God’s sovereignty is defined by saying He “preserves and governs everything in the universe” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology). Passages that show God’s sovereignty are: Heb 1:3; Col 1:17; 2 Pet 3:7; Eph 1:11; Ps 148:8; Matt 5:45; Jer 10:23.
Jack Cottrell’s distinction, in The Faith: Once for All, between the different views of God’s work in the world is helpful. The deist believes God has nothing to do with anything. The hard determinist (associated generally with John Calvin) insists God has everything to do with everything. The third position, which seems most consistent with the entirety of biblical teaching, is that God has something to do with everything, but not in the same way.
In some ways, God has a “hands off” approach. For example, He created natural laws to regulate the world without His direct involvement (Gen 1:11, 24). Also, God created man as free, being able to operate without His direct involvement. If God is sovereign but allows nature and man to operate freely, then every event happens either through His causation or simply with His permission. God supervises and monitor all that happens. Of course, God can intervene if He so chooses.
Let us briefly deal with Grudem’s hard determinism (Calvinism). By that we mean, in his words, “God causes all things that happen…” (pg. 321; emph. added). Feinberg words the position this way, in a chapter in Predestination & Free Will (pg 29): “God has chosen at once the whole interconnected sequence of events and actions that have and will occur in our world.” Taking that position, it is impossible to see how God is not directly responsible for all the sins that are committed and it takes away man’s free will. Grudem feels the weight of that objection but simply holds the two in inexplicable tension (pg 330). God governs and has all authority but He does not cause all events or decisions.
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The question that arises, however, is whether God allows some things to happen by chance or randomly. That is a question that is not so easily answered. Grudem does not believe so. Cottrell seems to believe this might be the case. He writes in The Grace of God and the Will of Man (pg. 107): “God does not have a specific, unconditional purpose for each discrete particle, object, person, and event within the creation.”
What all this means is that God is in control of the universe as Sovereign Lord but He does not cause every event to happen. Many of those events are a result of the events in nature or the choices of mankind. What Christians must do is trust the loving and omniscient nature of God.
–Paul Holland
