Sovereignty Implies What?

[Rey Reynoso]

I know that many folk have different views of God's sovereignty so here's the question: For God to be sovereign what must definitely remain in place to enforce that concept?

PLEASE NOTE: These are examples of what I'm looking for in the phrasing--not the specific examples:
For example: God can only be sovereign if every single action and inaction is controlled.
or
For example: God is sovereign as long as He created everything and left.
or
For example: God is sovereign as long as He has the overuling decision in any given thing.

*post edited for clarification.

[Rey Reynoso]

Rey, you can't anthropomorphise God.

@walueg: Why not? The Bible uses anthropomorphisms in regards to God and I think we are allowed to use those anthropomorphisms in their proper context (ie: grieving the Holy Spirit, sinners in the hands of an angry God, God repented from creating mankind, et. al). Be that as it may you I don't think I was making any application to God--I was asking you to define what you meant by Control and you defined it. In essence it is this For God's sovereignty to count as sovereignty it must be both transcendent (ie: my thoughts are not your thoughts) and actively ordaining and planning everything that happens.

@Rayner: So for God's Sovereignty to count there must be no other Sovereign over-ruler and all of the Sovereign's decisions are curbed only by His character, yes?

[walueg]

Why can't we anthropomorphise God? Because his ways our not our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Yes, it's true that he gave us some anthropomorphisms in Scripture to help us understand him better. But we don't have the same right to make up our own. That's making God in our image. Those anthropomorphisms are God-breathed. Likening his sovereignty to punching a remote does not do justice to his sovereignty and implies a certain impersonality or lack of intimacy. Man does not share this attribute with God and we presume on him to liken his actions with our own. I'm more comfortable saying that he is active in all human affairs.

Grieving the Holy Spirit and God's being angry are not anthropomorphisms. We are made in God's image and the ability to be grieved or to be angry are attributes we share with him. We imitate him with these things.

[Rey Reynoso]

@walueg: It's an analogy not an anthropomorphism to use illustrations to help understand the alternate party's usage of a word...in this case, your usage of Control.
Control has been used to mean either (1) having direct regulating and influencing power over or (2) to have authoritarian power over. One is a statement of (for lack of a better term) Manipulation (not used pejoratively but in the sense of God moving X, moving Y, lifting B) the second is a statement of Authority. Therefore illustration 1 was that of Agent directly functionally using X and illustration two was of Agent authoritatively over X.

[walueg]

Analogy, anthropomorphism, pick a response and go with it. Whatever the case, you word picture with the remote communicated something that scripture does not, i.e. indirect control at a distance. God is intimately involved in his creation and there is nothing casual about his plan. He is also king of the universe. You cannot separate the two.

In human terms, these never mix and your question is not adequate to the task yet you insist on making our answers fit in one category or the other.

[walueg]

God is ruler and he is the active agent in the universe by which everything lives and moves and has its being according to Paul (Acts 17). Why would it occur to you to separate these "roles"?

[Rey Reynoso]

@walueg: I'm not insisting the definition is in one category or the other--I'm responding based on what you write and telling you what I'm reading. If I'm misreading then you can feel free to correct the misreading--a correction you've so ably supplied.

As to the question of why I'm separating the roles: I am not. I posed a conversation question on an internet forum. If you reread any and all my responses or the topic of conversation you may happily note that not once have I supplied my own understanding of sovereignty.

[Michael JW]

Yeshua Meshach

The incarnation is a unique event, which I think is outside the scope of this thread.

Regardless, I apologize for my long-windedness. It stems from a deep down fear of being misunderstood, and so at times, I have a felt need to explain to all the ends of the earth why I say "Yes" or "No" to something.

At any rate, you're correct in assuming my answer to your question is "Yes". =)

[Leslie Jebaraj]

On the subject, Michael JW and I think exactly alike!

[Jason]

Sovereignty implies that:
God is managing His universe, His Creatures, and His children in such a fashion that will bring glory to Himself for all eternity.
In your examples sovereignty could be either 1 or 3. For it to be 2, the Sovereign would be absent and not omnipresent. Then God would not be God. The other two are broad and open to interpretation.
I could interpret 1 to say that God is in control of all action and inaction and man has no choice. I could also say that God is in control of all action and inaction, man has a choice, and God works with man to bring accomplish His purposes by leading man to want to do what God commands and then yielding to God.
This still doesn't take us much further.
Perhaps you could rephrase the question :-)

[Rey Reynoso]

Those were examples, not specific examples to be used.

[Jason]

I understand they were simply examples for us to work off of.
They also represent most, if not all of the thought, about the issue with which I am familiar. At the same time, those things can be interpreted in different manners.
At the same time, I think they should be broadly interpreted/stated. Scripture gives us examples of God's sovereign work, but does not seem to specify (at least not that I can recall) what is necessarily His way of working out His sovereignty. There is, to me, a great mystery in the sovereignty of God, though I know it is wonderful. If I did not believe in it, I would be terrible right now. My older, and only brother died in July of brain cancer. We buried him the day he was scheduled to have his first treatment. I know, however, that God is holy, loving, and wise in His sovereignty, so I don't question, and I am not bitter.
I do miss him terribly, though.

Rey Reynoso said:

Those were examples, not specific examples to be used.

[Rey Reynoso]

So what's the "lowest" denominator that still allows God to be sovereign: not how He works it out or how it's balanced but what's the minimum requirement for God to still be sovereign? Is it total control no less? Is it ultimate power to choose, no less? Is it some other example?