What Are the Decrees of God?

[Sung Psalm: 148]

The Reformed have always affirmed two things:

1. God is sovereign over all things, so yes, all things come from God; but
2. God is not the author of sin – so while evil may come from God in some sense, good and evil come from God in different ways.

In the recent election a political candidate came under heavy fire for suggesting that God “intended” rape (or at least the pregnancy that came from rape).

It was not politically correct to say this, but theologically speaking he had a point.

Christian theology has historically asserted that God is eternal – and that God knows all things from the beginning.

To put it in its most basic form, if God knows all things from before the foundation of the world, then that means that God knew about the child that would come from that rape, and so the fact that God created this world with this story line, means that God intended (in some sense) everything that has happened in human history.

It doesn't work to say that God intended all the good stuff, so all the bad stuff is “accidental.” Jeremiah makes it clear in Lamentations 3 that the bad, as well as the good, comes from God.