MZ/IB Archive 06/27/2021 - Sovereignty Series (Part 7) - Responsibility vs Accountability

Since God writes all human history ahead of time (Isaiah 46:10), it is impossible for any human to be absolutely responsible for his or her actions. How could a human be responsible for actions planned out meticulously ahead of time?

The doctrine of human responsibility (otherwise known as "Human Free Will") presumes ignorance on the part of the Deity, Who must wait to see what the "responsible" humans decide to do. If events are not planned ahead of time, then God Himself must necessarily wait for the unfolding of these events in real time—to see which way things will go. But this is impossible, seeing as God knows everything (1 John 3:20).

It is great theological fault which confuses responsibility with accountability. Certainly, all humans will give an account of themselves before God (Romans 14:12). This is akin to a personal testimony. Responsibility is nowhere in view when humans relate, out loud, their experiences.

Only in a relative sense are humans responsible for their actions. For instance, one member of a football team is responsible for advancing the ball. Another for blocking. Another for punting. Yet another for throwing the ball. We speak of human responsibility when relating (i.e. the "relative perspective")—or comparing—one human with another.

It is failure of the direst and most damaging sort to confuse accountability with responsibility, and the relative with the absolute viewpoint. Confusion here produces doctrines so wrong as to promote creatures to Godhood (the creatures decide, absolutely, what should happen next), and demote God to creaturehood (God becomes the clay, humanity the Potter). God's very name ("Subjector") is thus not only misrepresented, but degraded. Without a proper grasp of Deity, humans descend into moral chaos (Romans 1:24-25).

Even this is of God, however, as it is the purpose of God that His creatures appreciate the contrast (the difference) between having a God and not having One.

The weatherman gives an ACCOUNT of the weather, but he is not RESPONSIBLE for it.

Therein lay the whole thing.

Thanks to Rodney Paris of Texas, who took an analog tape from 1997 and cajoled it—twenty-four years later—into the digital world. Truth never ages.

Sit back and wrap yourself around one of the most important truths of the universe—while watching cows and chickens; while watching a man (and then a child) working pieces of clay.

I commend to you this production while remaining yours from the edge of the bottom of the Floridan peninsula,

Martin Zender

P.S. This is part 7 of an eight-part production called, "The Sovereignty Series." If you know anyone who struggles over the extent to which God dictates human events (and how this fits into the context of God's love for humanity), then send them this series, beginning with Part 1. An understanding of the sovereignty of God is, indeed, the beginning of wisdom. Without it, wisdom waits in the wings.