Comes down to "autonomy". If we take the word at its clear meaning, man is wholly separated from the providential control of his Maker. To assume his Maker would create autonomous creatures is to assume his Maker is something less than sovereign (again using the clear meaning of the word).
Couldn’t disagree more with your last bit. If man’s autonomy exists as an expression of the will of the sovereign then it is an extension of His authority, not a usurpation, however badly used by those in possession of it.
It comes dangerously close to the disinterested Watchmaker view, a Being who merely wound it all up and now sits back and watches it happen, never helping it happen or making it happen.
It needn’t resemble that in any form or fashion. In fact, I hold that it does not and stand ready to illustrate the principle.
To say that God respects "autonomy" is to imply that He has abdicated His sovereignty.
Asked and answered…well, stated and responded to then. To recap, no. :chuckle:
And again, when speaking of sovereignty in the context of God, we should be applying perfection to the word.
I agree. I believe there is a distinct difference between even the most benign tyranny and the idea of perfected sovereignty.
This is very different than when we consider King Richard … after all, he was not perfectly omniscient or omnipotent. When we ignore these and the other perfections of God, and go off crafting views of God drawn from human experience, versus what He has clearly revealed of Himself, we give way to all sorts of logical incongruities.
Imagine my relief then in considering my position free of that fault.
Better to argue, as do the many church Confessions, that God does no violence to the will of man. The divines who crafted that particular phrase were definitely on to something.
I can well understand their desire for a vague means of reconciling the matter without a particular mechanism, but find it insufficient in practice, however well intentioned in expression.