R. C. Sproul (1939–2017) on God’s Will of Disposition

God’s Will of Disposition

While we understand that the decretive will and the preceptive will of God are part of His overall will, other aspects of the mystery of His sovereignty remain. One such aspect is [p 21] “the will of disposition.” It is tied up with the ability of man to disobey God’s preceptive will.

This aspect of the will of God refers to what is pleasing and agreeable to God. It expresses something of the attitude of God to His creatures. Some things are “well pleasing in his sight,” while other things are said to grieve Him. He may allow (but not via moral permission) wicked things to transpire, but He is by no means pleased by them.

To illustrate how these differing aspects of the will of God come into play in biblical interpretation, let us examine the verse that says the Lord is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9, KJV). Which of the above-mentioned meanings of will fits this text? How is the meaning of the text changed by the application of the nuances?

Try first the decretive will. The verse would then mean, “God is not willing in a sovereign decretive sense that any should perish.” The implication would then be that nobody perishes. This verse would be a proof text for universalism, with its view that hell is utterly vacant of people.

The second option is that God is not willing in a preceptive way that any should perish. This would mean that God does not allow people to perish in the sense that He grants His moral permission. This obviously does not fit the context of the passage.

[p 22] The third option makes sense. God is not willing in the sense that He is not inwardly disposed to, or delighted by, people’s perishing. Elsewhere, Scripture teaches that God takes no delight in the death of the wicked. He may decree what He does not enjoy; that is, He may distribute justice to wicked offenders. He is pleased when justice is maintained and righteousness is honored, even though He takes no personal pleasure in the application of such punishment.

A human analogy may be seen in our law courts. A judge, in the interest of justice, may sentence a criminal to prison and at the same time inwardly grieve for the guilty man. His disposition may be for the man but against the crime.

However, God is not merely a human judge, working under the constraints of the criminal justice system. God is sovereign—He can do what He pleases. If He is not pleased or willing that any should perish, why then does He not exercise His decretive will accordingly? How can there be a hiatus between God’s decretive will and His will of disposition?

All things being equal, God does desire that no one should perish. But all things are not equal. Sin is real. Sin violates God’s holiness and righteousness. God also is not willing that sin should go unpunished. He desires as well that His holiness should be vindicated. It is dangerous to [p 23] speak of a conflict of interests or of a clash of desires within God. Yet, in a certain sense, we must. He wills the obedience of His creatures. He wills the well-being of His creatures. There is a symmetry of relationship ultimately between obedience and well-being. The obedient child will never perish. Those who obey God’s preceptive will enjoy the benefits of His will of disposition. When the preceptive will is violated, things are no longer equal. Now God requires punishment while not particularly enjoying the application of it. Yet does this not beg the ultimate question? Where does the decretive will fit in? Could not God originally have decreed that no one ever would be able to sin, thus ensuring an eternal harmony among all elements of His will: decretive, preceptive, and dispositional?

Often the answer to this question is superficial. Appeals are made to the free will of man, as if by magic man’s free will could explain the dilemma. We are told that the only way God could have created a universe guaranteed to be free from sin would have been to make creatures without free will. It is then argued that these creatures would have been nothing more than puppets and would have lacked humanity, being devoid of the power or ability to sin. If that is the case, then what does it suggest about the state of our existence in heaven? We are promised that when our [p 24] redemption is complete, sin will be no more. We will still have an ability to choose, but our disposition will be so inclined toward righteousness that we will, in fact, never choose evil. If this will be possible in heaven after redemption, why could it not have been possible before the fall?

The Bible gives no clear answer to this thorny question. We are told that God created people who, for better or for worse, have the ability to sin. We also know from Scripture that there is no shadow of turning in the character of God, and that all of His works are clothed in righteousness. That He chose to create man the way He did is mysterious, but we must assume, given the knowledge we have, that God’s plan was good. Any conflict that arises between His commandments to us, His desire that we should obey Him, and our failure to comply does not destroy His sovereignty.

R. C. Sproul, Can I Know God’s Will?, vol. 4 of The Crucial Questions Series (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009), 20–24.

James Ussher (1581–1656) on 1 Peter 3:18–20 and Christ’s Preaching Through Noah

But touching the words of St. Peter, is the main doubt, whether they are to be referred unto Christ’s preaching by the ministry of Noah unto the world of the ungodly, or unto his own immediate preaching to the spirits in hell after his death upon the cross. For seeing that it was the spirit of Christ which spake in the prophets, as St. Peter (1 Pet 1:11) sheweth in this same epistle, and among them was “Noe (2 Pet 2:5) a preacher of righteousness,” as he declareth in the next, even as in St. Paul, Christ is said to have “come (Eph 2:17) and preached to the Ephesians,” namely, by his spirit in the mouth of his apostles; so likewise in St. Peter may he be said to have gone and preached to the old world, by (Neh 2:30; Zech 7:12; 2 Sam 23:2) his spirit in the mouth of his prophets, and of Noah in particular, when God having said that his “Spirit (Gen 6:3) should not always strive with man, because he was flesh,” did in his long suffering wait the expiration of the time which he then did set for his amendment, even an hundred and twenty years. For which exposition the Ethiopian translation maketh something, where the Spirit, by which Christ is said to have been quickened and to have preached, is by the interpreter termed መኒፋስ ፡ ቅዱስ Manephas Kodus, that is, the Holy Spirit: the addition of which epithet we may observe also to be used by St. Paul in the mention of the resurrection, and by St. Luke in the matter of the preaching of our Saviour Christ; for of the one we read (Rom 1:4), that he was “declared to be the Son of God, with power, according to the Spirit of holiness,” or, the most holy Spirit, “by the resurrection from the dead;” and of the other (Acts 1:2), that he “gave commandments to the apostles by the holy Spirit.”

James Ussher, “Of Limbus Patrum; and Christ’s Descent into Hell,” in The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, D.D., 17 vols., ed. Charles Richard Elrington (Dublin: Hodges, Smith and Co., 1864), 3:306–307.

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