When we examine the “all possible worlds” idea, we find that this conception fails to properly address God’s meticulous, exhaustive sovereignty over all of His creation. It also fails to properly address God’s timelessness in His exercise of exhaustive sovereignty.

It seems to me that this desire to hold to *true* counterfactuals is grounded in an assumption of the *ability* for autonomy. In reality, we find no such grounds in Scripture. “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” Or, “The king’s heart is {like} channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes. “. We have a desire to further our illusory goal of autonomy, and thereby project our finitude on God’s ordination – and from that ordination, on His thoughts concerning it. Yet, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. This is not a matter of *degree*, but of *category*. God is not “less finite” in His thoughts and actions, but *infinite*. Thus, God’s thoughts concerning His creation are not *less finite*, but *infinite*. Since they are timeless thoughts, there is no linearity, and there is no “progression” to them. To say that this is so, is to misunderstand the nature of the thoughts possessed by an eternal, immutable, infinite God.

To say that, for instance, it is *possible* that one of our Lord’s bones would be broken, is to overthrow the purposes of God’s sovereign ordination. The very idea of counter-factuals necessitates that they be *counter-possible*. That is the contention I’m trying to convey, despite my inferiority of language.

If: God has decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass.
Then: Nothing that God has NOT decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, CAN come to pass.

In other word, God’s decree fixes, without one possible iota of deviation, that which CAN come to pass. Alternate possibilities are thereby utterly, definitionally, *impossible*.

Take this argument:
God is necessary in all possible worlds. God is necessarily immutable in all possible worlds. God’s decree is immutable in all possible worlds. All possible worlds are identical. Modal collapse results – there is one possible world.

Does that make it plainer, what I’m saying? Unless you want to strip out the *rest* of God’s attributes, “all possible worlds” is incoherent. There are no “counter-factuals” if you really hold to God’s absolute sovereignty. Only those who wish to posit a will in man independent from the ordination of God can seek to preserve this idea.

While we can *conceive* of a world in which counter-factuals are “true” – this does not mean such a world is possible. It only means that we are finite, and think in finite terms. For “…the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” “Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned [it, surely] I will do it.”

To say it is *possible* that God NOT do as He has eternally decreed – or that it is *possible* that God decreed things otherwise, is to so badly maul the doctrine of God as to leave it an unrecognisably mangled heap! God in his immutable perfection (wanting nothing to complete Him, lacking nothing, without fault) timelessly ordained all that He pleased to bring about.

The wonder and majesty of this conception, I fear, has been badly impugned by this idea of “all possible worlds”. While I am a rather weak vessel to attempt to do so, I feel that it must be answered.