No decree of God reads: “You shall sin.” For (1) no decree is addressed to you; (2) no decree with respect to you says shall; (3) God cannot cause sin, or decree to cause it. He simply decrees to create, and himself to act, in such a way that you will, of your own free choice, commit sin. God determines upon his own acts, foreseeing what the results will be in the free acts of his creatures, and so he determines those results. This permissive decree is the only decree of God with respect to sin. Man of himself is capable of producing sin. Of himself he is not capable of producing holiness. In the production of holiness two powers must concur, God's will and man's will, and God's will must act first. The decree of good, therefore, is not simply a permissive decree, as in the case of evil. God's decree, in the former case, is a decree to bring to bear positive agencies for its production, such as circumstances, motives, influences of his Spirit. But, in the case of evil, God's decrees are simply his arrangement that man may do as he pleases, God all the while foreseeing the result.
Permissive agency should not be confounded with conditional agency, nor permissive decree with conditional decree. God foreordained sin only indirectly. The machine is constructed not for the sake of the friction, but in spite of it. In the parable Mat. 13:24-30, the question “Whence then hath it tares?” is answered, not by saying, “I decreed the tares.” but by saying: “An enemy hath done this.” Yet we must take exception to Principal Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Theology, 456, when he says: “God did not permit sin to be; it is, in its essence, the transgression of his law, and so his only attitude toward it is one of opposition. It is, because man has contradicted and resisted his will.” Here the truth of God's opposition to sin is stated so sharply as almost to deny the decree of sin in any sense. We maintain that God does decree sin in the sense of embracing in his plan the foreseen transgressions of men, while at the same time we maintain that these foreseen transgressions are chargeable wholly to men and not at all to God.
(i) While God's total plan with regard to creatures is called predestination, or foreordination, his purpose so to act that certain will believe and be saved is called election, and his purpose so to act that certain will refuse to believe and be lost is called reprobation. We discuss election and reprobation, in a later chapter, as a part of the Application of Redemption.
God's decrees may be divided into decrees with respect to nature, and decrees with respect to moral beings. These last we call foreordination, or predestination; and of these decrees with respect to moral beings there are two kinds, the decree of election, and the decree of reprobation; see our treatment of the doctrine of Election. George Herbert: “We all acknowledge both thy power and love To be exact, transcendent, and divine; Who dost so strongly and so sweetly move. While all things have their will—yet none but thine. For either thy command or thy permission Lays hands on all; they are thy right and left. The first puts on with speed and expedition; The other curbs sin's stealing pace and theft. Nothing escapes them both; all must appear And be disposed and dressed and tuned by thee Who sweetly temperest all. If we could hear Thy skill and art, what music it would be!” On the whole doctrine, see Shedd, Presb. and Ref. Rev., Jan. 1890:1-25.
II. Proof of the Doctrine of Decrees.
1. From Scripture.
A. The Scriptures declare that all things are included in the divine decrees. B. They declare that special things and events are decreed; as, for example, (a) the stability of the physical universe; (b) the outward circumstances of nations; (c) the length of human life; (d) the mode of our death; (e) the free acts of men, both good acts and evil acts. C. They declare that God has decreed (a) the salvation of believers; (b) the establishment of Christ's kingdom; (c) the work of Christ and of his people in establishing it.
A. Is. 14:26, 27—“This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations; for Jehovah of hosts hath purposed ... and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” 46:10, 11—“declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure ... yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.” Dan. 4:35—“doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” Eph. 1:11—“the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will.”