Who's Your Father?: Returning to the Love of the Biblical God

by Robert Bernecker

cannot) do what he pleases. It has become quite acceptable, it seems, to portray our God as sadly settling for many things that would turn out completely different if he could only do as he pleased—a disappointed, frustrated God. As a single example, it is suggested that it would please God to save many people, or even all people, but he cannot manage to do so because of their free will or, worse, because he is unable to round up enough human help for this endeavor. This viewpoint turns these two verses inside out and suggests the rather fantastic notion that God has turned his throne over to humans, whereby it is humans who do as they please in heaven and on earth while God is subservient to those “free” actions. Instead of falling victim to the whimsical conception of a disappointed, heartbroken God whose wishes and desires are being constantly stymied by the uncontrollable free will of humans, we must instead realize that human will is no match for divine purpose. God steers even the most powerful of human hearts as he pleases (Proverbs 21:1). Shocking as it may seem to some, an atheist can only remain an atheist because, for whatever perfect reason God wills, it does not please God to reveal himself to that particular atheist in a forceful enough fashion to change the atheist’s will. Certainly the atheist is guilty even without such a compelling revelation (Romans 1 and 2), but we can never be so arrogant as to assert that God is not well capable of an irresistible rev...