Scholastic Bifurcation

The Scholastics loved their philosophy. In their philosophies, they loved to split things into categories. Then they subdivided these categories into sub categories with nearly infinite regression.

Bangs points out that this was greatly aided by the invention of the printing press. With the press, they could create large fold out charts containing their categories. Their eager students could then memorize the charts and be able to split hairs (bifurcate) to their heart's content. We are the inheritors of this tradition, whether or not we even realize it.

The Will of God

One scholastic holdover is the area of understanding God's will. One writer talks about God's will in the following way:

The difference seems to lie in the distinction between God's revealed (preceptive) will and His secret (decretal) will.

The distinction here is raised to solve a Bible difficulty for those who hold to a particular view of the scope of Christ's Atonement.

What is the Problem Addressed by the Bifurcation?

The Bible has passages which show that it is the will of God to save everyone.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

The Bible also tells us that there are people who will not be saved.

Revelation 20:15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

This second passage eliminates the option of universalism, ie, that everyone gets saved, so we are left with a couple of possible solutions to this apparent contradiction.

Two Possible Solutions

One possibility is that God does not always get what He wants. In this paradigm, God wills free will above His desire that all be saved. He wants everyone to be saved, and that is why God has created free will. Free will is the mechanism for their responding in faith to Him. People can resist God's will because God created them able to resist or not resist. The seat of decision making is the will, which itself is uncaused. This solution is primarily anthropological but is theological in the sense that this is how God is said to have made man.

The second possibility is suggested by the above quote. This solution says that God has two wills. In one of God's wills, God wants everyone to be saved. In His other will, he only wants particular individuals to be saved. The ones that God secretly elects to be saved will be saved. There is a desire to have God be sovereign which for those who assert this category means that no-one can resist God's will. In fact, any passage which describes a person resisting his will has to be describing the will that can be resisted.

This second possibility is a holdover of scholasticism. The idea that God has two wills is not something that can be directly found on the pages of Scripture. Advocates of the view often feel that their view is based entirely on Scripture and don't realize their dependence on scholastic categories.

For some that hold to this second possibility, if there is a contradiction shown in their exegesis of passages, they can always say that the solution is not apparent, but that it can be found in the secret will of God. They say that they do not know what is in the hidden will, but they know that if they can't resolve the contradiction it must be one of the hidden things. Thus, they make the claim to at least know which things are in the hidden will of God.

Are there any Mysteries Left?

But what sense could it make to speak of the hidden will of God? If it is truely hidden no one can know anything of it. And a big part of the New Testament message is that the things which were formerly hidden are now revealed. When the New Testament uses the word mystery it is to refer to things that were once hidden, not things which are currently hidden. Jesus told His disciples:

Mark 4:11 And He was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables

Which is Simpler?

Both solutions take into account the Scriptural evidence.

The second solution posits that God has two contradictory wills. The first solution states that God has only one consistent will. The first does not require the radical bifurcation (splitting into two parts) of the will of God. The first solution is much simpler than the second.

The first solution appears weaker to an advocate of strong sovereignty, but it really is not weaker. Which kind of God is stronger? One that can tolerate no dissent against His plan so he makes persons not free or a God that can tolerate dissent and makes persons free and still gets what He wants?

Arminius wrote in his response to Perkins book on Predestination:

For the hidden will of God is said to be efficacious; but if, in its exercise, God willed that the fall should occur, it is certainly a necessary conclusion, also, that He effected the fall, that is, He must be the cause of the fall; for whatever God wills, even by His hidden will, the same, also, He does both in heaven and on the earth; and no one can resist His will, namely, that which is hidden. But I may remark concerning that distinction in the will, that I think that it may be said, that neither of these can be so contrary, or opposed to the other, that God, by one, wills that to be done, which, by the other, He wills not to be done, and vice versa.