Decision Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen

[SamIam]

In my understanding, the author's thesis boils down to:

A. God does not have an "individual will" for each person.
B. One need only be concerned about staying within God's moral will, as revealed in scripture.
C. Within God's moral will, one is expected (even commanded) to use wisdom.
D. A wise, morally valid choice is all God ever expects from us.
E. God has never directed people by feelings and impressions. When God has directed, His voice was loud and clear.
F. God will use our wise, morally valid choices (and even our unwise, immoral choices) to serve His purposes.
G. There is no need to fret about whether we are in, or not in, the "center of God's will."

Do you agree with this view?

If someone says to you "the Lord is leading me to ..." do you consider that a valid revelation from God, misplaced piety, self-justification, an attempt to manipulate you, or something else?

[TK]

it sounds as if the author is saying just to live by good common sense. the problem is that many of the teachings of Jesus seem to defy normal common sense, like the examples he uses in the sermon on the mount (which are not intended to be exhaustive).

i think if a person is truly seeking after the Lord (reading and meditating on scripture, praying, meeting with other Christians etc) that perhaps his "common sense" decisions will coincide with God's will, because if he was truly walking with the Lord he would have a check in his spirit about doing things NOT of the Lord. Oswald Chambers makes the point that a person in communion with God IS the will of God.

TK

[steve]

A. God does not have an "individual will" for each person.
B. One need only be concerned about staying within God's moral will, as revealed in scripture.
C. Within God's moral will, one is expected (even commanded) to use wisdom.
D. A wise, morally valid choice is all God ever expects from us.
E. God has never directed people by feelings and impressions. When God has directed, His voice was loud and clear.
F. God will use our wise, morally valid choices (and even our unwise, immoral choices) to serve His purposes.
G. There is no need to fret about whether we are in, or not in, the "center of God's will."

Do you agree with this view?

I am personally open to the first four points (with some reservations about the first), and have no difficulty with the last two.

I am not prepared to affirm point E, namely, that "God has never directed people by feelings and impressions. When God has directed, His voice was loud and clear." It does not seem possible to claim that "God never..." did any particular thing, unless it would clearly be contrary to His character to do any such thing.

I agree that most (if not all) of the specific guidance to individuals of which we read in scripture probably came in forms less subjective than mere inner impressions. The relatively few cases recorded seem to involve unmistakable phenomena, like visions from heaven, angelic visitors, audible voices from a burning bush or from a pillar of cloud, etc. But I must include the caveat that we are never really told how the prophets received many of their "burdens" from God. Some saw visions, but others may not have. How, exactly, is an oracle "felt" or "received" from God? Might it not come as a "strong inner impression" upon the mind or spirit of the prophet? I don't know the answer, and I doubt if the author of the above propositions can know for sure, either.

On the other hand, the Bible asserts that all who are the children of God are led by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14), and we do not have, in scripture, record of the guidance given to every Christian individual. It seems safe to include, under the rubric of divine guidance, such subjective phenomena as the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the timely remembrance of a relevant scripture, a lack of "inner peace" about some contemplated action, and even a strong inner urge or suggestion to do some specific thing which would not be dictated by the general moral code, but which, after we have done it, proves to have been orchestrated by God to accomplish a very specific and necessary result (which seemingly would not have been accomplished had we done something else). I think, for example, of the strong urge felt from childhood by Hudson Taylor moving him to go to China as a medical missionary.

Of course, we might suggest that God could have used him as mightily in some other country, but we cannot be sure that God did not specifically design him for the precise work he was to do among those particular people at that time. A call to the mission field is seldom generic. Paul and Barnabas received a specific call by name to launch upon their missionary activities (Acts 13:1ff). We also know that Paul was once contemplating missionary work in Asia and in Bithynia, but the Spirit forbade him to go to those places, and specifically directed him to go to Greece instead (Acts 16:6-10). What form this "forbidding" may have taken, we are not told. It may have been a mere lack of inner peace, for all we can say. In any case, it suggests that God had a particular mission field (and not a different one) in mind for Paul and his companions at that time.

Therefore, "if someone says to you 'the Lord is leading me to ..." I can not decide, except on a case-by-case basis, whether this is "a valid revelation from God, misplaced piety, self-justification, an attempt to manipulate you, or something else." In the course of a Christian's lifetime, all of these might be encountered at one time or another.

Having affirmed that inner personal guidance is a phenomenon too scriptural to be ruled-out, I would here register my own misgivings about those who seem to continually hear inner "voices"—which they take to be from God—telling them what to do at every moment of the day. I will not rule this out in every instance, but it does not seem to have a precedent in the lives of the apostles or the prophets, and may arise instead from some mental disorder. It undeniably has its parallels in the experiences of contemporary serial killers and the demon possessed.

Moving on, Point #A may be true ("God does not have an 'individual will' for each person"), if that means that, at any given moment of a given day, God might not have a preference about which good works a person might perform—though I am not entirely comfortable with the wording of the proposition. It may be that God is content to have most Christians fall into a "default mode" of doing, much of the time, only what most good people do—e.g., marry, raise families, make honest livings, be available to serve and support others inside and outside the church, and financially support those who have "more special callings" to full-time ministry and missionary ventures. Every army has its special forces as well as its regular troops. However, it would be going too far to say that God would not, from time to time, have special missions or special instructions even for these "regular" Christians to perform. After all, every Christian has some gift from God (1 Peter 4:10-11), and it seems that God's specific choice of gifting also implies an intended function related to that gift. That particular function might well qualify as a "personal calling." If so, then every Christian has one.

[SamIam]

Steve,

Thank you for your response.

I am not prepared to affirm point E, namely, that "God has never directed people by feelings and impressions. When God has directed, His voice was loud and clear." It does not seem possible to claim that "God never..." did any particular thing, unless it would clearly be contrary to His character to do any such thing.

I probably overstated the author's point. Never is a very long time, and it is certainly not wise to declare what God will or will not do (apart from His clear statement of what He will or will not do).

On the other hand, the Bible asserts that all who are the children of God are led by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14) ...

I am not convinced that Romans 8:14 is speaking of guidance.

12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

In context of the rest of the paragraph, those who are led by the Spirit are those who (by following the Spirit) are not living by the flesh. This verse seems to speak of general, moral guidance rather than specific individual guaidance.

... and we do not have, in scripture, record of the guidance given to every Christian individual.

Apart from unmistakeable visions, angelic visits and the like, we don't have any record of guidance to any individual. Correct me if I am wrong. Further, I don't recall anyone being told to seek individual guidance. Again, correct me if I am wrong.

[alaskazimm]

Apart from unmistakeable visions, angelic visits and the like, we don't have any record of guidance to any individual. Correct me if I am wrong. Further, I don't recall anyone being told to seek individual guidance. Again, correct me if I am wrong.

I believe you are correct. And this for me is a huge reason why I no longer hold to the "individual will of God" any longer - Friesen's book was also a factor in this. But as Steve wrote above we aren't told that inner communication is wrong. But it seems to me to base an entire doctrine on "we're not told it's wrong in Scripture" is a bit sketchy.

[Homer]

SamIam,

I find little to disagree with in the replies, however your synopsis of the book says nothing about positive laws. Are they mentioned in the book? As you may know, these laws have nothing to do with what is moral, or what was once termed "natural law", but rather they are right solely because the lawgiver commands them. The Old Testament is full of them, and the New Covenant has at least two: baptism and observance of the Lord's Supper. Absent the knowledge revealed by the scriptures, it is difficult to see how anyone could be motivated to keep them.

You wrote:

D. A wise, morally valid choice is all God ever expects from us.

Perhaps the author of the book considered positive laws to be included with moral?

I realize I may be missing the point of the book. Is it about God being neutral about our choices as long as we live within the parameters he has laid out for us, i. e., we are free to make choices about our lives as long as we do not sin? An example would be that God does not concern Himself with who a young many marries among any number of girls, as long as they are not unbelievers?

[SamIam]

Homer,

I believe the the author would include "positive law" with "moral law." I do recall that the author included specific revelation as moral law for the person receiving the revelation. For example, "go to Nineveh and say ..." became moral law for Jonah to obey, even though no one else was expected to go.

One of the author's problems with the concept of God's individual guidance for every decision, is that such guidance is by necessity God's moral law for the person who receives it. Under that model, there is no freedom of choice for any decision subject to God's guidance. Then one has to decide which decisions are subject to God's guidance (just the "big" decisions?) and which are not (how "small" is a decision we can make on our own?). Those distinctions tend to become arbitrary. In the end, one can have no confidence in any decision.

I think the author's point is just as you state it. God does not pick your spouse. He expects you to make a wise choice and stick to it.

(If God did pick everyone's spouse, then just one couple defying God's guidance and marrying the wrong person would not only mess things up for themselves, they would also mess it up for the two other people who were "supposed" to marry the first two who married. This in turn messes up two more people, and two more, and two more ... until the chain is broken by someone who remains celibate in spite of God's guidance that they marry someone who decided to marry someone else. In the end could anyone be sure they married the "right" person?)