Some have thought that the sovereignty of God can only be exercised by His manipulation and orchestration of all events at all times. I Tozer's book " Knowledge of the Holy"
"Here is my view: God sovereignty decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, "What doest thou?" Man's will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.
Here is the whole of Chapter 22 in his book: Knowledge of the Holy:
Chapter 22
The Sovereignty of God
Who wouldst not fear Thee, O Lord God of
Hosts, most high and most terrible? For
Thou art Lord alone. Thou has made heaven a
nd the heaven of heavens, the earth and all
things that are therein, and in Thy hand is
the soul of every living thing, Thou sittest
king upon the flood; yea, Thou sittest king forever.
Thou art a great king over all the earth. Thou art clothe
d with strength; honor and
majesty are before Thee. Amen.
God’s sovereignty is the attribute by which
He rules His entire creation, and to be sovereign God must be all-knowing,
all-powerful, and absolutely free. The reasons are
these:
Were there even one datum of knowledge, however small, un-known to God, His rule
would break down at that point. To be Lord over all the creation, He must possess all
knowledge. And were God lacking one infinitesimal modicum of power, that lack would end His reign and undo His kingdom; that one stray atom of power would belong to someone else and God would be a limited ruler and hence not sovereign.
Furthermore, His sovereignty requires that He
be absolutely free, which means simply
that He must be free to do whatever He wills to do anywhere at any time to carry out
His eternal purpose in every single detail without interference. Were He less than free
He must be less than sovereign.
To grasp the idea of unqualified freedom requires a vigorous effort of the mind. We are
not psychologically conditioned to understand
freedom except in its imperfect forms.
Our concepts of it have been shaped in a
world where no absolute freedom exists. Here
each natural object is dependent upon many other objects, and that dependence limits its
freedom.
Wordsworth at the beginning of his “Prelude
” rejoiced that he had escaped the city
where he had long been pent up
and was “now free, free as a bird to settle where I will.”
But to be free a bird is not
to be free at all.
The naturalist knows that the supposedly free
bird actually lives its entire
life in a cage made
of fears, hungers, and instincts; it is
limited by weather conditions, varying air pressures, the local food supply, predatory
beasts, and that strangest of
all bonds, the irresistible compulsion to stay within the
small plot of land and air assigned it by bird
land comity. The freest bird is, along with
every other created thing, held
in constant check by a net of
necessity. Only God is free.
God is said to be absolutely free because no one and no thing can hinder Him or compel
Him or stop Him. He is able to do as He pleases always, everywhere, forever. To be
thus free means also that He must possess universal authority. That He has unlimited
power we know from the Scriptures and may deduce from certain other of His
attributes. But what about His authority?
Even to discuss the authority of Almighty God seems a bit meaningless, and to question
it would be absurd. Can we imagine the Lord God of Hosts having to request
permission of anyone or to apply for anything to a higher body? To whom would God
go for permission? Who is higher than the Highest? Who is mightier than the Almighty?
Whose position antedates that of the Eternal? At whose throne would God kneel?
Where is the greater one to whom He must appeal? “Thus saith the Lord the King of
Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside
me there is no God.”
The sovereignty of God is a fact well established in the Scriptures
and declared aloud by the logic of truth. But admittedly it raises ce
rtain problems which have not to this time been satisfactorily solved: These are mainly two.
The first is the presence in the creation of those things which God cannot approve, such as evil, pain, and death. If God is sovereign He could have prevented their co
ming into existence. Why did He not do so?
The Zend-Avesta, sacred book of Zoroastrianism, loftiest of the great non-Biblical
religions, got around this difficulty neatly enough by postulating a th
eological dualism.
There were two Gods, Ormazd and Ahriman, and these between them created the world.
The good Ormazd made all good things and the evil Ahriman made the rest. It was quite
simple. Ormazd had no sovereignty to worry about, and apparently did not mind sharing
his prerogatives with another.
For the Christian this explanation will not do, for it flatly contradicts the
truth taught so emphatically throughout the whole Bible, that there is one God and that He alone
created the heaven and the earth and all the things that are
therein. God’s attributes are such as to make impossible the existence of
another God. The Christian admits that he does not have the final answer to the riddle
of permitted evil. But he knows what that answer is not. And he knows that the Zend-Avesta
does not have it either.
While a complete explanation of the origin of sin eludes us, there are a few things we do
know. In His sovereign wisdom God has permitted evil to exist in carefully restricted
areas of His creation, a kind of fugitive outlaw whose activities are temporary and
limited in scope. In doing this God has acted according to His infinite wisdom and
goodness. More than that no one knows at present; and more than that no one needs to
know.
The name of God is sufficient guarantee of the perfection of His works.
Another real problem created by the doctrine of the divine sovereignty has to do with
the will of man. If God rules His universe by His sovereign decrees, how is it possible
for man to exercise free choice? And if he can not exercise freedom of choice, how can
he be held responsible for his conduct? Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are
determined by a behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him?
The attempt to answer these questions has divided the Christian church neatly into two
camps which have borne the names of two distinguished theologians, Jacobus Arminius
and John Calvin. Most Christians are content to get into one camp or the other and deny
either sovereignty to God or free will to man. It appears possible, however, to reconcile
these two positions without doing violence to either, although the effort that follows
may prove deficient to partisans of one camp or the other.
Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral
choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice
between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the
sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which
choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute
freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or
say, “What doest thou?” Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than
sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do
so.
Perhaps a homely illustration might help us
to understand. An ocean liner leaves New
York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has
been determined by proper authorities.
Nothing can change it. This is at
least a faint picture of sovereignty.
On board the liner are several scores of passengers.
These are not in chains, neither are
their activities determined for them by decree.
They are completely free to move about
as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge a
bout on the deck, read, talk, altogether as
they please; but all the while the great liner is
carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port.
Both freedom and sovereignty are present here
and they do not contradict each other. So
it is, I believe, with man’s freedom and the sovereignty of God.
The mighty liner of God’s sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history. God moves
undisturbed and unhindered toward the fulfillment of those eternal purposes which He
purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began. We do not know all
that is included in those purposes, but enough has been disclosed to furnish us with a broad outline of
things to come and to give us good hope and firm assurance of future well-being.
We know that God will fulfill every promise made to the prophets; we know that
sinners will some day be cleansed out of the earth; we know that a ransomed company
will enter into the joy of God and that the righteous will shine forth in the kingdom of
their Father; we know that God’s perfections will yet receive universal acclamation, that
all created intelligences will own Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father, that
the present imperfect order will be done away, and a new heaven and a new earth be
established forever.
Toward all this God is moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision of action. No one can dissuade Him from His purposes; nothing turn Him aside from His plans.
Since He is omniscient, there can be no unforeseen circumstances, no accidents. As He is
sovereign, there can be no countermanded orders, no breakdown in authority; and as He
is omnipotent, there can be no want of power to achieve His chosen ends. God is
sufficient unto Himself for all these things.
In the meanwhile things are not as smooth as this quick outline might suggest. The
mystery of iniquity doth already work. With
in the broad field of God’s sovereign,
permissive will the deadly conflict of good with evil continues with increasing fury.
God will yet have His way in the whirlwind and the storm, but the storm and the
whirlwind are here, and as responsible beings we must make our choice in the present
moral situation.
Certain things have been decreed by the free determination of God, and one of these is
the law of choice and consequences. God has decreed that all
who willingly commit themselves to His Son Jesus Christ in the
obedience of faith shall receive eternal life
and become sons of God. He has also decreed
that all who love darkness and continue
in rebellion against the high authority of heaven shall remain in a state of spiritual
alienation and suffer eternal death at last.
Reducing the whole matter to individual terms,
we arrive at some vital and highly
personal conclusions. In the moral conflict
now raging around us whoever is on God’s
side is on the winning side and can not lose; whoever is
on the other side is on the losing side and can not win. He
re there is no chance, no gamble. There is freedom to
choose which side we shall be on but no freedom
to negotiate the results of the choice once it is made. By the mercy of God we
may repent a wrong choice and alter the consequences by making a new and right
choice. Beyond that we can not go. The whole matter of moral choice centers around Jesus Christ. Christ stated it plainly: “He that is not with me is against me,”
and “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” The gospel message embodies three distinct elements: an announcement, a command, and a call. It announces the good news of redemption accomplished in
mercy; it commands all men everywhere to repent and it calls all men to surrender to the
terms of grace by believing on Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
We must all choose whether we will obey the gospel or turn away in unbelief and reject
its authority. Our choice is our own, but the consequences of the choice have already
been determined by the sovereign will of God, and from this there is no appeal.
( http://www.restoringthecore.com/wp-content/restored/AW-Tozer-Knowledge-of-the-Holy.pdf )