The Gift of Prophecy and God's Decretive Will

Theologians through the centuries have typically distinguished between two wills in God, or maybe I should say two categories of God's will.  In a context different from what I am writing about here, John Piper mentions this in his essay Are There Two Wills in God?

For example, theologians have spoken of sovereign will and moral will, efficient will and permissive will, secret will and revealed will, will of decree and will of command, decretive will and preceptive will, voluntas signi (will of sign) and voluntas beneplaciti (will of good pleasure), etc.

All of those fancy terms mean roughly the same things and for this discussion I'll just use the terms "decretive" and "preceptive." 

For now I'll reference the Westminster Shorter Catechism for a description of His decretive will:

The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

The

Westminster shorter catechism : With Scripture proofs. 1996 (3rd edition.) . Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA

 

The point to emphasize here is that God's decretive will includes whatever comes to pass.  God knows everything that will come to pass and He ordains everything that will come to pass.  Basically, there is nothing in all of existence that is not comprehended by His decretive will.  God's decretive will encompasses everything, from the decisions of world leaders, to the decisions of the pope, to your interactions with your family and fellow Christians, to the color of socks I wore today to the identity of that sparrow that just fell to the ground somewhere in the world.  Nothing happens outside the scope of God's decretive will.

R. C. Sproul describes God's preceptive will this way:

Here God reveals His will through His holy law. For example, it is the will of God that we do not steal; that we love our enemies; that we repent; that we be holy. This aspect of God's will is revealed in His Word as well as in our conscience, by which God has written His moral law upon our heart.

An important point to note in this is that God's decretive will is hidden and unknowable whereas we describe God's preceptive will as His revealed will.   We can know His revealed will at all times and in advance.  We can only know His decretive will in hindsight.

In other words, suppose someone comes to me and asks if it is God's will that he rob a bank.  I can tell him with 100% certainty that it is not God's will he do so based on God's preceptive, revealed will.  If this person goes ahead and robs the bank then I can look back on that bank robbery was part of God's decretive will.  I can also look to God's preceptive will after the fact and say with 100% confidence that this person has sinned and should be punished.

A good many Christians throughout history have emphasized the secret nature of God's decretive will to prevent undo speculation and presumption.  Deuteronomy 29:29 is the classic text in this discussion:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 . Standard Bible Society: Wheaton

In other words there are things we are privy to and things we aren't.  We aren't privy to God's decretive will.

So, how does a continuing gift of prophecy fit into this paradigm?  If the gift of prophecy is still for today then aren't the prophets getting insights into God's decretive will. I have no problem allowing for this for the Biblical prophets.  Indeed, God chose to reveal certain facets of His decretive will to certain prophets.  This what the foretelling aspect of prophecy was about.

But if today's prophets can see the future aren't they then on a par with the biblical prophets?  And if so, how does this square with our belief that the decretive will of God is hidden?

It may be that the modern prophecy advocate says "yep, the modern prophet does have insight into God's decretive will."  And if so that's fine, but I think they would have to modify their belief in the hiddenness of God's decretive will and deal with the implications of this for their view.

I'm not offering this as any kind of silver bullet for my position, just saying its a factor that I haven't heard discussed in any of these charismatic/cessationist debates and I think it ought to be.

And, I have been a bit neglectful in not giving a shoutout to my buddy Shaun at Postscript Posthaste who has been arguing on the cessationist side in this debate.  So let me rememdy that and point you to several posts he has written on the subject.

The Gift of Cessation: An Introduction
The Gift of Cessation, Part II: Miracles and their Frequency
Logic and the Common Pack Mule
The Gift of Cessation, Part III: Miraculous Attestation and Scripture
Phil Johnson Gets Charismatic
Fallible Prophecy?