Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine

by Wayne Grudem

“The 3.8 billion years of plant and animal death and extinction that preceded humanity provided for the needs of civilization. Through that death and decay, God gave humanity enormous biodeposits of sand, limestone, marble, topsoil, coal, oil, and natural gas. . . . Civilization . . . is based on the abundance of these assets. . . . Humans are beneficiaries of the remains of millions of generations of plants and animals that preceded us.”

Multiple Types of Evidence Indicate That the Earth and the Universe Are Billions of Years Old

Ross says they show an average age of the universe of “13.79 ± 0.06 billion years,” and he adds, “The consistency of the three independent methods is remarkable.”

“all stars of approximately the same mass as the Sun manifest unstable luminosities for the first 50 million years and intense x-ray radiation for the first few hundred million years.”

Cosmic background radiation temperatures. The average temperature of outer space is not absolute zero (-459.67° Fahrenheit or -273.15° Celsius) but is 2.72548° Celsius above absolute zero. This is called cosmic microwave background radiation, and it gets hotter as astronomers look at more distant galaxies

the arguments about evolution versus creation by intelligent design, because the massive amount of scientific evidence for intelligent design, coming from the incredible complexity and vast amounts of information required for living organisms, has persuaded numerous non-Christian scientists that neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory cannot explain the origin of living things today.

Another objection to the day-age view is that it apparently puts the sun, moon, and stars (day four) millions of years after the creation of plants and trees (day three). That makes no sense at all according to current scientific opinion,

those who hold the day-age view say that the sun, moon, and stars were created before the first day, when “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), and that the sun, moon, and stars were only made visible or revealed on day four, perhaps through the thinning or removal of a haze barrier that had previously been translucent.133

Nehemiah 9:6: You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

God’s Providence

If God controls all things, how can our actions have real meaning? What are the decrees of God?

the term providence is not found in Scripture, it has been used traditionally to summarize God’s ongoing relationship to his creation.

The biblical doctrine is neither deism (which teaches that God created the world and then essentially abandoned it) nor pantheism (which teaches that the creation does not have a real, distinct existence in itself, but is only part of God),

providence (which teaches that though God is actively related to and involved in the creation at each moment, creation is distinct from him).

PRESERVATION God keeps all created things existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them.

God’s providence provides a basis for science: God has made and continues to sustain a universe that acts in predictable ways.

CONCURRENCE God cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do.

Animals Scripture affirms that God feeds the wild animals of the field:

These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed. (Ps. 104:27–29; cf. Job 38:39–41)

Events Fully Caused by God and Fully Caused by the Creature as Well

The Affairs of Nations Scripture also speaks of God’s providential control of human affairs. We read that God “makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away” (Job 12:23).

All Aspects of Our Lives

What about Evil?

“What is the relationship between God and evil in the world?” Does God actually cause the evil actions that people do? If he does, then is God not responsible for sin?

Scripture nowhere shows God as directly doing anything evil but rather as bringing 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,

What Scripture reveals to us, and what Jonah himself realized, was that God was bringing about his plan through the willing choices of real human beings who were morally accountable for their actions. In a way not understood by us and not revealed to us, God caused them to make a willing choice to do what they did. They were “free” in the sense that they did what they most wanted to do, taking account of all the circumstances around them.

God Uses All Things to Fulfill His Purposes and Even Uses Evil for His Glory and for Our Good.

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).

God Never Does Evil and Is Never to Be Blamed for Evil.

“For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” (Luke 22:22; cf. Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21).

“Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!” (Matt. 18:7).

God Rightfully Blames and Judges Moral Creatures for the Evil They Do.

Evil Is Real, Not an Illusion, and We Should Never Do Evil, for It Will Always Harm Us and Others.

We should never even will evil to be done, for entertaining sinful desires in our minds is to allow them to “wage war” against our souls (1 Peter 2:11)

Though we should imitate God’s moral character in many ways (cf. Eph. 5:1), this is one way we are not to imitate him.

We Confess That We Do Not Understand How God Can Ordain That We Carry Out Evil Deeds and Yet Hold Us Accountable for Them and Not be Blamed Himself.

Are We Free? Do We Have Free Will?

Scripture nowhere says that we are “free” in the sense of being outside of God’s control19 or of being able to make decisions that are not caused by anything.

Nor does it say we are “free” in the sense of being able to do right on our own apart from God’s power.

we make willing choices, choices that have real effects.

1. Libertarian free will is “the ability, all things being just what they are, to choose differently.”

2. Freedom of inclination means that “we are free when we choose according to our strongest inclination or deepest desire. In short, we are free when we do what we most want to do.”

C. GOVERNMENT 1. Scriptural Evidence

God’s providence indicates that God has a purpose in all that he does in the world and he providentially governs or directs all things in order that they accomplish his purposes. We read in the Psalms, “His kingdom rules over all” (Ps. 103:19).

Distinctions Concerning the Will of God

another aspect of God’s will is his providential government of all things (sometimes called his “secret will”).

D. THE DECREES OF GOD

decrees of God are the eternal plans of God whereby, before the creation of the world, he determined to bring about everything that happens.

Prayer Is One Specific Kind of Action That Has Definite Results and That Does Change the Course of Events

Wisely, Paul knew that God’s providential oversight and even his clear prediction of what would happen still involved the use of ordinary human means to bring it about. He was even so bold to say that those means were necessary: “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved” (Acts 27:31).