5. Objections Answered

There are age-old objections to the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty. The three most common ones [I think] are presented here. My purpose here is not to answer them completely, but merely to discuss them briefly. Excellent answers can be found in Christian literature, a bibliography of which will be presented in the next chapter.

Objection #1: Doesn't It Make Us All Puppets?

Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be;
I sink in life's alarms
When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thine arms,
And strong shall be my hand.
My heart is weak and poor
Until it master find;
It has no spring of action sure—
It varies with the wind;
It cannot freely move
Till Thou has wrought its chain;
Enslave it with Thy matchless love,
And deathless it shall reign.
My pow'r is faint and low
Till I have learned to serve:
It wants the needed fire to glow,
It wants the breeze to nerve;
It cannot drive the world
Until itself be driv'n;
Its flag can only be unfurled
When Thou shalt breathe from heav'n.
My will is not my own
Till Thou hast made it Thine;
If it would reach the monarch's throne
It must its crown resign:
It only stands unbent,
Amid the clashing strife,
When on Thy bosom it has leaned,
And found in Thee its life.

Now, if that is what being a divinely-controlled puppet is about, then I pray that God will make me one of His puppets. Taking this "puppet" objection a step further brings us to precisely the complaint that the Apostle Paul encountered. If no one has done anything but what God has "forced" him to do, then how can God justly condemn them? Let's see how Paul handles this objection:

Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory . . . [Romans 9:18-23]

Objection #2: Doesn't It Hinder Evangelism?

Throwing up his hands as if to ward off the deluge, he exclaimed, "We want to make soul-winners out of you fellows! and this is not the way to do it." He then left the subject entirely, never to return. As if to say that a Bible doctrine is detrimental to Bible evangelism. You would be hard pressed to convince the Apostle Paul, Augustine, William Carey, David Brainerd, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, and others too numerous to mention, that the doctrine of God's sovereignty, or any Bible doctrine was a hindrance to evangelism.

"All scripture . . . is profitable for . . . instruction in righteousness." Whitefield was no less of an evangelist than John Wesley because God had opened his eyes to His sovereignty, and Spurgeon, among others, experienced great in-gatherings of souls with the preaching of these uncompromised, undiluted doctrines. Just because God has mercy on whom He will have mercy is no hindrance to evangelism, because evangelism is God's chosen means of showing mercy. "It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." God chose whom He would save; He chose not to save them without means; the means He chose to save them by is evangelism.

God's sovereignty a hindrance to evangelism? The opposite is true. A denial of it is a hindrance. Where absolute sovereignty may be denied, "evangelism" is reduced to psychological techniques, "Jesus hawking," and gimmicks. None of these have their place in the preaching of the Gospel. The whole counsel of God does [Acts 20:26-27], and that is what made Paul confident of being free of the blood of all men. He did not try "anything that works," but obeyed God by preaching all His counsel.

Objection #3: Then Why Pray?

To quote a recent author:

I'm always puzzled by the question "Why pray for somebody's salvation if election is true?" After all, if election is not true and God is waiting on pins and needles hoping along with us that folks will use their free will properly, then surely that is reason enough to leave prayer out of it. We might expect God to say, "Look, I appreciate the attention, but there's nothing I can do. It's out of my hands. I gave the person a free will, and now we'll just have to see what happens." If God does not overrule our hearts and invade our lives until we invite him to do so, what's the use in asking God to overrule hearts and to bring people to Christ? [Michael Scott Horton, Putting Amazing Back into Grace, Baker, 1994, p. 104]

by David R. Heesen, heesendr@beloit.edu, fax 608-363-2718

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