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ONE OF THE QUESTIONS I AM FREQUENTLY ASKED IS, "What is the meaning of Ligonier?" The question is asked because I work for a ministry called Ligonier Ministries. The assumption that often lurks behind the question is that Ligonier is an esoteric Greek word that has some spiritual or religious meaning. The assumption is incorrect. I usually answer the question with the cryptic reply, "Ligonier is the reason why you speak English rather than French."
Here is the story: The name Ligonier refers to a small village in western Pennsylvania with a population of about two thousand people. It was there, in the Ligonier Valley, that our ministry was founded; when we moved to Orlando we simply retained the name. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the village of Ligonier had a population of ten thousand people—all British soldiers under the command of General Forbes (for whom Forbes Field, the predecessor to Three Rivers Stadium, was named). These soldiers were amassed at Fort Ligonier in preparation for an assault against Fort Duquesne, a place of strategic importance during the French and Indian War. At that time, the French controlled the inland territory of the new world, including the inland waterways, with fortresses in Montreal in the north, New Orleans in the south, and Fort Duquesne in between. British expansion westward from New England and Virginia was blocked by this French territorial control.
When the "Great Commoner" William Pitt was prime minister of England, he ordered General Braddock to launch an attack of Fort Duquesne. Braddock's troops marched from Virginia westward through the Cumberland Gap toward the fort in what is now western Pennsylvania. It was almost an impossible mission because moving the heavy artillery and supply wagons over the mountains was so difficult. To make matters worse, the French came out to meet the British en route, and the British suffered a bloody defeat. General Braddock was killed in the battle. One of Braddock's lieutenants had five horses shot out from under him. A bullet passed through the back of this lieutenant's shirt without even scratching his skin. Amazingly, the lieutenant lived to tell about it. His name was
George Washington. Just one more instance of a small detail that changed the course of history!
After this crushing defeat, William Pitt ordered General Forbes to plan another assault on Fort Duquesne. This time Lieutenant Washington made use of his surveying skills to map a different route over the difficult terrain. Ten small forts were built along the way to serve as supply depots. The last fort from which the attack would be launched was named Fort Ligonier in honor of Lord Ligonier, an expatriated Frenchman who served on the cabinet of William Pitt's administration. (Another detail of history is that the slave-trade ship that carried Kunte Kinte of Roots fame from Africa to America was The Lord Ligonier.) During the French and Indian War, nine of the ten forts built for this assault were captured by the enemy. The only one that survived was Fort Ligonier. (To this day the battle of Fort Ligonier is reenacted every autumn during Fort Ligonier Days.) When the British moved out against the French from Fort Ligonier, the French sneaked in behind them and burned Fort Ligonier to the ground—and then fled from the British. The British rebuilt the fort and named it after the prime minister, calling it Fort Pitt. It was later renamed Pittsburgh, the city known as the "Gateway to the West" long before St. Louis claimed the title. Once the British controlled this territory, the inland waterways were opened for westward expansion. River traffic could now begin in Pittsburgh and proceed down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and all the way to New Orleans.
I grew up in what is now modern Pittsburgh. During my childhood there was no threat of Indian attacks; that was considered ancient history. Yet in elementary school we made field trips to the center of downtown Pittsburgh to an area called "The Point," where the famous "confluence" of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers form the great Ohio River.
It is ironic that the confluence of events that changed the course of American history involved a geographical site of crucial confluence.
The Doctrine of Confluence
The term confluence refers to the "flowing together" of two or more currents. It derives from the Latin root that means to flow "with." The term confluence can also be rendered from its synonym, concurrence. Ideas or events concur when they agree with one another or flow together at the same time. This word confluence is crucial for our understanding of the doctrine of the providence of God because an aspect of the doctrine of providence is the doctrine of concurrence, or confluence.
The doctrine of concurrence refers to historical events in which the work of Providence has been acted out through human agencies. That means at the same time human agents are acting, God is acting in and through them. We remember the assertion of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which says: God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Some very important concepts are contained in this section of the Confession.
The first is the reference to what is called the "biblical apriori," the axiom that God is not the author of sin. This means that God neither commits sin Himself, nor does He work in such a manner that He coerces His creatures to sin. At the same time the Confession avows that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass.
He ordains the actions of human beings but not in such a way that He does violence to the will of His creatures or nullifies second causes.
The Most Vexing Mystery
Here we run head-on into what remains as perhaps the most vexing mystery of Christian faith. The mystery focuses on the interconnection between the providential work of the Creator and the real work of His creatures. Before we attempt to tackle this great problem, we must first make an important distinction —the distinction between a mystery and a contradiction. In almost every theological book I have written I have found it necessary to explain this distinction. I do not grow weary of repetition at this point because this
distinction is so critical to Christian thought. (If it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind, so the chief prerogative of the theologian is to make distinctions!) A contradiction is easy to define. Indeed, it is defined by the classic rules of logic. The law of non-contradiction says that A cannot be both A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. That is, something cannot be what it is and not be what it is at the same time and in the same sense. I can be a father and a son at one and the same time but not in the same sense or in the same relationship. A tree can be a plant and a source of shade at the same time. But it cannot be a tree and not be a tree at the same time and in the same sense.
To say that God is sovereign and that man is free is not a contradiction in terms.
To say that God is sovereign and that man is autonomous would be a contradiction. If God is sovereign, man cannot be autonomous (a law unto himself). If man is autonomous, God could not be sovereign. These two concepts are mutually exclusive; they cancel out one another. To have a sovereign God coexisting with an autonomous creature would be like having the coexistence of an irresistible object and an immovable object.
Let's consider for a moment the idea of an immovable object coexisting with another object that exerts an irresistible force. We then contemplate the classic question: "What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?"
We can't have a stand-off. If the immovable object moves, then it can no longer be deemed immovable. If it doesn't move, then the irresistible force is not irresistible. There is no other alternative.
It is important to note that the idea of an immovable object, considered in itself, is a rationally possible concept. Likewise, the idea of an irresistible force is a rationally possible concept. What is rationally impossible is the idea of both of these things existing at the same time.
So it is with the ideas of divine sovereignty and human autonomy. Each concept when considered alone is a rationally possible idea. The concept of divine sovereignty is not self-contradictory. Likewise, the idea of human autonomy is
not self-contradictory. What is self-contradictory is the idea of the mutual existence of the two. If one of them is true, the other cannot possibly be true.
So far this exercise in rational possibility is easy. The difficulty arises when we change the terms a bit. The term autonomy means absolute freedom. Something, such as God, can be both sovereign and autonomous. That is, it is possible for a being to be both absolutely free and absolutely sovereign. The two characteristics can coexist in one being. We have seen, however, that the two qualities cannot coexist in two beings.
It is important to see that we can have a concept of freedom that falls short of autonomy. That is, we can conceive of a being that has freedom within limits.
The real problem emerges when we try to square the relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom. It seems then that the attribute of sovereignty belongs necessarily to God. If God is not sovereign, He is not God. It also seems that freedom belongs necessarily to the idea of a moral agent. If man is to be deemed responsible for his actions, he must have some degree of freedom. That freedom need not be absolute; it need not be autonomous. If the creature has some freedom, however limited, then the creature is responsible to whatever degree it is free.
The concepts of divine sovereignty and limited human freedom are not mutually exclusive. We know from Scripture that man is not sovereign. I have heard it said that man's freedom limits God's sovereignty. If that were so then man, not God, would be sovereign. It is not that human freedom limits God's sovereignty.
God's sovereignty is absolute and unlimited. Rather, it is God's sovereignty that limits human freedom. God's sovereignty transcends human freedom and rules over it. We are free only to the degree that God allows that freedom.
Though these distinctions give some relief to the vexing problem of the relationship between God's providence and human actions, they do not solve the problem altogether. We are still left with the problem of how man can be free at all in light of God's providence. If God ordains or wills everything that comes to pass, we wonder how that affects human volitional actions.
One way this is frequently answered is by an appeal to God's permissive will.
The distinction is made between God's "decretive will," by which He sovereignly brings to pass whatever He decrees, and His "permissive will" that leaves room for the moral actions of His creatures. However, this solution often oversimplifies the question. If God is omnipotent, then He clearly has the power to prevent any event from happening that actually happens. If I choose to sin this afternoon, God has the power to prevent me from sinning if He so chooses. He also has the right to prevent me from sinning since He is sovereign. If he "permits" my sin, this does not mean He sanctions it or gives His permission in the sense that He deems it lawful. He may let it occur without intervening to stop it. This is what is meant by His permissive will. He lets it happen. But what God permits to happen He still chooses to permit. That is, since He could stop it and decides not to stop it, He exercises His permission according to His good pleasure. In some sense He ordains that it happens or else it could not happen.
We can push this reasoning, not only to the moral actions of creatures themselves, but to the desires in the human heart that produce such actions. The human desire for sin is also under God's sovereign control. I cannot even desire to sin unless God in His providence "permits" it, and He will not permit it unless it accords with His ultimate will. In a word, I cannot even sin unless it is ordained in some sense by God. We will explore this more fully later, but for the moment we will merely observe it in passing. The key phrase here is the one used by Augustine when he argued that God, in some sense, ordains everything that comes to pass. The qualifying phrase "in some sense" was Augustine's attempt to preserve the mystery of the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
That we meet mystery here is inescapable. We have seen that it is impossible for contradictory forces to be at work ultimately but not for mysterious things to be at work. There is a big difference between a mystery and a contradiction. The two are not the same thing, even though they may have certain things in common with each other. The big point of commonality between a mystery and a contradiction is our failure to understand either of them. A mystery may be defined as something that is true that we do not understand. Notice I did not say that a mystery is something we cannot understand. There are many examples in history wherein previous mysteries have been solved. To say that a present mystery is unsolvable presumes that we have reached the zenith of knowledge, indeed omniscience.
One of the fundamental axioms of theology is the incomprehensibility of God.
The Latin phrase finitum non capax infinitum applies; it means "the finite cannot grasp the infinite." Even in heaven there will be some elements of God we will not be able to comprehend. Even in our glorified state we will still be finite.
We will still be creatures. The Bible gives ample reason to believe that in heaven we will understand far more things than we presently grasp, but even then there will be limits to our knowledge.
As we have seen, the point of contact between mystery and contradiction is that we do not understand either. A contradiction is inherently unintelligible. It is not understood because it cannot be understood. One frequent and fatal refuge from this problem is the assertion that God is able to understand contradictions. If this were true it would be fatal to Christianity. If real contradictions can be resolved in the mind of God, then it would mean that anything God has ever spoken or revealed is now suspect. If contradictions that are false to us can be true to God, then we would have no way of knowing if the very opposite of what God reveals as truth is actually true. If God can hold to contradictions, then perhaps in
His
mind there is no difference between
Christ
and Antichrist, between obedience and disobedience, between good and evil.
Rather than groveling in the murky madness of dialectical theology, in which both poles of a contradiction are affirmed, let us be clear in our assertion that not even God can understand a real contradiction. Even God cannot be God and not be God at the same time and in the same relationship. There is much room in the Christian faith for paradox and mystery, but no room for contradictions. God may understand all mysteries and all paradoxes, but He understands no contradictions.
Because mystery and contradiction have the lack of our understanding of them in common, many feel no tension with confusing them and are quite willing to affirm the presence of contradiction in Christian truth. This flight into the absurd makes God both irrational and a liar and makes the Holy Spirit the Author of confusion. Nor is it proper to call a bona fide contradiction merely a mystery.
Contradiction falsifies truth claims; mysteries do not. Again, because we cannot understand how God can be sovereign and man be autonomous at the same time, we dare not affirm them both as a "mystery." These propositions, if held at the
same time, are more than a mystery; they are a contradiction. At least one of them must be false.
The church has been careful in her historical confessions to flee from contradictory assertions. I once heard a philosophy professor ridicule Christianity because of the doctrine of the Trinity. He said that Christianity is absurd because it asserts a blatant contradiction in this doctrine. The professor should have known better than to make that charge. To say that God is one in essence and three in person is not a contradiction. It violates no rule of reason.
Indeed, the test of Venn diagrams—a system of logic that uses circles to represent sets and their relationships—can be applied to prove the doctrine of the Trinity is not contradictory. Indeed, if the church declared that God was one in essence and three in essence or one in person and three in person at the same time and in the same sense, then the formulation would be contradictory and thus falsified. The church does not say that. It does not declare that God is one in A and three in A. Rather it says that He is One in A and three in B. Now, how a being can be One in essence and three in person is beyond our present understanding. It remains a profound mystery to us. But it is not a contradiction.
I have labored this point because the integrity of the biblical faith is at stake. In our age of irrationality even professing Christians get caught up in this confusion and do violence to Christian truth claims. The doctrine of God's providence, particularly as it concerns concurrence or confluence, is replete with mysteries.
If these mysteries resolve into contradictions, then something has to go. We hope it will not be the nature or character of God that will be negotiated.
In our day it is precisely the nature of God Himself that is under attack. This attack comes not only from skeptics but from the lips and pens of professed evangelicals. With the corruption of our fundamental understanding of the nature and character of God comes always and everywhere the corruption of the doctrine of divine Providence in its wake. In our zeal to protect the dignity of man and the ground of his moral responsibility (both of which are noble and necessary concerns), we must jealously guard against so weakening our understanding of God that His very essence and character are denuded.