(I am reposting this to prepare for our Sunday School lessons upcoming)

It must be said that there is an attribute, both eternal and uniquely divine, about God’s will so as to say that it is immovable, immutable and the only reality there will ever be. (Job 42:2)

This is coupled with the fact that He provides some freedom to those who have been reborn and can thus be alive and make choices. It CANNOT be said that man ever has freewill, as a “free-will” would be able to do anything it wants to do anytime it wants to do it – only God can do that. Rather, we live within the realm of responsibility and Divine Sovereignty, as D.A. Carson writes. Yet, how if God’s WILL is sovereign over all can we ever make a choice. Well . . . we can and we cannot.

This is where the principle of complexity needs to replace ideas of contradiction. Two items may only seem to contradict, unless they are elementally opposed – then they contradict. Otherwise, they may be two corollary attributes of a thoroughly complex system. Here that applies to the reality that the tension between say, the imperatives (commands) in Scripture and the fact that God has no thing outside of His WILL, is no tension at all – it only seems to be. This applies to sin and the Sovereignty of God as well. His Will is complex enough to contain His will (providence with man) and it is neither a contradiction, nor a diluting of the integrity of God.

See the illustration below:

God’s providential will (the filial application of God’s Sovereign WILL to His relationship with mankind) lies always within His Sovereign will, namely because it is born out of it – as all things are. Yet, it is within the complexity of His will a real realm of [limited] choice – namely to please or not to please Father. These two categories are essential to even begin a dialog on the Will/will of God. For truly, no thing can ever thwart the WILL of God.