The absolute vs. the relative viewpoint
If I bowled a strike, did I knock the pins down or did the bowling ball knock the pins down? Well, both are correct one would say. In a relative sense, the bowling ball did. However, in the absolute sense, I did because of my control of the ball.
Knowing the absolute and the relative viewpoint in scripture is essential to understanding God. Otherwise, one might get a false idea that God is weak or makes mistakes or worse, that man makes absolute decisions that escape God’s influence.
I am tempted to explain the absolute vs. the relative viewpoint, but I’m just going to scripture. After all, scripture does the best job in this explanation.
And Yahweh said to Moses: When you go to return to Egypt, see to all the miracles which I place in your hand, that you do them before Pharaoh. Yet I shall make his heart steadfast, and he shall not dismiss the people. – Exodus 4:21
So in the above verse, God clearly makes Pharaoh’s heart steadfast. Okay, now lets look at Exodus 8:32.
Yet Pharaoh hardened his heart, even at this time, and he did not dismiss the people. – Exodus 8:32
There are multiple verses that explain that both God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. I just include two of them for time sake. However, these verses are talking about the same event.
So, which is it? Did God harden Pharaoh’s heart or did Pharaoh harden his own heart? Well, both are true!
In the absolute sense, God does everything. God determined that Pharaoh would not let the Israelite’s go in order to show His power and miracles to all the world. If God didn’t make Pharaoh’s heart steadfast then no plagues and no parting of the sea. Yet, God wanted these things to happen so He, in the absolute sense, determined from the beginning that Pharaoh’s heart would be hard. God said, “I shall MAKE his heart steadfast.” God did it. Period.
Okay, then why does Exodus 8:32 say that Pharaoh hardened his own heart? This is because Pharaoh was just playing out in the relative sense what God had already determined in the absolute sense. You see, God determines everything as He tells the end from the beginning and works all according to His will (Isaiah 46:10, Ephesians 1:11). This is the absolute viewpoint.
Pharaoh hardened his heart based on the circumstances, emotions, disposition, and everything else put in motion by God. Pharaoh made this decision in real time as a result of everything God put in place. So, he did decide based on his relative experiences. This is the relative viewpoint.
So to summarize, God determined what Pharaoh would do in order to fulfill His intention, then put Pharaoh in the relative circumstances that would cause Pharaoh to make the decision that God planned for him to make.
How else could both verses be true? These examples are all over scripture. The problem with many bible students is that they ignore the absolute viewpoint in favor of the relative one. In error, people would accept Exodus 8:32 that says Pharaoh hardened his heart and ignore Exodus 4:21. The ignorance of not knowing the absolute and relative viewpoints leads to arguments like, “see, we have free will because I make choices all the time. Adam chose to sin, one thief accepted Jesus, my aunt Sally chose to reject Christ.”
Every decision we make is relative to our experiences and circumstances that God uses to fulfill His intention in the absolute sense. God determines what we do and the choices we make (absolute) and we make those decisions in real time, for us, relative to the motivating factors God chose to use.
Need more scriptural examples? Here are just a few:
12 So that, my beloved, according as you always obey, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, with fear and trembling, be carrying your own salvation into effect,13 for it is God Who is operating in you to will as well as to work for the sake of His delight. -Philippians 2: 12-13
Here in verse 12 Paul tells us to carry your own salvation into effect. So many people stop here at the relative, human viewpoint and say that its our decisions and actions that save us. Those decisions and actions are definitely a part of carrying our own salvation. However, if we keep reading verse 13 Paul tells where these decisions and actions come from. It is God Who is operating in you to will as well as to work for the sake of His delight.
You see, in the absolute sense, it is God that works in you causing the decisions that you make in the relative. God determines your decisions and works in you in order to carry out those decisions in real time. You still made those decisions, but as a result of God’s decree.
Now on hearing this, the nations rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord, and they believe, whoever were set for life eonian. -Acts 13:48
You see, God determines and sets whoever will have life eonian, then those people chosen by God will come to belief. God does not wait to see who would believe and then react to their choice by giving them life. No, God determines who will have life and gives them the faith at some point in life. Yes, those people make a choice. However, this choice was determined by God in the absolute.
11 For, not as yet being born, nor putting into practice anything good or bad, that the purpose of God may be remaining as a choice, not out of acts, but of Him Who is calling, 12 it was declared to her that “The greater shall be slaving for the inferior,”
13 According as it is written, “Jacob I love, yet Esau I hate.” -Romans 9: 11-13
In the above verses, Paul explains that God determined every decision, good or bad, that Jacob and Esau would make before they were even born. Now, these two men made all kinds of decisions that effected their destiny throughout life. The brothers did not feel constrained or influenced by God in these decisions. However, scripture says that God determined every single decision they would make. As a result, the inmost being and circumstances of life molded Jacob and Esau into making the choices that God planned for them to make.
God had chosen Jacob to become Israel from the very beginning. The drama that played out with Jacob and his mother deceiving Esau was all determined by God beforehand. God would not leave Israel, His chosen people, to chance. God chose Jacob and the brothers lived out every detail by making their own choices. All part of the intricate details that God had planned. That is why He is the Potter and we are the clay.
By the way, God does not hate Esau. Esau was actually blessed richly. However, God hated Esau relative to Jacob. This simply means that God chose Jacob instead of Esau. God is love and incapable of hate.
The only way these verses hold true is if we understand that God determines everything in the absolute sense and human beings make choices in the relative sense that carry out what God has already determined. For it is God that has planned the end from the beginning and its God that wrote each one of our days on His scroll BEFORE ONE OF THEM CAME TO BE (Isaiah 46:10, Psalm 139:16).
In the account of Job, the Adversary needed to approach the throne room of God in order to gain permission. What was Job’s response to the evil that Satan did to him?
Yahweh, He gives, and Yahweh, He takes away (Job 1:21).
and
Indeed should we receive good from the One, Elohim, and should not receive evil (Job 2:10)?
Why does Job never address Satan? Its because Job knew that God determines everything and Satan is only acting out in real time what God has planned. Satan is a relative creature in God’s hands.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who blesses us with every spiritual blessing among the celestials, in Christ, 4 according as He chooses us in Him before the disruption of the world, we to be holy and flawless in His sight, 5 in love designating us beforehand for the place of a son for Him through Christ Jesus; in accord with the delight of His will… -Ephesians 1: 3-5
In the above verses, Paul says that believers are chosen before the disruption of the world, designated beforehand. This was obviously determined by God before each believer was born because God made this decision before the world, as we know it, was created. So, if God already determined who would believe then how is a believer making an absolute choice, independent of God, if God has already chosen that person? Same if God did not choose that person to believe. How can a person believe if God determined for them not to believe? They cannot.
God determines everything and if He has chosen for someone to believe then He will work out their life in a way so that they will believe. If God chose them not to believe then God will work out their life in a way so that they will not believe.
How can God still be blaming us then? Read Romans chapter 9! We can still be entreated to make the right decision and the ultimate source of that decision still be God. He’s God.
God chooses to save some now through faith and will save the rest through judgement later. All will taste salvation through Christ’s death for sin, His entombment, and His resurrection.
10 (for for this are we toiling and being reproached), that we rely on the living God, Who is the Saviour of all mankind, especially of believers. – 1 Timothy 4:10
All is of God (2 Corinthians 5:18), says the apostle Paul, including salvation. This is the absolute viewpoint in which God does everything. The decisions that people make and the experiences that people have are a result of God and are in the relative viewpoint. God tells the end from the beginning, before any one of us were born or able to contribute anything. In real time during our lives, we make decisions and live out what God has determined. So, we do make decisions. But, they are dependent on God not independent of Him.
We can say the bowling ball knocked down the pins, we can say the baseball bat hit the home-run, and we can say the ax chopped the wood. But, let’s not ignore the force behind those actions. Can the bowling ball roll the human? Can the baseball bat swing the man? Can the ax hurl the person swinging it? No…and niether can we make decisions separate from our Creator.
The force behind every action and decision is God.
Shall the ax vaunt itself over the one hewing with it? Should the mace magnify itself over the one swinging it? As if a club should swing the one raising it up! As if a rod should raise him up who is not wood! -Isaiah 10:15
Grace and peace to you all.
Saved ignoble 
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