COMPILED QUOTATIONS
God’s Decree, Providence, and Evil
This file combines the two quote collections originally supplied, removes repeated passages, and adds further well-known Reformed / Calvinist statements that God decrees or ordains evil events (including the fall and particular sins) while usually denying that God is himself the sinner.
Most writers in the “classic Reformed” line use this pair: (1) God unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, including sinful acts; (2) the sinfulness of the act is from the creature, not from God as author. Vincent Cheung is included as the far edge of the same logic; his “author of sin” wording is rejected by most Westminster/Ligonier/Piper writers.
Scripture texts most often cited in this debate: Acts 2:23; 4:27–28; Ephesians 1:11; Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lamentations 3:37–38; Genesis 50:20; Romans 9.
I. Confessional standards
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)
“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.”
WCF 3.1.
“The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be, the author or approver of sin.”
WCF 5.4. The 1689 Baptist Confession uses the same structure.
“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.”
WCF 3.3.
“The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will … to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath, for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.”
WCF 3.7.
Canons of Dort
Reprobation, on the Dort account, is not a bare foresight of unbelief. God leaves some in their fall and ordains them to condemnation for their sin, while unbelief itself is not outside the decree. See First Head of Doctrine, articles 6 and 15, and the Rejection of Errors.
Canons of Dort I.6, I.15 and Rejection of Errors under the First Head.
II. Authors, A–Z
Boettner, Loraine
“In the same manner and to an infinitely greater extent God controls our actions so that they are certain although we act freely.” […] “Even the sinful acts of men are included in this plan.”
Usually cited from The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.
“Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God.”
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.
Calvin, John
“Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.”
Institutes 1.16.8.
“Men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously decreed with himself, and brings to pass by his secret direction.”
Institutes 1.18.1.
“The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.”
Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J. K. S. Reid, p. 175f.
“… how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission. … It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them. … Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.”
The Eternal Predestination of God 10:11.
“From these statements of the inspired word … it is, I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous.”
Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God.
“Does God control even the evil wills of evil men? Calvin’s answer, in accord with Scripture, was ‘yes.’ Just as God controlled the rebellion of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12), the cursing of Shimei (2 Sam. 16:10), and the rage of the Jerusalem crowds (Acts 2:23), so He controls even the will of all wicked men.”
The Secret Providence of God, ed. Paul Helm, trans. Keith Goad (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79–80.
Note: The last block is Helm/Goad framing Calvin, not a continuous Calvin paragraph.
Cheung, Vincent
“God must be the author of evil, or evil could never have come about. God must be the author of sin, or sin could never have happened.”
“God the Author” (vincentcheung.com, 2009).
“When someone alleges that my view of divine sovereignty makes God the author of sin, my reaction is ‘So what?’ … The truth is that, whether or not God is the author of sin, there is no biblical or rational problem with him being the author of sin.”
The Author of Sin (2014), p. 4.
“God controls everything that exists and everything that happens. There is not one thing that exists or that happens that he has not decreed and caused—not even a single thought in the mind of man. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed and caused the existence of evil. … In fact, when it comes to ontology, ‘God’s permission’ is an unintelligible term.”
The Author of Sin, p. 61.
Note: Cheung is the blunt edge of decree-theology. Most Westminster, Ligonier, and Piper writers reject calling God “the author of sin.”
Clark, Gordon H.
“I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so. … In Ephesians 1:11, Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will.”
Religion, Reason and Revelation (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1961), 221.
Edwards, Jonathan
“That we should say that God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that is sinful, and every circumstance of those actions; that he predetermines that they shall be in every respect as they afterwards are; that he determines that there shall be such actions, and just so sinful as they are; and yet that God does not decree the actions that are sinful, as sin, but decrees them as good,—all of this is really consistent.”
Concerning the Divine Decrees in General, and Election in Particular.
If by “the author of sin” is meant the sinner, the agent, or doer of a wicked thing, Edwards says it would be “a reproach and blasphemy” to call God the author of sin, and he “utterly deny[s]” it in that sense. If it only means that God so disposes the state of events that sin, if permitted, “will most certainly and infallibly follow,” he does not deny the substance, though he dislikes the phrase.
Freedom of the Will / related discussions; often quoted via Piper.
“So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love.”
Cited in John Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” (1998).
Frame, John M.
“The Reformed agree that God knows what would happen under all conditions, but they reject the notion that this knowledge is ever ultimately based on man’s autonomous decisions. Human decisions, they argue, are themselves the effects of God’s eternal decrees.”
“Scientia Media,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 1075.
Grudem, Wayne
God “brings about evil deeds through the willing actions of moral creatures. Moreover, Scripture never blames God for evil or shows God as taking pleasure in evil, and Scripture never excuses human beings for the wrong they do.”
Systematic Theology, discussion of God and evil (standard Grudem wording as commonly cited).
Hendryx, John
“In order to understand this better theologians have come up with the term ‘compatibilism’ to describe the concurrence of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Compatibilism is a form of determinism and it should be noted that this position is no less deterministic than hard determinism.”
Monergism.com. Related piece: “We are not Determinists!”
Hodge, A. A.
“God having from eternity absolutely decreed whatsoever comes to pass … he ALSO continually controls and directs the actions of all his creatures thus preserved, so that while he never violates the law of their several natures, he yet infallibly causes all actions and events singular and universal to occur according to the eternal and immutable plan embraced in his decree.”
“God’s decree ‘foreordains whatsoever comes to pass’; there was no event in the womb of the future, the futurition of which was not made certain to God by it.”
Outlines of Theology / systematic material.
Note: The paste’s line “If God’s plan doesn’t determine free human actions…” was a gloss and is omitted.
Hodge, Charles
“The decrees of God are certainly efficacious, that is, they render certain the occurrence of what He decrees. Whatever God foreordains, must certainly come to pass. The distinction between the efficient (or efficacious) and the permissive decrees of God, although important, has no relation to the certainty of events. All events embraced in the purpose of God are equally certain, whether He has determined to bring them to pass by his own power, or simply to permit their occurrence through the agency of his creatures.” […] “It was no less certain from eternity that Satan would tempt our first parents, and that they would fall, than that God would send his Son to die for sinners.”
“The doctrine of the Bible is, that all events, whether necessary or contingent, good or sinful, are included in the purpose of God, and that their futurition or actual occurrence is rendered absolutely certain.”
Systematic Theology, sections on the decrees.
Luther, Martin
“[The] omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of ‘free-will’… Doubtless it gives the greatest possible offence to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace.)”
The Bondage of the Will (1525).
Note: Luther is the Reformation source of this line, not a later “five-point” Calvinist. Editorial bullets from Collection 2 are omitted.
MacArthur, John
“He controls everything. He’s in complete control of evil.” […] “The devil is God’s devil; he’s totally controlled by God.” […] “Every single movement, as R. C. said, of every molecule is controlled by God, and a whole lot of it is evil.” […] “There’s not one molecule in the universe that’s out of line with His purposes.”
Grace to You.
“Then God is responsible for all the evil and all the divine judgment and the determination of eternal punishment. This is a God that some people just can’t live with; they’ve got to get Him off the hook.”
Grace to You (video).
Note: The second block describes the free-will theodicy MacArthur is rejecting.
Owen, John
On the fall: the tree, the serpent, and the taking of the fruit were not a bare permission. “Sovereign” here “means more than mere permission. God is not the author of sin, but neither is ‘allow’ the best explanation for it all. … it was all decreed.”
Discussion of Communion with God, as summarized in The Cripplegate, “John Owen on Why God Decreed the Fall” (2013).
Note: Owen’s own prose in Communion with God speaks of a “design in Christ” lodged from eternity after describing the fall’s ruin; the word “decreed” in the summary is the interpreter’s.
Palmer, Edwin H.
“All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history … come to pass because God ordained them. Even sin—the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history … is included in the eternal decree of our holy God.” […] “Sin is not only foreknown by God, it is also foreordained by God.”
The Five Points of Calvinism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), pp. 24–25, 82.
Pink, A. W.
“Plainly it was God’s will that sin should enter this world, otherwise it would not have entered, for nothing happens except what God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there was more than a simple permission, for God only permits things that fulfill His purpose.” […] “Not only did God have a perfect foreknowledge of the outcome of Adam’s trial; not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so.”
The Sovereignty of God.
Piper, John
“God so disposes all things … so that in accordance with moral necessity all men make only those choices ordained by God from all eternity.” […] “In this way He ultimately determines all acts of volition (though not all in the same way) and yet holds man accountable only for those acts which they want most to do.”
Desiring God (page/URL not in the original paste).
“Somehow, we must confess both that God has a role in bringing evil about, and that in doing so he is holy and blameless.” […] “God does bring sins about, but always for his own good purposes. So in bringing sin to pass he does not himself commit sin.”
Desiring God writing on God and evil.
“Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be? … no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin … or by denying his control of sin … is fatal.”
John Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” (1998).
Shedd, W. G. T.
“In Pauline conception, predestination, or foreordination, covers and includes both the holiness that is to be rewarded with life, and the sin that is to be punished with death. The holiness of the elect is predestinated, and the sin of the non-elect likewise.” […] “the perdition of Judas was as much foreordained and free from chance, as the conversion of Saul.”
Calvinism: Mixed and Pure (Monergism reprint, 2020), 78, 34.
Sproul, R. C., Jr.
“God wills all things that come to pass.” […] “God desired for man to fall into sin.” […] “I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin.”
Almighty Over All (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), p. 54.
Note: R. C. Sproul Jr., not R. C. Sproul Sr.
Talbot, Mark
“Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ ‘works all things according to the counsel of his will.’ Here the Greek word for ‘works’ is energeō, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory … This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”
In John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 42.
Turretin, Francis
God is not the “true and proper cause” of sin; yet the fall stands under the decree so that it is certain. Secondary literature regularly pairs Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology on this point with Edwards.
Institutes of Elenctic Theology 1:611 (as cited in discussions of Edwards and the fall).
Zachariades, Theodore
“God works all things after the Council of His will. Even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so! And when He wants to, he orders those to commit adultery when he wants to!”
Video (title/date not in the paste). “Council” almost certainly = “counsel.”
Zanchius, Jerome
“Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it.”
The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination, ch. II, sec. II, par. 4.