The Difficult Doctrine of the Will of God

Some years ago, Don Carson wrote a short and important small book called The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. In that book he explains how what may appear to be the most straightforward of doctrines, that the God of the Bible is a God of love is, in fact, quite a difficult doctrine once we explore its various implications. 

If Dr Carson was so inclined, I'm sure he could write another book called The Difficult Doctrine of the Will of God.

God's will is an area of theology that might appear to be straightforward at first glance. Isn't the will of God simply what God wants? Well yes, but it is a lot more complicated than that. Whatever else it is, the doctrine concerning God's will is actually far from simple or straightforward once we begin to explore the subject in some depth. And even as simple a definition as 'what God wants' requires much exploration and careful balancing of various parts of the biblical evidence to create a rounded doctrine of the will of God.

The Will of God is One 

The first point that needs clarified is that God truly has but one will. God does not have two separate or conflicting wills. He is not divided in himself. Not only does this truth flow from the simplicity of God, but it also from the express truths of Scripture.

The Appearance of Two Wills in God

Although in himself God only has one will, yet in appearance to his us, his creatures, God's will is customarily discussed as having two senses.

The theologians discuss these two senses of God's will in a number of different ways, each of which is valid and useful. They all view the same distinction in the will of God in similar ways; yet, each has a distinct element also.

1. The Secret Will and the Revealed Will (Voluntas Arcana and Voluntas Revelata)

2. The Decretive Will (Will of Decree or The Sovereign Efficacious Will) and the Preceptive Will (Will of Precept or Command)

3. The Will of Good Will (Voluntas Beneplaciti) and the Will of Sign (Voluntas Signi)

4. The Will of God's Purpose and the Will of God's Delight (also called the Will of Good Pleasure (Eudokia) and the Will of Complacency (Euarestia).

There is a similarity between each of these types of distinction. They all involve the word "will" being used in different senses.

In some ways the secret/revealed will distinction is the least useful or accurate. The secret will is God's sovereign will which is always accomplished. The revealed will is what God wants us to do in order to please him. So, for example, God's revealed will is clear that he does not want us to murder; yet his secret will permits murders to happen every day. The main issue for me with this terminology is that God has revealed that he has a secret will (i.e. that he has a sovereign decree) and so although the details of it may be secret prior to events happening, the fact that he has such a will is no secret. 

For this reason, I prefer the distinction between a will of decree and a will of precept or command. This makes the same point as the secret/revealed will distinction, but in a clearer more accurate manner.

God's will in one sense is what his commands and prohibitions say. Do not steal is God's will. Preach the gospel to every creature is God's will—in the preceptive sense. But in the decretive sense, God's will is what ordains everything that comes to pass. Both types of will ultimately spring from the character and attributes of God, though the will of decree includes within it things that God chooses to permit that he does not approve of, for a greater purpose.

The distinction between the Voluntas Beneplaciti and the Voluntas Signi is very similar, with the former being the decree and the latter being the will of command.

Likewise, the will of God's purpose is the decree and the will of God's delight is his preceptive or revealed will.

All of these distinctions recognise that although God's will is one, there are two senses in which Scripture talks of the will of God. 

In all instances, in one sense, God's will is what he decrees to take place, what his purpose represents, and it is all encompassing, including things which God does not like or approve of. He permits sin to occur for his own purposes, including ultimately to manifest his own glory in the display of his justice and wrath. All things that happen are God's will in this sense. Yet we may not utilise the fact that something happened to conclude that it is God's will in the other sense of being something God approves of, delights in, or enjoys.

If we want to get an idea of what God likes, delights in, approves of, or wants us to do. If we would seek to please God by our actions, then we must look to the revealed will, the preceptive will, the will of the sign, the will of God's delight. We dare not try to extract this from analysing God's decree, since it includes both what God delights in, and what God detests. The revealed will of God is our guide for how God wants us to live.

If God's word commands us, guides us, invites us or asks us, we can be sure that such an action as complies with God's word pleases him. Likewise, if God's word commands us not to, warns us, forbids us, then we can be sure than doing what God commands us not to do will displease God and refraining from any prohibition pleases him.  

The Simple and the Complex Sense

Another useful distinction made by theologians regarding God's will is known as the simple and complex (or compound) senses. The Reformed theologian, Francis Turretin, deals with this in his Institutes.

As I understand the concept, the simple sense involves looking at an event in isolation, as an event in itself. The complex or compound sense involves looking at the thing in relation to everything else.

The value of this insight is obvious when we look at some examples. Take for example the murder of a person. In the simple sense, God clearly condemns and opposes the unlawful taking of a human life. However, in the complex sense, God does permit murders to take place for his own ultimate purposes. Similarly, in the simple sense God wills that everyone who hears the gospel would respond in faith and find salvation in Christ. Yet in the compound sense, God wills only to save his chosen ones, the elect, and not to save everyone who hears the gospel. This is not mere double-talk. We must remember that the simple sense looks at each event as a thing in itself where the complex sense looks at the overall picture, including all things.

This approach is essentially that adapted by John Piper, who talks about looking at God's will in a narrow lens and a wide-angled lens. God can, in this way, be said to desire the salvation of all, viewed in the simple or narrow lens, but only to desire the salvation of the elect in the wide-angled sense, because although in a sense God desires to save all, his desire to glorify himself in the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate is his highest motivation.  

Delight, Desire and Wishes

A final distinction worth mentioning is another important one. The distinction is between God's constitutional attitudes and God's volitions. The former are part of God's nature but need not be part of God's actual will. The latter also stem from God's nature but are also part of God's volition, his will.

The distinction recognises that God may have delight in certain things, and desires or wishes for certain ends that stem only from his constitution or nature but are not part of his sovereign or decretive will, though such desires may find expression the revealed or preceptive will. 

Conclusions

It will be clear from these descriptions that there is a close relationship between what has alternatively been called God's constitutional attitudes in his nature, the simple sense and "revealed" or "preceptive" "will" of God. Likewise there is a correlation between God's volitional choices, the complex or compound sense, and God's sovereign will or the will of decree.

Bearing these distinctions in mind helps us safely and accurately chart a course through the Bible and all that the Scriptures teach concerning the will of God. When we forget these distinctions or blur them or flatten them out we will run into serious theological errors if not heresy. This is one of the false trails that all those who deny God's decree take. They oversimplify and fail to take into account all the Scriptures teach. 

Reformed theology, on the other hand, gives full scope to the entirety of Scripture regarding this difficult doctrine of the will of God.