Tag Archives: causality

The Will OF GOD is Irrelevant

The bible teaches that God has absolute and direct control over all things. He is the only real cause for all things, and there is no such thing as secondary causes. God is the metaphysical author of sin and evil. God has predestined all things by His own goals and choices, and decrees all reality in a logical order in relation to His goals (supralapsarianism).  There is no such thing as free-will. Man is responsible because he is not free but under God’s sovereign control and command.  Because God absolutely and directly causes all things, He absolutely and directly causes the predestination of the elect and reprobate. Logic and deduction are so easy. As Romans 9 says, God takes from the neutral lump (before good or evil) and by the same power and choice makes some to be evil reprobates and some to be righteous elect.  God has not given up some of His control to man, because free-will does not exist, because the bible never says He made this choice, and because the nature of God insures that there is no difference in how direct and absolute He causes one thing or another in creation. God’s thoughts, power and choice are one and the same. Because He thinks about it and decides on it, it is reality. Therefore, in the ultimate sense, God Will is the only relevant issue.

I say all of this to state a broad and correct doctrine of God’s sovereignty, so that I am not misunderstood in my following comments.

When we pray for healing, miracles or forgiveness the “will of God,” (referring to His causality, not commands), is irrelevant. As Vincent Cheung points out in “Healing: The Will of Man,” to talk about the “will of God” in this context is already a partial defeat, because the bible talks about man’s will, not God’s will.

The bible’s positive doctrine is that healing is about the will of man, not the will of God. This is how the scripture presents the subject. Jesus never asked the Father if it was God’s will to heal a particular person; rather, He always asked if it was the man or woman’s will to be healed.  Jesus then said to his disciples and followers, “you heal the sick.” The will of God (referring to His decrees/causality) was never brought up; only “man’s will,” was brought up. The will of God was simply irrelevant. Jesus, who is more God-centered than you or your favorite pastor, taught us the “will of God,” was irrelevant, and that “man’s will” was the relevant issue.

Some are more accustomed to think about the atonement and forgiveness and so we will start here. The big idea, is that healing (Isaiah 53, Matth 8, James 5, Gal. 3) is as much the gospel and substitutionary atonement as forgiveness is, if not more so.

So here is the question: is the “will of God,” relevant for salvation or conversion? It is not relevant, if I am the one answering it. I am not asking a broad doctrinal question. I am asking it as Jesus would ask a person, “do you want to be healed”? Do you want to be forgiven? I am asking it the way Moses says, “I have presented to you life and death,” now make a choice. I am asking it the way the bible personally addresses me with its promises and commands, telling me that I must respond to it.

The “will of God” is irrelevant for my salvation, because what God decrees and causes is irrelevant in my response to obey the command of God to repent. Paul in Acts 17 commands us to repent of our sins. It is not a choice or suggestion. When I evaluate how I should behave I only use the commands of God to do this, not God’s secret decrees or causality. For example, in Romans 5 Paul says God caused me to be born a sinner, with a sinful heart, because of what Adam did. If I were to use the “will of God,” as a relevant factor in my decision to repent of my sins or not, then I would recognize it was the will of God to decree and cause me to be born a sinner, thus I will choose to stay a sinner until God decrees and causes me to repent.

I will assume most will see the error of this.  It is obvious that God’s Will is irrelevant in my consideration if I should repent of my sins. The relevant issue is God’s command for me to repent.  If a person uses the “will of God” as a relevant issue to exempt them from having to repent of their sins, we would see this as an excuse to be rebellious and unbelieving.

The same is for healing and other various miracles and supernatural experiences.  Healing is provided by the same atonement that provided forgiveness. Both are already accomplished and both are received on the demand of faith. God is sovereign over our faith, but on the demand of faith God always does what He promises. Faith always receives, and God is sovereign over faith. However, even though God is sovereign over faith (God’s Will), we are never told to consider it as relevant knowledge when we choose to believe a promise or not.  When we are in the context of a “should” or “ought” the category is always about God’s command.

In John 15 Jesus uses God’s predestination as an encouragement to ask whatever we want and get it.  Peter does the same thing in Acts 2 about the baptism of the Spirit for power. And so the Will of God is relevant in the topic of valuing God’s encouragement and explanation. Even though God’s Will is used by scripture to encourage our confidence for miracles and answered prayer, yet, when dealing with the topic of the scripture commanding me to repent and commanding me to receive healing and the gospel (James 5:15, John 14,15, Gal.3, Acts 2) the only relevant category is God’s command, not God’s Will.

Thus, when we pray for healing, God’s Will is irrelevant. The Will of God, is a non-issue. To have the Will of God, pop up into your head when praying for healing, is like having the decree of God that made you a sinner(Rom 5), pop into your head as a relevant issue if you should repent or not, and question if God would forgive if you had faith in Jesus.  It is insane and delusional.

The Will of God is irrelevant when considering if God will save you if you repent in faith; it is a non-issue. The Will of God is irrelevant when considering if God will heal you if you command sickness to leave with faith; it is a non-issue.

“Oh, God, please forgive me. I am powerless. You have done nothing yet, but you could do something, Oh powerful and eternal God. You made me a sinner because of Adam’s sin, and so, I don’t know if You have decreed me to be saved or not, and so, If it is your Will, please forgive my sins.”

This insane prayer is how many pray about healing. They are stupid and sinful. The bible never tells us to pray like this. Such a person should not expect to be forgiven of their sin. And if they pray for healing like this, they should not expect to be healed. To pray, while using the Will of God as a relevant issue, will divorce you from being forgiven and healed; It is a prayer of death.

When Peter said, “What I have, I give, in Jesus Name, walk,” the Will of God never came up, because the Will of God is irrelevant. Jesus commanded His followers to heal the sick. This command is the relevant issue, not the Will of God. The Will of God is a non-issue in the context of my healing, or your healing. When you bring in the Will of God as a relevant issue for healing or forgiveness the end results in God’s command being negated. The category of God’s decree and command are different and so should never be used to void each other out, or mixed together.

“Oh God, by Your Will I was made sick, and so I don’t know if I should be healed or not, but please, heal me if it is Your Will.”

 This is a prayer of death. It is a prayer of insanity and disobedience. This prayer uses God’s decree as an excuse to avoid obeying God’s command to be healed.  To use God’s decree to excuse yourself from obeying any of God’s commands such as receiving forgiveness or receiving healing, is stupid and wicked.

Although, there is nothing wrong for a salvation prayer to “ask God into your heart,” yet there are more precise ways to describe it.  Peter in his Pentecost sermon gives direction for a salvation prayer. He instructs the audience to ““Repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ.” Notice Peter did not instruct them to “ask” God to forgive them; rather, he tells them to repent in Jesus’ Name to be saved. Why? Because Jesus already died and was resurrected. The forgiveness already happened. We are not asking God to crucify His Son again to forgive us, because it already happened.  We are not asking God to do anything in the present tense to forgive us, because Jesus already accomplished it. Because it has been accomplished all we do is repent.  In this context we do not ask or beg. It is when a person has confidence in Jesus’ finished atonement, they repent of their sins in Jesus’ Name. Salvation in this sense is a confession, and not asking and begging. We confess our sins and that is all it takes. Faith is about God letting you know He has already forgiven you, and by repenting you are agreeing with God.  It is foundationally about agreeing and confessing and not asking.

Other gospel benefits such as a healing, and the authority to cast out demons and cast down mountains is the same. They have been accomplished by Jesus’ finished atonement. We do not ask and beg for them, because they have been accomplished by Jesus and given to us. It is irrational to beg for something that already belongs to you.  It was the stripes on Jesus’ back that healed us. And so, it is irrational to ask God to heal us, as if He needs to break out the whip again and start slashing Jesus in the throne room. God accomplished our healing in Jesus’ atonement. Thus, we don’t beg for it, because it is already ours.  As with salvation, we repent as a confession of confidence in Jesus finished atonement, rather than beg and ask forgiveness. The same with healing. It is the Will of Man to command sickness to leave. We confess and agree with God, rather than beg and ask. This is why Jesus tells us to “heal the sick, and cast out demons.” When we command healing and command demons to leave, we are giving a confident confession in the finished atonement of Jesus, which has given us the healing and authority to do such things.

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GOD IS THE METAPHYSICAL AUTHOR OF ALL THINGS, EVEN SIN

I got the term “metaphysical author of sin and evil” from Vincent Cheung. See his Systematic Theology, Commentary on Ephesians, and Author of Sin for the original source. I developed my own doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty—yes, even occasionalism—on my own as a teenager from reading the Bible. It was the Word and the Spirit that taught me these things, not Calvin or Luther. Vincent helped me expand the understanding, make necessary adjustments, and make it concise. His materials also helped with the explanation of accountability below. My later Systematic Theology 2026 (Faith Edition) simply puts the same doctrine in fuller systematic form: God is the direct, absolute, metaphysical cause of all things, including sin and evil. No dualism. No independent secondary causes relative to Him.

“Metaphysical” here means reality and especially causality (ontology points even more directly at causality). We are focusing on causality. Simple illustration: I pick up my pen and cause it to write “trees are blue.” Who is the author of that sentence? The pen (the object) or me (the cause moving the object)? You separate the categories of cause and object. The pen is not the author. I am.

God directly and immediately causes a demon to tempt a person. The demon is the object. God is the cause. The tempter is still the object doing the tempting. That is precisely why God cannot tempt anyone (James 1:13). If God Himself directly told you to kill person X, it would not be a temptation—it would be a command. There is no such thing as a “secondary cause” in relation to God Himself. He directly causes all things. Creation has relative descriptions between objects (a demon tempts, a man sins, a river flows), but those are never ultimate. God is the sole metaphysical author.

Someone will inevitably object: “If God authors sin, then sinners can hurl it back at Him and say, ‘You are the real sinner!’”

What does “real” sinner even mean? If it means the object that is sinning, it is impossible for God to be a “real sinner.” God defines sin as a man breaking a command given to man (1 John 3:4—lawlessness). God did not command Himself. He commanded man. Those laws do not logically apply to Him. There is also no authority over God. Responsibility is defined by not having freedom from being under an authority who holds you to a definition. God is not under any authority. Therefore the terms “sinning” and “God” are logically impossible together. To accuse God of being a “real sinner” is to accuse Him of being a “real law-breaker under a real authority.” Fallacy. Dumb. Blasphemy.

Oddly, the same people will say God is Ex-lex (above the law) and in the next breath claim God would be sinning if He authored or directly caused someone to sin. I often feel like I am talking to brick walls when dealing with tradition. “God is above the law… but if He causes me to sin, then God is under a law, because then God would be guilty of sinning, which presupposes a law over God.” Brilliant. Mystery. Insane.

God did not command Himself, “Thou shalt not murder” or “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Those commands were given to man—not to God, not to trees, not to monkeys. It is a categorical fallacy to say God sinned. It is impossible for God to break a law that was never applied to Him. Do trees commit sin when they fail to confess Jesus the Son of God? Or is it simply irrational to smash those two categories together? It is exactly like asking, “Can God create an infinitely heavy rock that He cannot lift?” God is not physical; the category of “heavy” does not apply. The question is nonsense. The same is true of God and sin. The laws do not apply to Him.

God is not what He authors. If God creates a river, God is not a river. To call God a river because He created it is another logical category fallacy. It also smuggles in pantheism. There is no formal validity to the claim that what you create, you yourself are. Creating something else and your own being are two different categories. If I form a clay pot, I am not a clay pot. Why do I even need to say this to adults?

Likewise, God is not what He causes. If God causes a lion to go south into a valley, God Himself is not a south-bound lion. If “author” means the one who causes something to happen in a story, it is still a category mistake to say the author is what he authors. If Johnny writes in a novel that a lion walked south into a valley, Johnny is not a lion moving south. The same holds with God. If God authors or causes a river to flow north, God is not Himself a north-flowing river. This is logic at the most basic level—the law of identity.

Therefore no one can accuse God of being a sinner even though God causes them to sin or authors their sin. It would be a logical fallacy—like saying “wet dryness” or “square circle.”

The fact that a person thinks God is somehow accusable because He is the author of all things exposes how little they think of God. It shows how small God is in their minds. It exposes that they are mixing categories as if reality were their personal playdough. It exposes that they are presupposing pantheism. They play lip service to total sovereignty, but they love God’s sovereignty no more than demons love God’s power.

Some have told me, “If what you say is true, then ultimately there will be no human accountability and thus no judgment.”

That is like saying, “Because God directly controls all things, it means God does not control the weather.” Insane. Brick walls are not known for their intelligence.

It is because God is sovereign over man, and man is not free from God sovereignly holding him accountable, that man is accountable. Man’s lack of freedom relative to God, and God’s absolute and direct sovereign control over man, is the very thing that makes man accountable. Romans 9 deals with this directly—not indirectly. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and then punished Pharaoh for it. Paul gives the typical objection: “How is man accountable to God if God is the one controlling man?” Paul’s answer is: God is the Potter and man is the clay. God molds the man however He wants. God takes from the same neutral lump (not already sinful or already good) and molds one vessel for righteousness and mercy and another for sin and destruction. Paul’s answer for why man is accountable in light of God’s sovereign control is simply that God is sovereign and man is not free from that control. The one thing that is not part of the answer is “freedom.” That is the Bible’s answer. Your theology needs to include it.

Human accountability is based on God holding something accountable. The fact that a human is not free from God holding him accountable is precisely what makes him accountable. Freedom is not the presupposition of accountability; the lack of freedom from being under a sovereign God is. Men are not free relative to God’s control over them, and that is what makes them accountable. Accountability presupposes a sovereign over you, not freedom.

Tradition teaches that “the author is accountable.” Scripture says the opposite. The Potter molds the clay from the same neutral lump and shapes it how He wants. It is the sovereign freedom of the Potter and the lack of freedom of the clay that makes the clay accountable.

Such comments expose a person’s view of God. This is not a word game. People imply they have the right to hold God accountable because He is the author of all things. Defining terms is the least of their problems. Their view of God is so man-centered, pathetic, and distorted that they would hold God accountable “because He is the author of your sin.” They are so stupid that in the very context of “God is so sovereign that He causes me to sin,” they think they can still “hold God accountable for committing sin.” But if God is already that sovereign, you obviously have no justification to hold God accountable to anything. Not only are there the category errors already pointed out, but the opponent does not even have enough intelligence to apply a consistent critique to the statement. Their own critique answers their own question.

Where does the Bible say that God being the Author makes Him accountable? Accountable to whom? A man? Accountability only works if there is a sovereign over you. The only way God “as Author” could be “accountable” is if they are an author over God. The blasphemy they utter is so bad I feel polluted just repeating it. It is very telling that in order to critique the doctrine they had to put God under their feet and author Him into accountability. That is exactly what God will do to all who rebel against Him.

The clay does not get to put the Potter on trial.

[1] The last two quotes from Romans 9 was paraphrased by me.