Week 4a: Two views of God’s will 

So does God have a specific unique will for each individual? Everyone acknowledges that God has a general will, the things he wants every person to do, but does God have a different railroad track for every person? Last time we didn’t really look at where these two views come from, or why you might hold to one over the other. So here comes our first question, why think the railroad model is true? Why think God has a detailed plan for every person?

The railroad model

There seem to be three basic reasons to hold this view: 1) the teaching about God’s will in the Bible, 2) examples of God’s will for individuals in the Bible, and 3) the experience of God having individual wills for people throughout history—including presently. 

1) The Bible’s teachings about God’s will

There are a range of different verses people can appeal to to support the railroad view, so we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with just a few representative examples.

Colossians 1:9: And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Colossians 4:12: Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

Romans 12:2: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Ephesians 5:17: Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Now these verses certainly do show that God has a will, and that we are supposed to find out and understand what that will is. However, this is not enough to support the Railroad over the Boundary View. What we would need to see is that this will is specific and individualized for each person—is this what we find?

Well, these verses don’t really give a definite Yes to the railroad model. They could all be read as referring to God’s general will. For example, in Colossians 1:9 the Apostle Paul does desires that “you may be filled with the knowledge of his will.” But why take this as a different will for each person? Paul is talking to the plural ‘you’ here. And the end of the verse refers to “his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” But spiritual wisdom and understanding are what everyone are supposed to have to decide how best to live—exactly what one would expect in the boundary view.

So whether there is a different specific spot for each individual, or whether there is generally one wise and understanding lifestyle that all Christians are supposed to follow, both are consistent with this verse. We find a similar situation in Colossians 4:12. It could be read in either way, we should all be “mature and fully assured in all the will of God” whether it is specific or general.

Romans 12:2 is less middle-of-the-road than the other two. So yes, again, we are to discern the will of God. But what is this will? It is “that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” But good, acceptable (i.e. pleasing), and perfect are general qualities. So here it looks like the will of God is what everyone should follow, namely whatever is good, and pleasing, and perfect—this looks more boundary and less railroad.

Ephesians 5:17 lends more support to this perspective. The point is to “not be foolish” and instead “understand what the will of the Lord is.” So it looks like the opposite of following God’s will is foolishness. Now what do we generally think of as the opposite of foolishness? Wisdom! Consequently, it seems that the will of God is being described as the path of wisdom. And this, in fact, is what we find in the surrounding context. Verse 15 says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise.”

If we were to sum this up using a comparison (like the SATs), it’d look like this: Walking unwisely is to being foolish, as walking wisely is to understanding the will of the Lord. So, the understanding of God’s will is just understanding wisdom. But this is a general trait, not a specific one. Foolishness is outside the boundary, and wisdom is inside—but there doesn’t seem to be any reference to a different individual will for each person. Everyone should equally walk wisely.

In sum, it looks like the teaching about God’s will in the Bible is either neutral between the two views, or it points more towards the boundary, general will model. But what about the examples of God having a specific will for individuals in the Bible?

2) Examples of God’s will for individuals in the Bible

The argument here is straightforward—since we see many examples of God having individual wills for people in the Bible, it is reasonable to accept that God has individual wills for everyone. Now the boundary model people don’t debate that God had a specific will and tasks for lots of people in the Bible. To deny this would be nuts—the examples are too numerous and too plain (we looked at several examples in Acts last time). However, they still don’t think the argument works—simply because God has specific individual wills for some people doesn’t mean that he has them for everyone.

They point out that we see very few people, indeed, the select few central to God’s historical plan, being directed by God to specific actions. And since most people are not central to God’s big plan for history we should expect that most people not be specifically directed by God. This leaves us with an interesting question. How are we supposed to test this supposition?

Well, note that the Bible mostly concerns the highlights of God’s history. What this means is we would expect it to tell us mostly about the central figures in the story. Hence us not hearing about how God moved people who were not central to the story is what we would expect. It boils down to this, if we rarely hear the story of average Joes in the Bible, we wouldn’t expect to hear about God guiding them specifically. However, it seems that in scripture, we actually do see people who are less central get divine guidance. Stephen isn’t a central character, and we see him receive guidance. Cornelius appears and then disappears from the story but he receives guidance.

3) The experience of God outside the Bible

Again, the issue here is straightforward. There are many statements and testimonies of people who say they have experienced the specific directing of God. Unless we have good reason to discount their testimony, it seems to provide good evidence that God has specific directions for individuals.

The Boundaries only Model reply is simple as well. People’s impressions of the Holy Spirit are not the same as divine direction. God might speak, but when he does so he speaks clearly, miraculously. Vague feelings are not divine guidance. If they aren’t divine guidance, then they don’t count as a reason to think God has a specific will.

Now have people abused the “I’ve got a word from the Lord” sorta thing? Absolutely! The problem is, denying that God speaks inwardly just doesn’t account for the data. For instance, I’ve heard a preacher say “I’ve doubted my salvation, I’ve doubted God’s existence, but I’ve never doubted my call to preach.” This might seem weird, but we find this sort of thing with Jeremiah too. He starts off saying, “O Lord you have deceived me” and then when he tries to stop preaching (crying out) he says, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire, shut up in my bones and I weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jer 20:7a, 9). There is a burning force that presses one to action.

Here’s another example. A friend of mine had been struggling with whether to follow her husband and join a different church. On the street a random lady came up to her and told her that God had given her a message, go ahead and make the change she’d been thinking about. She changed churches and has been grateful she did.

I know what it is like to be stopped during prayer, impressed to pray for someone else and then text them. She texted me back and told me she had been diagnosed with a precancerous mass that very morning! I know what it is like to be told to go pray over someone, walk over, and then have them burst into tears because they’d been struggling. And I’m a very un-charismatic person (in every way 😉 I never even raise my hands during praise songs!

The problem with dismissing the inner voice of the Spirit is that it doesn’t seem to fit reality. Yes, impressions (and other not obviously miraculous messages) can be misunderstood, misapplied and misattributed to the Spirit, but that doesn’t mean that the Spirit doesn’t speak through them. And while we don’t see something called, “the inner voice of the Spirit” we see things that don’t fit in the category of angelic visitations, or visions, or such.

In Acts 8:29 we find “the Spirit said to Philip.” Was this an audible voice or not? The text does not say. In Acts 10:19 it says, “the Spirit said to him [Peter].” Was this voice audible or not? Again the text does not say. We find the same issue in Acts 13:2, the Spirit talks to a group—it doesn’t say whether they heard an audible voice or something else. In Acts 15, we get the account of the first church council, the meeting of apostles and church leaders in Jerusalem. Nowhere in the description of the council do we find God giving them supernatural messages, but the council concludes, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials.” In Acts 16 we find the Holy Spirit preventing the group from doing different things—no description of how.

So what do we learn from these examples? Well, it doesn’t seem that we have good justification to think that God’s leading is always miraculous and obvious, that it’s always a vision, or an appearance, or a miracle. Just as there are fuzzy examples of his leading in the Bible, we should expect fuzzy examples in our lives. (More on this in the next post)

Conclusion

So what should we conclude from all this? Railroad or Boundary? Well, the best answer seems to be neither—or both. The truth seems to be something in the middle.  So as we can see in new diagram, we are free to wander within the boundaries, but God reaches in (the gold arrows) and redirects our lives as He wills, when He wills.

If this is right, we should expect that most of our decisions won’t have direct divine input. Most of our decisions will be guided by wisdom. However, again, it must be said the Holy Spirit could appear at any time, pointing us in a new direction, and it is our duty to be ready for any new direction.

But what does this mean for disagreement? Does all disagreement stem from not following the Spirit, or is something else at play?