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laws. Naturally, we must guard against all determinism, materialistic, pantheistic, and
rationalistic, in our conception of freedom in the sense of rational self-determination.
The decree is no more inconsistent with free agency than foreknowledge is, and yet the
objectors, who are generally of the Semi-Pelagian or Arminian type, profess to believe in divine
foreknowledge. By His foreknowledge God knows from all eternity the certain futurition of all
events. It is based on His foreordination, by which He determined their future certainty. The
Arminian will of course, say that he does not believe in a foreknowledge based on a decree
which renders things certain, but in a foreknowledge of facts and events which are contingent
on the free will of man, and therefore indeterminate. Now such a foreknowledge of the free
actions of man may be possible, if man even in his freedom acts in harmony with divinely
established laws, which again bring in the element of certainty; but it would seem to be
impossible to foreknow events which are entirely dependent on the chance decision of an
unprincipled will, which can at any time, irrespective of the state of the soul, of existing
conditions, and of the motives that present themselves to the mind, turn in different directions.
Such events can only be foreknown as bare possibilities.
2. IT TAKES AWAY ALL MOTIVES FOR HUMAN EXERTION.
This objection is to the effect that
people will naturally say that, if all things are bound to happen as God has determined them,
they need not concern themselves about the future and need not make any efforts to obtain
salvation. But this is hardly correct. In the case of people who speak after that fashion this is
generally the mere excuse of indolence and disobedience. The divine decrees are not addressed
to men as a rule of action, and cannot be such a rule, since their contents become known only
through, and therefore after, their realization. There is a rule of action, however, embodied in
the law and in the gospel, and this puts men under obligation to employ the means which God
has ordained.
This objection also ignores the logical relation, determined by God’s decree, between the
means and the end to be obtained. The decree includes not only the various issues of human
life, but also the free human actions which are logically prior to, and are destined to bring
about, the results. It was absolutely certain that all those who were in the vessel with Paul (Acts
27) were to be saved, but it was equally certain that, in order to secure this end, the sailors had
to remain aboard. And since the decree establishes an interrelation between means and ends,
and ends are decreed only as the result of means, they encourage effort instead of discouraging
it. Firm belief in the fact that, according to the divine decrees, success will be the reward of toil,
is an inducement to courageous and persevering efforts. On the very basis of the decree
Scripture urges us to be diligent in using the appointed means, Phil. 2:13; Eph. 2:10.