What are we to make of the relationship between God’s sovereignty and humanity’s responsibility? The answer is “Yes.

One of my favorite movie scenes ever comes near the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. In it, Frodo, the Ringbearer, has just decided to leave the Fellowship and strike out for Mordor to destroy the One Ring before it can destroy anyone else. You see him jumping into a canoe and paddling away from shore. His loyal friend, Samwise Gamgee, comes running out onto the beach and into the water, chasing after and shouting at Frodo. Frodo turns and says, “Go back, Sam. I’m going to Mordor alone.”

Sam’s reply is classic: “Of course you are. And I’m coming with you!”

The tension and emotion of the scene are sweetened by the humor, but it’s more than a simple, lighthearted statement. As Frodo and Sam walk through horrible trials to the bittersweet victory, we realize that these two characters function inseparably in the story. Without Frodo, Sam would be a timid gardener. Without Sam, Frodo would have never succeeded in his quest. Neither is diminished by the other’s presence in the story; instead, they become more than they could have been on their own.

It feels like heresy to type this, but I think something similar can be said about how God and humanity are entwined in the most remarkable story of all: reality.

It feels like heresy because, from one point of view, it is. To say that the Creator God of the universe is equal to something He created is wrong.

But that’s not what I intend by the analogy. Instead, I want to highlight that God, as He is carrying out His will in this world, invites us to be active, effective participants alongside Him.

Here’s what I mean, in a nutshell:

God is in charge, and so are we.

This is the fundamental tension at the heart of both the biblical record and human history. God is sovereign; His reign is eternal and all-encompassing, but He also delegates dominion, authority, and, yes, even sovereignty to humanity. Disagreement about how God’s sovereignty and humanity’s sovereignty stand with one another has consumed much of history’s philosophical and religious conversation.

And while I don’t think I’ll be the one to settle the debate, it has been interesting to me to see how much this subject appears in the Book of Daniel. The church I serve is walking through this book on Sunday mornings right now, and it seems like every chapter, every week, the question of the relationship between God’s sovereignty and humanity’s sovereignty is coming up.

This past week, we were looking at Daniel Chapter 4, where Nebuchadnezzar dreams about a tree getting cut down, and, spoiler alert, Daniel tells him the dream is about the king himself losing his mind. The reason for the lapse of sanity is that God is judging Nebuchadnezzar for failing to “acknowledge that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms, and He gives them to anyone He wants.”

Nebuchadnezzar was impressed with himself and thought that his power over his kingdom, and all that had been accomplished as a result, was due to his inherent ability and worth. He needs to be reminded that God is in charge.

But that is not the only point that God makes in Chapter 4. He also tells the king (and us, the readers) that we are in charge, too. We have a choice in what we do with the life God has given us. Nebuchadnezzar is urged to “separate yourself from your sins by doing what is right, and from your injustices by showing mercy to the needy.”

In other words, God says, “don’t just use your life, your sovereignty to puff your self-image up; use it to bless others.”

God has given us life, and He is in charge, but that doesn’t mean we are automata with no free will. We are creations, but we are creations with choices to make. God urges us to make choices that will benefit those around us, not merely ourselves, but He doesn’t force those choices on us.

He creates a wide, wonderful world and gives it to us to take care of.

He promises justice and urges us to work towards it.

He desires salvation for all and calls us to proclaim it.

Daniel 4 obviously includes that while He won’t force the choice on us, He will hold us accountable for our selection. But accountability does not negate sovereignty: it highlights it. You don’t provide accountability for a robot that malfunctions; you reprogram or scrap it, but you don’t punish it. God’s punishment of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride illustrates that he could choose, though he initially chose wrongly.

God doesn’t exercise His sovereignty like a manufacturer overseeing a robotic assembly line; He exercises His authority like a High King over other kings. He lets us rule our kingdoms, be they as small as our person or as large as a nation. He allows us to make decisions to build or tear our kingdoms down. He allows us to bless one another, and He allows us to hurt one another.

Much of what we lament in this world is a direct result of the sovereignty God has delegated to humanity: we have freedom and use it to harm others. God could solve those problems instantly by taking away our choice and forcing us to comply with His will, but He doesn’t. He lets us live with the consequences of our and others’ choices.

This truth gives an incredible weight to our lives and what we do with them. If God exercised His rule over us by forcing us to comply, we could blame Him for any problems we might see. But because He has delegated choice, we have only ourselves to blame. He will hold us accountable but gives us the opportunity to hold ourselves accountable first. He wants us to use our freedom not for self-aggrandizement but for the good of our fellow image-bearers. But the choice is still ours.

God is in charge, and so are we. He has given us this life of freedom, this life of choice.

The question is, what are we going to do with it?