My admittedly glib post about John Piper’s latest Job’s friend defense of God has gotten me knocked about a bit here and elsewhere on the Internet. For the glibness, I deserve it, but I really do not understand the stance on God’s sovereignty. For instance, this comment from one reader:
What Piper is saying is true and biblical. If we sacrifice God’s sovereignty in order to absolve God of any responsibility in not preventing someone’s death, then we make God subject to things out of his control, and then we can’t rely on him for anything, at least not with 100% confidence that what God is doing will turn out for good, because you never know if this is one of the instances that will turn out to be a mistake or one of the spots where God loses a risky bet.
First, I notice that Piper and this commenter do the same thing. They say my unwillingness to say God ordained Sept. 11 is because I am trying to get God off the hook for evil. Actually, I am unwilling to say that because I believe God gave those terrorists the free will to reject his grace and love – which they did. I’m fine if you want to say God could have created a universe without free will and is therefore in that sense responsible for evil – even particular acts of evil. But when a little girl asks if God killed her daddy, I say, no, the terrorists did.
Contary to the commenter’s point, I miss the part where saying God killed this little girl’s father is in any way related to my trust and faith in his ability to bring good out of evil or keep his covenants.
Some people may need to say God ordains the rape of children so they can trust God’s ability to keep his promises, but I do not. I trust God will keep his promises even though people often turn their backs on those promises and reject his offer of free grace.
I don’t understand why that is so hard for Piper and other Calvinists to affirm?
They seem to be saying that God’s sovereignty is bound by human logic. If we cannot hold two things in our heads at once, it must not be possible for God. Why?
Why is logic more powerful than God?
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
If a little girl asks if God killed her daddy, I say no. The terrorists did it. If a little girl asks if God knew her daddy was going to die and had good purposes for it, I say yes. Because that’s the biblical view that Piper is defending. Anything short of that doesn’t allow us to trust God.
Now I’m not sure why you’re presenting this as a false dilemma between (1) saying that God allows people freedom to reject his free offer of grace and (2) saying that God’s sovereign plan includes allowing every particular event that takes place. It’s not just Calvinists who think that’s a false dilemma. Any consistent Wesleyan/Arminian view of divine sovereignty accepts both of those. Only open theists deny their compatibility.
Regardless of any theological accuracy of asserting that God ordains the suffering of individuals, saying so to a survivor is simply awful pastoral care.
So you think he was giving the literal words he’d use to a child in such a situation? That strikes me as a pretty uncharitable reading of what he was saying. It seemed to me that he was explaining the theological justification for why he wouldn’t give her an open theistic response, but I’d be extremely surprised if he gave an answer in the actual situation that expresses it in those terms.
Jeremy, I am only taking his own words at face value.
Indeed, he has offered this kind of pastoral guidance before to children. This time to his daughter when a bridge collapsed in Minnesota killing 13 and injuring 145 people.
http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/745
The conclusion: God allowed the bridge to collapse because he wanted to send a message to the people in the city.
So, far from a theological justification, I think Piper was offering his specific pastoral guidance for such situations.
I read what you linked to, and that’s not what he says. What he says is that he’s pretty sure one reason God allowed the bridge to collapse is because he wants people to be saved. But so what if God allowed it to collapse because he wanted to send a message? That’s certainly like the reasons God gives in the scriptures for some of the things he does or refrains from doing. The prophets repeatedly say that God allows foreign nations to oppress Israel in order to remind them of their unfaithfulness to the covenant.
Now I’m not sure what you’re objecting to. You took issue with his exact words when his exact words may not have been the exact words he gave in the pastoral moment, since he was summarizing it in a sermon or something later. I said we don’t know what his exact words but that he was making a legitimate theological point that, even if not best worded that way, would have been fine to make in a pastoral setting. Your response seems to be that he made similar theological points in pastoral care settings elsewhere, although I’m not sure talking to his daughter after the bridge’s collapse is quite like talking to a family member of someone killed in the 9-11 attacks. But I’ve already defended the theological point. So pointing out the same theological point somewhere else doesn’t help. You’ll need to find him using those exact words.
Here is what I thought your complain was. I thought you were complaining about Piper perhaps misleading them by saying something that sounds as if God might have thought their suffering was intrinsically good, when it’s not. It’s just a means to an important enough end that it’s all right morally to allow the intrinsic bad. I resisted by saying that I’m sure when actually talking to a little girl he wouldn’t be speaking in exactly the terms he was using to summarize it in his later discussion. He’s be clearer and speak language a little girl understands, and he’d be clear that God’s allowance doesn’t amount to thinking the death itself is good rather than that God is using it for good. His conversation with his daughter, as told after-the-fact (and again probably in summary and without exactly the wording of the real events) seems to me to confirm that he would speak in language a little girl understands and not convey the false view that suffering is intrinsically good.
Now maybe you’re just objecting to the theological point that we should assure the suffering that God is in control and that God has purposes behind their suffering. You can be free to disagree with that if you want. But I’m not going to concede that it’s pastorally unwise to say that. I’d insist that a pastor fails for not saying something like that. Without assuring someone that God wasn’t taken by surprise and that God has a plan so that all things will work out for the best, we give less than the gospel. There are certainly plenty of other things that would be good to say, and I think Carson’s book How Long O Lord? is much better at capturing those things than Piper does in these posts, but I think it’s unconscionable to leave those out and give the impression that God takes risks and is taken by surprise when something awful happens.
Jeremy,
You keep suggesting that I am arguing that God is taken by surprise by things.
Did I write that somewhere? I feel as if you are putting words in my mouth whenyou keep bringing that up.
In my community two weeks ago a man took a 9mm handgun and shot out the brains of a 14-month-old child. Are you saying that God willed that act? What good was he attempting to work in the world by doing that?
Piper wants to say, yes. He says God has a plan and this is part of it. But then he stops short because – of course – he does not know the mind of God. So, what starts up as a defense of God’s sovereign power ends in either silence or platitudes that may or may not have anything to do with God.
Piper’s need to be reassured that God is in control does little to glorify God in this instance. His inability to explain why particular evils happen – beyond “because God said so” – does not present a holy, just, and loving God. It does not reassure. It merely leads to more questions that he cannot answer. In the end, he is forced to tell us that such questions are beyond our knowledge.
If that is the case, then why start down that road at all? You are going to eventually hit the whirlwind in Job that tells us that our ways are not God’s ways.
Perhaps Piper would say at this point that the good Christian thing is to submit in silence before God’s power and majesty. But if that is the case, why not just start by admitting that we don’t know why these terrible things happened? Why is there this reflexive need to tell people in pain and grief that “it will all work out for the best in the end.”
If I hit you in the head with a hammer, would you accept that explanation from me?
My point is that rather than having a reflexive rush to defend God’s power – which does not need defense from us in any event – why not worry more about God’s love, compassion, and shared suffering with his beloved creatures?
I suspect I have not moved our discussion forward. But that is my point for the day.
Grace and peace to you.
I’m not saying that you do think God takes risks and gets surprised. I’m saying that that’s the position Piper is arguing against. He’s not arguing against Wesleyanism/Arminianism in these quotes. He’s arguing against open theism. A Wesleyan/Arminian should express a similar view of God’s sovereignty over all affairs by at least recognizing that God could have prevented any particular event. Since Piper insists in almost every one of these quotes that the reason he’s concerned about this is exactly because he thinks God could have prevented anything that happens, that should be clear.
As for the need to tell people that things will work out, I think Paul would beg to differ with you. A large portion of Romans 8 would be unnecessary and designed to satisfy a non-need if you were correct about this.
Piper isn’t talking about hitting someone in the head with a hammer and then excusing it. He’s talking about when a bad thing happens to someone that God allows.
Jeremy,
I appeciate your patience and your persistence.
If I can come up with a way to explain myself that won’t cause us to go around this same circle again, I will try. Until then, peace.