More than once Dr. James Daane has commented in a less than complimentary way in The Reformed Journal on my saying in God-Centered Evangelism that God could, had he so willed, have brought the elect to heaven by mere power. Most recently Dr. Daane did that in the January, 1963, issue.

I did say that. In saying it, I confessed the divine omnipotence. Of course, God is able to do whatever he wills to do. To say that is to say that God is omnipotent. To deny that is to deny the divine omnipotence.

Why did I make the aforesaid statement? For an obvious and good reason. I did so in order that on the background of the divine omnipotence it might be asserted emphatically that as a matter of fact God has willed to save not by mere power but by love.

What I did not say, and was careful not to say, is that God could have willed to save the elect by mere power. That would have been quite another matter. Indisputable as the statement is that God can do whatever he wills, there is a limit to what he can will. Of course, God’s will is an expression of his nature. God cannot will what is contrary to his nature. That is to say, he cannot deny himself. And to say that, is not to deny the divine omnipotence but to affirm it.

In the interest of the divine sovereignty it must be maintained that God’s power extends beyond his will. In simple language, God docs not choose to do all that he is able to do. While his power is limitless, in the exercise of his power God is free. Yet the free exercise by God of his power docs not spell arbitrariness. Of course, God exercises his sovereign power in harmony with his nature. Nothing can be clearer than that God wills all that he wills and does all that he does because he is who he is. It was because of his very nature that God determined and provided that sinners are to be saved by grace through the atonement. As I pointed out in God-Centered Evangelism, Scripture teaches the divine necessity of the atonement.

All that strikes me as obvious. Without denying that there remains room here for questions that have not been answered and perhaps cannot be answered by the puny minds of men, I have held to all that in my preaching, teaching, and writing, God-Centered Evangelism included. I have set it forth at some length in an article Scripture on the Divine Omnipotence in the May-June, 1962, issue of TORCH AND TRUMPET. And I have long thought, and still think, that on these matters there is substantial, not to say complete, agreement among recognized Reformed theologians. Does Dr. Daane disagree?

R.B.K.