Huckleberry Finn explains the Sovereignty of God
in a Simple and Satisfactory Way
Man is a creature trying to convince himself he is a creator

That's me and Jim at the left. He ain't in this story, but he's one of my best friends in the world, and I want everybody to see a picture of me and him together on our big adventure, the one what Mark Twain wrote about. So now I'll get ahead on with what I'm itchin' to tell you about free will and such.

The preacher in our old church-Rev Gilger-he said that God was sov'rign. Maybe I don't got the word right. Anyway, Miss Watson says that means that God's running everything like He wants to, when He wants to, how He wants to, and all such. I go along with it. That's the only way it can be, seeing as how He's God.

But Rev Gilger gummed it up after that, saying that, in His running everything like He wants to, He decides to give everybody else their own sov'rignty. The last time I heard a man jabber like that he was running a fever of a hundred and six.

You tell me-if I give my best shootin' marble to Tom Sawyer, do I still have the shootin' marble? Why, I just told you: Tom's got it. And he ain't giving it back, neither, because I know him. So soon as God gives away His sov'rignty to everybody, why, He ain't getting it back. He done tied Himself up. Now everybody's got the sov'rignty, just like Him. What does that spell? That spells that nobody's got the sov'rignty. There's no room but for one sov'rignty in the world. It's like putting six women in a bathroom.

This thing gets more neutered-up the more a body thinks on it. If everybody's sov'rign, there's no telling what's going to happen. It's a porridge-podge. If God really did give sov'rignty to everybody-which He never done, so don't fret over it-then how's God goin' to garruntee that all what He says is goin' to happen is goin' to happen? Why, He can't, not if every blame person in the world's got his own sov'rignty. Even Pap's jackass knowed that much. If that's the way it washes, all God can do now is sit around and hope it all comes out. That can't be; He's God. And to me, that's just the start of His worries, that is, if everybody's got his own sov'rignty. Well, I know I ain't got it, because every time I try to excise it, Miss Watson, she fetches the hick'ry. So the whole thing's wet.

You'd think a schooled man like Rev Gilger would have knowed better. I don't think a man learns much about God in a cemetery ("seminary" -Ed). From what I see, they carry their sense in on a wheelbarrow and out in a thimble. If what I heard in church that day is what they teach in a cemetery, I know I ain't signing on. And if any of what I heard from Rev Gilger that day ever makes a lick of sense, I'll eat a worm.

And I done it before.