(Sorry for the long hiatus between postings. I've had some fairly serious health issues to contend with over the last several months.)
Person:
One (as a human being, a partnership, or a corporation) that is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties. Merriam Webster Online Dictionary.
I have been giving a lot of thought of late to the question of decision-making and how that relates to the will of God. In other words, how do we, as Christians, make decisions? Do we make them on our own, without guidance? If so, should we be doing it that way, or should we be actively seeking to know God’s will for us in any given set of circumstances or when conditions arise that force us to make (conscious) choices?
Now, I’m quite engaged with this question as it relates to individuals. But as well, I’m reflecting on whether the same underlying principles affect how corporate bodies make decisions, hence the definition of the word “person” at the beginning of this post. (I understand that this definition may not be very good, but it will serve my purposes for now.)
I’m currently re-reading a book entitled Decision Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen and Robin Maxsen. The main thesis of the book is that the commonly accepted (i. e. traditional) notion that God has a personal or individual will for each person is unbiblical and therefore untrue. The book upholds the theological ideas of God’s sovereign will and His moral will but puts to rest (quite handily, I must admit) the idea that we can discover God’s personal will for each us from various sources (including Scripture).
Before going on, let me give the four foundational principles of what the authors of the book call the way of wisdom:
- Where God commands, [i.e. in His moral will] we must obey;
- Where there is no command, God gives us freedom (and responsibility) to choose [i.e. make a decision];
- Where there is no command, God gives us wisdom to choose;
- When we have chosen what is moral and wise, we must trust the sovereign God to work out all the details together for good.
(To me, this sounds a lot like the Normative Principle of Worship [NPW] being applied in a broader context than just worship. Unlike the Regulative Principle of Worship [RPW] which really only applies to worship and so has limited application, the NP can seemingly be applied to any number of situations.)
The emphasis of the way of wisdom (outlined in these four points) is on individuals; single unique persons. However, I’m intrigued by the idea that if what the authors say is true (and false) for single unique persons then, given the way that cohesive, consistent, interconnected groups such as Christian congregations behave, perhaps the same could be said for them. In other words, if God sees each and every congregation as a (more or less) holistic entity whose constituent members act (more or less) in concert with one another (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor 12:20, 27; Eph 4:12, 25), should not the same hypothesis be true for them as for a person?
Put another way, if God’s sovereign will applies to individuals, could it not also apply to corporate entities acting in personal ways? Now we know that both God’s sovereign will and His moral will apply right across the board, without exception. A qualifying difference however, is that God’s sovereign will can never be known (except through prophesy) until after it has been accomplished, while God’s moral will has already been revealed in totality by the Holy Spirit in Scripture.
Now this is all very well and good but what can we learn about corporate decision-making from all this? Well, maybe nothing if my own hypothesis is wrong and there is no correlation or relationship involved in how individual persons make decisions and how corporate persons such as Christian congregations make them. On the other hand, if there is a kind of correspondence, then this could have important ramifications for group decision-making in congregations.
For instance, if a congregation is faced with the necessity of deciding a course of action and seeks—from the common assumptions, motivations, doubts, fears, confidence, assurance etc. of its constituent members—to know what the personal (corporate) will of God is by various means such as open doors, impressions, prayer, and so on, it will find the process difficult to impossible since there is no actual personal divine will, there is only God’s sovereign will and His moral will. So if the congregation, for instance, engages to know if God wants it to find or build its own building, it will be of no avail to ask God in prayer, “Do you want the [name of congregation] to find a new building or would you have us build one instead?” because this is to presumptuously assume that God will reveal His hidden, sovereign will through a means that runs contrary to His revealed moral will. (While we can ask for anything in prayer that God has indicated by His Word as valid, we are not to ask for anything which runs contrary to His will as it is revealed in and by Scripture.) If the congregation “waits on the Lord” and by this is meant it waits for an “open door” or subjective impressions, or the leading of the Holy Spirit and so on, then perhaps it is waiting in vain. For one thing, such “means” can give us no objective proof that what we are asking for is in fact part of God’s sovereign will (The question itself must be part of this sovereign will, else it would not have been asked in the first place, but the answer to the question will remain a secret until such time as God sees fit to make His will known.)
Now please don’t misunderstand me, I’m simply asking these questions. I’m not trying to defend the position of the authors of this book (although I’m in essential agreement with them). I merely pose the questions because they are of some concern to me right now. I can see the validity of the authors’ argument when applied to individuals. I’m not certain it applies to congregations when the members are acting in concert. Perhaps it does apply, perhaps not.
If it does apply then this should be a huge blessing to congregations in their decision-making which of course all but the most stagnant of congregations must engage in on a regular basis. From my own perspective (Reformed Presbyterian) the decision-making is essentially or largely the responsibility of the ruling Session (pastor and elders together). But again, this is a corporate structure. So even if the decision-making is accomplished by a small number of men acting in concert, all that can really be asked for or expected are qualities such as wisdom, discernment of the truth and perhaps courage to apply the truth once a decision has been arrived at.
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I will however continue to pray that the Session of my own congregation will seek to obtain the wisdom, discernment, courage and—last, but certainly not least—the power, to carry out the right course of action once a decision has been made.
I’ll probably have more to say on this subject when I finish re-reading this book.
Soli Deo Gloria
