Is He A Sovereign God?

WARNING! This is a theology post. Proceed at your own risk.

I have been part of a group of men that have been meeting on Friday's at 5am (yawn!) to study theology (double yawn, right?) for the last year and a half, or so. Several times the doctrine of "Sovereign Election" has come up. Some people may know this topic as Calvinism vs. Arminianism (though that is rather a poor generalization, to be historically accurate), or "Double Predestination vs. Free Will".

I post the below extensive quote by Horatius Bonar (19 December 1808 – 31 May 1889) because it contributes to the discussions and considerations that the Wing and a Prayer bible study group have had. Enjoy or loathe. It's up to you, I suppose.

Whether or not you make it to the end, comments are always welcome on the blog of someone who would wake up at 4:10 am to discuss a book call "Systematic Theology" (which I recommend if you're looking for such a book; this one is by Wayne Grudem).

"I do not deny that in conversion man himself wills. In everything that he does, thinks, feels, he of necessity wills. In believing he wills. In repenting, he wills. In turning from evil ways, he wills - all this is true. The opposite is both untrue and absurd. But while fully admitting this, there is another question behind it, of great interest and importance: Are these movements of man's will toward good the effects of the forthputting of God's will? Is man willing because he has made himself so; or is he willing because God has made him so? Does he become willing entirely by an act of his own will, or by chance, or by moral suasion, or because his will was acted on by created causes or influences from outside himself?

I answer unhesitatingly that he becomes willing because of another and superior will - God's, that has come into contact with his, alter its nature and its bent. This new bent is the result of a change produced upon it by Him who alone, of all beings, has the right, without limitation, to say in regard to all events and change, "I will!" The man's will has followed the movement of the Divine will. God has made him willing. God's will is first, not second, in the movement. Even a holy and perfect will depends for guidance upon the will of God. Even when regenerated, a man's will still follows, it does not lead. Much more an unholy will, for its bent must be first changed. And how can this be, if God is not to interpose His power?

The presentation of truth, however forcible and clear, even though that truth were the grace of God, will only exasperate the unconverted man. It is the gospel he hates, and the more clearly it is set before him, the more he hates it. It is God that he hates, and the more closely God approaches him, the more vividly that God is set before him, the more his enmity awakens. Surely, then, that which stirs up enmity cannot of itself remove it. Of what avail, then, are the most energetic means by themselves? The will itself must be directly operated upon by the Spirit of God: He who has made it must remake it. Its making was the work of Omnipotence; its remaking must be the same, in no other way can its evil bent be rectified. God's will must come into contact with man's will, and then the work is done. Must not God's will then be first in every such movement/ Man's will follows. 

Is this a hard saying? So some in these days would have us believe. Let us ask wherein consists the hardness. Is it hard that God's will should be the leader and man's will the follower in all things great and small? Is it hard that we should be obliged to trace the origin of every movement of man towards good to the will of God? If it is hard, it must be that it strips man of every fragment of what is good, or of the slightest tendency to good. And this we believe to be the secret origin of the complaint against the doctrine. It is a thorough leveler and emptier of man. It makes him not only nothing, but worse than nothing, a sinner all over  - nothing but a sinner, with a heart full of enmity to God, set against Him as the God of righteousness, and still more against Him as the God of grace, with a will so bent away from the will of God, and so rebellious against it, as not to have one remaining inclination of what is good and holy and spiritual. This man cannot tolerate. Admit that a man is totally worthless and helpless, and where is the hard saying? Is it hard that God's blessed and holy will should go before our miserable and unholy wills, to lead them in the way? Is it hard that those who have nothing should be indebted to God for everything? Is it hard, since every movement of my will is downwards, earthwards, that God's mighty will should come in and lift it omnipotently upwards, heavenwards?"

- Horatius Bonar