The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Gods Character??

Well, even from the non-Reformed perspective, God knew ahead of time what the outcome was going to be, didn't He? In fact, He knew when He created the world what the outcome of everything would be. That being the case, from the non-Reformed perspective you still have to ask, Why did God choose to create this world, knowing what would happen? You don't escape the dilemma by going that route. All you do is unsuccessfully attempt to avoid God's absolute sovereignty.

If you want to avoid the dilemma "successfully," you end up having to deny God's sovereignty as well as His omniscience, and what you end up with is a God who doesn't know what's going to happen and who doesn't have the power to control any of it. Such a being would not be worthy of being called "God," I think we can agree.

If we acknowledge that God is sovereign over even this, is it really just a case of Him setting up some dominoes, knocking them over, and then getting mad at the dominoes? Hardly.

First, humans aren't mindless blocks. God foreordains everything that happens, but men also choose to do what they choose to do. What they will choose is limited by their capacities, desires, and options. No man ever makes a choice that is against his will, since choosing is always an act of the will. He may make a choice against some of his desires, but he still chooses according to his desires. For example, say a man is held at gunpoint and told to deny God or be killed. That man must choose between his desire to live and his desire to honor God. If he denies God, he has proven that his desire to live is greater than his desire to honor God. Many (probably most) would say such a man was "forced against his will," but though he was certainly threatened, the choice to deny God was his own: he could have chosen to die instead. All this to say that men do actually make choices and are not puppets on strings; they are thus responsible for their actions.

Second, as a result of Adam's fall, all human beings are fundamentally sinful. They are born hating God and loving evil, and so it is only quite "natural" for them to disbelieve God in spite of all the good provisions he gives them; they have no desire to honor God. The attitude of the Israelites only demonstrates their sinfulness.

Third, because God is holy and just, He cannot abide with sin. He must abhor, judge, and destroy sin. Therefore He is rightly angered by sinners. God's anger is not some irrational outburst because things aren't going His way (especially since all things do go His way), but it is the response of a perfectly holy nature to its opposite. If He were not angered by sin, then he wouldn't be holy or just, and He wouldn't be God.

With this foundation, we can perhaps begin to explain why Moses turned away God's wrath. You see, if God ordained that the Israelites would grumble against Him, He certainly also ordained the Moses would intercede with Him on their behalf. God is not simply playing games with dominoes, reacting irrationally when they fall the "wrong" way even though He set them up that way; He is actually doing something much more profound: He is glorifying Himself. He is showing that men are sinners who do not deserve the kindness He bestows on them, that He is holy and must punish sin, and that He is full of mercy because He provides a mediator to turn away His wrath from those who rebel against him. Moses is actually a type—a foreshadowing—of the great mediator that we have in Jesus Christ. He points the way to the great salvation God provides through Jesus to miserable sinners like us, Jesus who always chose to obey God and who freely laid down His life on behalf of His sheep.

To get back to the main question:


God does everything He wants to do, and everything He does is in His character, which is to be holy, just, good, and merciful. That is, His character is to glorify and exalt Himself as God above all.