Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
God's Causation and Human Free Will in Genesis Chapters 45 and 50 || Session 75 || Biblical Analysis
How can human actions, driven by free will, align with divine providence? Explore this compelling question with us as we dissect the story of Joseph from Genesis chapters 45 and 50 on Reasoning Through the Bible. We promise you'll gain a deeper understanding of how the seemingly conflicting notions of God's causation and human agency coexist. Through key verses like Genesis 45:7-8 and Genesis 50:20, we unravel how Joseph's brothers' malicious intentions were ultimately used by God to bring about a greater good.
Join Glenn and Steve as they navigate differing views on God's interaction with human free will, highlighting theological insights from figures like Thomas Aquinas and the Westminster Confession. We'll discuss major Biblical events, including Joseph's rise to power in Egypt and the crucifixion of Jesus, to illustrate how God's plans can unfold through human actions without coercion. Whether you're inclined to believe in divine sovereignty or human volition, this episode is bound to challenge and expand your understanding. We greatly value your thoughts and encourage you to reach out to us at info@reasoningthroughthebible.com with questions you may have.
Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name is Glenn and I'm here with Steve. Today we're going to do a topical study that really should be at the end of the book of Genesis. The reason is, most of what I'm going to talk about is the last part of Genesis. In Genesis, as we said when we were in the verse by verse, there's a lot of God's providence going on there. So there's a couple of passages in Genesis that I think are just really good examples of this whole idea of how God interacts with humans causing things and God causing things.
Speaker 1:Now, if you were to call this election in free will, it sort of has a lot of tentacles that get into a lot of areas and there's almost no way to end it. We'd be here until the cows come home. We really want to restrict this down, but we may fail because you start talking about these ideas and it brings in other concepts. So I'm not going to call it election and free will. I'm going to call it God's causation and free will, especially in Genesis, chapters 45 and 50, because those are the examples I've got.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know if people figured this out yet, but Steve and I don't 100% see eye to eye with exactly how God acts. Wow, man has free will. That's okay, because that's what makes it interesting is trying to figure these things out. It's also no surprise that we have an infinite God and our finite minds can't understand an infinite God. If he explains part of himself, then it leaves us scratching our heads, saying how does this work? Nevertheless, I think there's some interesting things that we can hone in on that'll help us get our hands around what the scripture actually says. Now, how we interpret that into a theology system is another topic for another day, but don't you think, steve, that there's some passages here in the last part of Genesis that'll really help us kind of get our hands around this whole idea of God and human free will?
Speaker 2:I do and I want to say it would partially help us, and I only say that is because we are going to kind of look at a little bit of things that are noted here in Genesis. I think we and I have talked about having a broader discussion. You've also mentioned many times that we need to record some of these discussions that we have. If anybody would like to hear those off mic discussions that Glenn and I have let us know, Maybe we'll record some of those and talk about it. But yes, I think that we can talk about this. My only caution is that this is talking about one part of Genesis. Let's keep in mind that we have all the other parts of Scripture as well. But I think you've got some great things here and I concur with most of what you've had. We've had a kind of like a pre-discussion on this. One thing I would ask is the name of it again is what, Causation, what?
Speaker 1:I'm calling. It is God's causation and free will in Genesis 45 and 50.
Speaker 2:So I think people kind of got a general idea of what's meant by free will. What are you meaning by causation? What's the definition that you have for causation?
Speaker 1:you mean by causation? What's the definition that you have for causation? What I would call a definition of causation is you have an agent that can act, that can move something from not being the case to something that is the case when an agent, which is a being that has enough free will and power to bring something about, can do so. If I raise my hand, then I've caused my hand to move higher. If I turn on the stove to boil water, then I caused the heat to go to the water to boil. That's kind of where I am. So I want to read a couple of passages here before we start that outline the concepts that we're trying to show. This is the latter part of the book of Genesis, where we have the brothers of Joseph that are selling him into slavery, and then later we have God making a comment about that. Genesis 45, verses 7 and 8, say this God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive by great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here but God, and he has made me a father to Pharaoh and a lord of all his household and a ruler over all the land of Egypt. Then in Genesis, chapter 50, verse 20, it's still Joseph speaking to his brothers saying this as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. Now, of course, he's talking about the whole idea of the brothers selling Joseph into slavery and, through the long story of Genesis, joseph ends up being a high official that preserves the family through the saving of food. This was God's providence. Remember the story? In Genesis, chapter 37, joseph goes looking for his brothers. The brothers plot to kill him. Reuben argues against killing him. They throw him into a pit and steal his coat. They spot a caravan and they decide to sell Joseph into slavery and lie to the father to make it look like he had died. All those were freewill actions of sin and evil.
Speaker 1:Later, judah does what appears to be a good act, which is offer his life for Benjamin, and all these passages clearly say that individuals acted and caused things. Judah did these things threw him into a pit, pulled him out of the pit, sold him into slavery, threw him into a pit, pulled him out of the pit, sold him into slavery. They all clearly say that these brothers acted in an evil way or made these decisions. At one point they freely decide to kill Joseph, argue about it and then change their minds. 3718, they plotted against him to put him to death. 37, 20, let us kill him. 37, 21, and 22, reuben argues against them and convinces them not to kill him. They had made up their mind to do something. Argue about it and change their mind and do something else. It's all sin in there. But I guess you could say Reuben's arguing not to kill him is a good act. But they're making free will decisions, considering arguments, changing their minds and then actually doing actions. They didn't just think about it, they actually did things. 3724, they threw Joseph into a pit. 3728, they lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him. Who did it? They did it. The brothers did it. It says it plainly there. They lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him. So they did evil acts.
Speaker 1:Jacob also considers information and changes his mind later in the book the father Jacob, when they were debating whether to go back and take Benjamin with him 42, 28,. My son shall not go down with you. 43, 13, jacob says take your brother and go back. So he had changed his mind. Jacob listened to arguments and changed his mind. He's making free will decisions throughout the whole story. Later, the brothers make up their mind to do good and actually do good deeds. 42, 37, reuben offers to bring Benjamin back safe. That's a good act. 43, 9,. Judah makes himself surety for Benjamin. He says if I don't bring him back, then I am responsible. 41, 18 and following, judah offers to make punishment for Benjamin. This is where Judah was before Joseph and he said instead of throwing Benjamin in prison, throw me in prison in his place. These are all good deeds that are freely offered and contributed to the final situation of getting all of the family of Israel to Egypt to save them. So, with all that, summarize that Sins were committed both in thought and word and deed. They acted themselves. They did the action.
Speaker 1:The text of the inspired text of scripture 50-20,. You intended evil and they sold them into slavery. They thought about it and who did it? They did it. That's what the scripture actually says. So they did evil.
Speaker 1:At the same time, god acted. It's not mysterious in what the grammar says 45.5. God sent me before you to preserve life. God acted. Who sent me? God sent me before you. 45.7, quote God sent me before you to keep you alive. 45.8, it was not you who sent me here, but God. 50.20, god intended it for good. So we have, on one hand, the brothers intending evil and doing evil actions to sell Joseph, but yet we have God sent me. He said it twice, god sent me. It's not you who sent me here, but God, but clearly we have the brothers acting. So we have here God causing that. But he also causes other things as well. Genesis 45, 8, god quote has made me a father to Joseph. Close quote even though Pharaoh freely decided to put Joseph in that position. 42, 28, the brothers say God put the money in their sacks, even though it was Joseph's steward that put the money in their sacks. 43, 23, the steward said God did it when he was the one that did it. So these passages clearly have the people acting, doing both good and evil, but God's hand of providence in the text clearly saying you didn't do it, but God did it.
Speaker 1:What difference does this make? Well, the difference doesn't make necessarily in figuring this out, although all the text of Scripture is inspired. The difference, of course, comes with questions around salvation and how much God acts and how much we have free will. People have debated this for many hundreds of years. Now, one thing, steve, I'll throw it to you. One thing I think everybody would agree on God's not causing sin. God is not the author of sin. If God is the author of sin, then the entirety of Christianity collapses into an ash heap. So God is not the author of sin. What he does is again, genesis 50, 20,. You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good. And we have not only the intentions but the actions. God somehow and that's what I put the little asterisk next to is God somehow works it out where people can freely act, but God ends up being the one who works it out for good.
Speaker 1:What I would just merely sum it up as this is saying that too many theologians say it either has to be God-causing or people-causing, and I think that's a false dilemma. It could be both. It could be that God causes and people cause through our free will. Thomas Aquinas said that God works through the nature of the being, and our nature is to have free will. So God causes things through the free will action of the being, without violating our nature.
Speaker 1:The nature of a human being is to have free will and God can work things out through the free will action of human beings because that's our nature. The nature of a human being is to have free will and God can work things out through the free will action of human beings because that's our nature. He doesn't use us like a puppet. We're not what the logicians call an instrumental cause. An instrumental cause would be a hand in a puppet or a hand in a glove, and the glove's not doing anything. It's the hand. No, no, we have free will and we have agency. We can cause things. God brings things about through the free will action of human beings, and how that happens I have no idea. I just know that's what scripture says. Your thoughts on that? I know that's kind of a fire hose explanation, but thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're definitely going to need to have an expanded conversation on this, because I know you're wanting to kind of keep it confined a little bit to the things that we talked about in Genesis. But let me do a couple of clarifications. You just went through a litany of things that Joseph's brothers did of their own free will, of their own volition, both good deeds and bad deeds, sinful things. Through all of that, I want to clarify and make sure that you're not in any way saying that God, yahweh, impressed upon them to do any of those actions, either good or bad, that they did these on their own volition, of their own ideas that came into their mind, and that God didn't impress upon them to do any of those things. Is that right?
Speaker 1:What I would say is that, first of all, as I said, god did not cause sin. We cause sin through our failures. God is not the author of sin. We have.
Speaker 1:What I would say is even as reformed a document as the Westminster Confession, which is thoroughly reformed, talks about a primary cause and secondary cause, and God being a primary cause of things and human free will actions being a secondary cause of things.
Speaker 1:That's the way I would see it is that God is the primary cause, that says he has a plan and his plan involves Joseph getting to Egypt, becoming a leader and that would save his people and put them into Egypt, to where, over time, they become slaves, and he's going to deliver them from slavery and then use that as an example for the rest of us and how God has the power to deliver us out of the slavery of sin.
Speaker 1:I remember over in and I said I wasn't going to get out of Genesis this is why it gets sticky but over in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, peter is talking to the leaders of Israel and he said it was God's predetermined plan and foreknowledge for Jesus to die on the cross, but you did it In that situation. It was God's plan all along, from time immemorial, for Jesus to come and Jesus to die on a cross. But the free will actions of Pilate and Herod and the high priest of the nation of Israel and all the Sanhedrin freely made decisions without coercion, without being forced, like a puppet of their own free will action. They made decisions to kill Jesus own free will action. They made decisions to kill Jesus, but when they did so, they were aligning with God's predetermined plan of action for all of human history. Now how that works.
Speaker 2:I have no idea, and I agree that that was part of God's plan in order to redeem mankind and it came about through the actions of man. And I don't, and you don't either I don't think you do at least but we don't subscribe to that. God is putting it into their mind for them to do it. You mentioned that they're not puppets. We're not puppets. Right, you didn't put it into their mind in this instance or the instances that you've talking about here, to do those things. Now, one thing that I would ask you is is that there's references there. It says God sent me here ahead of you and God meant this for good. You meant it for evil, God meant it for good by God allowing for these things to happen. Does that meet the criteria of God sending Joseph there? And God meant for what happened for good.
Speaker 1:I would say yes, and the theologians have a name for it that I'm not remembering right now but there's God's will to allow things to happen If we freely choose to move in that direction. He allows that and, of course, he knows all decisions we're ever going to make, ever in our lifetime. He knows what he's going to allow and what he's not. I think if we were to describe it that way, then we would say God made a decision to allow people to make a free will move in his plan and therefore him determining. That's the way it's going to be. So when it says God determined that certain things happen, well, he can determine something by saying, oh, I'm going to allow him to make that free will decision to do it. That decision to determine something is an act of God. It's not a passive thing. In my view. It would be God allowing it.
Speaker 1:The question is could that be one of the explanations for how God did this? Yeah, could that be one of the explanations for how God did this? Yeah, that could be one of the explanations for how God did this. Is it the explanation? As I said, I'm not going to sit here and say I know exactly how God works because I don't know how God works. That could be one of the ways he did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same thing for me. I'm not going to say that this is specifically. However, I'm looking forward to the day whenever we'll be able to ask those type of questions and we'll get the direct answers to those questions.
Speaker 1:Well, the way I've always said is I'm looking forward to being in the Apostle Paul's theology class, even if I have to stand in the back, because I know it'll be a full class.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be great, so I do. That is, to me, is a way that God can allow things to happen, to bring about something that he wants to happen. Now, at the end of Genesis I think it's our last session of Genesis I did talk about omniscience, about God's omniscience and knowing everything. The example I used there was that back in Genesis 15, he told Abraham that your descendants are going to be in a land that's not theirs for 400 years. But I'm going to bring them out greater than what they went in and more prosperous than when they went in. But I am going to judge that nation of where they are. Now we find out at the end of Genesis that that nation is going to be Egypt, and we see in Exodus, when they come into it, that they do come out. God does make a judgment on the nation of Egypt and they do come out more prosperous.
Speaker 2:So God's knowledge of something that's going to happen, in my opinion, doesn't necessarily mean that he causes something to happen. We have people that are working on their own agency of doing things. One possible explanation is God allowing it to happen, but I think Scripture does talk about in other places that he does impress upon people's heart to do certain things that he wants them to do. The only thing that I would say in conjunction with what we're talking about, since you went outside of Genesis, I'll use the one thing outside of Genesis, from Romans of 828, that we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. God can take situations that people have gotten themselves into on their own free will, volition to do and work those situations out to his glory and for him to bring some good out of it. God works in that way as well. I'm like you. I'm not going to say specifically how, because I don't know specifically how, but there are some situations that we can look back on and say, okay, now I understand how God worked that out and what he did with it.
Speaker 2:But I think God in general, his overall nature from the very beginning of all of scripture, is to give mankind a choice. It starts in Genesis, chapter two, verse 15, at the very beginning, during the creation, where he gives Adam the choice of all the things in the garden here you can eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. To me, that sets up this whole theme of God and how he works with mankind by giving them a choice to either follow him or to not follow him. But as man goes through and makes those decisions, god can work out for his purposes what he wants to work out through the various actions that he takes. Sometimes it's allowing them to make those decisions. Other times, I think scripture is clear that he does determine and cause certain things to happen in order to bring about whatever his will might be. But I think we're both essentially saying the same thing. We're both on the same page, at least for the most part, wouldn't you agree saying the same thing.
Speaker 1:We're both on the same page, at least for the most part, wouldn't you agree? Well, I would agree, especially with that last part you said is that when a person comes to saving faith of Jesus Christ, the faith is theirs. In that sense, it's their decision to do that. I just wanted to drive home the language in Genesis is very clear and it's just very interesting the whole story in chapter 37 of the brothers doing all of those actions. It very clearly says they did it. But nevertheless, when they get it and they learn who Joseph was in chapter 45, it says it three times in four verses God sent me before you to preserve life. God sent me before you to keep you alive. It was not you who sent me here, but God. So somehow it's both true that the brothers acted and God acted, somehow. All I'm saying is that that's what the text says. Now, how that fits into somebody's theology system, I don't know and I'm not trying to get into all that right now. All I'm saying is that's what the text says.
Speaker 1:If God were using them as an instrumental cause, like a hand in a puppet, it wouldn't say those things. It wouldn't say they. Did it say those things, it wouldn't say they did it If God hadn't been part of it at all. If it was some sort of a foreknowledge thing, where God was just looking down through time and realizing what people were going to do, then it wouldn't have that second set of language that says God sent me. Those are active verbs, god's taking action. So it's not just foreknowledge. God is actively causing something and he's somehow working through the free will actions of human beings and the agency. The free will act of humans is not violated when God does this. Somehow, some way, he causes these things to happen. He sent Joseph, but he did it through the people doing free will actions, and it wasn't a hand in a puppet. They could have decided not to and God would have still accomplished his will somehow, some way. That's just how I see it. Now, if you want me to again explain the mind and acts of God, I can't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a good example of what you just said that they might not have done it and God would have worked it out. But we have Ruth Whenever Mordecai, her uncle, comes to her and says who knows why you have been? I'm paraphrasing who knows why you have been put in your place at this particular time? For what reason? In order to save your people. But if you don't act, god will work it out some other way. I think that goes directly from scripture of what, the last part there, what you just said.
Speaker 1:Thomas Aquinas gave an analogy of a stone. If you have a stone and you let it go, it's going to fall. Well, why? Because it's the nature of a stone to fall. If the stone were to float, then God would have to change the nature of the thing. It wouldn't be the nature of a stone anymore fall. If the stone were to float, then God would have to change the nature of the thing. It wouldn't be the nature of a stone anymore.
Speaker 1:Well, the nature of a human being is to make free will acts. It's the nature of a human being to have agency, Like Jacob was doing. Benjamin's not going to go. Okay, I've listened to your arguments and now he will go.
Speaker 1:It's the nature of a human being to make up their mind, listen to facts and think about it and maybe change my mind, or maybe not. That's the nature of a human being. God accomplishes his will through the nature of human beings making free will actions. And at the same time, it's not the case that we are like a hand in a glove and we're just moving the way God moves us, like a puppet, and it's also not the case that we are like a hand in a glove and we're just moving the way God moves us, like a puppet. And it's also not the case that God causes sin. He is not the author of sin. We can keep this up for quite a while because it does get really sticky and I'm sure somebody out there is going to say, well, what about this passage and what about that one? And that's just what makes it interesting. We would be here for a while and maybe some other topic day. Well, we will be here a while, but not today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening and give us feedback as to what you think about this. Leave us comments on our video platforms and on our audio platforms, send us a message at the info at reasoning through the Bible dot com and let us know what you think. We hope that you have been blessed by this and we'll make the free will act to end it right here.
