What is the will of God?
Upvote:0
I have always understood God's will to be made of multiple parts:
Decreetive
- This is God's as-yet-unrevealed (ie, being-revealed) decree of the universe
Preceptive
- This is God's descriptive will as expressed in His Word, the Bible
Application
We cannot "know" what God's hidden purposes and plans are. However, we can analyze every act of human action and of divine providence against what He has revealed in His Word, and see how either a) it falls short of His glory/will, or b) proceeds towards His glory.
Upvote:2
God's will is a goal which Jesus tell us to seek (Mat 6:33). It is the Divine Intellect, set apart from yourself, you can't know it completely. To know it you would have to be God (Mat 11:27).
But if you philosophize about it you'll come to that arduous conclusion that God has two definable wills.
We must distinguish between God's positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my soul, He may mercifully permit my health to be ruined, and thus lead me to Him where He would otherwise lose me. There would have been no diseases had men not sinned. God did not will sin, but having made men free, He permitted it and its consequences. This permission was a less serious thing than would have been the depriving us of our freedom.
For instance, God wills that you follow the Ten Commandments and God wills that you love Him and your neighbor (Mark 12:30-31). God does not will that you break the commandments or hate your neighbor or Him.
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