How do we reconcile divine sovereignty and human responsibility? On the one hand, God is in control of all events, while on the other hand human beings are responsible for their moral actions. Emphasizing one while denying the other is dangerous and unbiblical. If we emphasize God’s sovereignty, while denying human responsibility, we end up with a mechanical fatalism, rendering human beings akin to robots or computers. Emphasizing human responsibility, while denying God’s sovereignty, is to deny the existence of the biblical God – it is the idolatrous notion of an unsovereign god.
Multiple passages in the Bible seem to indicate, within the text itself, that God is sovereign and man is a moral agent. The most famous is likely Genesis 50:19:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
In that passage, Joseph is responding to his brothers who fear that he will harm them, because they had earlier sold him into slavery. Joseph emphasizes that their treachery was all part of God’s plan, as God used their sin to send Joseph to Egypt, where God raised him up to be the Egyptian prime minister, who rescued his brothers from famine. God designed that his brothers betray Joseph, and Joseph’s brothers chose to betray him.
Passages with the same apparent paradox are scattered throughout the Bible. There are dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, if not thousands. In Peter’s sermon, in Acts 2, it is a foregone conclusion that God is sovereign over man’s actions and that man is morally responsible for his own actions. Of Jesus’ crucifixion, Peter says Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), while, in the very same verse, placing the moral responsibility on his Jewish listeners, Peter says, “you crucified and killed (Jesus) by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). In asserting that Christ being delivered to crucifixion was according to God’s plan and that the Jews themselves delivered Christ to be crucified, Peter affirms God’s total sovereignty and man’s moral agency. He does so without blushing.
Some texts of Scripture emphasize God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility together at the same time, while other texts emphasize either one teaching, without mentioning the other. For example, in the context of explaining God’s role in saving man, Paul asserts, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16). In other words, the human choice to choose God is contingent on God’s choice to choose a human. The emphasis clearly falls, in that case, on God’s sovereignty. Later on, however, Paul asserts, with as much force, man’s personal responsibility to choose God: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:10). In other words, the choice to believe in God is an actual choice of the human heart. On one hand Paul asserts divine sovereignty over salvation, while on the other hand he asserts the human responsibility to choose God. He does so without blushing.
The fact that the biblical authors, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, assert both God’s sovereignty and man’s moral agency without any explanation is telling. It is telling because, to them, there is no paradox or contradiction. The two concepts are both equally asserted in Scripture, and they are asserted without explaining the relationship.
This is the mystery of concurrence. “Concurrence” is the word theologians use to describe the biblical assertions of divine sovereignty and human agency together. Here’s Louis Berkhof’s definition of concurrence:
There is not a single moment that the creature works independently of the will and power of God…This divine activity accompanies the action of man at every point, but without robbing man in any way of his freedom. The action remains the free act of man, an act for which he is held responsible. – Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 173
In concurrence, God’s power rules over all actions without nullifying the agency of human actors. In other words, God designed that Joseph’s brothers betray him, but Joseph’s brothers willfully betrayed him. The two things are simultaneously true. God’s sovereign power concurs with human agency.
Let me quote Charles Spurgeon to explain concurrence with simplicity:
That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment… These two truths…are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring. – C.H. Spurgeon, “Sovereign Grace and Man’s Responsibility,” preached August 1, 1858.
In other words, concurrence is like railroad tracks, with one line representing God’s sovereign power and the other human agency. The two are distinct concepts, which never cross, but they are the same in that they run to the same place. But on the distant horizon, the two lines appear as one line, because they both flow from the revelation of God and take us to the same place. The fact that God is sovereign over all events and the fact that humans are moral agents who make their own choices are not contradictory in Scripture. God is sovereign. Man is a moral agent. The two truths concur with each other.
