What Are the Divine Decrees?

Summary

Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung: Episode Summary Episode Title: What Are the Divine Decrees? Release Date: March 18, 2025

In this enriching episode of Doctrine Matters, Pastor Kevin DeYoung delves into the profound theological concept of Divine Decrees, unpacking its significance within Christian doctrine, particularly from a Reformed theological perspective. The discussion navigates through definitions, attributes, and the interplay between divine sovereignty and human free will, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of this essential doctrine.

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1. Introduction to Divine Decrees

Kevin DeYoung opens the episode by positioning divine decrees within the broader category of theology proper, following previous discussions on God's attributes and the Trinity. The focus shifts to the next logical topic in systematic theology: the Decrees of God.

"[...] we're going to do today is look at this new topic of the divine decrees."
— Kevin DeYoung [00:56]

2. Defining Divine Decree

The podcast defines a divine decree by referencing the Westminster Shorter Catechism, emphasizing that it is God's eternal purpose enacted according to His will and for His glory.

*"The divine decree, in other words, is [...]"
“…God's eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.”
— Unknown Speaker 2 [01:25]-[01:29]

Kevin elaborates that a decree is both an exercise of God's will and an expression of His nature. This duality ensures that God's decrees reflect His character impeccably.

"The divine decrees mirror God's own attributes. Number one, the decrees are simple."
— Unknown Speaker 1 [02:02]

3. Attributes of Divine Decrees

Kevin outlines six key attributes of divine decrees, each mirroring the attributes of God Himself:

a. Simplicity

While often referred to in the plural, there is essentially one comprehensive, simultaneous decree. This challenges human tendencies to perceive God's actions in discrete, sequential events.

"And yet that's just to accommodate our own human intellect, when in reality, the divine decree is a single, all, comprehensive, simultaneous act."
— Unknown Speaker 1 [02:27]-[02:54]

b. Eternality

Divine decrees exist outside of time, in eternity. They are not temporally ordered but are eternally present, challenging our finite understanding of time.

"But strictly speaking, we must be clear that these decrees are eternal."
— Unknown Speaker 1 [03:06]-[03:18]

c. Immutability

God's decrees are unchangeable. He acts consistently according to His will without alteration, underscoring His unchangeable nature.

"So God is not composed of parts. [...] the decrees are eternal."
— Unknown Speaker 1 [02:54]-[03:18]

d. Absoluteness

Divine decrees are absolute and not contingent upon external factors like human foreseen faith or good works. They stand firm irrespective of circumstances.

"His decrees are absolute. [...] They are not contingent upon his creatures."
— Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [04:07]-[04:33]

e. Wisdom

Despite their absolute nature, God's decrees are wise. They reflect deliberate planning and divine prudence, ensuring that His actions are never arbitrary.

"The decrees are wise. [...] Ephesians 1:11."
— Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [04:33]-[05:07]

f. Goodness

All decrees are inherently good, even when they encompass seemingly wicked events. God orchestrates all things towards good ends, maintaining His righteous character.

"The decrees are good. [...] In him there is no darkness at all."
— Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [05:10]-[05:38]

4. Divine Decrees and Human Free Will

This section navigates the intricate relationship between divine sovereignty and human free will, addressing common theological queries and misconceptions.

"Now, how do we think about the decrees related to the freedom of our own will?"
— Unknown Speaker 1 [05:52]

a. Understanding Free Will

Kevin differentiates between types of free will, noting that the commonly debated concept—libertarian free will (the ability to choose otherwise)—is not upheld in Reformed theology.

"If freedom of the will means the philosophical term here is a libertarian free will, that is the power to do otherwise than what God has decreed, then no, we do not have a will that is free in that sense."
— Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [13:38]-[13:48]

b. Turretin's Six Kinds of Necessity

Quoting theologian Turretin, Kevin outlines six types of necessity, two of which (coaction and physical necessity) are incompatible with free will and human responsibility.

"Turretin... talked about six different kinds of necessity."
— Unknown Speaker 1 [08:11]

This framework helps clarify that while God's decrees are absolute, human wills are not mere puppets or robots; they possess a voluntary aspect despite God's overarching sovereignty.

c. Illustrations to Clarify Free Will

Kevin uses vivid illustrations to dispel misconceptions:

• Puppet Analogy: Rejecting the idea that divine sovereignty reduces humans to puppets lacking a will.

  "That's what we're not saying about the decree of God. That's not what we're saying about the will of God."
  — Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [11:15]-[12:10]

• Big Brother Illustration: Emphasizing that external coercion does not define human will; instead, believers choose willingly unless physically constrained.

  "We are not robots, we are not puppets on a string."
  — Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [12:28]-[13:34]

5. Conclusion

Kevin reaffirms the balance between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, underscoring that while God's decrees are absolute and encompassing, humans retain a meaningful will to make decisions, particularly in matters of faith and obedience.

"Not free. [...] Divine sovereignty does not act in people as if they were blocks and stones, nor does [...]"
— Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [14:09]-[14:59]

The episode closes with an encouragement to listeners to engage further with the doctrine through available resources, emphasizing the practical applicability of understanding divine decrees in the life of a believer.

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Key Takeaways

• Divine decrees are God's eternal, immutable, and absolute plans that reflect His wisdom and goodness.
• Understanding these decrees requires recognizing their simplicity and eternal nature, beyond human temporal comprehension.
• Human free will exists in a voluntary sense, allowing for meaningful choices without conflicting with God's sovereign decrees.
• The interplay between divine sovereignty and human responsibility maintains that while God orchestrates all things, humans engage with genuine will in their decisions.

Notable Quotes

• "The divine decrees mirror God's own attributes."
  — Unknown Speaker 1 [02:02]

• "There is a divine will prior to all human willing and the will of the unregenerate man is enslaved to sin."
  — Unknown Speaker 1 [14:30]

• "We are not robots, we are not puppets on a string."
  — Unknown Speakers 1 & 2 [12:28]-[13:34]

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This episode of Doctrine Matters serves as a foundational exploration of divine decrees, offering listeners a nuanced perspective that honors both God's sovereignty and human agency within the framework of Reformed theology.

Transcript

[Kevin DeYoung]

Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina. And you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith. We'll pull from the church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of.

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The year, the hope is that we'll.

[Kevin DeYoung]

Begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters.

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We've been talking about the doctrine of God, that is theology proper, talking about his attributes and then talking about the.

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Trinity, and now still staying within this.

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Larger category of theology property. Well, systematic theologies now turn to talk about the decrees of God, and then.

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After that, God as creator.

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So that's what we're going to do today is look at this new topic of the divine decrees. Let's talk about that word. A decree in common usage is an official order, an edict, a command. So when we speak about the divine.

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Decrees, we mean here.

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I'm quoting from the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

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God's eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

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The divine decree, in other words, is.

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An exercise of God's will and an.

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Expression of his nature.

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That makes sense.

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If you are decreeing something, it is an expression of your will what what you have decided is going to take place. And it also is an expression of your nature, who you are.

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When we will something to be, it is the overflow of our character.

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And so the divine decrees mirror God's own attributes. Number one, the decrees are simple. The word decrees is often given in the plural. And that's what I've said here today. But strictly speaking, there is only one decree.

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We speak of many because the human.

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Mind cannot help but think of order and sequence, that God decided to do.

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This and then that and then this other thing.

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And yet that's just to accommodate our own human intellect, when in reality, the divine decree is a single, all, comprehensive, simultaneous act. That's a quote from Louis Berkoff. So God is not composed of parts.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And his sovereign ordering of all things is not composed of parts.

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Strictly speaking, which leads to a second point. The decrees are eternal. So we think of decrees, and often.

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There'S theological discussion about the order of the decrees. But again, we have to realize this.

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Is A logical order for our comprehension.

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But it is not a temporal order. These things take place in eternity.

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And as we've talked about before, eternity is not some kind of time before time, before history begins. It is actually the way in which.

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God experiences duration, which is not time.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It is not temporal and successive. So this stretches our comprehension and we have to use concepts that can make sense to us. And yet, strictly speaking, we must be clear that these decrees are eternal. The things that take place take place in time, but the decree is issued outside of time, before time, in eternity. The decrees, third, are immutable.

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So God is unchangeable and his decrees are unchangeable. He does according to his will. None can stay his hand. 4.

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The decrees are absolute. That is to say, his will is.

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Not based on foreseen faith or foreseen good works.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It isn't that God, you know, can play the the video that's going to happen a million or ten thousand years from now, and he plays it and then he says, ah, here's what's going to happen, therefore I'm going to decree.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

It based on something else.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No, his decrees are absolute.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

They are not contingent upon his creatures. 5. The decrees are wise. The absolute nature of the divine decrees does not make God arbitrary or capricious, because everything God does, He works after the counsel of his will. Ephesians 1:11.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That language counsel suggests planning, prudence.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

It also suggests an intra trinitarian deliberation. All three persons, though possessing one will, are operative in the decrees. There's a council.

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This is based on God's wisdom. And then finally the decrees are good. God has written all of our days.

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In his book before one of them comes to pass. Psalm 139, 16.

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But this doesn't mean God is the author of sin. God's decrees certainly include wicked events. The decrees themselves, however, are always good because even those wicked things which are.

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Decreed are for good ends. There is no unrighteousness in God.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

He cannot endure iniquity. He is light first John 1:5 and in him there is no darkness at all. Let's then think a little bit more about the divine decrees and a couple of further distinctions.

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So we've looked at these six points.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

The decrees are eternal, immutable, absolute, wise, good, simple. Just like those are the attributes of God, they're the attributes of the decrees. Now, how do we think about the decrees related to the freedom of our own will? So if everything happens according to God's will in this sense, and we must be clear that the The Bible talks about the will of God in at.

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Least a couple of different ways.

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Sometimes it's the will of God that superintends all things. Not a hair falls from our head.

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Not a, not a sparrow to the ground, apart from the will of our Father in heaven. So in this sense, everything that takes place according to the will of God.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And yet there are other passages. We pray that thy will be done. In that sense, God's commands can be disobeyed. But we're talking here in this decretive sense, his will of decree, rather than.

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What some theologians call his will of desire.

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This, this will of decree must always come to pass. It is never thwarted.

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Whatsoever God wills that will happen, he works all things after the counsel of his will.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So then how do we think about if that's God's will, the necessity of all things, Augustine said, then what does it mean about our wills? Do we have freedom of the will? That question has a couple of different meanings in itself.

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Sometimes when theologians have asked about the.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Freedom of the will, what they really mean is our will free from the bondage to sin. And that's a question that we'll come to later when we talk about the. The effects of depravity and original sin, that no, our wills are born. We are born as fallen human beings.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

With a will that is in servitude to sin.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But this is a slightly different question.

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Not about the moral depravity of the.

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Heart, but rather the willing that we execute in all sorts of decisions. So just human decisions. Do we have free will?

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Not in the moral sense of can.

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Unregenerate persons please God, but can we make real decisions? And it might not surprise you to learn that it depends on what we mean by this question. So our sin, which the fallen will chooses by necessity, and the decisions that we make according to God's superintendence, can nevertheless be voluntary. That is, we do will them. Turretin, always helpful with distinctions, talked about six different kinds of necessity. Now, this is hard to follow just listening to this while you're folding laundry or in the car, but just try to get the basic concept. He calls these six kinds of necessity, the necessity of coaction that arises from an external agent compelling us to do something, or physical necessity, like the doctor hits your kneecap and your your knee extends the necessity of dependence, meaning we cannot exist or do anything apart from God.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Rational necessity, meaning we choose what we believe is best. 5 He called the necessity of event.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Which affirms that future events are fixed.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And certain according to God's decree and then a moral necess necessity arriving arising from habits and inclinations, good or bad. Only the first two types of necessity, Turretan says, are incompatible with free choice and human responsibility.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

So when we ask this question, do we have free will? The answer is what do you mean by free will? What we want to affirm is that we must affirm even as reformed Calvinist Christians, is that we do make choices, we have a will. So to say that the will of God is a necessity of all things.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

And everything happens according to God's decree does not say that we then do not have a will, but rather that.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Our wills act in accordance with a prior will. So go back here to the two.

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Types of necessity that turretances are incompatible.

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With free choice and human responsibility, the necessity of coaction and then a physical necessity. So if, let's just put these two together in a. An illustration we can understand. You think about a puppet on a string.

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Sometimes people say, well, if you have.

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A sovereign God who superintends all things, you are just a puppet on a string or you're a robot. That would be like turretins necessity of co action. That means somebody is. Is making you to do something or a physical necessity that just physically. So if, if you enter into brothel.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

You shouldn't do that. But if somebody has you in chains.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And they physically drag you there, you don't have a will that is able to act otherwise. Or go back to the puppet analogy. If you are just a marionette and somebody is pulling strings, you don't actually have a will. That's. That's what we don't want to day. That's why the charge that a high.

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View of God's sovereignty is nothing more.

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Than making us puppets on a string is not accurate because we do have a will.

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A puppet does not have a will.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Or think about. I give given this illustration, many times you think about what a big brother does to his younger brother. Grabs his arm and makes a fist and he grabs that fist and starts taking his brother's fist and punching his brother's face. And he says, stop hitting yourself. Stop punching yourself. Stop punching yourself.

[Unknown Speaker 2]

Well, why are you hitting yourself?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, no, that's a, that's a necessity of co action. Someone is physically exerting power over your physical self to make you do something. So that's not what we're saying about the decree of God. That's not what we're saying about the will of God.

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We are not robots. We are not puppets on a string.

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Here's the important language Our wills are free in this sense that they are not subject to external coercion or compulsion. External coercion or compulsion, that is, when we come to Christ, God renews our will so that we come willingly.

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When people rebel against Christ, it's not.

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That they are saying I want to.

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Be a Christian, and God says, well, I didn't decree for you to be a Christian and I'm sorry you want.

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To come to Christ, but I don't let you know he's not by external coercion or compulsion. In other words, we do unless we are constrained by those physical you're actually in shackles and you can't do what you want to do. We are able to will and then act according to our wills.

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So those wills are free in that they are not subject to external coercion or compulsion. We do have a will.

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We are not puppets, we are not robots.

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And yet, if freedom of the will.

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Means the philosophical term here is a libertarian free will, that is the power.

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To do otherwise than what God has decreed, then no, we do not have.

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A will that is free in that sense. But we want to be clear. Reformed theology says that we have wills that can choose Canons of Dort the high points of Reformed theology Divine sovereignty. Canons of Dort make clear divine sovereignty does not act in people as if.

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They were blocks and stones, nor does.

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Abolish the will and its properties or.

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Coerce a reluctant will by force.

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In short, there is a divine will prior to all human willing and the.

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Will of the unregenerate man is enslaved to sin.

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All of that is true.

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At the same time, our wicked choices.

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Are really our choices and they really have real world consequences.

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Because we have a will that can.

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Choose free in this sense, that is not subject to external coercion or compulsion. That's not how God operates in the world and yet not free. If by that we mean that we can run counter to God's absolute eternal decree.

[Kevin DeYoung]

Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to doctor Matters and if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine, you can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from Crossway.org the Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit Crossway.org.