Theopedia

Will of God

Definition

The will of God is the divine faculty by which he purposes, decrees, and commands.1 Theologians distinguish two basic senses: the decretive, or secret, will, his eternal purpose by which he ordains whatever comes to pass and which is always accomplished; and the preceptive, or revealed, will, the law and commands he has given his creatures as the rule of their duty, which can be, and often is, disobeyed.2 The decretive will governs what happens; the preceptive will governs what ought to happen.

Confessional Witness

The Second London Baptist Confession states the decretive will in its chapter “Of God’s Decree”:

God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.3

The Westminster Confession’s parallel chapter states the same doctrine in substantially the same words:

God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.4

The confession’s own vocabulary for the preceptive will appears in a different chapter, “Of the Law of God.” Even though believers are not under the moral law as a covenant of works, it remains for them, as for all, “a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty,” and the Spirit of Christ enables believers “to do freely and cheerfully which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.”5

Biblical Basis

The decretive will

Scripture speaks of a purpose in God governing “whatsoever he pleased” (Ps. 115:3), one no creature can resist. After his sanity is restored, Nebuchadnezzar confesses that the Most High “doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Dan. 4:35). Paul grounds election and hardening alike in this same will: “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth… For who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. 9:18-19). Believers were predestinated “according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph. 1:5), and God has made known “the mystery of his will,” which is “the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:9, 11). Because this purpose is largely hidden until it comes to pass, it is called God’s secret will, resting on Moses’s own distinction: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us” (Deut. 29:29).6

The preceptive will

Scripture also speaks of a will that can be obeyed or disobeyed. Jesus warns that “not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21; cf. Matt. 12:50), and names doing that will as his own food: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34; cf. John 7:17). Paul instructs believers to be transformed “that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:2). Because this will, unlike the decretive will, is revealed “in the law and in the gospel” rather than hidden, it is accessible to all and “not far from us” (Deut. 30:14; Rom. 10:8).7

Historical Development

Reformed orthodoxy’s classic statement of the doctrine comes from Francis Turretin. His discussion of the question, in the fifteenth and sixteenth questions of the third book of his Institutio Theologiae Elencticae, set out four distinctions he judged correct (decretive and preceptive; the will of eudokia and of euarestia; of the beneplacitum and the signum, that is, of God’s will confined to himself until made known and of any will of his that has in fact been made known; secret and revealed) and three he judged incorrect (antecedent and consequent; efficacious and inefficacious; absolute and conditional), a scheme later Reformed systematic theologians followed closely.8

Of the three incorrect distinctions, the one between an antecedent and a consequent will in God had scholastic roots: it was, in Hodge’s words, “invented by the schoolmen, and adopted by the Arminians, for reconciling the will of God with their theory of the free agency of man.”9 On this scheme, God’s will toward Adam was said to precede Adam’s own act, an antecedent will that he be happy, and then to follow and respond to it, a consequent will, after the fall, that he suffer its penalty.10 Turretin and the Reformed orthodox rejected the scheme as attributing succession, and so change, to a purpose Scripture describes as eternal and single, a judgment Reformed systematic theology has maintained ever since.11

Opposing Views

Classical Arminian theology accepts the antecedent and consequent distinction to hold together a universal salvific will with a conditional, individual election. On this account, God antecedently and absolutely wills the salvation of mankind in general, while the salvation of each individual is willed only consequently, conditioned on the faith God foresees but does not himself decree that person to exercise. As Boyce describes the purpose of the distinction, it is meant “to show how God can make an absolute decree about the salvation of mankind in general, and, yet, not about that of any one man in particular”: God decrees, absolutely, the salvation of all who believe, while whether any individual will believe is not, on this view, determined by God.12

Objections and Responses

Doesn’t distinguishing an antecedent will toward Adam’s happiness from a consequent will toward his punishment simply describe how God’s purposes unfold in time? Turretin and the Reformed orthodox denied this. Boyce summarizes the objections: the distinction “admits succession in the decrees of God, and makes them many, when they are but one,” and “makes them temporal, when they are eternal”; it implies “contrary wills” existing in God, “willing, and not willing, the same event” at once; the antecedent will it describes “could be only a mere wishing (velleitas), and not a will (voluntas)”; and it would take away God’s independence, “since he must wait upon man to will, and act, before he could will.”13 Archibald Alexander Hodge presses the same conclusion from God’s other attributes: because God is eternal, “there can be no distinction in his purposes as to time”; because he is omniscient and omnipotent, if he wills an end he must, from the beginning, will the means that secure it, on pain of holding “two inconsistent wills… at the same time”; and because he is infinitely independent, it is “degrading to God to conceive of him as first willing that which he has no power to effect, and then changing his will consequently to the independent acts of his creatures.”14

If God’s decretive will fixes beforehand who will be saved, how can 2 Peter 3:9 say he is “not willing that any should perish,” or Ezekiel 33:11 that he has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” or 1 Timothy 2:4 that he “will have all men to be saved”? Petrus van Mastricht answers that these texts speak not to the decretive will but to the legislative, or preceptive, will, “by which God wills by ordering that they should convert themselves and receive his reward,” and that the discussion in each case concerns not fixed individuals but classes of people. Read this way, Ezekiel 33:11 does not say that God does not will the death of any sinner, but of “the one who converts himself”: “I do not will the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live,” that is, “I do not will the death of him who is converted.” Likewise 2 Peter 3:9 does not say that God wills every individual without exception to be saved, but only believers, “us”: “He is patient toward us, not willing that any of us should perish.” And 1 Timothy 2:4’s “all men” means, on this reading, “every kind of person, that is, kings and magistrates as well as their subordinates,” as the surrounding context of that passage shows, not each individual without exception.15

Related Doctrines

References

References

  1. James Petigru Boyce, “Chapter XII. The Will of God,” in Abstract of Systematic Theology, 2nd printing, 1st published ed. (Baltimore: H. M. Wharton & Company, 1887), 106: “By the will of God is meant that power inherent in his nature, by which he purposes and chooses any end or object, or determines its existence.” ↩

  2. Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), 151: “The decretive will of God is God efficaciously purposing the certain futurition of events. The preceptive will of God is God, as moral governor, commanding his moral creatures to do that which he sees it right and wise that they in their circumstances should do.” ↩

  3. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 3, “Of God’s Decree,” §1. ↩

  4. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 3, “Of God’s Eternal Decree,” §1. ↩

  5. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, chap. 19, “Of the Law of God,” §§6-7. ↩

  6. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1969), 64: “The secret will of God is mentioned in Ps. 115:3; Dan. 4:17,25,32,35; Rom. 9:18,19; 11:33,34; Eph. 1:5,9,11… The secret will of God pertains to all things which He wills either to effect or to permit, and which are therefore absolutely fixed.” ↩

  7. Berkhof, 64: “His revealed will, in Matt. 7:21; 12:50; John 4:34; 7:17; Rom. 12:2. The latter is accessible to all and is not far from us, Deut. 30:14; Rom. 10:8. …The revealed will prescribes the duties of man.” ↩

  8. Boyce, 111-114, following Francis Turretin, Institutio Theologiae Elencticae, bk. 3, qq. 15-16. ↩

  9. Hodge, 151-152. ↩

  10. Hodge, 152. ↩

  11. Boyce, 113. ↩

  12. Boyce, 114. ↩

  13. Boyce, 113-114. ↩

  14. Hodge, 152. ↩

  15. Petrus van Mastricht, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 2, Faith in the Triune God, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Todd M. Rester (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2019), 357. ↩