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Course 25 · Lesson 5.2

Case studies: divine sovereignty and human freedom, one God and three persons, faith and works

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 25 outline

Module 1: Integrating Scripture and History

  1. The four theological disciplines and the questions each asks
  2. Biblical theology: the story of Scripture from creation to new creation
  3. Historical theology: how doctrine was formed, tested and defined
  4. Tracing one doctrine from Scripture through the councils

Module 2: Integrating Doctrine and Philosophy

  1. Systematic theology: coherence among doctrines
  2. Philosophical theology: clarifying and testing concepts
  3. Faith and reason: four historic accounts of their relation
  4. When the disciplines seem to conflict

Module 3: What Is Real and What Is a Human Being

  1. Creation, contingency and the God-world relation
  2. Christian metaphysics compared with materialism, pantheism and dualism
  3. The image of God and the dignity of the person
  4. Body, soul, the fall and the hope of resurrection

Module 4: How We Know and How We Live

  1. Christian epistemology: revelation, Scripture, tradition, reason and experience
  2. Christian ethics: command, virtue and natural law
  3. How doctrine shapes prayer, worship and conduct
  4. How practice tests and sometimes corrects doctrine

Module 5: Tensions and Commitments

  1. Stating a theological tension precisely
  2. Case studies: divine sovereignty and human freedom, one God and three persons, faith and works
  3. Telling a firm conviction from an open question
  4. Auditing your own commitments: reasons, evidence and uncertainty

Module 6: Building a Coherent Worldview

  1. What makes a worldview coherent: consistency, comprehensiveness and fit with experience
  2. Independent faith and historic Christianity: where they agree and differ
  3. Outlining the synthesis
  4. Drafting, testing and revising the synthesis

All courses

Program / Course 25: Theological Synthesis / Lesson 5.2

What you will learn

  • State the tension between divine sovereignty and human freedom and the main Christian responses.
  • State the tension between one God and three persons and the main responses.
  • State the tension between faith and works and the main responses.
  • Use the five-step method on each case and compare how traditions handle them.

The big idea

Three tensions have occupied Christians for centuries. How can God be in control of everything while people are truly free and responsible? How can there be one God yet three persons? How can salvation be by grace through faith while faith is said to be shown by works? Each has a range of serious answers. This lesson applies the five-step method to each so that a student can see how tensions are stated, how traditions respond, and what remains unresolved.

Key terms

Sovereignty
God’s supreme authority and power over all things.
Predestination
The teaching that God has determined in advance, in some sense, who will be saved. Its meaning is disputed.
Libertarian freedom
The view that a free act is one that the person could have done otherwise, given the same past.
Compatibilism
The view that free action is compatible with being determined, as long as the person acts from their own desires without compulsion.
Persons (in the Trinity)
The three distinct subjects, Father, Son and Spirit, who share one divine being. The word does not mean three separate individuals in the modern sense.
Justification
The act by which a person is declared or made righteous before God. Traditions differ on its nature.
Synergism and monergism
Synergism holds that God and the person cooperate in salvation. Monergism holds that God alone acts to bring about salvation.

Background

The three tensions below are not marginal. They touch the nature of God, the human person and the way of salvation, and each has produced church divisions. The aim here is to describe each fairly and not to resolve it. For each case, note the claims, the supposed collision and the leading responses, using the template from the last lesson.

Readers should remember that the traditions named often differ within themselves. The summaries below describe the main lines, and many individual thinkers do not fit neatly.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Divine sovereignty and human freedom

Claim A: God governs all things. Texts such as Proverbs 21:1 (the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord) and Romans 9 to 11 are used. Claim B: people make real choices and are held responsible (Deuteronomy 30:19, Joshua 24:15). Collision: if God determines every event, it seems that people cannot act otherwise, and responsibility is threatened.

Responses. Augustine and the Reformed tradition (Calvin, the Westminster Confession) hold that God’s will is effective in all things and that people act freely in a compatibilist sense, from their own desires. Arminius and the Wesleyan tradition hold that God gives people a real power to accept or refuse grace, and that God foreknows how they will choose. The Catholic tradition has had its own debates, between Dominicans, who stressed God’s initiative, and Jesuits such as Molina, who proposed that God knows how free creatures would choose in any circumstance, and the church allowed both. Orthodox theology speaks of the cooperation of the divine and human will. Open theists hold that the future is partly open even to God, a view that other Christians dispute.

Step 2: One God and three persons

Claim A: God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). Claim B: Father, Son and Spirit are each fully God and distinct from each other (Matthew 28:19, John 1:1, Acts 5:3 and 4). Collision: it seems that three who are each God makes three Gods, or that the persons are only three names for one.

Responses. The councils of Nicaea and Constantinople affirmed one being (ousia) in three persons (hypostaseis). The Cappadocian fathers explained that the persons are distinguished by relations: the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding. Western writers such as Augustine stressed the unity of being and compared the persons to relations within the one God, and Eastern writers stressed the Father as the source of the Godhead. The filioque dispute concerns the Spirit’s procession. Modern philosophers have proposed models, some emphasizing the three as distinct centers of consciousness, others the unity, and critics worry that some lean toward tritheism and others toward modalism, the view that the three are only modes of one. The traditions agree that no analogy is adequate.

Step 3: Faith and works

Claim A: salvation is a gift received by faith, not earned (Ephesians 2:8 and 9, Romans 3:28). Claim B: faith must be shown in works and a person will be judged by deeds (James 2:24, Matthew 25). Collision: if works are needed, grace seems less than free, and if they are not needed, faith may become empty.

Responses. Lutheran and Reformed Protestants teach justification by faith alone, with good works as its necessary fruit and not its cause, and read James as speaking of the evidence of faith. Catholic teaching, as set out at Trent, holds that justification is by grace, begun by God and received through faith, and that the person is made righteous and cooperates with grace in good works that merit growth in grace. Orthodox teaching places salvation in a journey of union with God, in which grace and human effort are not opposed. Many recent ecumenical agreements, such as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification of 1999 between Catholics and Lutherans, say that the traditions share a common understanding of basic truths, though some disagreement remains.

Step 4: Compare what the cases share

In each case a defender of one side can point to texts that the other side must explain, and each side has historically accused the other of imbalance. In each case an appeal to mystery has been made, and in each case the appeal is more convincing when it follows a careful statement and is not used in place of one. Notice also that the traditions disagree with each other and within themselves, so that no tradition’s label settles the matter.

Step 5: Record your own position

For each tension, write a short statement: the position you hold, the grounds, the main objection and how firmly you hold it. The next lessons help in sorting what is firm from what is open. Aim for statements that someone from another tradition would recognize as fair.

  1. How would I describe human freedom, and does my description fit my view of God’s control?
  2. What would be lost if I denied that people are responsible for their choices?
  3. How do I speak of the Trinity without falling into either three Gods or one God in three costumes?
  4. What does Paul mean by works in Romans, and what does James mean by works?
  5. Which tradition’s answer on each tension is closest to mine?
  6. Which of these questions do I think is open, and which settled?

Examples

Two readers of Romans 9

One reader sees in Romans 9 that God chooses people for salvation before they act, with Jacob loved and Esau not. Another sees that Paul speaks of nations and of God’s purposes in history, and that the chapter is followed by the call to faith in chapter 10. Both appeal to the text, and their disagreement shows why the tension has endured.

Saint Patrick’s shamrock

A popular story says that Patrick used a shamrock to explain the Trinity. Many theologians treat such images with caution, since they tend to suggest that God has three parts (a heresy called partialism) or that the persons are three forms of one thing. The example shows why precise language is needed. (The story itself is a legend and its origin is uncertain.)

A believer who wonders if she is saved

A woman who is trying hard and still doubts is told by one pastor that she must trust Christ alone and by another that she must show fruit. In truth, both traditions say both things, in different order. Knowing how each tradition arranges faith and works helps her understand what each is saying.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church holds that God’s providence reaches everything and that human beings are truly free, and it has not defined how the two fit. It holds the Trinity as defined by the early councils and the filioque in the Latin creed. On justification the Council of Trent held that it involves interior renewal and cooperation with grace, a teaching reaffirmed in the Catechism.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology holds that God does not force the will and that salvation is a synergy of divine grace and human response. It holds the Trinity with a particular stress on the Father as source, and rejects the filioque. Salvation is described as healing and sharing in the divine life, not mainly as a verdict of acquittal.

Protestant

Protestants are divided. Reformed churches teach unconditional election and God’s meticulous providence, with freedom understood in a compatibilist sense. Arminians, Wesleyans, Baptists and many others teach that God desires all to be saved and that people may resist grace. All hold the doctrine of the Trinity as set out in the creeds, and Lutherans and Reformed teach justification by faith alone.

Jewish and secular views

Jewish tradition has also debated providence and freedom, as in the saying attributed to Rabbi Akiva that all is foreseen, yet freedom is given. Jews and Muslims hold that God is one and reject the Trinity as a compromise of that unity. Secular philosophers press the objection that these are contradictions dressed up as mysteries.

Why it matters

These three cases show that serious Christians reason carefully about difficult questions and reach different conclusions. They also illustrate the method that every part of the synthesis will need. A student who has worked through them is better prepared to handle other tensions, such as God and evil, without hurry and without caricaturing others.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Calvinists deny that people have any choice.

Correction: Reformed theologians affirm that people choose and are responsible. They hold that God’s governance includes the choices, and they define freedom as acting from one’s own will. Critics argue that this definition changes what freedom means.

Misunderstanding: The Trinity means that Christians believe in three Gods.

Correction: The creeds affirm one God in three persons. The word person has a technical sense in this setting, and the councils rejected tritheism.

Misunderstanding: Catholics believe that salvation is earned by works.

Correction: Catholic teaching holds that the beginning and the end of salvation are gifts of grace, and that good works are done by grace. Protestants dispute the language of merit, but the claim that Catholics teach earning without grace is a misreading.

Misunderstanding: Protestants believe that works do not matter.

Correction: Protestant confessions teach that good works are necessary fruits of true faith. The disagreement is about their place in justification, not about whether they are required.

Knowledge check

State the sovereignty and freedom tension, and name two responses.

Claim one: God governs all things. Claim two: people make real choices and are responsible. The apparent collision is that if God determines everything, it seems no one could act otherwise. Reformed theology answers that freedom means acting from one’s own will, even if God’s will governs. Arminians hold that God gives people a real power to accept or refuse grace.

How do the councils state the doctrine of the Trinity?

They state that there is one divine being in three persons, Father, Son and Spirit, distinguished by their relations of origin. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, and the Spirit proceeds. The statement rules out three Gods, and also rules out the view that the persons are only modes of one. It does not explain how this can be.

How do Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox teaching differ on salvation?

Lutherans teach justification by faith alone, with good works as its fruit. Catholic teaching holds that grace begins and completes salvation, and that the person is made righteous and cooperates in good works. Orthodox teaching speaks of a journey of union with God, with grace and human response not set against each other.

What did the 1999 Joint Declaration on Justification say?

It was signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church and stated that the two share a common understanding of basic truths about justification by grace, and that remaining differences in language and emphasis do not warrant mutual condemnations. Some Lutherans and some Catholics have criticized it.

Think it through

  1. Which of the three tensions is most real to you, and which seems more academic?
  2. Do you think the Trinity is best treated as a mystery, a puzzle or a solved problem?
  3. What would it take to change your view on one of these three?

Independent assignment

Three short statements

In your own notebook, write about 200 words on each of the three tensions (about 600 words in all). For each, give both claims with one Scripture passage each, name two responses from different traditions, state your own position and mark it firm, leaning or open. Choose one that you will develop fully in your final synthesis.

Further study