I asked Grok to describe what a decree is in theological parlance. Below is its answer. I will briefly offer rejoinder to this from my Athanasian Reformed perspective.
In theology, a decree refers to God’s eternal and sovereign plan or purpose, through which He ordains everything that happens in the universe. This concept is particularly prominent in Reformed theology (Calvinism) and emphasizes God’s absolute authority and control over all events, including creation, providence, and salvation.
Key Points:
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- Eternal and Unchangeable: God’s decrees are made in eternity, before the foundation of the world, and are immutable, meaning they cannot be altered (Ephesians 1:11).
- Comprehensive: They encompass all things—every event, action, and outcome in history, from the grandest to the smallest (Romans 11:36).
- Sovereign: God’s decrees reflect His supreme will, and nothing happens outside of His divine plan (Isaiah 46:10).
- Types of Decrees:
- Decree of Creation: God’s decision to create the world and all that exists.
- Decree of Providence: God’s ongoing governance and preservation of the world, directing all events toward His purposes.
- Decree of Election: In soteriology (the study of salvation), this refers to God’s predetermination of who will be saved (elect) and who will not, often tied to doctrines like predestination (Romans 8:29-30).
Theological Context:
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- Reformed Tradition: The Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 3) defines God’s decrees as His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby He foreordains whatsoever comes to pass.
- Catholic Theology: While less emphasis is placed on “decrees” as a term, the concept aligns with God’s divine providence and omnipotent will, as seen in teachings on divine foreknowledge and predestination (e.g., Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica).
- Arminian Perspective: Arminians may view God’s decrees as less deterministic, emphasizing human free will in cooperation with divine grace, though still acknowledging God’s overarching plan.
Scriptural Basis:
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- Ephesians 1:11: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”
- Acts 2:23: Refers to Jesus’ crucifixion as part of God’s “definite plan and foreknowledge.”
- Psalm 33:11: “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations.”
Practical Implications:
The doctrine of divine decrees underscores God’s sovereignty, providing comfort to believers that nothing happens by chance and all things work together for God’s glory and the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). However, it also raises complex questions about human responsibility, free will, and the problem of evil, which theologians have debated for centuries.
It is clear, even from this cursory overview by Grok, that a decree of God presupposes a certain notion of Godness. It emphasizes a God of decision, of intellection. A God who would fit the intellectualist tradition offered by the categories and syntheses of various Latin theologians in particular. Some might see decrees as a function of a voluntaristic action of God; that is, purely will-based like we see in the nominalist potentia de absoluta–potentia ordinata. Either way, the Godness presumed upon in a decretal understanding of a God-world relation is to think of God acting in rather impersonal, rationalist, ad hoc, even capricious ways. The person of God as triune, as genuine Christian thought understands Godself, is not corollary with a God of the decree.
The genuinely Christian understanding (GCU) of God doesn’t think God as an intellectual actor way up there who only relates to us, His creation, through a mechanistic means known as decrees. The GCU of God only knows God as Son of the Father (as Athanasius has taught us so well in Contra Arianos). The GCU thinks of the Christian who abides in the bosom of the Father, as co-participants within the Son’s vicarious humanity. There is nothing abstract or removed in the GCU, in regard to thinking a relationship between God and humanity; there is only a concretized knowledge of God through a relation (analogia relationis) of faith (analogia fidei), that is simply in correspondence with the relation and faith of Christ that Christ has always already had for us with His Father in and through the bondage of the Holy Spirit.
Always more to say on this front, but I must cut this short . . ..