Sovereignty

Sovereignty is having power over something, the ability to influence or move a thing. It can be in terms of absolute or relative power, absolute meaning there is no other influence or power that supersedes the first, relative meaning the first has some sway or power but is not the ultimate or prime influence. In relation to God, sovereignty is the idea of how much power and influence God has over and on creation. The question of how much freedom is left to creation while under the power of an all powerful deity often comes along with this idea.
I always thought I understood much of sovereignty, but after reading Bloesch I feel like I’ve gained a much more expanded and in-depth view of it. The best way I can think of to describe the sovereignty of God is to say that God is the ultimate free being. God is ultimately free to do whatever is in the scope of his will. Humans, in contrast, despite our cries of “land of the free,” are not ultimately free. We will many things to happen, but many things will never come to pass or are simply out of our reach. I cannot make happen everything I will to happen, and therefore I am not ultimately free, not in the truest sense of the word. I have limitations both in understanding and activity.
Another way to look at being ultimately free is to think about influence. To be influenced is to lose freedom. Influence changes our decisions, makes them for us, or at least pushes them in a certain direction. Humans are under the influence of a multitude of things, including other humans. God is completely free of any influence outside of himself. He has no misinformation, he has no fears, and he has nothing directing him from the outside. His will is purely his own, unaffected by anything outside of the trinity that is God.
To understand human free will within the scope of the sovereignty of God, we must have a good understanding of what God’s sovereignty is. According to Bloesch, God has absolute power over all things and can affect all things but does not have to will all things. Here comes the clash between many different opinions and ideas. The spectrum goes from one end—absolute control over all things with no movement or true will in anything besides the Godhead—to the other end, where God creates and subsequently abandons creation completely to its own devices. As is often the case, I believe the best position lies near the middle. Bloesch and his sources do a beautiful job of explaining this.
There is a will of God, an ultimate plan, which, no matter what, cannot, by any power or choice, be thwarted. God is moving through history, shaping it as he sees fit into the form of his ultimate plan. Despite this, there is a human will and free choice involved. To say that nothing occurs that God could not influence is not the same as saying God wills all that happens, or, to rephrase it, saying only the will of God can happen. The latter would insinuate that God willed sin, and this cannot be said, because God is holy; sin is a personal affront to his nature. I love the words Bloesch uses to explain this. He states that God is not in “omnicausality” meaning God is the cause of all things that happen but “omnicompetent,” competent in that he has the power to deal with all situations.
Another facet of sovereignty is the idea of omniscience. God knows everything that has been and all that ever will be. An analogy I have heard that I thought fit rather well was that time is like a parade and all humanity like a child watching it from the street. We are short in stature and there is a great crowd around us, and so the only part of parade we are able to see clearly is what is right in front of us. We can remember bits of what has passed and we can try and guess what will come next in line, but we can only truly know that which we have marching right in front of our noses. God in this analogy is a bird high overhead. The bird looks with a keen eye over the parade and can see both the beginning and end of it. He can see past the parade to where it is headed and he can see where it began. Nothing is hidden from his eye.
This omniscience goes back to the issue of true freedom. We as humans can make decisions based solely on information we have at hand, and even that is often untrustworthy. God, with his knowledge of the infinite, makes all his decisions without any facts being hidden from him. He can guide our steps because he knows which steps will lead where. He saw each pitfall long before our journey began. It was by his knowledge and wisdom that he made us and by his knowledge that he can lead rightly.
Another thought that comes to many people’s minds when discussing sovereignty is the doctrine of predestination. I believe that the Bible does agree with predestination, but the idea of sovereignty does not necessarily assume it. We can combine other doctrines and ideas with it to give good argument for predestination but by itself it does not demand that God preordains every soul that is saved. It does not demand it because God does not have to will everything to happen.
Because predestination so often comes with sovereignty I will briefly give my thoughts on it and how it helps the argument for it. Firstly, we must remember that it is the infinite that reaches down to give us understanding and not the finite that breaks through to the infinite. Even the view that the Bible cannot be the “Word of God” without the Holy Spirit revealing the truth within agrees with the idea that it is only revelatory when God reveals it. If we cannot fully realize the truths put down in writing for us how are we to begin a deep relationship with the infinite creator? His sovereignty over us allows him to choose freely, to overcome our ignorance and pride, in order that he might receive the glory in our salvation.
To me the issue of sovereignty is a comfort. It is comforting because I know God is ultimately in control. He cannot be swayed from his purposes. We as humans, myself in particular, can mess everything up as much as we want but God will still be in control and his plan will continue unabated. Not only does God have a solution to every problem, he foresaw each problem and its answer before they occurred. His eyes can scan all of time and beyond. God’s sovereignty dispels fear and brings hope. At times it may bring us discomfort to realize that God knows our every misdeed, but it brings about much more comfort when we also realize that God knew we would commit that misdeed when he first came to us. We cannot surprise God, and when he declares his love for us we can know he declares it with full knowledge of who we are.