I grew up Catholic, which meant that God was far away and most waiting with a big stick to whack me if I stepped out of line. Eventually I became an agnostic and that lasted into my teen years. Then I got saved in a Pentecostal church when I was about 15.
During these formative years of my faith I was taught that much of what God does depends on what we do. I was always told that “God is a gentlemen”, He will never force Himself of you. God sort of reacts to what we are doing and orchestrates His will accordingly. This is broadly called “Arminianism”. In this way of understanding God, much is made of human free will, but God’s sovereignty suffers rather severely.
Once I became a pastor I worked for a few churches and one of them was staunchly “Calvinist” — the opposite of Arminianism. This says that everything that happens is because God willed it to be so. On this understating of God, much is made of God’s sovereignty, but human free will suffers severely.
By the way, if this stuff makes your eyes glaze over, don’t worry about it. Both of these camps are going to be in heaven. This is absolutely NOT a salvation issue… even if both of these groups are wrong.
We see throughout Amos, Isaiah, and now Hosea that God repeatedly tells that people that once they turn back to Him, He will restore them. So clearly we need to find a way to balance the free will of the creature (God will not restore us until we repent) with God’s sovereignty (He is in control of everything). How is this done?
Well, it’s long and complicated, and takes more time to explain than I really want to invest in this particular post. But essentially I believe it works like this:
- God knows how you would respond in any given set of circumstances.
- God has total sovereign control over everything.
- God chooses not to override our free will, but to arrange the circumstances to achieve His desired outcomes.
- In this way God is sovereign over everything that happens, but we are also allowed to exercise our free will.
That to say that I think my youth pastor when I was 15 was right. And that position is backed up by the preponderance of the Biblical evidence. Essentially… God is a Gentleman.