Theopedia

Sovereignty of God

— The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. Psalm 103:19

Definition

The sovereignty of God is his supreme authority and right to rule over all he has made. It is a matter of standing, not strength: God’s dominion is a right to dispose of his creatures as he pleases, distinct from the power by which he actually does so.1 That right belongs to him underived, “not derived from any by birth or commission,”2 and rests on his having made all things.3 Sovereignty is worked out in his decree, his eternal plan for all that comes to pass, and in his providence, his governance of creation according to that plan.

Confessional Witness

The Reformed confessional family, the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession among them, has no chapter devoted to sovereignty as its own topic. It states God’s supreme authority as part of a single, densely packed sentence describing his nature: God is “every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will for his own glory.”4 The Westminster Confession and its Larger Catechism, Savoy, and the other Reformed confessions in this family carry the same clause in substance,4 so this is the Reformed tradition’s shared way of naming the attribute rather than a distinctively Baptist formulation. “Most absolute” and “working all things according to the counsel of his own… will” together assert both halves of the doctrine: an authority subject to nothing outside itself, and an authority actually exercised over everything, not merely held in reserve.

Biblical Basis

Scripture grounds God’s right to rule in his work as Creator. Job hears God’s own “oration in defence of his sovereignty” answered from creation itself (Job 38), and the Psalmist gives the same ground: “The LORD is a great King above all gods… the sea is his, and he made it” (Ps. 95:3, 5).3 Paul makes the same argument to the Athenians: because God “made the world and all things therein,” he is “Lord of heaven and earth” (Acts 17:24).3 The psalmist states God’s rule as a present fact, not merely a right in reserve: “The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all” (Ps. 103:19). Daniel records Nebuchadnezzar’s own confession after his humbling, that God “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?” (Dan. 4:35). The Psalter names him “the governor among the nations” (Ps. 22:28) whose “counsel of the LORD standeth for ever” (Ps. 33:11), and Paul closes his doxology to Timothy by naming God “the only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15).

Historical Development

Stephen Charnock’s 1682 discourse “On God’s Dominion,” preached from Psalm 103:19, is the fullest treatment of sovereignty as its own topic among the English Puritans and remains the article’s primary source for this doctrine.5 Charnock draws a distinction that later writers rely on without always stating it as sharply: strength and authority are not the same thing among creatures (a subject may be physically stronger than his prince without having any more right to rule), and the same distinction holds for God. “His power is that whereby he subdues all creatures under him; his dominion is that whereby he hath a right to subdue all creatures under him.”1 On this account, sovereignty names the right; omnipotence names the capacity to make that right good.

Charnock traces the right itself to two grounds that Reformed writers after him continue to distinguish: the excellence of God’s own nature, sufficient by itself to entitle him to rule, and his act of creation, which brings that entitlement into actual, historical exercise over everything that exists.3 “His dominion of jurisdiction results from creation,” Charnock writes, and the sovereignty so grounded “naturally ariseth from the relation of all things to himself as their entire Creator.”6 A. A. Hodge locates the same idea in the Old Testament’s own vocabulary: the divine name Adonai is “applied exclusively to God, expressing possession and sovereign dominion.”7

Opposing Views

Classical Arminianism affirms that God is sovereign but denies that his sovereignty is meticulous. Where Reformed theology holds that God’s decree extends to every event without exception, and that his control over history is accordingly exhaustive, Arminius’s own account distinguishes an antecedent will, God’s universal desire that all be saved, from a consequent will that actually elects or condemns each person in response to what God foresees that person’s free choice will be.8 On this view God genuinely reigns, but because he has given creatures a freedom he will not override, he “must wait to see (foreknowledge) what his free creatures will do” before his own electing will is settled.8 Barrett states the resulting contrast plainly: “the Arminian understanding of sovereignty… affirms a general sovereignty that denies a meticulous control in order to preserve libertarian freedom.”9

Objections and Responses

Doesn’t calling God sovereign over sin make him its author? Reformed theology denies this while still holding that nothing, sin included, escapes God’s rule. Bavinck states the point directly: “Sin is never outside God’s control… While it is correct on occasion to speak of divine ‘permission,’ this must not be construed in such a way as to deny God’s active sovereignty over sin and judgment.”10 Charles Hodge draws the distinction the objection is looking for: “Some things He purposes to do, others He decrees to permit to be done. He effects good, He permits evil. He is the author of the one, but not of the other.”11 The full mechanics of how God governs creaturely acts, sinful ones included, without being their author belongs to the doctrine of providence; sovereignty’s own claim is narrower, that God’s rule genuinely extends over sin rather than being checked by it.

If God’s rule is absolute, how can creatures still be free and morally responsible for what they do? Scripture states both without resolving the tension into a formula: “Divine sovereignty and human freedom co-operate in perfect harmony; that while God is the sovereign Ruler and primary cause, man is free within the limits of his nature and is the secondary cause.”12 Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery of their own free, sinful choice, and were held guilty for it, yet Joseph could say to them, “it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Gen. 45:8), and “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20).12 The brothers’ guilt was not diminished by God’s having ordained the outcome for good, nor was God’s sovereign purpose frustrated by their being free and answerable for what they did.

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, ed. William Symington, 2 vols. (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853), 2:365: “His power is that whereby he subdues all creatures under him; his dominion is that whereby he hath a right to subdue all creatures under him. This dominion is a right of making what he pleases, of possessing what he made, of disposing of what he doth possess.” ↩ ↩2

  2. Charnock, 2:360. ↩

  3. Charnock, 2:369. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 2, “Of God, and of the Holy Trinity,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  5. Charnock, 2:356, “Discourse XIII: On God’s Dominion.” ↩

  6. Charnock, 2:369. ↩

  7. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 8, “Attributes of God.” ↩

  8. Matthew Michael Barrett, “Monergism, Synergism, and the Will of God,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 412. ↩ ↩2

  9. Barrett, “Reclaiming Monergism,” 422. ↩

  10. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 10, “Creator of Heaven and Earth.” ↩

  11. Charles Hodge, “Chapter IX. The Decrees of God,” in Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1871), 541. ↩

  12. Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932), 164. ↩ ↩2