God Beyond Our Moral Calculations: I know before beginning that many will disagree with what follows. I have written on this subject before, and I realize that my thoughts place me in a very narrow camp. Perhaps some of my language has also been shaped by an overreaction to the usual attempts to separate God as far as possible from the darker realities of this world. But I am not convinced that these explanations preserve His holiness. I sometimes wonder whether they preserve His Godhood. In our effort to defend God, we may unknowingly reduce Him to a larger version of ourselves: a God governed by our reasoning, our moral calculations, and our sense of what He ought to do. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Psalm 50:21.
What follows is not an easy thought, and I realize some may resist it as soon as they read it. Yet if we mean what we say about God’s perfect knowledge, absolute power, and sovereign rule, then we must be prepared to accept where those truths lead. And they lead directly into the darkest realities of this world.
Those realities do not exist in some forgotten corner of creation where God cannot see them, prevent them, or govern them. There is no abuse, no disease, no tragedy, no death, and no horror that stands outside His ultimate will and purpose. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing overpowers Him. Nothing enters His creation without His knowledge, and nothing continues for one moment beyond His governing purpose.
That is not an easy statement to make, and it certainly does not explain every sorrow. But if God truly knows all things, possesses all power, and works all things according to the counsel of His own will, then nothing can arise within His creation independently of Him. We may attempt to avoid that conclusion in a hundred different ways, but eventually we must either accept the absoluteness of God or begin limiting Him.
Much of Christianity presents history as a divine recovery effort: God created what was good, sin shattered it, and redemption became the work of restoring what had been lost. But that framework places sin at the center of the story. It gives sin the power to alter the course of God’s purpose. Redemption then appears as a response to failure, rather than the appointed revelation of what God had always determined to accomplish.
We should be careful not to speak as though Christ entered the purpose of God only after sin entered the world. That would make redemption an afterthought and Christ the answer to an unexpected problem. Scripture places Him before creation, at the very center of God’s eternal purpose. Sin did not cause God to revise His plan. Rather, its entrance prepared the dark background upon which the glory of Christ and the riches of God’s grace would be made known.
Instead of beginning with sin and then trying to work our way backward, we can begin with what Scripture says was already true before the world began. God had an eternal purpose in Christ. Ephesians 3:11. Grace was not introduced later as an answer to something that had gone wrong. It was “given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” II Timothy 1:9. Peter tells us that Christ, whose precious blood would redeem His people, “was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” I Peter 1:19-20. Paul tells us that the people of God were chosen in Him “before the foundation of the world.” Ephesians 1:4. He also tells us that all of history is moving toward the gathering together of all things in Christ, “according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself.” Ephesians 1:9-10. Redemption was not God’s later response to the entrance of sin. Christ, grace, redemption, and the people given to Him were already at the center of God’s purpose before creation began.
This is where the usual language of mere permission begins to feel inadequate. An all-knowing and all-powerful God does not simply stand back while events unfold beyond His intention. He created this particular world knowing every sorrow, every act of cruelty, every loss, and every sin that would take place within it. He could have prevented any of them, and sometimes plainly does. So when we say that God permitted something, we should not use that word to make Him sound like a helpless observer. His permission is never separate from His will, His power, or His purpose. Lamentations 3:37-38.
God knew exactly what kind of world He was creating. He knew every event that would unfold within it, every life that would be touched by sorrow, and every sin that would be committed. Nothing had to be learned afterward. Nothing entered the story unexpectedly. He declares “the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done,” saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.” Isaiah 46:10. If that is true, then history is not the record of creation drifting away from God’s intention. It is the unfolding of a counsel that has never failed and never changed.
This is the point where our usual explanations begin to collapse. God knew every sin, every cruelty, every sorrow, and every death before He created. He had the power to prevent any of them, the wisdom to create otherwise, and the authority to end the whole course of history before it began. Yet He created this world, sustains it still, and allows every event to continue only for as long as He wills. We may call that permission, but it is not the permission of weakness, distance, or uncertainty. It is the permission of the absolute God. Nothing continues because He is unable to stop it, and nothing exists in a place where His purpose does not reach. “He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” Daniel 4:35.
At this point someone will ask whether such a view turns men into puppets or removes their responsibility. It does neither. Men act willingly, from their own hearts, according to their own desires and intentions. Joseph’s brothers truly hated him. Genesis 37:4. Judas truly betrayed Christ. Luke 22:47-48. The rulers truly acted wickedly when they crucified Him. Acts 2:23. God’s purpose did not make their motives unreal, nor did it force innocent men to act against their wills. Scripture presents something far more searching: men freely carry out the desires of their own hearts, while the very same events unfold within the purpose of God.
Joseph’s history makes this distinction especially clear. His brothers acted from hatred and intended evil against him, yet Joseph later said: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” Genesis 50:20. Scripture places both intentions within the same event. Their purpose was evil; God’s purpose was good. He did not merely step in afterward and turn their actions into something useful. His purpose was already present, governing the very event they carried out for wicked reasons.
The cross carries this truth to its highest and most fearful expression. Peter declared that Christ was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” and yet he immediately charged those who took Him with having “by wicked hands” crucified and slain Him. Acts 2:23. The crucifixion was not merely something God permitted and later turned to good. It unfolded according to His determinate counsel. At the same time, the hands that carried it out were wicked, and the men who acted were responsible. Scripture does not weaken God’s purpose in order to preserve man’s guilt, nor does it weaken man’s guilt in order to preserve God’s purpose. It places both before us and leaves neither one diminished.
If the murder of the Son of God was determined within the counsel of God, then we have no ground for placing any other evil beyond His purpose. The darkest act in human history did not interrupt God’s will – it fulfilled it. The hatred of men, the betrayal of Judas, the cowardice of Pilate, and the cruelty of the rulers all became the appointed means by which redemption was accomplished. Their intentions were wicked, but their wickedness did not seize history from God. It served a purpose they neither understood nor intended.
The appeal to free will is often treated as though it removes God from the question. It does nothing of the kind. Man wills according to his heart, and his heart is not neutral. “A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” Matthew 7:17. More than that, the man who wills is God’s creature, living in God’s world, sustained by God’s power, and acting within circumstances God could alter in an instant. To say that man chose the act does not explain how that act escaped the purpose of the God who created, sustained, and governed everything surrounding it. Free will does not get God “off the hook,” and the absolute God does not need us to place Him there.
At some point we must stop speaking as though God were on trial before us. By what law are we judging Him? What authority stands above Him, and what standard exists outside Himself by which He may be measured? There is none. God does not answer to a higher court, because no such court exists. He is not measured by righteousness; He is its source. And while His ways may rise far beyond our understanding, He never acts contrary to His own nature. “He cannot deny himself.” II Timothy 2:13.
This is not a truth to be handled casually, as though it were only another point in a theological argument. The absoluteness of God should humble us and make us tremble. We often speak of sovereignty as though its only purpose were to reassure us that everything is under control. And surely there is comfort there. But when that sovereignty is carried into suffering, cruelty, death, loss, and even our own sin, it becomes something far more searching.
There, it does not resolve every mystery. It brings us before the God whose ways we cannot trace and whose actions we have no right to demand that He explain. Job wanted to understand what had happened to him. In the end, he was not given the explanation he sought. He was brought face to face with God: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6.
This does not mean that God takes pleasure in wickedness as wickedness. Scripture says: “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness.” Psalm 5:4. But the same Scripture also says: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things.” Romans 11:36. We should not use one truth to erase the other. God does not delight in the evil intention of the creature, yet neither does that evil intention exist outside His purpose. The wickedness belongs to the creature; the wisdom, government, and final purpose of the event belong to God. Psalm 76:10.
This truth also changes the way we think about God’s will for our own lives. We often assume that His purpose should lead toward health, peace, visible progress, and some growing sense that life is coming together. But Scripture gives us no such promise. God’s will may lead through weakness, grief, disappointment, unanswered prayer, and years of conflict with sins we long to escape. A life can appear broken to us and still be moving exactly according to His purpose. Psalm 138:8.
Perhaps the problem is not the statement that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, but what we have been taught to mean by wonderful. We usually mean a life that becomes easier, healthier, happier, and more successful. Scripture gives us no reason to expect that. God’s purpose for Joseph passed through betrayal and prison. His purpose for Job passed through terrible loss. His purpose for Paul included weakness, persecution, and suffering. And the path appointed for Christ led directly to the cross. The purpose may be glorious in its end while the path toward it is painful, fearful, and beyond our understanding.
Something else should strike us about Scripture: it does not seem embarrassed by the God it reveals. It does not trim His sovereignty to fit our moral instincts or soften His words so that He will remain acceptable to modern ears. It does not rush to explain away His hardening of Pharaoh, His use of Assyria, His appointment of the cross, or His claim to work all things after the counsel of His own will. Human writers would be tempted to soften such truths, qualify them, or make them easier to accept. Scripture simply states them and leaves us to bow beneath their weight. Man would likely have written a safer God. The Bible reveals the absolute ONE. Hebrews 12:29.
Religion has become very skilled at protecting men from the force of Scripture. We gather to hear sermons, but often only those that reassure us that God thinks as we do. Let the text challenge our inherited framework, overturn our sense of right and wrong, or speak of God in language that sounds fearful and offensive, and suddenly qualifications, explanations, and escape routes appear. Stephen’s hearers showed the instinct plainly: “Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears.” Acts 7:57. It is possible to love preaching and still refuse to hear the God whom Scripture reveals. Ezekiel 33:31-32.
We should not pretend that we can trace every line of God’s purpose or explain how every event fits within it. Scripture sometimes brings us to the boundary of what has been revealed and commands us to stop there. But mystery does not give us permission to weaken what God has plainly declared. We do not honor Him by making Him less knowing, less powerful, or less absolute merely because His ways exceed our understanding. We receive what He has revealed, leave the hidden things with Him, and bow before the words of Paul: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Romans 11:33.
But our inability to trace the ways of God does not leave us free to turn His sovereignty into an excuse for our sin. Mystery does not erase responsibility, and sovereignty does not make sin less sinful. The fact that God rules the event does not cleanse the creature’s motive, remove his guilt, or make rebellion righteous. Joseph’s brothers meant evil. Judas betrayed Christ. Wicked hands crucified the Lord of glory. God’s purpose stood over every act, but the wickedness remained fully theirs. Sovereignty is not a hiding place for the sinner. It closes every hiding place and leaves him with nothing to plead but mercy: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Luke 18:13.
And thankfully, the absoluteness of God does not end with guilt. It carries us to Christ. The same eternal purpose in which no sin escaped His rule also appointed the Mediator for sinners. Christ was not God’s answer after history went wrong. He was at the heart of the purpose before history began. We cannot explain every sorrow, trace every judgment, or understand every hidden turn, but we can say this: mercy in Christ was never an afterthought, and the sinner’s hope was never left to chance. “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” Titus 1:2.
Perhaps this is where all our reasoning finally has to stop. God has not asked permission to be God. He has not submitted His counsel to the judgment of His creatures. He has not shaped His purpose around what we would call fair, safe, or acceptable. And He did not send Christ to repair a plan that sin had ruined. Christ was the purpose before the world began, and mercy in Him was never left to chance. We may leave with questions still unanswered, but not with a God made smaller. MPJ