In this succinct yet erudite work, Robert E. Picirilli brings a fresh perspective to the age-old debate regarding divine sovereignty and human freedom. That debate, as Picirilli views it, is often predicated “on the concept of God as formulated in metaphysical philosophy rather than on God as he reveals himself in the biblical narrative, mutually influencing and being influenced by the race of human beings he made to bear, or be, his image.”[1] Consequently, theologians often read the Bible through the lens of whatever philosophical constructs they have adopted rather than allowing the corrective lens of Scripture to amend their philosophical constructs.
With regard to the debate over divine sovereignty and human freedom, specifically, Picirilli charges that determinists ground their arguments in philosophically logical inferences that are, nevertheless, incompatible with God’s special revelation. Moreover, many non-determinists—Molinists and open theists, for instance—construct their arguments, whether consciously or not, on the same sort of philosophical speculations as determinists do. What Picirilli hopes to do, then, is to bring the discussion back to the Scriptures. Therefore, while the subtitle of the book indicates that Picirilli’s argument is new, it is new only insofar as he wishes to take us back, afresh, to those ancient words through which God reveals Himself. This posture, he argues, will reorient the way theologians think and speak of God—His nature, attributes, actions, relationships, and foreknowledge—as well as the nature of human freedom.
Book Summary
The book is divided into three sections. Below, I shall provide a concise summary of each part before offering a concluding assessment.
Part One: The Acts of Eternal God in Time and Space
In the first part, Picirilli carefully and cogently discusses the relationship between God, who is eternal, and creation, which is not. The nature of this relationship, Picirilli argues, reveals some of the seemingly irreconcilable differences between metaphysical philosophy and biblical theology. Of particular importance is the traditional concept of divine immutability (the idea that God is the same for all eternity) considered in light of God’s creation ex nihilo and God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. How does one affirm, simultaneously, that “the God who is immutable has created a world that does not exist before” and that “He has a relationship that did not exist before”?[2] How does one affirm, simultaneously, that the “God who is pure being with no hint of becoming, the God who has existed forever in infinite perfection, eternally everything he can be with no potential to become anything else, has become what he was not before”?[3]
Determinists, like Louis Berkhof and Paul Helm, often resolve the tension by locating the acts of creation and incarnation in eternity. Such theologians “affirm that both God’s purpose to create and his act that ‘realized’ that purpose were eternal.”[4] They would say something similar with regard to the incarnation.[5] To claim that God’s acts of creation and incarnation take place in eternity, however, fails to take seriously the biblical testimony that these acts truly took place in the time and space which God created, that is, in history.[6]
The determinist conceives of an eternal God who is, somehow, different than the God of the Bible, the God revealed as acting in time and space. What Picirilli wants to stress, to the contrary, is that if we “read the Bible as it presents itself to us, as an account of God and humankind in space and time . . . then we begin to realize that there is a coinciding, some kind of identity between eternity and time. The unknown God of eternity is the God of time.”[7] Looking to the unknown God of eternity to understand the God of time (as the determinists do) is a farcical endeavor. Rather, we know the unknown God of eternity, insofar as we know Him, precisely because He has revealed Himself in time and space.
What does all of this have to do with human freedom? To put it simply, Picirilli argues that the biblical account clearly depicts God as interacting with humans in an influence-response relationship. The God of the Bible—the God of eternity who is the God of time—presents humans with choices that they are free, if only by grace, to decide in more than one way; and God wills to respond to such free choices with either blessings or curses. “One who misses that relationship misses everything. If one sees the meaning of the events in history as secondary or controlled or caused by God’s eternal purposes,” writes Picirilli, “one has turned reality on its head.”[8] But that is precisely what determinists do when they contend that God, in eternity, willed everything that comes to pass to come to pass.
Part Two: The Knowledge of Eternal God about Time and Space
In part two, Picirilli discusses the concept of God’s “foreknowledge” which “appears to present a problem, at least a logical one, for human freedom and contingencies in the real world . . . if God knows in advance what will transpire in the real world, then what he knows must therefore transpire.”[9] Determinists hold that God’s foreknowledge of future events necessitates His foreordination of those events. Thus, they deny human freedom. Open theists also hold that God’s foreknowledge of future events necessitates His foreordination of those events. However, due to their commitment to human freedom, they deny God’s exhaustive foreknowledge.
Against both views, Picirilli argues, like he did in his earlier Grace, Faith, Free Will, that divine foreknowledge does not preclude human freedom, nor does human freedom preclude divine foreknowledge. Indeed, Picirilli aptly demonstrates that divine foreknowledge does not equal causal necessity: “That [God] knows what I will choose before I choose it does not limit my choices. Knowledge of events is grounded in the events, not vice versa.”[10] Building on his arguments from Part One, Picirilli argues that “whatever God knew and decided in eternity, he knew and decided in consideration of what [humans] actually did in time. . . . Their choices were determined in real time and space in the very way such choices are determined, in the very way the biblical record depicts them—self-determined, that is”[11]
In Part Two, Picirilli also argues against Molinism, which holds that God, in eternity, decreed to arrange the world in such a set of circumstances that free agents would make the choices He desired them to make. Here is the problem: “Like determinists, Molinists tend to focus on what God knew and decided and did in his eternal existence and then to allow that focus to dominate their view of what happens in time and space,” writes Picirilli. “Instead, we ought to focus primarily on what God does in time and space, as revealed in the Bible, and allow that vision to provide an understanding of what he has done in eternity.”[12]
Part Three: Wrapping Up
The third and final portion of the book—by far the shortest at only two chapters—is, essentially, a summation of the preceding chapters. Most importantly, the reader is invited to accompany Picirilli on a walk through the Exodus narrative as he illustrates the point that he has been making all along: “the God at work in Exodus is God at work in eternity, and these two are one and the same.”[13] That is, we understand God’s eternal purposes by his dealing with free agents in the time and space he created.
Final Remarks
God in Eternity and Time demonstrates Picirilli’s deep and abiding commitment to Scripture as the final authority for all of our theological work. This work calls us to hear God’s Word and humble ourselves before it, to let the Word have the final word. For my part, I agree and heartily endorse Picirilli’s arguments and conclusions. Still, I think that his arguments could have been even stronger had he incorporated historical studies which demonstrate the vast differences between the thought-world of the Old Testament and that of Greek philosophy which so often norms our theological discourse.
Prospective readers should be aware that this particular work, published by B&H Academic, is geared towards an academic audience. Without question, Picirilli is dealing with heavy topics here, and heavy topics require the reader to do some heavy lifting. Nonetheless, Picirilli’s healthy employment of illustrations—especially of well-known biblical illustrations—and clear style make this work accessible to any pastor or layperson willing to put in the effort, and I can attest that the reward is well-worth the effort.
[1]Robert E. Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time: A New Case for Human Freedom (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2022), xi.
[2]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 31.
[3]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 41.
[4]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 24.
[5]Cf. Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 41.
[6]Cf. Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 34, 42.
[7]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 61.
[8]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 54; cf. 74.
[9]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 79.
[10]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 83.
[11] Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 92.
[12]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 175.
[13]Picirilli, God in Eternity and Time, 197.
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