FK: Well, (to the first question) by God's perfect will "No", because God says we are to obey our governments, which He established and in the US polygamy is illegal. However, under His permissive will, if that happened for some unknown reason it would somehow be a part of God's plan.What a strange innovation. Tell me more about these different wills.
Here is an excerpt of a brief explanation from Are There Two Wills in God? by John Piper :
Illustrations of Two Wills in God - The Death of Christ ----- The most compelling example of God's willing for sin to come to pass while at the same time disapproving the sin is his willing the death of his perfect, divine Son. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act inspired immediately by Satan (Luke 22:3). Yet in Acts 2:23 Luke says, "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan (boule) and foreknowledge of God." The betrayal was sin, and it involved the instrumentality of Satan; but it was part of God's ordained plan. That is, there is a sense in which God willed the delivering up of his Son, even though the act was sin.
Moreover Herod's contempt for Jesus (Luke 23:11) and Pilate's spineless expediency (Luke 23:24) and the Jews' "Crucify! Crucify him!" (Luke 23:21) and the Gentile soldiers' mockery (Luke 23:36) were also sinful attitudes and deeds. Yet in Acts 4:27-28 Luke expresses his understanding of the sovereignty of God in these acts by recording the prayer of the Jerusalem saints:
Truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever thy hand and thy plan (boule) had predestined to take place.
Herod, Pilate, the soldiers and Jewish crowds lifted their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion was unwitting (sinful) service in the inscrutable designs of God.
The appalling death of Christ was the will and work of God the Father. Isaiah wrote, "We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God . . . It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief" (Isaiah 53:4,10). God's will was very much engaged in the events that brought his Son to death on the cross. God considered it "fitting to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings" (Hebrews 2:10). Yet, as Jonathan Edwards points out, Christ's suffering "could not come to pass but by sin. For contempt and disgrace was one thing he was to suffer."
It goes almost without saying that God wills obedience to his moral law, and that he wills this in a way that can be rejected by many. This is evident from numerous texts: "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will (thelema) of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:50). "The one who does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17). The "will of God" in these texts is the revealed, moral instruction of the Old and New Testaments, which proscribes sin.
Therefore we know it was not the "will of God" that Judas and Pilate and Herod and the Gentile soldiers and the Jewish crowds disobey the moral law of God by sinning in delivering Jesus up to be crucified. But we also know that it was the will of God that this come to pass. Therefore we know that God in some sense wills what he does not will in another sense. I. Howard Marshall's statement is confirmed by the death of Jesus: "We must certainly distinguish between what God would like to see happen and what he actually does will to happen."
I really wouldn't call this an innovation, since it is so strongly supported by scripture.
Here is an excerpt of a brief explanation from Are There Two Wills in God? by John Piper : Thank you for the posting - I learn much of Reformed thought each time that you exchange this sort of information. Piper does bring up Acts 2:23 which is quite plain, yet, there is no indication of the 'how' of the plan. Foreknowledge, certainly, but not predestination. Does God plan based upon His foreknowledge, but not predestination? That is the Christian belief from the beginning. And, since God has already experienced everything, the idea of 'plan' is an anthropocentric one, since we are in time, and God is not.
Therefore we know it was not the "will of God" that Judas and Pilate and Herod and the Gentile soldiers and the Jewish crowds disobey the moral law of God by sinning in delivering Jesus up to be crucified. But we also know that it was the will of God that this come to pass. Therefore we know that God in some sense wills what he does not will in another sense.
Actually Piper was arguing quite well until he wrote this. The interesting thing is that since the overall position is Scripturally wrong (yet defensible), he just nullified a rather good argument (arguably the best that could be made) just in this one paragraph. Do I believe that God Created His Universe and then interferes in it subtly, poking and nudging? Sure. Does He have two wills, one of which is more dominant than the other? On the face of it, no.