On Sovereignty ... again

... sovereignty as power ...

The idea of sovereignty contains the notion of an ability to control other people or things by sheer power, the arbitrary or informed and reasonable exercise of one's will that limits the freedom or actions of another. I'd like to explore this idea further because I think the ideas we have, particularly in Christendom (this is too broad a sweep of course ), are incongruent with what the texts as a whole suggest, they offend reason, and they create stumbling blocks for others who might otherwise explore their human-being-as-created more fully.

I have often used these ideas in my work when trying to explain the reasons why someone like me would choose, by virtue of the authority I have as a Principal, to limit some of the freedoms my students think they should have. In the end students come to understand that some of the 'sovereignty', authority and power I have is bestowed upon me with an understanding that I have the judgment and wisdom necessary to limit their freedoms ... for their sakes. They also learn that my power to limit freedom and action is constrained by elements of law(human) and moral code.

I understand myself to have limited my own actions and freedoms by choosing to enter into a marriage relationship. The success of this relationship depends, in part, on the extent to which my partner and I put self-chosen boundaries on our freedom as formally unmarried people in the interest of serving each other. When our children were born we further limited our freedom and actions to meet the needs of our family. So, these are examples of how human beings limit the freedom to act they have in the interest of others. It may be a 'stretch' for some to think of this as limiting one's personal sovereignty but this is how I understand the term.

When we use the term 'sovereign' with human leaders in mind the term suggests authority and power to the extent that leaders can speak and act with greater effect over a greater number of people. Rulers have been referred to as 'sovereigns' in as much as they are recognized as having more power and governmental authority to impose their ideas on others by acts of law or ... will. Human history teaches us nothing if not that people in power who impose themselves on others unjustly, or who take themselves too seriously as 'sovereign', or who do not have a clear enough understanding of the fragility of their positions of sovereignty, power and authority, will have their power and sovereignty limited by the greater power and sovereignty of someone else or the masses.

In every case we understand our freedoms to be limited either by the nature of being human in the cosmos (we can't fly as humans without technology) or by others imposing constraints upon us. One's power to control one's life is limited by the existence of others who also have the desire to control their lives and well-being and may have personal objectives that run up against those of another.

Now, no human being can never claim to being absolutely sovereign. To be absolutely sovereign one would need to possess the power to exist without constraints. This would suggest an existence with the ability and facility to control one's environment in every way and in which the environment did not present any constraining limitations on thought or action. Human being is finite, transitory, and fragile. We exist as beings with limitations of knowledge, power, and physical ability; any sovereignty we possess is in some sense bestowed upon us by our abilities of reason and choice.

In religious thinking and conversation the idea of sovereignty, with respect to God, takes on meaning suggested immediately above. In most instances when someone asserts that God is sovereign they mean that God has unlimited knowledge, unlimited power and unlimited extension in space. In the language of religious conversation God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent and these features of the Divine metaphysic are intertwined in very important ways as we try to make sense of human-being-in-the-cosmos and human-being-in-relationship to God.

All his leads us to a couple of central questions. What are the senses in which God is limitless, that is, absolutely sovereign? Further, to what extent is this notion of sovereignty to be applied beyond the Divine metaphysic to the Divine ethic. By this I mean to ask: Is there any sense in which God's sovereignty is constrained by ethical principles or moral law?

There are at least two ways to approach this question. An analysis of the concept of sovereignty runs up on our understanding of the Nature and Character of God, some of which are bound to be stipulative. The most simple approach is also the most argumentative one. It is to take the commonly held notions of sovereignty as applied to God, which may have both metaphysical and moral implications, and explore the ways in which the notion of divine sovereignty is congruent with lived human experience and statements about God out of the sacred texts. This leads into debates about (a) hermeneutics and exegesis, (b) who understands the biblical languages most thoroughly, (c)the nature of broader cultural influences on the writing, translating and understanding of the texts commonly used as sources.

My sense is that many hold to an idea of the 'sovereignty of God' that does violence to the idea of a God of love, mercy, grace and kindness. It is here that one's understanding of the 'natural' attributes of God run into His moral characteristics and confusion sets in. Most often conversations about calamity are the most useful as heuristics for getting at the confusion about the nature and character of God. A very recent calamity will serve the purpose.

A few days ago my daughter went to a concert in our town at which a local Christian band was playing. At the beginning of the event a young man took the platform and said, "Isn't it amazing that God knew about this event from the foundation of the earth?" Now, the suggestion is that everything that occurs happens with God's advance knowledge (remember... many believe that He has unlimited knowledge). Sometime later, at the concert, some equipment came crashing to the floor causing the floor in front of the stage to collapse and two or three dozen people to fall to the basement floor some 12 - 15 feet below. Fortunately the number of injured were few and the severity of most of the injuries was slight. However, there was at least one person who was injured seriously and I understand that the person is experiencing paralysis from the neck down.

I wonder... how does the young speaker, or anyone else, make sense of this calamity in the context of a theology of God's unlimited knowledge, power and presence? The answer for those who believe in God's absolute sovereignty is simple enough: 'God knew it, God may have caused it, God certainly allowed it if nothing else, God had the power to stop it, but God, in His sovereignty has allowed it for some redemptive purpose'. This can be the only answer because there is nothing in this framework that allows for an alternative explanation. Some will say this was an act of evil directed by the Adversary and other malevolent spirits ... and well it may have been ... but this does nothing to assuage the uncertainty around the nature and character of God.

When bad things happen people of faith who live in a Augo-Calvinistic theological view have no 'reasonable' answers that exonerate the character of God. This must not be underestimated or trivialized. The unbeliever reasons as follows: 'If God is sovereign in any sense, then God is ultimately responsible for the harm caused.' When this argument is made the Character of God is called into question. You see, there are no accidents because God causes or allows everything.

My reading of the Judeo-Christian texts, the sources for our ideas of God, suggests that God is 'sovereign' and (READ CAREFULLY) His sovereignty extends as far as to having made choices in creating free moral agents to LIMIT the extent of His own sovereignty. Some will say this is a self-refuting argument but it is not. Really, this argument makes sense if one rejects the Augo-Calvinistic theology and reads the texts well. There are numerous instances of God having changed His mind and of God having made statements indicating that His actions are contingent upon human choices. This means that the definition of 'sovereignty' we presently use (as stated above) is not the one that the texts suggest.

I'd like to make a distinction here that is simple but critical in understanding the nature of God as this relates to His character. God has the natural power to do unfathomable things by human reckoning; He can heal the incurable; He can make things disappear; He can make things come into existence. What God WILL NOT do is act outside the principles of justice and fairness and impartiality as is required in His position as the governmental Sovereign and King of universe.

The governmental order of the universe is defined by the existence of free moral beings (human and angelic) who live under the terms of the Law. Rules for mental and physical action have existed for eternity. As I see it, the Trinitarian Community has lived, lives now and will forever live in the harmony of love because those in the Community (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) choose to love one another all the time and can observe the positive outcomes of love. When They chose to create free moral agents they took a risk and limited their sovereignty in the sense that they would forever be in a most amazing and humbling relationship with Their creatures. They designed free moral agents to choose to enter into the Triune love story, a choice over which God had no ULTIMATE control. Sure, God could cause people to live perfect lives but this would undermine the very reason for creating them...to experience the bliss of freely chosen love.

God is a King and has governmental authority. God's actions are public in the sense that He is careful to be fair in allowing every free agent to choose their destinies and the consequences that follow. This means that the exercise of His mere power (His Natural attributes) is mediated by the moral imperative to be fair and non-arbitrary. recall that the Adversary challenged God's integrity in the matter of Job. The claim of Satan was that Job served God only because he had been blessed rather than because of God's intrinsic value. It should be noted that God COULD NOT arbitrarily exercise power lest He be charged with being unjust relative to others.

Now it is the case, and we learn this from the narratives of the Incarnate One, that God can act in response to the intercession or intervention of created beings. Now the humility and integrity of God can not be understated in this regard. God has, in His sovereignty and by virute of what He has created and the nature of it, that those who live in loving relationship with Him and who conform to standards of moral life designed into our being, can make requests of God and expect to be answered. The texts also suggest that the friends of God can make declarations of authority in the world on His behalf because this is what was originally in the mind of God at creation. In other words, the power of God is at the disposal of His creatures but ONLY it they meet reasonable requirements that even He CANNOT suspend.

The authority of God to exercise is infinite power is limited by the ethical requirements of God-as-Moral-Being and God-as-Moral-Governor. The authority of God to exercise power indiscriminately (because He has it) is limited by His authority as a Moral Being. God's sovereignty is limited to the extent that He has the sovereignty to do so. And God limits the exercise of His power as a Being who is both, just and loving and for whom the risk of creating free beings was worth the outcomes, particularly in light of the life, death and resurrection of the Son.