Post by Josh on Feb 4, 2007 21:01:09 GMT -8
Originally posted 11/25/06:
I made the statement to a friend once that it is true that God is not pleased with the state of some things in the universe. He responded by saying that Christianity is in trouble if it cannot maintain that nothing ever happens apart from God’s permission. He then proceeded to argue that Chrsitianity was also equally in trouble if it maintained that God was almighty.
This was my reply:
I want to point out something very important here. I didn’t say that anything happens without God’s permission- I said, rather, that the state of some things in the universe is decidedly NOT what God wants.
Those are different statements, for this reason: a person can permit something that he doesn’t want. He might do this for a number of reasons, but mainly for the existence of a higher good-free will.
Good parents do this all the time when their children reach around 18-they begin to permit their child to act freely, even if what they do is against the parent’s will. Actually, good parents start doing this much earlier, but the culmination comes when a child becomes a true adult.
Part of the problem is in the language. The word “will” in English makes a concept like “God’s will” tricky. “God’s will” can be defined as “whatever happens” or it can be defined as “whatever God wants to happen” and those two ideas are very different.
Scripture talks about both sides of that coin, but they certainly uphold the idea that God is grieved about some things that he permits to happen out of His desire that men freely choose him: “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should repent”.
What also complicates matters is the fact of that old eternal debate between determinism (also known as predestination) or free will. By the way, that’s not a strictly religious debate, it’s a human debate. Philosophers and scientists of all stripes go on and on about whether any truly free (or random)events ever do occur, or whether everything is absolutely determined. I don’t know where you fall on the spectrum, but I think it's a paradox: I tend toward the position that there is true freedom AND that can be said to determine the affairs of the universe (whether great or trivial). I think we can’t ever hope to understand it because we are trapped in 4 dimensions (especially by time).
Dimensional physics is, potentially, breaking some new ground on this argument, and I think it hints at the existence of a paradox incorporating both free will and determinism, but that’s a mighty complicated argument for now. Suffice to say, Christianity teaches that both exist, and that is the most satisfactory answer, I would argue for intuitive reasons.
God can be in control of everything and yet free will can exist. God must permit everything that happens. He desires that men freely choose, but He does not desire that men reject Him, yet he allows it for a greater good.
I made the statement to a friend once that it is true that God is not pleased with the state of some things in the universe. He responded by saying that Christianity is in trouble if it cannot maintain that nothing ever happens apart from God’s permission. He then proceeded to argue that Chrsitianity was also equally in trouble if it maintained that God was almighty.
This was my reply:
I want to point out something very important here. I didn’t say that anything happens without God’s permission- I said, rather, that the state of some things in the universe is decidedly NOT what God wants.
Those are different statements, for this reason: a person can permit something that he doesn’t want. He might do this for a number of reasons, but mainly for the existence of a higher good-free will.
Good parents do this all the time when their children reach around 18-they begin to permit their child to act freely, even if what they do is against the parent’s will. Actually, good parents start doing this much earlier, but the culmination comes when a child becomes a true adult.
Part of the problem is in the language. The word “will” in English makes a concept like “God’s will” tricky. “God’s will” can be defined as “whatever happens” or it can be defined as “whatever God wants to happen” and those two ideas are very different.
Scripture talks about both sides of that coin, but they certainly uphold the idea that God is grieved about some things that he permits to happen out of His desire that men freely choose him: “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should repent”.
What also complicates matters is the fact of that old eternal debate between determinism (also known as predestination) or free will. By the way, that’s not a strictly religious debate, it’s a human debate. Philosophers and scientists of all stripes go on and on about whether any truly free (or random)events ever do occur, or whether everything is absolutely determined. I don’t know where you fall on the spectrum, but I think it's a paradox: I tend toward the position that there is true freedom AND that can be said to determine the affairs of the universe (whether great or trivial). I think we can’t ever hope to understand it because we are trapped in 4 dimensions (especially by time).
Dimensional physics is, potentially, breaking some new ground on this argument, and I think it hints at the existence of a paradox incorporating both free will and determinism, but that’s a mighty complicated argument for now. Suffice to say, Christianity teaches that both exist, and that is the most satisfactory answer, I would argue for intuitive reasons.
God can be in control of everything and yet free will can exist. God must permit everything that happens. He desires that men freely choose, but He does not desire that men reject Him, yet he allows it for a greater good.
