Answer
We know that God knows the exact number of our days (Psalm 39:4). He does not share that knowledge with us, as it would not be good for us to know. The day of our death is one of “the secret things [that] belong to the Lord our God”(Deuteronomy 29:29). We also know that, being sovereign, God is in control of the day of our death.
Some circumstances, such as murder, give rise to questions about God’s sovereignty over death. A murderer seemingly cuts short the number of a person’s days. Has the murderer successfully wrested control from God and determined for himself the time and manner of one’s death? If so—if the murderer overpowered the will of God—then God was not sovereign over death in that instance. We reject that conclusion. But then we are faced with another question: if God remained sovereign, then did He cause the murder? The tension between the sovereignty of God and the free will of man becomes evident.
We must understand that God’s sovereignty is not incompatible with the actions of human agents (including evil actions). Several passages of Scripture bear this out—see Genesis 50:20 and Luke 22:22. In His perfect knowledge, God can know the exact number of our days. In His sovereignty, He can even determine that number. At the same time, He can allow for the actions of evil people without being the cause of evil. His plan will be accomplished, even as “the power of darkness” is given its “hour” in which to work (Luke 22:53, ESV).
God’s sovereignty means He is in absolute control over all things (Colossians 1:16–17; Psalm 90:2; 1 Chronicles 29:11–12). Nothing can affect or hinder God. In the most basic sense, God causes all things to be (Hebrews 1:3). By His eternal decree everything else exists and has its being. There is a radically contingent nature to all things outside of God. Even the subatomic particles comprising individual physical objects (and the circumstances to which they pertain) must be made to exist, and God is the cause of their existence.
Yet this does not mean God deterministically causes all things. An engineer who designs a machine can follow one of two paths. Either he can allow the machine to function with foreknown variations, or he can interfere to “force” a certain event. In either case, the engineer is in total control—he is “sovereign” over the machine he made. In only the latter case, however, is the engineer the deterministic cause of the event.
The fact that God is sovereign means He is entirely beyond the power of any other influence—He cannot be “stopped” or overcome in any way, shape, or form. That does not mean that God “must” do certain things. He is free. God’s sovereignty is related to but separate from His omnipotence. Omnipotence is the power to do anything that power can accomplish. Sovereignty is the absolute, unfettered right to decide when and how—and if—to use that power.
In other words, God’s sovereignty allows Him to not act—to allow—just as much as it allows Him to act. The choice to act or not to act is part of His sovereign nature. So, God can “allow” certain things to occur and not be a deterministic cause of those events. Yet all these things are under His sovereign control (Ephesians 1:11). According to His sovereign choice, God has willed that events come to pass in accordance with the nature/essence of moral agents. Some of those events God simply “allows,” knowing as He does that everything will ultimately lead to His intended conclusion. Thus, God can will events to come to pass—either directly or indirectly—using the non-coerced, freely willed acts of responsible moral agents.
The importance of God sovereignly “allowing” actions cannot be overstated. God’s providing the “setting” for an act to occur does not mean He is a responsible moral agent for the act. The moral responsibility for intentionally evil acts falls on those who themselves commit the acts. Evil is like rust in metal or rot in a tree. God “causes” the tree and thus provides the setting that “enables” the rot. But, in this analogy, God does not make the rot. God knows the tree will rot, He “allows” the tree to rot, and He chooses not to stop the rotting process, all for His own purpose—perhaps knowing the rot will prevent a greater disease later on. In a similar way, God does not make evil, although He “allows” a certain amount of it for His own purposes. He keeps His own counsel in such matters.
God knows things by virtue of His own nature. In a simple eternal act, God perfectly knows Himself. By knowing Himself, God knows all that He causes. Because the nature of God is immutable (Malachi 3:6), the concepts of “before” and “after” do not apply to Him. God’s knowledge is not temporal, sequential, or time-bound. In comparison, consider a piece of sheet music. The song inscribed on the page is bound to the two dimensions of symbols and paper. But the person who wrote the music is bound neither by those dimensions nor the “tempo” of the song. The composer can see and understand all of his composition at once, without restriction. He can change what he wants in the music—or not change it, as he desires. In a similar way, that which is past and future to us is eternally present to God. God does not “foreknow” things as we might say of a prophet; God simply knows.
Human beings, as free moral agents, act without extrinsic moral coercion. And it is God who causes humans to have that freedom to act. God knows all mankind’s choices in advance and either “allows” them or interferes with them as He sees fit. Through it all, humans are held responsible for the choices they make.
So, God wills that man make non-deterministic moral choices. Since God’s knowledge is not time-bound, He knows when a person will die and how that person will die. A person’s death falls within God’s sovereign control. We can say that God wills all events in an existentially basic, causal way, but not all of them in a morally causal way. It is possible for God to “allow” acts that He would not directly cause or even prefer (Matthew 23:37). A human being acting with malice is fully culpable from a moral standpoint; God cannot be the substantial or accidental cause of evil.
Properly distinguishing between God “knowing,” God “allowing,” and God “causing” helps us understand the normative predication of both human and divine action.
