Is God in control?

What the Bible says

‘God is in control’ can be a comfort or a wound. For some it is an anchor in a shaking life. For others it is the cold sentence they heard after something terrible happened. This essay looks at what Scripture actually says.

Begin with what Jesus said to disciples who were afraid of the persecution ahead.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Matt 10:29-31

The point is: do not be afraid. If God's care reaches the smallest creature, his children are never outside his sight. This is not a promise that the disciples will come to no harm. Just before it, Jesus has warned them of persecution and death.

The wisdom of the Old Testament points the same way.

A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

Prov 16:9

People plan, and their plans are real. But at the end of the road there is the hand of God. The same chapter says this hand is present even in the casting of lots (Prov 16:33). Joseph's story is of this kind. God brought good out of his brothers' evil act (Gen 50:20). How that story bears on the problem of evil is taken up in Why does a good God allow evil?.

Paul writes that this rule reaches the whole universe.

In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,

Eph 1:11

And Romans 8:28 promises that for those who love God, all things work together for good (Rom 8:28).

But Scripture does not say that God's rule cancels human responsibility. At Pentecost Peter speaks of the cross from two directions.

He was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.

Acts 2:23

The greatest evil in history lay within God's set plan, and yet those who carried it out were answerable. In Philippians the two stand side by side in a single sentence.

continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.

Phil 2:12-13

"Work out" is a command. "It is God who works in you" is a declaration. The Bible does not keep its balance by dropping one of them. It says both.

The church's witness

From early on the church has confessed God as "the Father almighty" The Apostles' Creed. Father tells us this power is a caring hand, not cold fate. The Heidelberg Catechism sums up the comfort in its first question: in life and in death my only comfort is that I belong, body and soul, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, and that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven Heidelberg Catechism Q1.

Jerome explains the sparrows this way: "If these little creations fall not without God’s superintendence and providence, and if things made to perish, perish not without God’s will, you who are immortal ought not to fear that you live without His providence" Jerome. Chrysostom says why Jesus spoke so: "that the Apostles should not think that if they were put to death they were deserted by God" Chrysostom. To believe in providence is not to believe there will be no suffering. It is to believe we are not abandoned in it.

On Acts 2:23, Matthew Henry holds both directions. He says Christ's death "is considered as God's act; and of wonderful grace and wisdom," and then adds that as the people's act, "in them it was an act of awful sin and folly" Matthew Henry.

How the two are to be joined is a matter on which the church has different emphases. The Reformed tradition holds that God ordains all things in an eternal plan, and that people act freely, according to their own wills, a freedom that is itself within his plan. God is not the author of sin and does not approve it, yet he rules even over sin for good ends. Arminian Protestants, the Eastern churches and many Catholic theologians say that God gives people freedom to choose otherwise and governs the world in a way that includes their response. He knows beforehand, but his knowledge does not compel their choices, and God's wishes can truly be refused in the world (1 Tim 2:4). Each side has pressed the other hard, and the debate continues. Both agree that God is good and will finally accomplish all things, that he is not the author of sin, and that people are answerable for what they do.

In the original languages

The "plan" of Acts 2:23 and the "counsel" of Ephesians 1:11 are the same Greek word, boule (βουλή). It means a deliberate decision, not chance or whim. God's rule springs from a wise plan, not from arbitrary force.

The verb behind "predestined" in Ephesians 1:11 is proorizo (προορίζω). It joins a word meaning "before" to one meaning "to mark a boundary," so it means to decide beforehand. Christians have long debated for whom and on what ground this deciding is done, but the text uses the word to give assurance: our salvation does not rest on chance.

Common objections

"If God has fixed everything, we are puppets." In its strongest form: if my choice was settled beforehand it is not really mine, and then "responsibility" is an empty word. This objection should be taken seriously. The two traditions answer differently. The Reformed say that God does not override the human will but works through it, so people do what they want and are answerable for it. Arminians say that God gave freedom to choose otherwise and rules in a way that respects it. Either way, Scripture does not draw people as puppets. God commands "work out your salvation," and people truly choose and respond. Scripture does not explain how the two fit together, but both are in it.

"Then God also controlled massacres and abuse. That makes him responsible for evil." The Bible never says that God delights in or approves of evil. As the cross shows, an evil act remains evil, and those who do it are answerable. Yet God worked salvation through that evil. This must not be shrunk into ‘everything has a purpose, so accept it.’ That is not the Bible's way. Job's friends spoke like that and were rebuked. God's sovereignty is not a ground for telling the suffering to be silent. It is a ground for comfort, that even in suffering he does not let go.

"The world does not look like God is running it." True, and Scripture admits it. Hebrews says we do not yet see everything subject to him (Heb 2:8). The Christian understanding is that God's rule has begun but is not yet fully seen. So the Bible tells those who wait to pray and to act. Prayer and work do not compete with God's rule. They are among the means he uses (Does God answer prayer?).

Going further

‘God is in control’ is most needed when everything is falling apart. Then it is not a theory but something to hold. But it should not be said lightly in front of another person's pain. It is most honest when confessed from inside one's own trouble.

You might ask yourself: in the face of what I cannot control, do I lean toward fear or toward anger? What does it mean to me that God is a Father? Between God's will and my responsibility, do I stress one side too much?

To read further, see Does suffering have meaning? and Who is God?. Reading Matthew 10 and Romans 8 slowly is also a good place to start.