The doctrine that all events in the natural and spiritual realms were sovereignly determined by God from all eternity. According to Reformed theologians, the divine decrees are, in fact, part of one plan that embraces all human acts whether good or evil. In regard to evil, God’s agency is said to be permissive.
On this subject the Seventh-day Adventist position approximates that of Arminian theology ( see Arminianism ), in contradistinction to the Calvinist. SDA s believe that God decreed a holy, happy life for all His creatures, and that sin was never part of God’s sovereignly determined, eternal plan. The Reformed position, as John Wesley pointed out, brands God as responsible for the existence of sin, and produces antinomianism. “The doctrine of the divine decrees,” wrote Ellen G. White, “unalterably fixing the character of men, had led many to a virtual rejection of the law of God” ( GC 261).
God foresaw that some of the holy beings He planned to create would exercise their free wills, with which He endowed them, to sin. “From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but He foresaw its existence and made provision to meet the terrible emergency” ( DA 22).
In the eternal ages prior to Creation, on the basis of God’s foreknowledge, it was decreed that Christ should pay the penalty for human transgression. Accordingly, God eternally decreed the availability of saving grace to all who should accept the proffered sacrifice, and that those who rejected it should eventually be annihilated, along with sin itself. Infinite wisdom devised a plan by which the universe would become forever secure; all who should choose to cooperate with the divine purpose should live forever, while those who refused to do so should cease to exist. But God endowed created beings with the power to choose, individually, the group with which they would be associated. Those who chose to be associated with the group predestined to annihilation would die an eternal death, while all who chose to be associated with the group predestined to life eternal would live forever.