Latest / Reformed Thinking / God the Consuming Fire: The Necessity of Divine Justice | John Owen

Transcript

God the Consuming Fire: The Necessity of Divine Justice | John Owen · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Usually when we talk about a
0:03
medical diagnosis, there is an expectation of precision.
0:07
You know, you break your arm. The X-ray shows that jagged
0:10
white line and, well, the doctor points at the screen and says,
0:12
there it is. Right.
0:14
Yeah, it is binary. It is either broken or not
0:16
broken, yes. Precisely.
0:18
It is a clean, visible categorization, and that gives
0:23
us a lot of comfort. We really like things to be
0:25
visible and easily defined. But then you step into the world
0:28
of divine justice and, well, that X-ray machine suddenly
0:31
seems broken. It really does.
0:33
It is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
0:38
Right, we start looking at a theological landscape that gets
0:41
muddy fast, especially when we try to apply human metrics to
0:44
the Creator. I mean, when we try to take the
0:46
scales of human justice, which are, you know, so often reactive
0:50
and flawed, and we map them onto an infinite being, the
0:53
categories just start breaking down.
0:55
Yeah, that is spot on. So today we are doing a deep
0:58
dive into a specific set of texts.
1:00
We are looking at excerpts from John Owens, a dissertation on
1:03
divine Justice, specifically focusing on Chapter 16.
1:06
And this is an incredible text because it drops us right into a
1:11
brilliant high stakes intellectual brawl.
1:14
It really is a brawl. Our mission for this deep dive
1:16
is to investigate a rigorous theological debate between John
1:20
Owen, a theologian named Johannes Piscator, and Doctor
1:23
William Twist. Right, those are the three main
1:26
voices we are tracking here. And the central question we are
1:30
posing to you, the listener, is this Does God punish sin because
1:34
he simply decides to do it, or because his very nature demands
1:38
it? That is the.
1:38
Core of it, yeah. And if his nature demands it,
1:41
does that make him a captive to rules?
1:43
Or is that the purest definition of freedom?
1:46
To set the proper historical and intellectual context here, we
1:49
have to understand the giants involved in this debate.
1:51
Yeah, tell us about Piscator first, since he sort of starts
1:54
the whole thing. Well, y'all's piscator laid down
1:56
the initial argument we will be dissecting today.
1:58
He was a highly regarded Strasbourg born theologian.
2:01
He lived from 1546 to 1626. OK, so late 16th, early 17th
2:07
century. Right.
2:08
He worked as a divinity professor at Herborn.
2:10
He was also a massive figure in German Bible translation, and he
2:14
wrote extensive notes pushing back against the thinker named
2:17
Conrad Vorstius. Wow.
2:19
OK. So he has a lot of credibility.
2:21
Absolutely. Piscator brings a very specific
2:24
argument about the nature of God's justice to the table.
2:27
And pushing back against Piscator is Doctor William
2:30
Twist. Now we have to be careful here,
2:32
right? Because it is easy to read Owens
2:34
defense and view Twist as a punching bag or like a straw
2:38
man. Oh yeah, Twist was anything but
2:40
a lightweight. Far from it.
2:41
I mean, the text calls him a celebrated antagonist.
2:44
Yeah, William Twist was the prelocator of the Westminster
2:47
Assembly. He was a Titanic figure in 17th
2:49
century scholasticism and incredibly rigorous, this super
2:53
lapsarian thinker and someone whose intellectual weight was
2:56
respected across Europe. So he is not just some random
2:59
guy arguing on the Internet of the 1600s.
3:02
Not at all. Twist takes Biska Tour's
3:04
arguments and launches A devastating series of critiques.
3:07
Twist is operating from a position known as theological
3:09
volunteerism. And that is the idea that God's
3:11
will is the absolute, unconditioned standard of what
3:14
is just right. Correct.
3:16
He argues forcefully against anything that seems to limit
3:19
God's freedom of choice, Which? Brings us to John Owen.
3:22
Owen steps into the ring to defend Piscator's main
3:25
conclusion against Twis's attacks.
3:27
And Owen is arguably the greatest English theologian of
3:31
his era. Yeah, and what is wild is that
3:33
he notes in the text that he only had a few leisure hours to
3:37
write this defense due to his insane schedule.
3:39
I love that detail. Yeah, the man had a few spare
3:42
hours on a Tuesday afternoon and cranked out a master class on
3:45
the mechanics of divine justice. It makes you feel very
3:48
unproductive, doesn't it? Just a little.
3:50
Bit yeah, But what I love about Owen's approach is that he
3:53
refuses to be a blind loyalist. He explicitly states that
3:56
disciples of Christ ought to call none on Earth master in
3:59
matters of religion. Right, he does not agree with
4:01
every single phrasing Piscator uses.
4:04
Exactly. Wait, I mean that is spot on.
4:06
He sets aside the anxious search afterwards and the minutiae of
4:09
similes to focus on the core truth of the matter.
4:12
So let us get into Piscator's initial argument, which relies
4:15
heavily on a specific metaphor from Hebrews 12.29.
4:19
That text describes God as a consuming fire.
4:23
Yes, and Piscator takes this metaphor and builds A
4:26
philosophical argument around it.
4:28
He argues that just as physical fire burns combustible material
4:32
by a natural necessity, God punishes sin by a natural
4:36
necessity when it is presented before his justice.
4:39
Think about the physics of a fire.
4:40
You know, if you throw a dry branch into a roaring blaze, the
4:44
fire does not stop. Analyze the wood and calculate
4:47
whether it should burn it. Right, the property of its
4:49
nature guarantees the branch will ignite.
4:51
And Piscator applies this directly to the divine nature.
4:54
He is saying God, from the perfection of his justice,
4:57
cannot avoid punishing sin when it is presented before that
5:00
justice. It sounds straightforward on the
5:02
surface. I mean, I can immediately see
5:04
why Twis would have a massive problem with that though.
5:06
It makes God sound like an unthinking mechanical force of
5:08
nature. Yeah.
5:09
Twis asks if God is just a roaring fire reacting blindly to
5:13
whatever is thrown into it, where is the divine intellect?
5:16
Where is the sovereign will? Right.
5:18
And this is where Owen steps in with a critical correction.
5:22
He agrees with Piscador's conclusion that God must punish
5:25
sin, but he entirely rejects the idea of absolute necessity in
5:29
the way a physical fire operates.
5:31
Yes, Owen insists. God is not a blind, inanimate
5:34
force. He calls God a rational and
5:37
intelligent fire. And that distinction changes the
5:40
entire landscape of the debate. It really does.
5:43
Piscuiter's phrasing, left unchecked, leaves the door wide
5:47
open to view, gone as a mechanical force reacting to
5:49
stimuli. Owen shuts that door firmly.
5:52
He insists that God works as an intelligent agent.
5:55
Right to reconcile the necessity of justice with the intelligence
5:58
of God, Owen brings in the concept of concomitant liberty.
6:02
Concomitant liberty. OK, let us break that down for
6:04
the listener. This means the necessity of the
6:06
action runs parallel with the complete freedom of the agent's
6:09
will. Let me offer an analogy to
6:10
clarify how this works mechanically.
6:12
We are talking about the difference between a chemical
6:14
reaction and the jurisprudence of a perfectly honest judge.
6:18
Oh, that is a great way to look at it.
6:20
A chemical reaction has no choice.
6:22
You mix vinegar and baking soda and it fizzes.
6:25
The reaction is an absolute blind necessity.
6:29
Right, there's no intellect involved there.
6:30
But now look at a perfectly honest, flawless judge.
6:34
This judge has a brilliant mind, a distinct will and complete
6:38
agency. But this judge's character is so
6:41
purely aligned with the law that it is functionally impossible
6:45
for him to accept a bribe. Right.
6:47
He is not forced by a physical law like gravity.
6:49
Exactly. Or rather, I should say he is
6:51
bound by his own unyielding character.
6:54
That is a highly precise way to frame the mechanics.
6:57
The judge acts by necessity, meaning he cannot take the
7:00
bribe, but he executes that necessity with complete freedom
7:03
of understanding and will. And that is the essence of
7:05
concomitant liberty. God's justice demands action,
7:09
but he executes it with a free, intelligent will.
7:12
Yes, the action is necessary, but the agent acting is entirely
7:16
free in the execution of it. So with that framework in place,
7:19
we see Doctor Twist launches first major attack.
7:22
Twist zeroes in on this very concept of necessity.
7:25
He does. Twist argues that any necessity
7:27
of nature automatically excludes all kinds of liberty.
7:31
In Twist's mind, if God must act, he is not free.
7:35
Freedom for Twist requires the ability to choose an alternate
7:38
path. Right.
7:39
If the fire must burn the wood, the fire has no liberty.
7:43
Therefore, if God must punish sin, God has no liberty.
7:46
Twist is applying a very strict definition of freedom here.
7:50
He equates freedom with the ability to choose between
7:52
contraries. Yes, if you cannot choose option
7:54
B, you are not free in choosing option.
7:57
A. But Owen spots the flaw in that
7:59
reasoning right away. Twist is attacking a straw man
8:02
because he is applying the rules of inanimate objects to a divine
8:05
intellectual being. Twist's arguments only apply to
8:08
a blind necessity, like the chemical reaction we mentioned
8:11
earlier. They do not accurately target
8:13
the kind of intellectual necessity Owen is defending.
8:16
Right, so Owen clarifies what Piscadour intended.
8:19
God acts by a natural necessity, strictly in the sense that by
8:22
nature He cannot do otherwise. Supposing sin exists, the strict
8:26
demands of his justice mean he cannot act otherwise than to
8:29
punish it. But to explain why this does not
8:32
encroach on God's liberty, Owen dives into the philosophical
8:35
nature of the will itself. In 17th century faculty
8:39
psychology, the will is understood as an intellectual
8:42
appetite. Freedom of action is the very
8:45
essence of the will. Wait hold on, let me make sure I
8:47
follow. Owen is saying God has no choice
8:50
but to punish sin, but he is still completely free.
8:54
That is what he's arguing, yes. Because that sounds like a
8:57
contradiction wrapped in theological double talk.
9:00
You know, if I am forced to do something, I am not free.
9:03
Well, depends on what is forcing you.
9:05
I mean, if I am forced to pay my taxes, I'm doing it out of
9:07
necessity, but I certainly do not feel free while doing it.
9:12
How can God be bound by his nature, unable to choose the
9:14
contrary, but still be totally free?
9:16
It is a vital question. To resolve it, we have to look
9:20
at the source of the constraint. When you feel forced to pay
9:23
taxes, you feel trapped because the force is external.
9:26
The government is an outside entity imposing a demand.
9:29
Yeah, a demand that contradicts your internal desire to keep
9:32
your money. That is coercion.
9:35
But for God, the demand does not come from the outside.
9:37
There is no external law of justice sitting above God,
9:41
forcing him to comply against his wishes.
9:43
Correct. The demand comes from his own
9:46
perfect internal character. He is acting in total agreement
9:49
with who he is. When a being acts in complete,
9:53
unhindered alignment with its truest, most perfect desires,
9:57
that is not coercion. That is the pinnacle of freedom.
10:00
OK, I see the distinction now. The constraint is internal
10:04
perfection, not external coercion.
10:06
Yeah, it is like a man who loves his wife perfectly.
10:09
He is bound to be faithful to her by his own character, but he
10:12
does not experience that fidelity as a prison.
10:15
Right. He experiences it as the free
10:17
expression of his love. Yeah.
10:19
The human mind is naturally inclined toward happiness.
10:22
You cannot choose to want to be miserable for the sake of sheer
10:25
misery, right? Your will is naturally inclined
10:27
toward seeking satisfaction. Yeah, you pursue that happiness
10:30
freely. Spot on.
10:31
The natural inclination does not destroy your freedom, it
10:34
provides the context for it. Similarly, God's nature demands
10:39
justice, but he executes that justice freely because his will
10:43
is perfectly aligned with his nature.
10:46
But if God's character is this inescapable wall of justice that
10:51
must punish sin by a necessity of nature, it begs an obvious
10:55
question. Why isn't the world vaporized
10:57
the millisecond we do something wrong?
10:59
Well, that is exactly where Twist goes next.
11:01
This is where Twist sets his second trap regarding the timing
11:04
of divine justice. Right Twist argues that if God
11:07
acts from a necessity of nature, he must react instantly the
11:10
moment a sin occurs. The punishment must.
11:12
Drop. Go back to the physical fire
11:13
metaphor to instant. The paper touches the flame, it
11:16
burns. There is no delay.
11:17
And Twist uses this to argue that if Pisco, Tor and Omen are
11:20
right, God has no choice but to punish sin the millisecond it is
11:23
committed. Yes, and since God obviously
11:26
delays punishment, Twist concludes the necessity argument
11:29
must be false. It is a brilliant piece of
11:31
logical maneuvering by Twist, I have to admit.
11:34
He looks at the empirical reality of delayed judgment in
11:37
the world and uses it to attack the metaphysical premise of
11:41
natural necessity. Right, if necessity equals
11:44
instant reaction and reactions are not instant, then there is
11:48
no necessity. And Owen handles this by making
11:50
a razor sharp distinction between the principle of acting
11:53
and the mode of acting. OK, let's unpack.
11:56
That the principle is the what and the why.
11:58
God's nature requires that He act justly.
12:01
That is the principle. The mode is the when and the
12:03
how. Right.
12:04
The necessity of his nature guarantees that justice will be
12:07
served, but His infinite wisdom dictates the timing and the
12:10
method of the administration. Owen uses a highly effective
12:14
analogy right in the text. To demonstrate this, he asks us
12:17
to consider God speaking. Yes, this is a great analogy
12:21
because of his nature. God is absolute truth.
12:24
Therefore, when God speaks, he must speak truly.
12:27
God cannot lie. The principle of truth is a
12:29
natural necessity. However, God still speaks
12:32
freely. He chooses when to speak, whom
12:34
to speak to, and what specific words to use.
12:37
The necessity of truth does not rob him of the freedom of
12:40
administration. Right.
12:41
The necessity guarantees the character of the action, but
12:45
infinite wisdom governs the execution.
12:48
You know, think about how this alters our understanding of
12:50
history. Oh absolutely.
12:52
You look at the world and see wrongs that seem to unanswered
12:55
for decades, sometimes centuries.
12:58
And the natural human response, much like Twist's logic, is to
13:01
assume that justice must be optional.
13:04
Maybe God just let that one slide.
13:06
But Owens framework demands a different conclusion.
13:09
Just because justice is not immediate does not mean it is
13:12
optional. Correct.
13:13
The timing is being handled by a free, intelligent creator.
13:17
The check is guaranteed by His nature, but the delivery date is
13:20
set by His wisdom. So Twist, seeing that his timing
13:23
argument fails to break the concept of necessity scales up
13:26
his attack. If God is not forced to act
13:29
instantly, is he forced to act with maximum force?
13:32
Yes, Twist brings a serious charge here, basically leveling
13:35
an accusation of blasphemy against Piscator.
13:37
Wow, blasphemy. That is a heavy charge.
13:39
Twist argues that if God is like a fire acting by natural
13:43
necessity, he would burn with all his force.
13:47
Therefore, every single punishment for every single
13:50
offense would require God to use the absolute maximum of His
13:55
omnipotence. Twist is saying that if God is
13:57
compelled by his nature to punish, he has to empty the
14:00
entire tank of his divine strength every time he acts.
14:04
Yes, Twist labels this idea absurd and blasphemous because
14:08
it implies God exhausts himself or has no nuance in his
14:11
judgments. It would mean every minor
14:13
infraction receives a punishment of infinite universe destroying
14:17
magnitude. Now I have heard people try to
14:20
explain omnipotence using the analogy of a sports car.
14:23
They say if you have a car capable of driving 200 mph, you
14:26
do not drive it at that speed in the school zone.
14:28
Yeah, I have heard that one, but that analogy always feels a
14:31
little thin to me when we were talking about divine attributes.
14:34
It does. It explains capability, but it
14:36
lacks the philosophical weight of how God's nature constrains
14:39
his might. How does Owen actually dismantle
14:42
Twis's argument here? Well, Owen dismantles it by
14:45
correcting Twis's misunderstanding of the
14:47
relationship between justice and omnipotence.
14:49
Right. Twis assumes that a natural
14:51
necessity to act means a necessity to act to the absolute
14:55
limit of 1's capability. And Owen counters that God's
14:58
nature requires him to punish as far as is just, not as far as he
15:03
is able. The limiting principle is
15:05
justice, not raw capability. Let me propose a different
15:09
analogy, something a bit more mechanical.
15:11
Think of a massive industrial steam engine.
15:14
OK, I am with you. The boiler generates an immense
15:16
amount of pressurized steam representing raw force, but if
15:20
that steam is just released all at once in an uncontrolled
15:23
explosion, it is destructive and useless.
15:26
Yeah, that makes sense. The engine is strong because of
15:29
its unyielding structural constraints, the valves and
15:32
cylinders that direct the steam to perform precise work.
15:35
Without the constraints, the energy just dissipates
15:39
impotently. Oh, that is a fantastic analogy.
15:42
God's omnipotence is the raw energy.
15:43
But his justice is the structural constraint that
15:46
directs it. He does not just release maximum
15:49
destructive force randomly, he applies the exact amount of
15:53
force required by justice. That is a much stronger way to
15:56
conceptualize it, and Owen takes this to a broader theological
16:01
point regarding God's omnipotence in general.
16:03
Yes, God does not use His omnipotence out of absolute
16:06
necessity in any of His external works.
16:09
If God decides to act outside himself, he acts omnipotently,
16:12
meaning he acts with divine capability, but he does not do
16:16
everything he is capable of doing.
16:18
Owen points out that God could have created more worlds.
16:21
He has the infinite capability to create a billion more
16:24
galaxies that he chose not to. Therefore, the fact that he acts
16:29
necessarily in the execution of justice does not mean he must
16:32
exhaust his omnipotence every time he acts.
16:34
The punishment is tailored to fit the crime.
16:36
He assigns the degrees, the duration, and the extension of
16:39
punishment according to the specific demerit of the sin.
16:42
And here's where we hit a massive theological pivot in the
16:44
text. Because God is an intelligent
16:46
fire, not a blind physical force.
16:48
His infinite wisdom allows him to do something a physical fire
16:51
could never do. Right, he can transfer this
16:54
punishment to a surety. This is where the mechanics of
16:57
Owen's argument lock into the core of reformed soteriology.
17:01
A physical fire cannot burn a different log to spare the one
17:04
you threw into it. A chemical reaction cannot
17:07
substitute a different compound to save the 1 reacting.
17:11
But God, operating with concomitant liberty and infinite
17:14
wisdom, can accept a voluntary substitute to satisfy the
17:17
demands of His natural justice. Now, most of our listeners
17:20
understand the basic concept of a substitute Christ taking the
17:24
place of the Sinner. But we need to look closely at
17:27
the legal mechanics of how this transfer works under Owen's
17:29
framework. Right.
17:30
Because if twist is right and justice is just an arbitrary
17:34
rule God invented, then the mechanics of substitution do not
17:38
really matter. God can just wave a wand and
17:40
forgive everyone. Under Twist's voluntarist view,
17:42
God can simply relax his own rules.
17:45
But under Owens essentialist view, the debt of justice is an
17:48
inescapable reality of the divine nature.
17:51
The debt must be cleared. This means the transfer of guilt
17:53
to the surety cannot be a legal fiction, it has to be an actual
17:57
satisfaction of justice. Owen maintains a careful
18:00
distinction here between the macula, the stain or moral
18:03
pollution of sin, and the riadis, the legal liability to
18:07
punishment. That distinction is so critical.
18:10
The surety does not become morally polluted by the sin.
18:13
He does not take on the macula. But he absolutely takes on the
18:17
Riadis. The legal liability is genuinely
18:19
transferred to him, and the natural necessity of God's
18:22
justice falls upon the surety with full force.
18:25
The fact that a substitute is required at all proves Owens's
18:28
point against Twis IF. God's justice were purely
18:31
optional, like a policy he drafted up.
18:34
One day he could just change the policy and issue a blanket
18:37
pardon without requiring any satisfaction.
18:39
Exactly. I mean, yeah, the necessity of
18:41
the cross proves that justice is an essential attribute of who
18:44
God is, not an arbitrary decree. This naturally up a fundamental
18:48
question about the origin of God's rights.
18:50
Where do these rules of justice come from?
18:52
Does God have rights over his creation because he is God by
18:55
nature or because he decided to give himself rights?
18:59
This pushes us into Twist's fourth major attack centering on
19:02
the concept of divine right. Twist grounds his attack in a
19:05
famous biblical phrase from Genesis 18.25.
19:08
Abraham's question Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?
19:13
Twist looks at this and argues that God only has rights based
19:17
on his own free appointment. According to Twist, without a
19:21
prior free decision by God to establish a system of rights and
19:24
justice, no right exists that God is forced to exercise.
19:28
So Twist is arguing that God sat down, drew up a constitution for
19:32
the universe, and gave himself the right to judge.
19:35
And because he wrote the Constitution freely, he's only
19:38
bound by it because he continually chooses to be.
19:40
That is the core of theological volunteerism, right?
19:43
The will determines what is right.
19:45
That is the voluntarist position, yes.
19:47
And this raises a massive red flag for me regarding arbitrary
19:51
morality. If God's right to rule and
19:53
punish is purely based on a free choice he made, could he simply
19:57
choose not to have that? Right, that is a very valid
19:59
question. If he wrote the Constitution,
20:01
can he just tear it up and decide that murder is suddenly a
20:04
virtue or that he no longer has any authority over humans?
20:07
That is the exact exact logical vulnerability Owen attacks.
20:11
Owen agrees that the initial act of creation was a free choice.
20:15
God freely decreed to create rational creatures.
20:18
He was under no necessity to create the universe.
20:21
But, Owen argues, once those rational creatures are created,
20:25
God's right of dominion and justice over them is natural and
20:28
essential. It is not an add on, It is not a
20:31
secondary decree up for debate. It is baked into the ontology of
20:35
the relationship. Precisely, Owen points out the
20:37
devastating metaphysical consequence of Twis's logic.
20:40
Yes, if God's dominion depended entirely on a free optional
20:44
determination, then God could justly decide to renounce his
20:48
lordship. He could say I no longer have
20:50
dominion over you. This would mean a rational
20:52
creature could exist without depending on a creator.
20:55
Which is logically incoherent. A creature, by definition is a
20:58
dependent being. You cannot have a painting
21:00
without a painter, and the painting cannot suddenly possess
21:03
an independent existence completely severed from the fact
21:06
that it was painted. Subjection to the creator is
21:08
built into the very definition of what a creature is.
21:11
Owen protects the logical coherence of reality here.
21:14
The right to rule and the necessity to act justly are not
21:17
hats God puts on and takes off at will.
21:20
They are the essential reality of who he is in relation to what
21:23
he has made. This means morality and justice
21:26
are not divine whims. They are the bedrock of
21:29
existence. This sets up the final showdown
21:32
in the text. Twist throws everything he has
21:35
left at Piscator and Owen, bringing up concepts of
21:38
antecedent evil, annihilation, and redefining omnipotence.
21:42
Let us break down this dispute over willing evil.
21:45
Twist expresses absolute astonishment at a claim Piscator
21:48
made. Piscator suggested that God
21:50
could will evil antecedently to anyone without injuring his
21:53
justice. Now Twist finds fault with this
21:55
primarily because he thinks Piscator is being inconsistent,
21:58
Quist says. If you believe God can just will
22:01
evil on someone for no reason, why do you not also believe God
22:04
can simply do good to a creature by pardoning its sin regardless
22:07
of its demerit? To understand this, we need to
22:09
clarify the difference between God's antecedent will and his
22:12
his consequent will in scholastic theology, right?
22:15
Yes. The consequent will refers to
22:19
God's reaction to a creature's action.
22:21
For example, God willing, the punishment of a Sinner
22:24
consequent to their sin. And the antecedent will refers
22:27
to, God willing, something prior to any condition in the
22:30
creature. Twist is trying to force
22:32
Piscator into a corner where pardoning sin without any
22:36
satisfaction of justice is deemed totally acceptable.
22:40
Twist is basically saying if you admit God can do things
22:43
antecedently without regard to the creatures merit, you have to
22:46
admit God can pardon A Sinner antecedently without regard to
22:49
justice. How does Owen handle this?
22:51
Trap Well, Owen steps in and clarifies the stance forcefully.
22:55
He says that if God decreed to punish without regard to sin, it
22:58
would indeed logically mean he could also let sin pass entirely
23:02
unpunished. But Owen forcefully rejects the
23:04
premise that God can pardon sin without satisfying justice.
23:08
He argues that doing so, letting sin pass unpunished without a
23:11
just satisfaction, would destroy God's own glory.
23:14
It would completely subvert the dependence of rational creatures
23:17
upon Him. Because if actions have no
23:19
consequences, the moral order of the universe collapses.
23:22
If a human judge opens the prison doors and says everyone
23:26
is pardoned, regardless of what you did or what the law demands,
23:30
that judge is not showing mercy. That judge is destroying the law
23:33
itself. Right.
23:34
And Twist, realizing this defense is holding strong, tries
23:38
one final logical trap regarding annihilation.
23:41
Ah. Yes, Twist claims that if God
23:44
must punish A Sinner because of this natural necessity, He could
23:48
not simply annihilate them back into nothingness.
23:50
If he annihilated them, there would be no one left to punish.
23:53
Twist concludes that since God supposedly lacks the option to
23:56
just erase a Sinner from existence to avoid punishing
23:59
them, God is not truly omnipotent under Piscadoris and
24:03
Owens model. He is using omnipotence as a
24:05
trump card to shatter the necessity of justice.
24:08
He is saying your version of God is not all powerful because he
24:11
cannot even erase his own creations to avoid dealing with
24:14
them. Redefining omnipotence is tricky
24:17
territory. How does Owen counter this
24:19
without making God sound weak? Owen delivers a definitive
24:22
counter by demonstrating that Twist's definition of
24:24
omnipotence is deeply flawed. Owen points out that there are
24:27
many things God cannot do regarding his decrees that do
24:31
not diminish his omnipotence in the slightest.
24:34
He uses a biblical fact. God could not break the bones of
24:38
Christ on the cross because He had decreed otherwise through
24:41
prophecy. The prophecy had to be
24:43
fulfilled, so the action of breaking the bones became an
24:46
impossibility. Yes, Owen states that a person
24:49
must be deprived of reason to call that inability a lack of
24:52
omnipotence. Or consider a more fundamental
24:55
attribute. God cannot lie.
24:57
Does the inability to lie make God weak?
25:00
No, it proves His perfection. If there are many things God
25:04
cannot do without any detraction from His omnipotence, why is He
25:07
suddenly considered weak? Because His justice demands he
25:10
cannot let sin pass unpunished. Owen is completely flipping the
25:14
script on Twis. The inability to violate one's
25:16
own perfect character is not a weakness, it is the ultimate
25:19
strength. This leads to what has to be
25:21
Owen's mic drop moment in the entire dissertation.
25:24
He makes a final striking assertion regarding what true
25:27
weakness actually looks like. It is a devastating
25:30
philosophical blow that permitting A sinful creature to
25:33
shake off its natural subjection and escape justice is not a mark
25:37
of omnipotence. It is a.
25:38
Mark of impotence True omnipotence cannot contradict
25:41
perfect justice. Let us think about that in the.
25:43
Context of a human ruler. If a king has a law and a rebel
25:47
breaks the law and the king just waves his hand and says I will
25:51
just let it go, is that king showing how mighty he is, or is
25:55
he showing? That he is 2 weeks to enforce
25:57
his own laws. He is showing impotence.
25:59
He is showing he cannot maintain his own dominion over his
26:02
territory. Owen argues that.
26:03
A God who could simply shrug off his justice and let a rebel
26:07
escape the consequences of defying the Creator would not be
26:10
an all powerful God. He would be a God who had lost.
26:13
Control of his own creation. The fact that God's justice is
26:16
inescapable is the very proof of his absolute sovereign
26:19
capability. We have covered a massive.
26:21
Amount of theological ground today we really have we.
26:23
Investigated John Owen's defense of piscator against the
26:26
formidable arguments of doctor twist we saw how God is not a
26:30
blind reactive fire, he is an intelligent.
26:32
Rational fire, whose perfect nature demands justice, yet
26:37
whose infinite wisdom executes it freely, precisely, and
26:41
righteously. We saw how.
26:43
His necessity to act does not rob him of his liberty, but is
26:46
instead the purest expression of it, free from external coercion.
26:50
We move through the timing. Of justice.
26:53
Understanding the delayed justice is managed by infinite
26:56
wisdom, we looked at the limits. Of punishment, seeing that
26:58
justice, not raw capability, dictates the penalty and we
27:02
confronted the. Reality that God's dominion is
27:04
not an arbitrary decree, but an essential fact of creation,
27:08
culminating in the understanding that true omnipotence perfectly
27:11
upholds true justice. Which leaves us with a.
27:13
Final thought to Mull over We have spent this whole time
27:16
dissecting the absolute, unyielding necessity of divine
27:19
justice. Yes, and if.
27:21
God's justice is so absolute that letting a creature escape
27:24
it would be an act of impotence. How does that reframe your view
27:27
of mercy? It means true.
27:29
Forgiveness could never be a simple way of the hand or a
27:31
brushing aside of the rules it necessitates.
27:34
A mechanism of justice so flawless that both the law and
27:38
the lawbreaker are satisfied. Consider what it costs an
27:41
omnipotent creator to remain perfectly just while offering
27:44
grace. Thank you for bringing these.
27:46
Heavy, fascinating sources to the table.
27:48
We conclude this deep dive knowing that stepping into these
27:50
murky waters often reveals the foundation more solid than we
27:53
ever imagined. Goodbye.