You Can't Understand God's Ways¶
The objection¶
The appeal to mystery is not a lazy move; it is often a devout one. "The secret things belong to the LORD our God" (Deut 29:29). "How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" (Rom 11:33). Job asks and is answered with a whirlwind, not a syllogism. Isaiah hears, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (Isa 55:8).
On this account, the non-Calvinist who presses the tension between "God desires all to be saved" and "God decrees that some are not" is being spiritually presumptuous, demanding that the infinite be domesticated by the finite. The Reformed theologian adores what he cannot explain; the system's difficulties are evidence that God is God and we are not. "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?" (Rom 9:20).
This is a serious appeal, and sometimes right. The question is whether it is being used legitimately here, or deployed precisely where the system has generated a problem and needs protection.
Why it does not land¶
1. Mystery is legitimate, but it must be distinguished from contradiction¶
Christian theology is full of genuine mystery: the Trinity, the incarnation, the relation of sovereignty and prayer. We do not understand how God is three and one, or how the Son took flesh. But we do not say God is three and not three, or that the Son is created and uncreated. Mystery is what God has not explained; contradiction is two claims that cannot both be true. The first invites worship; the second signals that a formulation needs repair.
The casebook does not demand a God small enough to be exhaustively explained. It demands only that the words we use of God not cancel each other. If "God desires all to be saved" and "God decrees that some are not saved" are both affirmed, then either "desires" or "decrees" is being used in an unusual sense, or the two claims are in conflict. Calling the conflict a mystery does not tell us which.
2. The appeal is selective, which is the tell¶
Notice where the appeal to mystery appears. It appears when the system is pressed on the free offer, on the love of God for the non-elect, on the sincerity of the invitation, on the status of those who never hear. It does not appear when the system is defending unconditional election, refuting Arminianism, or insisting on the logical consequences of total depravity. There, precision is demanded and contradictions are hunted.
That selectivity need not be dishonest; every theologian has a hierarchy of concerns. But it means the appeal functions as an immunity claim rather than general epistemic humility. A mystery that is invoked only when the system is cornered, and never allowed to qualify the system's own logic, is not humility about God. It is a shield for a formulation. The test is simple: would the same theologian accept "it is a mystery" as an answer from an Arminian?
3. The mystery is often manufactured by a distinction the text does not contain¶
The classic Reformed solution is the two wills: God's revealed will commands all to repent, while his hidden will decrees that some not be saved. But this distinction is not stated in Scripture; it is an inference introduced to hold two data points together. Once introduced, it generates its own mystery — how can God sincerely desire what he has decreed not to happen?
The 1948 OPC report on the free offer saw this with unusual candor. It concluded that God "expresses an ardent desire for the fulfilment of certain things which he has not decreed in his inscrutable counsel to come to pass," and then admitted: "This is indeed mysterious." That is an important admission. The mystery is not given in the text; it is created by the system's attempt to have both a universal desire and a particular decree. The non-Calvinist's proposal is simpler: God desires the salvation of all, provides for all, and the lost are lost by their own refusal. That has its own difficulties, but it does not require a God who desires one thing and decrees another.
4. Isaiah 55:8–9 is about the abundance of mercy, not the incoherence of truth¶
Read the context. "Seek the LORD while he may be found... let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isa 55:6–7). Then comes "For my thoughts are not your thoughts." The point is that God's mercy is larger and stranger than ours — he pardons abundantly, beyond what we would expect. It is an invitation to the wicked, not a warning that God's truth is internally inconsistent.
Using Isaiah 55 to silence logical objection is a misapplication. The passage says God's ways are higher in mercy; it does not say they are lower in consistency. If anything, the context argues that God's dealings are intelligible enough to be proclaimed: "Come, everyone who thirsts" (55:1).
What to say instead¶
"I believe in mystery. I do not think I can explain the Trinity, and I do not think I can explain why God allows evil. But I want to distinguish mystery from contradiction. If God says he desires all to be saved, and the system says he decreed that some are not, that is not a truth too high for me; it is two claims pulling in opposite directions. And I notice the appeal to mystery usually appears right there, not when we are defending election. The OPC report itself said the two-wills solution is 'mysterious.' I am not asking God to fit in my box. I am asking whether the box was built by the Bible or by the system."
A caution¶
Non-Calvinists have mysteries too: why some respond and others not, why God permits the evils he permits, how grace enables without coercing. The casebook does not answer these, and it should not use "contradiction" as a trump card when uncomfortable. Sometimes an apparent contradiction means we have misdefined a term.
The appeal to mystery is not a refutation, and the appeal to logic is not a theology. The right posture is to say what the text says, label the inferences, and be honest when we have reached the limit of what we can explain. The problem is not mystery. The problem is a mystery that is invoked only to protect a system from its own implications.