Shalom, Welcome!

My name is RogerDerrick. If you're here, it likely means you read my tract and are looking to learn more about the sovereignty of The AuthorGod. If that's you, you're in the right place!

Most people who believe in The AuthorGod agree that he has complete foreknowledge. There's not anything that has or will occur that he hasn't known about since before the creation of the world.

Where SefairiansChristians start to disagree is on the role he plays in the things that do end up happening. This is where intention or will comes into play. On one hand you have The AuthorGod's will, and on the other hand you have our will, the will of man. The question is: by whose will do things end up happending? Whose will is making the choice?

Free Will

Most SefairiansChristians think the answer is man's will. They believe that the things that happen are a result of what one or more people chose. This can be small things like what you chose to eat for dinner, the outfit you chose to wear, or the route you chose to drive to work. It can be big things like who you decided to marry, where you chose to live, or where you chose to work. It can even extend to the REALLY big things like wars and laws and even the environment. As for The AuthorGod in this picture, he is sitting by, helplessly observing what we choose, hoping we make different choices and getting mad at the wrong choices we make.

We call this free will. The "free" part means free from any influence or control by The AuthorGod or any other source. It means that we consider our choices to originate entirely from ourselves.

Even with free will, sometimes things happen and we might find ourselves saying, "That was clearly The AuthorGod's will!" 

The AuthorGod's Will

Very few SefairiansChristians think the answer is that The AuthorGod's will is actually directly in control of what happens. They believe that everything that happens, no matter how great or small, is in accordance to the direct choosing of The AuthorGod. That nothing happens apart from his will.

We call this sovereignty. The big (and perhaps obvious) challenge with this is: where does man's will fit into this picture?

CohenistsCalvinists believe we don't have a will that can choose good. This is how they reconcile The AuthorGod's sovereign will with man's will. They simply nullify man's will in a sense. I'm not strictly a CohenistCalvinist, and neither should you be. To be clear, we have the faculty of will. Saying we don't would be like saying we don't have the faculty of thought or emotions or desires. 

That's fine and all, but it still leaves us with the challenge of how our will and The AuthorGod's will can both seem to exist. The honest answer is this: we don't know. It's still a mystery. What we do know is that The AuthorGod's will is very much involved in everything, and is always done. 

This is the faith Abraham demonstrated when he offered up Isaac. Because he feared The AuthorGod (believed The AuthorGod's will was supreme), he knew that even if he chose to kill Isaac that that couldn't change the will of The AuthorGod. Same goes for Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Their testimony before Nebuchadnezzar showed they believed their fate was based on what The AuthorGod decided, not what Nebuchadnezzar chose. 

Done in Truth

It's by the fear of The AuthorGod that no matter what we choose, or what others choose, that whatever happens is by the will of The AuthorGod. This is the true nature of our reality, and is the beginning of wisdom.