If Satan can act outside the sovereign will of God, then God isn’t sovereign.
That is quite different than “predestining” all acts.
Correct, to a point. One must define what sovereignty means first. If by sovereign, one means that God is the Creator and has set up the Universe for us, that is one thing. If by sovereign, one means that God is the ultimate computer programmer who has created a universe of robot slaves, that is another.
Did you ever hear the argument that we’re not robots because robots don’t know that they’re robots but we do? That one cracks me up.
“Correct, to a point. One must define what sovereignty means first. If by sovereign, one means that God is the Creator and has set up the Universe for us, that is one thing.”
The fact of God’s creation of everything that exists is
different than His sovereignty and omnipotence. He is
more, however, than just the Creator. I am a creator too,
but am not sovereign or omnipotent (or any of the other
great attributes that have been revealed about God).
God did more than the deist believes - setting up the world
and letting us go along our way. He has true sovereignty and
omnipotence over that creation. It will progress and end
in exactly the way He chose.
“If by sovereign, one means that God is the ultimate computer programmer who has created a universe of robot slaves, that is another.”
I might lean toward considering that a straw man argument,
since I did not argue that.
When I use sovereign to describe God, I am using it in
the identical sense He is revealed as Sovereign in the
Scriptures - the most exalted power that is above all other
powers (supreme power over all other powers) - and this
to an unlimited extent, since He is also Omnipotent.
Satan is a created being. Man is a created race. Each has
limited choices, which God has allowed. He doesn’t choose
for them... and they will bear the consequences of their
choices. He allows this as part of His creation and it
does not diminish that He remains Sovereign and Omnipotent.
All of history is moving toward the conclusion He has chosen
- satan doing evil along the way.