Just BECAUSE ..... Part 3

Another way of describing the thought process that I've been writing about in the last two blogs (HERE and HERE), is to think of this in terms of means to an end.  God, as the Uncaused Cause of the Universe, sovereign in every way, determines both the ends and the means.  God is the primary cause of all events by virtue of His fore-ordination of all events.   But God normally uses means or secondary causes.  We can fail on this score in several ways:

1. By dismissing one cause, or devaluing one cause for the sake of the other.
2. By considering secondary causes of greater influence than the Primary Cause.
3. By making secondary causes irrelevant because of the greater cause.

It is pagan at worst or sub-Christian at best to ever think that a secondary cause can move the Primary Cause.  I read such a quote yesterday.  A person wrote, "God elects the whole world to salvation but mankind can refuse or frustrate that choice."  That is pure idolatry.  At the same time God has chosen to use means such as the preaching of the Gospel, repentance and faith to save His elect.  These means are not negotiable.  

Understanding multiple causes in God's interaction with humans while maintaining His sovereign primacy is of great help us in understanding Scripture and giving due glory to the right cause.  For example consider this verse in Romans 9:18 (NIV),

¹⁸ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

The Bible reader is immediately taken back to the story of the Exodus where God promised Moses “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt,” (Exodus 7:3, NIV).  Sincere Christians will wonder about such a statement.  But when one considers that God is acting as the primary cause, but using secondary causes it brings perspective.  Initially “Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”” (Exodus 5:2, NIV).  And it is obvious that God had decreed that the longer this king resists His will, the harder his heart would become, to the point that it was cemented into permanent indifference to God.  

A danger in reading your Bible is to embrace one evidence of causation and run with it, to the exclusion of all other evidences.  This impacts almost every dimension of Christianity that I can think of, from prayer to perseverance; from evangelism to edification.  I have learned to ask two questions when I study:

1. Is this a Primary or Secondary cause; and
2. Whatever it is, where is its corollary?

So in the case of Pharaoh I ask, "Is this a statement of Primary Causation?"  Yes!  Question 2: "What means did God use?"  Answer:  Pharaoh's stubborn, idolatrous will.  The New Living Bible captures the sense of this well: “Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.” (Psalm 76:10, NLT)

 

"God raises up men like Pharaoh and Pilate to accomplish his ends. Yet, their actions are free and morally accountable. Their sin does not thwart the eternal decree of God, but rather is encompassed in his divine plan so that he is without sin (Ps. 17.14). He is the potter and we are the clay (Rom. 9) . . . In this way, in accordance with the eternal decree of God, who alone is the first cause, all that comes to pass -- the unfolding of history, as it were -- is encompassed in the sovereign providential government of God, over all creation, rational agents and otherwise, which thereby, as the Confession says, establishes the nature of second causes." [1]

To God be the glory.

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1. http://www.puritanboard.com/f48/secondary-causes-15115/