Q7. What are the decrees of God?

A. The decrees of God are, his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Let’s start simple. What does this word mean? To decree means to command; but not only the moral kind of command. Think also of a king issuing a decree in the sense of an edict, or a rule. By such words, the rule is that what the king says is law. Obedience is so closely tied to putting into effect, that this word is understandably used to mean both—both to command obedience to willing agents and to put into effect, events which involuntarily fall into place. We can even do both. As a parent, I can open my child’s door and the door simply opens for me. Then I can say, “Please, clean your room.” And that one is harder. In the case of God, whatever he speaks into existence will come to pass. 

Therefore, another distinction must be made when speaking of God’s will relating to God’s word. God’s decretive word is to be distinguished from his revealing word. For example, we should not think that because God has said anything (particularly in the imperative) that he is bringing it about just as it is being communicated. So when we use the word “decree” in theology, it is not with reference to moral obligation expressed in commandments, but rather to cause and effect expressed in his powerful word. So, “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3).

And those last words are where we should begin only because it’s the easiest part to understand, and yet at the same time utterly revolutionary to one’s worldview—WHATSOEVER COMES TO PASS. The word here, FOREORDAINED, means “ordered,” or “caused,” beforehand. God decrees every single thing that ever comes to pass. 

“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Psa. 33:11).

“My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose … I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it” (Isa. 46:10-11).

This is true about everything from the greatest things to the least thing: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (Prov. 16:33); from tragedy, “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” (Amos 3:6); to our greatest good: “all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

God’s Decree in Itself (in se): First and Final Causation

Two phrases are joined together here: HIS ETERNAL PURPOSE and THE COUNSEL OF HIS WILL. Now the divine will is a difficult doctrine no matter how we approach it. Two main Greek words are used to speak of God’s will, that is, boule and thelema. And these speak of two different bases for desire: boule having more to do with “rational and conscious desire,” and thelema with “an impulsive or unconscious desire.” And so naturally when the New Testament authors used these two words, predominantly the word boule was attached to concepts such as the “counsel of God,” such as in Acts 2:23, where “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan [boule] and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Here the emphasis is that the events of the crucifixion were settled from eternity out of God’s mind. It is similarly used in Acts 4:28, about all of the conspirators against Christ, “to do whatever your hand and your plan [boule] had predestined to take place.” Note that the ESV opts for the word “plan” in each case. 

Now thelema is a more diverse word because it can speak to both the emotional state that prefers, or the preference itself, or simply consent, though the thing may be less agreeable than another thing, still it is relatively agreeable. It is the heart’s “snapshot of the good” and not the whole picture.

In Ephesians 1:11, both of these words are used—“In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,” so that Paul is saying that God’s action of predestination is according to both the divine counsel (βουλὴν) and his good preference or pleasure (θελήματος).

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Ps 115:3).

“all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4:35).

Let us remember some of what we saw in Question 4. God is one, simple, eternal, and immutable. The way that classical theologians would say this is that it is not one thing for God to will and another thing for God to be. As there is no potentiality in God—nothing dormant in need of being activated by another—God is that Being in Pure Act, and so, if I may put it like this: never “at a loss for what to do.” So if we want to be most accurate, we say that God’s decree is singular, yet can be spoken of analogically in the plural. In the singular, we refer to God’s simplicity of essence and purpose. That one purpose, as it comes to fruition, affects all of the infinite instances by which God brings about the one eternal purpose. But in eternity—in God himself—the decree is one.

In the words of Bavinck, the will of God is “eternal, immutable, independent, and efficacious.”1 So even the word FOREORDAINED used here in the answer must be treated analogically. It is not that God is “before,” as in bound to a sequence—even if only the first—but rather it is a word that helps us to at least see that God’s causation of all things is never a reaction to something that already is. Thus Paul’s expression,

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world … having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:4, 11)

That this divine will is one with the divine essence implies that it also possesses the self-sufficiency (or aseity) of God. Let me state the importance of this by a question asked by the medieval theologian, Peter Lombard, namely, whether these created things are in God’s essence or through God’s essence. The answer is the latter. The same is true of evil things. God knows evil things through knowledge, but good things through knowledge and approbation and good pleasure.2

Now, as a last point to God’s decree in himself, this Answer reflects not only God as First Cause but also as his own Final Cause. We saw this with Question 1, but that was in the context of man’s chief end. Let’s reinforce that with the words used here: FOR HIS OWN GLORY. 

“What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Rom. 9:22-23)

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36)

God’s Decree Worked Out (ad extra): Primary and Secondary Causation

That little verse in Romans 11:36 gives us a picture of how this whole notion of different “levels” of causation are not simply the invention of Aristotle, though that pagan philosopher certainly spelled it out in a very useful way. But when Paul says, “from him and through him and to him are all things,” just take notice of those simple prepositions. If we want to get specific, think back to the passages from Acts 2:23 and 4:27-28. Both statements affirm that God’s decree was the primary mover of the events of the cross, but both statements also affirm that evil men and their intentions were real actors all the same.

Everyday life as well as events in nature or history offer us countless examples of primary and secondary causation that make explaining this quite accessible to anyone who would give it an honest hearing.

What is the cause of the eight ball going into the corner pocket in a game of pool? Is it the cue ball or the stick or the player? Is it not also the friction of the table, the rotation of the ball, and the force given up by the cue ball, now picked up by the eight ball? Well, of course, it is all of the above! Each in their own proper causal order—efficient, end, formal, material, and instrumental. Good introductory treatments of these causes abound, whether in relating them to natural theology,3 or to doctrines of controversy like justification by faith alone.4

This is important for maintaining that self-sufficiency of the decree. Theologians will speak of orders in God’s decree. We can do this, so long as we keep firmly fixed in our minds two things that will prevent us from landing on either one of two extremes. First, we must grasp that these are logical distinctions concern relations of things as they are outside of God; second the ordering of that order is in the decree and never an effect from those things back into the decree. So the object of the ordered decree is outside of the decree; yet the act of ordering is in the only acting Subject, that is God himself.

So, for example, there is the debate between Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism—i.e. with respect to what “point” of reference God ordered the decree of election: before or after the fall?—or a more common example, with respect to the whole order of salvation (ordo salutis), as in Romans 8:29-30.

Those are good and healthy distinctions. Distorting their order matters; but confusing that order as if it represented sequence in God is disastrous, as it implies the dependence of God’s decree on things external to God. Historically, the Socinians through all manner of creaturely distortion into the decree.

The Socinians divided the decrees between those made before time and the majority made after the creation began. But the reasons for holding to all the decrees as eternal are: (1) Scripture expressly ascribes eternity to them (Mat. 25:34, Eph. 1:4, 2 Tim. 1:9, 1 Pet. 1:20);5 (2) Scripture implies it from foreknowledge—“the Lord, who makes these things known from of old” (Acts 15:17–18), the idea being that, if the decrees are foreknown, and foreknowledge is eternal, then so are the decrees; and (3) temporal decisions imply deliberation. Now deliberation implies ignorance and succession; but (a) ignorance is opposed to omniscience, and (b) succession is opposed to immutability and eternality. That there is an order to the decrees does not mean that some are eternal and others not. The order is logical and not chronological.

God’s Decree and Man’s Choices

We have to keep in mind the simple logic: (1) All created things are caused, primarily, by God; (2) Most of those things further advance in the created realm through secondary causes; (3) Created wills belong to that class of created things—therefore, what follows? Answer—therefore, created wills are themselves secondary causes. Now the Westminster Confession of Faith (III.1) gives a classic summary of this: 

“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

A few Scriptural examples should help. Look at Genesis 50:20, Philippians 2:12-13, and 2 Timothy 2:7. 

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).

“Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Tim. 2:7).

The first passage is that famous text on God’s providence working through the evil intentions of Joseph’s brothers. We must ask of this: How could God mean “good” through the brother’s actions if he did not meanthem at all? Now in the cases of the two New Testament passages, we have a general statement about our efforts in sanctification and then a specific statement about the renewed mind acting within that same sanctified life. In both, God is causing; he is willing and therefore guaranteeing both holiness to the Philippians and understanding to Timothy. And yet Paul gives the imperative for them to “work” and to “will,” and for Timothy to “think.” In other words, the Holy Spirit’s operations upon the active believer are primary, and yet they do not, for that reason, cause there to be less of a human willing and less of a human reasoning, but more. Primary cause does not eradicate secondary cause—it is the only thing that could ever establish it and increase it!  

God’s Decree and the Use of Evil

First, we must make a distinction that retraces many of the same steps. That is a further distinction between the 1. decretive will, 2. prescriptive will, and 3. permissive will of God. In the essence of God the decree is one, eternal, and immutable. All that God decrees will come to pass (Psa. 33:11, 115:3, Dan. 4:35, Eph. 1:11, Rom. 11:36). So God’s decretive will is that will in God himself. Now the prescriptive (or perceptive) will of God is what we see in his commands (or precepts), or what he “prescribes” of human behavior. We call this his “will” because it is what he demands of us, and so in that sense it is what he desires of moral creatures. Finally there is God’s permissive will, so named because it encompasses all those things that violate God’s prescriptive will and yet he “permits” to go on, at least for a time. This too belongs to God’s causation. After all, who would deny that God could stop any amount of evil that he wanted to?

There are two ways in which God causes (or ordains): the one is efficiently, or direct creation; the other is permissively, or the withdrawal of a specific operation, such that a secondary cause is reduced in being by deprivation in that which it is already. This is why double-predestination, for example, does not involve God creating any evil principle in the reprobate. He does not have to. The fallen will is already of such a nature as to fall by its own weight, and to do so most willingly.

It is also why God could have ordained sin sinlessly. He can cause it without 1. creating, 2. committing, or 2. condoning it. If anyone objects to that, it is because they are presupposing that to cause is logically coextensive with one or more of those others. But this only begs the question.

As to how the ordination of an evil thing can be good in its ordination, though not in its committing, that is, on the part of the evil will, Bavinck says this: “But though he wills all creatures as means and for his own sake, he wills some more than others to the degree they are more direct and suitable means for his glorification.”6 He offers a useful analogy about a father wielding a knife and yet forbidding it to his son, explaining how God can will sin differently than he abhors and forbids it. Finally, on this point, God’s revealed will and secret will are not opposed, as if the latter hates sin and the former approves. In fact the revealed realizes the hidden, and brings it to fruition.7

__________

1. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:243

2. Peter Lombard, Sentences, Bk. I, d. 36

3. Edward Feser, Aquinas: Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: OneWorld, 2010), 16-23.

4. Sproul, Faith Alone (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 74-75.

5. 1. “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34). 2. “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4). 3. “who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Ti 1:9). 4. “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you” (1 Pet. 1:20).

6. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:241

7. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:244