whatsoever comes to pass, as Dr. Renahan said earlier, whether it seems as if it was a good thing or a bad thing. But at the same time, we know that God is just, and he does not hold people accountable for things that he imposed by necessity upon them, but rather these are things that they chose themselves freely. Only the sovereign God and creator of the cosmos is big enough to do something like that. And I think that we as creatures need to bow before his glorious sovereignty and worship because he is truly God in this sense. And it's here that we get the smallest glimpse of that glorious light of the decree. And we can only go in so far because were we to try to press in any further, we would be blinded by the glory. But this is how our forefathers in the faith explained it to us, and I think it's true, pastorally necessary, and vital truth for us to reflect upon. Let's bow together in a word of prayer. Father God, we give you thanks for your sovereignty. So often, O Lord, we are trying to kick against the goads. We blame you for things that are entirely our own responsibility. We question your sovereignty. We question your providence. We look for excuses. Forgive us, we pray, and we ask, O Lord, that you would help us to bask in the glory of your all-encompassing decree, that you indeed foreordain whatsoever comes to pass. But yet at the same time, in the immensity of your sovereignty, you do it in such a way, O Lord, that you do not offer violence to our wills, which means that we are both responsible for our sin, but through your grace, you deliver us by Christ. And through the gift of faith, you enable us freely to love you, to worship you, and to give you all of the praise and adoration that you so rightly deserve. Help us to remember, O Lord, that you are the creator and we are the creature. You hold us accountable, but at the same time, you are sovereign over all. May we take shelter in these truths cling to them in times of trouble and rejoice in them in all times. We pray and ask all of these things in Christ's name, amen.