That One Shining Moment
Week Seven of The Cedar Files
“The ball is tipped
And there you are
You're running for your life
You're a shooting star
And all the years
No one knows
Just how hard you worked
But now it shows
In one shining moment, it's all on the line
One shining moment, there frozen in time.”[1]
These are the opening lines of the song, “One Shining Moment” by David Barrett. Right now, the men’s NCAA college basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, is taking place. Sixty-eight teams have been whittled down to sixteen. On Monday, April 3rd, one team will be crowned champions, and the song “One Shining Moment” will play in the background of the award ceremony.
Every year, during March Madness, players, coaches, and fans have their one shining moment that people remember for years. Michael Jordan made one of his first clutch shots in the national championship game against Georgetown in 1982. The next year, North Carolina State University won the championship with a dunk as time expired in one of the most famous college basketball games ever played. These are two examples of college basketball players having their one shining moment.
In recent years, fans have gone viral with their reactions to their teams losing or exciting plays on their court. One famous example is a young fan of the Northwestern Wildcats bawling as his team lost in their first-ever tournament appearance.
You may be asking yourself: “I thought this was theology week. Why is this guy talking about sports so much?” You are correct. Welcome to week seven of the Cedar Files, and it is theology week. I began with that story from March Madness because the desire for legacy and recognition runs deep in most human beings. March Madness provides it for some people. As a Christian, one question relates to God’s knowledge of all future events. Who is ultimately responsible when people have their one shining moment? Does God know who will win a basketball tournament, a presidential election, or a battle ahead of time? If so, does God intervene directly or indirectly to ensure a specific outcome, or does God defer to the choices of human beings in most affairs and only intervene in special circumstances—like Jesus’ Incarnation? The meat of the issue is how God’s will relates to the choices of human beings. Drawing back to my example of March Madness, are the players, the coaches, the fans, or God Himself responsible for the outcomes of each game? Even basketball coaches are not always sure why one team wins over another. In his postgame interview on Sunday, March 19, Kansas State coach, Jerome Tang, said about his team’s upset win over Kentucky, “They (media members about the team’s chances to win) call it crazy one day and faith the next. We call it crazy faith!”[2]
Today, we will explore the relationship between God’s will and human choices. This issue is often discussed in relation to human salvation in Christian theology. We will explore that in next month’s theology week (April 16th). This week, we will examine God’s will and human choices in more common actions and events like sports and political elections. We will define the doctrines of God’s sovereignty and human free will, examine several major theories on how they relate, and conclude with a main idea.
God’s Sovereignty
Definitions: “Biblical teaching that God possesses all power and is the ruler of all things. The Bible affirms also that God rules human history according to His purpose, from ordinary events in the lives of individuals (Judg. 14:1–4; Prov. 16:9, 33) to the rise, affairs, and fall of nations (Ps. 22:28; Hab. 1:6; Acts 17:26).”[3]
Human Free Will
Definitions: “The power to make an unconstrained, spontaneous, voluntary, and therefore responsible choice.”[4]
“Men’s actions are indeterminate and therefore in principle unpredictable.”[5]
“The ability to make willing choices that have real effects.”[6]
“The ability to make choices that are not determined by God.”[7]
If God has foreknowledge of all future events and the power to intervene in human affairs at any time, how can human beings make free choices? This question has puzzled Christian theologians and philosophers for generations. Let’s go to some solutions that have been proposed throughout church history.
Solutions
Redefinition of Free Will
Theologians who emphasize God’s sovereignty such as Augustine of Hippo or John Calvin, solve this problem by redefining free will. Instead of its traditional definition of making choices free from outside influence, they define it as knowing and following God’s will instead of our own will.[8]
Strengths and Weaknesses: Reformed theologians teach that God is the ultimate cause of everything that happens on earth, which limits a traditional understanding of human free will.
Open Theism
Theologians who emphasize human free will and human relationships with God conclude that God may not know what our future decisions will be until after we make them. That is the only way human beings are truly free to make their own decisions. This is known as Open Theism and has been a controversial development in Evangelical theology in the last forty years.[9]
Strengths and Weaknesses: Attempting to protect human free will against all outside influences including God’s, adherents of Open Theism drastically undercut God’s sovereignty and omniscience. Also, they primarily cite philosophical concepts as proof, with little biblical evidence.
Mediating View
Some theologians offer a mediating position that argues God’s sovereignty is determinative in matters of salvation but not in everyday situations like our jobs, education, or who we marry.[10]
Strengths and Weaknesses: This view gives primacy to divine sovereignty and human free will in different spheres of life, which has almost no basis in Scripture.
Arminian View
Many Arminians teach that while God is omniscient, omnipotent, and has knowledge of future events, human beings have full free will.[11] Thus, human choices determine earthly events, not divine providence.
Strengths and Weaknesses: The Arminian view does not give proper credence to the passages of Scripture that talk about providence, predestination, or election such as Romans 9, Ephesians 1 and 2, or John 6.
Molinism
Recently, some Protestant scholars have turned to the teachings of a sixteenth-century Roman Catholic theologian, Luis de Molina for the answer to the relationship between human free will and God’s sovereignty. Known as Molinists, they argue that God created the world in such a way that maintained human free will even after sin entered the world while maintaining a sovereign plan over the whole universe.[12] God accomplishes this through what de Molina called “middle knowledge,” which I will not go into here in detail.[13]
Strengths and Weaknesses: Molinism tries to allow for both complete human free will and divine sovereignty, but it too is primarily a philosophical idea. Stratton provides three biblical passages as support of middle knowledge (1 Samuel 23:9–13, Jeremiah 38:17–18, and Matthew 11:20–24), but they all apply to God’s omniscience generally and not to the philosophical idea of middle knowledge in any meaningful way.
My View
First, I agree with all major traditions of Protestantism (except Open Theism) that God in His omniscience has full knowledge of all future events, both what will happen and what could happen. Second, I believe that God has the power to intervene in human affairs at any time— such as in the Incarnation of Jesus. In His providence, God also sometimes uses mundane human events for His own purposes. Judges 14:1–4 is one such example. God used Samson’s desire for a Philistine wife as an opportunity to free the Israelites from rule by the Philistines. Third, since God has the power to intervene in human affairs in forms of healing (as recorded in John 9), controlling the seas and weather (Exodus 14 and Luke 8:22–25), and life and death (John 11:38–44), nothing happens in the world apart from God’s knowledge and tacit, if temporary, permission.[14] The doctrine of God’s sovereignty over all things comforts, terrifies, and sometimes saddens me, but I have no doubt it is what the Bible teaches. We will talk about the relationship between God’s sovereignty and evil in the world in two months. Finally, I believe human beings are responsible for our choices. How can this be if God is in control over all things on earth? God created human beings in His image with the ability to reason and create.[15] Since Genesis 3, human beings are infected with sin.[16] God knows what our decisions will be beforehand but does not make them for us. Through general and special revelation, Paul tells us that God has revealed enough of Himself, His grace, and His expectations to all people that they can be justly punished for wrongdoing and selfish choices.[17]
I will conclude with a quotation from Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis between Lucy and Aslan, the Great Lion. It nicely summarizes the intersection of divine sovereignty, human choice, and future events. In it, Lucy is defending herself after she disobeyed Aslan at the urging of her siblings.
“‘From somewhere deep inside Aslan’s body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lucy, who understood some of his moods. ‘I didn’t mean to start slanging the others. But it wasn’t my fault, anyway, was it?’
The Lion looked straight into her eyes.
‘Oh Aslan,’ said Lucy, ‘You don’t mean it was? How could I-I couldn’t have left the others and come up to you alone. How could I? Don’t look at me like that… oh well, I suppose I could. Yes, and it wouldn’t have been alone, I know, not if I was with you. But what would been the good?’
Aslan said nothing.
‘You mean,’ said Lucy rather faintly, ‘that it would have turned out all right-somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?’
‘To know what would have happened, child?’ said Aslan, ‘No, nobody is ever told that.’
‘Oh dear?’ said Lucy.
‘But anyone can find out what will happen,’ said Aslan.”[18]
Main Idea
No matter what position you take concerning free will and God’s sovereignty, the Bible affirms both divine sovereignty and the reality of human choices with real effects.[19] Don’t be paralyzed by or fearful of the future. God knows who will win this year’s March Madness tournament—as He knows all things—but He did not tell me as evidenced by my terrible brackets. Still, as I watch the tournament this weekend and next weekend, I will continually ponder the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human free will in all human events. Nobody understands it fully, but I know one thing. On April 3rd, after the championship game, I will tear up as I listen to “One Shining Moment” blaring through the gym’s speakers. Let us find confidence in God with each passing day and each choice we make—whether we are in our one shining moment or mundane, daily life.
Sources
Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Chicago: Moody Publishers. 2014.
Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.
Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. Gen. Eds. Chad Brand, Charles Draper, and Archie England. Nashville, Ten: Holman Bible Publishers. 2003.
The New Bible Dictionary. Ed. J. D. Douglas. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1973.
Rohmann, Chris. A World of Ideas: A Dictionary of Important Theories, Concepts, Beliefs, and Thinkers. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999.
Stratton, Timothy A. Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism: A Biblical, Historical, Theological, and Philosophical Analysis. Eugene, Or: WIPF & StockPublishers, 2020.
[1] “One Shining Moment” by David Barrett.
[2] Jerome Tang in a postgame interview with CBS on March 19, 2023.
[3] Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 1523.
[4] The New Bible Dictionary, 734.
[5] The New Bible Dictionary, 734.
[6] Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1242. Grudem’s definition
[7] Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1243. The definition is included in Grudem’s work but is not his own definition.
[8] Rohmann, Chris. A World of Ideas, 146.
[9] Enns, The Moody Handbook of Theology, 216.
[10] A World of Ideas, 146.
[11] Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism, 213.
[12] Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism, 222–223.
[13] Basically, middle knowledge refers to God’s knowledge of every possible decision that could be made by human beings in every possible situation they may encounter. See Stratton, Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism, 214.
[14] See Ephesians 1:11, Colossians 1:16–17, and Revelation 21:5.
[15] Genesis 1:27.
[16] See Genesis 3 and Romans 5:12–21.
[17] Romans 1: 20–25.
[18] Lewis, C. S. Prince Caspian, 149.
[19] Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3 is one such example of human beings exercising free will with dire consequences.