Sovereignty

“Sovereignity” From Dictionary of Biblical Words:

This belongs to God, and is the correlative of responsibility (see RESPONSIBILITY). God must be sovereign, or He would not and could not be God. Man must be responsible, or he would not and could not be man, but would be on the level of a beast. These two, however, being opposing truths, either unduly pushed clashes with the other, and neither can both be satisfactorily reconciled by the human intellect, and hence have occasioned endless schools and parties. To earnest, simple souls, however, these truths present no difficulty, but to cavilers they afford a very specious ground for not accepting the gospel against which their hearts are closed, on the score of not being one of the elect, &c. (See ELECTION).

“Responsibility” From Dictionary of Biblical Words:

This word is generally used in connection with sovereignty; the former applying to man, and being connected with “free will;” the latter with God and His electing grace. To push either doctrine beyond its Scripture limits is to deny the other. The strong Arminian asks, If God be sovereign, how can man be responsible? The high Calvinist, if man be responsible, how can God be sovereign? (See ARMINIAN, CALVINISM &c.). The two truths seem mutually, to our darkened and finite reasons to, exclude each other. Paul himself declines to carry the argument beyond a certain point (Rom. 11:19, 2019Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. 20Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: (Romans 11:19‑20)), and here, therefore, we may wisely leave it, accepting both truths, but acknowledging that we are not able to reconcile them.