We Don’t Have All The Answers ...

Does God control the future? Is God sovereign? Do people have freedom to make their own decisions? Are we morally responsible? If God enables us to have faith, why do some believe and others don’t?

I hear questions like this in church and outside of church. The questions are good ones. The Bible teaches both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Different church bodies parse the answers to those questions differently. Some put more emphasis on divine sovereignty and others on human responsibility. All try to affirm both.

I like to say, “The Bible teaches both God is sovereign and we are responsible. By God’s grace and work, we trust in God. God is greater than we are. So, don’t overly worry about how to put all the answers together. Faith leaves it to the Lord to resolve these matters in His time and His place.”

There are different schools of thought that try to work through the questions.

Wesleyans say that God in prevenient grace enables all to believe, but we’d be unable to believe apart from such grace.

An old Presbyterian teacher of mine, the late Dr. John Gerstner, talked about how we are free to do anything in accord with our nature, but our nature is dead in sin and we are unable to believe unless God gives us faith.

As a Lutheran, I agree salvation rests entirely in God’s faith giving word, that I may believe in the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus, but focus on how the Spirit works through word and sacrament (visible word bound to the elements of water, as well as bread and wine) to work faith and forgiveness in our lives.

The Restoration movement gives more attention to our decisions and choices. Baptists are historically divided on what to emphasize; their views run across a broad spectrum from Calvinism, to Arminian, with much in between.

These differences occur because people seek to take the Bible seriously. We wrestle with what the Bible says.

I appreciate people serious enough about faith to take a stand, to try to work through the issues. I also choose to say, “There is much I can say, but I cannot fully resolve all these questions. I trust in God to resolve them in His way and His time.”

(Editor’s Note: This column is written by a different Littlefield pastor for the Leader-News each week. The columns are published on this page on Wednesdays.)