“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass (Rom 9:15, 18; 11:33; Eph 1:11; Heb 6:17); yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin (James 1:13, 17; 1 John 1:5), nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established (Prov 16:33; Mat 17:12; John 19:11; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28).” (Westminster Confession of Faith 3.2).

Stephen Charnock
The Existence and Attributes of God
Vol. 2, pp. 1108-1117.

Prop. 5. The holiness of God is not blemished by his concurrence with the creature in the material part of a sinful act. Some, to free God from having any hand in sin, deny his concurrence to the actions of the creature; because, if he concurs to a sinful action, he concurs to the sin also: not understanding how there can be a distinction between the act and the sinfulness or viciousness of it, and how God can concur to a natural action, without being stained by that moral evil which cleaves to it. For the understanding of this, observe:

1. God’s concurrence with the creature.

There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the creature: “In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We depend upon God in our acting as well as in our being. There is as much an efficacy of God in our motion as in our production—as none have life without his power in producing it, so none have any operation without his providence concurring with it. “In him,” or “by him,” that is, by his virtue preserving and governing our motions, as well by his power bringing as into being. Hence man is compared to an ax (Isa. 10:15), an instrument that hath no action without the cooperation of a superior agent handling it. The actions of the second causes are ascribed to God. The grass, that is the product of the sun, rain, and earth, he is said to make to grow upon the mountains (Ps. 147:8), and the skin and flesh, which is by natural generation, he is said to clothe us with (Job. 10:5), in regard of his co-working with second causes, according to their natures.

Nothing can exist or operate without God.

As nothing can exist, so nothing can operate without him. Let his concurrence be removed, and the being and action of the creature would cease. Remove the sun from the horizon, or a candle from a room, and the light which floweth from either of them ceaseth. Without God’s preserving and concurring power, the course of nature would sink, and the creation be in vain. All created things depend upon God as agents, as well as beings, and are subordinate to him in a way of action, as well as in a way of existing. If God suspends his influence from their action, they would cease to act (as the fire did from burning the three children), as well as if God suspends his influence from their being, they would cease to be.

God supports the nature whereby actions are wrought, the mind where actions are consulted, and the will where actions are determined, and the motive power whereby actions are produced. The mind could not contrive, nor the hand act a wickedness, if God did not support the power of the one in designing, and the strength of the other in executing a wicked intention. Every faculty in its being, and every faculty in its motion, hath a dependence upon the influence of God. To make the creature independent upon God in anything which speaks perfection—as action considered as action is—is to make a creature a sovereign being. Indeed, we cannot imagine the concurrence of God to the good actions of men since the Fall, without granting a concurrence of God to evil actions, because there is no action so purely good, but hath a mixture of evil in it, though it takes its denomination of good from the better part: “There is no man that doeth good and sins not” (Eccles. 7:20).

2. Concurrence does not mar God’s holiness.

Though the natural virtue of doing a sinful action be from God, and supported by him, yet this doth not blemish the holiness of God. While God concurs with them in the act, he instills no evil into men.

(1) No act in regard of the substance of it is evil.

Most of the actions of our faculties, as they are actions, might have been in the state of innocency. Eating is an act Adam would have used if he had stood firm, but not eating to excess. Worship was an act that should have been performed to God in innocence, but not hypocritically. Every action is good by a physical goodness, as it is an act of the mind or hand, which have a natural goodness by creation, but every action is not morally good. The physical goodness of the action depends on God, the moral evil on the creature.

There is no action, as a corporeal action, is prohibited by the law of God, but as it springs from an evil disposition, and is tainted by a venomous temper of mind. There is no action so bad, as attended with such objects and circumstances, but if the objects and circumstances were changed might be a brave and commendable action. So that the moral goodness or badness of an act is not to be esteemed from the substance of the act, which hath always a physical goodness, but from the objects, circumstances, and constitution of the mind in the doing of it. Worship is an act good in itself, but the worship of an image is bad in regard of the object. Were that act of worship directed to God that is paid to a statue, and offered up to him with a sincere frame of mind, it would be morally good. The act in regard of the substance is the same in both, and considered as separated from the object to which the worship is directed, hath the same real goodness in regard of its substance. But when you consider this action in relation to the different objects, the one hath a moral goodness, and the other a moral evil.

Example: Speaking.

So in speaking. Speaking, being a motion of the tongue in the forming of words, is an excellency belonging to a reasonable creature, an endowment bestowed, continued, and supported by God. Now if the same tongue forms words whereby it curseth God this minute, and forms words whereby it blesses and praises God the next minute, the faculty of speaking is the same, the motion of the tongue is the same in pronouncing the name of God either in a way of cursing or blessing: it is the “same mouth that blesseth and curseth” (James 3:9-10). The motion of it is naturally good in regard of the substance of the act in both. It is the use of an excellent power God hath given, and which God preserves in the use of it. But the estimation of the moral goodness or evil is not from the act itself, but from the disposition of the mind.

Example: Killing.

Once more, killing as an act is good, nor is it unlawful as an act; for if so, God would never have commanded his people Israel to wage any war, and justice could not be done upon malefactors by the magistrate. A man were bound to sacrifice his life to the fury of an invader, rather than secure it by despatching that of an enemy. But killing an innocent, or killing without authority, or out of revenge, is bad. It is not the material part of the act, but the object, manner, and circumstance that makes it good or evil. It is no blemish to God’s holiness to concur to the substance of an action, without having any hand in the immorality of it, because whatsoever is real in the substance of the action might be done without evil. It is not evil as it is an act, as it is a motion of the tongue or hand, for then every motion of the tongue or hand would be evil.

(2) Actions in themselves vs. actions as evil.

Hence it follows that an act as an act is one thing, and the viciousness another. The action is the efficacy of the faculty, extending itself to some outward object; but the sinfulness of an act consists in a privation of that comeliness and righteousness which ought to be in an action, in a want of conformity of the act with the law of God, either written in nature or revealed in the word. Now the sinfulness of an action is not the act itself, but is considered in it as it is related to the law, and is a deviation from it. And so the sinfulness is something cleaving to the action, and therefore to be distinguished from the act itself, which is the subject of the sinfulness. When we say such an action is sinful, the action is the subject and the sinfulness of the action is that which adheres to it. The action is not the sinfulness, nor the sinfulness the action. They are distinguished as the member and a disease in the member, the arm and the palsy in it. The arm is not the palsy, nor is the palsy the arm; but the palsy is a disease that cleaves to the arm. So sinfulness is a deformity that cleaves to an action.

The evil of an action is not the effect of an action, nor attends it as it is an action, but as it is an action so circumstantiated and conversant about this or that object; for the same action done by two several persons may be good in one and bad in the other—-as when two judges are in joint commission for the trial of a malefactor, both upon the appearance of his guilt condemn him. This action in both, considered as an action, is good, for it is an adjudging a man to death whose crime deserves such a punishment. But this same act, which is but one joint act of both, may be morally good in one judge and morally evil in the other: morally good in him that condemns him out of an unbiased consideration of the demerit of his fact, obedience to the law, and conscience of the duty of his place; and morally evil in the other, who hath no respect to those considerations, but joins in the act of condemnation, principally moved by some private animosity against the prisoner, and desire of revenge for some injury he hath really received, or imagines that he hath received from him. The act in itself is the same materially in both; but in one it is an act of justice, and in the other an act of murder, as it respects the principles and motives of it in the two judges; take away the respect of private revenge, and the action in the ill judge had been as laudable as the action of the other.

The substance of an act and the sinfulness of an act are separable and distinguishable. God may concur with the substance of an act without concurring with the sinfulness of the act. As the good judge, that condemned the prisoner out of conscience, concurred with the evil judge who condemned the prisoner out of private revenge, not in the principle and motive of condemnation, but in the material part of condemnation, so God assists in that action of a man wherein sin is placed, but not in that which is the formal reason of sin, which is a privation of some perfection the action ought morally to have.

(3) Causality of an action as such vs causality of the sinfulness of that action.

It will appear further in this, that hence it follows that the action and the viciousness of the action may have two distinct causes. That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other, and hath no hand in the producing of it. God concurs to the act of the mind as it counsels, and to the external action upon that counsel, as he preserves the faculty, and gives strength to the mind to consult, and the other parts to execute; yet he is not in the least tainted with the viciousness of the action.

Though the action be from God as a concurrent cause, yet the ill quality of the action is solely from the creature with whom God concurs. The sun and the earth concur to the production of all the plants that are formed in the womb of the one and midwived by the other. The sun distributes heat, and the earth communicates sap; it is the same heat dispersed by the one, and the same juice bestowed by the other. It hath not a sweet juice for one and a sour juice for another. This general influx of the sun and earth is not the immediate cause that one plant is poisonous and another wholesome, but the sap of the earth is turned by the nature and quality of each plant. If there were not such an influx of the sun and earth, no plant could exert that poison which is in its nature; but yet the sun and earth are not the cause of that poison which is in the nature of the plant. If God did not concur to the motions of men, there could be no sinful action, because there could be no action at all. Yet this concurrence is not the cause of that venom that is in the action, which ariseth from the corrupt nature of the creature, any more than the sun and earth are the cause of the poison of the plant, which is purely the effect of its own nature upon that general influx of the sun and earth.

The influence of God pierceth through all subjects, but the action of man done by that influence is vitiated according to the nature of its own corruption. As the sun equally shines through all the quarrels in the window; if the glass be bright and clear, there is a pure splendour; if it be red or green, the splendour is from the sun, but the discolouring of that light upon the wall is from the quality of the glass.

But to be yet plainer, the soul is the image of God, and by the acts of the soul we may come to the knowledge of the acts of God. The soul gives motion to the body and every member of it, and no member could move without a concurrent virtue of the soul. If a member be paralytic or gouty, whatsoever motion that gouty member hath is derived to it from the soul. But the goutiness of the member was not the act of the soul, but the fruit of ill humours in the body. The lameness of the member and the motion of the member have two distinct causes—the motion is from one cause, and the ill motion from another. As the member could not move irregularly without some ill humour or cause of that distemper, so it could not move at all without the activity of the soul.

So though God concur to the act of understanding, willing, and execution, why can he not be as free from the irregularity in all those as the soul is free from the irregularity of the motion of the body, while it is the cause of the motion itself? There are two illustrations generally used in this case that are not unfit: the motion of the pen in writing is from the hand that holds it, but the blurs by the pen are from some fault in the pen itself; and the music of the instrument is from the hand that touches it, but the jarring from the faultiness of the strings; both are the causes of the motion of the pen and strings, but not the blurs or jarrings.

(4) Liberty and contingency of second causes established.

It is very congruous to the wisdom of God, to move his creatures according to their particular natures, but this motion makes him not the cause of sin. Had our innocent nature continued, God had moved us according to that innocent nature. But when the state was changed for a corrupt one, God must either forbear all concourse, and so annihilate the world, or move us according to that nature he finds in us. If he had overthrown the world upon the entrance of sin, and created another upon the same terms, sin might have as soon defaced his second work, as it did the first, and then it would follow that God would have been alway building and demolishing. It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a wise governor of his creature, because man did cease from his loyalty as a subject. Is it not more agreeable to God’s wisdom as a governor, to concur with his creature according to his nature, than to deny his concurrence upon every evil determination of the creature! God concurred with Adam’s mutable nature in his first act of sin; he concurred to the act, and left him to his mutability. If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other unforbidden fruit, God would have supported his natural faculty then, and concurred with him in his motion.

When Adam would put out his hand to take the forbidden fruit, God concurred to that natural action, but left him to the choice of the object, and to the use of his mutable nature. And when man became apostate, God concurs with him according to that condition wherein he found him, and cannot move him otherwise, unless he should alter that nature man had contracted. God moving the creature as he found him, is no cause of the ill motion of the creature—as when a wheel is broken the space of a foot, it cannot but move ill in that part till it be mended. He that moves it, uses the same motion (as it is his act) which he would have done had the wheel been sound. So the motion is good in the mover, but bad in the subject. It is not the fault of him that moves it, but the fault of that wheel that is moved, whose breaches came by some other cause. A man doth not lay aside his watch for some irregularity, as long as it is capable of motion, but winds it up. Why should God cease from concurring with his creature in its vital operations and other actions of his will because there was a flaw contracted in that nature that came right and true out of his hand? And as he that winds up his disordered watch is in the same manner the cause of its motion then, as he was when it was regular, yet by that act of his, he is not the cause of the false motion of it, but that is from the deficiency of some part of the watch itself. So though God concurs to that action of the creature, whereby the wickedness of the heart is drawn out, yet is not God therefore as unholy as the heart.

(5) God’s intention vs man’s intention.

God hath one end in his concurrence, and man another in his action. So that there is a righteous, and often a gracious end in God, when there is a base and unworthy end in man. God concurs to the substance of the act; man produceth the circumstance of the act, whereby it is evil. God orders both the action wherein he concurs, and the sinfulness over which he presides, as a governor, to his own ends. In Joseph’s case, man was sinful, and God merciful; his brethren acted envy, and God designed mercy (Gen. 45:4-5). They would be rid of him as an eyesore, and God concurred with their action to make him their preserver: “Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good” (Gen. 50:20). God concurred to Judas his action of betraying our Saviour; he supported his nature while he contracted with the priests, and supported his members while he was their guide to apprehend him. God’s end was the manifestation of his choicest love to man, and Judas his end was the gratification of his own covetousness. The Assyrian did a divine work against Jerusalem, but not with a divine end (Isa. 10:5-7). He had a mind to enlarge his empire, enrich his coffers with the spoil, and gain the title of a conqueror; he is desirous to invade his neighbours, and God employs him to punish his rebels; but “he means not so, nor doth his heart think so” (Isa. 10:7). He intended not as God intended.

The ax doth not think what the carpenter intends to do with it. But God used the rapine of an ambitious nature as an instrument of his justice. As the exposing malefactors to wild beasts was an ancient punishment, whereby the magistrate intended the execution of justice, and to that purpose used the natural fierceness of the beasts to an end different from what those ravaging creatures aimed at, God concurred with Satan in spoiling Job of his goods, and scarifying his body; God gave Satan license to do it, and Job acknowledges it to be God’s act (Job. 1:12, 21). But their ends were different; God concurred with Satan for the clearing the integrity of his servant, when Satan aimed at nothing but the provoking him to curse his Creator.

The physician applies leeches to suck the superfluous blood, but the leeches suck to glut themselves, without any regard to the intention of the physician, and the welfare of the patient. In the same act where men intend to hurt, God intends to correct; so that his concurrence is in a holy manner, while men commit unrighteous actions. A judge commands the executioner to execute the sentence of death which he hath justly pronounced against a malefactor, and admonisheth him to do it out of love to justice; the executioner hath the authority of the judge for his commission, and the protection of the judge for his security. The judge stands by to countenance and secure him in the doing of it; but if the executioner hath not the same intention as the judge, viz., a love to justice in the performance of his office, but a private hatred to the offender, the judge, though he commanded the fact of the executioner, yet did not command this error of his in it; and though he protects him in the fact, yet he owns not his corrupt disposition in him in the doing of what was enjoined him, as any act of his own.

Conclusion.

To conclude this, since the creature cannot act without God, cannot lift up a hand, or move his tongue, without God’s preserving and upholding the faculty and preserving the power of action, and preserving every member of the body in its actual motion, and in every circumstance of its motion, we must necessarily suppose God to have such a way of concurrence as doth not intrench upon his holiness. We must not equal the creature to God, by denying its dependence on him, nor must we imagine such a concurrence to the fulness of an act, as stains the divine purity, which is, I think, sufficiently salved by distinguishing the matter of the act, from the evil adhering to it. For since all evil is founded in some good, the evil is distinguishable from the good, and the deformity of the action from the action itself, which as it is a created act, hath a dependence on the will and influence of God, and as it is a sinful act, is the product of the will of the creature.