dear friends, I put the same question to another group to which I belong, namely 5solas.org, and I have been given permission to print the reply from Robert R. Higby as follows:-

English Rose: There is a teaching going around here in England that God has TWO wills - His permissive will and His decretive will.

Actually, such teaching has been flourishing for many centuries among those who profess to be solid Calvinists--so it is hard to know where it originated. But I'm very glad to see that so many here recognize the severe false teaching present in the nothion that God has a permissive will! Such a doctrine leads to nothing but the depreciation of God's sovereignty, immutability, and redemptive purposes through the grace extended to the elect in Christ's person and work!

God has but one unitary will and always gets what he wants. When men do not obey his commandments, that too is according to his sovereign will. There is a teaching on God's KINGDOM will in the synoptic gospels that leads some to deny his unitary sovereign will. However, such denials only demonstrate a serious ignorance of scripture as a whole. God's sovereign will issues in both the kingdoms of light and darkness. The fact that the synoptic gospels quote Christ as teaching that only the elect "do God's will" in no way depreciates the sovereign will of God. Jesus is simply saying that only the elect do the will of God as manifested in the kingdom of light, grace, or salvation. Even those who turn from this KINGDOM of GRACE will and purpose of God still obey God's will in the ultimate scope of his sovereignty--it is just that they fulfull the opposite side of his will as manifested in the kingdom of darkness! So the only 'two wills' of God taught in scripture are his contrasting wills of salvation and reprobation. There is no 'permissive will'; God does not merely permit anything but positively determines and desires all things that happen!

Robert R. Higby