Did God Orchestrate The Fall For His Glory: Human Freedom Within the Circumference of Sovereingty

This is more of a philosophical wrestling than it is a theological treatise of types. Being a “Calvinist” (of some sorts) for the last 6 plus years was very rewarding. I learned a great deal under that specific theological persuasion. A good deal about myself and others. Especially things such as tolerance, patience and how to debate lovingly. It was also good on how to think philosophically about things especially theology.

One of my greatest struggles with Calvinism and its perspective on Sovereignty were the fall and evil in the world. From a Calvinistic perspective, the belief is that God directly uses evil and preordains such events (while holding the perpetrator responsible) and that God used the fall (preordain) to bring Himself glory.

I no longer believe any of that to be true. Not even remotely true. Now I do believe God used the fall for His glory as we see with the cross, but I can’t fathom the idea of God orchestrating the fall and thus human freedom was one of God’s sovereign acts.

Let me explain a bit more clearly. For love to be love, love has to be a choice. For moral responsibility to be a responsibility the choice and the consequence has to be of the result of the perpetrator, anything less would not be choice nor responsibility. I am not saying that God couldn’t preordain an event and yet hold the person who was involved in the event responsible; however, if that event was sin then God was directly involved in the very thing He hates and sent His Son to neutralize. I can’t believe that anymore.

I do not believe God is involved with the sinful acts of creatures. Satan was not preordained to rebel, he was given a free choice and chose, much like the angels who did not follow in his rebellion chose to surrender. I believe that when God offered the choice to Adam and Eve it was a real choice with real consequences. These consequences lay within the freedom.

I haven’t read any commentary but I am sure that there are different perspecitves on Revelation 13 (I think) which paraphrases as “Christ was slain before the foundation of the world”. I don’t know if this means before the world was formed or in front of. Maybe someone can help with that.

Anyway this does not negate God’s Sovereignty. Sovereignty to me means complete control, not the directing of every affair. Thus the results of anything will always work to God’s favor, He is not limited to human choices however I now believe He responds to such choices, post-choice!

So what do I believe. I believe evil in the world is a direct result of humans giving over the world to Satan which was a choice. Adam was told to rule and subdue and sin forfeited that pure rule and open the door for Satan. Jesus has come and given us the keys and the authority through Him to bring the world back under the rule of God, but this is a choice and until Satan is completely destroyed, this tension/battle will always exist. There is much more to flush out on this issue.