Toward A Christian Worldview - Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed

Chapter 3: A Biblical Theodicy
The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite
goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence,
that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of
angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as
has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise
ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation,
to His own holy ends; yet so as the sinfulness thereof
proceeds only from the creature, and not from God; who, being
most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or
approver of sin.
God, says the Confession, is the sovereign first cause of all things,
many of which occur through the free acts of men, which are second
causes. The end which is decreed by God must never be separated
from the means which He has also decreed, as second causes. And this
is the reason, according to the Confession, that God is not to be considered
“the author or approver of sin.” God is the sovereign first
cause of sin, but He is not the author of sin. Only second causes sin,
and therefore they alone can be authors of sin.
This view taught by the Westminster divines is the Calvinistic
concept of “determinism.” The word determinism often carries with it
an evil connotation, but this should not be the case. In actuality, determinism
expresses a very Biblical and high view of God, and it gives
us the only plausible theodicy. God determines or decrees every event
of history and every action of man.
Moreover, whatever God decrees is right simply because He
decrees it. God can never err. God, says the Scripture, answers to no
one: “He does not give an accounting of any of His words” (Job
33:13). He is the lawgiver (Isaiah 33:22); man is under the law (sub
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