God's Attributes: Will - Pt 2

Systematic Theology - Lesson 38 - God's Attributes: Will (part 2) - Eph. 1:11; Deut. 29:29. God's secret will is His good pleasure, His eternal, unchangeable counsel or decree in which He has foreordained all things. This does not mean that He is the immediate cause of all things but that all things exist or occur by His eternal, sovereign decree. His will makes things certain, but He does not coerce His creatures to do anything. He ordains even the free choices of men. The decretive will of God is that by which He purposes or decrees whatever shall come to pass, whether He wills to accomplish it effectively (causatively), or to permit it to occur through the unrestrained agency of His rational creatures. The preceptive will of God is the rule of life which God has laid down for His moral creatures, indicating the duties which He requires of them.