Reconciling friends

Charles Spurgeon, when asked about the seeming contradiction between human freedom and divine sovereignty, replied famously, "I do not try to reconcile friends."

Divine sovereignty and human freedom, rightly understood, are indeed "friends". But if we understand these two in such a way that they involve a definitional contradiction, or in such a way that either one or the other loses its meaning, then they are no longer "friends". And our citing Spurgeon with such an understanding may simply be rhetorical evasion.