Toward A Christian Worldview - Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed

Chapter 3: A Biblical Theodicy
sin, apart from God’s will. Adam had a “liberty of indifference” to the
will of God. God merely permitted man to sin.
The idea of God’s merely permitting man to sin, however, is
wholly unbiblical, and does not give us a solution. God permitted
Satan to afflict Job (Job 1-2). But because this permission was necessary
prior to the affliction, God is hardly exonerated. If He could have
prevented Job’s trial, and yet willingly approved it, how can God be
considered as less reprehensible than if He decreed it. This notion of
permission and free will cannot exist with the omnipotence of God.
Neither is the Arminian view of free will compatible with God’s
omniscience, because omniscience renders the future certain. If God
foreknows all things, then of necessity they will come to pass; otherwise,
they could not have been “foreknown.” God foreknew, even
foreordained, the crucifixion of His Son by the hands of sinful men.
Yet, Scripture tells us that the godless men who carried out the crucifixion
are held responsible for their wicked actions (Acts 2:22-23;
4:27-28). Could they have done differently? Could Judas Iscariot have
not betrayed Jesus Christ? To ask these questions is to answer them; of
course not! The Bible teaches us that God decrees all things that will
ever come to pass: “Known to God from eternity are all His works”
(Acts 15:18). Hence, Arminianism’s attempted refuge in free will is
both futile and false; for the Bible consistently denies the Arminians’
view of free will.
Reformed theology does not disavow the fact that Adam (and all
men after him) had a “free will” in the sense of “free moral agency.”
All men have freedom of choice in this sense of the term. Men of
necessity choose to do what they want to do; in fact, the could not do
otherwise. What Reformed theology does deny is that man has the
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