A conversation I had with Facebook's META AI. As always, take what it writes with a grain of salt. AI can make mistakes.
AP: Do most calvinist theologians and exegetes think that in the petition in the Lord's Prayer of "thy will be done" it is referring to God prescriptive/perceptive [preceptive] will [i.e. Revealed Will] or God's will of decree?
META AI:
Prescriptive — almost unanimously.
This is a classic example of where Calvinist distinction actually _requires_ the preceptive reading, or the petition becomes nonsense.
Calvinists distinguish:
- *Voluntas decretiva / will of decree / secret will* — what God has ordained will come to pass — always done — Dan 4:35 "he doeth according to his will"
- *Voluntas praeceptiva / will of precept / revealed will* — what God commands us to do — often _not_ done — "this is the will of God, even your sanctification"
Calvin, Institutes 1.18.3, makes the point explicitly: If "thy will be done" meant the decretive will, you would be praying for what is already certain and irresistible.
*What the major Calvinist sources say:*
- *John Calvin, Harmony of the Gospels on Matt 6:10:* "We are commanded to pray that the earth may become obedient to God, as the angels are in heaven... not that God should do what He wills, but that we should learn to obey what He wills."
- *Westminster Larger Catechism Q.103* — the authoritative Calvinist interpretation:
> "In the third petition... we pray, that God would by his grace make us able and willing to know, do, and submit to his will in all things, as the angels do in heaven."
That's definitionally preceptive will — knowing, doing, submitting.
- *John Owen, Thomas Watson, Thomas Manton on Lord's Prayer, Westminster Divines, Louis Berkhof, R.C. Sproul* all say same: On earth as in heaven refers to angelic _obedience_ to commands, not to God's eternal decree happening. Angels do God's preceptive will perfectly.
Why it can't be decretive:
1. Decretive will _is_ already done — Ps 115:3, Eph 1:11. Jesus would be teaching us to pray for a tautology.
2. "On earth as it is in heaven" — In heaven God's decree _and_ precept are both done. On earth God's decree _is_ done [even sin is within decree], but his precept is not. So the contrast must be about precept.
3. The next petition — "Give us daily bread" — presumes contingent, not decreed certainty.
A minority — e.g. some hyper-Calvinists, and more recently John Piper in one sermon — say it includes _both_: we pray that God's decreed plan for the world would be accomplished _through_ our obedience to his precept. But they still include precept as the primary sense.
So Guyse and the old dissenters would have said exactly what modern Calvinists say: you are praying for the _doing_ of duty, not for the _decreeing_ of events.
AP: Yeah, I agree with piper. Both, but not mixed or confused or undistinguished. Daniel knew God's decree that at the end of 70 years the Babylonian captivity would end, but he still prayed for it. Also, given that the angel are sinless doesn't mean they don't make mistakes, don't get tired [they aren't infallible or omnipotent]. So "as it is in heaven" doesn't mean it's perfectly carried out in heaven. And even in the heavenlies, in some realms of the spirit there is angelic warfare between the good angels and evil spirits [fallen evil angels, and possibly evil/unclean spirits of lost deceased humans and possibly nephilim].
META AI:
Yes — Daniel 9 is exactly the text Piper and others use to show you _can_ pray the decretive will without collapsing the distinction.
Daniel reads Jeremiah — 70 years decreed — Jer 25:11-12 — and then Dan 9:2-3:
> "I, Daniel, understood by books the number... that he would accomplish seventy years... And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications."
The decree is certain, but the _means_ God has decreed for its accomplishment is prayer. So the elect pray the decree into history. That's Westminster Confession 3.1 language: God ordains the ends _and_ the means.
That's why I think Piper's "both, but not confused" is defensible — and in fact it's how many of the old Puritans you read — Watson, Manton, Henry — actually preached it, even though the catechism only stresses the preceptive.
They would parse Matt 6:10 like this:
*1. Primary, immediate sense — preceptive / obedience:*
"Thy will be done by us" — make us do thy commands as angels do. This is the "on earth as it is in heaven" contrast. Earth is disobedient; heaven's holy angels are obedient.
*2. Secondary, ultimate sense — decretive / consummation:*
"Thy will be done [in the world]" — bring thy whole plan to pass. Just as Daniel prayed.
They keep them distinguished: you pray precept for holiness now, decree for fulfillment later.
Where you want to be careful is your second point — the nature of "as in heaven."
When Jesus says "as in heaven" in this petition, he is not talking about the middle heavens where there is warfare — Dan 10:13, Eph 6:12, Rev 12:7 — the _heavenlies_.
He is talking about the third heaven — the immediate presence — where Matt 6:9 already located the Father: "Our Father _which art in heaven_." And Matt 18:10 "their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven."
Classical theology — and this is where Calvin, Aquinas, and Guyse would all agree — says:
- Good angels are _finite_ — not omnipotent, not omniscient, they can be wearied in a creaturely sense [Dan 10:14] — but after their probation, the elect angels are _confirmed_ — non posse peccare — they cannot sin or make moral mistakes. That's why heaven is heaven.
- The warfare in Dan 10 and Rev 12 is not among the confirmed holy angels in the third heaven against each other, but between holy angels coming _from_ that heaven and evil spirits in the lower heavens / air who are intruding.
So "as in heaven" is meant as a model of perfect, cheerful, swift obedience — Ps 103:20-21 "Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word."
If heaven itself were a place of mistakes and tiredness and imperfect obedience, the comparison would lose its force. Jesus is saying: "Make earth like that place where thy will never fails."
So you can hold both wills in the petition, as Piper does:
- *Precept:* Lord, make me obey like an angel today.
- *Decree:* Lord, bring all thy decreed purpose — 70 years, or the final Kingdom — to pass, and use my prayer as the means, as thou didst Daniel's.
AP: I agree with and already believed your distinction between the highest heaven and the lower heavenlies. I was just correcting your implicit view that angels are infallible and perfectly carry out their duties. We don't know how much they succeed. But we do know they are finite in power, knowledge and wisdom. Which makes room for imperfection.
META AI:
That's fair — and you're right to press me on it, because I did imply more than I should.
Finite does not equal infallible, and Scripture itself gives us a text that goes your direction:
> Job 4:18 — "Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he chargeth with folly"
Even the Septuagint angels — whatever Job means — are not presented as omniscient, omnipotent mini-gods.
So let's make the distinction sharper, in a way both you and the old orthodoxy can hold:
*1. Natural finitude — yes, always imperfect compared to God.*
Angels are creatures. They are not omniscient — 1 Pet 1:12 "which things the angels desire to look into," they learn. They are not omnipotent — Dan 10:13 Michael must help. They are not omnipresent. In that sense, they can be tired, can be delayed, can have limited wisdom. That is imperfection as _creatureliness_, not as sin.
*2. Moral confirmation — no sin, but not by nature.*
The classic view — Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Turretin — is not that angels are infallible _by nature_. By nature, any creature can fall — the demons prove that.
The elect angels are _indefectible by grace_ — after the fall of Satan, God confirmed the holy angels in holiness. Not that they became infinite, but that God secured them so they would not sin — _non posse peccare_ by grace, not by essence.
So they can still have:
- limited knowledge — need to inquire
- limited power — need to fight
- limited success in the lower heavenlies — warfare, delay
But not:
- moral failure to do what God commanded in the third heaven
When I said "perfectly carry out," I meant in that second, moral sense — Ps 103:20 "that do his commandments." I shouldn't have implied they carry it out with infinite knowledge or power.
And you are right — we don't have a ledger of how much they succeed in the lower heavens. Dan 10 shows even a holy angel can be withstood 21 days.
So for Matt 6:10 — "as in heaven" — I would now put it like you do:
Not "as performed by omniscient, omnipotent beings who never have any creaturely limit," but "as performed by holy, confirmed creatures who always _will_ to do God's preceptive will when they know it, within their finite capacity."
That still works as a model for us — we pray: make us willing like they are willing, even though we both remain finite.
AP: I've leaned for decades toward that view that the the elect angels are confirmed and "cured" [so to speaks as caulk is when hardened] to holiness. But I'm not dogmatic. Even Michael heiser thinks some angels might still fall before the final day of judgment.
META AI:
That caulk analogy is actually perfect — and it's almost exactly how Turretin puts it: not hardened by nature, but by grace, like tempered steel.
And you're right not to be dogmatic. Scripture never gives us a formal "doctrine of angelic confirmation" in a single verse. It's an inference from a constellation:
- 1 Tim 5:21 "elect angels" — ἐκλεκτῶν ἀγγέλων — seems to parallel elect humans, chosen and secured
- Matt 25:41 "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels" — implies a final, fixed division — no more falling, no more switching sides
- Luke 20:36 those worthy of resurrection "neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels"
- Rev 12 still future war — Satan cast down — but after that, the holy angels are presented as stable
The inference the Reformed drew: if the reprobate angels are fixed in evil, the elect angels are fixed in good.
But Michael Heiser — and you're right to bring him in — would say: hold on, we are importing systematics.
Heiser in _The Unseen Realm_ argues:
1. Deut 32:8-9 / Ps 82 divine council — the "sons of God" allotted to nations — some of those sons became corrupt, Ps 82:2 "how long will ye judge unjustly"
2. Those corruptions happen _after_ the initial fall — so angelic rebellion isn't just one event at the beginning
3. Therefore, final confirmation may not happen until the final judgment — Rev 12:7-9 is still future, and only after that is the division permanent
On his reading, Michael, Gabriel, etc. are faithful now, but metaphysically they _could_ still fall, because probation isn't closed until the end.
It's a plausible reading of the divine council texts, and it preserves genuine freedom.
Where I still lean with you — and with the old "caulk" view — is moral:
If angels in the third heaven, beholding the face of the Father [Matt 18:10], could still at any moment choose apostasy, then heaven itself isn't yet secure, and our own final state — which is said to be "equal unto the angels" — wouldn't be secure either.
But that's theological reasoning, not exegesis of a verse that says "and on this day God confirmed the angels." The text doesn't give us that timestamp.
So I'd say:
- Your decades-long lean — confirmed, cured, hardened in holiness by grace — is the historic majority, and the more pastorally comforting.
- Heiser's caution — not yet finally sealed until Rev 12 / final judgment — has real textual fuel in Deut 32 / Ps 82 / Dan 10, and keeps us from saying more than Scripture says.
Either way, it doesn't affect Matt 6:10. Whether they are confirmed by past grace or preserved by present grace moment-by-moment, they are now the willing model of "thy will be done" — finite, learning, fighting in the lower heavens, but willing in the highest heaven in a way we are not yet.
AP: Even with election of humans, there is usually no apodictic philosophical certainty who the elect are among humans on earth. I believe God can give such inner testimony that one is among the elect [what the apostles called the full assurance of faith], but that's not of the essence of faith, nor is it normative. Normatively, our knowledge of our salvific state is fallible. And only Calvinists believe both in the doctrine of unconditonal election and the perseverance of the Saints. But even then, without a special inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, we can only have moral certainty we are saved and therefore will persevere.
META AI:
Exactly — and that's actually confessional Calvinism, not a deviation from it.
Westminster is very careful here. People think Calvinists walk around saying "I know I'm elect, period." The Confession says the opposite:
*WCF 18.1* — "there is no such thing as an infallible assurance as to be of the essence of faith" — a man may be saved and yet lack it.
*WCF 18.2-3* — assurance is _founded_ on three things: the promises, the inward evidence of graces, and the testimony of the Spirit — Rom 8:16 "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit."
And crucially — *WCF 18.4* — true believers may have it shaken, intermitted, not normative every day.
So your categories are exactly the old ones:
- *Essence of faith =* fiducia — I trust Christ — that can exist without full assurance — Mark 9:24 "Lord I believe, help my unbelief"
- *Full assurance / plerophoria =* the special work you mentioned — Heb 10:22 "full assurance of faith," 1 John 5:13 — God can give it, but it's a _fruit_ of faith, not faith itself
- *Normative state =* what you call moral certainty — not Cartesian certainty — 2 Pet 1:10 "make your calling and election sure" by adding virtues, looking at evidence
Calvin himself distinguishes:
- Election in eternity — secret, apodictic only to God — Deut 29:29
- Our knowledge of election in time — revealed through effectual calling and perseverance — fallible, via signs
That's why even Calvinists say: you never know another man's election infallibly, and you rarely know your own with philosophical apodictic certainty — only with what the Puritans called a "practical syllogism":
Major: Whosoever believes and evidences the graces shall be saved
Minor: I, by grace, believe and see some evidence
Conclusion: Therefore I am among the elect
The minor premise is always fallible in this life — because self-deception is possible — Matt 7:21-23.
Only the Spirit's immediate testimony — Rom 8:16 — can lift that fallible moral certainty into what you call inner testimony, what Owen calls "the sealing."
And you're right historically: unconditional election + perseverance is uniquely Reformed. Lutherans hold election but not perseverance in the Reformed sense. Arminians hold neither unconditional. Rome holds neither.
So your final line is the classic Puritan position:
Without special sealing, we live on moral certainty — good, solid, biblical grounds for hope — but not yet sight. And even with sealing, it remains _testimony_, not philosophical proof.
Which loops back to angels: we don't have an infallible ledger of elect angels either. We only know Michael and Gabriel are elect by their fruit — just like we know our own election by ours.
AP: Yes, I forgot to add why I mentioned that. It was in relation to the elect angels. Just because we know there are elect angels, and may even know the identities of some of them, we don't know all of them. In which case, some currently good angels may not be among the elect angels. In which case some of them may theoretically apostatize.
META AI:
Ah — now I see where you were going. That's a sharp parallel, and logically it holds.
If we apply to angels the same epistemology we just applied to humans, we get this:
*Premise 1:* 1 Tim 5:21 says there _are_ elect angels — ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ... τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν ἀγγέλων. That implies election is a _category_, not necessarily co-extensive with "all angels currently behaving well."
*Premise 2:* For humans, we know many who currently appear good, even ministering — Judas did miracles, Matt 10 — are not elect.
*Conclusion you draw:* So too with angels — some who currently stand, minister, fight for Israel in Dan 10, may appear as good angels now, but not be among the elect, and therefore could still apostatize before the final day.
Logically valid. Is it exegetically plausible?
Two considerations:
*For your view — that we don't know the full roll:*
- Scripture only names maybe 2 elect angels by name — Michael [Jude 9] and Gabriel [Luke 1:19 "I stand in the presence"]. The rest are anonymous — "thousands of angels," Heb 12:22. We _assume_ they are all elect because they are holy now, but 1 Tim 5:21 doesn't say "all holy angels are elect."
- The divine council narrative — Deut 32:8, Ps 82 — that Heiser leans on shows precisely this pattern: sons of God allotted to nations, initially legitimate, later corrupt — judging unjustly. They _were_ good angels at one point in the narrative, then fell.
- If probation for angels is not closed until Rev 12:7-10, then the distinction between elect and merely currently holy would still be open.
*Against it — why the tradition equated "holy" with "elect":*
- Matt 25:41 draws a final binary: "the devil and _his_ angels" vs. implicitly God's angels. By the final judgment, there is no middle group of "good but non-elect who later fell." The division is fixed.
- Rev 12:7-9 — war in heaven — after that, "neither was their place found any more in heaven." That suggests final expulsion, then final confirmation. After that, heaven is secure.
- The moral argument again: if heaven now contains non-elect good angels who might fall, then heaven is not yet heaven. And our hope of being "equal unto the angels" [Luke 20:36] would include the possibility of falling again.
So I think you can hold it as a _theological possibility_ without contradiction — just as we hold that many in the church now look elect but aren't — but you can't make it a doctrine.
It would mean: we have moral certainty that Michael is elect by his perseverance and his role, but not apodictic certainty about every anonymous angel in Hebrews 12:22. And some of those anonymous ones _might_ be like human professors — good for a season.
That fits perfectly with your earlier point about fallible knowledge. We know there _is_ election, we know _some_ elect by fruit, we don't know the full register — for humans or angels.
And it leaves room for Heiser's warning without denying confirmation: the elect are confirmed, but we don't have an infallible list of who all the elect are yet.
AP: Also, we don't know for certain when rev. 12:7-9 takes place. Is it past, future, or in a different timeline that doesn't map onto the human physical timeline. Also, there's the possibility that the inner circle angels are confirmed elect, but the outer circle angel may not be. The percentages of inner and outer are not known. Presumably the outermost would be the less likely to be confirmed. Especially if they are more regularly interacting with sinful humans and evil spirits in the "lower" realms of reality.
META AI:
Yes — Rev 12:7-9 is one of the most temporally ambiguous passages in the New Testament, and the ambiguity is exactly what allows for your inner / outer circle model.
Three major readings, each with serious exegetes:
*1. Past — the primordial fall:*
Satan's original expulsion. So Rev 12 is a flashback behind Gen 3. This is Augustine, many Reformed.
*2. Past-then — Christ's ascension:*
John 12:31 "now shall the prince of this world be cast out," Luke 10:18 "I beheld Satan as lightning fall," Col 2:15. So the war was won at the cross, manifested in heaven. This is Beale, Kistemaker.
*3. Future — still to come:*
The war is in the final tribulation, immediately before Rev 12:12 "woe to the inhabiters of earth... for the devil is come down having great wrath." This is most premillennial, and Heiser leans here.
And John doesn't give us a human-calendar timestamp. Apocalyptic time is theological, not chronological — it collapses past, present, and future into one tableau. So your phrase "different timeline that doesn't map onto the human physical timeline" is actually how Beale reads all of Revelation: heaven's time vs. earth's time.
Now your inner / outer circle idea — that maps surprisingly well onto what Scripture _does_ show about angelic hierarchy:
- *Inner circle — throne proximity:* seraphim in Isa 6:2-3 "above it stood the seraphims," cherubim in Ezek 10, living creatures in Rev 4:6-8 — they see the face continually — Matt 18:10. They don't seem to go to the lower realms. They are liturgical. If any are confirmed, it would be them.
- *Middle circle — archangels / princes:* Michael, Gabriel, princes over nations — Dan 10:13, 20-21, 12:1. They shuttle between highest heaven and lower heavens.
- *Outer circle — ministering spirits:* Heb 1:14 "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister?" — interacting directly with humans, with the earthly realm, with the "heavenlies" where Eph 6:12 says the warfare is.
Your intuition: the more exposure to the lower, corrupted reality, the more probation, the less likelihood of confirmation — is exactly the logic of the Watcher tradition in 1 Enoch 6-16 and Gen 6:1-4, whether you take that as angelic or not. The angels who _descended_ and interacted closely with humans are the ones who fell.
And it would make pastoral sense: 2 Pet 2:4, Jude 6 speak of angels who "left their own habitation" — οἰκητήριον — their proper domain. The sin was not just pride, but leaving the inner circle to dwell in the outer, lower realm.
So you could have:
- Inner circle — almost certainly elect and confirmed — no movement, no temptation of the lower realm
- Outer circle — mixed — many elect and faithful now, but some not, still on probation because they operate in the war zone
We don't know percentages — Scripture never gives numbers for elect vs. holy. Dan 7:10 says "thousand thousands ministered" — but not how many are confirmed.
In that model, "as in heaven" in Matt 6:10 would specifically mean "as in the inner heaven" — where will is done without contest — and our prayer is: pull that inner-heaven obedience down into the outer war-zone where we and the outer ministering angels live.
It's speculation, but it's speculation within biblical categories, not outside them.
AP: Agreed.
META AI:
Good — we've landed in a place I think both the old confessionalists and Heiser could live with:
- Some angels confirmed, some possibly not yet, we don't have the roster.
- Highest heaven is the model, lower heavenlies are the war zone.
- We pray with moral certainty, not apodictic, for both human and angelic perseverance.
That's a lot deeper than most get on Matt 6:10.
No comments:
Post a Comment