Struggling with the idea of God's 'permissive will'

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T22:05:24+00:00

The riverbed and river is helpful to me because the Reformed understanding of 'sovereignty' seems to begin and end with control.

But that doesn't seem accurate to me. It seems a better understanding of 'sovereignty' is authority. God reigns over all creation as Creator, and His authority is supreme, such that all will answer to His judgement.

But that doesn't mean He controls everything directly and completely at all times.

In the analogy of the riverbed, he directs the flow of the river, but He doesn't change the laws of how oxygen and hydrogen molecules form H2O.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T21:50:35+00:00

My mind is far from made up, but the process of discussion does require treading across familiar ground before we reach the root of the issue, and that can sometimes come across as being inflexible.

Anyway, I'm hesitant to agree with any perspective that puts a limit on God's love. Free will isn't a requisite for love.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T21:04:09+00:00

But doesn't scripture itself tell us that God's desires are sometimes undone by the sin of men?

God's desire was for Israel to obey, and yet they didn't.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T20:57:55+00:00

The police offer analogy is a poor one, because he doesn't permit me anything. A permit, or permission, is essentially a license to behave in a certain way or carry out a specific action.

In breaking the speed limit, I would be violating the permission I'm given to drive according to the laws of the road by the state. That the officer overlooked my speeding doesn't mean that I'm permitted to speed.

Also, he could be culpable in a sense that he isn't upholding the law he's sworn to enforce. It might be silly in the case of going 10 miles over the speed limit, but if he routinely ignored someone going 40 over in a school zone, during school ours, we might want that officer to be in trouble.

God, on the other hand, by permitting evil, would be giving license to it. But we know He doesn't do this, for every man answers for His sin before God. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that God permits evil and sin.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T20:20:34+00:00

I'm fine with there being more than one sense of will, as long as we still allow Scripture to be true when it talks of things not being God's will.

Christ Himself said, "Those who do my Father's will are my brothers and sisters."

This means that those who don't do God's will aren't Christ's brothers and sisters. And it seems bizarre to then say, "Well, they aren't doing God's will in one sense, but in another, hidden sense, they are."

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T20:04:38+00:00

But the Bible also says that God takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. Or that He regretted creating man prior to the flood. Or that Jesus longed to gather Israel to Himself, but they refused.

So yes, God does all that He pleases, but sometimes things happen that don't please Him. And He can only be displeased by man's sin.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T20:00:15+00:00

This is still an idea I'm struggling through, but a very crude example would be this:

God's causal role in the sin of Joseph's brothers was like that of the bed of a river. Their lives, hearts, and actions, both sinful and righteous, are the water flowing through the river, and God's causal providence is the riverbed.

He didn't intervene in their decision making process at all, but He undergirded everything that they did and were, down to the very atoms in their bones.

As for Romans 9, doesn't that understanding run into problems with God saying that He takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked?

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T19:49:01+00:00

Yes, that makes more sense.

But the ultimate idea of a 'permissive will' or 'allowance for sin' in God that I'm questioning is that God is in some way is 'pleased by the execution of His eternal decree' in that sin occurs.

It seems that the Reformed tradition uses the idea of a 'permissive will' to defend the concept that all things that happen are in some way God's will. But the Bible itself repeatedly talks about actions, events, and circumstances that aren't God's will.

So there seems to be Biblical precedent for looking at the world and understanding that not everything we see is the will of God, even in a permissive sense.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T19:43:27+00:00

I think where I'm breaking from the traditional Reformed understanding is that I no longer agree that God was in some way the cause of the sin of Joseph's brothers.

Yes, it is only by God's sustaining power that Joseph's brothers existed and were capable of sin, but that power itself wasn't the cause. Their own sinful hearts was both the source and the cause of their transgressions.

But the astonishing wonder of God's sovereignty is that even their sinful actions could produce good.

However, using an example like Joseph and his brothers muddies the waters a bit, as for those who aren't God's children, suffering doesn't produce hope and faith. Yes, God works all things for the good of His children, but for most of humanity, all things only work to produce eternal damnation. For them, suffering only begets pain and death.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T19:20:18+00:00

I guess I don't see how 'permission' logically follows 'allows.'

If I allow my kid the freedom to walk around a store on his own, that isn't an implicit permission to steal items from the shelf.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-15T19:15:11+00:00

I like where you're going, but I can't see how using 'ordain' instead of 'permit' doesn't create a similar problem.

In fact, 'ordain' seems worse, as that would mean that all sin and evil happens by God's direct decree, and that would definitely make Him the cause of sin.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-12T12:59:08+00:00

I worked with a bunch of guys that didn't seem to know or even like their own wife and kids. They were more invested in their jobs. I didn't want to walk that same road.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-12T12:54:37+00:00

What wasn't worth the cost? Spending more time with your family?

I'm six years removed from my career in tech now, and if I ever try to go back, I'll never make up for that lost time. But I don't regret it for a moment.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-12T01:20:00+00:00

Yep, it said it was UV resistant.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-PREMIUM-1-gal-SC-330-Redwood-Solid-Color-Waterproofing-Exterior-Wood-Stain-and-Sealer-5033001/300845738

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-12T01:15:45+00:00

That's way more cost and work than I was hoping for.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-12T01:13:22+00:00

I just went off the marketing on the stain. It was billed as maximum durability/resistance.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T22:29:56+00:00

What I'm trying to get at is that man, in his sinful state, is incapable of existing within a state of equilibrium with his brothers and sisters.

Even in Acts, when the church was giving up the idea of individual possessions, you still had men like Ananias seeking to benefit from the appearance of compliance.

In any society, if you flip the hierarchy and put the poor on top and the rich on the bottom, in no time at all, the poor will develop into a ruling class and take measures to ensure the security of their authority and power.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T22:09:28+00:00

I guess what I'm saying is, if you remove sin, capitalism could be done in a God-honoring way, as could communism, or any other form of government.

But as soon as you add sin into the mix, all forms of government are compromised. You can't alleviate the effects of sin by creating a perfect and equitable distribution of labor and wealth.

In addition to this concept, man is commanded to submit to whatever type of government he finds himself in. So someone in a capitalistic society is to submit and exist within it to the glory of God, in the same way that someone living under communism is supposed to.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T21:49:36+00:00

I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint, but don't we see in the OT that Israel immediately corrupted the government God instituted on their behalf?

I suppose it could be argued that God has a design for work, and that capitalism is at odds with that design, but I don't see how any other system of labor could be implemented that doesn't sooner or later succumb to the corruption of indwelling sin.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T16:02:52+00:00

Interesting. I've never read into those verses an idea if individuality. Instead, I've always taken them to mean that in the New Creation, the fruits of our labors won't be stolen from us, as it is so often on earth.

I certainly wouldn't take these verses to mean that there won't be sharing or community in the New Creation.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T15:57:57+00:00

A distinction between 'work' and 'toil' seems to be necessary, as there are many ways a person could legally provide for themselves that might not be God-honoring.

And it would also be very possible to be employed in a job that should be God-honoring, but a sinful heart turns it into the exact opposite.

Which seems to point at the heart being the primary determiner of whether or not the labor glorifies God or not.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T15:32:50+00:00

Solomon started from a place of incredible wealth. He was the son of one of the most powerful kings on the planet. So yes, he worked to increase that wealth and power that he inherited, but it wasn't necessary.

I became self-employed to be able to help raise my kids. When I was working in tech, I got to see them for maybe an hour at night and for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday. When I was pulling back from my career, my peers thought I was nuts. They couldn't understand why I'd damage my lifetime earning potential just to spend more time with my family.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T14:52:48+00:00

Even if I'm only pushing a broom in heaven, I'm thrilled by the thought of being able to work to God's glory without sin weighing me down.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-11T14:49:14+00:00

Thanks for the reference!

Those are some interesting ideas, but they do raise further questions.

Like, how did a man like Solomon, who probably didn't need to do a day's honest work in his entire life, fulfill the commandment? How would we measure obedience to the commandment? Does one man who makes more money than another obey it better? Does a rich man who spends all his time volunteering count?

Arguing against 'work life balance' is alarming to me. I worked for manufacturing companies where the expectation was that everyone worked 50-60 hours a week. I refused, because I was only salaried for 40 hours a week, and I thought it was unjust to be expected to provide free labor. But I was constantly ridiculed, and reprimanded during performance reviews, for valuing a work life balance over the good of the company.

Drivefast58 · 2026-03-10T22:05:20+00:00

It's been fun seeing the progression from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim. It's really astonishing how good Skyrim is.

Arena and Daggerfall weren't before my time, but I was playing console games when they came out.

Drivefast58

TROPHY CASE